Chapter Text
It dawns on Jingyi so suddenly he forgets to blink for the entire minute and stays so still, Jiang Cheng lazily opens one eye to check up on him.
It is a quiet evening at Lotus Pier. Early autumn, when the wind is soft and gentle, sunlight still brings the warmth, and even the Universal Evil, both of them swore to fight, decides to take a break.
Jingyi loves moments like these, he lives for them (while being completely aware of how cheesy it sounds). They are in Jiang Cheng’s room, with doors open, basking in the golden hour sun, laying side by side. Jiang Cheng is on his back, with his eyes closed, not asleep yet, but also not conscious enough to stop Jingyi. So when the realisation strikes him, Jingyi is playing with Jiang Cheng’s hand. More like inspecting it. At this point in their relationship, he is not being too gentle anymore (because “stop being so gentle with me!”). He compares the sizes of their palms and relishes in how much bigger Jiang Cheng’s is. He (carefully) tugs on his fingers and feels the callouses from the years of training with weapons. He finds those he thinks are left by Sandu and those that are probably from wielding Zidian. He traces the veins, draws out the map of lines on his palm, scratches the nail plate (and blushes when he gets to fingertips and thinks about how different they feel when they are not- okay enough). It’s when he goes to test again just how well his palm fits into Jiang Cheng’s, he notices scars. And it’s not as if he has never seen them before - of course, he did - it is simply the first time he thinks about them.
Jingyi knows about Jiang Cheng a lot. He also knows the history of the Yunmeng Jiang, he knows about the Sunshot campaign, he knows about the Wens, and he knows that the room they are in right now is not the same room that was here before. He, however, has never quite pushed himself to comprehend it.
Jingyi killed before. Once he put down a horse that broke its leg while running away from an evil corpse. By the time he and Sizhui stumbled upon her deep in the forest while trying to hunt down the said corpse, she was already in so much suffering and pain, they had no other choice. Jingyi said his prayers and ended her pain while feeling so sad and guilty, he wasn’t even afraid anymore.
But Jiang Cheng killed people. Not ghosts. Not corpses. He fought the evil that lived in humans. He led the war against other cultivators, and he won.
Somewhere deep inside of his mind, in a place that was the most Lan in the history of Lans, a thought pokes Jingyi. It is unkind thought. It wants him to feel disgusted, it wants him to stay away from Jiang Cheng, it wants him to judge. It whispers to him angry words about how unworthy Jiang Cheng is. How terrible, awful, and despicable he is.
“You alright?” Jiang Cheng takes control of his palm, still held prisoner in Jingyi’s own, and intertwines their fingers, squeezing them gently a couple of times, to wake Jingyi from his stupor.
Jingyi can’t help it. He sits upright in one graceful motion (he is Lan, after all) and plants a chaste kiss on Jiang Cheng’s forehead, ignoring his half-hearted protests.
Jiang Cheng has lived through, probably, one of the most horrible tragedies Jingyi can imagine. He was hurt so many times and so, so unfairly, Jingyi wants to cry.
“Why do you smile like this? Are you an idiot or what?”
And still.
Jingyi looks at Sect Leader Jiang, Jiang Wanyin, Sandu Shengshou, and just cannot help it.
“I love you, A-Cheng.”
“What. The. Hell, kid.”