[ it is any combination of words, any combination of sounds, any combination of sensations that sets fissures in the cool of his facade. it is the breath against his ear, the way jiang cheng noses close against his hair. it is all right, he knows. jiang cheng, for all he thinks he is beyond approach, is made more human for all his flaws. and like he, lan wangji is too. marked in body, marked in blood— as passionate as his ancestry, as marred for all his faults. lan wangji, who took lashings for all his love, is no less a consequence of his choices. and these are choices, that he would make again. because lan wangji, above all else, is sincere. he is honest. and he is a fool, who takes all within him in pieces and parts and uses them to heal, to mend where it is needs mending.
and what is acidity, to all of lan wangji's envies? what is it at all, for these are things from which they cannot divest themselves? no matter how it is lan wangji has tried, no matter for his shame and insidious wants, he finds within his affections lays plain the tang of vinegar that he drinks directly from the pot. and what was it, that was said? should one drink a poison and expect another to succumb? lan wangji had tucked these things within his heart. and he tucks them away deeper still, even as he feels the frenetic beating of jiang cheng's heart. and then—
wei wuxian's voice catches him, seizes him. it has always and somehow still, regardless of obscenities he spills, lan wangji hooks memory into the term he calls them both and warms. hazy, his eyes still dark, he turns his head from the dampened lines of jiang cheng's neck and feels jiang cheng gasp as lan wangji too draws breath. he feels it again and it stirs him all the more, before jiang cheng's emotions loop from the outward whip of his aggressions to something else and lan wangji takes an unsteady half-step back before jiang cheng makes break for the door, his hands shoving him back and lan wangji obedient in how he follows.
he had thought that perhaps— but, it does not matter now. instead, what is left is a nervous coil of some flustering, the way heat settles against his ears again in the same familiar ways ( his ears, so pink before, now redden as he turns his eyes for a moment from wei wuxian ). and it is something of frustration and confusion and concern that flits across what is left of the pale of his eyes, thinned and sharpened and hot. and then, it is his mouth that works for sound, the heavier way of his breaths to silence and drown. ]
Wei Ying, [ he exhales, eventually. it is without real reproach, but it takes a moment longer still for lan wangji to turn the weight of his eyes to him, his own teeth catching at the inside of his lip.
there is a question in it, perhaps. an unvoiced worry beneath even that. ]
no subject
and what is acidity, to all of lan wangji's envies? what is it at all, for these are things from which they cannot divest themselves? no matter how it is lan wangji has tried, no matter for his shame and insidious wants, he finds within his affections lays plain the tang of vinegar that he drinks directly from the pot. and what was it, that was said? should one drink a poison and expect another to succumb? lan wangji had tucked these things within his heart. and he tucks them away deeper still, even as he feels the frenetic beating of jiang cheng's heart. and then—
wei wuxian's voice catches him, seizes him. it has always and somehow still, regardless of obscenities he spills, lan wangji hooks memory into the term he calls them both and warms. hazy, his eyes still dark, he turns his head from the dampened lines of jiang cheng's neck and feels jiang cheng gasp as lan wangji too draws breath. he feels it again and it stirs him all the more, before jiang cheng's emotions loop from the outward whip of his aggressions to something else and lan wangji takes an unsteady half-step back before jiang cheng makes break for the door, his hands shoving him back and lan wangji obedient in how he follows.
he had thought that perhaps— but, it does not matter now. instead, what is left is a nervous coil of some flustering, the way heat settles against his ears again in the same familiar ways ( his ears, so pink before, now redden as he turns his eyes for a moment from wei wuxian ). and it is something of frustration and confusion and concern that flits across what is left of the pale of his eyes, thinned and sharpened and hot. and then, it is his mouth that works for sound, the heavier way of his breaths to silence and drown. ]
Wei Ying, [ he exhales, eventually. it is without real reproach, but it takes a moment longer still for lan wangji to turn the weight of his eyes to him, his own teeth catching at the inside of his lip.
there is a question in it, perhaps. an unvoiced worry beneath even that. ]