highly new, slightly improved open post

[appliances]

assorted morons

☆ @ the muselist

optional prompts/ideas

☆ caught in the rain meme ☆ little steps meme ☆ affectionate physical contact meme ☆ picture prompt also acceptable but link them so it's tidy ☆ AU ideas: soulmates AU, reincarnation AU, Bad End AU, canon divergent/roleswap AU, dorky college AU, crossover AU, super indulgent high fantasy AU ☆ melodrama is ultimate tier ★ SHIPPING AND FUCC: ☆ non-fluffy relationship types I'm down for: codependent, master/servant power imbalance type ships, "we're bad for each other but worse for anyone else," other things I am failing to think of tbh ☆ things I am not into: noncon (includes "dubcon"), incest, tsundere shit if your tsundere is just verbally abusive, gratuitous torture porn, you'll probably have to ask me about harder kinks and they will vary by character ☆ I don't have a kink list so pitch me an idea if u thirsty ☆ if you would prefer a locked post I can also make that happen

Comments

[pierless]

You're the one who picked it out, not me. That's an even harder test than just reciting it.

[But hang on, he knows this, vaguely. He's far, far from the sort of person who reads these kinds of things, but he'd had a formal education. He rubs his mouth just once, an idle gesture.]

It's about missing your home. Being so sick with longing for it that you constantly think about it. Not just the broad strokes, but the details.

[Like the thrill of standing on a pier's edge, watching stormclouds gather miles away, smelling the electricity in the air, knowing a storm is coming. Like how the lakes of Lotus Pier look at sunset, when the heat of the day has faded and the fireflies have already come out. Like leaning on a bridge just like this, fingers digging lightly into the grain of the wood, inhaling the sweet summer air, and then feeling a hand covering his own so gently--

It's not conscious thought that makes him guide his head up. Instead: it's as if it's been scripted and he's simply playing his part. His eyes slide slowly over the curve of Huaisang's cheek, meeting his gaze, and half-expects to see a soft smile returned. He feels outside of himself, watching himself, caught up in the duality of the moments.

He should be nervous. He was nervous a few moments ago, ping-ponging between that and a sort of resigned sullenness. And now he feels eerily at ease, because he knows this man, he knows this scene, except last time it wasn't here, it was . . . they were on a lake . . .]

All the little things that make it yours.

[He teeters at the cusp, feeling desperately as though he's on the verge of recalling something and not knowing what.

Right? Of course right, because Huaisang had taught him that poem years ago. Because he loved Lotus Pier, but Qinghe was where he'd been born, and he missed it dearly sometimes, missed his brother, missed his people, the rocks and mountains and chill, but I'd miss you more, he'd whispered, and Jiang Cheng had held him all the tighter.]