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sundiscus · 4 years ago

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wenzhou modern heist au (part 2)

originally posted on twitter for the prompt “wenzhou heist au + wound tending”

same universe as heist au part 1 | cw: blood

🖼💦🌃

Twenty minutes into the second most thrilling getaway of Zhou Zishu’s life, Wen Kexing glances over from the driver’s seat and says, “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” Zhou Zishu says, bracing one hand against the dashboard as Wen Kexing downshifts and U-turns through the emergency lane. A line of light streaks across the windshield, street lamps flickering by too fast to be seen individually. “You should get off.”

“I’m a little busy, A-Xu, but I like the spirit.”

“Get off the freeway, idiot,” Zhou Zishu says, and Wen Kexing is already complying. He cuts across four lanes and takes the next exit at an angle and velocity that’s only barely physically possible and leaves Zhou Zishu’s brain feeling a bit like a spinning top. He tries and fails not to be grudgingly impressed.

“Back to my point, though,” Wen Kexing says. “We need to do something about your leg.”

“It’s nothing. Red light.”

The car screeches to a halt. Wen Kexing uses the pause to reach over and swipe two fingers across Zhou Zishu’s knee. He holds them up to the light, stained red at the tips, and arches an eyebrow. “Nothing? If you start bleeding all over the upholstery we’ll have to torch the whole car when we ditch it.”

My DNA isn’t in any databases, Zhou Zishu doesn’t say. As far as Wen Kexing knows, Zhou Zishu is a bored, thrill-seeking art appreciator along for the ride on a heist gone wrong. “Just keep going,” he says instead.

“How are you so bossy,” Wen Kexing mutters, and guns it as the light turns green. He navigates the city streets well, slowing enough to blend in but still burning rubber out of stoplights. They’re making good time, Zhou Zishu thinks, and then Wen Kexing yanks the wheel and swerves into a stop behind a parked van.

“What are you doing?” Zhou Zishu asks as Wen Kexing kicks open his door. They’re on a side street, two blocks north of a rowdy concert venue. The night air buzzes with ambient sound but the street itself is empty, dark windows and accordion bars pulled tight over storefronts. Zhou Zishu wonders, with vague curiosity, if Wen Kexing has figured him out after all, but Wen Kexing just stalks around the car and pulls open Zhou Zishu’s door as well, crouching down on the sidewalk.

“What does it look like?” he says and reaches for Zhou Zishu’s injured leg. Luckily it’s not the one with three different knives strapped to his ankle, so Zhou Zishu lets him, curious despite himself.

Despite his exasperated tone, Wen Kexing’s hands are careful as he shifts Zhou Zishu’s leg to a better angle. He flicks on his phone flashlight and tilts his head. It doesn’t look great, Zhou Zishu knows, but it also isn’t terrible—a bullet grazed him just above the knee while they were running. A gash, all skin and muscle, no major arteries or tendons hit. It’ll be fine until they get wherever they’re going, until he can slip away and patch himself up.

“Hm,” Wen Kexing says, and pulls out his own knife from a sheath on his own ankle. “I need a better look.”

“A better—hey, leave my pants alone.”

“They’re already ruined,” Wen Kexing says impatiently, “from all the blood. And the bullet hole.”

“I’ll wash them.”

“That’s hardly going to help now.” Wen Kexing’s lips curl into a grin. “If you’d rather take them off entirely, be my guest. I didn’t peg you for an exhibitionist, but I would be more than delighted to be proven—”

“Do you ever stop talking?” If Zhou Zishu rolls his eyes any more they’ll fall out of his skull. “Fine, do what you want, just get on with it already.”

Still grinning, Wen Kexing slices up Zhou Zishu’s pant leg, stopping mid-thigh. “I’ll buy you a new suit,” he says. “A better one. Honestly, someone with your shoulders shouldn’t be shopping off the rack.”

“My suit is fine.”

“Like your leg is fine?” Wen Kexing switches the knife for his phone flashlight again, illuminating a wash of blood. Zhou Zishu wonders if he should pretend to be more shocked. “Hold this.”

Wen Kexing passes Zhou Zishu his phone and gets up, circling the car to rummage through the trunk. Zhou Zishu taps the phone screen out of curiosity and it lights up, the time superimposed over a picture of a tiny girl wearing a purple T-shirt covered in cartoon fruit, glaring up at the camera.

Huh. That—wasn’t what he expected.

Wen Kexing returns, a plastic water bottle in hand. Zhou Zishu clicks off the phone screen and shifts to illuminate his leg better as Wen Kexing uncaps the bottle. “Hold still,” Wen Kexing says, and trickles water over the wound. It stings, but Zhou Zishu doesn’t react beyond setting his jaw, watching the water run red and then pink and then clear, splattering onto the asphalt below. The city glitters around them but for a moment Zhou Zishu’s world narrows to this, to Wen Kexing’s hand on his knee, the graceful slope of Wen Kexing’s neck as he crouches on this random sidewalk, trying to make sure Zhou Zishu’s knee doesn’t get infected by the end of the night.

When the bottle is empty Wen Kexing sets it aside and tugs the pocket square from his suit, pressing it over the cut. “Hold this,” he orders, and Zhou Zishu does, his fingers brushing Wen Kexing’s in the tradeoff.

“Thank you,” he says.

“Ah,” Wen Kexing says, grin blooming back across his mouth. “Anything to get you out of that suit.” He stands, sharp gaze sweeping across the street. Far, far off, a chorus of sirens wail through the darkness. “I like the look of that green car. What do you think, A-Xu, time for an upgrade?”

You have to know by now that’s not my name, Zhou Zishu thinks. He stands gingerly, keeping the pocket square in place. “Lead the way,” is all he says, and Wen Kexing does.

#wenzhou heist au #ficlet #my words

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sundiscus · 4 years ago

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wenzhou modern heist au snippet (part 1)

originally posted as a twitter prompt fill for “wenzhou heist au + fake dating”

cw: alcohol

🖼🖼🖼

Zhou Zishu is downing his second ill-advised but sorely-needed cup of wine when someone slips a hand around his waist.

“Sweetheart,” a man says. A very tall man, long hair twisted back, dressed in a delicately-embroidered suit that looks like it costs twice Zhou Zishu’s monthly paycheck. The man is looking down at him, easy smile curving his cheeks. His hand is still on Zhou Zishu’s waist.

A few paces from the bar Han Ying and Duan Pengju pause their stilted conversation to look in his direction. Zhou Zishu lowers his cup and arches an eyebrow at his new companion, who leans in.

“Just play along,” the man breathes into his ear, close enough that Zhou Zishu can see a tiny smudge in his eyeliner. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Zhou Zishu tears his eyes away from the man’s makeup and glances behind him, scanning the room. He sees the issue immediately: two security guards tracking their way across the floor, frowning deeply. Clumsy work, in Zhou Zishu’s opinion—a sure way to lose a target, looking like that.

To the side, Han Ying and Duan Pengju are now openly staring. Zhou Zishu flicks his gaze back up to meet the man’s eyes for a brief moment, then turns and settles back against the solid line of his chest. “Took you long enough,” he says evenly. To Han Ying and Duan Pengju: “Sorry. Forgot to mention I was bringing a date tonight. He’s just late, as usual.”

He feels more than hears the man’s delighted inhale. Duan Pengju gapes, trying not to look too confused, and Zhou Zishu pastes on a smile as the two guards pass right by them, none the wiser. The man’s hand tightens on his waist and Zhou Zishu thinks: I can work with this.

After all, Zhou Zishu is here as private security for Helian Yi’s collection. And if this man is who Zhou Zishu thinks he is—well, he might as well see where this leads.

#wenzhou heist au #ficlet #my words

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sundiscus · 4 years ago

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wangxian dragon age au: day one

[this comes right before wangxian meeting in this au, the first day lwj is captured. ~850 words, cw for violence]

⛓✨🧪

The first day Lan Wangji is captured, he very nearly escapes.

The Wen soldiers had dosed him with magebane when they cornered him, and Lan Wangji caught the miscalculation immediately. They gave Lan Wangji enough poison to render an apprentice helpless; they did not give him enough to nullify a Knight-Enchanter who trained at the Gusu Circle. Lan Wangji has spent years learning how to purge toxins from his body, how to detangle deathroot and demonic ichor from his own magic, how to control his mana even without a staff. He sits quietly now in the cell, lets his captors think he is sulking, and by the time the shadows stretch all the way across the stone floor he can fully summon his blade. So he does.

The shackles around his ankles shatter easily, followed by the ones on his wrists. He splits open the lock on the cell door before the first guard even raises an alarm. Both guards are dead moments later, and Lan Wangji makes it all the way to a narrow courtyard, bursting out into the last rays of daylight before anyone else manages to catch up.

A blast narrowly misses him, shattering the flagstones at his feet. This is an old fortress of some sort, he thinks—he’d raced over worn-in carpets stained with browned blood, dust stirring up in his wake, archways scarred with the remnants of old battles. Over the jagged wall he can see nothing but sky, and through the far archway there are only treetops, a glimpse of clouds. A mountain fortress, he revises, tossing up a barrier to absorb a bolt of lightning. Above, three captors spill out onto the upper wall, a line of arrows aimed right at him. Lan Wangji ignores them, deflecting another blast. He can sense, faintly, that his staff is somewhere behind him, but he doesn’t slow. His only objective is to reach the archway, the steep staircase on the other side leading out of here.

He needs to escape.

He needs to find his brother.

He needs—

It’s the dizziness that gets him in the end. Too much of his energy focused on his mana, not enough on his body. He stumbles two steps from the archway—braces against the wall for a moment, just a moment, and that’s enough for Wen Chao to toss up a wall of fire, penning Lan Wangji against the stone.

His sword wavers in his hand. Disappears. The air sears Lan Wangji’s lungs as he cranes his head back, looking for another way out.

In front of him the flames ripple, Wen Chao stepping through like it’s nothing. He tosses Lan Wangji’s staff from hand to hand like a toy.

“I’m impressed,” Wen Chao says. “Might keep this one for myself. What do you think, Lan Wangji? With some modifications, this could make a decent enough practice weapon, no?”

Wen Chao catches the staff and lifts it, holding the bulbed end just under Lan Wangji’s chin. Lan Wangji doesn’t move, just stares flatly back and tries to ignore the way his eyes sting from the heat. The staff—Lan Wangji’s staff—crackles with energy that isn’t his own, setting his teeth on edge. In his mind he catches the shaft and drives it back, hard enough to crack Wen Chao’s ribs, but he knows Wen Chao is waiting for that. Has a retaliation ready on his tongue. Wen Chao wants to toy with his food, and Lan Wangji will not be toyed with.

High above the walls the sky darkens, Lan Wangji’s first day as Wen Chao’s captive slipping away. The flames cast steadily-sharpening shadows across Wen Chao’s face as his smirk fades.

“Fine then,” Wen Chao says, “don’t answer. You’ll have plenty of time to think about it while you’re here.”

And then he pulls the staff back and swings, catching Lan Wangji across the temple right as Lan Wangji activates a barrier with what’s left of his mana.

The staff wins, and like time speeding up, the world goes suddenly, wholly dark.

Consciousness comes and goes, a sputtering candle flame. A sickly press of someone else’s magic—Wen Chao’s—blankets Lan Wangji’s mind. He feels the stomach-swoop of being moved, but can’t locate his legs to stand. He hears echoes of conversation, but there are no speakers, just disembodied voices floating past him. For a moment he thinks: demons, thinks: perhaps Wen Chao’s plan is horribly simple after all, to try to turn Lan Wangji into an Abomination—but the words are too mundane to be anything but Wen soldiers, arguing somewhere above his limp body.

…in there? You’re not worried about the other…

…where else can we keep him, you saw what he…

…dangerous enough as-is…

…next one of you who questions me will take our dear guest’s place, is that what you want? I didn’t think so. Make sure the other prisoner is secure, then take care of this—

The muted pop of a jar unstoppering, the burn of another potion hitting the back of his throat—

(The next time Lan Wangji wakes up, he isn’t alone.)

#part one!#wangxian #DA AU #ficlet #my words

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sundiscus · 4 years ago

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wangxian dragon age au: ficlet

[part of a larger au i’ve mapped out + started drafting, but want to post as snippets for now! i’ve taken many liberties with the worldbuilding, and as such i think most can be inferred with context if you’re unfamiliar with dragon age.

part one now here

this snippet: the meet-ugly, ~1.7k]

✨✨✨

When Lan Wangji wakes up, he isn’t alone.

He doesn’t realize it right away. The first thing he notices is that, this time, there are no shackles. He shifts his hands the slightest bit, enough to confirm they are indeed free. The movement pulls at the little cuts on his fingers and forearms from where the shackles shattered apart, already scabbing over—so he has been unconscious long enough for the magebane to burn out of his system, which he confirms, finding his meridians free and clear. He’s lying on his back, something that feels slightly too soft to be a stone floor under him and something that feels slightly too rough to be a blanket draped over him. An odd green light pulses against his eyelids and the only sound is a muted, continuous hiss, like a distant waterfall. Wherever he is, it isn’t the cell from earlier.

It doesn’t matter. He won’t be here long.

He takes one more slow breath, listening closely. There. To his left, a few paces away, he hears a tiny, cut-off inhale. Now he knows where to aim. His eyes fly open as he launches himself upright, summoning his sword into his raised hand, and—

It’s like expecting the ocean and finding only a puddle. His sword flickers into existence for the barest moment, its glow illuminating a circle of stone walls, a pallet beneath him, and then Lan Wangji’s lungs stutter, pressure squeezing his temples, as if all air has been sucked out of the room. Bichen dissipates and Lan Wangji is left gasping, one hand still raised uselessly in the air.

From the shadows, someone says: “Ah, that’s not going to work.”

Lan Wangji is already looking to the side. He sees only a figure at first, because when his sword disappeared so had the strange, omnipresent green glow. The glow returns now, slowly illuminating a young man curled against the opposite wall, his hair a dark, tangled wave over his shoulders, wrists chained together with thick iron manacles. For a moment his eyes, staring right back at Lan Wangji, are the brightest thing in the room.

“What do you mean?” Lan Wangji demands, finding his voice. “Is there a suppression array?” It must be powerful to choke off his magic so finitely. If he can see it, though, he can figure out how to undo it.

The man wrinkles his nose. “Not exactly. But—ah, ah,” he says as Lan Wangji starts to stand, “don’t move too fast, the blowback from that is going to be pretty harsh.”

Lan Wangji understands almost instantly as a wave of vertigo hits him. His knees buckle before he’s halfway to his feet and he collapses back on the pallet, bracing his weight on his elbow to keep from falling entirely. When his ears stop ringing he can hear his own ragged breathing.

Enough, he thinks, and forces himself to even his breaths. To shift focus. Clearly whatever precautions Wen Chao and his soldiers have taken to secure this room go beyond magebane and a simple suppression array. He won’t be able to escape by sheer force like last time, but this will still be no more than a brief detour on his journey. He will make sure of it.

Yesterday—was it yesterday, now? The chamber has no windows, just the eerie green glow emanating from the walls—Lan Wangji had been traveling with a retinue of junior enchanters to retrieve research texts from the Circle in Hedong, where scholars claimed to have promising studies related to fade rifts. They were nearly there when a raven alighted on Lan Wangji’s shoulder, bearing the message: Siege on Gusu Circle. Reconvene to the north. He’d sent the junior enchanters ahead and turned back before the raven even took flight.

(The note had not mentioned his brother, so his brother must be alive. Rumors were already spreading outward from Gusu as he rode, saying Wen Xu had an archdemon, Wen Xu burned the Gusu library to the ground. They did not say Wen Xu killed Zewu-jun, Wen Xu killed a mage with a glowing hand. So his brother must have escaped. Knowing this did not stop Lan Wangji’s heart from racing as he spurred his horse faster, past refugee settlements and Templar camps, toward the distant gash in the sky.)

And then: a poisoned arrow biting into his arm, his horse crumpling on a hardpacked road outside Lingchuan. The Wen soldiers, ready for him. (Not ready enough, when at least six of their bodies fell before Lan Wangji did.) One day in the first cell, his failed escape attempt.

And now: magicless, trapped in a strange room with a strange, sharp-eyed prisoner watching him struggle to sit upright, the slow crawl of time a physical weight on Lan Wangji’s shoulders.

“Honestly, just ride it out,” the prisoner is saying. He has his chained hands up and open, like he’s trying to calm a spooked animal. “You’ll feel better in about an hour. Maybe less, if you’ve had a good meal recently.”

Lan Wangji’s head spins sickeningly. He ignores it, pushing himself up until he can prop himself against the wall, putting himself eye-level with the prisoner, at least.

“Or sit up anyway, I suppose,” the prisoner says. His voice has a ragged edge, as if it’s scraping its way out of his throat. “Sorry, I’d offer you some water, but I drank it all before I knew I’d have company. What are you doing here, anyway?”

If First Enchanter Lan wants his nephew back, he’ll have to lend us a few books, Wen Chao had mocked from outside the first cell. And if he wants you back with all your limbs attached, he’ll have to throw in trading deeds with the eastern lyrium mines for good measure. Do you think he can deliver that before you die here?

Wen Chao wanted demonic texts, Lan Wangji had guessed, the ones hidden deep within the library. No doubt for some dangerous, power-hungry scheme, and no doubt connected to the rifts. From there, it wasn’t hard to piece together that the attack on the Circle was meant to discover which texts were critical enough to be rescued and transported away, and likely steal them in transit. There are protocols for such events, Lan Wangji knows, and his presence here means the raid was unsuccessful, and he will be used as leverage for a second attempt.

If Wen Chao meant to scare Lan Wangji with his demands, he had only succeeded in doing the opposite. Because if all they want from Lan Wangji’s family are books and deeds, it means they don’t know about his brother yet.

Lan Wangji doesn’t share any of this. “Political prisoner,” is all he says.

“Ahh.” The man nods. “I figured, what with the…” He gestures at his own forehead, chains clinking as he does. “You’re obviously a Lan. Someone will pay well to have you back home.”

“They should not have to pay at all,” Lan Wangji bites out. Something about the prisoner’s casual attitude grates at him. The world outside is quite literally falling apart at the seams, and Lan Wangji doesn’t have time to be used as bait in Wen Chao’s small-minded games.

The prisoner shrugs. “Yeah, but there’s not much choice at the moment, is there? For now you’re stuck here with me. I’m—my name is Wei Ying, by the way. What should I call you, while we wait?”

“Do the Wen soldiers enter this cell often?” Lan Wangji says instead of answering. “Is there a chance of overpowering them?”

A grimace. “Often enough. And no, I’ve tried. They’re stupid, but they’re prepared.”

Lan Wangji casts another glance over the man—Wei Ying—and carefully keeps any skepticism out of his expression. Then he looks around properly for the first time. Wei Ying is right—there’s no visible array on the floor, no glyphs on the circular stone walls. The green glow fades as it climbs the wall, leaving the ceiling cloaked in shadow and dizzying to look at, like an endless tunnel. Disturbingly, there isn’t a visible door, either. There isn’t much of anything but the one straw pallet, a lidded pot against the wall, an empty bowl next to Wei Ying, bone-dry, and Wei Ying himself.

“A Lan,” Wei Ying says when Lan Wangji is silent for long enough, pitched low, almost like he’s talking to himself. “I’m surprised Wen Chao would be so bold. He has to know that won’t go over well in the long run, I wonder if his father has any idea? No, he would’ve sent Wen Xu. Maybe Wen Chao thinks that by the time someone comes for you, he’ll have—” Wei Ying cuts himself off. Blinks. “You are real, aren’t you?”

Lan Wangji narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you’re not…” Wei Ying waves a hand at the room around them. “But, ah, why would I dream up a whole Knight-Enchanter? A Lan at that? You felt real enough, when I dragged you onto the pallet, but it’s still hard to tell.” Lan Wangji must have some reaction to that—to knowing this stranger’s hands have been on him, when he was unconscious—because Wei Ying adds, defensive: “What was I supposed to do? They left you on the floor.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t have an answer to that.

Wei Ying tips his head back against the wall. “Well. Your Circle, they have your phylactery, right? They’ll find you. Pay the ransom, or lay siege to Wen Chao’s little fortress here. That would be nice.” He casts his gaze over Lan Wangji again. “Looks like our captors were gentle enough in the meanwhile.”

There’s dried blood tugging at the hair of Lan Wangji’s temple, and he still has the nauseating sense that if he moves too fast he might collapse again. Gentle isn’t how Lan Wangji would describe his treatment so far. But it is also far below the threshold of what he can withstand, so it doesn’t seem like a point worth arguing. “And you?” he hears himself say.

“Uh.” Wei Ying shifts and holds up his shackled hands. “Less gentle, I suppose.”

“I meant—who will be paying your ransom.”

Wei Ying drops his hands into his lap. “Oh. No one.”

“Then,” Lan Wangji says, “why are you here?”

For the first time, Wei Ying flashes a smile. A hooked dagger in the dim light.

“I have something they want.”

#poor herald lxc 😔#this au is going to be equal parts h/c + dreamsharing + Dragons #because i am nothing if not predictable #this started months and months ago as a secret santa gift for eli #eli ilu!#wangxian #ficlet #my words #DA AU

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sundiscus · 4 years ago

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hualian space pirate au: fluff

written for a long-ago twitter prompt (“hualian + summer”), this is set in the world of a hualian space AU that i may end up posting more of at some point! this snippet is all fluff and happy endings. happy bday, xie lian!!

🪐🚀

Xie Lian knows, in the deepest part of himself, that it is summer.

Not here, three days out from the nearest system, surrounded by stars and nebulae, air only artificially warm from the Paradise’s regulatory systems. There are no seasons in space—it all depends on where you make port. Last week it was winter, on the tiny moon where Hua Cheng delivered contraband magazines. The week before that it was late spring, on a planet with wet, humid air at its southern port, where the markets were overflowing with peonies. (Hua Cheng had bought a dozen for Xie Lian, who had blushed, hard, and tried not to feel embarrassed about it. He’s still getting used to showing his face, even on the Paradise.)

But Xie Lian knows that across the galaxy, the northern hemisphere of Xian Le is tilting toward its sun, like a flower unfurling in the morning light. The capital city, were it still around, would be throwing open its windows at night, filling the streets with parasols during the day. From a distance the city would look like a glittering, armored creature, every building covered in solar panels. The evenings would be full of songs from the park musicians, the smell of night markets mixing with salt from the nearby sea. Deep in the forest everything would be late in bloom, heavy with color and ripening fruit. Summer on Xian Le was like that: full. Warm. Glowing. Full of impossible life.

“Gege?” Hua Cheng says, somewhere behind him, and Xie Lian tears his gaze from the window to look over his shoulder. Hua Cheng is dressed in fewer layers—and less weapons—than usual, as he does on days they don’t make port. It makes him softer, just a bit.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian says, and smiles.

Hua Cheng smiles in return—always, always answers Xie Lian’s smiles with his own—and he moves in to tuck his chin over Xie Lian’s shoulder. “Will gege tell me what’s on his mind?”

“It’s summer,” Xie Lian says.

Hua Cheng rests a feather-light hand over Xie Lian’s heart. “On Xian Le?”

Xie Lian nods. “I was just…” He breaks off, humming a few bars of something he used to hear before the races, when people would set up sprawling camps in the fields outside the track and dance until the sun came up again. “Remembering.”

“You miss it,” Hua Cheng says. Not an accusation, but an acknowledgement.

“Yes,” Xie Lian says. “And—no.”

“No?”

“I do miss Xian Le.” Xie Lian leans back. Hua Cheng doesn’t falter at all, steady as the ship itself. Xie Lian thinks he could drop everything—his body weight, and his entire past—and Hua Cheng would catch it all without missing a beat. “That much is true. I miss what it was, and what I wanted it to be. I miss the night markets.”

“Mm,” Hua Cheng says. “I remember those. We can change course—we don’t have to meet Black Water. We can go find a planet at the peak of summer. I can bring you to a dozen night markets, gege, and as many summers as you want.”

“San Lang.” Xie Lian smiles again, helpless. “I—maybe. But that’s the thing. I don’t miss summer.” Now Xie Lian turns, tucking his face into the side of Hua Cheng’s neck. “San Lang, every day with you is summer. Every night with you is summer again, all the best parts of it. How can I miss something I already have?”

“Gege,” Hua Cheng says, his voice rough. Xie Lian wraps his arms around him and tightens his hold.

Behind them, he knows, space stretches out endlessly, full of countless summers and songs and night markets. And right here, in the small, dark space where Xie Lian’s face presses against Hua Cheng’s skin, his own happiness is just as vast.

#hualian #space pirate au #my words #ficlet

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