( Wei Wuxian might have been sadly amused at how similar they still are, even in how sometimes death seems like the escape, and what holds them to life is cradled in a child's hand. Or in another living person's belief in them, despite the rest of the world.
Not that he's hit that rock bottom again, after the time he fell back off that cliff in Nightless City, having brought the dawn. It doesn't change the fact that once, Wei Wuxian chose death over living. Once, and never again, even if by means he'll never understand, he did not in fact die.
The truth is, looking up at the man he'd called brother for most all his remembered life, in the face of his tears, in the room before complicated parents and a phenomenal sister who had deserved more than what the world had given her in her too short brilliance, he doesn't know what to say. Tears like these distress him, make him want to fix it, leave his eyes heating up and tears threatening and then fattening at the corners of his blinking eyes, beginning their fall with no solutions rearing their heads.
Maybe he should just get himself kicked out (again) sooner rather than later. He pushes up to his feet, pausing, everything is an act of considered deliberation and allowance, and he doesn't know how much of Jiang Cheng's he has. )
Yeah, I am.
( An idiot for the things he cares about; for the people who had defined his world. One he'd believed would respond to righteousness in broad moral considerations, not in political plays, when he'd been younger. When he'd thought keeping quiet on a mountain might have been enough to save them all.
Turns out, he was always going to be someone's collateral damage.
May as well decide to be his own.
He reaches out, throat thick, swallowing, breaking into a smile that is truly breaking, because some things needed time to be found again between the pressure of their temple entrapment and his dismissal that their past is the past. It is, and they need to stride forward, but to leave it like this again and again, is that wise?
Is it what Yanli would have advised? )
So are you, Jiang Cheng.
( No bite to it, no particular hint of witticism, only a shared helplessness in acknowledging that truth: they both have their failings, and bright as he had ever seemed, it had not been Wei Wuxian who had raised a nephew, run a sect, and run off tearing into every hint of who he'd lost for explanations and apologies Wei Wuxian hadn't felt he deserved to fumble through making when they'd finally faced each other again.
What he does do, not before their predecessors, but before Jiang Yanli, is step forward, the awkward collection of his angles and his inability to understand comfort, how even to accept affection without hesitating, seemingly lost each time he's been held onto in the past, too slow to hold back before the moment's past—Wei Wuxian, a half wreck Jiang Cheng could break with one finger, were he so inclined, finally returns what he'd been unable to when he'd first come out of the Burial Grounds. He embraces his once-upon-a-brother, because it's what Yanli would have done. It's what Jiang Cheng has done, because he's always been more honest in actions than Wei Wuxian has known how to be, and he can learn from a shadow of Jiang Cheng's past just as well as from the reality of the present. Speaks from a tight and slightly nasally voice, chest constricted with a slurry of emotions he doesn't pin down. Think too hard, and he'll freeze up, try to laugh it off, fall back on every deflective habit he's had across two lifetimes. )
We're both idiots, and I missed you.
( Because if he's going to end up burning himself with this, he can at least do so knowing he has, for once, been honest. Not just in a way he thinks that Jiang Cheng can survive.
His once-upon-a-brother had always been stronger than he believed himself to be, and it had long since stopped being Wei Wuxian's luxury to think anything he did was to protect him, to think that family is family and he owed his everything to making sure his never knew the extent of what he was willing to do for them unasked and (perhaps, of course, inevitably) uninvited. )
the untamed: where how much a sword or flute was shaking indicated emotion more than their words
Not that he's hit that rock bottom again, after the time he fell back off that cliff in Nightless City, having brought the dawn. It doesn't change the fact that once, Wei Wuxian chose death over living. Once, and never again, even if by means he'll never understand, he did not in fact die.
The truth is, looking up at the man he'd called brother for most all his remembered life, in the face of his tears, in the room before complicated parents and a phenomenal sister who had deserved more than what the world had given her in her too short brilliance, he doesn't know what to say. Tears like these distress him, make him want to fix it, leave his eyes heating up and tears threatening and then fattening at the corners of his blinking eyes, beginning their fall with no solutions rearing their heads.
Maybe he should just get himself kicked out (again) sooner rather than later. He pushes up to his feet, pausing, everything is an act of considered deliberation and allowance, and he doesn't know how much of Jiang Cheng's he has. )
Yeah, I am.
( An idiot for the things he cares about; for the people who had defined his world. One he'd believed would respond to righteousness in broad moral considerations, not in political plays, when he'd been younger. When he'd thought keeping quiet on a mountain might have been enough to save them all.
Turns out, he was always going to be someone's collateral damage.
May as well decide to be his own.
He reaches out, throat thick, swallowing, breaking into a smile that is truly breaking, because some things needed time to be found again between the pressure of their temple entrapment and his dismissal that their past is the past. It is, and they need to stride forward, but to leave it like this again and again, is that wise?
Is it what Yanli would have advised? )
So are you, Jiang Cheng.
( No bite to it, no particular hint of witticism, only a shared helplessness in acknowledging that truth: they both have their failings, and bright as he had ever seemed, it had not been Wei Wuxian who had raised a nephew, run a sect, and run off tearing into every hint of who he'd lost for explanations and apologies Wei Wuxian hadn't felt he deserved to fumble through making when they'd finally faced each other again.
What he does do, not before their predecessors, but before Jiang Yanli, is step forward, the awkward collection of his angles and his inability to understand comfort, how even to accept affection without hesitating, seemingly lost each time he's been held onto in the past, too slow to hold back before the moment's past—Wei Wuxian, a half wreck Jiang Cheng could break with one finger, were he so inclined, finally returns what he'd been unable to when he'd first come out of the Burial Grounds. He embraces his once-upon-a-brother, because it's what Yanli would have done. It's what Jiang Cheng has done, because he's always been more honest in actions than Wei Wuxian has known how to be, and he can learn from a shadow of Jiang Cheng's past just as well as from the reality of the present. Speaks from a tight and slightly nasally voice, chest constricted with a slurry of emotions he doesn't pin down. Think too hard, and he'll freeze up, try to laugh it off, fall back on every deflective habit he's had across two lifetimes. )
We're both idiots, and I missed you.
( Because if he's going to end up burning himself with this, he can at least do so knowing he has, for once, been honest. Not just in a way he thinks that Jiang Cheng can survive.
His once-upon-a-brother had always been stronger than he believed himself to be, and it had long since stopped being Wei Wuxian's luxury to think anything he did was to protect him, to think that family is family and he owed his everything to making sure his never knew the extent of what he was willing to do for them unasked and (perhaps, of course, inevitably) uninvited. )