*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.
no subject
jiang cheng does not settle easily - his restlessness is the same way as the reeds are, the way that the wide green leaves of lotus would sway with the ebb and flow of the river, and he wavers between sitting down and standing, between drawing closer to wei wuxian back to away, as if he does not quite know how to behave.
he has been lured into joining his sworn brother on the roof, drawn by the rare moment of seriousness - the stubborn, mulish look in wei wuxian's eyes that he recognises as accepting no other answer but assent. out of the uniform that he don for work, in clothing that are loose, softer, in muted shades, jiang cheng stands across from wei wuxian and watches his fingers curl around the shrivelled petals of some fleshy flowers, the colours red and orange and yellow staining the ends of the digits.
i really need to speak with you.
he watches wei wuxian steeple his fingers together, sees the multifaceted bangles and the rings catching at the early evening light, and finally consents to sitting down, just near enough to touch. when wei wuxian reaches out for his hand it is jiang cheng who curls his fingers against the other's and grips back, feels the squeeze of the rings digging into his skin and letting the faint blueglow spark of emotion trickle through. enough, so that he holds his tongue.
a family.
he knows what he had thought he remembered - he knows what zerzura had conjured up for him, replacing memories with its own. they are shared memories between them, but also at the same time, each of them have dreamed up falsified things, fantasies, lies, that worked in favour or against what they wanted or thought they needed.
he needed them then. he needs them now, still. ]
There you go again, always deciding what is good for me and what is not. I should be the one to beat you black and blue.
[ faintly laconic, faintly mocking, there is a familiar sense of longing in the tone, a nostalgia that steals over him in faint increments; the banter that has not been exchanged in more than ten years. there is a sigh, and he glances at wei wuxian sidelong, and his look might be coy if it was not under some brooding, frowning brow and the set of his jaws. ]
You had already left us behind once before.
[ us, he says, the tone casual yet loaded. us, he says, in a tone that takes more to sound as if it means nothing when it means everything to him, when it takes more than all of his efforts to not crush the hand in his own to bloody pulp, to hold on and never let go.
once before, he says, as if it had been just that occasion, as if he had not let go of him many times before that. ]
You would really be more stupid than I ever gave you credit for, if you'd continued thinking that way.
no subject
[ he doesn't remember, but he knows. he has seen the way his absence has hurt them.
to think that his last life had left such painful stains upon the two of them, let alone the world. where people and grand sects alike had moved on in his absence, it had caused lan wangji and jiang cheng to stagnate in their own ways. he sees the lightning scars in jiang cheng's eyes, the hesitance that his nearness causes - the anger that he harbors, and he knows it to be his fault. he has seen the restraint in lan wangji's hands, the way he treats wei wuxian as a bird that should not be kept caged but left to fly freely as though it will not make lan wangji heartsick to be without him. he left them behind, so many times. each time, he managed to leave them further behind than the last - and finally, he left them in the only way he had thought would free them permanently from him. ]
I thought it would be better that way. Part of me still does, I won't lie.
[ it's the part of him that stirs darkly, when things are good and beautiful. ]
It's not stupid, though. It's not, to want you. Nothing about you is stupid, Jiang Cheng.
[ when lan wangji arrives, he wants to say something that is similar. he wants to make them both understand, what he feels and cannot put into words - because what he feels is so much more than he can describe, for all his education and skill. for all that he is good with word and tongue and oh so wildly clever, he cannot figure out the language in which these feelings are begging to be spoken of. it's why he clutches jiang cheng's hand in his own and pulls it to his face, pressing his mouth into the other man's palm as he closes his eyes and shivers. full bodied and blue, his yearning and his sorrow a singular thing.
he should not want jiang cheng. he has been the cause of all of his pain, all of his sorrow.
but wei wuxian is only human, and he has always adored his shidi so very much. ]
You still look so tired, [ he coos, reaching up to cradle jiang cheng's face in his hands, trying to coax him to rest himself in wei wuxian's own lap: ] Lay your head down here, you must have had such a busy day. Having to go back to work right after all of this, it's a wonder that this city doesn't realize how much we've all done for it - how much it owes us now.
no subject
don't leave.
it is something desperate that sings in his blood, still. it sits deeper than blood, deeper than marrow, nestled close nearest to his heart that has seen and felt too much yet still, refuses to give up. he has made up his mind not to, when he took that hand in his, when he first looked upon that tired wan face, starved and streaked with dirt and makeup.
it is a complicated thing, what he feels for wei wuxian. he has suffered much - he has been left scarred, left alone to lick his own wounds and proceed or stagnate however best he could. left alone with ghosts that he could not dismiss. he had hated him once - he had loved him too, once, and it is still with a mix of muddled emotion that he curls his hand against the other's cheek as he presses his lips against his palm, a desire to pull him closer and push him away making the line of his shoulders tense. ]
You too. [ he is tired, but jiang cheng can see the dark patch of skin under the other's eyes. he had been someone who would, without seeming so, push himself for the sake of others - wei wuxian is like those who let others take pieces of him bit by bit until there is nothing left. a part of him understands - but the other, more selfish part of him wants to take wei wuxian and keep him, whole and entire, close within his grasp.
closing his eyes, more to hide what he is thinking ( but there is no hiding from wei wuxian, he knows, not when the flickers of fragmented emotions filter back and forth between like some ghostly fire ), he lets out a sound, almost a laugh but harsher. ]
Stop with that tone of voice. I don't need to be babied.
no subject
in their own manners, in their own ways— they have all suffered just the same the brush of separation, the attenuation, the cycling of sun and stars. they had all been bereft of someone, of something. they had all ached, measurable and not. and they had all coped or they had all not. and still, on some days, the absence is a residual pain. it is a lingering thing, as a wound that closes in no perfect way. for what is, is and what was, was. there is no undoing what has been done, but lan wangji knows that of the choices that had been bestowed, he would choose no other way. he would choose no other way, so long as there was wei wuxian. so long as there was, now and too, jiang cheng.
for who was lan wangji without the way that they have shaped him? who was he, without the way he too has molded them? and beside them, as he is, it is not something he dare think on as he climbs the stairs of their apartment. it is not something he wishes to consider as he sees them, as he finds them as he always does, the soft cut of evening casting faint and orange against the dark of their hair. tangled up in each other as they are, wei wuxian’s palm pressed to jiang cheng’s lips, lan wangji’s chest at once fills up and tightens. it at once twists with the want to frame them in his arms, to see them as they are— singular and together, the mottled edge of their own sorrows clearing. he sees them, as they once were in the cloud recesses. he sees them, as his mouth does not turn up at the corners, but the way he calls their names after a longer moment warms. ]
Wei Ying, [ he starts, one hand upon the stairwell’s railing. beneath the shadow of the entry, the last of this day’s light dapples gold across his body. it shifts, as he does. and he breathes out, breathes in and considers for a moment if should step out to join them, to do more than greet them. ] Jiang Cheng.
[ he need not ask if they need more time for conversation.
the question is held in the way his lashes lower, in the paleness of his eyes. ]
no subject
I'm not babying you. I just want you near.
[ he does not force jiang cheng's head to take his lap, but the posture he settles into remains open and inviting. his hands remains tangled in his, his feelings soft and shivering against jiang cheng's own. the insecurity he feels from jiang cheng is matched only by the mournfulness of his own; they are still so injured and weak, their wounds caused by one another and reopened again and again by one another. it is sheer determination not to fail that keeps him at jiang cheng's side. he doesn't want to leave him again, knowing that he has. it tears his heart apart, to think that he's caused such pain inside of these two men.
the second of whom arrives, beautiful and dark-haired against the evening sky. ]
Lan Zhan, welcome home. You should come closer and let us greet you properly. I think we all have... much to speak about, especially while we have the time to catch up after all that has happened. Before the next crisis spins us around and leaves us breathless and timeless.
no subject
[ so he speaks - with the skin between his brows creased, with barbed tones and edged words, all at once multifaceted, fractals of broken emotions trickling through the touch of their hands, their fingers that lay tangled between them. wei wuxian knows - he has always known - that jiang cheng is someone who feels too much and expresses too little, like a body of water that has been restricted its flow, a heart that had to harden itself against all that was there to offer in the world. it is angry, it is annoyance, it is resignation.
at the same time, it is a promise, it is a reassurance, it is something warm and hopeful that blooms in his chest. he is near. he is here.
and now, so is lan zhan.
he does not do much - he stands near, at a distance, silhouetted against the red and orange and pale blue of the darkening sky and he calls to them, and jiang cheng lifts his eyes to him at the same moment as wei wuxian - their paired attentions, their grey eyes shifting to focus instead on the third of their group.
jiang cheng stays silent as wei wuxian calls to him - the silence is in itself in agreement, in assent, but he is just yet unwilling to free himself of the warmth of the other's hands upon him.
but it is only for another moment. he shifts his weights, pulls his hands back and away, moving back to create space between them for lan wangji to sit. ]
no subject
once and so many times, to remain at wei wuxian's side was all that lan wangji would want. to hold his hand, to feel the warmth and weight against his palm— lan wangji knows, what it is to desire. he knows what it is to yearn for, he knows that jiang cheng too has felt this in moods lan wangji once could not identify, but sees now in this light. jiang cheng, who too is beautiful like wei wuxian, defers to what it is the latter wants. he defers, in ways both similar and different from lan wangji, different and similar as jiang cheng sinks back from his arms.
he knows, that they too have many things to speak on. lan wangji knows he holds many things within his heart, as much as jiang cheng and wei wuxian. he knows, but these are secrets he has kept silent on. he does not reveal them, because he does not know the language— he does not feel as though these are weights they shoulder shoulder, the past a closed door.
and lan wangji, lan wangji had learned there is an undercurrent to accepting the turn over of "sorry," of "thank you," of "goodbye." he does not want any, and lan wangji has learned not to lie.
but, he wants this. he wants and his chest unfurls as though sun over mountains, the first stretch of pale things that bloom in the light. he wants to remain at their sides. and before either can retract or change their mind, he comes to them. quiet as he often is, silent as he might be— he settles down between them, his posture neat and practiced. he glances in-between them, his hands resting ( for a moment ) uneasy upon his thighs.
and then, he turns his wrists. he offers his palms to theirs, if they wish. he offers himself entire, but he knows there is nothing to fear from this. there is nothing to worry for, should they remain linked and entire. ]