[ when wei wuxian undresses, loosening the folds of his robes - when he holds up the broken jagged half of the tiger seal before his eyes, jiang cheng has only one thought.
a stranger.
a strange creature, perhaps, staring at him from out of what had been his brother. it is a monster who gazes back, an unseemly, unearthly thing that is not who he knows wei wuxian to be.
he had always been the scorching midsummer heat and the cool of the river water. he had been as ripened fruits hanging heavily in the trees for them to pick - he had been such things as everything is bright and warm and good, to jiang cheng, and he cannot remember the days without the other at his side, behind him, warm like the very sun that hangs upon the sky.
now, it is like some shadowy ghost that he presents himself to him; he is the dying light of the dusk, the red glow of bonfires stretched across blood soaked fields. he is some sickly creature that has hidden itself deep within these mountains to wait out his time of death.
but jiang cheng will not let him.
call it childish, call it selfish if you will, but he had always held onto the idea deep within him - that one day, he could restore everything that had been taken from him. that he could have everything the same as it had been before. yunmeng jiang, for all its lacklustre withering, has been rebuilt to the smallest panel, to every detail he could remember. all it needs, all he needs is -
his hand closes about the other's. the air around them wavers hot and hazy, nauseating in the sudden turns, but his grip does not waver. ]
I do.
[ jiang cheng had, and always have, been the one with the softer heart, the one who feels the most and for longest.
he breathes out - soft and secret, and it feels less like the promises of old. it feels like a pact, like some contract with a power he does not fully understand, and he tilts his head - he leans up, to briefly press their foreheads together, their lashes almost touching. ]
no subject
a stranger.
a strange creature, perhaps, staring at him from out of what had been his brother. it is a monster who gazes back, an unseemly, unearthly thing that is not who he knows wei wuxian to be.
he had always been the scorching midsummer heat and the cool of the river water. he had been as ripened fruits hanging heavily in the trees for them to pick - he had been such things as everything is bright and warm and good, to jiang cheng, and he cannot remember the days without the other at his side, behind him, warm like the very sun that hangs upon the sky.
now, it is like some shadowy ghost that he presents himself to him; he is the dying light of the dusk, the red glow of bonfires stretched across blood soaked fields. he is some sickly creature that has hidden itself deep within these mountains to wait out his time of death.
but jiang cheng will not let him.
call it childish, call it selfish if you will, but he had always held onto the idea deep within him - that one day, he could restore everything that had been taken from him. that he could have everything the same as it had been before. yunmeng jiang, for all its lacklustre withering, has been rebuilt to the smallest panel, to every detail he could remember. all it needs, all he needs is -
his hand closes about the other's. the air around them wavers hot and hazy, nauseating in the sudden turns, but his grip does not waver. ]
I do.
[ jiang cheng had, and always have, been the one with the softer heart, the one who feels the most and for longest.
he breathes out - soft and secret, and it feels less like the promises of old. it feels like a pact, like some contract with a power he does not fully understand, and he tilts his head - he leans up, to briefly press their foreheads together, their lashes almost touching. ]
I will.