[waking up in a bed that smells of sandalwood should not be as scandalous as it feels, but here are the facts to matter: it's lan zhan's bed that wei ying now sleeps in, lan zhan's room that he now resides in, lan zhan's home that he wipes the floors for. little gestures of gratitude, little bits of self-made markings to signify his presence in the pristine sanctuary of the lans' apartment; wei ying was here, he says with washed dishes, laundered clothes, scrubbed tabletops.
jiang cheng's accusations sit bitterly in the back of wei ying's mind like the aftertaste of sour wine, but wei ying knows how to endure. it doesn't mean it doesn't sting, to be given away in such a manner, never mind that he's essentially eloped with nothing to show for the name he holds.
nothing else to do now but mend bridges. if asked again, he'll have done the same thing anyway - it takes two, after all.
some things can't be unsaid, as well. jin ling, precious boy that he is, leaves behind a specter in wei ying's mind's eye - his birth, his parents, his lie unraveled. wei ying's apparent involvement in the misery of the boy's upbringing, though details remain distant, intangible; he's not sure he wants to know, truth be told.
this is not one of wei ying's preferred moods. this is too close to the darkness, too close to admitting to some failure of character, some slight of honor, irrational as it is to blame himself for what he couldn't have known.
why can't he make anyone happy? is he too selfish? is he—]
Ah, Lan Zhan. [snapped out of his thoughts, wei ying accepts the offered flask with graceless hands; he hadn't noticed the other's approach until he came into view in the periphery of his sight, and even then— well, it wouldn't be the first time lan zhan stood a few steps away to judge him in silence.
wei ying takes a sedate sip, the liquor sweet on the tongue, and turns to lan zhan.]
Did you miss me? [it's a joke, of course, but it comes out plaintive, barefaced in its honest curiosity.] Are you luring me back to bed?
[ ...miss him. Yes. Inevitably, indelibly. What is it to miss the same friend who sprawls beside him, a foreigner because his skin hasn't worn thinner under frictions of hard armour, because his eyes haven't lost shine, or his tongue gained sourer wit. A known stranger, like shades in the mirror, wearing familiar face, limbs, regalia — intimate parts that add up to an uncanny, but misshappen whole. Wax puppet of the man himself. Sketch, losing detail.
This, to the right of a seating Wangji, is Wei Wuxian. Not the Yiling patriarch. Perhaps Wei Ying.
Wine changes hands, fingertips a-shiver. Touch compels him to ablution, to burn away skin tainted by intimacy brokered on wanting terms. Infection runs a shallower course, when it's Wei Ying who inflicts it. Immune to him, by now, maybe. To the feel and comfort of his learned presence.
They sit, and Wangji examines the faint motley of silver that dots the sky, a serenity of stars and no purpose. No direction to set based on their waking, no sea to cross, no feat to achieve. Stranded, here — they have so little to call their own but time.
And memory.
Unwritten: Wangji shouldn't. Honour, dignity, duty, pride, virtue — every word of the Lan rules decries this. Shame will strike later, with the executioner's axe. Now, he turns, and the treacherous thing, his hand, turns with him.
He presses it, fingers wide, palm keen, a convulsion of minor muscles flattening to cover the span of Wei Ying's belly, north-bound of his belt's border, where beneath robe and flesh and blood and bone, cultivators bury more. His touch moves up, slow, steady, unyielding, to Wei Ying's chest in the simple line, feeling — not the hot and black emptiness of a missing golden core, but the sun warmth of sorcery coiled, of magic waiting.
He breathes in. Out. Stares up, where Wei Ying still doesn't know his future unwritten and his life untold, the pieces missing. You'll be without within the year, Wangji's meant to cry, And then you'll die.
But there are words one man cannot speak to another, and his hand withdraws, finding righteous home on his own knees. ]
You sleep poorly.
[ As if Wei Ying;'s query still holds, and they can simply resume it, the interlude lost. ]
[the burn of alcohol in the blood stream cannot, will not, carry the blame of wei ying's confusion.
he drinks, and means to drink again after his questions are asked and left unanswered yet, but lan zhan is turning, turning, coming close, and wei ying startles, this surprised little jump that has him sitting up a little less louche, a little bit straighter. and then there's a hand, a hand, too low than should be appropriate, firm and sure in its touch.
wei ying can't breathe.
lan zhan's hand continues on, up and up and up, coming to rest against his sternum - surely he can feel wei ying's rabbit heart through the layers, could feel it echo like drum beats in open air.
[ He's diverged too far from protocol, from tradition, from his senses. Even Wei Ying, for all his exotic tolerance of strange gestures dulled by good faith, cannot overlook this.
Their fingers join briefly, one set atop the other, spilling the wretched lethargy of 'moonlacing' in its medicinal prime. Tension that married him like connective tissue fades in, out, finds purchase. Ah, like herbs then. Opiates. ]
...strong core.
[ Beneath it all, pulse of old magic, feral and brittle like dirt, bound by violence of will more than organic compatibility. If Wangji's broken a hundred boys on the training grounds of their arrogance, it's to rebuild them whole again, and hope they will be disciples who'll groan and sweat and bleed and reach a fraction of Wei Ying's stature.
Natural advantage. The simple cruelty of talent that discipline won't build, that rigours of practice won't expedite. Wangji has read about a handful of Wei Yings in every history of cultivation, parchment rough under palm, edges wine-soaked, blood dipped.
Moth to the flame, the mighty to their tragedy. He locks the tight beam of his gaze to Wei Ying's face, bloodless under moonlight. ]
You would be a legendary cultivator.
[ But he won't become that, and now more omissions coil dark and heady between them, like the stifling musk of Nie Huaisang's teahouse. ]
When we cross swords, don't hold back. Show me your tricks.
[they haven't parted. wei ying is elated beyond his own words, almost lost to the rush of feeling that comes with moonlacing so directly, skin and skin touching, holding, feeling. they're just bones and flesh and skin, breeakable, still mortal, but for a good long second wei ying feels insurmountably invincible.
this feels very much like something sacred, forbidden, hidden away like a secret, and wei ying is captivated like a hunted animal under the weight of lan zhan's gaze.]
I'll show you everything I'm capable of, [he promises, the words soft against the velvet of his tongue.] All of it.
[daring, indeed, to pull lan zhan's hand to his chest, to press the man's knuckles over where his heart would be and let it stay there. it's only fair; if his core must be laid bare to lan zhan's touch, then let wei ying pull the doors wide open.]
i'll beat you. You'll dream of me when we're done.
[ Governed by Wei Ying, Wangji's hand returns, knuckles soft where they brush the door of a firm rib cage, before fingers once more spider out, splaying. He feels it under, tender and keen territory of flesh unmarred by war.
Fire and friction and the hardships of armour will erase every ounce of this delicacy in increments. A man's fate writes itself in the body that enacts it, and Wei Ying's vessel waits to fill out to shivering brim. Cultivation would be strong within him, for all opportunity entombs it young. There is sorcery Wangji has seen that only this heart, slow but relentless, could dictate into being. Demons will remember Wei Wuxian.
No, they'll bend the knee.
Even demons submit to their master. Wangji turns away from the earnest resolution on Wei Ying's face, can't bear to remember the same eyes dead-grey. ]
Nightmare.
[ Mute, nearly just the futile smack of lips struggling to carry sound. He hates and desires nights above all else, lives for the flicker of stars above him, like the vision of a family matriarch, diffused and lost. Beneath the icy glare, Wangji's gestures are hidden, the rush of a flush when it infects his cheeks, wan. ]
Apology. I startled you.
[ Some might say accosting a man with touch unbidden and interest unannounced is — alarming. Now, Wangji's hand withdraws, and now he nods at the wine, where before — ]
[a push, a pull. theirs is a give and take that hangs in precarious balance, the scales always moving, and wei ying won't lie - it's a thrill. it's like peeking behind the curtains of a play, or reading a salacious book in plain daylight: will he? won't he? what will lan zhan do?
it's not a game so much as it's a dance between them, where the goal is to catch the other off their footing (sweep them off their feet, sweep them away, far where eyes can't chase after them)— he yields for now. let lan zhan take his hand away. wei ying relents, sits straight, posture impeccable even as he downs a healthy gulp of liquor. it burns sweetly in the back of his throat.]
Anything at all, Lan Zhan?
[dangerous territory. so much ground to cover with that offer, and wei ying's interest soars.]
[ The liquor pleases. He knows, in the way he's learned to read hesitation in Wei Wuxian's gasps, enthusiasm in the rise of his breaths — because Wei Ying swallows fast, but allows himself that final second of residual enjoyment, between the smack of wet lips and the exchange to follow.
Good. Wangji's taste for wine is, at best, still spelled out in inexperience. Nothing to guarantee his purchase, but for coin of chroma and a short prayer. Luck guided him well this turn.
And now, luck falters. ]
No where to go.
[ To hide or flee, when he has failed for years to salvage his soul before. Chains on his back, digging their grave in bone. Stranded to crawl after Wei Wuxian, a faithful dog. ]
[wei ying smiles - it's all teeth, bright and alive. he caps the flask, sets it on his lap where it's cradled between the folds of his robes, precariously tipped to one side. one wrong move and it will roll down to the eaves of the roof; similarly, one wrong move now, and wei ying could very well bare his neck before he's ready for the cut of lan zhan's blade.]
Then, I'll confess something to you, Lan Zhan.
[gently. gently. gently. wei ying leans in close, stage whispers.]
I slept naked in your bed once, while you were out.
[ ...this. This is why there can never be peace between them. And to think how the other Wei Ying looks at Wangji with his sad and soulful eyes, as if a myriad of hurts has been initiated, unilaterally, between them — through no fault of Wei Wuxian's own.
Wangji does not leave. He pledged. Oh, he pledged, and his hands knit and knot on his lap, his eyes slant but never close. He shudders.
Then, calmly, with the grace of a thousand long departed ancestors, he returns to himself. Very well, master Wei. On manners, Wangji can depend with certainty. ]
My bed is your bed.
[ Grace, dignity, teeth without grit. He has lent Wei Wuxian his bed as their treasured guest, and so Wangji cannot begrudge the man his use of it — however poorly done. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
jiang cheng's accusations sit bitterly in the back of wei ying's mind like the aftertaste of sour wine, but wei ying knows how to endure. it doesn't mean it doesn't sting, to be given away in such a manner, never mind that he's essentially eloped with nothing to show for the name he holds.
nothing else to do now but mend bridges. if asked again, he'll have done the same thing anyway - it takes two, after all.
some things can't be unsaid, as well. jin ling, precious boy that he is, leaves behind a specter in wei ying's mind's eye - his birth, his parents, his lie unraveled. wei ying's apparent involvement in the misery of the boy's upbringing, though details remain distant, intangible; he's not sure he wants to know, truth be told.
this is not one of wei ying's preferred moods. this is too close to the darkness, too close to admitting to some failure of character, some slight of honor, irrational as it is to blame himself for what he couldn't have known.
why can't he make anyone happy? is he too selfish? is he—]
Ah, Lan Zhan. [snapped out of his thoughts, wei ying accepts the offered flask with graceless hands; he hadn't noticed the other's approach until he came into view in the periphery of his sight, and even then— well, it wouldn't be the first time lan zhan stood a few steps away to judge him in silence.
wei ying takes a sedate sip, the liquor sweet on the tongue, and turns to lan zhan.]
Did you miss me? [it's a joke, of course, but it comes out plaintive, barefaced in its honest curiosity.] Are you luring me back to bed?
no subject
This, to the right of a seating Wangji, is Wei Wuxian. Not the Yiling patriarch. Perhaps Wei Ying.
Wine changes hands, fingertips a-shiver. Touch compels him to ablution, to burn away skin tainted by intimacy brokered on wanting terms. Infection runs a shallower course, when it's Wei Ying who inflicts it. Immune to him, by now, maybe. To the feel and comfort of his learned presence.
They sit, and Wangji examines the faint motley of silver that dots the sky, a serenity of stars and no purpose. No direction to set based on their waking, no sea to cross, no feat to achieve. Stranded, here — they have so little to call their own but time.
And memory.
Unwritten: Wangji shouldn't. Honour, dignity, duty, pride, virtue — every word of the Lan rules decries this. Shame will strike later, with the executioner's axe. Now, he turns, and the treacherous thing, his hand, turns with him.
He presses it, fingers wide, palm keen, a convulsion of minor muscles flattening to cover the span of Wei Ying's belly, north-bound of his belt's border, where beneath robe and flesh and blood and bone, cultivators bury more. His touch moves up, slow, steady, unyielding, to Wei Ying's chest in the simple line, feeling — not the hot and black emptiness of a missing golden core, but the sun warmth of sorcery coiled, of magic waiting.
He breathes in. Out. Stares up, where Wei Ying still doesn't know his future unwritten and his life untold, the pieces missing. You'll be without within the year, Wangji's meant to cry, And then you'll die.
But there are words one man cannot speak to another, and his hand withdraws, finding righteous home on his own knees. ]
You sleep poorly.
[ As if Wei Ying;'s query still holds, and they can simply resume it, the interlude lost. ]
no subject
he drinks, and means to drink again after his questions are asked and left unanswered yet, but lan zhan is turning, turning, coming close, and wei ying startles, this surprised little jump that has him sitting up a little less louche, a little bit straighter. and then there's a hand, a hand, too low than should be appropriate, firm and sure in its touch.
wei ying can't breathe.
lan zhan's hand continues on, up and up and up, coming to rest against his sternum - surely he can feel wei ying's rabbit heart through the layers, could feel it echo like drum beats in open air.
what is going on?]
...Lan Zhan? [wei ying's voice has gone soft, gone small. hopeful, confused, lost.
he reaches for the other's hand, lean fingers curling loosely over smooth knuckles.]
Are you alright?
no subject
Their fingers join briefly, one set atop the other, spilling the wretched lethargy of 'moonlacing' in its medicinal prime. Tension that married him like connective tissue fades in, out, finds purchase. Ah, like herbs then. Opiates. ]
...strong core.
[ Beneath it all, pulse of old magic, feral and brittle like dirt, bound by violence of will more than organic compatibility. If Wangji's broken a hundred boys on the training grounds of their arrogance, it's to rebuild them whole again, and hope they will be disciples who'll groan and sweat and bleed and reach a fraction of Wei Ying's stature.
Natural advantage. The simple cruelty of talent that discipline won't build, that rigours of practice won't expedite. Wangji has read about a handful of Wei Yings in every history of cultivation, parchment rough under palm, edges wine-soaked, blood dipped.
Moth to the flame, the mighty to their tragedy. He locks the tight beam of his gaze to Wei Ying's face, bloodless under moonlight. ]
You would be a legendary cultivator.
[ But he won't become that, and now more omissions coil dark and heady between them, like the stifling musk of Nie Huaisang's teahouse. ]
When we cross swords, don't hold back. Show me your tricks.
no subject
this feels very much like something sacred, forbidden, hidden away like a secret, and wei ying is captivated like a hunted animal under the weight of lan zhan's gaze.]
I'll show you everything I'm capable of, [he promises, the words soft against the velvet of his tongue.] All of it.
[daring, indeed, to pull lan zhan's hand to his chest, to press the man's knuckles over where his heart would be and let it stay there. it's only fair; if his core must be laid bare to lan zhan's touch, then let wei ying pull the doors wide open.]
i'll beat you. You'll dream of me when we're done.
no subject
Fire and friction and the hardships of armour will erase every ounce of this delicacy in increments. A man's fate writes itself in the body that enacts it, and Wei Ying's vessel waits to fill out to shivering brim. Cultivation would be strong within him, for all opportunity entombs it young. There is sorcery Wangji has seen that only this heart, slow but relentless, could dictate into being. Demons will remember Wei Wuxian.
No, they'll bend the knee.
Even demons submit to their master. Wangji turns away from the earnest resolution on Wei Ying's face, can't bear to remember the same eyes dead-grey. ]
Nightmare.
[ Mute, nearly just the futile smack of lips struggling to carry sound. He hates and desires nights above all else, lives for the flicker of stars above him, like the vision of a family matriarch, diffused and lost. Beneath the icy glare, Wangji's gestures are hidden, the rush of a flush when it infects his cheeks, wan. ]
Apology. I startled you.
[ Some might say accosting a man with touch unbidden and interest unannounced is — alarming. Now, Wangji's hand withdraws, and now he nods at the wine, where before — ]
Drink. Tell me anything.
[ There is no before. There will be an after. ]
no subject
it's not a game so much as it's a dance between them, where the goal is to catch the other off their footing (sweep them off their feet, sweep them away, far where eyes can't chase after them)— he yields for now. let lan zhan take his hand away. wei ying relents, sits straight, posture impeccable even as he downs a healthy gulp of liquor. it burns sweetly in the back of his throat.]
Anything at all, Lan Zhan?
[dangerous territory. so much ground to cover with that offer, and wei ying's interest soars.]
Promise you won't leave me, no matter what I say.
no subject
Good. Wangji's taste for wine is, at best, still spelled out in inexperience. Nothing to guarantee his purchase, but for coin of chroma and a short prayer. Luck guided him well this turn.
And now, luck falters. ]
No where to go.
[ To hide or flee, when he has failed for years to salvage his soul before. Chains on his back, digging their grave in bone. Stranded to crawl after Wei Wuxian, a faithful dog. ]
I pledge.
no subject
Then, I'll confess something to you, Lan Zhan.
[gently. gently. gently. wei ying leans in close, stage whispers.]
I slept naked in your bed once, while you were out.
no subject
Wangji does not leave. He pledged. Oh, he pledged, and his hands knit and knot on his lap, his eyes slant but never close. He shudders.
Then, calmly, with the grace of a thousand long departed ancestors, he returns to himself. Very well, master Wei. On manners, Wangji can depend with certainty. ]
My bed is your bed.
[ Grace, dignity, teeth without grit. He has lent Wei Wuxian his bed as their treasured guest, and so Wangji cannot begrudge the man his use of it — however poorly done. ]