( His husband, this creature of prosperous mischief, of constant, unyielding terror — he coaxes his wits and his scant possessions beside him, teasing free the first lines of his thoughts to snag them on ideas, to give shape to revelation. It is art, sooner than scholarly pursuit, a man playing with inks. Bemused, half-smiling, impossibly fond, Lan Wangji allows it, retreating to a corner where the enclave leads into the confines of a narrow restroom to address his bare ablutions. Pale smears of blood clutching his hands, his ankles. Not his own. They will want proper baths with morning, come hell or river water. )
I shall, after a river bath at dawns.
( Duty hangs heavy and well attended between them, but even Lan Wangji must prioritise certain missions of the body. He does not defend the point, sees no purpose; only starts the work of removing the whims and regalia of Hanguang-Jun, the filigree, glistened gift of the guan his husband purchased him from this strange, new world. So much of him is no better than a spoiled concubine, now: before, the kept son of a foremost sect. Now, the spoiled soulmate of a man of better means. How fates twine and turn.
He returns, all but two of his silk layers dismissed and packaged, chicken haughtily paddling behind him, only the click of its claws and Lan Wangji's bare heels announcing their presence. In the dim, smokey haze of their quarters, he narrows his gaze to retrace the outline of Wei Ying's shape, the beautiful garden of his bones.
And stills, instead of the typical negotiation of intimacies that fastens so much of their nightly interaction, settling on — eyes, watching from behind their warded, barred doors. A spiderweb of them, eyes and eyes and eyes behind Wei Ying, fierce and feline and unblinking, pupils slim spears or suns blown. )
...Wei Ying. ( And the eye-web all at once nictates with membranes like galaxies bursting into deathliness, blinks away and dissipates, and in its wake lies only a clever mist of cloying, dark malice.
He staggers, mouth dry and face drawn, and in him a quiet certainty that what he has seen now was only for his eyes to withstand. A quiet collapse, back on the cold spread of their bed, beside Wei Ying — catching his hand without preamble, a shiver still subduing him. )
I do not think it best we part. I fear what dark design here wants you.
no subject
( His husband, this creature of prosperous mischief, of constant, unyielding terror — he coaxes his wits and his scant possessions beside him, teasing free the first lines of his thoughts to snag them on ideas, to give shape to revelation. It is art, sooner than scholarly pursuit, a man playing with inks. Bemused, half-smiling, impossibly fond, Lan Wangji allows it, retreating to a corner where the enclave leads into the confines of a narrow restroom to address his bare ablutions. Pale smears of blood clutching his hands, his ankles. Not his own. They will want proper baths with morning, come hell or river water. )
I shall, after a river bath at dawns.
( Duty hangs heavy and well attended between them, but even Lan Wangji must prioritise certain missions of the body. He does not defend the point, sees no purpose; only starts the work of removing the whims and regalia of Hanguang-Jun, the filigree, glistened gift of the guan his husband purchased him from this strange, new world. So much of him is no better than a spoiled concubine, now: before, the kept son of a foremost sect. Now, the spoiled soulmate of a man of better means. How fates twine and turn.
He returns, all but two of his silk layers dismissed and packaged, chicken haughtily paddling behind him, only the click of its claws and Lan Wangji's bare heels announcing their presence. In the dim, smokey haze of their quarters, he narrows his gaze to retrace the outline of Wei Ying's shape, the beautiful garden of his bones.
And stills, instead of the typical negotiation of intimacies that fastens so much of their nightly interaction, settling on — eyes, watching from behind their warded, barred doors. A spiderweb of them, eyes and eyes and eyes behind Wei Ying, fierce and feline and unblinking, pupils slim spears or suns blown. )
...Wei Ying. ( And the eye-web all at once nictates with membranes like galaxies bursting into deathliness, blinks away and dissipates, and in its wake lies only a clever mist of cloying, dark malice.
He staggers, mouth dry and face drawn, and in him a quiet certainty that what he has seen now was only for his eyes to withstand. A quiet collapse, back on the cold spread of their bed, beside Wei Ying — catching his hand without preamble, a shiver still subduing him. )
I do not think it best we part. I fear what dark design here wants you.