jiang cheng (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
consignation) wrote2021-08-09 06:13 pm
consignation) wrote2021-08-09 06:13 pm
eastbound inbox
jiang wanyin
missives | encounters
jiang wanyin
missives | encounters
jiang wanyin
missives | encounters
jiang wanyin
missives | encounters
no subject
( In Eidris, where gilded mouldings battle fungal drip, there is the exhilaration of bated breath, of magic and wait and wonder. Here, he greets Jiang Cheng under ceilings that stretch like bloated ribcages and groan, and he feels himself gently torn apart, flesh from bone, masticated and spewed before his brother-in-law in humble pour. Parts of him do not recognise the whole.
Wine of the land glimmers dark, overtly fermented. When Lan Wangji pulls his sleeve back, wrist over fold, it spills like viscera in native glasses fashioned too tall, as if their throats want chokehold. He hesitates, lingers over the half-pour, considers the gains of performative generosity against the costs of splintered aesthetic and decides, in the end, Jiang Wanyin may wet his lips and beg mouthfuls further.
It scratches him, honest back bowed and the stiffness of his wrists making tension learned, lax — anticipation like paralysis, like poison. Then, finally, sliding the glass onward towards Jiang Cheng over the lacquered low table, before binding his hands in the traditional bow — lower than rank commands of a chief cultivator, low enough to appease uncle during fit-spells of frenzy: )
I thank your gift, of which I am unworthy.
no subject
(has wei wuxian ever been at his side? the years spent as children feel distant, dimming, like the departure of a dream.)
this land is senseless, as is wei wuxian's presence, as is lan wangji's goals and motivations. they are all adrift, unbridled, untethered. without clans, duty, or obligation. they answer to nothing and no one but their now self-imposed rules, and jiang cheng does not understand the lengths to which wangji will go for a blessing he does not need.
is wei wuxian forcing him to have it granted?
all of it makes his head hurt, and he should just make it clear he has no involvement and step back from the mess.
he should, he would step back, but there is a great yawning nothingness behind him and before him there is only wei wuxian. how will jiang cheng sustain himself on nothing, not even his father's sect, his sister's child. will zidian alone and the memory of his mother's merciless love keep him putting one foot before the other?
every day since the burning of lotus pier, he has been in danger of stopping.
it could have been him on the cliff, but for his father's sect, his sister's child, his mother's brutal devotion.
there, home, even when jiang cheng had nothing, he had the demands of his obligations dragging him on bloody feet to an empty future.
here, this is all he has.
this thing he has stolen, this thing that everyone accepts to be his but is not, has never been.
this thing lan wangji now asks of him
he knocks back the contents of the cup, wishing it poison, then sets it back down—hard—against the table while wangji is still bent prone. ]
Save it, [ he sniffs, the implicit insult burning far worse than the cheap wine. ] Pretending you actually respect me isn't going to get you anywhere.
no subject
( Here. This anger. Like dusk wilting, a breeze stoking to storm and dispersing dust from trodden road paths, in its wake. The nature of Jiang Cheng is liquorice, wooden and earthy, a medicinal quality covered in cloying sweetness. On another mouth, his grimace might reveal bloodied, animal teeth. Wearing another's name, his fury might be handsome.
Jiang Cheng drinks. Later, pallor of his lips unstitching for a paltry, muted gasp, Lan Wangji will remember this: that Jiang Cheng honoured his cup, wet of his mouth a glistened crown that rings the glass rim in blinks of brightness. Slow silence stretches out, like smear of ink in water's rippled play.
Unbidden, Lan Wangji reaches for his sleeve — and rolls it, as fishwives do, over the wrist once, then again, and tight-bound. He will serve today, more than the fickly whim of a single, incipient pour. Already, he begins the second.
When he raises the glass between two broken, fumbling hands, it's to a height undue — not the level of Jiang Cheng's chest, so Wangji might bow again, bearing his gift. But lower, in stalwart alignment with Jiang Cheng's gifted golden core, where the cut of Lan Wangji's gaze snags, unflinching. The moment feels feverish, slow-billowed. Lan Wangi's mouth barely parts, dry. He croaks out: )
He has bound you better than I can divide. ( Not, at times, for want of effort. ) I must ask one half for the privilege to care for the other.
no subject
he snatches up the offered cup, fuming, alcohol spilling over both their hands as their fingers brush. drinking it in one gulp, he slams the cup down again and this time reaches for the bottle himself. he has no words, only action, only this, the hot coals in his throat he cannot swallow and his increasing disorientation.
he pours in wangji's own dry cup, clumsily, the vessel overfull. he pushes it at the other like an act of violence, uncertain what his rage is even for. he can only ever turn it outward, savaging family, friend, and foe, even when the only person who has wronged him is himself. ]
And what will you do once you have him? What ties to me will remain?
no subject
( Wine vinegared, acerbic. It reeks of wet residue where damp persists in moulding wood and of paint shrapnel, peeling. He watches it settle into the shape of itself in the cup Jiang Cheng sets before him, a thing of heft deciding its gravity. The moment feels syncopated, unmoored, at once organic and irrational. Like the growth of a plant deprived of its optimal soil, survival written in its irregularities.
He cannot breathe. It steals his breath, scratches each inhalation. )
For sixteen years, I had his child. Jiang Wanyin, his core.
( Loving or unknowing, what difference? Each a custodian of the Yiling Patriarch's foremost remains. If there is one who might begrudge them, it should be Wen Qionglin, in this — denied even the crumbs and tatters of his long lost master. Not they.
Beneath the taut arc of Jiang Cheng's knees, hard wood cleaves in cracks and veins. Wangji cannot look away. Cannot help but see a constellation of them as a bloodied mouth, gaping. That day, when Wei Ying fell down — )
I wonder what it is we still left to divide between us. How far we must husk and break him, piecemeal, before we are satisfied.
( This limb, that touch, this strength, that pledge. They can butcher the whole into parts. Huntsmen achieve it, willing. Find the bone, force the joint, push. Force is the great denominator. Pressure kills. ) I cannot unmake him your brother. I have tried.
( Do not lie, his hands rounding the cup, trembled when they carry it. To ignore the gift of it is to spit once more in Jiang Cheng's face, and Wangji tires of boiling the blood between them? )
Do you anticipate, if I drag him before my dead or to my bed, that war will be won?
( When he drinks, it's stubborn heat, burning. Alcohol singes the foundation of his gums, seeks out bone. He swallows, and forces his mouth open again, and at the last moment, shielding the cup behind the veil of his sleeve, nearly teeters in imbalance. )
I have lost.
( And so he surrenders. )
no subject
accusations of violence against wei wuxian, of having him drawn and quartered in heart, in spirit, over this perceived feud between lover and brother. who started it? who carries it on? there should be more than enough room for both, unquestioningly, in wei wuxian's life. but here lan wangji sits, pushing, pulling, admitting defeat to a war of unspoken stakes and undefined spoils. ]
Your mind, maybe, [ jiang cheng mutters, rolling his eyes as he fills his own cup, sloppy, sloshing cheap wine across the table. he waits for access to wangji's cup and fills it the same. ]
What does he want, anyway? Do you even know?
no subject
( Drink is poison, petulant and prolific, seeding and reaping and growing in him to bloom. He feels it, like prickling and thorns on his strained tongue, feels it like lead on his tongue, like the slow unwinding of his joints, the slackening of his posture. It does not honour him, to shed discipline so easily. He drinks once, then one cup over, and he knows, all at once, he'll make a nuisance of himself. And it is price paid for privilege of negotiation. )
...who we were. Before. Children. ( Is that what they were, drifting like sea spume in their whites? He remembers, the ungainly stiffness of foreign delegations, Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying and the sister, beautiful slip of domestic diplomacy, parading their innocence before him. What were they, before the Wen made them men? )
He wants... he — ( Is, was, cliff's edge, the drift stain of his fingertips, blood and viscera, stone kissed. Remembers: fall, and Jiang Cheng ruptured from anger like a bird of prey, and he seems, to Lan Wangji's tilting head, so small somehow, this wretched son of Yunmeng, and yet he ended the world. Drove his sword in, stench of bloodshed hot and embers, and he twisted, and Wei Ying —
Fissured and fell, silhouette of him like coarse brush strokes and liminal edges, like the creaking rupture of Lan Wangji's body, from inertia to collapse — tipping, until he must catch his cheek and jaw with his fist and a bent arm, to avoid skidding amid cups. He sees Jiang Cheng, blur and ache of him, like a bruise. )
What... do you want?
no subject
didn't even answer me properly, he gripes in his own mind, ever desperate for some, any part of lan wangji to be found wanting. to find at least much fault in others that is ever-present in himself.
he shouldn't answer, should keep the focus on the topic at hand. wangji falters, he pitches with liquor jiang cheng has hardly tasted, the alcohol consumed thus far barely enough to blur his pain out of focus even at its sharpest points.
jiang cheng's hand grips wangji's shoulder as though to steady him, as though he ever could, and then he is holding too hard, unable to let go.
the question has been asked and jiang cheng's mind seeks to answer it. turns it in his mind, over and over, even though the shape of the answer is immediate, a bitter pill upon his tongue.
我想回家。 ]
I want to go home, [ he croaks out. 我想回家。 ] I want to go home—
[ like a child who stayed out to late, lost himself in the woods. his voice snags raw on his grief, tantrum rising. just a boy in the rain, sobbing for mom and dad who will never answer his cries again.
我想回家。
there is only one piece of home that remains. ]
no subject
( He is held, staggered. Flinched. Print of Jiang Cheng's tortured grasp of him, warmth singeing. He blinks, and the great sullen weight of his lashes begs his eyes long shuttered. He anticipates objection, hears the hungry, tender scratch of Jiang Cheng's silks over coarse floor. Heft rattles on wood, tinny — his cup, newly dropped. )
There is... ( Burned it, ashes and white, and Cloud Recesses first, though no man remembers. What did you lose that Gusu Lan did not first forfeit? Wen Ruohan's war, and the great sects battered, but it Cloud Recesses stood flayed when Yunmeg did not fly its banners and Chifeng-Zun's pride had yet to bruise. His mouth dries, tears. ) No place.
( What is it to drift between truth and memory, to open his eyes once more, owl-like and fond? Light dapples on the floor like pox marks. He chases to bridge them with sweeps of his fingers, into constellations. Bitterness cleaves his smile raw and thin, like unfinished pours of metallurgy, clumsy and grainy at the edges. )
No pla... the likes of us. We may call home.
no subject
Shut up. You don't know anything. You don't deserve him.
[ voice yet hoarse with tears, jiang cheng scowls through watery, red-rimmed eyes. ]
He carries home with him, makes it wherever he rests his head. Don't tell me you don't feel it.
No matter how bad things get, no matter how bad things ever get, he makes some stupid joke and suddenly you're furious and you're home.
no subject
( His cheek stings, blooms prickled in the way of surface that is not brutalised but teased, tentatively, with friction. Drunkenness slows him — first to blink slowly, balefully, and watch Jiang Cheng's hand as if it is a weapon unknown, materialised abruptly before him.
Belatedly, he rakes his teeth against the thenar swell of Jiang Cheng's palm, narrowly failing to latch. Gummy, slipping, wet. When he laughs, it's as nothing, a skipped moment of aberration snagged from the cloth of the universe. Unnatural. )
How'd he... could he... he... ha. Ha...? How could he do you to me...?
( Do they know, did they consider? Wei Ying, that mad saintly woman Wen Qing, forging their miracles from blasphemy? Wangji bats more than finds Jiang Cheng's front, stumbles too far left, first. Then skids back to hover, and seeks out warmth, where Wei Ying's core sings and churns, and how could they do this to him? )
Half of him. That... that's my soulmate. Should I...? ( His fingers spider out, still devoid of touch. ) Hello. ( It knows him, this core. Isn't that the way of fairytales and legend? Those who wed and bed and cultivate together, is this not part of what it means to be who they are, this core, gifted away? ) What meaning, then? For you? Who are you?
( Not dust motes or debris on the road. Not hardship, not scattered wind, barely light trickling and trinkets of touch, barely an illusion.
What is it, when your soulmate's core is transplanted to another man? A distribution of your duties? Jiang Cheng cannot ever suffer or go unprotected, not when he carries Wei Ying within him. Forced kinship, when none was sought. Jiang Cheng, become now closer to Lan Wangji through obligation than the sect Gusu Lan, than countless distant relatives of the clan.
He will sicken, bile bundling in his gut. Since knowing, he has sickened. Every time he raised sword against Jiang Cheng, he might have culled a part of Wei Ying. )
Adopted you. Didn't... didn't deserve th — ( His mouth is too raw, too dry, allow him when he chases with one hand his wine cup and depletes the last of it in greedy gulps. ) That either. But we are, here we are.
( And yet, here they are. )
no subject
he never asked for this, never wanted it, would never in a million years have accepted it given half the chance.
he does not bring up everything that was robbed from him. lan wangji would never understand being made to make half of all his life's worst decisions fully blind. ]
Maybe not, [ jiang cheng concedes instead, though he spits the words out as though they sear his tongue on the way out. ] But at least I see him for what he is now. What do you see him for, Lan Wangji.
When you look at Wei Wuxian, what do you see besides all you failed to do?
If he's the other half of your soul, why doesn't he feel like home?
no subject
Shuttu...
( Easy, instinctive, primitive. They teach the silence spell to latch and weave and hold all but in the nursery, talent expressed as natural dominance when dozens of undisciplined Lan infant-disciples exert their strength on each other. On men beyond the clean, it cuts an even simpler cast — the family knows to expect it, to search in the victim's energies where it's taken root with infestation. Strangers are unsuspecting.
When Wangji calls it on Jiang Cheng's mouth, hand still warm on his brother-in-law's lapel, it's a pretty plaything, the trinket of a game. He laughs, but chokes on it, staccato. )
Haaaaaa... hummm. Ha...? ( He has drunk too much, too well. Too little. He searches the glistened trail of wine spilled on hard wood, like morning dew, and finds not one drop spared. Animal, Jiang Wanyin must have drunk. Jiang Wanyin, who ever does as he likes. )
Why aren't you... afraid of anything? Any... thing. Anything at all, you keep... talking. Talking. Talking.
( Striking, cutting, was it fire they used when Yunmeng went for the Wen? Wei Ying never gave up his clan's secrets, not even when he no longer bore the mantle. What was it Jiang Wanyin did, looming over his brother, at cliff's edge? Nearly spat down. This hellish mouth, like a rusted prison's door, Wangji thinks, these maws could chew the world. )
You've got his mouth. ( Family, it runs, and there's no blood between Wei Ying and the Jiang, but there it is, the manner shared. Rapid, loose, irreverent. He thinks he doesn't know when the spell dissolves like gossamer thread pulled, pretends the matter eludes him. But knows, he always knows, when fondness strikes, Don't keep Wei Ying's mouth shut, even on another man. ) And you keep talking.
( So talk now. ) Why don't you say... say... nice thing? A nice thing.