CLOSED.

[laozu]

WHO: Ancient China Wuxia Crew ( Wei Wuxian laozu, Lan Wangji wangxian & Jiang Cheng sandu )
WHERE: Various locations.
WHEN: Various times.
WHAT: A catch-all log for literally everything so we don't spam.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Sexual content, discussions of suicide/suicidal ideation, physical violence, difficulties in communication, etc.

Comments

[laozu]

What am I, if not reliant on possibilities?

[ the yunmeng-jiang's motto was attempt the impossible, that which was considered the antithesis of the possible. to him, they are simply things he can attain, given time and focus. alongside lan wangji, he had slain a semi-mythical beast, poisoned by malice. he had created an entirely new path of learning, corrupt as it had been ( he still resents that sort of thinking; as though there was only one route to follow, as though it has simply sprung up and had not been worked upon, adjusted, amended, over time and generations ). wei wuxian is known for his pursuit of even the slimmest possibility - the possibility he would hit his target, the possibility he would survive the tortoise cave, the possibility that he would make it out of the burial mounds alive...

the possibility that lan wangji will take his hand so gently, and he will feel the ebb and flow of his emotions yet again; glowing blue around his chest, illuminating the underside of his chin, the angle of his jaw, the soft arch of his cheekbones, the raven-black of what hair has been left to him. he feels lan wangji as though he is the flex of a willow tree's limb, buffeted by the storm. wei wuxian snaps and flutters in that breeze, caught up in just how much his companion feels under his stoicism, his beautiful and serene face. he holds fast to chenqing, slipping his toes free from the railing he's clutching with them, and steps down from his precarious perch. hand aloft, glowing vibrant and blue.

what should he think, of lan wangji's devotion? it's there, naked and obvious between them. he thinks he can pass it off, perhaps, as the only thing that gusu-lan's finest is able to commit to in this foreign place. there are no others from their country in new amsterdam, so it is thoughtful and wise to turn one's focus on the familiar - on those who are bound together by history and circumstance. that's wise of lan wangji, he thinks; if he doesn't buckle under the weight of such focus, such sharply-centered thoughts and feelings. ]

You're unhappy to see Chenqing.

[ ( he should have known; lan wangji could not abide the path of dark cultivation either. he is troubled, his eyes focus on the flute and wei wuxian can feel the lingering throes of old pain. )

quickly, he pulls his hand back, to bundle the flute away where it does not have to be seen by eyes other than his own. not ashamed, he's not ashamed of himself! ardyn be damned, sinking such words into his mind, letting him think such things. he's not ashamed, he's just -- being cautious, moreso than he once was. being respectful, mindful. things he should have been, thirteen years prior. ]

[wangxian]

[ what is wei wuxian, if not that?

what is anyone, if not that? possibilities, probabilities, all things shifting fast and endless. what little quiet there is exists instead in pockets— it exists under the skin, momentary and fragmented. it exists in instances like these: in the way wei wuxian’s hand fits against his, in the way his shorn hair catches the light that is cast between the pair of them. it is underpinned, in the way his grey eyes are drowned in blues, in the way his quieted mouth dips. it is lost, in the aftermath.

it is lost as wei wuxian’s touch is, his hand pulled back. it is lost as it was lost back then, in the residual notes of inquiry, in the sharps of chenqing. it is lost, as it was lost as his fingers bled in hopes to save anything, to keep anything, the library pavilion burning around him. it was lost as he was, thirteen years and counting them in the marks against his skin. it was lost, before all was dead and buried— before all lan wangji had left to hold to his heart was ash and dust and nothing.

and still, what can he say to him? still, what can anyone say? lan wangji has never mastered the flight of words. he has never mastered the way they fall together like so many threads, his voice clear and low, but useless in face of trials like this: like this, the retreating back, the moments he’d wished he’d called out to him—

but, in wei wuxian, lan wangji is painted soft and sure. he is painted as though poetry, as though the brush of ink against parchment. he is all these things. he is all these things and none of what it is, none of what has been. none of what has been since they were young and full of youthful arrogance, thinking that such peace would last for more than a moment.

and perhaps, perhaps that is why his mouth twists at one edge. it is a subtle movement, something interwoven and complex. it is like all of what he is, a gale upon the mountains. beneath the stillness, the endless winters pressed against the valleys and the ridge, left to pine in sight of spring down in lowlands, cradled against the earth that he had been forever taught not to brush with.

and still, lan wangji finds within himself a set of words. they come with the downward sweep of lashes, the uncertainty that rushes warm up to his neck. it does not kiss the skin, not really, but there is something that burns in wake of it. no matter how he looks at him ( or perhaps does not, not too directly ), at wei wuxian, the pale of his eyes flicker like a fires against winds.

he shakes his head. the movement is soft at first, but firmer at the end. ]

It is not that, [ he says, forcing his attention back. and with that, his first syllables catch. they catch, before smoothing, like they had once at the nightless city. yet, that pain is residual now. it has dulled within his, within wei wuxian’s, presence.

does he really think that way of me? is what drags at the edge. since wei wuxian had returned, it had only been— he tucks the thought behind the ribs, to think upon at length and later.

he takes a breath, soundless.

he widens, opens the space between his arms. ]

Wei Ying.

[ come here, is what is given. it is what is not said. ]

[laozu]

[ it is not that. what else could it be, that lingering distress that he feels flickering through lan wangji's palm, smooth and soft against his save for where he is callused from plucking the strings of wangji, elegant and serene. ( he misses the sound of wangji, in that moment; he'd wondered, sometimes, thirteen years ago, what sounds he could have created if he had played simultaneously with chenqing - allied, rather than independent. ) the man before him doesn't lie, he is as honest - as truthful - as the path of the seasons themselves, chilly and remote as the winters, his hands as warm as the blistering sun upon dark-painted wood.

wei wuxian believes him, without fail. there's never been a reason to mistrust lan wangji, to not hear his words and take them as what they are there for: purpose, precision, directness. it's not chenqing that he is made uncomfortable by, so he doesn't know what it is then... perhaps the image of yiling's patriarch reclaiming his deadly, dangerous weapon, even if the connection to his core is muted and off-center. he can still sing and play, and bend minds to his will; the minds of the living, now. ]

You're such a good boy, [ he praises softly, when lan wangji opens his arms so obediently; a far cry from what he would have done in his youth.

so, he steps into them, bare toes curling against the ground as he slides his arms around lan wangji's strong waist and presses his nose into the material of his sleepwear. like this, he's able to calm himself - surrounded by warmth and the dark space he makes against the folds of cloth and the body beneath them ( how strange -- ). ] Thank you.

[wangxian]

[ you're such a good boy.

gentle words and gentle praises — gentle, strange, and wanted. wanted, so wanted, to the quieted core of him. to the quieted core of what he can no longer access, not as he had, the golden edges skimmed. impaired, as he had known wei wuxian's to be, perhaps. and yet, lan wangji and wei wuxian are here. they are here, contained within foreign walls in a foreign land. they are here and chenqing lays neat against him, against wei wuxian, in the absence of wangji and now in absence of what once could have been played together, in played in pair. and, despite all this, despite all this, it is that comment that makes his lashes flutter, makes his heart beat quick and stuttered within his chest. it is that singular instance, as wei wuxian steps in, that makes all in him deafen and all in him bloom and ache and struggle against what it is he fears to place his words to, lan wangji's arms and hands and music still somehow not enough even after all these years.

and yet, he waits. he waits, patient and accepting ( yes, he must be ) of what may come to pass. and yet, lan wangji is a human. he is a human and that is all he is, as wei wuxian presses up against him. he is human, so painfully human, as wei wuxian's arms wrap about his waist and somehow, still, lan wangji hesitates. for a moment, for a portion of passing time, lan wangji debates where and how to hold him, wei wuxian. he debates, but yet he finds his arm settles about the round of shoulders, where it once would have pinned wei wuxian's dark, fine hair. but, now, there is nothing there besides the warmth of skin beneath the clothing he wears. it is smooth beneath lan wangji's fingertips as he keeps wei wuxian in place, the other arm pairing low about wei wuxian's mid-back.

he knows there is no means through which wei wuxian cannot hear the thrumming of his heart in his chest. now, so close to him, there is no way about it. and yet, he trusts wei wuxian as much as wei wxuian trusts him. he trusts that even if wei wuxian does not understand, he will understand that what he means to say is not what is conveyed through parceled emotions, caught like the scales of silver fish or the pieced petals of plum blossoms forming across the damp earth a careful carpet.

wei wuxian would not harm him, not on purpose. no matter what has passed between them, there is no disgust within him. instead—

lan wangji shakes his head again. it is a movement, felt more than it is seen. it is a rumble in the chest, an acknowledging, but directive "mn."

wei wuxian needn't thank him for any of this. ]