( Scars carried outwardly or inwardly, most everyone had them. The longer they lived, the more they accumulated. How well they healed, if they did at all, was another matter entirely.
They were both collections of their own scars, mentally and emotionally. Jiang Cheng even made sure to leave new ones that Wei Wuxian cared no little or more than he did past ones, from the same source; some fates are inevitable, one might say.
Self-blame is something they can both be good at, and it's powerfully difficult to break away from. That he'd throw himself under a cart to try and make it up goes without saying, as is the fact he's learning that isn't the best way of handling things.
So what to say?
He clucks his tongue, blinks his eyes, breathes in through a tight chest. Let's Jiang Cheng pull away, as if he could ever really stop him. )
No. Failing would have never been coming at all. Where would we have been then?
( He'll spell it out if he must, but he hopes he doesn't need to. He didn't have Chenqing without Jiang Cheng having held onto and then returned the flute intact. Sixteen years of that, and then some. His own rough and slowly better carved bamboo flute had just been shot and he had nothing but his voice, and the control that was needed, that saved lives later, came because he had the right tool.
Given to him by someone who had made no bones about his disappointments with him. Bonds truly are hard to break, ah? That aches, too. )
Jiang Cheng, aren't you the one who just said it to me? We can't decide to face everything alone. Bear every burden alone. People are stronger for working together, aren't they? Think back, tell me how A-Ling was saved in the temple.
( Don't tell him how all those other deaths are ones he carries on his shoulders, not the sole cause of, but always inextricably the excuse. In Yanli's case, also the sole reason. She would never have been there if he hadn't gone looking for her first; to this day, he has no idea how she ran all that distance, tired and distraught as she was, disinclined toward so much of cultivation. But of course she had.
And she'd died sparing him a death he then sought not five minutes later. )
yeah, the whole of it is so hard...
They were both collections of their own scars, mentally and emotionally. Jiang Cheng even made sure to leave new ones that Wei Wuxian cared no little or more than he did past ones, from the same source; some fates are inevitable, one might say.
Self-blame is something they can both be good at, and it's powerfully difficult to break away from. That he'd throw himself under a cart to try and make it up goes without saying, as is the fact he's learning that isn't the best way of handling things.
So what to say?
He clucks his tongue, blinks his eyes, breathes in through a tight chest. Let's Jiang Cheng pull away, as if he could ever really stop him. )
No. Failing would have never been coming at all. Where would we have been then?
( He'll spell it out if he must, but he hopes he doesn't need to. He didn't have Chenqing without Jiang Cheng having held onto and then returned the flute intact. Sixteen years of that, and then some. His own rough and slowly better carved bamboo flute had just been shot and he had nothing but his voice, and the control that was needed, that saved lives later, came because he had the right tool.
Given to him by someone who had made no bones about his disappointments with him. Bonds truly are hard to break, ah? That aches, too. )
Jiang Cheng, aren't you the one who just said it to me? We can't decide to face everything alone. Bear every burden alone. People are stronger for working together, aren't they? Think back, tell me how A-Ling was saved in the temple.
( Don't tell him how all those other deaths are ones he carries on his shoulders, not the sole cause of, but always inextricably the excuse. In Yanli's case, also the sole reason. She would never have been there if he hadn't gone looking for her first; to this day, he has no idea how she ran all that distance, tired and distraught as she was, disinclined toward so much of cultivation. But of course she had.
And she'd died sparing him a death he then sought not five minutes later. )