[texting post]

[laughitoff]

Wei Wuxian 魏无羡
22 / M / Hell

THE FEARSOME YILING PATRIARCH! DRIVING EVIL FROM YOUR DOOR WITH A GREATER EVIL! LOVES MILD FOOD, CUTE PUPPIES, LONG WALKS IN THE BURIAL MOUNDS AND KILLING ALL YOUR LOVED ONES!

<span style="font-family:century gothic,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ScI5Hsw.png" style="height:20px;margin:0 5px -4px 0;"><b style="color:#e75480;">YOUR NAME</b> got horribly cursed by Wei Wuxian!</span> CURSE

<lj-raw><span style="font-family:century gothic,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/P3gZl1b.png" style="height:20px;margin:0 5px -4px 0;"> <b style="color:#e75480;">YOUR NAME</b> declared Wei Wuxian a heretic! <blockquote style="border-left:5px solid #ddd;padding:0 0 0 10px;"> Message_content </blockquote></span></lj-raw> DENOUNCE

<span style="font-family:century gothic,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/w2B4FYG.png" style="height:20px;margin:0 5px -4px 0;"><b style="color:#e75480;">YOUR NAME</b> challenged Wei Wuxian to a duel!</span> FIGHT

CODE BY

Comments

[laughitoff]

[finally, completely airless:]

I can't tell you.

[strikingchords]

[quietly shifts to gather him even further in, closing his eyes again; presses his lips against Wei Wuxian's hair. his voice is even and quiet too, a little rough]

All right.

[there is a deep ache of empathy behind those words. it's not disappointment or anger or upset at Wei Wuxian, but something more like the gutpunch shock and then moment of acceptance when you find a mirror somewhere you did not expect to see yourself.]

[laughitoff]

[fuck

he is very quiet after that, but for his hitching breath; shaken all the way through.]

[strikingchords]

[his mouth lingers on Wei Wuxian's crown, on his forehead; wrapped around him internally and externally, waiting patiently for that peak of emotion to ease. so steady.]

[laughitoff]

[it takes a long time. he feels exhausted afterwards, and...puzzled that the world hasn't ended, honestly.]

[strikingchords]

[he knows past plausible deniability now that Lan Wangji knows something, if not details; Lan Wangji knows he knows, and Wei Wuxian knows that in turn. but here he is, being cuddled calmly, face still mushed into Lan Wangji's shoulder...

???????????????

he feels Lan Wangji's eyes on him again, without that ravenous intensity of searching for something. he's just looking to visually confirm that Wei Wuxian's relaxing some. also kind of tired, soft, familiar; concerned without unbearable worry, as someone who cared about him would reasonably be concerned.]

[laughitoff]

[he's relaxing mostly because it's impossible for his body to stay keyed up permanently, but regardless of reason, it is happening

thank you and I'm sorry, he thinks but does not say.]

[strikingchords]

[he feels some of that, maybe; shifts them a bit so they can look at each other again]

[laughitoff]

[he still looks stricken.]

[strikingchords]

[he is not really hurting in a way that bites at him any more, not even with sympathetic pain. he's balanced himself, as he always does, his habitual gravity swinging the pendulum of his distress back to that steady core. perspective aches but doesn't hurt to have, in the end.

...

he cups Wei Wuxian's face in both hands again and leans their foreheads together. Magolor does this to him whenever he's upset, he thinks.

then he moves one hand further, presses his fingers over Wei Wuxian's mouth. don't speak. don't reply to what I will say.

softly]

Wei Ying. Your recklessness angered me in Jiangling.

You seemed to heal slowly.

[laughitoff]

[his lips work against Lan Wangji's finger, just a little; he does not speak, transfixed, his nerves still electric underneath the muddling weariness. he is dully surprised. Jiangling was a long time ago.]

[strikingchords]

[he presses his palm more firmly over Wei Wuxian's mouth. watching him levelly, still entirely soft and serious; he is speaking, not accusing]

You abandoned Suibian. Your spiritual energy faltered in Yiling. Again, later.

[laughitoff]

[he closes his mouth.]

[strikingchords]

[those were facts; easy to recount. now he is come to the reason he is saying this, and he is struggling.]

Others did not notice. Not enough information. I do not guess. I look.

[Wei Wuxian can feel the resistance in him, the weary strained impossibility of putting something so big into words, of folding his heart down into a small enough package. if he relied on himself or others being able to express themselves through words all the time to love or be loved, he would be so poor in it.

he does not feel that he is, though. perhaps he will never learn what stays unsaid, but if he expects others to know him by what he does instead of what comes out of his mouth, he must and will do the same for them. he must and will say as much now to make it easier for Wei Wuxian, since he's the one who can't say the words this time.]

Speech is unnecessary. You are who I see.

[laughitoff]

[he reaches up and folds his hands carefully around Lan Wangji's wrists. he's not trying to remove his hands, or pull away. he is anchoring himself, in a way. something is stirring in him, some unnameable emotion left when all the fear gives way and collapses on itself, like detritus on the shore, jagged and aching. it is hard to be known. it is hard to be seen.

he could stop it at any point; close the bond and leave and walk out of any room with Lan Wangji in it again, keep his secret unsaid if not safe, keep himself from the possibility of it ever being said. and yet. and yet, he looks back, and he wants--

he wants.]

[strikingchords]

[finally loosens his hand on Wei Wuxian's mouth, to curl his fingers around his wrists in turn]

[laughitoff]

[at last, forcing the words from his throat]

The Core-Melting Hand was part of the spearhead of the invasion force that took Lotus Pier.

That's all.

[strikingchords]

[genuinely shocked that he said anything at all, after Lan Wangji said it was fine not to

then he's just, shocked. goes still, processing that, eyes wide]

[laughitoff]

[lowers their joined hands and casts his eyes down, no longer able to meet Lan Wangji's]

[strikingchords]

[he reels and hurts and steadies again. he could have put it together, he thinks dully. he saw Wen Zhuliu in that dream of Wei Wuxian's.

lets a long breath out, the air trickling between his teeth]

[laughitoff]

[he hurts inside, worse than when Lan Wangji brought up home and living together, the barbed spike of this truth twisting in his guts for the first time in years]

...

[strikingchords]

[he thinks of the ghost the other Wei Wuxian made of himself. he thinks again of Wei Wuxian inventing demonic cultivation in the Burial Mounds, bereft and determined to survive even after he'd resigned himself to death. he thinks of him trying to fool the sects all those years, surely alone -- there's no way Jiang Cheng could have hidden awareness of this. he thinks of Wei Wuxian winning the Sunshot Campaign for them. he thinks of Wei Wuxian trying to live after, pushing away Lan Wangji in anger at his projected fears, his denial of what the resentful energy is doing to him whipped to a fever pitch by the need to keep this secret. he thinks of him trying to save the Wens anyway.

he aches, and aches, and feels the fierce sorrowful pride of it. Wei Wuxian failed and fell, and Lan Wangji will never approve of his actions. but Wei Ying is so much more than the sum of his failures, and the more Lan Wangji sees the less he can look away.]

[strikingchords]

[lifts both their joined hands back to Wei Wuxian's face and kisses him about it]

[laughitoff]

[he doesn't cry, this time, but his mouth is soft and trembling under Lan Wangji's; he doesn't understand. he doesn't understand why Lan Wangji wants to keep looking at him.]

[strikingchords]

[all Lan Wangji can think to do about it is to kiss him until that uncertainty goes out of his head temporarily, or at least try... coaxing but urgent, wanting that, wanting Wei Wuxian to feel how much Lan Wangji wants for even a moment]