含光君

continued from here It was agonizing, really. There were plenty of things that could go wrong. Lan Zhan could miss the hastily scribbled note. He could, potentially not read the chicken scratch, which, in hindsight, was entirely preventable. There were rules, there was sheer business, there was– There was Lan Zhan!  Hardly able to keep himself quiet, Wei Ying covered his mouth with both hands as he observed from his perch. Closer… Closer– ah. Lan Zhan looked… stricken. Something about it tugged at his heart. Not that he dwelt on it for long. Once his target was nice and settled, Wei Ying pulled a petal from his bag and sent it on its way, drifting gently down in front of his victim, to catch his attention.  Then, the entire pile descended upon Lan Zhan in a cascade of pink.  @heavensbright

The unusual heavy creak of an overhead branch catches his attention, drawing his eyes skyward only a moment before the fusillade of pale pink blossoms descend upon him like a first snow. The corner of his mouth manages a lopsided, knowing sort of smile, though his eyes glitter with a particular pleasure that only Wei Ying seems able to elicit. 

He holds out a hand and catches a blossom in the palm of his hand, protected immediately within the curl of his long fingers. Instinctively, he cradles his hand to his heart, making a mental note to find a way to preserve it later. There are far too many things he wishes he could remember, which the limitations of memory had failed to retain. And so he clings to everything with a stubborn incongruity, a defiance of that sad oblivion.

@tiaowu-han​

Lan Zhan’s eyes peruse the hastily-scribbled contents upon the piece of parchment in his hand. He would have known the author even if he’d elected not to sign his name at the end. There’s a devilish sort of character to the writing that looks careless upon first glance, but to Lan Zhan only imparts an sense of impetuousness that inexplicably thrills him. 

He wonders if he oughtn’t wait. At least for a quarter of an hour or so. So as not to seem too eager. In spite of the indelicate canter of his heart, and the restlessness of his fingertips that fold and unfurl, over and again, without need, but not without cause. 

When he finally allows himself the leisure of the pursuit of that cherry tree, every step he takes, mitigated in their excitation, feels excruciating for how much he wants to race up that hill to find him. The cherry tree stands alone, bereft of the sight he’s waited to long to see. There is no Wei Wuxian to be found.

He lays his hand on the trunk of the tree, frowning lightly for how deeply he is disappointed, and for how crestfallen he finds himself at the inexplicable anticlimax. A short, sharp sigh through his nose, and he resigns himself to wait. 

meme.

❛ are you drunk? ❜ (from Lan Xichen)

@baijingshen​

The question could hardly sound like reproach upon such a delicate timber as his brother’s. And yet it does, to a culpable heart. Lan Zhan thinks to respond, but words come even less lithe when his tongue is thick with an Emperor’s Smile.

His fingers unfurl and the iron drops to the floor with a clang. A distraction as he pulls his robe closed to hide the brand that burns upon his skin. At least that might be secret and sacred to him. Another wound to tend that he might actually be able to heal.

Slowly, he turns to face his brother, anguish carved upon a face that has always remained unperturbed by any excitation. Lan Zhan sinks to the floor upon his knees, his gaze unfocused as he looks upon Lan Xichen and beyond him, both. “I have broken the rules,” he whispers, to circumvent the inevitable crack in his voice, the waver within it, and the rue. “You must punish me accordingly.”

meme.

❛ please don’t go. ❜

@antivillained​

He busies himself with the captivation of tending to those present and still living. Of course, Wei Wuxian waves him away first, a relief to the man who feels as though his heart might finally consume itself in its own immolation that Wei Wuxian stokes with every breath, every second of nearness that he haunts Lan Zhan with. He examines everyone’s wounds and scrapes a little too closely, checking their pulses for any imbalances a little too long. Anything to give him a moment’s stay before he must resign himself to Wei Wuxian’s side. 

But it is, in fact, an inevitability that he drifts to his side, called to him by the draw of his own heart. Sits upon the stairs alongside him. And waits in disheartened silence. There is a terror to endings that inhabits him to the deepest crevices of his soul. That endings are forever, and goodbyes will be, too. And even when Wei Wuxian’s pulling at his sleeves to scramble to his feet, catching him firmly by the wrist to lead him through the labyrinthine safety of the city streets to where Little Apple waits within the outskirts, Lan Zhan’s heart thunders with the foreboding of a storm’s brontide that this is all prelude to the dread that is sure to come.

And when Wei Wuxian fails to release Lan Zhan’s wrists, looks upon him with a poignant melancholy … Lan Zhan almost tells him he needn’t say a word. 

“Please don’t go,” comes the quiet plea, as unexpected as lenity often is. 

Lan Zhan’s eyes widen, question brimming in his pale eyes. 

But Wei Wuxian only laughs, looks away as one reproached. His hand reaches to scratch nervously upon the nape of his neck as his eyes focus a little too intently on Little Apple. As if he’s planning how he might escape this moment’s mortification.

So Lan Zhan reaches for him. Fingers brush the hair from his temple, caress the curve of his head until his fingertips press into the nape of Wei Wuxian’s neck and draw him close. “No. Say it again,” he demands softly, their foreheads now pressed together so closely the tips of their noses almost touch. 

Another abashed laugh from Wei Wuxian, but he answers obediently after a theatrical pause. “Don’t go,” he says, this time like a command that he knows Lan Zhan is more than happy to fulfill. 

How many times had Lan Zhan wondered how different their lives might have been, if only Wei Wuxian had asked this of him. He can think of a thousand moments that might have been ameliorated because of it. But there are musings of a man who is forced to ruminate about the ruination of possibilities. Now, he is a man who understands the honey-sweet pleasure of repletion. 

meme

WangCheng + 5. things you didn’t say at all (🥺)

@baijingshen​​

“I’m returning to Yunmeng.” Jiang Cheng’s voice resounds within the Jingshi, as dark, as foreboding as censure. 

Lan Zhan’s eyes remain upon the scroll in his hand, though the words written upon it grow indistinct with his distraction of that declarative. The silence draws longer, and he knows he must respond. React in some way that is seemly. But the announcement is spoken with a coldness like an affront. And he is not blind to the implications. 

The brush in his hand is laid to rest, the scroll closed, hands folded neatly together before he dares to raise his eyes to meet Jiang Cheng’s accusive gaze. He knows that he’s leaving because he feels no reason to stay. He knows that with the advent of Lan Zhan's erstwhile lover, things would be different. And they are. 

Different, but not so dire as he imagines. 

Lan Zhan’s lips part in prelude to the grace he wishes upon him, but words fail him as they always do. He was not endowed with the elegance of speech his brother possesses. A fact that he rues and regrets only in moments of import, when the pain of his heart can only claw silently at his insides and wish the gods for even a pearl of proficiency or profundity of speech.

How can he tell Jiang Cheng, how his heart goes with him? How the hollow of his chest will remain untenanted until he returns to him again? How every breath he must take without him by his side feels choked and strained, like glass within his lungs, without the balm of his companionship? 

Romantics will say that the first cut is the deepest. But wise ones will always cherish the ones who have mended the rents in their fractured hearts. Jiang Cheng will always be the triumph of hope over experience. The attestation of a future of possibility as bright as a winter’s sun, that Lan Zhan could never have imagined after losing Wei Ying.

They belong at each other’s sides. Like threads of twine, they’re stronger together. But he cannot prevent his own lacking, as a cultivation partner. And certainly beyond that as a lover. So he cannot fault the dissipation of Jiang Cheng’s attachment, of the affection that recedes like a tide and draws every remnant of lingering hope with it. 

Lan Zhan swallows down his sorrow like a stone. The twine must unravel eventually. But he can at least subdue whatever disappointment surfaces upon his features and smiles as benignly as he can.