( Coaxing himself, or soothing them both, or swelling with a warm and gentle wholeness he doesn't want to examine too hard as Lan Zhan's head dips close. Desire, yes, lust, whatever hard words of the physical pull he accepts now is strong, confused for action, and yet weaker to the trembling in his heart. He wants to claim and give and broker pleasure like a gift of the heart, sibling to the bright cut of pain's grounding.
A hitch in his breath, and it's for another time, for a later when they're not sitting as moss on stones, dampened by the morning dew. Now is his husband's lips, glistening; the hurt that forms between them as a bird newly hatched, staggeringly ugly, piteously crying. Desperate for the protection of the nest they build of words and deeds, to allow its feathers fledge, to the disguise of maturity, protection of a delicate hope learning to spread its bald wings.
Soothing, his words with their fervor spoken low and deep, eyes hot, the red of them more vibrant now when tears try, try to stir themselves to eyes. Once he wondered how a man could allow himself so much luxury for tears, of joy, of pain, of everything inbetween. Now he has no reserves to keep himself from the trickle of water to wet the earth between them. )
I will sing them to you even when you don't wish to hear. I pledge it, Lan Zhan. My words marked.
( There will be things he's already forgotten, his nature and his turning away from the worst of things to instead hold closer to the better, to the moments he wishes not to forget until time strips them away, like the shape of his mother's voice, the texture of his parents in their shared laughter. )
If I have to whisk you away from Gusu to listen, bind us both until you hear, I pledge I will tell. Until you hear. Until you know.
( In the shifted paradigm of this landscape, broken and dead and brilliantly alive, wartorn and surviving and thriving in pockets of unanticipated beauty. Back home, in their disparate roles, connected by red strings and blue ribbon and a road that curves through everywhere and nowhere, all the same. If he must take the Chief Cultivator and wrap him up, pull him relentless and resentful from the duties he gave himself, single solitary choice in so many dozens they both made, he will.
( A hard pledge, yet easily brokered. Wei Ying murmurs his approval, and he had thought the scratchy, sharp-boned fit of their bodies done, the next expectant exhalation that deflates Wei Ying's lungs bereft of expectation. He kisses him again — one last time, one last time more — with the dried, flecked finality of a brush stroke that sheds at once formality and the last drool of the cinnabar paste left over. Less to communicate than to seal, he has heard, he will keep to account.
What is promised here, with two fumbling rabbits scrambling to win territory on their laps and skidding, as their sweet paws fail to latch, and producing the hummed, gravelly sounds that never seem as if they might fit such small, fragile bodies — these words cannot be rescinded. )
And I. ( He gives it knowing, but weak. Expected. )
I shall not be silent, a coward, or a fool. ( He will be more than himself, layers upon layers of silks and learned bravery. Part his father's greed, his brother's love, Wei Ying's audacity. ) I shall have you in honest marriage.
( And they will not lose what this hour has bound, they will not be slaves to time and circumstance, they will not doubt themselves. Uncle might disapprove. Brother laugh. So what of it? Better the world betrayed than the world once more allowed to betray them. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
( Coaxing himself, or soothing them both, or swelling with a warm and gentle wholeness he doesn't want to examine too hard as Lan Zhan's head dips close. Desire, yes, lust, whatever hard words of the physical pull he accepts now is strong, confused for action, and yet weaker to the trembling in his heart. He wants to claim and give and broker pleasure like a gift of the heart, sibling to the bright cut of pain's grounding.
A hitch in his breath, and it's for another time, for a later when they're not sitting as moss on stones, dampened by the morning dew. Now is his husband's lips, glistening; the hurt that forms between them as a bird newly hatched, staggeringly ugly, piteously crying. Desperate for the protection of the nest they build of words and deeds, to allow its feathers fledge, to the disguise of maturity, protection of a delicate hope learning to spread its bald wings.
Soothing, his words with their fervor spoken low and deep, eyes hot, the red of them more vibrant now when tears try, try to stir themselves to eyes. Once he wondered how a man could allow himself so much luxury for tears, of joy, of pain, of everything inbetween. Now he has no reserves to keep himself from the trickle of water to wet the earth between them. )
I will sing them to you even when you don't wish to hear. I pledge it, Lan Zhan. My words marked.
( There will be things he's already forgotten, his nature and his turning away from the worst of things to instead hold closer to the better, to the moments he wishes not to forget until time strips them away, like the shape of his mother's voice, the texture of his parents in their shared laughter. )
If I have to whisk you away from Gusu to listen, bind us both until you hear, I pledge I will tell. Until you hear. Until you know.
( In the shifted paradigm of this landscape, broken and dead and brilliantly alive, wartorn and surviving and thriving in pockets of unanticipated beauty. Back home, in their disparate roles, connected by red strings and blue ribbon and a road that curves through everywhere and nowhere, all the same. If he must take the Chief Cultivator and wrap him up, pull him relentless and resentful from the duties he gave himself, single solitary choice in so many dozens they both made, he will.
He'll have nothing to lose. )
no subject
( A hard pledge, yet easily brokered. Wei Ying murmurs his approval, and he had thought the scratchy, sharp-boned fit of their bodies done, the next expectant exhalation that deflates Wei Ying's lungs bereft of expectation. He kisses him again — one last time, one last time more — with the dried, flecked finality of a brush stroke that sheds at once formality and the last drool of the cinnabar paste left over. Less to communicate than to seal, he has heard, he will keep to account.
What is promised here, with two fumbling rabbits scrambling to win territory on their laps and skidding, as their sweet paws fail to latch, and producing the hummed, gravelly sounds that never seem as if they might fit such small, fragile bodies — these words cannot be rescinded. )
And I. ( He gives it knowing, but weak. Expected. )
I shall not be silent, a coward, or a fool. ( He will be more than himself, layers upon layers of silks and learned bravery. Part his father's greed, his brother's love, Wei Ying's audacity. ) I shall have you in honest marriage.
( And they will not lose what this hour has bound, they will not be slaves to time and circumstance, they will not doubt themselves. Uncle might disapprove. Brother laugh. So what of it? Better the world betrayed than the world once more allowed to betray them. )