[ jiang cheng touches him, grips his shoulder in solidarity and gives voice to a thing wei wuxian has tried, time and again, to free his shidi of. the bondage of his madness should not touch jiang cheng, who is already so deeply pained by his losses and his furious grief, yet here he is all the same -- saying such thing as we could and warming him with the brush of his palm. his own hands lift, cupping around jiang cheng's hand now, fingers against the arch of wristbone, thumb set along his palm as he moved and manipulates that hand to hold it against his face.

quiet, pressed in against his shidi's hand with the aura of a once-beloved animal slowly giving in to sickness. he has enough mind to recognize the hand that has fed and loved him, but parts of him want to set his teeth into the meat of it and force jiang cheng away from the burial mounds, away from him - to save him from having to watch the way wei wuxian will waste away and rot. ]

Those too-clever foxes in the Tower wants us to marry, for you to be my husband - for all of my assets to become yours, for you to collar me legally and make a kept thing of me and prevent me from threatening their rise. You and I know it well, what they're up to. But, they could give so much to the Lotus Pier, if you do this - you could have so much, and it'd be foolish to decline. The fact that I'm a man, like you, has no bearing on such a thing.

[ he practically coos the words, stepping closer to jiang cheng; fingers on the small braid along one side of his head ]

I'm asking you not to speak with your pride, Jiang Cheng: would you want to marry me, if you weren't being told to? I just want to know where we stand, before we inevitably agree to their terms. They've got us pinned down, using shijie and her happiness against us, tch...