*seductively crawls out of hell* (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
laozu) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
meadowlarklogs2019-04-21 07:05 pm
laozu) wrote in meadowlarklogs2019-04-21 07:05 pm
CLOSED.
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.
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.
( 17 nov )
( wwx & lwj: year after year will it break my heart? )
he remembers the dark of their flint, the edge of their lashes. he remembers, distinctly, the way wei wuxian’s gaze held him, as his hands held him. as wei wuxian’s arms held him, as if to keep all that lan wangji was or ever would be against his side.
I am here, he’d wanted to tell him. I have always been. but the words would not come right. they burned along his sternum, burned within the brand— they burned down to his fingertips, worked partway to wei wuxian’s bruised skin. pressed flush and close against the wrist, he’d given him with each assurance all the warmth that laid within. with the pulse of bluer light, lan wangji had given him relief (you are safe), had given him something far more precious and fragile and thin: wei ying. it though it was his name, laid within was the way he’d kept it tight behind his ribs. laid within the intonation, in the way it so often fell just past his lips— it was a summer, a spring when they were only children and knew nothing of the world and all its ugliness yet. it was the feeling that first time wei wuxian turned his eyes to him, tucked away in the pavilion— it’s him, lan wangji had thought then. somehow, some way, his heart had always chosen him.
and for it, he thinks— he thought it somehow suiting, to be caught as this. again, within a cave. again, entrenched in sentiments. why was it so, that he only found means to communicate all that wei wuxian was in such times as this? why was it so, that wei wuxian too was forced to live this?
why was it?
and yet, he thinks he would do such a thing again. he thinks he would give anything at all to wei wuxian if only he should ask it. he thinks – thought – the round of gunfire felt as though nothing at all in face of the expression he was left with.
I am here, he’d wanted to tell him. in the quiet, in the absences and spaces of time behind the heavy lids of his eyes. be well. it was enough, to give him time to escape what they both could not. it was enough, it was—
and still, he’d wanted to know. he wanted to know, if wei wuxian had made it. he’d wanted to know, as he’d wanted to know of the state of wei wuxian’s soul in the unending years between: are you well? are you listening? are you resting?
can you hear me? ]
Wei Ying, [ it comes like a gasp, tinged in urgency despite all of its hoarseness. it comes within a string of moments, where noise and light and touch streams back to him, becomes as though a torrent the moment he forces himself up. he does not know where this is, not for a moment. he does not know where he is, his body mended, but—
strange, so strange. is it wrong? no, lan wangji is alive after all. he is alive, sore, and despite it all— despite it all, lan wangji can see him. he can see him, caught in the dim glow of the overhead lights that wreath each unit below. ]
Wei Ying, [ he says again, still hoarse— but, there is only relief. there is only relief that wei wuxian is here.
that, in the end, wei wuxian is whole. ]
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still, lan wangji stirs. finally, he stirs. he comes to in fits and bursts and wei wuxian watches over him silently, while consciousness returns to lan wangji, while his eyes flutter and his mouth works and finally he speaks. finally. ]
Hi.
[ he says the word softly, barely a whisper - choked with unshed tears, the relief wrinkling his nose, pouring through the connection he forges between them as he rests his uninjured hand to lan wangji's face and softly, tenderly traces the sharp arch of his cheek. he doesn't want him to move fast, doesn't want him to push himself hard. ]
Don't be scared, it's okay. We're at the safehouse, do you recognize it?
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he had understood, no matter the consequence. no matter whether he was right or wrong. no matter at all, for what matter was it, what the world thought? to him, to lan wangji, wei wuxian had been the only one who too had recognized him.
he pressed lan wangji, when no one else cared to.
and lan wangji - his mouth does not work to say the word hello, but his heart does. his body does, as his movements still.
he turns, as though any flower to the sun, into curvature of wei wuxian's palm. ]
Yes, [ he says, like a breath. but, it is a yes that carries magnitudes. it is a yes that encircles his relief, wei wuxian's own. it is a yes that confirms, affirms that it is him. it is a yes that flares hazy and blue and quiet. it catches each word he wants to say, each word captured behind his own inability to say it. it banks itself behind the pale of his eyes and does not move.
it does not move, as his gaze does not. wei wuxian, his wei ying - a hand curves. it is a steady thing, a thing he pours into his focus. it does not matter, not in this moment, how each piece settles into one another. what does, is the fact that wei ying is a wei ying he can touch, that touches him too tender and soft and slow.
lan wangji's fingers settle, brush as though ink against the fine bones of his wrist as they lift. he feels in all ways sore, in all ways sluggish. and still, he does not wear it. he does not wear it in his expression, though it gilds the edge of the emotions that come. like old ivies, they chase the skin and marrow. wei ying, caught in the foundation of what lan wangji is. wei ying. without him, lan wangji had often wondered what it was he would have become.
but, here - with him, lan wangji had always known what it was to bloom. caught all in his reds, reflected in the mountains of his home, wei ying had held him willing before lan wangji knew ever how.
stay put, wei ying's hand asks. it's okay, wei ying says.
wei ying, lan wangji murmurs back. his heart is full of him, full of concern for him. it reaches to where tears do not fall, like the pad of a calloused thumb. I am fine, he thinks to say. I am here. ]
I am here, [ he tells him, promises. it comes after a long moment, a stretch of time. he is not afraid. he is not afraid for himself. he had been afraid for him. his fingers hold faster, though in all ways still gentle. his dark brows knit, incremental.
I am here, like the hold of arms. like the way he'd held him once when they were young. in the caves, his head upon lan wangji's lap - it feels as though that, comes as though that. it is a tenderness that spills from him without thought, without better judgement of it. it does not ask, only gives. it does not impose.
it exists, because wei ying exists. because lan wangji, no matter how it is wei ying cherishes him, has always loved him. ]
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[ he does not dismiss the things that his brother has done for him, for lan wangji. nor does he dismiss how much it means to him that lan wangji is back, that lan wangji has been returned to him. the world took him, and then it gave him back - how terrible, how fickle. wei wuxian festers with the knowledge that it had not been in his power to do such a thing, that he had not been the one able to draw soul to body. he misses that power so much, it had been a protective thing, even if it had been a wrong thing in the minds of others. useful, even as it struck terror into the hearts of friend and foe.
his uninjured hand finds lan wangji's face, cupping the handsome angle of his jaw ( he could break the heart of any woman ) as he whispers soothing, wordless things to him. ]
I'm really glad you're here, Lan Zhan.
[ his heart is conflicted: at once relieved and heavy with dread - what if this happens again, what if it happens to jiang cheng? what if he cannot return their bodies to the medical machine that had coaxed lan wangji back to life? what if he loses either of them for good? it will kill him, he will be destroyed. that they make him feel this way... it hurts, so much, so deeply. abel has lost cain, as well. not to death, but to the strange vanishing that has happened to a number of them. one day they are there, the next they are gone. he worries it will happen to lan zhan, to jiang cheng. he worries it will happen before his voice is able to find the words it yearns to speak, but does not yet know. ]
Don't fuss, okay?
[ he is a quiet thing, slim and cautious, that climbs onto the cot alongside lan wangji and rests alongside him, cradling the man's face to his chest, arms curled protectively around his head and shoulders. ]
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he cannot say no, cannot deny him— wei wuxian, whose grey eyes are full of what lan wangji wishes to house within himself instead, to relieve for him. he cannot tell him no, as he climbs onto the cot beside him.
he does not fuss. he does not budge. he does not tell him that he would have found means to return to him, because there is no simple way. there is no promise of voices to answer the strings, there are no guarantees of such things. there is only the knowledge that lan wangji has once lived many years without him, wei wuxian. there is only the knowledge of that ache. there is only the knowing that the first hours, the first days, the first months came hardest. there is only the understanding that, even when one believes they have come to terms with it, that rawness instead tempers only into bitterness.
( and how many times, in the jingshi, had he found himself awash in thoughts of him? how many times had he laid awake, his back bleeding through the thick of the linens? how many times had he bit back the sorrows in the earliest years, the ones that scoured the walls of his ribs, that inundated the roots of him? how many years, had he rebuilt from the rot? )
he knows too that wei wuxian has known this. he knows too that wei wuxian has lost and lost and lost. he does not paint illusion that there is possibility that wei wuxian, however, feels as though he does. at least, he does not dare to hope it, even if the way that wei wuxian cradles his jaw is far more delicate a touch. he does not dare to think it, though the pale of his eyes shivers and thins as wei wuxian tells him: I’m really happy you’re here.
and he is too. he is too, he wants to say as his lips part. he wants to say: I am happy you too are here, but wei wuxian’s heart beats so near to his ear. it sounds so as his own, as he gathers lan wangji against his chest, that it is all he can do to hum soft in agreement. it is all he can do to thread it close along the wan, blue light tendrils out between them. it is all lan wangji can do, to say his name again— to inlay its softened syllables against his need to soothe. ( and it is all he can do, to hold back the "thank you" and "sorry," knowing each and every had left them further adrift. )
and it is a moment, but he is gentle as he tucks his arm along wei wuxian’s side, smooths the broad of his palm along his back. he strokes between the blades of his shoulders, along the soft rises of his spine (I am here, I am here). and eventually— eventually the words rise. they form themselves against the thin fabric that covers wei wuxian’s chest. they mold themselves muffled and soft and quieted. ]
Do not strain yourself, [ he murmurs into him, into the circle of wei wuxian’s arms. his other palm, tucked beneath him, feels the uneven spread of bandaging that adorns wei wuxian. he takes a breath. ] You are safe.
[ you are safe with me, perhaps. you are whole, perhaps. and still, lan wangji’s palm strokes along his back. and still, he continues. the bond between them is a tumult of things, a steady rain, a downpour. and lan wangji tethers himself against the pull of wei wuxian’s breathing. ] I will do all that I can.
[ and beneath, between: to stay here, to be here, to be here with you. ]
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that, he knows, will make them all safe again. ]
You already have.
[ lan wangji has already proven that he has done all that he can, up to and including dying so that wei wuxian may live. and wei wuxian doesn't enjoy that about him, as much as he enjoys a great many things about lan wangji that he thinks of as -- comforting, tender, purposeful. the focus that the man has for him makes his belly ache and his limbs tremble, feeling it in the touch of their skin and the pass of their empathetic bonds. wei wuxian rests on top of the sheets that have draped lan wangji, following his removal from the medical machine that had knit his flesh and returned him to life, but he can see the outline of his hip, the angle of his ribs, the nakedness of his collarbones.
( he wants to die, like this. with this knowledge of lan wangji's body so close to his again, as though in the beds they had shared before they had arrived in new amsterdam. ) ]
You died. For me. I couldn't do anything about it, [ he nudges sheets aside, to the new wound among the burning sun emblem of the wen - pressed over lan wangji's heart. the bullet that had killed him. it matches the wound under the bandages holding wei wuxian's arm close to his ribs, to prevent him from exacerbating his injuries. it doesn't stop him from holding lan wangji's head to his chest, pressing him there as though he could open his belly and hide him inside, away from dangers and death. ]
Don't do it again. At least - not until I'm stronger.
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has he? he wonders. this part of himself, that gives without thought of it, questions what he may still do and what still may be done. he questions it, but does not question wei wuxian. wei wuxian, who lies close to him, who holds him as though he were able to keep him from the world in the crook of his arms. who holds him, as lan wangji has once held him. in that cave, in that darkness - in the quiet pass of all the strength that lan wangji had left. I love you, he had said. Wei Ying, I love you. he always has. he always has, no matter the bite of rejection that passed. no matter the way wei wuxian told him, again and again and again: get lost, get lost, get lost. no matter whether he was right or wrong. no matter whether any had right to judge him. he had only known what he had known, and what lan wangji knew always was this: wei wuxian, at his core, gave as lan wangji did. he gave until there was nothing more to give. he gave with the curve of his mouth, the curve of his hands. he wished to shelter, to protect. lan wangji knew, even then - I love you. he knew, even when wei wuxian could not return with him, he knew. lan wangji had known, even without wei wuxian's telling him, that had it been him - had it been himself, the harbor that wei wuxian could afford would not have been taken by him.
no matter if he wished it, no matter if he didn't. lan wangji knew.
he knew, as much as he knew helplessness. like the fletching of arrows pulled high across his cheek, he knew. he knew it, those days that brought the joy of others at wei wuxian's death. he knew it, those days he had returned to the burial mound for any sign of him. he knew it, as sure as the brand that he had bitten into his own chest. the one that wei wuxian now touches. wei wuxian, whose body curls close and warm to his. wei wuxian, who causes the smallest hitch of his breath, indiscernible if not for the way he is certain now to feel. to feel it, alongside the ache of all that is old and weathered and worn. an ache, that speaks of all that lan wangji had missed of him, his efforts to feel as though there was anything left of wei wuxian at all.
don't do it again, he tells him. and lan wangji wants nothing more than to relent, to have not made it this way. and yet - there is a tremble in the pass of lan wangji's hand. there is shiver that works its way through marrow and skin, as more is revealed to wei wuxian than wei wuxian is revealed to him. and across and through all that connects them, there is only the wish for wei wuxian's happiness. there is only the wish that wei wuxian continue to live, that lan wangji could be beside him. that lan wangji, no matter the circumstance - no matter if it is with him or without him - ]
Until we both are, [ he says, after a long moment. after a long moment, as though evenings pressed near to wei wuxian. as though evenings he'd taken lan wangji's hand in his and told him to feel the way of his heart. his own, he must think, must thrum uneven. his own must be painful beneath the calloused palm of wei wuxian's hand. and somehow, somehow - he presses nearer to him. to wei wuxian, who tells him such things and touches him in such ways that lan wangji had wished for, that lan wangji had wished to assure.
if he is not to leave - he promises, as long as wei wuxian promises. he asks, without asking.
I am here. ]
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he'd like to think, that this man likes him.
he'd really, really like to think that lan wangji holds him because he treasures him.
and so, he sits on the boundary of such sinful thoughts and bleak yearnings - wondering if it's true, wondering if the eyes that lan wangji makes at him are soft because he is a kind man performing kindnesses with his gentle, proper heart guiding him. and he wonders if the opposite is true, too, and lan wangji looks at him with such softness because -- because? ( i trust you; i have always trusted in you. ) do those gentle hands possess the ability to grab hold of him, to hold him so tightly he could break in two? ]
Mm, Lan Zhan?
[ he's scared. ]
Let me know if it hurts, okay?
[ because he is stiff from death, wei wuxian knows. sore and weakened from whatever process had revived him. even as wei wuxian's leg swings over the width of lan wangji's hip, he is careful not to press down on the new scars, he is stiff and shivering, his weight precariously balanced over the simple sheet that covers lan wangji's bare form. he teeters there, astride him, hovering with his face flushed rosy and all too self-aware ( it's not a thing that suits him, not the way his shamelessness does. it makes him seem younger, more vulnerable, more like an unblossomed flower than a man. )
he sits.
hovers. ]
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lan zhan? and already, the softer mn? is upon his tongue before he comes to note it. it is there, in the scant moments before wei wuxian nudges him back and he follows without complaint each movement. and still, he thinks, what more may hurt? what more, as wei wuxian comes to settle upon his hips? what more, as lan wangji pulls a thinner breath as the light cuts cool across the flush that dapples, at once beautiful and foreign, against wei wuxian's skin? what more, than the way lan wangji is an aching and hungry and exposed thing beneath the way wei wuxian looks upon him, sees inevitably the way his ears warm? sees, inevitably, the way lan wangji looks back at him as though he cannot think to look away again?
what more, as wei wuxian leans in?
and all within him, all within lan wangji, stills and silences. all within him knows that wei wuxian does not love him. all within him thought. it believed.
it feared.
it fears, as wei wuxian fears. it fears that he is unwanted. it fears that wei wuxian wants little of him, like this. it fears—
lan wangji cradles his face within his palms.
are you certain? thrums as though a pulse between them. all that wei wuxian has given him, all that wei wuxian gives— have you realized? his lips move, warmed and willing— wanting. he kisses wei wuxian, with same trepidation and tenderness that is held beneath the skin that too speaks up against his. he kisses him, because all that lan wangji holds within himself spills blue and brilliant beneath his sternum. all that is lan wangji, wei wuxian's lan zhan, is wei wuxian's to touch. bared as he is, exposed as he is, tired too as he is— wei wuxian drinks him in and lan wangji lets him. he lets him.
he lets him, because lan wangji cannot say no to him. because lan wangji has always loved him. because lan wangji is foolish, hopes that what wei wuxian shows to him now is confirmation.
have you changed your mind? lan wangji's fingers tremble. and yet, his mouth presses up against wei wuxian's. and he remembers he has tasted as though this once. once, as all within him fissures as though ice upon the mountains, as though the fog beneath the heat of sun.
do not change it back. lan wangji is a fool. he is a fool and he has loved wei wuxian since he was young. he has loved him, would continue to love him, even if all was just a game. even if lan wangji's own heart was emptied, drained. even if wei wuxian found he could not love lan wangji in the same way— if I am what you want—
behind the dark of his eyelids, beneath the weight of wei wuxian balanced over his hips, he feels his chest fill up with tears.
if I am what you need, I am here. ]
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he wishes he could be more shameless, in this moment, but the touch of his mouth on the other's brings back a memory, it brings two: the slightly-pained remembrance of his first kiss, stolen from him in his previous life and the taste of lan zhan's skin on one drunken night, not too long ago. his own pulse hums, shivering like a hive that has begun to wake up - disturbed and seeking - while wei wuxian wobbles astride the other, hands slipping from where he has balanced them on his shoulders to the low, firm plane of his belly. he is, doubtlessly, off balance and collapsing in on himself, held in place only by the hands on his face. the mouth kissing his, in return.
don't cry, he thinks, as he feels the soft shattering pass from lan wangji to him; it brings him back, allows him to glide free of the kiss and sit there, breathing harder than before, his weight sagging roughly into the angles and lines of lan wangji's form. even with the sheet between them, their positions are indecent, especially in the shared space of the safehouse. ]
I, um...
[ he doesn't actually have anything to say.
so, he cradles lan wangji's face and kisses him again, more urgently this time - dipping his spine to be able to lay across him. seizing lan wangji's hands to place them where he wants them, so badly ( his waist, the arch of his shoulder ), demanding to be held. ]
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he breathes out, breathes in. how can he not, when what tears that well within are relief and a tentative thread of happiness? how can he not, though he manages, blinking once and heavily as wei wuxian moves from him. twice, perhaps, as wei wuxian balances himself low against his stomach, lan wangji’s heart stuttering to see him as he is. for all that is questionable and without righteousness, wei wuxian is beautiful thing within their expanses. wei wuxian, and all that he is, is as though peonies tucked between thin pages – a welcomed warmth in winters that lan wangji once lived. even without the touch of his mouth, the touch of his hands, it is his voice that brings hungry, green things to brush beneath the surface of lan wangji’s skin. it is his voice, the way wei wuxian looks upon lan wangji, that makes all in him turn to blooming as though the reddened flowers that spilt across the mountains. lan wangji thinks that, perhaps, he had never truly stopped the spring that wei wuxian had started in the moment lan wangji first saw him. it is only that it had rested, that it had waited to catch its breath until his heart said “when.”
wei wuxian ( his wei ying ), in the end, it was him who taught lan wangji to accept more than what he knew and more that could be known. it was him, who taught lan wangji what it was to love as this: what is “good” and what is “not” is never truly obvious, but what choices can be made are his. what choices can be made can be made as they are just, as they are honest, as they true— as they are kind, as they do more to heal than to harm. and as wei wuxian says nothing at all of substance, lan wangji hears him. he hears wei wuxian, as desperate and as urgent as he himself is. he hears him, lit up in blues and painted in reds, and it is his name that fans out from the full of him, lan wangji. it is the thought of his mouth, parted around the silence lan wangji once saw upon phoenix mountain, kissed warmer and pliant.
and it is nothing else, as wei wuxian leans back in. it is nothing else, except the love he’d kept forever locked up behind his ribs. endlessly, each sentiment he’d folded within himself. and endlessly, each sentiment was never turned over to the one it so belonged to begin with. and so, it is that same need that brushes up against him, lan wangji. his hands are guided with it, his mouth is taken by it – and he lets his fingers and palms settle and curve against where wei wuxian most wants ( he holds him tight against himself, tight enough to know not at all where the warmth of wei wuxian’s skin began and his own ended ). lan wangji kisses him, takes in all that wei wuxian affords –
and presses on for more, made certain by the way wei wuxian asks for him, pulls for him. cognizant and aware, with only a sheet between them, lan wangji yields to wei wuxian’s desires and shows him too his own.
lan wangji’s teeth catch at his bottom lip, pair even with the flat of his tongue against the seam he’s tasted. even now, even as wei wuxian is, this too remains the same. this too has not changed, this want of wei wuxian. this too has never and lan wangji is mindful, even still, of where it is wei wuxian remains injured – is gentle as he keeps him firmly there. ]
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Ow --
[ he whispers the word against lan wangji's mouth, not because the man has set his teeth to the soft swell of his bottom lip, but because as he stretches his arms to embrace lan wangji's neck, he feels pain tear through his shoulder, streaking along his ribs to his hips. where he is bruised, where he has been shot and his hand mangled by teeth to the point where he fears infection will set in and rob him of his dexterity, if he does not lose the fingers entirely. it reminds him, in part, of yi city. of xue yang, a boy so wrapped up in his madness and cruelty that he had to be put down as a dog given to brain-malady might be. of a boy, so mangled inside and out, that he could have become if not for the yunmeng-jiang.
he pulls back, aware suddenly of where they are. of lan wangji's nakedness under the sheet and he touches his uninjured fingers to his mouth, stroking thumb over the spot where he had been bitten, ever softly. and then he drops his head, to the sun-spark burn on lan wangji's bare chest, to the scar that has settled at the core of it -- his mark of death. don't cry, he tells lan wangji -- even as he, himself, feels the urge to sob rise inside of him once more. because lan wangji is alive, because he is given a second ( no, a third chance ) and he doesn't understand why he is being given such kindness. why has the world given to him family, love, chance after chance to pursue any sort of happiness -- why has it taken and given lan wangji back to him? he doesn't understand, and it curls within him like paranoia, abyssal and sticky-sick. it settles there, as much part of him as his gratitude is. as his affections for lan wangji are. ]
I want to kiss you more, Lan Zhan -- but I'm nervous about what I'll do, if I keep going.
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he has loved wei wuxian, since before he knew his name. he has loved him, through all wei wuxian's teases. he has loved him, though wei wuxian broke against the rules that lan wangji once so rigidly followed. and lan wangji still recalls the scent of wine clinging to their skin back then, as wei wuxian shoved them both over the cloud recesses's high, white walls. he still remembers the crush of wet grass, the way wei wuxian had pinned him. he still remembers, in all his anger, thinking of what it would have been like to pull him down and kiss him.
and for each way wei wuxian's unvoiced affections and unvoiced emotions flit between as music, like the whitened skins of magnolias and lilies too— lan wangji's roots them. he tends to them, careful to let them have their room. he is careful to nurture them, among his own love that has sustained itself within him long before wei wuxian himself had come to this realization. it is patient, like hands that soothe along the curve of spines— against the dark of hair.
and—
pain and answering concern breeches the edges of lan wangji's awareness. as wei wuxian pulls back, he steadies him upon his hips. between them both, the thinner rise and fall of breath seems an afterthought as lan wangji realizes what it is that sweeps between them now. he focuses on wei wuxian's words, his dark brows knit almost indiscernibly, until he finally finds means to speak again. ]
Wei Ying. [ his hands, his voice— both are gentle. within the warmth of his palms, he cradles wei wuxian's injured fingers. he stabilizes them, knowing he cannot heal them as he once did. he feeds words across the breaks in bandaging, where the skin is mottled and dark: be careful, take care. ]
When you are well, [ lan wangji tells him, a promise and assurance. when you are comfortable, he tells as well. beneath the current of his affections, the words carry through. clear and warmed, for has lan wangji not always wanted this too? has he not always wished to provide wei wuxian all he could afford? has he not always wished to hold wei wuxian within his arms, support him as wei wuxian has so supported lan wangji? I have always trusted you, lan wangji had told him once.
and it is true. he trusts him, even as wei wuxian's emotions grow confused and muddied and dark. he trusts him, because wei wuxian has always attempted to do what he could for those who were weaker than he. he had always attempted to do impossible and improbable things. he had chosen, in many ways, what lan wangji himself would have chosen were he in his place.
and was not true, that lan wangji could not leave wei wuxian as wei wuxian could not leave those in yiling? was it not true, that lan wangji too could not leave a-yuan? was it not true? and still, he holds wei wuxian's hand between his own.
I am here, lan wangji says, his fingers as though a shield about wei wuxian's own. I am here.
he is here, as he has always been. he is here, even as the urge to sob passes from wei wuxian to lan wangji. he is here, even as the tears that had threatened once to break across the skin brush closer still showing form. he is here, as he presses their hands gently to where it is his heart beats. it is a nervous thing, a hungry thing— a thing that loves. and it loves him, wei wuxian. it holds him, it holds so much of him, that lan wangji cannot recall what it was to have never known him.
and like this, he tells wei wuxian again: I am here. he tells him it, as he knows where it is wei wuxian's focus sits. upon the brand, upon the mark death has left against his skin. he knows it.
he will not leave again, as long as lan wangji holds say it in. ]