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*spins wheel again* i think my favorite version of jc is the one who knows he gave up his core for wwx but doesn't know wwx gave up his core for him in turn. https://twitter.com/fightingarrival/status/1298199988854501378
my other favorite version of jc is the one who does know looking back ever so self-flagellatingly at that version of himself who didn't
i just, jc knows wwx is squirrelly motherfucker who makes a show of openness but hides so well. they grew up together, jc knows all his tells.
jc loves wwx, thinks the world of him. and in a child's unexamined way accepts that of course he loves wwx more than wwx could ever feel for him. that's how loving someone works. that's how family works.
and so he sacrifices himself for wwx because he knows wwx is better than him, stronger than him. flies faster, shoots farther. he will avenge their clan and jc feels helpless and weak.
and then unexpectedly he lives to realize he never knew the meaning. unexpectedly he lives some more. he regains his core, a gift from an immortal high on a mountaintop. jc rips the blindfold off and it's like seeing the world through new eyes. someone else's eyes.
wwx disappears. (wwx descends.) when jc finds wwx months later, he is so very different. wars change ppl, break ppl. watching wwx lounge around uselessly drinking his days away after sunshot, jc feels bewildered and contemptuous. he thinks, i never knew you could be this weak.
wwx leaves. he climbs into the burial mounds with his people as if waiting to die. wwx descends. and takes almost everyone with him. and jc holds in the core of himself that he would have given wwx everything, had tried to. how lucky it was he failed.
jc had loved wwx and hating himself for it loves him still but it was one sided and he had misjudged him. he lives with the knowledge unexamined for years. the war changed wwx, the war broke wwx.
wwx was weaker than jc thought. jc rebuilds lotus pier and thinks he himself is stronger than he ever thought.
and then a decade and change later wwx comes back like jc always knew he would. and jc recognizes him almost immediately. jc knows wwx, knows all his little tells.
and then a decade and change later wwx comes back like jc always knew he would. and jc recognizes him almost immediately. jc knows wwx, knows all his little tells.
and then ~revelations~
oh to be jc and be viscerally brought back to how weak and helpless he had been without his core. how he thought he couldn't survive it. to know that wwx saw him like that and had agreed, jc couldn't survive it but wwx could.
oh to be jc and be viscerally brought back to how weak and helpless he had been without his core. how he thought he couldn't survive it. to know that wwx saw him like that and had agreed, jc couldn't survive it but wwx could.
(wwx never could pass up the chance to one up jc)
oh to be jc viscerally brought back to the moment he had woken up alone body humming with his -- wwx's -- core. how the world had felt brand new and open. like he had been starving and the first taste of food was exploding on his tongue. even before his core never felt like this.
(was that why? jc's cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds during sunshot. jc had always thought, accepted thoughtlessly like a child, wwx was broken by the war, but he, jc, had been forged in it. reshaped into the sect leader lotus pier needed, made new.) (and hadn't he?)
(hadn't someone reforged him, made him new, the sect leader needed to be?)
oh to be jc and look at his brother and feel all the old contempt for the man he thought he knew inside and out slide away. jc thinks, wwx was always good at hiding.
oh to be jc and look at his brother and feel all the old contempt for the man he thought he knew inside and out slide away. jc thinks, wwx was always good at hiding.
jc sees wwx, he sees him weak and helpless still (lwj and wn can fuck right off they might as well not be there)
his skin buzzes with it, he runs from it the entire night. wwx loved him thought the world of him would give him the beating heart torn out his own chest.
his skin buzzes with it, he runs from it the entire night. wwx loved him thought the world of him would give him the beating heart torn out his own chest.
they loved each other but had not loved each other well.
/end
/end
