Today's darling

[adawritesfic]

Quiet devastation had never looked more beautiful.

That was a corollary of beauty, Lan Wangji thought. It should never wear any expression but the one it’s wearing now.

Until its mood shifted with the winds of change—

And then this one, this new expression, at this new now, should be the one it wears for all eternity.

And ever and onward into eternity—

Or until beauty fades.

But Jiang Wanyin’s beauty would never fade.

And his allure would never pale.

Up close, in full flower, both were otherworldly.

Lan Wangji, beholding them in their blinding radiance, knew truth for truth: beauty like that, allure like that, was a high and lonely tower.

Outside, men would kill themselves scaling it to try to pluck the prize it held.

Men would kill each other.

Inside—

It had never been so clear to Lan Wangji as it was now, what lay on the other side of Jiang Wanyin’s too-beautiful eyes.

Need.

The too-ordinary need for ordinary human connection.

If Jiang Wanyin was unique in his need, it was only in how exquisitely he wore it and bore it.

Lan Wangji felt a wave of unfeigned tenderness—

No one loves you, Wanyin, more than life.

No one cares to give you what you need.

—followed by a swell of lust.

It’s my turn now to give you what I want.

Thus, “As I undress you, then,” he said, “and touch you, you will please me by hiding nothing from me. Let me read you; let me eat you: all of you, in the light of the waning day.”

Like a skin-bound book, he thought. Like a feast of meat.

From the next part of Ten Thousand Swords.