Untamed/MDZS catch-all

[ze_uwu_jun]

WHO: The Untamed / MDZS cast and friends (enemies, etc)
WHERE: Anywhere, everywhere, including their assigned lodgings and around all towns
WHEN: March
WHAT: Catch-all because the emotions never end
WARNINGS: The Untamed / Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation / Mo Dao Zu Shi spoilers; canon-typical violence; event-typical violence. Will add more if it becomes necessary

ooc: Go forth and do the things as they come.

Comments

[yilingdaddy]

It's a cruel joke. Just when Wangji finally reaches out...It's because Wuxian is falling apart again. Worse than before. But...

Only when nothing else works.

Not enough.

Falling, fingers digging in, scrambling for whatever purchase they can latch onto. Shadow hiding all signs of safe passage.

The disgust is directed inward. Broken. Bleeding. Can't hold it together, no matter how hard he's been trying.

He sits up once Lan Zhan gets off, hears him pull away to the edge of the bed.

'Let people love you!' Jin Ling had screamed at him. How can he, when he only hurts them? Over and over and over again in a vicious cycle.

Distance. He moves to the other side of the bed, not able to bring himself to look at the other man. He can barely breathe, but forces himself to his feet, grabs Chenqing and his qiankun pouch, feet shoving into boots...

And heads for the door.

Clothes can be replaced. He thinks he has a spare ribbon in his pouch, but even that can be replaced.

He just. Has to move.

[secondjade]

Still. Calm. Centre. He repeated the words like a mantra in his heart, determined to stabilize himself. He was no use to Wei Wuxian when he felt like an open wound.

He was expecting the other man to cool off. To lie there until the shadows retreated. But then suddenly Wei Ying was moving, and before he could stop himself he was up, grabbing his friend’s wrist before he could walk out the door. He didn’t know the irony of what lay behind him - a painting of another time and place, a happiness that kept taunting them by its proximity but never its truth.

He gripped Wei Wuxian’s wrist, even knowing that Wei Wuxian always pulled hardest away when he held on too tightly. But he couldn’t stop it.

“Wei Ying—“

[yilingdaddy]

He should have expected it. The cage reaching back out to drag him down with it again.

But the hand latching onto his wrist almost has him lose his precarious balance, dragging him a quick step back. Lan Zhan can probably feel the tremor running through him with that contact.

But Wei Ying doesn't look up or back. Just squeezes his eyes closed.

"Let. Me. Go." Each word quiet, a plea repeated.

[secondjade]

Wangji was still as a snow-capped mountain, his expression frozen despite the liquid magma eating him from the inside out, trapped inside his chest.

He didn’t listen. Or, rather, he did, but he didn’t comply. He wasn’t really here. He was trapped sixteen years ago, clutching desperately to something that wanted nothing more than to leave him.

But no smile.

No trace of fondness.

Those are what had haunted him most, in the intervening years. The thought that maybe, at the very end, Wei Wuxian had known the truth of Lan Wangji’s loyalty. Of his love, despite everything.

And here he was, squandering even that.

His grip slackened, fingers still curled but no pressure behind them, and not a sound reached his lips.

[yilingdaddy]

He feels undeserving of anything Wangji has to give. And just now, it's unbearable to stay near that unflappable loyalty.

Wuxian feels the grip go slack. It's more than enough to simply step forward again to break it. To open that door and walk out.

He doesn't deserve this man's comfort. This man's protection.

This man's love.

[secondjade]

He doesn’t move.

Wei Ying is gone, the moment he allows it, and Wangji stands there in the darkened room, the first gasp of dawn just barely peaking in the window.

The world grows too quiet in the wake of Wei Wuxian. It always does.

His hand lowers back to his side, palm and fingers still tingling where they had held their desperate grip.

In twenty minutes, the juniors would be in the park. In twenty minutes, his duty would be required.

He misses seclusion. Misses the gaping wounds on his back. Misses the quiet.

He doesn’t move at all for seven minutes, staring at the door with a forlorn hope that maybe Wei Ying will walk back through it. Maybe he’ll sigh heavily and apologize, maybe he’ll turn into a dog and curl up against him, maybe he’ll laugh and say something about how hilarious Wangji’s expression was when he had pretended to leave. To say he hopes for these things isn’t quite true - he doesn’t let himself hope. But he waits, in case.

And then he carefully moves through the motions of preparing himself for the day, without even thinking about it.

He dresses, carefully does his hair, equips his sword.

And then he walks out into the dawn like he did for 16 years, thinking he may as well have pushed Wei Ying from the cliff himself.