A pause at the threshold, and he smiles, shakes his head, turns around.
"You know me," he says, and there's enough truth there as he returns to the side of the tub, to where the warmth beckons, to where light slants in through the windows and speaks of early hours, not his known favourites for movement. "I'm going back to bed after you're cleaned up."
As if it's jesting, when it's also true: he'll finally catch more of sleep, elusive at the best of times, knowing Lan Zhan is safe, cared for, tended to, warm. He'll eat, he'll drink, he'll make whatever merry strikes after that, and so for this question asked as he kneels again, his husband's companion at his bathside station, his hand finding Lan Zhan's, to rest on it, to press down light, to pause.
"They're people who matter to me. We have enough sorrow we share with those we care about, those who care about us. I can't find it wrong to want to share some of the joy, too."
To see if Lan Zhan understands that, where Wei Wuxian's once bafflement, once brief born anger, long standing wrestling with the idea that he deserves anything like choice in a life he had no right to have been granted, sat, there is a hope that grows with roots deep in the earth, unfurling petals to an uncaring sky. A weed can be as tenacious, and no less important, no less part of what he wants to give, what he wants to share, to those who are his family. To those who are already gone, but are reachable now, where Wen Qing's body was rendered to ash and spread on the wind, her soul irreparably shattered. To where his martial uncle's soul is shattered too, from other heart-sad avenues.
Let there be some positive, some warmth, some indication of life that grows in the people who find each other through its worst, like his sister, visiting to share with him her wedding gown, the one he'd never see her married in, and with her soup. Fed, heart and body, by the warmth of her affection, her regard.
no subject
"You know me," he says, and there's enough truth there as he returns to the side of the tub, to where the warmth beckons, to where light slants in through the windows and speaks of early hours, not his known favourites for movement. "I'm going back to bed after you're cleaned up."
As if it's jesting, when it's also true: he'll finally catch more of sleep, elusive at the best of times, knowing Lan Zhan is safe, cared for, tended to, warm. He'll eat, he'll drink, he'll make whatever merry strikes after that, and so for this question asked as he kneels again, his husband's companion at his bathside station, his hand finding Lan Zhan's, to rest on it, to press down light, to pause.
"They're people who matter to me. We have enough sorrow we share with those we care about, those who care about us. I can't find it wrong to want to share some of the joy, too."
To see if Lan Zhan understands that, where Wei Wuxian's once bafflement, once brief born anger, long standing wrestling with the idea that he deserves anything like choice in a life he had no right to have been granted, sat, there is a hope that grows with roots deep in the earth, unfurling petals to an uncaring sky. A weed can be as tenacious, and no less important, no less part of what he wants to give, what he wants to share, to those who are his family. To those who are already gone, but are reachable now, where Wen Qing's body was rendered to ash and spread on the wind, her soul irreparably shattered. To where his martial uncle's soul is shattered too, from other heart-sad avenues.
Let there be some positive, some warmth, some indication of life that grows in the people who find each other through its worst, like his sister, visiting to share with him her wedding gown, the one he'd never see her married in, and with her soup. Fed, heart and body, by the warmth of her affection, her regard.