Work Text:
“Difficult times require appropriate measures, if we lived in times of peace, we could surely afford the rotting, dead weight, but now?”
Hwei groans and rubs his temple. It’s been a rough day at the headquarters, his neck hurts and sinuses are clocked… and Jhin only smirks at his predicament, saying:
“Isn’t that what they all say? Always the difficult times, never the moral degeneracy of the leadership…”
“Is that what you think of me?”
Hwei tilts his head to the side and eyes his husband, contemplating what it’d mean for their relationship if he did, before sighing, saving Jhin a response:
“Of course not, you know I have morals, I just don't see the necessity of pretending to be more respectable than I am. Which angers them, since by openly speaking of the crude plans we all hatch behind closed doors, I force them to reveal what shames them.”
“And…”
Jhin taps his tea spoon against his mug of Earl Grey.
“...you force them to confront the times we are in. Paint them a vision of the future they are responsible to abort before it has the chance to blossom to life.”
A soft sigh falls from Hwei’s lips as he presses into his armchair and leans back until he can see the world upside down. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Wasn’t that how the quote went?
“Their lack of analysis will surely allow them to find a comfortable place within the new world, I do wonder though, does it pains them to remember the misfortune of the rest of us?”
“Are they this aware? I hear them speak a great deal of repression, of resistance.”
Jhin muses, his voice a soothing rumble of familiarity amidst the chaos consuming what once was. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, Hwei tries to remind himself. History moves ever forward, as inequality grows so does conflict, until the contradictions embedded within the system will cause it to collapse under its own weight. Just how many souls will get crushed beneath the rubble, he dares not picture. Imagines himself among them nonetheless. This is the kind of war where, if you fight well, you will be rewarded with a noose around the neck, or the inside of a prison cell to the end of days.
“I don’t think they know where this has to lead us, where we have to lead each other.”
Hwei swallows around unbearable tightness.
“Someone will rise to do it, and we’re in the right position. It all hinges on our bravery, our dedication, if we can paint a vision worth chasing after.”
Which is why it is Hwei, and must be Hwei, he remembers with a sinking feeling in the pits of his stomach. He is the visionary, the face, the mouth, the fist of the proletariat, and exactly where he needs to be. At this point…
Jhin follows his line of thought, voicing what Hwei didn’t dare to speak.
“We could run, move to another country. Or disappear into the underground, take up a lower ranked position… it doesn’t have to be you at the top.”
And yet…
Hwei chuckles.
“You wouldn’t love me if I did, for I would not be myself then, would I?”
Jhin had gotten Hwei into the party, is, as they sometimes joke, the cause of all his misery. But he has been right from the start, as soon as he forsook every attempt of acting within the limits of bourgeois morality, this became exactly the kind of thrilling challenge Hwei’s life lacked before.
“I’m disappointed, do you really think so little of me?”
His husband smiles, revealing the teeth they both so carefully hide outside the privacy of their apartment.
“Are you trying to imitate my competition?”
Hwei smirks back, eyes narrowing down on Jhin when he throws back, tone awfully giddy:
“No, you will find I tend to murder them.”
Outside, it begins to rain, reality knocks together with thousands of droplets falling onto their roof.
“So a purge it is.”
Hwei states, finding affirmation in Jhin’s slow nod. For they both know: there is no other way. Not if they want sunflowers to bloom once more, and, like them, tilt their faces into the light.