too much, as wei wuxian's hand close about his wrist, the swirl of pitiful, desperate emotions enough to set his teeth on edge as he so often would in their shared boyhood, lashing out without care on who ended up being hurt. he wants him to hurt, maybe, he wants to hit and bite and scream as common street urchins might do over scraps of food, but he will not; he will not scramble for scraps of affection from anyone, some leftover emotions, not from anyone and especially not this man before him.
before he could - do what? snatch his hand away, to rip and tear through the fragile connection that is mo xuanyu's delicate fingers around his wrist, a stronger, firmer grip happens upon his other. lan wangji, the ever steady, the ever supportive second jade of lan, as always following behind wei wuxian's wake.
he could laugh - he could scream, but for the rage that burns against both of them, crashing like angry floodwaters against their emotions. it feels like pity, like charity, and the subtler understanding of whatever they are feeling goes unnoticed in the way jiang cheng bares his teeth in a first, fiery open display of his anger.
anger is all he can express. anger is all he can project, outwardly, like some shell of a man that he has become, like the reputation he has built up within the cultivation society. that is all that anyone can see or care to see about him. useful only in that moment when they could channel that rage and direct it wherever it suit them, and then, discarded.
useless and tired is what he feels, like some remains of burnt forest after the fire has swept through; burnt black branches and gaping open earth where it has obliterated even all the droplets of water in it, dry and cracked riverbed with just skeletal remains of life that once lived there.
tired. ]
Let me go, [ it is a hiss, as a snake makes before he strikes, a soft sound of a blade unsheathing itself, but even more than that, tired. ]
no subject
too much, as wei wuxian's hand close about his wrist, the swirl of pitiful, desperate emotions enough to set his teeth on edge as he so often would in their shared boyhood, lashing out without care on who ended up being hurt. he wants him to hurt, maybe, he wants to hit and bite and scream as common street urchins might do over scraps of food, but he will not; he will not scramble for scraps of affection from anyone, some leftover emotions, not from anyone and especially not this man before him.
before he could - do what? snatch his hand away, to rip and tear through the fragile connection that is mo xuanyu's delicate fingers around his wrist, a stronger, firmer grip happens upon his other. lan wangji, the ever steady, the ever supportive second jade of lan, as always following behind wei wuxian's wake.
he could laugh - he could scream, but for the rage that burns against both of them, crashing like angry floodwaters against their emotions. it feels like pity, like charity, and the subtler understanding of whatever they are feeling goes unnoticed in the way jiang cheng bares his teeth in a first, fiery open display of his anger.
anger is all he can express. anger is all he can project, outwardly, like some shell of a man that he has become, like the reputation he has built up within the cultivation society. that is all that anyone can see or care to see about him. useful only in that moment when they could channel that rage and direct it wherever it suit them, and then, discarded.
useless and tired is what he feels, like some remains of burnt forest after the fire has swept through; burnt black branches and gaping open earth where it has obliterated even all the droplets of water in it, dry and cracked riverbed with just skeletal remains of life that once lived there.
tired. ]
Let me go, [ it is a hiss, as a snake makes before he strikes, a soft sound of a blade unsheathing itself, but even more than that, tired. ]