#'hanguang jun used to play it for me every night before bed! why? is something wrong?'

[seekingthestars]

i may or may not have looped that 30 second clip of fanxing singing the chorus of wuji for a while tonight and i just—

slams hands on desk

gimmie a full version of sizhui singing wuji you cowards

[lansyuan]

do you love fics where wei wuxian and lan wangji parent the crap out of lan sizhui? do you want to read accidental baby acquisition fics until your eyes bleed? would you die as your heart slowly turns to mush from the softness of this family? bitch the fuck, me too. here are some of my personal favourite fics of wangxian ft their turnip son a-yuan. its a range of canon divergence, post canon, thirteen years of inquiry, raising a-yuan at the burial mounds au etc - there’ll be something for literally everyone. enjoy!

the kite string and the anchor rope by fleurdeliser (38k+)

When A-Yuan gets sick and Wen Qing doesn't have the supplies she needs to properly treat him, Wei Wuxian can only think of one place to go for help. 

a crying shame by thunderwear (16k+)

Lan Wangji gets emotionally blackmailed by a toddler. It somehow fixes everything.

to recollect and long for by wonderlands (22k+) *2/3 works posted at time of posting this rec list.

a 3-part series about best boy lan sizhui and his wonderful dads who love him and each other very much.

forgetting envies, remembering your loving hold by cosmicfuss (3k+)

The first time Zewu-jun plays for him he is five and the man is trying to comfort him, playing soft songs good for soothing children. It works to a degree but he wants his gege, he wants his gege to play his lullaby. Zewu-jun apologizes and tells him that his gege is hurting right now, and needs to be alone to get better.

When he plays the xiao, A-Yuan says, "you're holding it wrong!" When he turns fourteen, he learns to play guqin, and is many years ahead of his classmates in that regard. A large factor in that is how much he has practiced Inquiry. He has grown up hearing snippets from the jingshi, of Wangji attempting to reach a spirit that never answers.

When he's sixteen, he hears a familiar tune played in the forest, he and his fellow juniors battling a stone god. It's been years since he's heard it, and he wonders why this man, Mo Xuanyu, knows it so well.

Or, Lan Sizhui grows up and learns, and remembers.

five times wei wuxian tried to embarrass lan sizhui by blackelement7 (6k+)

(and one time he realized just how badly he'd played himself)

or: In which Wei Wuxian starts a fight but Lan Sizhui (with some meddling from Lan Jingyi) ends it.

inquiry by incendir (10k+)

Sizhui cannot fall asleep for a long, long time that night. He hears the ever-familiar melody again. He thinks perhaps he has memorized it by now.

storge by respira (9k+)

Lan Sizhui is a lake.

as the warren grows in number by kore_fics (3k+)

Before Sizhui could take another step he was surrounded by black and red, loud laughter in his ears and warm fingers running through his hair, messing it up. Palms squished both his cheeks together and Lan Sizhui let out a laugh.

Lan Sizhui was home.

tell some storm* by qurbat (31k+) *the moments with Sizhui are in chapter 2, however I highly recommend reading the whole fic, it’s adorable.

"We were raised as a generation of war, A-Yuan," Xian-gege said to him. "If your generation choses to be one of love - well, I don't think any of us would be opposed to that."

In the aftermath of the events at the Guanyin temple, the cultivation world scrambles to understand their current reality. A man roams the countryside with a string of white in his hair. Another sits on the highest seat of power with a ribbon of red around his forehead. The younger generation turns out to be full of romantics. Nie Huaisang is to blame for everything, always. Jiang Cheng realizes that happiness has been more that 16 years overdue.

Wei Wuxian declares that it's time that bitch pays up.

After a generation of war - much to the consternation of the elders, much to the delight of the young, much to the pleased shock of the subjects of the tale - the world welcomes a love story with open arms.

guess we're not eating leaves today by missingnarwhal (2k+)

Baby A-Yuan has cooked up a feast, but only one lucky gege will actually get to taste it!

Set in an alternate timeline where everything is okay after Wei Ying + Wens started living in the Burial Mounds.

response by aki_no_hikari (12k+)

What if Wei Wuxian hadn't been silent to Lan Wangji's Inquiry?

love, in all its small pieces by ynvel (4k+)

Ah Yuan is brought to the Cloud Recesses and exchanges the sun and its ashes for the clouds. Lan Wangji brings a boy home, calls him his son, and renews the promises he made.

Or: Lan Sizhui is adopted by Lan Wangji and learns about his new life. Lan Wangji in turn learns about hope and living again.

child surprise by ariaste (4k+)

He huffs a sigh. “Fine. Just - let’s just make it the law of surprise, shall we? That’s nice and simple, eh? Leave it up to destiny what will bring us back in balance. Let it drop something of yours into my lap, something small, and we’ll call the debt paid.”

Three debts, three repayments.

there's a lunatic in mo village by bastetcg (11k+)

There's a lunatic in Mo Village! And to Lan Sizhui's surprise, Hanguang-Jun has decided to bring the madman back to the Cloud Recesses! How embarrassing!

A mostly canon-compliant look into Lan Sizhui's thoughts and childhood.

on being a big boy by emberloey (1k+)

“My little A-Yuan,” Dad had said the next morning, kneeling down to A-Yuan’s height with a smile, “all grown up now. Soon you’ll be hunting without your poor old dads.”

“Never!” A-Yuan shook his head and latched onto Father’s leg. He smiled up at Father, who smiled back and nodded his head. “A-Yuan always needs Dad and Father!”

in all these shades of blue (i think we found you) by fleetling (5k+)

5 times Sizhui thought about his father's white robes, and 1 time Lan Wangji wore blue.

(Or: Lan Sizhui had never seen his father in anything other than white robes.)

this is when the feeling sinks in, i don't want to miss you like this (come back, be here) by mischievousmurmurs (6k+)

Just now… the butterflies’ conversation. Where did you learn that from, Ah-Yuan?

Ah-Yuan pats his chest. In here, shushu. I feel it in here. And in here, too, he adds, pointing to his head.

Sizhui has never quite been able to remember nor forget the memory of seeing people who he knows loved each other, loved him, and whom he loved in return.

or - a wangxian story, as told by their adopted son.

yours, mine, and ours by casecous (2k+)

When they have both mostly recovered, and A-Yuan is back to his smiling, playful self, Lan Wangji presents him with a forehead ribbon. A-Yuan’s little fingers bump into Lan Wangji’s thumbs as he traces the cloud motif along it.

“You are Lan now. This is very important,” Lan Wangji tells him and A-Yuan looks away from the ribbon to meet his eyes. “You must not take it off as you please. Only family may touch it.”

A series of wangxian family moments.

innocence by snowberryrose (8k+)

In which Wei WuXian gets to raise A-Yuan.

Canon divergence from episode 31.

to recollect and long for by mme_anxious (4k+)

Lan Xichen is there when his brother becomes a father. Lan Sizhui is there when his father's heart breaks, again. Wei Wuxian is there when his son gets drunk for the first time.

Or, the GusuLan forehead ribbon, in three parts.

our little one by writedeku (6k+)

A-Yuan is here. A-Yuan, who Wei Ying loved so much. A-Yuan, who was taught to laugh just like him. Wangji hugs him to his chest and curls over him, ignoring the way the wounds on his back pull and tear. “I have to take care of you,” he says. “I will not leave you.”

(Or: Lan Wangji comes back from Yiling with a child he does not know how to care for and a black hole in his chest. Somehow, he makes it work.)

gathered herbs & sweet grasses by hansbekhart (19k+)

Later, when he’s older, it’s this that A-Yuan will remember most: the stretch of silence, the two of them both dirty and shaking with fever, as he looked at Brother Rich, and Brother Rich looked back at him.

the sacred homeland by particulate (8k+)

He has many names, and some are mouthfuls of blood.

[Or; a chronology of Sizhui, in which he does not forget.]

to the act of making noise by words-writ-in-starlight (19k+)

His father in white plays the song late into the night, and when A-Yuan wakes up confused and afraid, the guqin lulls him back to sleep.

Lan Sizhui hears his father play the same song every night for his whole life, and never, ever get an answer.

when he comes home to you by kika988 (2k+)

Home is Cloud Recesses now, and that's a thing Wei Wuxian is still getting used to. He still feels like a guest here, most days, though Lan Wangji has done everything to make him feel at home. He stands out like a sore thumb amongst the serene disciples and flowing white fabric.

Cloud Recesses has been home to Lan Wangji and Sizhui for years. It is their home, where they've built their family.

The thought warms Wei Wuxian even as it sits a little ill with him. He's an intruder here, in their homes, in their lives, the same way he had been in Lotus Pier.

five times people didn’t know sizhui is lan zhan’s son and one time they did by trilliastra (3k+)

“A-Yuan.” He repeats, reaching out for the boy, growing restless when he can’t touch him. “A-Yuan.”

Oh. Lan Xichen closes his eyes as the tears start to fall. Oh, Wangji.

Carefully, Lan Xichen takes the boy and lays him next to his brother on the bed, Wangji holds him protectively against his chest and A-Yuan stops his little cries immediately.

“Wangji,” Lan Xichen tries again, running a hand through his brother’s hair softly, “who is he?”

“He’s my son.”

5 times the lan head disciple broke the rules by liji (6k+)

“I am not aware of any rule forbidding falling in love,” Hanguang-Jun said at last. There was a quiet sadness in his eye, like he was watching a scene from far away. The novelty of it gave Sizhui the courage to ask his next question.

“Have you ever been in love, Father?” he asked.

(or, five times that Sizhui broke the Lan sect's rules growing up)

the seasons change (but i love you the same) by kdkdkd (7k+)

"Hanguang-jun!"

When did you stop calling me Bàba, A-Yuan?

Lan Wangji had always promised himself that he would never become a poor father like his own had been.

Unfortunately, it feels like he has failed to keep that promise.

✨ bonus round ✨ uncle jiang cheng and nephew lan sizhui

tintinnabulum by respira (8k+)

A small bell chimes, the sound soft and pleasant like the water crashing against a pier, like low whistles in an empty cave, like a guqin playing a lullaby.

[antebunny]

Parent Trap AU 5

It’s a Parent Trap AU, plus on-the-run hacker!wwx and celebrity!lwj. Full series here.

-

At first, Lan Wangji finds writing songs to be extremely challenging.

He’s all but quit his job, and his son is gone. He’s alone in the house he once shared with his family, while his brother tries to keep quiet about pitying him and supporting him, and his uncle demands to know why he has no interest in searching for his son. He’s the one that files the kidnapping report, in the end. Not that it does much; they’re already searching for Wei Ying, since he escaped from prison.

All Lan Wangji really does, during this time, is cry by his piano, and sing.

The melodies come naturally to him. He’s been writing melodies for years, and these songs are no different. He has a thousand things to say, so some are angry, so fast he thinks he might tear his fingers on the guitar strings, some are soft with only piano accompaniment. All too soon he has dozens of recordings of phrases that can be put together into full-length songs. The only one he doesn’t record is the one he wrote for guqin, years ago.

But the lyrics, the lyrics he struggles with for ages. Not Lan Wangji finds himself at a loss for what to say. He doesn’t speak much, it’s true, but when he does he always finds precisely what he wants to say. Rather, Lan Wangji finds he has too much to say.

One Friday afternoon, he sits down on his couch and plays the same ten-minute ballad on his guitar, trying again and again to find a way to shorten it without feeling like he’s ripping a part of his already shattered heart out of his chest. While suppressing the urge to write more verses. He knows he can’t leave them all in; it’s too repetitive. He wants these songs to be good, though he doesn’t really plan on marketing them. A large part of him thinks it’ll always be like this. Just him and his instruments, alone in the living room, mourning over a love long lost, making himself cry over his own lyrics.

Still, Lan Wangji is a perfectionist at heart. He has to do something about the ten-minute ballad. It’s longer than two songs put together.

What if I made them two separate songs?

The thought comes to Lan Wangji suddenly, and he sets down his guitar to pick up the notebook containing the lyrics. This could work. He becomes convinced of this the longer he looks at the lyrics. He’ll never run out of things to say about Wei Ying, but if he separated each of those things into one song–that could work.

He chooses a different melody, edits the lyrics to fit it, picks out a theme, an aspect of Wei Ying to sing about, and suddenly he has a whole discography, and not a single published song.

Lan Wangji goes to his brother.

“Are you sure about this?” Lan Xichen asks, his brows pulled together in a small, worried dip.

“Mn.”

They stare at each other without speaking, because Lan Xichen knows that every concern he might think of, Lan Wangji has already over thought.

“Even if he hears them?”

Lan Wangji will never be famous enough that Wei Ying, wherever in the world he might be, will hear his songs. But if he does, then all the better. “Mn.”

Lan Xichen sighs. “I just don’t want to see you hurt anymore.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t think that’s possible. “Hm.”

Lan Xichen sighs again. “Okay,” he says. “If that’s what you want. I’m sure A-Yao knows someone. I’ll ask.”

It’s a while before he finds someone who’ll actually produce his music, but he’s happy with the person he ends up with. Luo Qingyang emails him back almost immediately after she listens to his demo.

I need you down here yesterday, she says. This is getting produced right now.

His first song, When We Were Young, is released as a single less than a year after the scandal that took Wei Ying from his life, under the stage name “Hanguang-jun.” He’s not sure it fits, but he wants to.

And suddenly, it looks like Lan Wangji might actually be that famous.

Of course, it’s still years in the future, so Lan Wangji carries on like he’s not. His second single, At First Glance, does even better than When We Were Young, and his manager starts bothering him about a music video. Apparently it’s expected of him, but Lan Wangji rejects all of the ideas that the directors Luo Qingyang finds for him come up with. They end up renting a house for a week and filming there, then going to a studio with lights and a piano. Lan Wangji dresses up for that and plays his heart out, and that’s it, that’s the music video.

His third single, Under Moonlight, is somehow more popular than his previous two combined. He has fans now, or maybe it’s just that he’s only now realizing it. He’s not quite sure what to do with that. The video this time takes place on the very bridge the song talks about. He doesn’t do much, since he rejected the idea of hiring actors to play the “counterpart,” so he’s confused as to why it continues gaining views on YouTube. Apparently he looks young. He’s not sure if this is insulting or not, but the internet would probably be shocked to learn he has a five-year-old son.

Lan Sizhui is too young to listen to music by himself, so Lan Wangji hopes that somewhere, there’s a radio playing one of the new hit songs by Hanguang-jun, and a father-son duo walking past.

Luo Qingyang bullies him into exactly one interview before his first album is released. On it, he accidentally confirms that all the songs on the album are about one person, and panics after that, not wishing to reveal anything about Wei Ying or even Lan Wangji’s own name on camera.

Apparently the mystery helps? Lan Wangji understands fame less and less the closer he comes to it. He thought if he just wrote good songs, enough people would listen to him that Wei Ying would hear it. Wei Ying is spotted in Thailand, and Lan Wangji ends up naming his first album Oceans Apart.

It sells, and it sells, and still, Wei Ying and their son are nowhere to be found.

-

Wei Wuxian is lying on a roof the night of his wedding anniversary.

Purple, white, and red fireworks explode in the black sky above him. There’s some celebration going on in the city, and Wei Wuxian takes advantage of it to pretend it’s in celebration of his anniversary.

Not that there’s much to celebrate. He doesn’t think it’s typical to celebrate the anniversary of a marriage which no longer exists, but their marriage didn’t end in the typical way either.

And he still loves Lan Zhan. Loves him so much that the sight of rabbits brings him to tears. So much that he feels like a traitor whenever someone so much as smiles in his direction, so much that he can’t imagine himself flirting with someone. So much that he cries on the roof when the fireworks light up the sky.

“Papa?”

Wei Wuxian looks to the right, and there’s Wei Sizhui, who is sometimes the only thing keeping Wei Wuxian going on his darkest nights. He’s nestled up with Wei Wuxian’s arm around him, small face peering earnestly at him from the dark. “What?”

“Why are you crying?”

Wei Wuxian raises one hand instinctively to rub the tears away. He’d forgotten about that. He’s thrown himself fully into caring for his son, making sure that he has clothes and good food to eat, which is hard when they never stay in a place for long and Wei Wuxian is paranoid of anyone who stares at them too long. Sometimes he wonders if he’s really doing any good, keeping Wei Sizhui away from his other father and uncles and aunts, from a happy childhood with friends and a school. And every time, he blinks back to the moment he woke up in the prison having narrowly avoided being murdered, and knows that Wei Sizhui is still safer with him than he’d be if he was still there, within the Jins reach.

“Nothing,” Wei Wuxian says. “It’s nothing.”

Wei Sizhui frowns. “But Papa is sad,” he declares.

Wei Wuxian presses the back of his hand over his eyes. Fireworks crack so loudly it muffles his shaky inhale. Tears stream down his cheeks and around his ears. Red lights flash across his eyelids.

-

White lights flash through the stage, focusing on the solitary grand piano, and Lan Wangji, in his white suit, seated on the piano bench. A hush falls across the massive crowd. He adjusts his microphone slightly, and places his fingers gently atop the keys. The cameras zoom in on him.

And Lan Wangji sings.

-

“I’m just remembering,” Wei Wuxian whispers. “Someone I used to know.”

“Is it Dad?” Wei Sizhui asks timidly.

Wei Wuxian inhales shakily again, then wraps his arm back around his son. “Yeah,” he admits. “It’s your other father.”

He hasn’t looked back since he ran away. Countless times, he’s thought about Googling the Jiangs in an internet cafe, just to check on how they’re doing. They have social media profiles, so he could. He could. But even the slightest hint of connection could ruin what Wei Wuxian has managed to salvage. The Jiangs would fight for him. Would drag their names in the mud for him, and he can’t let them do that to themselves, so he cuts all ties and doesn’t look back.

Wei Wuxian hasn’t dared to search Lan Wangji since he ran away.

-

“Hello,” Lan Wangji sings, and the crowd cheers.“It’s me. I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet, to go over everything. They say that time’s supposed to heal you, but I ain’t done much healing.”

Before he knows it, there’s tears streaming down his face. They drip onto his nice white suit, but the music doesn’t pause.

-

Hello from the other side

“Will we ever see him again?” Wei Sizhui asks plaintively.

I must have called a thousand times

Wei Wuxian tries to shake his head, his shoulders pressed against the dusty brick roof. “I don’t know, baby,” he says.

To tell you I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done

“But why not?” Wei Sizhui pushes. It’s far from the first time he’s asked, but each day it gets harder and harder to answer.

Hello from the outside

“Because he’s very, very far away,” Wei Wuxian replies this time, and tries not to think of Lan Zhan as he last saw him, sleeping peacefully in their bed the night Wei Wuxian broke in and took Wei Sizhui with him. “Oceans away.”

At least I can say that I tried

Eventually, the fireworks stop, and Wei Sizhui falls asleep, head resting in the crook of Wei Wuxian’s arm. Wei Wuxian raises one hand to the midnight sky, pretends he can reach through the vast expanse to wherever his family is. “Happy anniversary, Lan Zhan,” he whispers. “I miss you.”

To tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart

Eventually, the song ends, and the cheers deafen the stadium. The lights go out long after Lan Wangji has gotten up from his seat and stepped away from the microphone. The tears on his face are invisible until the cameras focus in on him walking.

“Happy anniversary, Wei Ying,” he whispers, before he picks up the microphone to thank the crowd. “I love you.”

[trilliastra]

[Lan Wangji & Lan Sizhui. Inspired by this extremely adorable fanart by @0tterp0p]

-

“Father,” Lan Yuan asks. Lan Wangji looks at him immediately, puts his book aside when he notices the concerned look on his son’s face. He gestures for A-Yuan to step closer, rests his hand on the boy’s shoulder, waiting patiently, “are you happy?”

Lan Wangji frowns, confused, but after a moment he sighs. He shouldn’t be surprised, A-Yuan is perceptive, too perceptive, even at this young age, he’s quiet, focused, and gentle, always ready to help whoever needs.

He’s only eight and already been through so much pain – even if he doesn’t remember much of it, the scars on his body and soul won’t let the memories fade completely.

Lan Wangji opens his mouth to answer a determined yes, but stops himself before he can say anything. He cannot lie, it’s one of the rules, but most of all, he doesn’t want to lie to his son. Because he deserves to know, he deserves an honest answer.

“Yes, and no.” He finally says, watches A-Yuan frown, a perfect imitation of his own expression, and feels his hear swell with love. “It is not possible to be happy all the time,” he continues, gestures for him to climb onto his lap and runs a hand through his hair softly, “but every time I see you, every day I’m with you, I feel more happiness than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Oh,” A-Yuan says, takes Lan Wangji’s hand in his and starts to play with his fingers distractedly. “So, it is possible to be happy and sad at the same time?”

“Yes.” Lan Wangji nods, thinks about all the moments he had with Wei Ying, how his heart would flutter every time they were together, even through the hardest moments, the fights, the hurt. Thinks about touching his hand and feeling a rush of power run through his veins, like he could accomplish anything as long as they were together. It was love, strong, violent love, but also a calm contentment, a silent understanding.

He didn’t think he’d feel anything quite as powerful as that, and then A-Yuan called him father, all those years ago, and Lan Wangji understood that sadness, sorrow, and happiness could coexist, will always coexist, because Wei Ying is dead and Lan Wangji misses him so much it hurts to breathe sometimes, but A-Yuan is alive, and watching him smile is like waking up from a nightmare every time, having a weight lifted off his shoulders and feeling only love, pure love.

If Wei Ying is the reason why he wanted to die, A-Yuan is the reason why he wants to live.

“Oh,” A-Yuan repeats, watching him with barely concealed curiosity, “do I really make you happy?”

“Of course.” Lan Wangji answers, he touches A-Yuan’s nose playfully, doesn’t even try to hide a smile when his son laughs.

“But how?” He asks in between giggles.

“By living.” Lan Wangji says. He reaches out for a comb and starts to undo the knots on his son’s hair. It’s almost time for bed and while he doesn’t want to leave A-Yuan’s questions unanswered, he knows their responsibilities will still be there in the morning. “When I see you studying, training, upholding our rules and our morals, but still keeping your kindness. When you laugh,” he tickles him, smiles when the boy asks him to stop, legs kicking in the air happily, “when you keep asking question after question.” A-Yuan blushes but smiles when he notices Lan Wangji’s teasing tone. “When you’re happy I am happy.”

“I am happy.” A-Yuan states. “I am very happy, father.”

“I am glad.” They stay quiet as Lan Wangji keeps brushing his hair, A-Yuan trying to hide his sleepy yawns. Lan Wangji sighs, amused. He puts the comb aside, takes his son in his arms and carries him to his bed. “Come, I want to show you something.”

He tucks A-Yuan in, the boy fighting to stay awake, takes his guqin and starts to play. He always plays for his son, usually at night before they go to sleep, but this is new, this is something he's been working in secret. The tunes remind him of summer and rain, of bunnies and laughter, a motherly touch, a child's unconditional love.

“What is it called?” A-Yuan asks, voice small and eyes closing as he begins to fall asleep.

Leaning closer to press a kiss on his son's forehead, he whispers, “Sizhui.”

-

“He taught you how to play WangXian.” Wei Wuxian says once A-Yuan finishes playing the song, Lan Zhan is still on their bed, hurt, but he's sleeping peacefully now.

“I asked him.” A-Yuan explains, smiling shyly. “I annoyed him, actually.” Wei Wuxian laughs, fondly, watching his son take his father's hand in his, squeeze it tightly. Lan Zhan will be fine, in a few days he will be good as new, but it's still hard to see him like this. He's always been their protector, their strength, this is a new experience, and Wei Wuxian can imagine how scared A-Yuan must have felt, it reflects his own feelings. “Not being his real son-” he takes a deep breath, “he loves me, I know, and I love him, but it never changed the fact that I am adopted.” His eyes begin to water and Wei Wuxian reaches out to touch his shoulder, he understands this feeling – more than anyone – the urgency to prove yourself, to show people you belong there. “Some disciples used to say I look like him, but - how? I don't have his eyes, his nose, his blood. But I was always good at playing instruments, so I thought we could have this one thing in common. And then I'd really be his son.”

A-Yuan takes a deep breath, gives Wei Wuxian a reassuring smile and then reaches out for his guqin again. He plays a new song, one Wei Wuxian never heard before, but he feels the love in every tune. A-Yuan whispers a word or two in between, but Wei Wuxian doesn't even try to listen to what he's singing, this is between Lan Zhan and their son, this song is very personal, he notices, this song – is a statement, just as much as it is a declaration of love.

“You composed this?” Wei Wuxian asks, voice low, once A-Yuan finished playing.

“Hmn.” He answers, smiling produly.

“What is it called?”

“Hanguang-jun.” He whispers. “Father.”

[tanoraqui]

hey, pls tell us about those 'kidnapping sizhui back to the burial mounds' aus? 'grave dirt baby'? 'speaker for the dead'? put me down as Scared! and! Intrigued!

Alright, so, the au I’ve mentally titled Speaker for the Dead is inspired by this fic series, which I think has great concepts but wildly insufficient follow-through on consequences

edit: er, this is gonna be the first of several parts. At least 3.

You know the Cluster in Steven Universe? Think of the Burial Mounds like that. Hundreds, maybe thousands of restless souls; some shredded, some simply lost; all neglected. Forgotten. Stewing in their own resentful energy and their exponential shared resentful energy, trapped in these abandoned lack-of-real-graves and forged over time into a nearly-single mass of rage and loss and unfinished business.

And then someone came along - well, was bodily dropped from a height - who could match them rage for rage and loss for loss, unfinished bloody business for unfinished bloody business. No one living and perhaps no one dead remembers if he said, “serve me, lend me your power, and I will carry your sentiments into the living world”, or if the Burial Mounds said, “serve us, wreak our fury and sorrow upon the living world, and in turn you will live and wield our power.” Or maybe it was an instant mutual recognition and agreement?

Well, we all know what happened next. And then he came back, their deathly messenger, and brought others, and for a brief while there was...life, inexplicably, in the land of the dead. Stubborn, hopeful life.

Then death swept through once more, from the outside this time, and the Burial Mounds took their diplomat into their embrace - but they’d gotten a taste for having their voice heard, now. The living far and wide had buckled under the force of their weeping rage, shared the burning sorrow of their thousand dead hearts. And there was one living thing left on their grounds sympathetic to their power...

But not because he shared their rage, loss, unfinished business - save in that he was young, and all his life was unfinished before him. And he was starting to understand loss, as the rest of his family died out of sight. Mostly he was sympathetic in the other way: kind and accepting, and even as a child disinclined to forget those abandoned by everyone else.

Well. Disinclined to forget intentionally. Because a three-year-old isn’t designed to be swarmed by the thousand and one voice(s) of the Burial Mounds, howling their rage and loss and determination to be heard. 

A-Yuan would have died that day, if one ghost in particular hadn’t been too fresh to have sunk into the horde. Barely aware of his own death yet, save that it had hurt, the Burial Mounds’ previous master/messenger stepped in between the boy and the onslaught of the dead - and he was a warrior and defender, he always had been. It had served them well when their unfinished business was little more than the bloody spread of death. 

It’s hard to say what exactly happened, then. Suffice to say, once the dest and resentful energy settled - and certainly by the time the cultivator in white arrived - the Burial Mounds had a representative to the living again, their roots sunk deep into his soul, and their representative had a guardian.

-

Lan Xichen was very carefully not wondering where his brother had gotten this child, not wondering at all - why question; there were far too many orphans, these days, and of course Hanguang-jun was noble enough to save one even while wounded to near death himself.

But the fact remained that the boy - A-Yuan, Lan Yuan now - was laced with incredibly persistent resentful energy. The healers had noticed it first and done their best to cleanse it, and the best of the healers of GusuLan was no small effort. At first, it had seemed to work - the darkness stopped wisping from his lungs when he coughed; the cough and fever themselves disappeared. But still the resentful energy remained, a patina of grime on an otherwise pure soul, and even when Lan Xichen himself played Cleansing, it only seemed to fade, not fully dissipate.

A-Yuan grew sick again, feverish and weeping, complained of hurting in the way of a small child too miserable to give clear answers. Lan Xichen stayed with him, playing Cleansing through the night, and by the wee hours of the morning the boy was positively listless - and still, under close inspection, resentful energy clung to him. 

Lan Xichen closed his eyes and sat back to meditate for a moment. He had to collect himself. 

His brother was asleep in the next room over. He’d been asleep since he got back from...somewhere, nearly collapsing off his sword with blood pouring from every whip mark and with a feverish child in his arms. His continued unconsciousness was partly at the order of the healers, partly of his own accord.

Multiple rules forbade superstition and the taking of omens, but Lan Xichen could feel in his heart that if the boy died, Lan Wangji wouldn’t wake. Or if he did, he would be...empty, the way he’d been for years after their mother’s passing. The way he’d been, to be quite honest, until Wei Wuxian walked into the Cloud Recesses.

Meditation didn’t help. Lan Xichen picked his [xiao] again and began the first notes of Cleaning, pouring every ounce of power he had into the music. On the bed, Lan Yuan whimpered weakly.

There was a rattling from his waist, where jade keys to all the wards of Cloud Recesses hung as a badge of office. An instant later, something yanked Liebing from his hands and flung it across the room, and with the same force shoved him backward. For an instant, he saw a figure standing above him, dark-robed and terrible.

Then it was gone, a mirage of the flickering lantern - but on the bed, A-Yuan had moved. Instead of lying flat, he was curled up as though leaning against something, clutching the air near his chest like something invisible had been placed there for him to hold. ...Hovering slightly above the mattress as though on a lap, and tired tears spilled from his eyes; he murmured something too quiet to hear.

(Cool hands picked A-Yuan up and held him; a hand brushed through his hair and a gentle voice said, “Shh, shh, A-Yuan, it’s alright. I’ve got you.” He looked up to see a pretty face and soft, sad smile, clad in robes that were dark and smelled of damp and blood.

“Mama?” he said blearily. It wasn’t right, but it was the closest word he had for how safe and loved and somehow refreshed be felt. He clutched the roughspun robes like they might vanish from his grip.

“Is that what we’re working with?” The man’s smile turned teasing, and he held A-Yuan a little closer. “Sure. I did birth you from my own body.”)

Lan Xichen picked himself up carefully, retrieved Liebing from beside the far wall and eyed the boy on the bed. Some presence watched him back - resentful, to be sure, but not like any spirit he’d ever felt. The tokens representing the wards against resentful energy and restless ghosts had both stopped shivering - because it was quiescent, or because it was already inside?

He needed answers, but at the same time, he very much needed to not have answers, because they might force him to a decision that his brother would never forgive.

-

Lan Yuan has never left the Cloud Recesses since he arrived. This wasn’t entirely abnormal - he’s only just six years old; there are few reasons for a child that young to go beyond the wards. There are excursions for hikes now and than, to introduce the children to nature, but something always interfered - illness, other duties or even punishments. There is the Spring Festival in Caiyi Town for which disciples of all ages are permitted one day free of all responsibility, including the youngest who are taken down with appropriate adult minders. But Lan Yuan always filially elected to use the special dispensation of this holiday to spend all day with Lan Wangji (per Rules 267-270, exceptions to seclusions were allowed for close family, at the Sect Leader’s discretion.) 

In his third year of seclusion, Lan Yuan now age six and bubbling enthusiastically about the tales and treats he expected his friends to bring back from the festival, Lan Wangji had asked why he refused this holiday. Wide-eyed and pious, Lan Yuan had replied, “Because I want to spend time with Father!” 

Sensitive to too-wide eyes, and too aware of his own shortcomings in the area of festivity and excitement, Lan Wangji had pressed to be sure that this was how he wanted to spend his day: sitting quietly inside, playing music, practicing reading stories of Lan Sect history? 

Pressed, Lan Yuan admitted that his Mama said he shouldn’t go outside the boundaries of Cloud Recesses unless his father was with him.

It wasn’t the first time this “Mama” had come up. Lan Yuan’s Mama said it was not just permitted but required that he run shrieking up the path to the jingshi, to greet Lan Wangji by tackling him about the knees with gleeful laughter. Mama said it was okay if he didn’t eat dinner when he was supposed to, Lan Yuan insisted, because the food was “boring anyway.” 

“Mama”, Lan Wangji was very, very sure, knew a song that Lan Wangji had composed at the age of sixteen and only ever played for one other person, because somehow Lan Yuan knew it to hum himself to sleep on restless nights. It was possible that he simply remembered it subconsciously from the times he couldn’t otherwise call to mind - music was like that. But when asked, he took on the overly cute look of an untrained liar rather than the dreadful uncertainty that slipped into his voice when questions arose of any time before the Cloud Recesses.

Lan Yuan had never stepped foot outside the Cloud Recesses since the day he’d been carried in, yet it was Lan Wangji who hesitated on the border, marked on this back hill by nothing more than a thin strip of bricks at the edge of the field.

“Rabbits!” Lan Yuan cried, and tugged him forward by the hand. “There are rabbits!”

“Xichen would not have misled you,” Lan Wangji said, amused.

“I know.” Lan Yuan immediately slowed down contritely, and looked up at him with confusion. “But there are no pets allowed in the Cloud Recesses.”

“The rabbits are not pets,” said Lan Wangji, perhaps more automatically defensive than the occassion called for. “They simply find this meadow enjoyable, as it is filled with clover and, coincidentally, sometimes scraps from the kitchens. Also - ” He gestured to the line of brick several feet behind them - “we are no longer in the Cloud Recesses.”

“Huh.” Lan Yuan cocked his head as though this was something he’d never heard before, rather than something he’d been explicitly told they were going to do, this first day of Lan Wangji’s release from seclusion. “It’s colder, in a nice way. And there’s a lot of - ”

He shut his mouth abruptly, as though someone had hurriedly told him to stop talking.

“Rabbits!” he shouted suddenly, for all appearances remembering thei presence with absolute delight. “Can I play with them, Father?” He pulled on Lan Wangji’s hand again. “Can we play with the rabbits?” 

“You can and you may,” said Lan Wangji, and let his hand go.

Lan Wangji was itching now, burning, to draw his guqin. But of course this permission meant that he had to spend several minutes carefully coaching Lan Yuan on the way to quietly approach a rabbit without causing it alarm, how to offer some of the lettuce they’d brought and how to pick one up and hold it safely. Mitigating his impatience was the unabashed awe on Lan Yuan’s face when the first rabbit let him pet its ears, and his own gratitude at how several of the older rabbits seemed to remember him. (Or possibly they just recognized “man in white sitting quietly with lettuce”, and found it a more attractive invitation than “quietly bouncing six-year-old with lettuce.”)

But, fascinated though he’d been, Lan Yuan quickly lost interest in the rabbits. He pet them absently, but kept looking around as though more interesting things were happening in the clear air. A sudden wind whipped though the meadow, acrid with resentful energy, and he scooted to Lan Wangji’s side.

(”Everyone shut the fuck up!” Mama’s robes and hair lashed as resentful energy rushed out from him, pushing back the clamoring crowd of ghosts. His fists clenched and his eyes flashed red, and the scent of blood rose about him. “You will line up single-file to talk to A-Yuan, if and when I say you get to talk to him! Right now, he’s playing - oh, look, Hanguang-jun’s getting out his guqin, probably to play Inquiry. Go bother him!”)

Lan Wangji couldn’t stand it anymore. He settled Wangji on his lap and set his fingers for the strong opening chords of a general Inquiry, to announce his presence and summon any spirits within range - and paused, and leaned over to ask Lan Yuan, “Is your Mama here, now?”

“Ye - ” Lan Yuan squeezed his lips shut and shook his head. “I mean, no. Who’s Mama?”

“Lan Yuan,” Lan Wangji said sternly.

Lan Yuan shrunk, but didn’t break. 

“Mama’s a secret,” he whispered fiercely. “It’s a rule, like on the wall.”

“I know.” They’d had this conversation before, and Lan Wangji had never pushed beyond this. Even a child was allowed secrets, and Lan Wangji was in forced seclusion, punishment for a crime he didn’t regret but would accept the consequences of nonetheless, in spirit as well as letter (fave for A-Yuan’s near-daily visits - but that was allowed.) Moreover, even from the secluded jingshi, someone might hear his Inquiry and have questions of their own, and- and what if he was wrong? The disappointment would be like death again.

But now he was not just out of his house but beyond the border of the Cloud Recesses for the first time in three years, far from any plausible earshot save the rabbits’  and soaking in sunlight that reminded him of a smile. Now, he thought he’d seen a figure in black for a split second when the cold wind blew. and suddenly the idea of being right and not knowing it was more horrific than any other outcome.

He swallowed a rasping, Please - unseemly, and unjust to burden a child with. He gathered parental authority about himself like a cloak and improvised, “Rabbits do not like secrets. It is rude to keep them in this, their home.” 

Lan Yuan bit his lip, and Lan Wangji gentled his voice. “They will still be secrets away from the rabbits’ meadow, and there will be no consequences for any broken rules.”

“Oh!” Lan Yuan sagged against Lan Wangji’s side and let out a sigh like he was coming home at the end of a month-long night hunt. “Thank you, Hanguang-jun.” He bowed formally, from the seating position, in the direction of the greatest cluster of rabbits, which seemed unconcerned by the gathering resentful energy. “And thank you, rabbits, for your hospitality!” 

He sat up, posture Lan-perfect, and pointed. “Mama’s there, pushing all the other ghosts into line. He says they have to talk one at a time, like in lessons. Are the ghosts in lessons, now? Is Mama a teacher, like Senior Feng and Great-Uncle?”

Lan Wangji, quite honestly, didn’t hear most of his son’s questions. He was too busy playing, perhaps more hesitant than he had ever played Inquiry in his life, Wei Ying?

He held his breath as the small light of a lost soul alighted upon the strings and plucked out, I am Ying Huang.

The breath seemed lost for good.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Ying,” said Lan Yuan. “Um - ” He glanced at Lan Wangji and back at the space above the guqin. “Yes, I- we- Father can tell your husband that it wasn’t his fault - oh wow, you had a baby? What’s its name?” A pause. “That’s pretty! I bet she’ll be pretty, too - you are, so I bet she’ll be pretty just like her mother!”

The chatter, a six-year-old’s mix of earnestness and polite nothings mimicked from adults, reeled him back from that distant, breathless place. Inquiry was still in effect and the spirit continued to play, far more slowly than Lan Yuan responded, Tell Ying Chao it was not his fault, nor the baby’s. 

“A-Yuan,” Lan Wangji managed. “This - Ying Huang. She is not your Mama?”

“No?” Lan Yuan looked utterly baffled. He pointed to somewhere directly ahead of him. “Mama is right there. He’s tall and wears black and has blood all over, sometimes, when he’s angry or sad. Miss Ying is here - ” he pointed at the space on the opposite side of the guqin - “and she’s short and has a greenish dress, and only only has blood on her - oh! Mama’s coming here now...”

Another spirit light solidified as it approached the guqin. This one was brighter and darker at once, strong and resentful - yet not...active in it. It simply was. 

It hovered over the strings for a moment, quivering side to side like the eyes of a shamed person, before alighting and gently plucking out, Hello, Hanguang-jun.

There was no way to know that it was him, and yet... Lan Wangji was breathless again, but this time it felt as though he simply had too much inside him to have room for air.

His fingers moved over the strings without conscious direction. He thought he might be mouthing the name. Wei Ying.

The guqin language of Inquiry was necessarily limited; there were only so many combinations one could make of seven strings. There was only one clear affirmative, yes, and no formal or informal intonations.

Nevertheless, Wei Wuxian managed to express, Yeah. Lan Wangji could imagine him shrugging, giving a rueful smile. Sorry about the whole ‘Mother’ lie. It was his idea.

Understandable. The rhythms of Inquiry called for question and answer. Did you not birth him yourself?

“Mama is laughing,” Lan Yuan announced, as pleased as though he’d organized every part of this himself. He sat up straight, hands in his lap, every inch the proper Lan disciple. “Father, can- may we just talk, now, instead of using Inquiry? It’s much faster, and I can understand it.”

“I’m afraid I cannot understand Wei Ying any other way,” said Lan Wangji, feeling real regret, On the guqin, Wei Wuxian played, We really do need a better way - this is boring. But a way with less soul-binding resentful ghost fuckery.

(Another word that was absolutely not in the vocabulary of Inquiry. Wei Wuxian, as always, managed anyway.)

Three years of parenting practice had one of Lan Wangji’s hands protectively on Lan Yuan’s shoulder, the other darting across Wangji’s strings. What do you mean, soul-binding resentful ghost trouble?

Wei Wuxian’s soul moved back from the strings, fading until it was barely visible. Lan Yuan nodded and shifted until he was sitting beside the guqin, between them.

“Mama says don’t worry, A-Yuan is fine,” he told Lan Wangji seriously. “He says it’s a...” He narrowed his eyes in focus. “‘Severe but non-ma-lig-nant case of resentful energy inculcation and imprinting, with a side order of a little bit of passive possession. By the conjoined spirits of the Burial Mounds.” 

Lan Wangji must been visibly horrified, because Lan Yuan looked worried as he leaned forward and patted his knee. 

“It means I can talk to Mama and other ghosts,” he explained in his own words, “and they can understand living people better when I’m there.” His face twisted skeptically. “Because that’s special?”

“It is very special,” Lan Wangji confirmed, still reeling a little from “passive possession by the conjoined spirits of the Burial Mounds.” But if Wei Wuxian said it was fine, then it must be fine - he would, Lan Wangji was exquisitely sure, mask any danger to himself, but never to A-Yuan.

Still, his gaze flicked to beyond Wei Wuxian, where there was nothing but silence, sunlight, and idle rabbits sleeping, or gnawing down the grass - and, he was sure, still a line of ghosts apparently determined to speak to his son.

Wei Wuxian must have noticed the movement of his eyes, because Lan Yuan began reciting dutifully again: “Mama says that there’s fourteen more spirits here, not counting Ying Huang - who went back to everyone else, now. There’s a draw, he thinks, to A-Yuan, even if they don’t know con-scious-ly that he can talk to them. And, of course, the handsome - oh, the great Hanguang-jun, known master of Inquiry.”

"Will they accept Inquiry with myself,” Lan Wangji asked, “while Lan Yuan continues to play with the rabbits?”

Lan Yuan watched the space where Wei Wuxian was.

“’Lan Zhaaan,’” he repeated, less certainly. “’You’re too - sorry, Mama. ...Yes, Mama.” He turned back to Lan Wangji. “He says you’re a very good dad and he’s so glad you’ve learned so much since the street in Yiling.”

Lan Wangji felt his ears turn red, which was ridiculous. It wasn’t exactly a high bar, to have learned how to treat a child better than to stand in silent bewilderment while the child wailed at one’s feet.

Oh.

“A-Yuan. Do you remember...”

Lan Yuan shook his head, looking down in shame.

“That is fine,” Lan Wangji said firmly. “Do you wish to resume playing with the rabbits?”

Lan Yuan’s entire being seemed to brighten; if he’d been a rabbit himself, his ears would have stood straight in excitement. But he looked guiltily at the line of waiting ghosts.

(They were mostly common people of Gusu, ghostly echoes of clothing in rough cloth and dull colors. Many were bloody, from missing limbs or cut chests or more, others were simply pale and thin. One had the ghost of a cat draped stubbornly around her shoulders. The farther they got from him, the less clear they were to see, but sadness and yearning radiated from all of them, even the ones who scowled or glared, dark energy flicking around their forms like a shadow of the aura Mama could summon.

“Go on, A-Yuan,” said Mama, with one of his warm smiles that felt like home. “Your dad and I will handle the deathly supplicants, but we can’t play with the bunnies nearly as well as you will - but be careful! They might recognize that you’re part radish, and try to eat you!”)

Lan Yuan leapt to his feet with a grin, and bowed quickly to both of them. “I���ll be careful! Thank you, Mama; thank you, Father!” 

“Go slowly,” Lan Wangji called as he darted off. “The rabbits - ”

The rabbits had already scattered in the face of Lan Yuan’s run, save for one particularly lazy old one with a whole leaf of lettuce to itself.

He will learn, Wei Wuxian said on the guqin, with a meaningless trill that Lan Wangji had no trouble translating as a smile. 

[aquadrazi]

Find Someone to Carry You

Chapter 12

#PTSD

……..Qinghe…….

The first time Wei Ying woke it was with screaming and thrashing.  No matter how hard anyone tried, no one could convince him that he was, in fact, NOT on fire.  Wen Qing was forced to use her needles to put him back to sleep.

Lan Wangji had been by Wei Ying’s side since he himself woke up, after his own…incident.  Wen Qing seemed to have no intention of making him leave, since it made her job easier by not having to try to get Wei Ying to drink water and eat something on a daily basis.

Nie Huaisang’s spy had informed them that Wei Ying had been considerably disoriented when he was found, before the rescue, so Lan Wangji spent most of his time playing Clarity for him.  It was equally for himself as it was for Wei Ying. Lan Wangji was in much better control of his emotions since waking.  His face back to the impassive stone it usually was.  However, warring emotions were swirling below the surface of Lan Wangji’s stoic exterior.

Hope, Wei Ying is alive.

Anger, The Jin Sect lied about Wei Ying’s death.

Shame, I was in the same room as him and I didn’t even know it.

Rage, Wei Ying has been…violated.

“Lan Zhaaaan” Wei Ying let out a contented sigh.

Lan Wangji almost jumped right out of his skin.  It took all his self-control to stay where he was and continue playing.

“Yes Wei Ying, I am here”  He transitioned from Clarity to Wangxian.

‘Hmm”  Wei Ying hummed.  “I like this song.”

They stayed like that for a bit.  The only sound being the sound of the guqin.

“Not that this isn’t nice Lan Zhan, but why are you here disturbing the dead?”

“Not dead.”

Wei Ying set out a small chuckle.  “Oh Lan Zhan, we both know I’m dead.  I watched myself go up in flames.”

Lan Wangji silenced the guqin.  “Wei Ying is not dead.”

“Maybe it’s you who’s in denial.  Maybe you’re ALSO dead.  Did you ever think of that?”

“Also, not dead.”

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.  Can’t we just have a nice moment, instead of fighting like we usually do? There must be some reason why you’re here…”  Wei Ying’s eyes flew open at the end of the sentence, like he suddenly remembered something, something unpleasant.  His face went ashen.

“Wei Ying?”  Lan Wangji started to rush to the bedside.

“I can smell sandalwood.  You’re really here.  No, no, no, no, no, no”  Wei Ying curled into himself and let out a high pitched whine.

“Please no.  You can’t.  I know I wanted it to be you.  But it CAN’T be you.  I’m dirty Lan Zhan.  Please…I ruin everything I touch.  I know I fantasized about it but…please don’t.  Not now.  Not after…after…”  Wei Ying sobbed hysterically.

“Wei Ying…” Lan Wangji was frozen.

What is he saying?

Does he think I’m here for-

Oh

Oh no

He thinks I’m here to RAPE him

Well, this is…mortifying

“Wei Ying.”  Lan Wangji slowly sat down on the bed next to him.  “Wei Ying.  I’m not here for…that.”

Why do words have to be so HARD

“Wei Ying is safe now.  No one will touch Wei Ying without your permission again.  I won’t let them.”

Wei Ying’s crying eventually slowed to sniffles.

“I promise.  No one will hurt you again.”

“Bu-but.  Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why?  You hate me Lan Zhan.  Why would you promise to protect me?  If you aren’t here for sex, are you here to punish me for my…cultivation?”  Wei Ying miserably mumbled into the mattress.

“Do not”

“What?”

“Do not hate Wei Ying.”

Lan Wangji slid to the floor and summoned his guqin, and began to play Clarity again until Wei Ying fell back asleep.

Wei Ying thinks that I hate him

Lan Wangji thought back to all their interactions, seeing them in a new light.  Suddenly the way that Wei Ying had looked at him when he approached at the battle of the Bloodbath at the Nightless City made more sense.  Wei Ying’s refusal to go back to Gusu with him made sense.  Wei Ying thought that Lan Wangji hated him, and wanted to punish him for his use of demonic cultivation.

Oh Wei Ying

……..Qinghe…….

A couple days later, Wen Qing came in to check on Wei Ying.

“Oh no.  Lan Zhan you can’t fool me.  If I’m not dead, then why is Wen Qing here?  She’s definitely dead.”  Wei Ying accused.

“You’re not dead you big idiot, neither am I.  Now stop stalling and strip so I can check how your scars are healing.”

Wei Ying made a fake shocked face and clutched at his outer robe.  “That is such an indecent request. And in front of Lan Zhan!”

“If you don’t take your own clothes off, I’ll just have to find someone to do it for you.”  Wen Qing shook her head like she was dealing with a petulant 3 year old.

“I’m not saying that I’m not used to being naked.  Just not in such mixed company…what would the righteous Hanguang-Jun think?”  Wei Ying stared at Wen Qing with a mock-serious face.

Lan Wangji was seated at his guqin, doing his best to ignore the conversation where words like “naked” were being thrown around in connection with Wei Ying.  He tried not to think about how he would gladly volunteer to be the one to take Wei Ying’s clothes off…

“Ack- fine, fine, fine, I’ll do it.”  Wei Ying batted away Wen Qing’s hands as she went to lower his upper robe. “You should at least be a lady and buy me a drink first.”

“Wei Ying is not allowed to drink until he is fully healed.”  Lan Wangji recited from across the room.

“And Lan Zhan is still a giant no fun stick in the mud.”  Wei Ying whined back.

“Ah, I see everything is going as it usually does.”  Nie Huaisang chirped as he breezed into the room.

“A-Sang, I protest.  The dead should not have to suffer these indignities.”  Wei Ying continued to whine.

“You’re not dead.” Wen Qing, Nie Huaisang, and Lan Wangji all said at the same time.

It was difficult to tell at this point if Wei Ying actually still believed that he had died in reality, or if he was just playing a bit for his amusement.  But either way, the three of them had taken to just refuting Wei Ying’s assertation that he was dead, rather than try to explain to him the situation in a long, drawn out fashion every time he insisted that he was dead.

Wei Ying had been told what had happened the night of his rescue.  Multiple times at this point.  Either he really didn’t believe it and he was just humoring them, or he did and he was playing because he was bored.  Lan Wangji guessed it didn’t really matter which.  It had become…a thing.

“Lan Wangji, a letter has come for you from your brother.”  Nie Huaisang handed the paper to him.  “I also received a letter from him kindly inquiring as to the state of my health and an offer to journey to Cloud Recesses for more intense healing, so I think whatever you told him did the trick.  Or he was being sarcastic.  I can’t really tell with your brother.”

“Mn” Lan Wangji responded.  His brother was probably being sarcastic.  Nie Huaisang’s acting wasn’t nearly as good as he thought it was.  He placed his hands gently on the strings of the guqin to silence it, then read the letter.

Wangji,

I received your letter informing me of your extended stay in Qinghe.  Of course I will keep an eye on my nephew and the other Juniors in your absence.  Uncle has already voiced his willingness to pitch in and take over, however I told him that it wouldn’t be necessary.

I have written to Sect Leader Jiang and he has agreed to help in the training of your Juniors for an extended time, so they can continue on with their night hunts.  He should be arriving with a selection of his own Junior Disciples in a few days.  I am sure you are already familiar with the ones he will bring with him.  He said that they were the ones who usually accompanied Jin Ling.

I will also keep a special eye on Young Master Mo, as you have asked.  Though I do believe that Sizhui and Jingyi have taken him under their wing.

Take all the time you need Wangji.    I will keep you informed of anything that needs your attention.

Your brother,

Xichen

[spaceskam]

no one deserves to be forgotten

Summary: Growing up, Lan Sizhui is very interested in learning about the Yiling Patriarch.

ao3

The first time he hears his name is in hushed whispers.

“What do you plan to say to everyone? To Grandmaster?” A man in blue said as A-Yuan woke up, “I-I don’t mean to scold you, Wangji, but you brought a child here without explanation and have been hiding him in the Jingshi. How long have you been hiding him and having servants lie to me about it?”

A-die stayed still and silent. The man in blue shook his head and turned to look at A-Yuan. He met his eyes before taking a step closer to a-die and spoke quieter. A-Yuan’s eyes fell closed again. He was still tired.

“Are you set on this? Raising a child when so much is still happening? This soon after... You are set to be punished for what you did in Yiling, Wangji, even I can’t prevent that,” he said, pausing for a moment. A-die didn’t say anything. “At least tell me where he came from so I can help you.”

“Unimportant.”

“This is important. I don’t understand why you would bring a child here when things are still so fragile. I usually understand why you do things, but I can’t right now. The only reason I can even imagine is if...” There was a long pause. A scary pause. A-Yuan pulled his knees closer to his chest. “Wangji, does this child belong to Wei Wuxian?”

A-die didn’t say a word.

“Do I tell Grandmaster that you simply found him and took him in out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Bastard,” A-die said, “Legitimized.” A few more silent seconds and A-Yuan opened his eyes again. The man in blue looked tired as he nodded his head.

“He’ll be angry.”

“Mn.”

“Goodnight, Wangji,” the man in blue said softly, “Take care of yourself, please. And I’ll see you at your punishment in the morning.”

He made it a little ways to the door before a-die said, “Huan-gege.” 

The way the man in blue turned to look at him made it seem like it wasn’t the right name. His eyes were wide and his lips were parted. A-die didn’t say more.

“He’ll be in good care when it can’t be yours,” the man in blue said, watching him with a scared face. A-die nodded and didn’t move again until the man in blue was gone. 

A-Yuan watched him write on his hand and throw something at the door before he came closer. He sat on the bed and looked at him for a moment, pulling the blanket up to his chin and then putting the back of his hand on A-Yuan’s forehead. 

“Blue gege?” he asked. A-die smiled and touched his cheek.

“A-Yuan will call him Zewu-Jun,” he said, his hand returning to his lap.

“Where is a-die going?” A-Yuan asked, tears already coming to his eyes. He was still sick, a-die said so himself, and he didn’t want to be with Blue gege. He wanted his a-die.

“Nowhere far,” A-die promised, “And I will be back. I will always be back.”

A-Yuan wiggled his arms out of the blanket and reached out to him, grabbing for him. A-die smiled again and laid down beside him and wrapped him up against his chest. It was safe there. He didn’t want him to go away.

But he did go away.

 Zewu-Jun was nice and patient, but A-Yuan learned very quickly not to cry too loudly for a-die, especially when Grandmaster was around. Zewu-Jun gave him his own part of the Hanshi, but he didn’t like sleeping alone. It was cold and scary and he heard too many things when it got too quiet. But he could cry for a-die there and no one would ask him to be a big boy and grow up. They never called him a-die, either, it was always Lan Wangji and Hanguang-Jun and it took him too long to figure out who they meant. 

Instead of staying with Zewu-Jun as often as he’d stayed with a-die, he spent most of his time with other children and the servants in the sect. They knew more than him about too many things and they didn’t understand where he came from and he didn’t know either. He was taught rules and, after a year, he was taught even more about the cultivation world and more about what it meant to be a Lan disciple. But he learned more than he was taught. 

Lan Yuan was a very good listener.

“They say Hanguang-Jun had an affair with a prostitute when he visited the QingheNie Sect before they burning of the Cloud Recesses,” a few servants would whisper, thinking he wasn’t listening, “Then after his great fight with the Yiling Patriarch at the Bloodbath of Nightless City, he decided to bring the child somewhere he could watch him.”

“Ah, I heard it was an affair with another cultivator and she died during the Bloodbath which is why he brought him back,” other servants would say in response.

“Whatever it was, it seems awfully fitting of him to disappear after bringing him here.”

And A-Yuan would smile at them and cuddle close and listen more. It was easy. He was a sweet boy, they’d say, as they spoke of his a-die in words he wasn’t quite sure he liked. He’d absorb every word, even the ones he didn’t know yet.

“Zewu-Jun,” A-Yuan said carefully as they walked to the Hanshi for a meal. He glanced at the Jingshi when they passed it. He hadn’t been allowed to go inside since Hanguang-Jun had disappeared. “Can A-Yuan see a-die?”

“Hm?” Zewu-Jun said, looking down at him. A-Yuan flashed that smile that always worked and leaned against his leg, cuddling close. Zewu-Jun smiled.

“Hanguang-Jun?” he said. The words didn’t fit right, too big for his mouth and too many things to say properly, but Zewu-Jun seemed to understand.

“Did Hanguang-Jun say where he was going?” Zewu-Jun asked. A-Yuan shook his head no. “You might have to wait until he comes home then.”

Tears pricked his eyes again, but he managed to make them go away. He had gotten very good at that. It was better than scolding. A-die didn’t scold him. He missed him.

“Tell me, A-Yuan,” Zewu-Jun said as they sat down. He didn’t start their meal yet. “What do you remember from before you came to the Cloud Recesses?”

A-Yuan watched him and didn’t have words to give him. Should he know things outside of the Cloud Recesses? 

“Well, what’s the first thing you can remember?” Zewu-Jun said instead. A-Yuan thought really hard.

“A-die,” he said. Zewu-Jun stared at him for a moment and nodded before he started their meal.

A few days later, Zewu-Jun didn’t send him off with the servants. He took his hand and started leading him somewhere and A-Yuan was on his best behavior. He kept his eyes to himself and his ears to everyone else. No one said anything about Hanguang-Jun with Zewu-Jun so close.

They walked through trees and the grass. It was so high, A-Yuan had to watch his feet so he wouldn’t fall. Still, he almost fell anyway when he accidentally ran into Zewu-Jun when he stopped.

“A-Yuan is sorry,” he said, looking up at him with the big eyes he always used to get out of trouble. Zewu-Jun just smiled.

“It’s alright. Look,” Zewu-Jun said, gesturing over. A-Yuan looked and, sitting in the grass around the bunnies, was Hanguang-Jun.

Running was bad, he knew it, but he ran anyway. He was engulfed in all the gray robes Hanguang-Jun wore as he hugged him and he was hugged back. He wanted to cry. He did cry.

“Be careful, Wangji,” Zewu-Jun said. Hanguang-Jun cradled A-Yuan’s head to his chest instead of answering.

“Hanguang-Jun,” A-Yuan said into his shoulder, holding him tight.

“Mn,” he hummed, “Hanguang-Jun?”

“A-die,” A-Yuan corrected, still crying and still clinging. Hanguang-Jun breathed a laugh and leaned his head against his.

They stayed there for a while and A-Yuan clung to him the whole time. He didn’t want him to go away again. Everyone else made him have to be so careful and scared. With Hanguang-Jun, there was nothing to be scared of.

He carried A-Yuan all the way back to the Jingshi despite Zewu-Jun telling him he needed to be careful, that he still needed rest. He locked the door with a talisman like A-Yuan hadn’t seen anyone else do since he left. Still, A-Yuan looked around and smiled as he put him down. He missed it there.

“A-die is staying?” he asked. A-die nodded again and A-Yuan smiled even wider, clinging to his leg in a hug. 

That night, he finally didn’t have to sleep by himself.

It was better after that.

He still was expected to spend time with the other children and the servants and so much of his time was spent with Zewu-Jun, but he got to see Hanguang-Jun. People seemed to know that. Even though Hanguang-Jun wasn’t there and never went outside, they seemed to be more scared to say things around Lan Yuan. It didn’t mean he didn’t hear them anyway.

“I can’t believe Lan Wangji is actually raising him,” they whispered. They were a few feet away and Lan Yuan was playing with Jingyi, but he listened anyway. “And while he’s in seclusion.”

“Maybe he wants to be better than his father,” another said.

“Maybe he feels guilty for not killing the Yiling Patriarch sooner,” a third scoffed, “And he’s just raising another warrior to be more aware of evil.”

“Maybe.”

When he got home, A-Yuan didn’t have to stay silent like he had when he was with Zewu-Jun. He watched him still, though. He was unsure of what question he wanted to ask. When he settled on the right one, it was important he said it the right way. Everyone else said the words like they were bad.

“What is Yiling Patriarch?” he asked. The words didn’t feel right, but Hanguang-Jun froze with his eyes on the floor so maybe he understood anyway. He stayed like that until A-Yuan felt bad and cuddled up to his leg, giving that smile that made everyone forgive him.

“Who did you hear that from?”

“Everyone,” he said honestly. He overheard servants say it, he’d overheard Grandmaster say it, and he’d even heard one of the kids he played with say it. But he didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. 

A-die said nothing for a little while and A-Yuan was sure he wasn’t going to say anything. Until he did.

“Rest. Tomorrow we travel to Caiyi.”

When they traveled to Caiyi (without the approval of Zewu-Jun), A-Yuan started to understand why they needed to go to the city for him to explain what the Yiling Patriarch was. People were on the street and saying his name, selling talismans under his title, telling stories with ugly and scary pictures of him. There weren't too many people, but it was enough. They also told great stories of Hanguang-Jun’s epic rivalry with him and how he destroyed him alongside Sandu Shengshou. A-die said nothing no matter how much A-Yuan looked at him for an explanation.

Eventually, they got a room at the inn and they got their food sent to the room. A-Yuan quickly began to eat. 

“The Yiling Patriarch is called Wei Wuxian,” A-die said. A-Yuan froze with his spoon in his mouth. There was no talking during meals, but today apparently they could because a-die nodded at him to continue eating. He did so slowly just in case. “The stories that are told about him… The people telling them can never understand. He made mistakes. He is not a bad man.”

“Where is he now?” A-Yuan asked. He’d heard a few people say he was dead, but they still spoke of him by warning his return.

“He’s lost,” A-die said slowly, going to start his own meal. A-Yuan nodded. 

They didn’t speak much more about him after that on purpose.

Hanguang-Jun started to show his face around the Cloud Recesses again and began teaching the juniors. Lan Yuan started having classes where they taught about the history of the cultivation world, he found himself more interested in the very recent past than anything else. He wanted to hear everything about the war, about the Sunshot Campaign, about who Wei Wuxian, the great Yiling Patriarch, was. They never really gave him the answers he wanted.

So he asked the only person he trusted on the topic.

“A-die, Grandmaster said the Yiling Patriarch was one of the most promising cultivators of his generation and he just chose to do bad with it, is that true?”

“His thoughts were simply new and people fear what they can’t understand.”

“A-die, they said you both killed the Tortoise of Slaughter together, but you were rivals. How can you fight well with someone you dislike?”

“He is not my rival.”

“A-die, they said he murdered tons of LanlingJin cultivators and tons of Wen civilians, but that doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Wei Wuxian destroyed his reputation to take care of those Wen civilians. I cannot speak on the actual events of that night.”

“Hanguang-Jun, did he really create the Ghost General to be a weapon?”

“He saved someone he cared for. He cared very much.”

“Hanguang-Jun, did Young Master Wei really murder the heir to the LanlingJin sect?”

“I cannot speak on the actual event.”

“Hanguang-Jun, at the Bloodbath of Nightless City, did Young Master Wei really slaughter thousands of cultivators, including his sister?”

“That night is difficult for everyone.”

The more questions Lan Yuan asked, regardless of how explanatory the answer was, he began to put together a picture of Wei Wuxian. A man of questionable decisions, but one who wasn’t shy about his opinions. A man who wasn’t necessarily all good, but he wasn’t evil. A man who was intelligent and an inventor. A man who deserved a little bit of compassion just like everyone else.

“Hanguang-Jun, do you think there’s any way it could’ve gone different for Wei Wuxian?” he asked one day. Hanguang-Jun held his head high, his gaze somewhere else.

“The GusuLan sect rules are a guideline. That doesn’t mean they’re always right. Trust yourself first,” Hanguang-Jun said. Lan Yuan filled in the rest of the sentence for him to get his answer. That, maybe if someone broke the right rules, Wei Wuxian could’ve been saved.

Lan Yuan thought about that a lot. The GusuLan sect rules were strict and they were very clear. You shouldn’t pass judgment and you should simply help those in need, but you should stick to what you know is right above all else. Most people didn’t fare too well with any of those, but Lan Yuan strived for it. If he did nothing worthwhile in his life, he would be that.

When he got his forehead ribbon, he was old enough to be aware of the way Grandmaster Lan felt about him. It wasn’t that he disproved of him outright or blamed him for his parentage, but it was a never ending wariness in his gaze like he was just waiting for him to show his true self. It gave him all the more reason to be himself honestly.

“...and for self-regulation. A staple of not only how you represent yourself, but your people,” Grandmaster announced calmly, his eyes locked on Lan Sizhui despite despite the fact that there were three other boys getting their ribbons as well.

Hanguang-Jun carefully tied it around his head with skill, not even accidentally pulling a single strand of hair as he secured it. He moved to the front to straighten it and gave an approving nod. Lan Sizhui smiled. When he stepped away, though, he was faced with Grandmaster’s wary gaze. He smiled wider and bowed low.

It didn’t take away the concern.

“It’s silly to think you were so small once,” Zewu-Jun said as they walked out of the lanshi. Lan Sizhui stood between him and Hanguang-Jun, but he chose to keep his chin up and his eyes forward so he didn’t mess up his forehead ribbon. Zewu-Jun must’ve noticed because he laughed. “When is he moving out of the Jingshi and into the dormitory?”

That got Lan Suzhui to break his forward stare and he looked up to Hanguang-Jun with furrowed eyebrows. He didn’t really want to move out of the Jingshi. He liked the safety that came with sleeping beside his father, something he very distinctly remembered lacking for too much time when he was little. Something he felt even now when Hanguang-Jun went on night hunts.

“He’s still young,” Hanguang-Jun said simply. 

“You were in a dormitory at his age. He’s nearly 12, he begins actual training soon.”

Hanguang-Jun said nothing as he dropped his left hand. Lan Sizhui didn’t need any further instruction as he grabbed his hand and they started to head towards the Jingshi. He spared a look over his shoulder to Zewu-Jun to make sure he wasn’t upset. But he was smiling in that very, very specific way that Lan Sizhui only saw a few times. He knew it was okay.

They got back to the Jingshi and Lan Sizhui didn’t say anything about it as he watched Hanguang-Jun sit behind his guqin. Lan Sizhui was slowly but surely learning to play on his own and he could play simple, little things. He sat near him and watched.

He started to pluck a little melody, something that felt almost unfinished, instead of adding onto the topic of Lan Sizhui moving out of the Jingshi. He knew he would have to eventually, but didn’t he have at least a couple more years? Hanguang-Jun sure thought so.

Lan Sizhui closed his eyes and focused on the music, breathing in time with it as he internalized it. It was a song he’d heard a few times over the years, but Hanguang-Jun had never so deliberately played it in front of him before. He typically played it when he was alone and Lan Sizhui would hear it when he came back from classes. As he listened to it now, he hadn’t expected to get an answer to Zewu-Jun’s inquiry, but he did anyway. It seemed to be written into the song.

People weren’t meant to sleep alone.

“That isn’t him.”

“What are you talking about, of course it’s him, that’s what it says.”

Lan Sizhui smiled at Lan Jingyi and then bowed to the artist selling portraits of the Yiling Patriarch. Then he grabbed Jingyi and tugged him to follow Hanguang-Jun a little closer. He’d brought them to Caiyi for a sort of pre-night hunt before they were officially classified as juniors. 

“Wei Wuxian was the same age as Hanguang-Jun, he is young. He probably won’t like people thinking he’s old,” Lan Sizhui said softly. Jingyi looked at him weirdly.

“Who cares what he likes?”

“It’s wrong to lie,” Lan Sizhui said. Lan Jingyi rolled his eyes as they caught up to Hanguang-Jun. 

They followed him closely and Lan Sizhui’s eyes lingered back to the portraits. Of all his years hearing his name, he’d never actually known what Wei Wuxian looked like. He looked back to Hanguang-Jun and wondered if he knew. He wondered if he’d tell him.

“Hanguang-Jun,” he called, stepping up beside him, “Do you know any of the talismans that Wei Wuxian created?” 

Hanguang-Jun breathed out, his shoulders setting a little more and he looked down at him with that very distinctly fond look. Lan Sizhui hadn’t noticed that he was the only one who received that until recently. In return, he offered that smile that everyone loved. Hanguang-Jun rested his hand on his shoulder.

“I know a few,” he said.

He led the way with Sihzui and Jingyi hot on his trail all the way to the inn they planned to stay in for the night. There was a ghost that showed its face after a traveler had died unexpectedly in his room at the beginning of the night. It was a simple, small task that needed to be handled to save the innkeeper from going out of business. It was the perfect hunt to take children on.

And yet, even with a ghost lurking, Sihzui could sense a new, almost excited air around Hanguang-Jun. Jingyi could too, it seemed, and he fed off it.

“Is it cool? I know he came up with some cool evil things, but you knew him when he came up with cool normal things, didn’t you? Are you going to show us one of those?” Lan Jingyi asked, nearly running to keep up with Hanguang-Jun’s wider strides.

“Mn,” he said.

It wasn’t long before they were in the room Hanguang-Jun rented out and then, all too quickly, he crafted a talisman and there was a direct string from his wrist to Sizhui’s. He straightened up with startled eyes, looking up to him. Hanguang-Jun was smiling.

“Whoa!” Lan Jingyi said, “What’s it called?”

“Bonding,” he said, his voice carrying something Lan Sizhui couldn’t quite place, “Or Binding.”

Lan Sizhui tugged on it and Hanguang-Jun’s arm followed it, the tie never extending. It was impressive. He walked a bit closer and studied it.

“What was used for? To keep thieves from running?” he asked, looking up to Hanguang-Jun, “This is so clever. Did he ever expand upon it?” His smile turned a bit sad before it disappeared entirely.

“No,” he said.

He didn’t say much more as they fought the ghost that night.

Lan Sizhui very quickly rose to the top of his class after that. It wasn’t a secret, but he didn’t wear it with any pride. That felt wrong. Instead, he spent his time assisting those who struggled. Even when the juniors from other sects came to visit, Lan Sizhui spent most of his time teaching them. Slowly and unintentionally, he saw Grandmaster Lan grow to respect him. He tried not to take pride in that either, but it felt nice.

Other sect leaders came to visit during the months that they housed the other juniors, including Nie Hauisang, the infamous Head Shaker. The other juniors seemed to think little of him, but Lan Sizhui found him charming. He watched the way Zewu-Jun handled him as if he was still a child instead of a sect leader and almost instantly wanted to hear the man speak.

So, as he always did, he listened.

It took a long while, until the sun had already gone to sleep and most of the people in the Cloud Recesses were retiring for the night. Lan Sizhui and Yan Zijing, a QingheNie disciple, however, were on patrol. It was pure convenience that they ran into Nie Hauisang.

“Sect Leader Nie,” Lan Sizhui said, bowing deep for him, “What are you doing up?”

“Ah, reminiscing,” he said quietly, his fan open and his face bowed just a bit as if he wasn’t their superior, “I studied here. I, I never learned much, no, it wasn’t for me, I, I don’t know enough for all that.”

Lan Sizhui smiled at him kindly, “You were here with Hanguang-Jun, weren’t you?”

“Yes, yes, it was very, very different back then. With… everything,” he said, looking around before settling on Sizhui again, “You’re Hanguang-Jun’s ward, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Sect Leader Nie.”

“Mm,” he said, looking over him, “You don’t look like him.”

“Oh.”

“But I’m sure you’re just as loyal,” Nie Hauisang said, lowering his face just a little. Lan Sizhui didn’t know how to respond to that, so he simply nodded. Nie Hauisang looked to Yan Zijing for a moment then back to Lan Sizhui again before he said goodnight.

The conversation captured his interest nonetheless and he found himself lingering outside the room Nie Hauisang was staying in the next morning. It was probably inappropriate and he would scold himself for it later if he didn’t get in actual trouble with Hanguang-Jun for harassing their guests, but he’d never been able to stop himself from asking questions even when he shouldn’t. It was selfish of him, really. Maybe Grandmaster was right to question him…

“This disciple is so sorry to bother you, Sect Leader Nie,” Lan Sizhui said after he knocked and Nie Hauisang answered, bowing lower than he had the night before, “But there was a question I needed to ask you.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’m the wrong person, I, I don’t have answers, I don’t know anything, I just don’t know,” he said, giving a breathy laugh. 

“You knew my father when he was young.” Lan Sizhui flashed that smile he always used and it worked as well as it always did when Nie Hauisang relaxed his shoulders a little. He nodded. “I was wondering if perhaps you remembered Wei Wuxian? He is so interesting to me.”

Nie Hauisang’s awkward laughter returned, “Maybe you shouldn’t say that.”

“I usually don’t,” Lan Sizhui admitted, “But you seemed like a friendly face to ask.”

It didn’t take much persuasion until he was invited in and Nie Hauisang told him a few more than slightly disjointed stories. He told the middle before he told the beginning and the ending was always sprinkled throughout and most of the details weren’t what he asked for, choosing to stumble onto tangents and fumble around his words instead of making sense. He made it through the second tale before he was beginning to think he was doing it on purpose. Hanguang-Jun was a man of few words, but the words he said were meaningful. Nie Hauisang seemed to speak so much to get away with not saying anything at all.

“Right, yes, but weren’t he and Hanguan-Jun rivals? Why would they travel to Qinghe together?” Lan Sizhui asked. It was the only part of the stories he could grasp that he both understood and had never heard before. Well, he knew they weren’t rivals, but no one needed to know that he knew that fact. Nie Hauisang tilted his head and smiled.

“And just why would they not? They are men of poetry, that’s the only thing I know.”

Lan Sizhui didn’t have much time to ask as he realized he had to get to class, so he’d excused himself and bowed and thanked Nie Hauisang for the company. He just bowed back, the structure all too similar to a junior bowing to Grandmaster, and did not say he enjoyed his company, nor did he say he would like to do it again. It was a funny little thing.

Hanguang-Jun sat at the front of the class and Lan Sizhui found himself thinking too hard about what he meant by poetry.

Poetry seemed to be too simplistic of a word to describe Hanguang-Jun, especially when he seemed to instantly attach himself to Young Master Mo Xuanyu. Lan Sizhui had never seen him act that way before. It was confusing. 

However, the more time he spent around him and them, it slowly started to make sense. Listening to him speaking and having him as their teacher felt all too familiar. He spoke with such confidence and he was always correct. It reminded him of being with Hanguang-Jun. There was nothing to fear with them.

Lan Sizhui would have the moment ingrained into his mind when he first discovered who Mo Xuanyu really was. The way his stomach dropped and he felt overwhelmed and ill at the fact that this man who made him feel so safe, who his father put on such a high regard, was the deviant Yiling Patriarch himself. 

It didn’t take long, though, to readjust his mindset. This was a man who had captivated his mind for his entire life. The fact that he hadn’t known it was him to begin with was mindless.

However, when he saw his bare face again with the knowledge that it was Wei Wuxian, he still felt he couldn’t breathe. And when he saw his wide smile, the one Lan Sizhui had been giving people his entire life, he couldn’t breathe. But it didn’t break his loyalty during the Second Siege of the Burial Mounds. If anything, it strengthened it. This was the man he’d been trying so hard to learn about, to know without reason, and here he was.

And the more he thought and spoke and learned and…

“A-die!”

Lan Sizhui gasped as he gathered his surroundings. The last thing he’d remembered was being with Wen Ning at Nightless City, but now he was on the floor of the Jingshi. Hanguang-Jun was on the floor knelt unceremoniously beside him, a hand on his arm and a hand on his cheek. Concern was etched onto his brow despite the fact that he’d clearly been woken up.

“A-Yuan,” A-die said, his thumb rubbing over his cheek as Lan Sizhui caught his breath.

“A-die,” he said back. He didn’t care if he sounded or acted like a child as he scooted closer. A-die pulled him into a hug and held him like he did when he was small. He pressed his face into the white robe and let him console him.

The longer he stayed there and caught his breath, the more he could make sense of his panic. And it was just a bad dream brought upon by too many memories that weren’t his, locking him inside his mind for far too long. Maybe it was silly of him to try to learn more about his true ancestors by welcoming ghosts to tell him. It’d been too much and Wen Ning had apparently needed to haul him back to the Cloud Recesses.

“Are you alright?” a second voice asked once Lan Sizhui had steadied himself. He still stayed laid against Hanguang-Jun, discarding pride and self-control in favor of his father’s comfort, but he managed to turn his head while still keeping it against his shoulder.

Wei Wuxian was crouched beside them in all black in a similar turned down state. A second quick look around made it clear that Wei Wuxian had made himself at home in the Jingshi. Even the bed was messier than Hanguang-Jun ever would’ve let it get on his own. Although his cheeks flushed a bit red, he could appreciate that his a-die no longer had to sleep alone.

“I’m alright,” Lan Sizhui insisted, eyes downcast so he didn’t make the situation more shameful, “I’m sorry.”

“Nonsense, you’re sorry for what? Needing someone? Ha, you know what I always say, never apologize for needing someone,” Wei Wuxian said boldly. Hanguang-Jun huffed a laugh due to how distinctly untrue that was, but Lan Sizhui appreciated the sentiment. “Are you really alright, though? Wen Ning said you got too lost.”

“I-I didn’t get lost‒”

“Ay, then what would you call it? It’s called getting lost, don’t be embarrassed of words, they exist for a reason, you got lost,” Wei Wuxian said, his tone almost a little scolding. Sizhui couldn’t see his a-die’s face, but he felt him stroke his hair and his face in a way he hadn’t since Grandmaster had unintentionally made him cry nearly a decade prior. And Wei Wuxian smiled that smile. “Ah, Lan Zhan, you’re such a good dad. So strong, so protective.”

“Mn.”

“I didn’t get lost,” Sizhui said again if only to save himself, “It was just too much at once. I got overwhelmed, that’s all. I’ll be better next time.”

“Yes, you will, and I’ll show you how to do better,” Wei Wuxian said, scrunching up his nose and reaching out to pinch his cheek. He didn’t even try to lean away from it.

“Tomorrow,” Hanguang-Jun said.

“Obviously tomorrow, why would I mean tonight?” Wei Wuxian said, but then there was a pause and he gave a guilty smile, “Okay, if he’d wanted to, I probably would’ve said tonight, but you have to forgive me, Lan Zhan! I missed so many years! Boring, boring years.”

“You weren’t conscious.”

“Semantics,” he said. Lan Sizhui smiled a little and Wei Wuxian lit up in response. “Ah, there we are, he’s better now. Or, if you’re not, I can find Chenqing for you to chew on, that always made you feel better when you were little.”

“He is tired,” Hanguang-Jun said. Wei Wuxian turned his smile on him.

“He’s a grown boy, Lan Zhan, he can say if he’s tired himself.”

“I’m tired,” Lan Sizhui said. Wei Wuxian breathed a dramatic sigh and pushed himself to his feet.

“I leave you alone with him for a few years and you turn into him, so unfair,” he said, but the smile was evident, “Fine, fine, I’ll be respectful, you can go to sleep.”

“I’ll go to‒” Lan Sizhui started to stay as they helped him to his feet, but Wei Wuxian shook his head.

“You’ll stay here,” Hanguang-Jun said.

“In case you get lost again,” Wei Wuxian filled in. He was too tired and too thankful to argue, so he nodded.

Lan Sizhui rubbed his eye and started to take off his shoes. Without any warning, Wei Wuxian reached to take off his forehead ribbon. His instinct was to tell him no, but he realized that it was alright. Especially when Hanguang-Jun didn’t say anything to him about it, simply guided him down the pillow and made sure his head didn’t hit too hard as if that would throw him right back into his bad dreams.

“Ah, I had a dream about this once, only A-Yuan was much smaller in that dream,” Wei Wuxian said as he stood beside the bed, his hands on his hips. He watched them with a smile as they settled into bed, A-Yuan on the edge and a-die leaving enough space for him by the wall. “My Hanguang-Jun, so sweet.”

“Come,” Hanguang-Jun requested.

“Later, later, I’m not tired. I have books to read, things to think, people to remember and forget, probably a prophecy or two if I let it. I’ll be asleep when you wake up, don’t worry,” he said. Wei Wuxian then gave them both loud, exaggerated forehead kisses and threw the blanket over them. It felt almost teasing, but he was too tired to laugh.

He walked out of the bedchamber section of the Jingshi, instead heading to the otherside entirely where he created a small talisman to give him light that would let him read but not disturb the two of them. Lan Sizhui could see him sprawl out on the floor with a book in hand. He looked over to his a-die. He was the most at ease he’d ever seen him.

As he drifted back to sleep, Lan Sizhui considered that maybe, through all of his time thinking of Wei Wuxian as a way of extending compassion to a dead man, it didn’t hold a candle to way to the extents Hanguang-Jun had cherished him in his mind.

He could only hope he could do them both justice with this second chance.

[millennial-pinks]

Clean Eating

“Lan Zhan, why are you so picky, you fuddy-duddy?” Wei Ying said from the tub. He shifted a little to scrub the soap over his legs and water sloshed against the sides.

Lan Zhan didn’t answer from the other side of the jingshi, not even with a hum. 

“Answer me!” Wei Ying whined. “I know you can hear me.” 

“I can hear you,” Lan Zhan sighed. His resolve always cracked when Wei Ying sounded so plaintive, though he knew full well it was an act. His husband played him like a finely tuned instrument. “I’m picky because I have plans for you.”

“What kind of plans?” Wei Ying asked. The water splashed as he stood up in the tub. Lan Zhan quietly crossed the room and rounded the screen. 

“Did you scrub?” 

“Yes, yes, I scrubbed,” Wei Ying replied, shifting excitedly under Lan Zhan’s steady gaze. He was fully clothed still, but his hair was down and only slightly held back by his ribbon. He looked relaxed, the iciness had melted from his face. 

“All of you?” 

“All of me, I swear!” Wei Ying lifted one leg to step out of the water, but Lan Zhan set his hand against his chest. “What? If you weren’t going to believe me, why didn’t you do it yourself?” 

Lan Zhan lifted his arm so his long sleeve gathered at his elbow, then picked up the soap. 

“Turn around,” he said. His voice wasn’t firm, but Wei Ying couldn’t help and obey. “Did you scrub here?”

Wei Ying gasped as Lan Zhan’s soapy, guqin calloused fingers rubbed along his hole. “Lan Zhan!” 

“That’s not an answer,” Lan Zhan said. “Did you?” 

“A little,” Wei Ying replied. He pressed back against Lan Zhan’s touch, quietly begging for more friction. Lan Zhan, though, was not interested in giving it. He pulled his hand back, then scooped up some water to rinse Wei Ying off. 

Satisfied that all the soap was removed, Lan Zhan pulled his hands away completely. “Dry off.” 

Wei Ying almost tumbled from the tub in his haste. 

“Be careful,” Lan Zhan’s lips quirked up slightly and Wei Ying’s arm to steady him. “My plans don’t involve you falling.” 

“Are you going to share what they are?” Wei Ying pulled on a robe and followed after Lan Zhan. 

Lan Zhan hummed. He carefully removed his robes, making sure each garment was neatly hung before moving to the next. Finally, all that remained was his ribbon but he made no effort to remove it. He stood by the bed, waiting, just as did every night for the final step of readying for bed.

Wei Ying paused in front of his husband, his fingers carefully trailing across Lan Zhan’s cheekbones and into his hair. He easily untied the ribbon, then set it lovingly aside. Completely naked, body and soul, Lan Zhan smiled as Wei Ying pressed a kiss to his forehead. 

“What do you have planned for us tonight?” Wei Ying’s eyes glinted with the same mischievousness that first caught Lan Zhan’s attention all those years ago. 

“Are you dried off? I know you hate getting the bed wet,” Lan Zhan said. 

“Dry enough.” Wei Ying pulled off his robe and hung it sloppily. He rejoined Lan Zhan and kissed his husband like his entire being depended on touching him, tasting him, breathing him in. 

Lan Zhan set a hand on Wei Ying’s hip, his thumb rubbing circles against the warm skin. “Turn around. Use the bed to steady yourself.” 

Wei Ying raised an eyebrow but turned and his hands rested on the bed rail. “What’s this?” 

Lan Zhan knelt behind him, kissing the place where his thumb rubbed Wei Ying’s skin just a moment before. 

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying gasped sweetly. His cock twitched with interest as Lan Zhan squeezed his bottom. Something clicked into place in Wei Ying’s mind. “Are you going to use your mouth there?” 

Lan Zhan answered by spreading Wei Ying’s cheeks. He ran the flat of his tongue from Wei Ying’s balls to his hole and smirked at the needy his husband made. 

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying reached behind and rest his hand on Lan Zhan’s head. “You’re so good to me, Chief Cultivator.” 

Lan Zhan moaned as Wei Ying tugged on his hair. Encouraged, he pushed the tip of his tongue into Wei Ying’s hole.

“Where did Hanguang Jun learn such things?” Wei Ying gasped, rutting back against Lan Zhan’s tongue. His cock stood proudly, the tip already leaking onto the bed, and Wei Ying removed his hand from Lan Zhan’s warm hair to stroke himself. 

“Don’t.” Lan Zhan pulled back enough to speak. “Not until I fuck you.” 

Wei Ying whimpered sadly. “Lan Zhan-!” he squeaked at a nip to his bottom. 

“I said don’t.” Lan Zhan said, then returned his tongue to its duties. 

“And if I finished like this?” Wei Ying smirked as he felt Lan Zhan shift. “You would just fuck me anyway. ” He moaned and gasped as Lan Zhan’s tongue pushed deeper. “Your tongue is good, but it doesn’t get me ready for your cock. Are you hard now?” 

Lan Zhan groaned as Wei Ying fucked himself against Lan Zhan’s tongue. He was very hard. Not quite painfully so, but he was very much enjoying himself. 

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying gasped. “Can you use your fingers, too? I need more.” 

Lan Zhan hummed softly and complied. He pressed two fingers with his tongue into Wei Ying’s relaxed hole. Wei Ying arched his back, a high moan slipping from his throat. Those nimble fingers could reach better than his tongue and the tips brushed against his prostate. Wei Ying’s legs trembled and he gripped the rail harder as Lan Zhan thrust his fingers into him.

“Lan Zhan, I’m ready. Don’t make me wait anymore,” Wei Ying whimpered. 

“Lay down,” Lan Zhan reached under the bed for a pot of slick salve.

Wei Ying obliged and made himself quite comfortable on his back, his hips propped up with a pillow and his hair spread out like a dark cloud. He grinned wolfishly as Lan Zhan knelt between his knees. Lan Zhan’s cock hung hard, heavy and dripping. 

“You enjoyed that as much as I did.” Wei Ying licked his lips as he watched Lan Zhan coat his erection in the salve. 

“I like pleasing you,” Lan Zhan said. He sucked in a sharp breath as the tip of his cock pressed against Wei Ying’s hole. 

Wei Ying lay still, his brow scrunched up adorably at the stretch. Lan Zhan moved agonizingly slow, savoring the tightness around him. 

“Why are you suddenly so merciful?” Wei Ying whined. He rested his hand on the back of Lan Zhan’s neck and pulled his husband down for a hungry kiss. “You know I can take-” His words dissolved into a low moan as Lan Zhan seemingly threw his caution to the wind and pressed himself in to the hilt. 

“Shameless,” He lifted Wei Ying’s leg over his shoulder and set a rough pace. “Is this what you wanted?” 

Wei Ying arched up off the mattress and rocked back to meet Lan Zhan’s movements. “Yes!” he cried. “Yes!”

“Quiet or the entire clan will hear you,” Lan Zhan groaned. 

“Maybe I want them to.” Wei Ying smirked and clenched around Lan Zhan’s cock. “Clan Leader Yao is here, maybe I want him to hear how well the Chief Cultivator is treated.” 

“Too much talking,” Lan Zhan wrapped his free hand around Wei Ying’s erection and timed his fist with his hips. He swiped a thumb across the cock’s tip with a satisfied hum. “You’re close.” 

Wei Ying whined under the deliciously ruthless treatment. There was no hiding from Lan Zhan, the man knew his body too well. The way his thighs trembled, how his cock dripped

with his building orgasm. 

“Yes,” was all Wei Ying could get out as his mind started to go fuzzy. Lan Zhan leaned over, his hair falling like a curtain around them both, and kissed Wei Ying. 

“Go on, A-Ying,” Lan Zhan murmured. Wei Ying cried out as his body tensed and he came across his stomach. He tightened around Lan Zhan as the man fucked his overstimulated hole. Wei Ying’s body trembled, but the satisfied, sloppy grin on Wei Ying’s face reassured Lan Zhan he was enjoying it still. 

Lan Zhan growled deep in his chest as he finished. He carefully pulled away and sat back on his knees, his chest heaving. 

Wei Ying lifted his head and smiled. “You did so well for me.” 

Lan Zhan hummed and managed to find the stability to stand. Wei Ying rolled onto his side, his eyes locked on Lan Zhan’s ass and well muscled legs as his husband stepped over to the bath. 

“How can you even walk around after all this?” Wei Ying asked. “Every time you turn me into porridge and you can still move!” 

Lan Zhan returned with a damp cloth. “Skill,” he said with a teasing smile. 

“Can you teach me that skill?” 

“If I do,” Lan Zhan said, wiping the mess from Wei Ying’s skin. “You won’t have an excuse for me to clean you up afterward.” 

“That’s not true,” Wei Ying replied. “You would still do it. You enjoy that too much to give it up completely.” 

Lan Zhan chuckled as he climbed into bed. Wei Ying wrapped his arms and legs around Lan Zhan, keeping him close.

“I suppose you’re right,” Lan Zhan mumbled. “Good night, my love.”

If you enjoyed my writing, please check out an original story: The Light Last!

[chapitre7]

Like winter, dreaming of spring

The Untamed [陈情令] | Mo Dao Zu Shi [魔道祖师] fanfiction

Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian (Wangxian)

Canon compliant, 13 years of mourning as a Gusu Lan disciples ghost story

Read on AO3

There is a place in the Cloud Recesses where the junior disciples of Gusu Lan dare not tread.

 Not because it carries any resentful, evil or ill energy. If there is a place in all of the land that would be free of such feelings, that place would be the Cloud Recesses.

 Or that might be just the reason. That in all of the land, in all of the homes of the honorable sects, it is in the Cloud Recesses, a little ways from the Cold Spring, just beside a crystal clear stream, that lies a patch of field, facing the open azure sky, where a presence has made its home.

 Lan Jingyi tried to ignore its existence, looking away when the other disciples whispered among themselves. When they were but small children, still taking their first baby steps to become cultivators, Lan Yuan broke his first rule by walking out of the dorms after dark, taking Jingyi along, for the sake of a story. Not out of any rebellious impulse or any profound desire to discover the world, but pure, unstoppable curiosity. Lan Jingyi tagged along, legs weak and teeth clattering, out of simple, budding friendship.

 It isn’t a terribly hidden place, or even guarded by natural obstacles that cloud perception. At the time, Lan Yuan could clearly see he had arrived at the right place by the moonbeams reflecting on a white frame through the gaps in the tall grass. Lan Jingyi closed his eyes, biting on his lower lip to keep from making any noises. Lan Yuan just looked, unspeaking, soundlessly breathing, until he decided he had seen enough and took Jingyi back. The next day, swallowing his fears, Jingyi asked him what he saw, but Lan Yuan just smiled and said, “The rabbits from the moon.” Affronted but not confrontational, Lan Jingyi frowned in the way six-year-olds frown in practice consternation and let it drop. Just because it was A-Yuan.

 Some disciples claim they’ve seen things in broad daylight, while practicing or studying outside. A glimpse of glowing white, like the bright flare of sunlight peeking through the highest tree leaves, but when they turn, there’s nothing there. Others swear they heard something or other, a humming, or maybe some kind of mumbling. Master Lan Qiren berates them with firm words and fitting punishment for spreading tall tales at the Cloud Recesses.

 Once they move closer to their coming of age, the disciples slowly grow out of the story. There are musical scores to learn, and sword training to attend, and no thought to spare during meditation for ghost stories. Not in the Cloud Recesses, not for budding Gusu Lan cultivators.

 But dreams, those they can’t control. They can’t tell their subconscious that there are more important matters to think about, that the past generation had to recover from a devastating fire and thus it’s their responsibility to study and practice and fight for the sake of those that can’t fight anymore, or who have fought enough. Not even the argument that Hanguang-jun and Zewu-jun are always watching and patiently guiding them towards the noble and righteous path is strong enough to ward away the images of the figure. Sitting in a patch of moonlight, singing or humming or crying or quietly wailing, for whatever reason, in whatever existence that gives it form. When they wake, they’re fearful and train harder, or they’re contemplative and meditate.

 Maybe the figure is a manifestation of one’s fears and reservations. Maybe the story goes around as a form of lesson, too. Maybe it’s a metaphor, or a riddle, or a reference to a poem they’ve yet to pinpoint, so they must study more and find it, make the meaning for themselves.

 There’s word, a story within a story, that a senior once told a junior that told his roommates that no one can name, that it’s the ghost of a cultivator touched by the Yiling Patriarch. That the shadow touch of the demonic cultivator was enough to drive the purity from one’s spirit away, that no matter what path they led in life, there’s only doom after death. Fortunate were those who were killed by the Ghost General, for their flesh suffered less than a man’s soul in the Yiling Patriarch’s clutch.

 “Do not speak ill of others,” Lan Sizhui says and the disciples rush back to their original positions, focus on their original tasks. Though Sizhui can feel them looking at him still, wordlessly questioning his choice of reprimand, Sizhui keeps his gaze firm ahead on their teacher, unswayed. A story is a story, it can teach or entertain, but the dead were important to someone once. Or never cease to be, he believes. That feeling only grows stronger with the years that pass and the echoes he sees, imprinted on the world he perceives.

 There were so many people, once.

 There was so much love.

 Before the clouds gathered undisturbed over the pavilions where they study and chatter and live, with no ashes buried at their feet. When the sect leaders were different from the ones they knew, when the world knew less about death than it did now. In a different life, then, when the figure by the stream didn’t need to sit and wait. There was love, under the blazing sun.

 Time passes, and love does not wane. It suffers and it’s battered, sure, but it grows. Like the trees that bloom after a merciless winter. Like the smell of lotus flowers, vibrant and encompassing, when summer settles heavy in the air. Year comes after year after year. Five, ten, thirteen. Like the children that grow into young adults, love matures, blossoms, opens fearless towards the sun.

 Maybe that’s all it’s been doing, that person, in the company of the rabbits from the moon. Maybe it’s just been waiting for winter to thaw.

 Long fingers touch sleeping flower buds. A rabbit sleeps on a lap clad in fine white, the finest, but the color that could bear so much sadness seems blue in the shadow, peacefully blue, like a passing cloud. Hazel eyes, glowing like honey in the light of day, are downcast, shying away from the sun, blinking slowly, patiently. A passing breeze carries the white ribbon adorning silk-like hair, not far, for it’s firmly tied, in the form expected of Gusu Lan; it merely dances in the direction of the changing seasons. The stream is melodic in its constant current, and together with the sounds of the forest, it speaks of calm. Of passing seconds and minutes where nothing matters but the present.

 He comes with the wind, with the breeze. With a flick of the wrist, a talisman sweeps over the safe heaven, covering all with flickering light. With cheerful notes blown on a dizi, he plays a song that sounds like a smile would sound. The man sitting with the rabbits widens his eyes, just a little, as the flower buds all bloom around him, stems growing closer, almost curling around him. In a matter of seconds, he sits among a bed of white, some pink and yellow, even red little flowers, all blooming and alive. The sound that he makes is nothing like a lament the stories said, though it’s just as rare in the Cloud Recesses: it’s the huff of a laughter, and there are less people that would recognize it than people who have ever heard it at all.

 “Lan Zhan,” the man sitting atop the nearest tree says, tucking his dizi back on the sash around his waist. “Did you miss me?”

 “Yes,” replies Lan Wangji, gazing at the sun of the man’s smile.

 “I’m sorry I was away for so long, I lose track of time in night hunts.”

 “Mn,” Lan Wangji acquiesces, and because he can, he asks in return, “Did Wei Ying miss me?”

 Wei Ying moves his legs back and forth in the air, his eyes bright crescent moons.

 There’s no night now, no winter or darkness in wait.

 “Every moment of every day, husband.”

 If they could see him now, all the voices that wove his tale, every whisper that spoke of his spirit, what would they say? Or maybe there would be nothing to say, no word that could describe the glow of Hanguang-jun in the spring of his life. All of his disciples know of his good heart, but have they grown used to seeing it bursting with happiness and requited love? It elicits nothing but gasps, their faces flushing, and it would take them a long time to come up with a different story. One a little closer to the real one, of devotion and loss and love. A circle that ends not in resentment, but in release. My heart and soul in exchange for yours.

 “Lan Zhan, catch me!”

 Wei Ying leaps. It’s not like letting go, not completely. He doesn’t descend but ascend in the certainty that Lan Wangji will be there. He’s far, but not out of reach — not anymore. Lan Wangji only has to take a couple of steps before Wei Ying (his husband, husband, beloved) falls into his arms, laughing a breathless laugh. He lies back in the gift of Wei Ying’s flowers, pulling Wei Ying against his chest, and his smile is a gift too, as is his adoring gaze, and the kisses he places on Lan Wangji’s lips and cheeks and eyelids and nose. Their rabbits dance around them, learning their way around the field that is now overcome with colorful life, and the afternoon sun keeps all of them warm.

 “I’m back now,” Wei Ying says, fingers touching Lan Wangji’s bangs, his thumb tracing the cloud patterns of his ribbon. A ribbon that is his as soon as the night falls, seeming to glow in the candlelight of the Jingshi, just like a figure once glowed alone, surrounded by rabbits and memory.

 What is it about Lan Zhan that defies darkness so? Is it his goodness, or the clarity of his spirit?

 Wei Ying can see only the man, with all his flaws and mistakes and his blinding smile, as if he wants to do nothing more than bask in this moment and stretch it into forever, if he could. Like a ballad, sung in every corner of every mountain and town, all the way to the lotuses of Yunmeng.

 Wei Ying accepts the sentiments he reads on the familiar face and makes them his own.

 The disciples don’t understand why that part of the forest suddenly grew flowers so big and tall, or why their perfume carries so far. All they know is that Senior Wei is back and that in his orbit, their teacher and mentor seems to flourish into the most beautiful flower of Gusu.

 They talk and sigh and dream, and the ballad slowly takes form in the strumming of their guqin.

[grapefruitsketches]

Chapter 8, Memory

Final part of my Songxiao post-canon fix-it fic series, started under the Untamed Spring Fest 2020 event:

Please see the reblogged version of this under the my-writing and songxiao-fix-it-series tags on my blog - will be a pinned post for the next little while - for links to previous chapters/the Ao3 version!

4,134 Words

“Remember your assignment, Xiao-daozhang!” Wen Qionglin said good-naturedly, although Song Lan knew that undertone well, the one that softly implied an or else if the kindly reminder wasn’t heeded.

And with a soft nod from Xingchen, and the requisite farewell bows, Wen Qionglin had gone.

The farm was quiet.

For the first time since Xingchen had awoken in Cloud Recesses, the two were truly alone.

--

It had been Wei Wuxian’s idea.

“You know,” he had said, chewing thoughtfully on a particularly tough piece of pork, “Lan Zhan tells me that your guqin playing has gotten pretty good, Song-daozhang. Right, Lan Zhan?”

Hanguang-Jun, apparently long resigned to his husband’s insistence on starting conversations not only during meal times, but mid-bite, nodded.

“I wonder if… now that you don’t usually even need an interpreter… if you two might want some… alone time?”

To Song Lan’s relief, Xingchen (having completely missed the combination of Wei Wuxian’s suggestive eyebrow raise and Hanguang-Jun’s silent mouthing of Wei Ying!, and the sudden flush Song Lan could feel rushing to his face) was able to, quite innocently, consider the idea, “Hmm… I mean, if you two don’t mind us being here alone, then it might be nice… I mean… it might be good to test how well this works, just the two of us… if we are to… to travel alone again.” Xingchen’s voice faded out, and Song Lan felt his heart quicken. They had not yet discussed what might follow their time at the farm. For months, it had seemed enough to imagine that where they were might as well have been where they always were, where they would forever be, even though both knew there had been a beginning and so there would be an end.

But now… Xingchen’s mental state had seemed to be improving steadily as of late. There were still nightmares, still outbursts. But they were more controlled. Xingchen seemed to be getting more comfortable with the idea that these emotions would rise from time to time, and, at least out loud, did not chastise himself so much for them.

“What do you think, Zichen?” and with this offer of a future, of a something that came next, of a return to something that looked like the normal of his life twenty years ago, of course, Song Lan caught the other’s hand and squeezed a quick, enthusiastic, Yes.  

And so, after seeking Wen Qionglin’s approval of the suggestion, the date was set for the cessation of Wen Qionglin, Wei Wuxian, and Hanguang-Jun’s rotating visits. Letters were sent to the Juniors, who were liable to pop by at a moment’s notice, that the farm would be off limits until and unless Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen decided otherwise.

It would be just the peace and quiet that the two had wanted, had deserved, for so long. Just the right way to ease back into the peace and quiet on the road that so clearly characterized Song Lan’s favourite memories - the two of them alone, side by side.

--

Or so Song Lan had thought.

Barely five weeks in, he began to feel restless. He and Xingchen went about the daily chores, took boat rides, had picnics, cooked, cleaned, took walks, explored. But the farm was starting to feel exceptionally small without the ever-rotating collection of friends (did Song Lan dare acknowledge them as family?) to distract from the sameness of the scenery, the sameness of the limited range of activities. Fuxue seemed to whine at his back, Shuanghua humming comfortingly, but Song Lan felt that it too wondered, why, now that they were not held here by obligations to friends and family, they were not pursuing far more important matters.

But it was also Shuanghua that brought echoing words of Wen Qionglin back to Song Lan, words that reminded him that there was still work to be done. Here. Now. Work that needed this quiet alone time to work itself out.

Why does Song-daozhang still carry Shuanghua for you?

Remember your assignment!

Song Lan wondered what that assignment might be, but never dared intervene or ask about Xingchen’s solo sessions with Wen Qionglin. It had hurt at first, to be suddenly excluded from the meetings, but he had soon recalled what his early sessions had been like, and flinched at the thought of Xingchen being there. He had been grateful even then that he had been using sign language at the time. He didn’t even have to worry about Xingchen overhearing anything in a moment of lucidity from the spirit pouch that had never left his side.

If Wen Qionglin had taken the time to remind Xingchen of the assignment as he left, it must have been important. He was sure Xingchen had not forgotten, but knowing Wen Qionglin, it wouldn’t be anything easy.

It was clear Xingchen was working hard on his recovery. Song Lan did not think Xingchen realized how light a sleeper he was now, but every morning Song Lan watched, as Xingchen reached for the blade. He saw that, every morning, he flinched away. A full arm’s length still between his fingers and Shuanghua. He watched how Xingchen steadied himself before standing back up, seeming to conclude that today, again, was not the day. Xingchen would sigh, unconsciously letting his fingers brush the raised scar, the only spot on Xingchen that Song Lan tried to avoid looking at, before lying back in bed.

Xingchen would then let a hand drift over to Song Lan - maybe to his hair, his waist, his arm - before apparently falling asleep so the two of them would seem to wake up together just a little later (Song Lan always making a show of stretching not long after this morning ritual, Xingchen mirroring with a sleepy yawn, both doing their best so that the other didn’t realize they had been awake for quite some time by then).

But Shuanghua was not the assignment. At least, Song Lan didn’t think so. Instead, the hints came at the quietest of moments. While the soup bubbled. While they dozed in the sun on a nearby hill. When Song Lan stopped rowing for a while and let the stream carry them lazily downriver. Xingchen would sit up, maybe open his mouth, maybe raise an arm to meet Song Lan’s. Sometimes, he would even seem to start to say the words, “Zichen, I…” or “I need to…” before pivoting suddenly to something wildly different than his tone had originally implied, “…am hungry. Let’s go make dinner” or “…tell you this terrible joke Wei-gongzi told me.”

Song Lan’s heart ached for him. He was clearly trying, so hard. Xingchen was tired. His face drawn, strength returning but fortitude slipping. And there was nothing Song Lan could do except to play, over and over again, the chords, I’m listening.

--

It had been three months that they had spent alone at the farm. Xingchen knew he was running out of excuses. And while the excuses ran out, and his ability to resist weakened, the pressure within him mounted. There were nights where he couldn’t sleep, torn between his desire to just let go, and his fear of turning out to be too much for Zichen after all. He knew Zichen wouldn’t leave, but in a way, that made it worse.

But the peaceful days went on. And Zichen seemed only to get sadder. The notes of the guqin not intrusive, but still imploring.

I need to tell him. But I can’t. He had said.

You want to tell him. And you can. Wen Qionglin had corrected.

But what if he does not want to know? Xingchen had asked.

What would you want him to hide from you?

And even though it had taken months, and the pressure building to near unbearable levels, for Xingchen to realize, he finally understood that Wen Qionglin was, as always, right.

“Zichen… I need to… no, I want to… talk to you about, about Yi City.”

The words had come out of him in a rush. Xingchen honestly couldn’t believe he had finally said it. But there the words hung, heavy. Finally escaped from his lungs, his heart, unretractable.

A long, unbearable silence followed, and Xingchen heard the sound of urgent shuffling, the guqin being dragged closer to Zichen. The instrument had apparently been left with wheelbarrow as they dug up fresh potatoes. Xingchen heard a faint clapping sound, Zichen ever unwilling to let a speck of dirt touch the smooth surface of the instrument.

And the chords which finally came, ones so familiar, so commonplace, brought tears to Xingchen’s eyes when he heard them answer. I’m listening. But this time, they were followed by something more. No matter what.

And so Xingchen began.

--

Song Lan had known, or at least suspected, most of this.

He remembered vividly the way Xingchen had laughed when Xue Yang had teased him, had seen the quiet little home those three had shared. He also had heard directly from the now, thankfully, dead man what brutal manipulations had been imposed on Xingchen. And Song Lan knew only too well, though most of his other memories as Xue Yang’s puppet were dull and distant, what revelation had been Xingchen’s breaking point, remembered this moment clearly. Song Lan had internally screamed out, realizing only then that there would never be a way for him to break out of the control the needles in his neck imposed. Because if Xingchen’s grief torn face, his gut-wrenching scream wouldn’t let him do anything more than turn his head just ever so slightly towards his beloved, nothing would.

But he listened. Of course he listened. And Xingchen clearly needed to speak. He tensed, but was not surprised at the guilt Xingchen carried, at the I should’ve knowns, all the I’m sorrys, every if only I hads. Each one a punch to Song Lan’s gut, hearing the weight Xingchen had been carrying, but bearable in that Xingchen was clearly letting off some of the pressure that Song Lan had watched Xingchen undeservingly endure since he had awoken. Had felt this man turn on himself even as far back as when he first felt the squirms of a reassembling soul in the pouch he had carried.

A hand on his thigh, “Zichen.”

Song Lan looked up, startled out of the trance Xingchen’s words had put him under. He realized Xingchen had been silent for a few moments, waiting anxiously for Song Lan’s response.

Song Lan reached for the hand, carefully slotting his fingers between Xingchen’s and holding tight. Xingchen smiled, a smile which finally seemed to light up his face the way it should. And something, a pressure Song Lan hadn’t noticed until now, burst inside him as well. Tears flowed freely from his - from Xingchen’s - eyes.

Song Lan thought of the young girl Xingchen had described, that he himself had met so briefly. He thought of Xingchen’s soft smiles at the younger visiting cultivators, and Song Lan wondered, as Xingchen must have, how A-Qing would have gotten along with them if she had truly had the chance.

He thought of loneliness and grief, how they could each inspire such compassion, such horror, or both. He thought of life, death, renewal. Baoshan Sanren, Yi City, Baixue Temple.

He thought of all the ridiculous thoughts that had crossed his mind over the long twenty years they had spent apart. That Xingchen must hate him. That Xingchen must blame him. That what had happened to Xingchen was his fault. He had fought these thoughts for years. Wen Qionglin supporting him, then Hanguang-Jun, now Xingchen. But until now, until hearing the same thoughts mirrored in Xingchen’s voice: that Xingchen, Xingchen thought he could ever be hated? That Song Lan could ever truly think any of this was Xingchen’s fault? Only now did Song Lan truly understand how ridiculous he must have sounded, similarly taking on all the blame.

Wen Qionglin had had regrets. Hanguang-Jun had had regrets. Each of them had demonstrated to Song Lan that your darkest moments, your biggest mistakes, your worst actions, did not have to define you. They had shown him that forgiving yourself could sometimes be a selfless act. If absolving himself for actions he’d taken under another’s control, if acknowledging his own growth past lashing out at Baixue Temple, could present the possibility to Xingchen that he could forgive himself? If Song Lan telling himself that no matter what he had done - willingly at Baixue Temple, unwillingly as a puppet - he was still worthy of living a life with the ones he cared for and who cared for him, if that made it any more likely that Xingchen understood that he deserved at least the same? Then suddenly any further moral quandry dissipated.

But he had to say something. He reached for his guqin, wondering just how to explain this to his partner. Instead, what came out was a question that had haunted him since the moment Shuanghua had pierced his chest.

I have sometimes thought… what if I hadn’t found you? Would you be happier? If you had never known… who he was?

He braced himself for these notes to fall heavily on their mood, for Xingchen to freeze, withdraw, think that Song Lan wasn’t as easy a confidante as he’d thought.

“No.” That was all Xingchen said. A simple word, and a gentle laugh.

So Song Lan was instead the one who froze, surprised. After a few moments, Xingchen heard the volumes Song Lan’s stillness spoke.

Xingchen sighed, “The truth is important. I still missed you all those years apart, even if there were others, trustworthy or no, with whom I could temporarily relieve that feeling once in a while.” Xingchen leaned a cheek on his hand, tapping it thoughtfully, “I don’t even know for sure if I didn’t suspect even then that something was wrong with the man who turned out to be… to be Xue Yang…” Xingchen raced through the end of the sentence, the name hard to say even now, “I just didn’t realize… no, never mind.”

Please. Simple, not forceful. Enough.

Xingchen smiled weakly, “I know now this wouldn’t excuse anything, and it’s still a pretty silly conclusion to come to but… I suppose I just didn’t realize, didn’t even consider, that if this person wasn’t to be trusted, that if he was by my side, that he could still  hurt people that weren’t ah… you know.”

That he could hurt people who weren’t you. Song Lan understood, and didn’t need to hear Xingchen say so, or guess the end of the sentence through the guqin to confirm. An easy temptation, to think that saving others could be as simple as sacrificing oneself. It was one they had each fallen into at some point, but one that, hopefully, they were finally learning to leave behind.

Xingchen rested a hand on Song Lan’s shoulder, inviting, warm. And Song Lan responded in kind, pulling Xingchen close. There would be no more gardening today.

--

The sun went down over fields that had only recently seemed so confining. The fields now seemed almost endless, comforting in their depth. The two cultivators lay side by side, enjoying the shade as they leaned against the trunk of an ancient tree. The warm pinks and oranges painted across the sky reminded Song Lan of the campfires the two of them had fallen asleep next to on so many nights, back when they were still dancing around the now obvious fact that they wanted to remain at each other’s sides for as long as they were able.

Song Lan absent-mindedly strummed the guqin, describing for Xingchen the swirls of fading light, the way the last bursts of sunbeams painted the leaves of the peach grove below them. He had been thinking of new ways to adapt some of his poetry into this auditory language, and realized with a smile he might just be getting it. He looked down at Xingchen, who was resting his head on Song Lan’s shoulder, breathing slowly, evenly. Xingchen shifted, the delicate features settling into a faint smile. Song Lan’s smile reflected Xingchen’s without a thought. There was no contest between the sunset and Xingchen’s peaceful expression. Song Lan knew from experience that not even thousands of sunsets could match the latter.

“Song Zichen,” Xingchen said, the use of his full name taking Song Lan aback for a moment, but his tone was still drowsy, if sombre, “I need you to know that I will never put you through anything like that ever again. I cannot change the past but I cannot, will not cause any more suffering. Not on anyone, but not on you especially.”

Song Lan’s answer came through powerfully, louder chords than those he had been playing until now coming through naturally, an effortless translation of his own feelings on the matter, And I need you to know that if you do, I will be there to help you fix it. Because I cannot allow suffering for you any more than you can for me.

“Zichen, Zichen. Always one upping me with your words,” Xingchen laughed, losing the serious tone he had held moments before, “Just you wait until I can spar again. Then we will truly have some justice.” Xingchen yawned and snuggled closer into Zichen’s side. Song Lan returned to his softer, melodic descriptions of the landscape. Xingchen fell quickly into a gentle sleep, one that Song Lan hoped to be a well-deserved deep and peaceful one.  

--

Song Lan blinked his eyes open, the pale light confusing until he realized - it was the sunrise. Xingchen’s arms were wrapped around him, the other man sleeping later than Song Lan for the first time in a long while. Song Lan had no intention of moving, of risking rousing him, and in the moment, failed to see the problem with staying here forever.

Something tugged at his mind, though, a feeling that he was missing something important, something obvious. Not quite as urgent as the feelings he often had on the battlefield, those ones which had saved his, and sometimes Xingchen’s, life on more than one occasion, but something important nonetheless.

He blinked lazily, doing a quick sweep of the surroundings.

The garden tools still rested in the wheelbarrow, the remains of their late lunch turned dinner packed neatly in the basket nearby. The fields were empty. Fuxue rested on his back.

That was it. Fuxue.

Or rather, Fuxue’s near constant companion.

Having sat by the tree with the initial intention that it would only be a quick break, Song Lan had not bothered to remove the swords from his back. And now Song Lan realized that at some point in the night, as Xingchen’s arms had snaked around Song Lan’s waist, as Xingchen had pulled him closer, a hand must have landed inadvertently on a certain blade.

And though the sword was still sheathed, though the hand was nowhere near the handle on which it belonged, Song Lan thought he heard, clear as the early morning birds taking stock of their nesting grounds, Shuanghua sing.

--

And so the days passed, boredom slipped away as they found each other again, easily, even if slowly, now that the final walls had fallen between them. The nightmares became rarer, and the past more historical fact than vengeful ghost.

They were sitting on the edge of the bed, side by side, contemplating the same spot near the corner of the room.

“I think I will this time,” Xingchen said, smiling, sure, not needing Song Lan’s answer, just stating this as the truth.

And in that moment, Song Lan believed him, of course he did. Before Xingchen even stood up, Song Lan had seen him cross the room, grab Shuanghua by the hilt, wield it, stand ready to protect as many as he could, to vanquish evil where he must. Song Lan knew he would be there by his side. He knew that at the end of a journey, they would come back, to a place like this, but a place far less quiet, one full of people who needed and loved them and who one day the world would need and love.

The nightmares of the past may be rarer, but the dreams for the future were becoming far more haunting.

The Xingchen of the present finally did lift Shuanghua from the stand, and, even if somewhat more hesitantly than Song Lan’s mind had presented it, Xingchen once again stood, truly united with his sword. Watching Xingchen, but mind still racing weeks, years, decades ahead, Song Lan knew the first chords he played should have been congratulatory, celebratory, awestruck. But instead, the chords his fingers danced over without a thought were instead, We should start talking about our sect again.

And if the mere thought of Xingchen reconnecting with Shuanghua, had been dazzling, then the sight of Xingchen turning, laughing, sword in hand and exuberant agreement lighting up his whole face? The sight almost made Song Lan need to shield his eyes from the brightness. Almost. But then, how could he forgive himself if he missed even a moment?

--

There were more talks, more walks, more cooking, boat rides, gardening. A tension had been relieved, worries still lurking but temporarily eased, more nuisance than threat. And soon, the farm came to feel too small again, like a cozy sickroom occupied just a bit too long after the fever had passed.

They spoke of the sect they would build.

“Zichen, I was thinking… if you think it would be right, we could set our sect up where…”

At Baixue Temple, came the quick set of chords. And Xingchen had grinned, nodding. They could not bring back or replace what was lost, but they could certainly keep their memories close by as they rebuilt their lives and reclaimed the dreams they had long believed forever out of reach.

--

When Wen Ning appeared, months after he’d left, arms laden with carefully chosen gifts and treats from the various villages where his patients lived, he came upon a sight that brought an immediate smile to his face, a glow of pride to his chest.

The clashing of swords, sweeping robes, elegant but powerful leaps through the air. The Distant Moon and Gentle Breeze. The Distant Snow and Cold Frost. Swirling, dancing together in playful combat, like snow flurries on a winter’s day. Shuanghua in one’s hand, Fuxue in the other. And if there was still a hesitation in one’s step, unwilling to take an opening he had clearly noticed, or if the other sometimes struck a bit more gently than the teasing, taunting voice challenged him to, to Wen Ning, this was still success.

And weeks later, after the proper festivities were had, after Xiao Xingchen asked to see Jin Ling’s dog and Wei Wuxian accused him of high treason, after Ouyang Zizhen spent half a day in silence, before breaking and realizing if he was going to be remembered in stories or song, it would not be as a Song Lan or Hanguang-Jun silent type. After Sizhui taught Song Lan the word for “adorable” and Xiao Xingchen’s cheeks remained flushed the rest of the evening once Hanguang-Jun translated the chord for him, if after all that Song Lan held Xingchen’s hand, and Xingchen understood that that meant it was time. If Xingchen asked if Song Lan was sure, and if Song Lan made out the chords for Yes. If Xingchen said, “To Baixue Temple?” and Song Lan replied, “They would want us to rebuild.”

If after all that, as Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji watched the two cultivators set off, they felt a little stirring of nostalgia for the moment they had first detected whispers that they might have what they had now? If those two cultivators left side by side, one in white, one in black, a sword draped over each one’s back, and felt a feeling of rightness descend over them in a way it hadn’t for decades? Well, that wouldn’t mean that everything was back to how it was, or even that the world was as those two deserved it to be. But perhaps it meant it didn’t matter. That for them, it was enough to have each other, their dream, and an open road ahead of them. That the road behind, arduous as it had been, could be left as something only ever behind them. Always there, maybe having left a stain of dirt on robes or shoes so that it could not be readily forgotten, but not nearly as present as the road under their feet now.

And certainly never more important than the one they each had forever by their side.

[END]

Thank you so much if you've kept up with/read this whole thing! This is the longest fic I've ever posted, and just thinking of anyone having read so many words I wrote is both terrifying but so nice <3

Thank you again so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this journey!!

[curiosity-killed]

a bow for the bad decisions: chapter 18

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(on ao3)

With my blood—                              —my soul as compensation,                                 Kill them all for me. Kill them all! Wei Wuxian, take revenge for me. Blood fills his nose, that familiar perfume. Cold presses into the edges of his bones, stone grating against his elbows and skull. Dragging his eyes open, he gets a hazy glimpse of a dirty floor and scorched blood. Oh, he thinks muzzily, so it worked. Only — destroying the Seal was supposed to kill him. He’d known that from the start, from the very moment he handed over a fistful of his own soul to bring it to life. If he’s alive, then— “Stop playing dead!” 

A heavy foot slams into his chest, rolling him hard onto his back. He scrunches his eyes at the nausea that swells up in his throat as that grating, shrieking voice continues on. What a lot of courage, he thinks, kicking the Yiling laozu. Getting a hand underneath him, he pushes himself up to his knees before a hand is in his collar, yanking him up. The kid has to be in his late teens, though his juvenile sneer suggests someone younger.

“Whose land do you think you’re living on? Whose rice are you eating?” the kid spits. “Everything you own should be mine anyway!” Leaning as far back as he can manage, Wei Wuxian tries not to grimace at the spittle hitting his face. Given how utterly exhausted this body is, it’s not difficult to simply go slack. His head’s still spinning, cottony pressure throbbing at the backs of his eyes. “How dare you tell Father and Mother? Did you really think anybody would listen to a lunatic like you?” What the hell, Mo Xuanyu? Wei Wuxian thinks as the rest of the meager possessions in the shed are trashed and he’s thrown back to the ground. The brat and his minions storm out of the shed and leave him alone in a circle of dried blood. Scowling at the closed door a moment longer, he exhales in a rush and rubs at the ridge of his brow with the heel of his palm. He pushes the hair back out of his face and eyes the array painted on the floor. It’s with a sinking feeling that he recognizes the pattern. He remembers this, in the way he remembers anything from that year when he tries to focus on it — hazy, half-there, a muddle of ideas with great black blanks in between. Picking up a tattered pile of papers, he winces at the too-familiar scrawl and groans. “Since when am I a ‘sinister ghost,’” he complains to the empty shed. “I just have a bad reputation.” A jolt of pain cuts through his arm and he flinches before reaching over to pull back his sleeve. Four ragged cuts bleed sluggishly, deeper than a physical wound. He scowls down at them, before groaning and flopping onto his back on the floor. “Mo Xuanyu, you brat,” he says into the dusty quiet, “you got the wrong person.” He’s not a vengeful spirit. He’s not even sure how much of a spirit he is — he remembers resentment, remembers the Seal burning through his chest, clawed hands ripping through his chest. Sitting up, he shuts down that line of thought. So he probably did die, after all. That’s. Well. He gets up to find water and something to hold back his hair. If he remembers right, the xianshe should have summoned him into Mo Xuanyu’s own body, but it’s his hands that reach for the bucket he finds in one corner alongside a workbench that makes his Demon Subdue Cave look as orderly as the Gusu Lan library. It’s his face that looks back, gaunt and pale as a ghost. Grimacing, he plunges his hands in and breaks up the reflection. He finds a set of dark robes, shorter than he’s used to wearing but not coated in old blood and dirt at least. Stripping down briskly, he pauses to eye the ruin of his chest and stomach in mild dismay. Deep lacerations cross back and forth over his skin, blood smeared across their edges both from being used as the ink pot for the array and from the rub of the robes against them. His old scars are there, under the blood. He’s not sure if he’s relieved or not to see the marks of his history peeking pink beneath all that red. His hand falls to touch a thin white line low on his belly, and he frowns at it as he pokes at his memory. He doesn’t remember this one. When he’s dressed and his hair tugged back in a high tail, he turns to examine the room he’s in. Even ignoring the cursed array in the center of the floor, it’s not exactly impressive. Filth has accumulated in all the corners, and the shabby bed he finds more closely resembles a rat’s nest. His day doesn’t exactly improve after that. It’s one thing to get dragged back to life, he thinks, and it’s another thing to get dragged back to life and then immediately blamed for murder. Again. He scrambles back from Madam Mo’s outstretched hand and swears at Mo Xuanyu for pulling him into this. The little Lans are competent, at least, and aside from the one threatening to punch him when he snagged a lure flag, they’re better company than the Mo family. He doesn’t really want them to get murdered by the cursed arm lunging for their necks. With a glance to check that everyone’s attention is on the sword formation the juniors are using to try to keep the arm at bay, he steps up next to Tong and Old Man Mo. “Still sleeping?” he murmurs into their ears before clicking his fingers, drawing up a burst of resentment. “Time to work.” Well, he thinks as he watches them go tearing after Madam Mo, at least I’m still good at this. He’d wondered, briefly. Resentment has been a steady pillar of his body for so long now, he doesn’t remember what it’s like to not be pieced together with it. Waking to find that his body hummed with quiet spiritual energy and only traces of that seething black had been nearly as disorienting as waking in a circle drawn in blood. After that, he’s too focused on the fight to pay much attention to anything else. Fresh as they are and angry as they are, the Mo family makes for strong fierce corpses — and they’re still torn and shredded by this arm. Even the Lans’ warded robes only temporarily hold it back. He’s reaching for the resentment around them, trying to coax something out of the shadows and the earth, when a familiar chord cuts through the night air. Even exhausted, the Lan juniors cheer. “Hanguang-jun! Hanguang-jun!” Wei Wuxian brightens, turning instinctively toward the sound of the guqin. Sure enough, Lan Zhan alights on the roof across the courtyard with his guqin out before him. Another chord rings out across the manor, flattening the fierce corpses and leaving the cursed arm groping across the dirt as if it can’t quite get purchase. Tucked against a pillar, he watches as Lan Zhan suppresses every tendril of resentment in the courtyard. He still looks just the way Wei Wuxian remembers him, though maybe a little older, a little sterner. “Still wearing mourning clothes,” he laughs to himself. Something eases in his chest at the sight of him, as if at least one plank of this unsteady world is solid beneath his feet. Lan Zhan’s alive and whole. As much as it hurt in the moment, at least that means his plans worked here. He slips away into the night and doesn’t let himself look back. He makes it to the feet of Dafan Mountain without any more reunions with his past and with some level of success in not thinking at all about his first life. He doesn’t really sleep during the few days, partially out of an irrational conviction that he’ll close his eyes and not open them again and partially out of a slightly more rational dread of his own nightmares. As much as he’s been avoiding trying to think about his last memories before he woke up in that shed, he’s not an idiot. The Seal was never going to let him go gently. Still, he’s relatively pleased with himself as he crosses the mountain, and he makes the mistake of thinking that this is easier than he’d expected. Of course, it’s at that moment that he stumbles across a gaggle of cultivators caught up in a spirit net. “Help! Help— oh. It’s you.” The dismay’s a little unwarranted, he thinks as he sets his hands on his hips and leans back to eye the nets. He doesn’t have any way of helping them down, but that doesn’t mean they have to look so disappointed before he’s even admitted as much. Before he can say anything, there’s the sound of running steps and he yanks Lil Apple’s reins till they’re tucked back in some bushes out of sight. Even with Mo Xuanyu’s hideous mask covering his face, he doesn’t want to risk being identified. The cultivators in the nets groan; one woman tilts her head back as if to beseech the heavens. “Rude,” Wei Wuxian murmurs to Lil Apple. The donkey, as usual, shows no sympathy. “You!” Peering through the leaves, Wei Wuxian spots two teens in cream and gold. The taller one reaches up to jab at the captured cultivators with his bow while the girl scowls at the whole scene. “Why is it always you idiots!” she yells. “You’ve broken ten of our spirit nets. Don’t you have any shame?” Ten? Wei Wuxian grimaces reflexively. The Jin really don’t ever change. “Young master, please let us down,” the cultivators chorus. The boy scoffs, bringing his bow down to cross his arms. There’s something familiar about him, though Wei Wuxian can’t quite place it. The girl shares features with him, similar enough to be a sister or at least a close cousin. His nose wrinkles at the thought of little Jin cousins terrorizing the countryside. “You can stay up there till we find the spirit-eating monster!” the girl huffs. “That way you won’t be in our way anymore.” Her brother flicks his ponytail over his shoulder and sets off away from them. “We’ll let you down once we catch it,” he says. “If we still remember.” What a brat. Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows raise a little, but he has no chance to think further before Lil Apple, that shrieking traitor, brays and tears off directly at the Jin cousins. “Ahh stop! Stop it, come back!” Wei Wuxian wails, to absolutely no avail. The two Jins have stopped short, twisting back to stare at him. He stumbles to a halt as Lil Apple finally jerks free of his hands and gallops into the woods. He’s going to kill that donkey. He doesn’t know how donkey tastes, but he’s eaten worse. “Oh, it’s you,” the boy says, crossing his arms over his chest. “What are you doing here?” He’s slung his bow over his back and eyes Wei Wuxian with disdain, but beside him, the girl has bristled like a cat thrown in water, her hand going white-knuckled around her own bow. “Eh?” Wei Wuxian manages. “What, did you lose all your memories after you were kicked out? And what’s with that mask?” the boy scoffs. “Huh, so you did lose your mind after all.” Well that’s an interesting detail Wei Wuxian wasn’t expecting to find out. He eyes his robes curiously, probing at the thought. Jin Guangshan must have led the siege at the Burial Mounds, and if his bastard son brought Wei Wuxian back, well. He stifles a laugh. “What are you laughing at? Show some respect!” the girl snaps. “Disgusting lunatic.” “Hey,” he calls, “I’m your senior! Where are your manners? Who raised you?” The girl takes a step forward, lips pulled back in a snarl, but her companion pulls her back with a hand on her shoulder. Wei Wuxian has about one breath to feel accomplished with his scolding before there’s a gleaming sword pointed at him. Oh no, he thinks a little tiredly. Not again. “You!” the boy yells. “How dare you speak to my sister like that!” The boy’s quick, he’ll grant. He lunges, swinging out with a slash that would cut Wei Wuxian’s throat if he didn’t sway to the side. He lets him have his fun for a few moments, dodging and slipping out of the boy’s increasingly irritated reach. It’s a good lesson. The kid clearly could use a reminder not to draw his sword on strangers. “Not bad!” he chirps, bending back to dodge the blade and plucking a leaf as he goes. He could keep this going for a while, but he doesn’t actually want to stay here all night and he’s not sure how long it’ll be till the sister jumps in as well. With a little spark of resentment, the leaf splits into a paperman, and he tacks it to the boy’s back with a quick call for a nearby ghost. In seconds, the boy is facedown in the dirt and groaning beneath the invisible weight of gluttony. Humming, Wei Wuxian steps neatly back to him and leans down to pluck up the discarded sword. He weighs it in his hand a moment, trying to figure out why the gilt and jade look so familiar. “Don’t touch that!” the boy yells, a frantic note entering his voice. “Mo Xuanyu, how dare you! Let me up!” The girl races over, tugging on her brother’s shoulder as if that will do any good. She glares up at him, all venom. “What did you do? Undo your curse! Let him go!” she demands. Rolling his eyes, Wei Wuxian adjusts his grip and flings the sword out to cut through the spirit nets. It’s not as neat an arc as Bichen, he notes with mild dissatisfaction, but then it’s been years since he wielded a sword. “Mo Xuanyu! Just wait till my uncle hears about this!” the boy yells. Wei Wuxian snorts, turning back to them with his hands on his hips. “Your uncle? Why your uncle and not your dad?” he asks. “Who’s this uncle?” “I am.” Oh. His feet are rooted to the forest floor, lips parted in soft shock. Anger rolls off Jiang Cheng, a violet stormcloud with Zidian already sparking on his wrist. Wei Wuxian can’t help but stare. If this is Jiang Cheng’s nephew and niece, then — then— shijie. He takes half a step forward before freezing. Fuck you, Wei Wuxian! Go to hell! He takes a step back, crooking his finger behind his back to peel off the paperman. It’s nearly to the safety of his hand when it’s tugged away by spiritual energy and crumpled in Jiang Cheng’s hand. His sneer’s the same, which is less comforting when it’s directed at Wei Wuxian. “I’m going to break your legs!” the kid — shijie’s son — Jin Rulan — yells as he scrambles to his feet. “Break his legs?” Jiang Cheng asks, shooting Jin Rulan a scathing look. “Is that what I’ve taught you all these years?” Of course, it makes sense Jiang Cheng would help raise their nephew after Jin Zixuan died. It explains why the swords looks familiar, too. Wei Wuxian never got too close to Suihua, but he saw it often enough during the war. Gnawing guilt chews at the base of his stomach. “You should’ve brought Fairy, Jin Ling,” the girl — his niece? — says now. “She could bite him and drag him back to Jinlintai for xiao-shushu.” That’s incentive enough for Wei Wuxian to turn tail and bolt from this unexpected reunion. It’s one thing if Jiang Cheng hates him, but he’s not sticking around to find out if the dog does, too. “Stop! You can’t run!” He most definitely can and is going to. His body doesn’t feel quite right even after a few days, like it’s just a little off from what he remembers. He’s more than willing to blame that when Jin Ling lunges for him and he trips, wobbling for a split second as the blue glare off a blade flashes just over his face. He falls hard, twisting almost enough to catch himself on his hands and exactly enough to crack his chin into the ground. Wincing, he lifts his head enough to find white boots directly before him and the edge of familiar white robes. Fuck. He lays his head back down. “Lan-er-gongzi,” Jiang Cheng greets, voice all cold venom, “you truly live up to your reputation of appearing amidst chaos. You had time to come to such a remote mountain today?” Having given himself two breaths to press his forehead into the dirt and wish Mo Xuanyu had never thought to summon him, Wei Wuxian pushes himself up on his hands and knees and scoots backward in as ungainly and hasty a retreat as he can manage. Jiang Cheng doesn’t spare him a glance as he stalks up to Lan Zhan, stepping too close for propriety or Lan Zhan’s comfort. Wei Wuxian frowns but barely manages to keep from protesting. It’s not like Lan Zhan needs him to protect him after all. “Are you here to steal all the credit from us or to look for someone?” Jiang Cheng asks, strangely snide. “You’ve been all over the place these thirteen years. Aren’t you done yet?” “Jiang-zongzhu, what do you mean by that?” one of the little Lans from Mo Manor — Lan Jingyi, Wei Wuxian thinks — calls out. The kid earns a small mark in his favor in Wei Wuxian’s estimation, more than making up for almost decking him over the lure flag the other day. He can’t think of a single Lan disciple who would have spoken out of turn like that before. Good for him. “What do I mean?” Jiang Cheng scoffs. “Hanguang-jun, you know what I mean.” If Lan Zhan does, he doesn’t show any sign of it. He isn’t really showing any sign of hearing Jiang Cheng at all; from where he’s still stuck on the ground, Wei Wuxian can’t catch any emotion on Lan Zhan’s face. “Young Master Jin,” the nice Lan — Sizhui — says, “the night hunt is supposed to be a fair competition between cultivators. However, you have set up so many nets that others can hardly proceed for fear of being trapped. Doesn’t this violate the rules of the hunt?” “They got caught because of their own stupidity. It’s not my fault,” Jin Ling retorts. “Anyway, why bother talking about it? We can talk after I catch the—mmph!” The slant of Lan Zhan’s gaze and the sudden, distressed muteness are familiar enough Wei Wuxian isn’t sure whether to laugh or wince in sympathy. He’s a little surprised, now that he thinks about it, that Lan Zhan never tried using the silencing spell to stop Wei Wuxian from playing Chenqing. It would have made it easier to tote him off to Gusu, for sure. The thought makes his stomach sink, and he regrets it even as a Jiang disciple comes racing up to them. She’s a gangly young woman and sketches a haphazard bow in her haste. “Zongzhu, a blue sword just destroyed all the spirit nets Jin-gongzi set up!” she reports. “Lan Wangji!” Jiang Cheng snaps, teeth bared. Lan Zhan doesn’t bother meeting Jiang Cheng’s gaze, holding himself as still and implacable as marble. Wei Wuxian bites his lips to hold in his laughter. It’s not really funny to see them fighting, but — well, he’s dealt with Jiang Cheng’s temper for nearly twelve years. There’s nothing that gets under his skin faster than refusing to react. It’s easier to think about that than to think about what Jiang Cheng said, about thirteen years. He focuses on the familiar irritation that flashes over Jiang Cheng’s face as he gestures for the two kids and the Jiang disciple to go before him, leaving Wei Wuxian alone with Lan Zhan and his little juniors. “That Jiang-zongzhu!” Lan Jingyi bursts out. “Who does he think he is?” Lan Zhan glances at him, disapproving, and the kid recoils with a look of mortification. Right, what was that? Rule two-hundred-thirty-something: one must not talk behind others’ backs. “Young Master Mo, we meet again,” Lan Sizhui says, leaning down to offer his hand. “Are you alright?” “Ah yes, still here thanks to you it seems,” he jabbers, his voice rising in something he refuses to call panic. He was trying to get away from any reunions, not fall face first into them. Lan Zhan looks at him for a long moment but makes no move to step closer. He turns to the juniors. “Return to your positions,” he says evenly. “Try your best but do not take unnecessary risks.” “Yes, Hanguang-jun,” they all chorus, saluting properly. There’s a moment, after they turn to leave, where Lan Zhan stands still and Wei Wuxian almost thinks he’ll say something. Has he recognized him so quickly? Surely not. If it’s really been thirteen years, Wei Wuxian’s probably just a faded memory by now. Maybe that’s it — that the combination of demonic cultivation and Jiang Cheng and all of it reminded Lan Zhan of his old friend for a moment. When the Lan party has been swallowed by the trees, Wei Wuxian flees in the opposite direction. Forget whatever beast it is; it’s not worth it anymore. He’s going as far away from anywhere he knows and then he’ll figure out what Mo Xuanyu wanted him to do or he won’t and his soul will be destroyed and never able to reincarnate again. He might be panicking, a little. Then, he encounters the ghost in the cemetery and hears the rumors, and Wei Wuxian might be an idiot, but he hasn’t forgotten the last time he came to Dafan Mountain. It had been hard enough for Lan Zhan and him to seal the statue back then, and now there are actual children going up against it with no idea what they’re facing. Of course, it turns out that his niece and nephew didn’t get any of their mother’s good sense, and Lan Zhan’s baby juniors missed out on his preparedness. “You didn’t restock signals?” he demands. “How could you not restock such an important item?” He combs his hands back into his scalp and tries not to scream. If they were his shidis, they’d be running laps for a week. He’s about ready to scold Lan Zhan himself; as their shixiong, he ought to have taught them better. They’d seemed so competent at Mo Manor! Letting out an aggrieved groan, he snatches Lan Sizhui’s sword before the boy has time to do much more than yelp in surprise. He sends a brief apology to the memory of Chenqing as he hacks out an improvised dizi from the bamboo and tosses Sizhui back his sword before he starts to play. As he raises the flute to his lips, an arrow flashes through the evening sky, a white flare through the statue’s forehead. “Jin-guniang! Jin-gongzi! Be careful!” Lan Sizhui calls. Shijie, Wei Wuxian thinks as he closes his eyes, what in the world have your kids been learning? The noises the dizi makes can barely count as notes, and Lan Jingyi gripes about the sound, but Wei Wuxian ignores him. The music itself is only a vector, only conveying his intention. He pulls on every thread of willpower he has, flings out his call to anything powerful and resentful enough to take the statue down. The goddess is a seething blot of anger and hunger in his senses, and he presses around her, pushes his lure out further, farther. Come to me, the garbled song says. Wake up and rise. He can feel her bearing down on Jin Ling, can feel the bright pulse of energy as the kid unsheathes his father’s blade and aims up. Come to me. Every scrap of energy is pressed into the call, every thin thread he can dredge up. All at once, there’s an answer. “The Ghost General! It’s him! It’s the Ghost General!” Wei Wuxian’s eyes shoot open, dizi dipping down in shock. Wen Ning shoots up from the ground, catching the goddess in her brittle chin. Something’s not right, though. Heavy chains swing from his wrists and ankles; his eyes, when Wei Wuxian catches a glimpse, are black as ink. Horror twists through Wei Wuxian. He’d sent Wen Ning away to protect him, to prevent him from getting caught by the sects. Who did this to him? Who could? He doesn’t have time to wonder further. With the statue destroyed, the cultivators turn on Wen Ning himself. He’s flooded with resentment, the energy rippling off him in gales. Without his own control, he’ll turn on anyone who tries to attack. Steadying himself, Wei Wuxian draws in a breath and reaches for the first calming song he thinks of. As discordant as the melody is on this dizi, it still thrums with gentle suggestion. It’s me, he says through it. Wen Ning, it’s me. Calm down. Blurry memories flit through him with the notes: Lan Zhan’s voice low and gentle in the dark of a cave, a gentle hand on the side of his face, red lanterns glowing soft in the night. Taking careful steps backwards, he lures Wen Ning away from the cultivators already yelling for Jiang Cheng. If he can just get a little further— A hand wraps around his wrist. Startled, Wei Wuxian nearly drops the dizi as he starts to pull out of the grip, but he freezes. Lan Zhan’s hand is warm and broad, his amber eyes wide as he stares at Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian’s lips part, though he doesn’t know what he’s going to say. “Zongzhu, the Ghost General went that way!” Shit. Taking up the dizi, Wei Wuxian starts again even as Lan Zhan doesn’t release his grip. He presses more urgency into the melody, urges Wen Ning to flee and hide. At last, he flings himself away, and Wei Wuxian allows himself to draw in a much-needed breath. The hand around his wrist tightens, clenches almost painfully. “Ah!” Wei Wuxian yelps before twisting his hand to flip their grip. “Don’t chase him!” He holds Lan Zhan’s wrist too tightly, but Lan Zhan makes no move to break his grip. There’s something open and trembling in his expression, something almost like awe. Wei Wuxian can’t look away, suspended there with his hand on Lan Zhan and time a distant idea far removed from them. “Zongzhu, he’s the one who summoned the Ghost General,” the gangly Jiang disciple from earlier announces. Breaking his gaze from Lan Zhan, he turns to see Jiang Cheng only a few paces off. There’s something about his expression that’s a little off, a strain that Wei Wuxian doesn’t recognize. “So you’re back,” Jiang Cheng says, spits. “And you went running to him? Wei Wuxian!” Zidian flares to life, unspooling in his hand, and Wei Wuxian can’t help but flinch back. The fern-like scars furled across his back tingle with the memory of pain. Before he can move, Lan Zhan has stepped before him, his guqin summoned to hover under his hand. A single chord knocks Zidian aside mid-stroke, the clash of spiritual energy sharp enough to resonate through Wei Wuxian’s ribcage. Watching from the sidelines, he can’t help gaping a little. Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan really have progressed while he’s been gone. Zidian and Wangji were both powerful enough in his memory, but the way they flare and respond to their masters is like something out of a story. Something, nameless and heavy as a stone, sinks in Wei Wuxian’s chest and he forces it away. Good for them. He backs away carefully before he pivots and starts to flee in earnest. “You’re going to run away now?” He gets no further warning before Zidian is burning a caustic lash across his back and he’s flung into the dirt again. He cringes, gritting his teeth through the pain. It doesn’t hurt as much as he remembers from Madam Yu’s enthusiastic punishments, but it still burns worse than a hundred wasp stings. He scrambles to his feet, rubbing at his back. Mo Xuanyu was recognized by Jin Ling and his sister; maybe he can pretend long enough to deter Jiang Cheng. Anyway, his shidi really ought to have better manners. He’s a sect leader, for heavens’ sakes, and he’s not in his own territory. “Who do you think you are! Just because you’re a rich sect leader, does that mean you can go about whipping people as you like?” he scolds. “Take off your mask!” Jiang Cheng yells. Wei Wuxian is briefly tempted to stick out his tongue, and then, because he’s supposed to be crazy anyway, does it. “No! You’ll be shocked to death if I do,” he calls back. “Jiang-zongzhu, please stop,” Lan Jingyi protests, stepping forward. “Wei Wuxian’s body and soul were destroyed when he died. You killed him yourself, didn’t you?” Jiang Cheng breathes in sharply, eyes briefly widening with hurt, and Wei Wuxian frowns. He died when he destroyed the Seal. Jiang Cheng didn’t— Jiang Cheng, fear and anger snarling across his face— burning — Wei Wuxian, you promised. He stumbles, exhaustion finally catching up to him, and the memories flood in. He wakes slowly, to the solemn chords of the guqin. He can’t count the number of times Lan Zhan insisted on playing Clarity for him during the war; he recognizes it now even in its last notes. As it fades into quiet, a new song begins, one that tugs deep in Wei Wuxian’s chest. It sounds so much better when Lan Zhan plays it. Opening his eyes to the dark wood ceiling, he swallows and breathes through the tear slipping down into his hairline. “It’s really been thirteen years,” he says softly, letting himself take the weight of that understanding. “It feels like a dream.” Even with the river-rush of his memories running through him, there are still patches missing. He remembers dying, but the moments before it are scattered and disordered. He remembers parts of Qiongqi Pass, but so much of it is drenched in red it’s hard to discern the details. When he thinks of that year in the Burial Mounds, it’s hard to tell where reality ends and the nightmares begin. “You’re awake,” Lan Zhan says gently and resumes playing. Drawing himself up to sit with his back against the frame of the bed, he listens to Lan Zhan and tries not to think too much at all. The song curls into a gentle close, and Lan Zhan rests his hands over the strings to still them. He doesn’t look up, his gaze carefully fixed on some point a few strides before his guqin. “These thirteen years…” he starts. “If I say I don’t know where I was these thirteen years,” Wei Wuxian says, “will you believe me?” Lan Zhan swallows before dipping his head in a slight nod. “I believe you,” he says. He speaks quietly, but such surety runs through his voice that Wei Wuxian feels both as if the breath has been knocked from him and as if he might start crying. Ridiculous, he thinks and of course it’s in Lan Zhan’s voice. He pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around his legs. “I don’t remember a lot, I think,” he admits quietly, resting his chin on his knees. “But I remember what I said to you.” Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Lan Zhan still, hands tensing over his guqin. A twinge of pain and guilt aches in Wei Wuxian’s chest. So much for giving Lan Zhan an out, an opportunity to go make his life away from Wei Wuxian. Now he’s back, crashing into the peace Lan Zhan has surely cultivated in the intervening years. Thirteen years is far longer than they ever knew each other; what delicate balance has he created in that time that Wei Wuxian is now wrecking? “That day we ran into you in Yiling, the last time I saw you,” he says. “I’m — I’m sorry, for what I said.” Lan Zhan is still painfully still in his periphery, as if carved from jade. When he speaks, it is as if he is picking his words carefully, delicately. “That day in Yiling,” he echoes. “The last time you saw me.” There’s almost a question in his voice, and Wei Wuxian turns to him a little, frowning. Lan Zhan still doesn’t look to him. “Yeah,” he says. He swallows, forces himself to go on. “I — I thought I was protecting you by pushing you away but I was…it was wrong of me. I’m sorry for the way I treated you.” Lan Zhan’s chin lowers a little, but there’s a tension in the corners of his mouth like frustration or maybe dismay. Wei Wuxian’s brow wrinkles. Was it too much? Maybe he’s being too forward, assuming that he mattered enough to Lan Zhan to hurt him. Even as he thinks it, he knows that probably isn’t true. It’s just…well, it has been thirteen years. Maybe Lan Zhan doesn’t care for an apology so late. “Mm,” Lan Zhan says to his guqin. “It is forgiven.” He rises, robes cascading down like the white froth of a waterfall, and steps around the table to come to the bed where Wei Wuxian’s still curled. Perching on the edge of it, he studies Wei Wuxian’s face for a long moment, as if he’s searching for something. “What, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian teases around the knot in his throat. “Did you miss my face that much?” “Yes,” Lan Zhan says quietly. “I missed all of you.” Blinking, Wei Wuxian can only manage a strangled, ‘oh.’ He can feel the back of his neck warming, startled by the sincerity, and he looks away as he clears his throat. He’s not actually sure where they are, except that the simple style of the house and the familiar cloud patterns suggest somewhere in Cloud Recesses. “Eh, Lan Zhan, where are we? I don’t recognize this place,” he says. “The jingshi in Cloud Recesses,” Lan Zhan answers, unperturbed by the change of topic. “My home.” The heat rising up the back of Wei Wuxian’s neck suddenly has less to do with Lan Zhan’s sincerity and more to do with the realization that he’s in Lan Zhan’s private home, in his own bed, and apparently Lan Zhan is utterly fine with this.    “Cloud Recesses? But what if Zewu-jun finds out?” he protests. “It doesn’t sound like people are lining up to welcoming me in.” “Brother already knows,” Lan Zhan says. “He greeted us when we arrived. He…understands.” Wei Wuxian glances sidelong at him but decides he isn’t ready to unpack the emotional depth contained in that one word. He skirts away from it, already feeling raw and bruised. “And Lan-laoxiansheng?” he prods. “Has he finally forgiven me for disrupting class?” It’s the least of his sins against the Lans, but at least that means he can poke at it a little without fresh blood. “Uncle is not sect leader,” Lan Zhan says. The corners of his lips twitch in the faintest hint of amusement. “I believe Lan Jingyi reported that a Young Master Mo aided in their mission and was brought here for healing and protection.” “Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian gasps, scandalized and delighted, “you’ve learned how to be sneaky! I really have been a bad influence.” Breathing out a soft huff, Lan Zhan looks down at where his graceful hands rest in his lap. His gaze flicks up to Wei Wuxian, still soft in a way Wei Wuxian hasn’t seen it in — well, in years. Not since that last visit. “Wei Ying is good,” he says firmly. “You should rest. You were exhausted.” Wei Wuxian wrinkles his nose at that, but he can’t deny the soul-deep weariness weighing him down. Still, as Lan Zhan starts to rise, he reaches out on impulse and catches the edge of one white sleeve. “Hey, Lan Zhan,” he says with a little smile, hopeful, “sing for me?” For a moment, he thinks he has really overstepped. Lan Zhan stands still and straight by the bed, expressionless. Then, the line of his lips relaxes just-so, his gaze softening as he gives a single nod. “Mm,” he says, brushing a hand featherlight against Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. “If you’d like.” He goes back to the guqin instead of staying beside Wei Wuxian on the bed, which wasn’t quite the plan, but Wei Wuxian can’t find it in himself to complain as he nestles back into the bed and Lan Zhan begins. With Lan Zhan’s voice lilting in his ear and the soft thrum of the qin strings humming through his bones, he finds he’s not afraid to close his eyes.

[satonthelotuspier]

Turnabout Is Fair Play - Part 3

Here’s part 3 of my Xicheng babysitting mini WangXian crack. Part 1 and Part 2 found at the links if you missed them.

Part 4 is now available or you can read it in one place at AO3 here

Lan Xichen cheated a little. He delegated the babysitting duty to Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui for the morning. They really needed to discuss leaving the inn and returning to sect lands. Cloud Recesses being the closest. Wei Wuxian, while enjoying something of a resurgence in popularity in the years since Yunping still had many enemies. While news of what had happened to Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian was still known by very few people outside their immediate night hunting party, once word did start to spread he wanted Wei Wuxian to be safe behind the walls of Cloud Recesses.

So he sought out Sect Leader Jiang who was meeting with some of his Jiang sect disciples and his sect physician about using some venom glands his disciples had recovered to assist in creating the antidote as they’d already discussed.

Once the physician had finished speaking Jiang Wanyin turned to acknowledge him, “Sect Leader Lan”

“Sect Leader Jiang. I came to discuss moving on to Cloud Recesses with you. I don’t need to state how much safer it will be for the boys until we can finish clearing the poison out of their blood”

He could see Jiang Wanyin considering his comment, possibly to argue about which Sect’s lands they went back to. He could understand the other man’s hesitation; their role was one with many responsibilities and dependencies, but he hoped the other would see the sense of why Gusu was the best option purely due to relative distances.

Of course, Jiang Wanyin could let Lan Xichen take the boys to Gusu and just go back to Yunmeng himself. Really Wei Wuxian was now affiliated with the Gusu Lan Sect, having married into it.

Jiang Wanyin was well within his rights to leave the whole mess to Lan Xichen.

He had some hope that it wouldn’t be the case though; it hadn’t been discussed that Wei Wuxian would sleep in his brother’s rooms last night but Jiang Wanyin had just acted like it was a foregone conclusion, so it was.

He obviously felt some kind of responsibility for the young Yiling Patriarch.

Eventually he nodded, “Yes, I agree that we should consider that as soon as possible. Is this afternoon too late to make the journey if we take them on our swords?”

Lan Xichen was relieved at the other man’s agreement, and nodded, “This afternoon will be ideal, if we set off just after midday we’ll get there before dusk starts to set in”

“Then excuse me, I need to make arrangements to send some information and instructions back to Lotus Pier”

“Understood”

As he walked away Lan Xichen saw his junior disciples returning with the youngsters. Although normally energetic Lan Jingyi looked exhausted. He also limped a little.

Lan Xichen closed his eyes briefly, instinct, and indeed the experience of the last twenty four hours, told him it was Wangji who had caused the trouble.

“Zewu-jun” the disciples saluted him.

“Is your leg injured Lan Jingyi?” he asked as the other favoured his left leg as they came to a halt in front of Lan Xichen.

Lan Sizhui tried to hide his giggle behind a short cough.

“We let them play with wooden swords. Apparently Hanguang-jun is still quite lethal with a blade and cracked Jingyi on the knee” Lan Sizhui informed him and Lan Jingyi flushed in embarrassment. Who wouldn’t at having his Sect Leader informed he’d been beaten by a four year old with a toy sword?

Again Lan Xichen had to keep his mirth from showing on his face. He wasn’t sure his Uncle would have survived if Lan Wangji had been like this in his actual childhood. He wasn’t sure he would have either.

He patted Lan Jingyi on the shoulder in consolation.

“We will be leaving for Gusu early this afternoon, please prepare” he informed them before rounding up the two children.

They arrived at Gusu just before dusk as expected, and Xichen quickly made arrangements for the housing of their guests, hoping to keep their arrival and the current predicament of his brother and Wei Wuxian a secret from his uncle for as long as possible.

The current Lan Wangji versus Lan Qiren was not something he wanted to be in the middle of until absolutely necessary.

He admitted he was selfish in arranging accommodation quite close to his own Hanshi for the Jiang Sect Leader, but he hoped to continue their arrangements of today, and have the youngsters stay with Jiang Wanyin overnight.

To that end he decided to present the Jiang Sect head with a fait accompli and took both youngsters by the hand, requested Jiang Wanyin come with him, and left all three of them together in the house near the Hanshi.

***

Lan Xichen might be a poised and refined gentleman, Jiang Cheng mused, but he was a devious little shit at manoeuvring to get his own way.

Which was why here Jiang Cheng was, in charge of the miniature Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji again.

He supposed he should be thankful Lan Xichen had arranged the evening meal to be served to them here so he didn’t have to take the youngsters to the hall.

Although it would be enormously entertaining to throw the staid Lan Qiren together with his demon nephew and watch the Lan Sect Leader have to flail about between them as referee.

He folded his arms across his chest and tapped his lower lip as he considered how he might arrange that for tomorrow.

Tit for tat, Lan Xichen.

***

Thus begun a routine of the children spending the night with Jiang Cheng, and the three of them joining Lan Xichen for breakfast in the Hanshi every morning, the boys showing off new hairstyles every day courtesy of Uncle Jiang Cheng.

And Lan Xichen taking charge of the youngsters during the daytime, mostly keeping them out of trouble providing Lan Wangji wasn’t parted from his Wei Ying.

Although there had been various...mishaps.

There had been the tree incident, (they’d had to rescue the youngsters from the upper branches), the rabbit incident, (Lan Wangji had let them loose in the kitchens, worried they were hungry), the locking the juniors in a pantry incident, (Lan Wangji hadn’t wanted to do what Lan Jingyi had told him to) and the letting Lil Apple, Wei Wuxian’s donkey, wander into Lan Qiren’s study incident (where a valuable manuscript was chewed on. Lan Xichen had had to do some very fast, persuasive talking not to have every animal within in the walls of the Cloud Recesses banished, Lan Wangji with them). Four juniors had had their hair pulled, two had been bitten, Lan Sizhui had twisted his ankle and was now on bed-rest and Lan Jingyi was on the verge of a breakdown. But Jiang Cheng wondered if some of that wasn’t due to him suddenly not being the most un-Lan Lan in the Cloud Recesses.

Lan Qiren had various other run-ins with his younger nephew and was apparently now to the point he had refused to have any more to do with him until he stopped being a little gremlin.

Jiang Cheng didn’t think the chances of that were particularly good until the snake venom poison was reversed.

He did entertain the hilarious thought of what might happen if, when the poison was removed from their bloodstreams, they retained their current personalities.

It hardly bore thinking about seriously though.

[kygo-keigo]

• MDZS ONESHOT FANFICTION • MODERN X ANCIENT AU •

Two worlds apart, Xiao Zhan meets a mysterious man in his dream, Lan Wanji. Who is this man wearing an ancient costume?

Two worlds apart, Lan Wanji saw Wei Wuxian inside of a bizarre man's clothing. Is it Wei Ying? Why does he look exactly like Wei Ying?

Two souls separated from different eras, bonded by unknown incense burner.

Art by: 陆离-popo

https://m.weibo.cn/u/1974871217?uid=1974871217&luicode=10000011&lfid=1076037266317551

for wattpad link, visit: https://my.w.tt/qs7X83uah8

•••

Inside the Cloud Recess Pavilion, disciples of Gusu Lan Sect often hear Lan Wanji's inquiry. It is like a morning ritual for Lan Wanji to play his guqin, every day for 10 years, without skipping any day. Many of the disciples know the notes he's playing. It is a solemn melody full of agony and longingness. In Gusu Lan Sect, it is forbidden to talk about the person behind their back. But it is rumored that song is dedicated to his long lost lover. As to know whether it is true or not, no one dares to ask.

Today is a different day. It is Wei Wuxian's birthday. Lan Wangji places his guqin on the table and stares outside the window. It is autumn now, the Ginko trees outside fills the whole pathway with its yellow leaves. He strums the strings on his hands and plays the tune he composed years ago. When the one who heard it was still here, beside him in the cold and desolate cave, asking what's the title of the song.

Wangxian, he said. But that person can no longer hear it.

Lan Wangji turns his head up in the sky as he plucks the chords out of his guqin. Begging the heavens to answer his most ardent prayer.

"Wei Ying, where are you?"

Lan Sizhui turns his head towards the melody he's hearing. Although it is faintly heard, he notices a different melody from what Lan Wangji usually plays.

"Jingyi, have you heard that melody? It is different from what Hanguang-jun usually plays."

Lan Jingyi shook his head. He's struggling to reply as the long tips of his headband were on his lips while doing a handstand, copying all of the sect rules. "Focus on your work and stop distracting me. If we are caught loafing around, we won't be able to have our dinner."

---

"Zhanzhan, are you dizzy again?"

Xiao Zhan turned his head and shook it. "Just a simple headache." Xiao Zhan presses his temples and massage in between his eyebrows. He shakes his head the continues to rummage inside the garage sale.

Mei Hui grabs an incense burner and places it on top of the table. "I'll give this to you, you just need to buy some calming oil and place it inside. It will help you with your headache."

It is an old ceramic incense burner with intricate design holes where the smoke goes out. Using the tip of his finger, he touches the incense burner, he felt the electricity flow on his fingers and immediately remove his finger away.

Mei Hui laughs, "It has not been used for a while, why do you react as if you're scalded?" She immediately stuffs the incense burner in a paper bag and shoves it to Xiao Zhan. "Use it well."

It's almost midnight when Xiao Zhan finished his portfolio. He's a dedicated and hard-working student. It is his last semester in university, so he just needs to endure countless sleepless nights before he graduates. That's why he often caught a headache because of a lack of sleep.

He stretches his whole body to ease those tensed muscles from prolonged sitting, suddenly caught a glimpse of an incense burner from earlier. He already bought a lavender-scented incense oil to help him sleep tonight. It doesn't matter if he wakes up late tomorrow since it is the weekend.

After he lits up the incense burner, Xiao Zhan finally rewarded himself under the quilt as he snuggles his body into the soft mattress under him, ready to meet his deep slumber.

Bright noonday welcomes Xiao Zhan in his dream while walking in a pathway covered with yellow leaves. Although the sun is on its peak, he didn't feel any heat in the air. A sense of familiarity envelopes his body as he takes long strides in this place. Maybe he's already been here before?

At the end of the path, there is a small hut located in the middle. There is a man inside the hut, wearing a long white dress with clouds design on his lapels, a white headband on his forehead, and a guqin on his lap. Xiao Zhan feels like he's on an ancient drama, Who is this man wearing an ancient costume?

As soon as Lan Wanji sets his gaze on the man under the tree, his heart skips a beat.

Lan Wangji knows deep in his heart that this man is certainly Wei Wuxian. He exactly looks like Wei Wuxian, but his hair is short and wears bizarre clothes that he never saw in his life. Is it Wei Ying? Why does he look exactly like Wei Ying? His heart starts to waver, but it didn't stop him from going outside of the hut.

"Wei Ying?"

When Lan Wanji was a meter close to Wei Wuxian, he disappeared. A glimpse of Wei Wuxian vanished in thin air, all of a sudden Wangji wakes up from the dream. Tears start to fall from his eyes when he opened his eyes.

Xiao Zhan fell from his bed and wakes up. He turns his face to the large mirror in front of him, and tears start to roll down from his face. He didn't know why he is crying, maybe he dreamt of something sad but he can no longer remember.

—-

After that hellish exam, Xiao Zhan finally can rest peacefully on his bed. Just as he walks out, Mei Hui invites him for a couple of drinks with their friends as they successfully finished their final exams. Just a couple of requirements to make and they will graduate a few months from now. Although Xiao Zhan doesn't like to socialize, he agreed. He didn't know why but he's in a good mood and a couple of drinks won't be a bad idea.

They enjoy good hotpot meat and a couple of drinks. This place is full of students that also came from finishing their exams. From different departments, although they did not know each other, as they sang their alma mater's hymn, they unite as one. Some cried and some drank as they sang their final song. Eventually, someone plays a graduation song and everyone must state their name, age, and department after that take a one-shot of alcohol. They can also add witty remarks if they want to.

All of the students are on their high spirits with an alcohol-induced body, so everyone is willing to do this nonsense.

After their friends and Mei Hui introduced themselves, it is now Xiao Zhan's turn. Xiao Zhan is a bit tipsy now but can manage to stand up. "Hello everyone, my name is Xiao Zhan, 24 years old, from the modern international art design department. For the future of Chongqing university, Gānbēi!"

Everyone also raised their cups and drink. Xiao Zhan slightly slipped from the corner of his chair. Luckily, someone grabs his arms to find his balance.

"Thank you," Xiao Zhan didn't shot a glance at the person as he drops his head on the table. That last shot knocked him out.

He didn't know how he managed to go back to his bed. Xiao Zhan can hear Mei Hui's voice and some strange yet familiar voice of a man. He tries to open his eyes, but all he can see is their shadow. The last thing he saw is Mei Hui putting something on his incense burner then he passed out.

---

Lan Wanji strums his guqin inside the hut. He solemnly plays the notes while picturing Wei Wuxian in his mind.

Once again, Xiao Zhan goes back to the last scene on his dream, but this time he heard an ancient guqin plays. Like he was calling from the past. He followed the sound until he saw that man again playing his guqin while softly whispered the word, Wei Ying.

"Wei Ying?"

Lan Wangji suddenly stops playing. When he opened his eyes, he saw that bizarre man that looks like Wei Wuxian.

"Wei Ying!" Lan Wanji immediately stands up and reached his hand to the man.

Xiao Zhan panicked and raised his two hands, "So... Sorry. I.. I am not Wei Ying."

Lan Wangji stepped back.

"I'm afraid you recognized the wrong person."

Lan Wanji's eyebrows furrowed. He hides his face from the man with his hand, I am wrong.

Xiao Zhan saw the man's sorrowful face, he felt guilty. "That person... I mean Wei Ying, is he your friend?"

Lan Wanji pressed this thin lips, "He is..."

Lan Wanji didn't finish his sentence when Xiao Zhan interrupts him, "Oh, you also have that incense burner?"

Lan Wanji picks up the incense burner, "You also have the same kind?"

Xiao Zhan nods.

Now Lan Wanji finally understands the situation, "The incense burner brought you into my dreams, I was calling for his spirit and you came here. You don't belong in this world, that's why I don't recognize your clothing."

Xiao Zhan quickly lift the hem of his clothes, "In your dream? Is it kind of magic?"

Lan Wanji slightly smiles. He explained that incense burner they both use is an ancient treasure, maybe it was passed down for generations. Lan Wanji didn't know it is capable of meeting two souls from a different era, until now. What bothers him is that he met Wei Wuxian from the other world, is it really him or not?.

Lan Wangji, "What's your name?"

Xiao Zhan, "My name is Xiao Zhan, you?"

"Lan Zhan." Lan Wanji didn't know why he easily gave his birth name.

Xiao Zhan chuckled, "Lan Zhan? I'm Xiao Zhan, we're both Zhanzhan."

Lan Zhan saw Xiao Zhan's bright smile. In a split second, he looked like Wei Wuxian from where they were young. His sweet smile that can brighten up any gloomy day. A smile that completely conquered his heart. They stayed there for a couple of hours, asking about their world, how people live from Wanji's time, how different is Xiao Zhan's generation.

"Lan Zhan."

Lan Wangji's heart pounded so hard when he hears his name.

Xiao Zhan, "I'm glad to see you. Even if it's a dream, I can feel we're both knew each other. The next time we see each other, teach me how to play that some from earlier."

Lan Wanji, "Mn."

Xiao Zhan, "See you in my dreams."

---

It continues for three weeks. Xiao Zhan always meets Lan Wangji on his dream. He learned that Lan Zhan's real name is Lan Wanji. That he's a cultivator in Gusu Lan Sect and people call him Hanguang-jun. He also has a brother that looks like him. He also learned about Wei Ying called Wei Wuxian by his real name. Also a cultivator like him.

Even if there are so many things to comply with their graduation, Xiao Zhan manages to sleep whenever he can. That's why among their group, he's the only one who looks fresh while everyone carries a black bag underneath their eyes.

Mei Hui, on the other hand, noticed something unusual from Xiao Zhan. Unlike last month which he really looked like a dead fish, now he looks vibrant even his skin looks plumper than hers. Envy rose from her, he never saw Xiao Zhan this happy before. From the looks of it, people might see it as the excitement from the graduation, but in her eyes, it feels like he's in love.

Mei Hui, "Zhanzhan, you look so happy these past few days. Are you dating someone?"

Suddenly, Lan Wanji's face crossed his mind. Xiao Zhan slightly smiles in a fraction of second, but it did not escape from Mei Hui's eyes.

"Nope, I don't have time to date someone, " Xiao Zhan nonchalantly said.

Mei Hui didn't bother to dig deeper from his personal life and focused on other things. She just silently wished that when one day, when she falls for the other person too, she'll glow brighter too just like him.

Each day they're getting closer to his graduation, each day Xiao Zhan almost perfected Lan Wanji's melody score using a flute. Though he only plays on his dream, Xiao Zhan silently wished he could play it in real life too. So the next day, Xiao Zhan bought a Dizi (Chinese Flute) from a shop referred by Mei Hui. He wants to test his conjecture to play the flute just like what he plays in his dream. Although it wasn't as good as what he did on his dream, he's still happy that he remembered all of the notes.

Xiao Zhan wants to play the melody after his graduation.

—--

Lan Wanji waits for Xiao Zhan to appear in his dream. He noticed a man wearing a black coat and a hat. That man walks towards him while waving his hand. His heart nearly escapes from his chest. It is pounding so loud and hurts each time it pumps blood. He didn't know if he was hallucinating as he saw Wei Wuxian in front of him.

"Lan Zhan!"

Wei Wuxian smiled at him and began to press his mouth towards the flute that almost looks like Chengqing and plays Wangxian. Lan Wangji's world stopped right in front of him. His eyes only glare at the man in front of him. Maybe he's delusional but if he can only wish to live inside his dream, he's willing to give up everything just to be with him. Only with him.

"Lan Zhan, what is the name of the song?" Wei Wuxian asked.

Now, Lan Wanji can say the words that he wanted to say a long time ago, "Wangxian."

"Wangxian..."

Lan Wanji noticed some changes from Wei Wuxian's face and quickly turn his body away from him. He grabs his shoulder only to see Xiao Zhan's bloodshot eyes. Lan Wanji quickly retracts his hand that was resting on Xiao Zhan's shoulder. He just imagines him as Wei Wuxian.

Xiao Zhan, who wears graduation clothes just to play the melody he's been practicing for weeks in front of Lan Wangji as a surprise was defeated by Lan Wanji's past lover. He never knew that the song was named after their combined name.

He silently clenches his flute as he speaks, "Is this song... For that person, you called Wei Ying?"

"Yes."

"But you've been waiting for him for 13 years now. How can you sure you'll find him again?"

"I don't know."

Xiao Zhan swallowed the invisible lump he feels on his throat. He quickly suppresses his sour feeling and said, "Lan Zhan, I... I like you."

Lan Wangji remained stoic. He takes 3 steps away from Xiao Zhan and looks into the sky and closes his eyes. Xiao Zhan's personality is somehow the same as Wei Wuxian, but Xiao Zhan isn't Wei Wuxian.

"I've been waiting for him for more than a decade now, how much more if I wait another year for him?"

Xiao Zhan just received an indirect rejection from Lan Wanji's rhetorical question. He silently accepts it as he twists his feet against the ground.

"What you are wearing?"

"Oh this, I just graduated from the University."

Lan Wangji pats his head, "Congratulations."

Xiao Zhan paid him with a smile too, "I wished to receive that same kind of love like you have for Wei Wuxian."

Xiao Zhan, "I don't want anyone if it's not you."

Lan Zhan, "You're still young Xiao Zhan. I can't accompany you in your world nor you can in my world. I have my life in Cloud Recess, you also have your life in your world. Maybe he's waiting for me somewhere in the underworld and there are people waiting for you there. We can only move forward with our life. We can't be stuck in a dream no matter how much we wanted to. So this will be the last time we'll see each other."

Xiao Zhan finally broke down, tears came falling down from his face as his body slowly fades away.

Xiao Zhan, "I'll never get to see you again?"

Lan Wanji, "If you're Wei Wuxian's spirit from another world, maybe you'll meet me there too if fate allows."

After that, there is only an empty dream.

Maybe Lan Wangji was right, or maybe he's not. Maybe he is Wei Wuxian in his past life, or maybe not. In any case, whether he hopes for another Lan Wanji in his world or not, if fate allows it will happen.

Three years had passed, Xiao Zhan never saw Lan Wangji again. Being consumed by his work, he no longer thinks about him. After his encounter with the incense burner, he never used it again. He sometimes dreams about Lan Wangji until he can no longer remember his face. He even dreamt of himself wearing wuxia clothes but never really know what he did there.

One thing is for certain, he still plays Wangxian.

Xiao Zhan fiddled the flute in his hand, smiling at the thought of that dream under the ginkgo tree. That yellow leaves that are slowly covered the road. He didn't know why but he felt like playing the song in his flute.

As he blows his breath, the melody starts to play.

Whether if it's 16 years or hundred years, Lan Wangji still waits for Wei Wuxian. Until the day comes when he hears Wangxian in the air. It is played roughly but he can still recognize the notes. He quickly followed the melody and saw a ridiculous man playing his bamboo flute with makeup on his face. Now he certainly knows, he came back.

He grabs that man's wrist and stares directly at him.

Wei Ying, you came back. It is you. I found you.

Xiao Zhan stops playing his flute when he notices a man in front of him calling out his name, who looks exactly like a man he's familiar with.

'Maybe you'll meet me there too if fate allows.'

It is no longer a maybe. Lan Zhan, I found you.

"You're Xiao Zhan, right?"

"Yes, I am. And you are?"

"Wang Yibo..."

Whether in this life or your life, we are destined to belong to each other no matter where we are.

•••

NaverGirl

[aurltas]

where the light goes

tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, i’m a simple gal with simple needs ok i just wanna see some hair being combed yknow??, Confessions, make that LONG-WINDED confessions, Fluff, l o t s of fluff, no seriously this is some cavity inducing food, when is this set? idk but before the Actual confession. who knows go ham, also some ribbon shenanigans (NOT LIKE THAT) to warm ur wangxian hearts, here for all yalls domestic wangxian needs, (cups hands around my mouth) THEY'RE IN L OV E !!!!, hair doing, there...isnt rly a tag for this but they Do they hair

summary: It hits him that evening, there in some unnamed inn straddling some unnamed road, that it has always been in moonlight that Wei Wuxian has caught his eye.

He can barely believe he is allowed to have this.

notes: all i can say is: surely i can’t be the only one who sees all the mdzs characters’ mile-long, pantene-ad-worthy hair and thinks, Wait!!! What If They Softly And Tenderly Combed Out All That Glorious Hair? ...................yeah. that was essentially the basis for all this madness 

(it escalated, obviously)

title from josh kramer’s where the light goes. please do give it a listen, it features tina guo !!

(also on ao3 if that’s ur thang)

PYLADES: I’ll take care of you.

ORESTES: It’s rotten work.

PYLADES: Not to me. Not if it’s you.

— Orestes, Euripides; trans. Anne Carson

--

PART 1: yue / 月

--

It hits him that evening, there in some unnamed inn straddling some unnamed road, that it has always been in moonlight that Wei Wuxian has caught his eye.

First on the rooftops, brandishing those jars with a smile to match. Then in his room, finishing another day of copying, when he began to memorize his moonlit silhouette. And finally again on Dafan Mountain, playing out loud the sound of his own trembling heart.

Lan Wangji can barely believe he is allowed to have this back. This, the easy silence between them as they sit and do whatever it is they need to do, somehow both separate and together in their occupied quiet. The only intruder is the moonlight, spilling through the window and over Wei Wuxian’s form on the floor where he sits, cleaning and inspecting Chengqing.

He hears himself say, “Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian looks up from his spot on the floor. “I’m guessing it’s time to sleep, since you’ve decided to speak up?”

Lan Wangji hums and watches in silence, aching and aching as the moonlight paints Wei Wuxian’s hair in white gold. If he’s being honest, the night hasn’t quite deepened into hanshi yet; there should be roughly half to a third of an incense time left, but there was little chance he would have gotten any more work done regardless. A wave of want overcomes him again, as drenching and bone-deep as the cold of the Gusu springs — the unspeakable need to run his fingers through that moonlit cascade, to press it to his mouth.

Dimly he recalls the words poets had used — silk, water, even moonlight itself — to describe a lover’s hair, and he wonders how reality would compare.

No. As if— He busies himself by clearing away his writing supplies from the table, carefully folding up the half-finished report. Mentally, Lan Wangji reminds himself to sit facing away from Wei Wuxian next time.

He stands slowly and has barely shrugged out of his outer robe when he hears Wei Wuxian hiss in pain.

He’s at his side in an instant, his mind jumping immediately to reopened wounds and hidden curses. “Wei Ying?!”

Wei Wuxian is sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to the window so that the moonlight outlines his shape in the dark. His expression is sheepish. “Oh, it’s just— I tried to comb out my hair with my fingers and I got stuck in a knot, and it just caught me by surprise. Sorry Lan Zhan, I know I probably gave you a scare...”

Lan Wangji shakes his head firmly. “Don’t apologize.” His eyes drift over to Wei Wuxian’s hair, tracing the wild arcing sweep of it. It takes all his self-restraint to school his expression as a sharp ache suddenly blooms in his chest, overwhelming him with the desire to smooth his fingers over it, to tangle his hands in it and find out just how it would feel against his skin —

No. Stop. How could he ever want —

“Ah... Lan Zhan?”

He blinks, meets Wei Wuxian’s hesitant gaze.

“This is going to sound really weird, but I don’t actually, uh. Have anything to untangle my hair with, and this thing doesn’t seem like I can just fix it with my hands. Do you happen to have anything I can borrow?”

(He can barely believe he is allowed to have this.)

“I have a comb in my qiankun bag.” Lan Wangji goes to his outer robe, dropped onto the floor when he’d rushed to Wei Wuxian’s side, lifts it to find the sleeve into which he’d tucked the bag. He realizes he can’t actually see where the sleeve is without the moonlight, so he goes back towards the bed.

Wei Wuxian grins up at him and flips his hair over his shoulder, shifting sideways so Lan Wangji can sit next to him. “As expected of Hanguang-jun! Do you really not mind me borrowing it?”

Lan Wangji turns the robe in the light, finally locates the correct sleeve and reaches in to fish out the bag. “No.”

He pulls the comb out, glossy jade almost glowing under the moon. As he draws the bag closed, Wei Wuxian glances at the comb and finally seems to register Lan Wangji’s answer, blinking several times. “Ah?? ‘No,’ you don’t mind?”

“Mn.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, folds his elbows on his knees and rests his chin in his hands to regard Lan Wangji. “So generous! How can I repay you for this great favor, Lan Zhan?”

Before he realizes what he’s saying, Lan Wangji replies, “Let me untangle it for you.”

What?

Instantly, Wei Wuxian’s smile drops. They stare at each other for a long moment, caught there in the silver of moonlight. Lan Wangji registers, distantly over the clamor of his own panic, that Wei Wuxian’s widened eyes are— Disgusted? Horrified?

He blinks.

...Hopeful?

“I — I mean,” Wei Wuxian starts, his mouth opening and closing several times, “If you. If you want to? I’m completely okay with it, but if you don’t it’s fine! I get it, really, you don’t have to trouble yourself —”

“No trouble,” Lan Wangji says, more and more lightheaded with every word of this wreck of a conversation. “It isn’t,” he insists, again, when Wei Wuxian reaches for the comb. His hand freezes. “Truly. Wei Ying, I —” he says, then mentally curses himself for starting a sentence he dares not finish. “It isn’t any trouble.” Not to me, not to me. Not if it’s you.

“...Okay then,” Wei Wuxian says, withdrawing his hand. His eyes are still so wide. “All right. If you’re sure.”

Lan Wangji finally takes the comb out, lets the familiar cool weight of it steady him and his rioting heart. “Mn.” Not if it’s you. He lays the robe carefully to the side, folding it as he sets it down.

Slowly, Wei Wuxian shifts so that his back faces Lan Wangji, the moonlight forming a halo around the tangle in question. It’s at the end of his hair, only half illuminated; Lan Wangji lifts it with his empty hand, turning it in the watery light to inspect it.

He registers three things: First, it genuinely is a difficult knot.

Second, that even knotted, Wei Wuxian’s hair has a softness of its own — different from the rabbits’ fur, different from his own, from silk and from water. One uniquely belonging to him alone.

And third, that he wants to comb out more than this knot, and with his fingers instead of cold jade teeth.

Lan Wangji closes his eyes briefly, reins himself in with a careful breath. Not now. Now isn’t —

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian’s voice is another knot, tying him to the present. “Is it — really bad?”

The nervousness in his voice is far too great for him to be only talking about the knot. Lan Wangji hums steadily, firmly grips the hair above the tangle with his other hand to make sure he doesn't hurt Wei Wuxian as he starts to tease the knot apart with one end of the teeth. After a moment he says, “No, Wei Ying, don’t worry. It is manageable.”

“Oh. Okay. Good.”

They sit in silence again, but there is a palpable thing hovering in the air between them this time. Perhaps a string, Lan Wangji finds himself thinking dazedly. Or a bamboo pole, wire-thin, running through the center of his quaking heart. Something unbreakable yet unseen, pulling along his stiffened limbs like a puppet, tying him irrevocably to Wei Wuxian.

Gradually the knot unravels, leaving no hint of prior tangle besides a subtle wave in the affected hair. Lan Wangji sits there, his hands growing certain as he runs the comb through that bit of hair over and over and over. When it smooths out, he lets it fall back in place and starts the comb higher, combing through the hair above it as well.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian’s voice is subdued, almost sleepy. Lan Wangji blinks at it, then hums in question.

Wei Wuxian shuffles around, half facing him. His expression is calm and open and earnest, relaxed and loose-limbed. “Lan Zhan, would you do me a favor and comb out the rest too? If... if it’s no trouble?”

The moonlight casts Wei Wuxian in such bright shadows.

(He can barely believe he is allowed to have this.)

Lan Wangji tilts his head, his eyes crinkling ever so slightly. “En. No trouble.”

Wei Wuxian exhales in a quiet laugh, the lines of his face so, so clear, and Lan Wangji aches. That open calmness pulls his empty hand upwards: he carefully brushes a stray wisp of hair behind Wei Wuxian’s ear, lets the sides of his fingers skim along his jawline when he pulls his hand back. He swallows, belatedly realizing his own actions, but then Wei Wuxian’s eyelashes flutter and their gazes meet, and he realizes there is no disgust, no horror, not even shock in his eyes — only hope, as before.

“Lan Zhan,” he breathes, turning more to fully face him, and Lan Wangji’s pulse skips ahead of itself. “Why are you...”

In response he lifts his hand to Wei Wuxian’s hair again, slowly, gently draws his fingertips through it. Still Wei Wuxian holds his gaze with his wide hopeful eyes, and Lan Wangji aches.

“Is this — all right?” he asks, searching Wei Wuxian’s face.

“Yeah, it's all right! ...I, I mean— If it’s all right for you,” Wei Wuxian replies instantly. Lan Wangji hums in the affirmative, pleased and startled and endeared by the enthusiastic immediacy of his response. Carefully, carefully he moves his hand to his shoulder, turning him so he faces away again. He knows if he continues any further, he would just end up staring at his beautiful moonlit face for the rest of the night.

Gently he sets the comb at the crown of Wei Wuxian’s head, draws it all the way down through one long section of his hair in a straight, steady motion that is completely at odds with his racing pulse. After a few strokes he notices how Wei Wuxian has to strain ever so slightly against the pull of the comb, so he sets a hand at the top of the section to hold his head in place. Wei Wuxian hums quietly and leans back, relaxing into his hand. Lan Wangji has to fight back against a surprised noise in his throat. He draws the comb through again, just to be sure, and allows himself the luxury of gently raking his fingers through the combed hair before moving on to the next segment.

Over and over and over, he combs out that hair as though it is his own, his heart a stallion pounding along the treacherous cliffs of his trembling veins; at any moment the sea below threatens to surge up and drown him, this tsunami of his own yearning. Over and over and over, he drowns himself in the glow of moonlight reflecting off the inky cascade in front of him, another sea to take him in.

Over and over and over, he relearns this: that Wei Wuxian’s hair softens and gives under his hands, and it only makes him want to know if the rest of him will do that too.

(And he thinks to himself the poets are wrong; that silk and water pale in comparison to this, that no words can adequately describe the cool gentle reassurance of it in his fingers.)

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian mumbles when he’s almost done. “Is it troublesome for you? To stay with me like this? Isn’t it so much easier to just, I don’t know... go off and do what you normally do by yourself? Be where the chaos is?”

Lan Wangji huffs wordlessly, draws the comb through the last bit and sets it aside. Wei Wuxian turns back around, watching him, and he sighs.

“Not troublesome for me,” he whispers, and shifts closer to slide his fingers into Wei Wuxian’s hair, cradling the side of his head. He doesn’t miss the way it makes his breath catch, the way he tilts his head ever so slightly to lean into his touch, eyes closing slightly. “Never trouble.”

(He can barely, barely believe —)

“Wei Ying,” he says, and has to fight to keep his breathing even when Wei Wuxian’s hands loop around his waist in response. “Wei Ying, it would never be. Not if — not if it’s you.”

Wei Wuxian shivers a laugh, presses closer. “Really?”

“Mn. Really.”

But then something in his eyes dims. “But this body isn’t even mine.” Lan Wangji blinks, stunned; Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to notice and plows on, his face darkening as he drops his arms from around Lan Wangji’s waist. “Lan Zhan — I’m not really me. That’s the problem, isn’t it? In the end, after everything, I’m just, I’m —”

“No!”

The outburst surprises both of them. Wei Wuxian is shocked into silence, mouth snapping shut. Lan Wangji shudders a breath in, reminds himself of his decades of training and cultivation — restraint, control, yazheng. Righteousness. “No,” he says, calmer. “No, that isn’t it. Wei Ying. Listen to me.”

Slowly, his hand shaking, Lan Wangji draws the hand he has at his head through his hair. When he gets to the end of it, he lifts it gently and presses it to his lips, leaves it there; watches enraptured as Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen once he registers what is happening.

“Still you,” he says firmly into his hair. Wei Wuxian stares. “The body is irrelevant when the soul is still you.”

“Lan Zhan,” is the only warning he gets before Wei Wuxian launches himself into his arms, clinging to his shoulders, his face tucked into his throat. Lan Wangji lets go of his hair to reach down and hold him back, his hands earnest and hesitant and hopeful, hopeful, hopeful. He aches, all over, and it takes everything in him not to drop his mouth to the crown of his head and tell him, Your soul is who I love, that is the only thing that matters, it’s you it’s you it’s you.

For a moment they breathe, and Lan Wangji tries to force his traitorous heartbeat down to a normal speed.

Wei Wuxian sighs loudly into his skin. “I... I don’t know what to say anymore, I’m so, you’re so...” He lets out a muffled yell against Lan Wangji’s collarbone. “You’ve done it, Hanguang-jun. You’ve rendered me, Wei Wuxian, the infamous and indestructible Yiling Patriarch, utterly speechless!”

Lan Wangji is surprised into a laugh before he can stop himself. Instantly Wei Wuxian raises his head, leaving his arms still clasped around his shoulders, and stares at him in astonishment. “Lan Zhan ah!” he cries delightedly. “Was that— Was that what I thought it was?? Did you laugh?!”

His scandalized tone draws another smile from Lan Wangji, and this time he doesn’t bother trying to hide it. Wei Wuxian lets out a faint strangled sound and lifts a hand, tracing the shape of his upturned mouth with his fingertips. Lan Wangji stares: at him, his hand, his eyes so focused entirely on him.

He can feel his pulse in his lips.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian whispers. His fingers still.

(The moonlight, the moonlight. Lan Wangji cannot look away.)

He tries to say something, but his voice catches and he can only return a pathetic garbled Mm? against his fingertips.

Wei Wuxian smiles, a small quiet thing so at odds with his usual loud self that somehow Lan Wangji knows this is him, how he is when he is truly, fully himself.

“Is it okay if I comb your hair out too?” he asks.

Lan Wangji stills.

Of all things he was bracing himself for, it was not this.

Lan Wangji blinks, trying to formulate a response in his mind that is not overly lovestruck or overly intimidating or both. Something delicate is being strung between them, and his only fear is snapping it.

He’s been silent too long; Wei Wuxian deflates, withdraws his hand, starts to lean away. Instantly Lan Wangji is struck by how cold he feels without Wei Wuxian’s touch, but he manages to say, “Wei Ying. I would... I would like that.”

Wei Wuxian brightens. “Really?” he asks eagerly. Lan Wangji nods, places the comb by his hand on the bed and carefully turns so that his back is to Wei Wuxian.

But as his eyes trace the frost of the moonlight on the opposite wall, he realizes two things:

One, his hair is still in its usual bun, and Wei Wuxian likely has no idea how to undo it.

Two, he is, naturally, still wearing his forehead ribbon.

Wei Wuxian seems to come to these realizations at the same moment he does, because he hesitates audibly and says, “Oh. Ah. Lan Zhan...?”

Lan Wangji reaches up and undoes his hair, setting the pin and crown onto the little table by the bedside. His mind races along the tracks of his fevered panic as he tries to figure out what on earth to do about his ribbon, because heaven knows he wants to say something with it, but does Wei Ying even know? Would he— How would he feel, if he does know?

Slowly he reaches up to where his ribbon is knotted at the back of his head, deciding it’s better for both of them if he takes it off himself. But when he does, he feels —

Skin. Fingers; a hand.

...A hand?

Wei Ying’s hand — ?!

He turns around immediately, wide eyes fixed on Wei Wuxian.

“Wei Ying?” he breathes.

For his part, Wei Wuxian looks as stunned as he feels, lips parted slightly and eyes just as wide, hands frozen in midair where they’d been at his ribbon. “I... Ah...”

Lan Wangji can hear his swallow, the thud as he drops his hands, every sound amplified in the silence of night. He coughs. “Lan Zhan, sorry, I should’ve asked. That was— That was rude of me, I mean, I of all people should know how important the Lan ribbon is by now.”

Dazed, Lan Wangji wonders, Do you? His bemusement must show on his face somehow, because Wei Wuxian laughs, but it’s forced and self-reprimanding. Lan Wangji’s heart aches at the sound of it, so he shakes his head slightly and takes both of Wei Wuxian’s hands in his, and after a moment of trepidation lifts them to his lips and presses a soft kiss to those knuckles.

“You can...” Lan Wangji breathes in, but it’s closer to a stitched gasp. “You can take it off.”

Wei Wuxian’s fingers twitch in his, as though that wasn't the answer he was expecting. “You — you would want me to? ...Not someone else?” he asks carefully, caught in this rare moment of honesty.

The moonlight leaves no place to hide; Lan Wangji can see how pink has stolen over his cheeks.

“Only you,” Lan Wangji says into his knuckles. “No one else.”

“Really?” Wei Wuxian huffs in disbelief, eyes wide. Lan Wangji nods. His hands are so warm.

For a moment Lan Wangji wars with himself. Then: “Wei Ying, do you know the ribbon’s...?”

His voice trails off, swallowed by the sudden yawning doubt in his stomach, a chasm ridged and carved with years of fear.

Wei Wuxian stares.

Lan Wangji’s heart is whittling away at his ribs.

He can’t stop thinking about the meaning, the meaning, the meaning. Words — he curses himself silently, this old frustration with his own inability to translate between the languages of thought and speech. His mind has always been so full of noise.

(But: Wei Wuxian has always seemed to understand him regardless.)

“The ribbon’s meaning?” Wei Wuxian repeats after a moment, and Lan Wangji nods dumbly. “I do know. I mean, I didn’t know before, obviously, but now...” He swallows and carefully extracts one of his hands from Lan Wangji’s hold, reaches for his own hair ribbon, long cast aside for the task of untangling his hair. He looks up and meets Lan Wangji’s eyes, then presses it to their joined hands, wraps both their fingers around it.

Lan Wangji is not breathing.

“I’m not— This isn’t the Lan ribbon, but I guess... Maybe, in the future, it could be? Or it could be my ribbon still, but — it would mean the same? If that makes sense? I’d really like that.” He’s biting his lip, and Lan Wangji hazily wonders how it would feel if it were his teeth instead. “That is... If — If you’re willing, of course. Just, since you trust me with yours, I want you to know that I. I trust you to take mine, too.”

The moonlight leaves no place to hide; Lan Wangji knows Wei Wuxian can see, can feel how hard his hands are trembling.

“Lan Zhan ah,” Wei Wuxian whines. He’s been silent for too long again. “Don’t just leave me hanging!!”

He’s watching Lan Wangji closely, eyes wide and open and hopeful, hopeful, hopeful. “Lan Zhan?”

“Wei Ying,” is all he can manage before he drops his hands and reaches for his face instead, finally, finally brings their mouths together. Wei Wuxian lets out a surprised strangled noise, as though he has any right to be surprised after saying everything he’s said; the sound makes Lan Wangji’s chest ache, and he presses closer, swallowing Wei Wuxian’s sigh, burning at the feel of Wei Wuxian’s blind hands at his neck, his collarbone, his unbound hair, pulling him in.

(He can barely, barely believe —)

A quiet sound escapes from the back of his throat before he can stop himself. Wei Wuxian grins against his mouth, tangles his fingers into his hair to deepen the kiss. Lan Wangji almost reciprocates when he remembers how much effort he’s put into combing out Wei Wuxian’s hair, so he settles instead for running his hands through it over and over, letting it slide through his fingers, letting himself drown in the surging warmth that is Wei Wuxian.

“Lan Zhan, wait,” Wei Wuxian gasps into his mouth. Lan Wangji pauses and draws back, but doesn’t stop combing his fingers through. Wei Wuxian reaches up and tugs on one of his hands; after a moment he laces their fingers together.

“...Are you worried about ruining your handiwork or something?” he asks, tilting his head.

When he says it aloud like that, Lan Wangji can’t hide the puff of laughter that escapes his lips. “En. Something like that.”

Wei Wuxian grins in delight and buries his face in Lan Wangji’s shoulder, his arms circling his waist once more. “I can’t believe you,” he says, but it’s fond and astonished and just this side of lovestruck. Lan Wangji holds him and lets himself press his mouth to the top of his head, closes his eyes.

Quiet returns. Lan Wangji strokes his hair over and over and over, and eventually Wei Wuxian leans back to hold his gaze. Lan Wangji takes in the sight of him, flushed and bright-eyed, a new kind of mischief alight in his face.

“You still haven't answered my question,” he says. Lan Wangji blinks. “Earlier? My whole ribbon spiel? ...Oh my god, Lan Zhan, please don’t make me say it again, I think I’ll faint if I have to repeat that —”

Ribbon? Lan Wangji thinks in a daze. It rushes back to him then, the way Wei Wuxian had untied his own hair ribbon and presses it to their joined hands, the halting stutter of if you’re willing, so hesitant and unlike his usual unwavering front.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, and it is moonlight pounding through his fingertips. “I have been trying for years to say I am willing.”

Wei Wuxian stares at him. His mouth is hanging open. “Years??” he asks incredulously.

Lan Wangji decides it is time for some concrete evidence. “I... was not very good at saying it,” he admits. “Do you remember the hunt on the mountain? The one where you wore a blindfold?”

Wei Wuxian stares blankly at him, confusion furrowing his brows. “The one where you punched a tree?”

Lan Wangji hates this more than words can ever hope to express.

“What happened. Before that.”

“What happened... I was...” Wei Wuxian hesitates, a step away from the truth. His eyes widen, and he lifts them to stare at Lan Wangji full-on.

“Oh, my god,” he breathes. “You were the one who stole my first — ?!” And then he slaps his hand over his mouth, eyes even bigger than before.

First?

It is Lan Wangji’s turn to stare.

“That was... your first kiss?” he says hoarsely.

Wei Wuxian bursts out laughing, wiping clumsily at his eyes. “Lan Zhan, I wouldn't be freaking out if it wasn’t!” he says, a little hysterically. “I can’t believe this, I —” Then he halts, turns his gaze back to Lan Wangji. All the mirth is gone from his expression.

“You’re not joking? That many years ago??” he asks.

Lan Wangji nods mutely.

Wei Wuxian laughs again, short and amazed. “Wow,” he says quietly. “Wow.” He reaches out and, after a moment’s hesitation, gently slips Lan Wangji’s forehead ribbon off, holds it to his lips.

“This is okay, I’m assuming?” he murmurs, looking up at him.

Lan Wangji is not breathing.

(He can barely believe —)

For a few beats it is all he can do to stare. Then he exhales carefully and tugs him close again, briefly kisses the corner of his mouth behind the silk. Wei Wuxian grins shakily before setting it down on the bedside table. His hand drifts up to trace Lan Wangji’s jaw, an echo of what Lan Wangji had done to him earlier.

They watch each other, silent. Looking, breathing. Lan Wangji knows he could stay like this for days on end: Wei Wuxian’s skin on his, his gaze a softer bolder kind of light tracing the planes of his face.

“Lan Zhan, you know that I’m in love with you too, right?” Wei Wuxian says suddenly.

Lan Wangji smiles slightly, blinks hard to fight back the tears that suddenly sting his eyes. “En,” he replies.

(Even now, he can barely, barely —)

Wei Wuxian laughs, brings his other arm up to sling it onto his shoulder. “You know, Lan Zhan,” he says, still smiling, “that kiss on the mountain was really something! I could barely stand afterwards, did you know?”

Lan Wangji did not know. His breath catches in his throat, as affected by this knowledge as Wei Wuxian had evidently been affected by him. Wei Wuxian, of course, does not miss this; his grin widens and he leans in close.

“Did that surprise you?” he whispers, his lips a breath away from Lan Wangji’s own. “Lan — er — ge — ge?” His tone is smug, drawing out the syllables. Lan Wangji is fighting to keep his breathing steady, every inhale slow and measured and controlled. It's a worthless cause in the end: his eyes are huge and black, his pupils completely blown, and his heart is a trembling storm thundering against his ears. Wei Wuxian doesn’t miss anything, because of course he doesn’t, and a blush creeps across his face again.

“Lan Zhan,” he murmurs, his eyes half lidded, “can I kiss you?”

Lan Wangji breathes. The moonlight glints in Wei Wuxian’s irises, all allure and brightness.

“Yes,” he whispers.

Wei Wuxian’s hand is still holding his jaw, and he exhales softly before pulling him close. Lan Wangji feels the warmth of his mouth shudder down his bones — spilling like the moonlight through the cracks of his body, filling every gap and crevice. He is the sun, the moon, the stars; he is the land below, the waters beneath, where the brightness of it all goes. Light. He shivers and arches closer, opens his mouth around a gasp at the press of Wei Wuxian’s tongue on his lips. Wei Wuxian moans his name, clutches his jaw, eyelashes fluttering against his cheek.

“Wei Ying,” he groans, and Wei Wuxian hums, pleased, but it’s broken and ragged, all his playful teasing stripped away for the bare honesty of this instead. They’re both beyond words by now, and so Lan Wangji lets himself drown.

When he leans back at last, it is with trembling fingers — barely, barely, still — that Lan Wangji brushes back the hair that’s fallen into Wei Wuxian’s face, desperately trying to slow his shallow pants. Gently he tucks the strays away, captivated by the way Wei Wuxian’s hair and face are awash in molten silver, the way Wei Wuxian’s mouth stays slightly parted as he gasps for air, the way Wei Wuxian’s dark eyes are fixed on his, outlined and sparkling in the moonlight.

(Of all things he was bracing himself for, it was not this.)

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, oh my god I just realized,” Wei Wuxian says breathlessly, “I didn't even end up combing your hair out, I messed it up even more!” Lan Wangji nods intently, mock upset, and Wei Wuxian’s face breaks into a grin. When Lan Wangji can’t help but mirror it, Wei Wuxian laughs delightedly.

“Lan Zhan, I can’t take this, this is so unfair,” he teases. “You look even prettier when you’re smiling!”

Lan Wangji is absolutely drowning in the way he says even prettier. He draws his fingertips through Wei Wuxian’s hair and hums instead, watches as his eyes drift closed. “Feels good,” he mumbles. He tips his body into Lan Wangji’s, burying his face in his collar. “Lan Zhan ah, Lan Zhan ah. How are you just good at everything?”

Lan Wangji has nothing to say at that, simply continues stroking his hair and leans down to press his lips to his forehead. Wei Wuxian lets out a quiet noise, tightening his arms around Lan Wangji’s shoulders so that they stay pressed against each other.

Time passes. At some point Wei Wuxian tilts his head up wordlessly to kiss him again, sated and soft-mouthed, and at some point the moonlight on the wall becomes moonlight on the floor. It is deep into hanshi by the time Lan Wangji finally brings himself to pull away slightly from Wei Wuxian’s embrace, still remaining close enough that his hands stay at his waist. “We should sleep,” he murmurs, head dipped low next to Wei Wuxian’s ear. It does something to his heart, that he can have this: these casual invasions of each other’s space, now something warm and welcome.

“You’re right,” Wei Wuxian sighs. “Sorry Lan Zhan, I’ll do your hair tomorrow, I’m really too tired.” Lan Wangji hums, thrilled in his contentment, and presses a kiss to his temple. Wei Wuxian lifts his head to eye him blearily, already half asleep as he tips over sideways onto the bed. His hand doesn't leave Lan Wangji’s waist, and he pulls groggily at the cloth there.

“Lan Zhaaaan,” he says. “Come sleep with me?”

And there is this: the way he says it, without hesitation and in full trust, that makes Lan Wangji’s heart stutter.

Silently he does as he’s told, and they tuck into one another, Wei Wuxian’s arm slung around his waist, his head fitted into the hollow of Lan Wangji’s throat. Lan Wangji finds that, inexplicably, he is fighting back the urge to both cry and laugh at the same time. He traces with his eyes the silver of moonlight on the slopes of Wei Wuxian’s body and marvels at it all, because even now he can barely, barely believe this closeness is something he is allowed to have.

Silently he presses his mouth to Wei Wuxian’s hair, combs his fingertips through it one more time. “Goodnight, Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian’s smile brushes against the skin of his neck, and he shivers before he can stop himself. “Mm, goodnight Lan Zhan.”

The moon slowly sets.

--

part two incoming wooooooo

here're the notes for part one!

as per my jaslief piece, this started as a “ah let me just,, write a short 1k drabbly bby” and became “Oh God How Did It Get So Big??” (thank u otps for always destroying my plans and forcing me to write like 7x more than planned) (it’s starting to get concerning tho i'm still a premed student pls,, calm,,,)

moonlight is a huge personal wangxian symbol for me, even though i know it’s Technically more songxiao......... idk, i think that wangxian first meeting scene up on the rooftops under that bright moon rly imprinted itself on my brain ugh 真是太美了 :,)

dunno why this happens but i automatically revert to ocean metaphors every time i write fluff ???? thx pynch ig

a Lot of this was written while i was in china (just like my jaslief fic, weirdly enough... hm) and lemme tell you. i was losing my marbles bc of the heat-relatives-mosquitos combo but wangxian kept me strong!!! shoutout to wangxian ilyyyy <333

basically my hot take here is that lwj is the only person who can make wwx flustered AND ALSO!! that wwx is the only person who can make lwj flustered

like.....it’s a symbiotic relationship........theyreinlove uwu

that concludes part 1!! feel free to throw me a meme or a fun fact about something that happened while u were reading the fic or WHATEVER honestly!! gnight yall

[bigbadredpanda]

Chapter 115: Family Feast 2

This chapter contains a sensitive scene in the first half. I swear the rest of the extra is all fluff.

Warning for sexual assault undertones: a non-graphic rape enactment happens, it is mostly talk and there is nothing explicit. If you prefer to skip that part, stop at “he approached the bed” and go directly to “I have something to show you first”.

Family Feast 1 / Family Feast 2 / Family Feast 3

Despite having said that, the two did not find at once the opportunity to "try" in that same evening as Lan Wangji had to first have a long heart-to-heart discussion with the long secluded Lan Xichen.

Wei Wuxian had developed a peculiar habit as of late. The sleeping position he liked best has become lying on Lan Wangji, either on his back on Lan Wangji's own reclined body or facing him on his stomach, nestled against his chest. In short, if he didn't have his oversized living pillow, he was completely unable to sleep. Giving free rein to his mischief, he ransacked the Jingshi and managed to overturn a number of objects.

From childhood, Lan Wangji would unfailingly handle matters in a proper and orderly way. The characters he practised writing, the paintings he drew, the essays he penned were all neatly and tidily categorised and sorted chronologically. Wei Wuxian started with his earliest calligraphy copybook, flipping over the pages with a smile. Lan Qiren's comments written in vermillion ink caused him so much glee that his teeth hurt from laughing. However, after having turned over several thousands of pages, he only succeeded in finding a single page of paper containing one wrongly-written character. Lan Wangji had then used the entirety of another page to scrupulously copy down the proper character a hundred times. Wei Wuxian was left speechless at this, "That's so pitiful, it's not even a character I recognise."

He was still browsing these old pages slightly yellowed by time when a lantern dimly lighted the obscurity outside the Jingshi.

Despite not hearing the sounds of footsteps, Wei Wuxian expertly plunged on Lan Wangji's bed with practiced ease and pulled the quilt over his head. As Lan Wangji gently pushed the door open and came in, he was greeted by the sight of a still form inside the room who was pretending to be sleeping soundly.

Seeing the other already "sleeping", Lan Wangji's already quiet movements became even more muted as if he held his very breath. He slowly closed the door of the Jingshi and after a momentary pause, he approached the bed.

Before he could reach it, the quilt was thrown right at his face, encasing him from the waist up.

Lan Wangji, "…"

Wei Wuxian pounced to clasp the blindfolded Lan Wangji in a tight grip. Pushing him down on the couch, he exclaimed, "Surprise attack! [1]"

Lan Wangji, "…"

Wei Wuxian's hands groped and tugged at his clothes but Lan Wangji remained motionless like a corpse, letting him have his way. Wei Wuxian soon lost interest and asked, "Hanguang-Jun, why aren't you resisting at all? If you stay still like that, what's the point of me ravishing you?"

Lan Wangji's voice sounded out muffled by the quilt, "What do you want me to do?"

Wei Wuxian patiently provided guidance, "I press you down and you push me away. You fight back and you struggle stubbornly to keep your legs closed while shouting for help…"

Lan Wangji interrupted, "It is forbidden to make a racket in the Cloud Recesses."

Wei Wuxian retorted, "Then you can whisper for help. I tear your clothes as well, you have to resist desperately and do all you can to protect your chest from being exposed."

No sound came from the quilt for a while.

Finally, Lan Wangji said, "It sounds laborious."

Wei Wuxian, "Laborious?!"

Lan Wangji, "Mmh."

Wei Wuxian, "Well, there's no helping it. How about we trade places and you ravish me…"

Before he could finish his sentence, his surroundings spun with the quilt flying off and he was the one being pressed down on the bed by Lan Wangji.

Having been forcibly wrapped in the quilt by Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji no longer bore his consistently pristine appearance. His topknot and forehead ribbon were slightly askew, his fine black hair was slightly in disarray with several strands coming loose and the formerly white as jade cheek was faintly tinged with pink. Under the light, he had the appearance of a bashful and nervous beauty. But what broke the illusion was the shockingly exceptional arm strength the beauty in question possessed which was like a steel vice. Thus restrained, Wei Wuxian pleaded, "Hanguang-Jun, great Hanguang-Jun, have some mercy."

Lan Wangji's gaze was unwavering. In his eyes, two lights burning brightly seemed to be flickering but his expression remained otherwise unruffled, "Fine."

Wei Wuxian, "What is fine? A handstand? Ravishing me? Hey! My clothes."

Lan Wangji, "You asked for it."

As he spoke, he pried open Wei Wuxian's legs to insert his body between them and pressed him down before stopping. Wei Wuxian kept waiting but there was no further movement, "What's wrong?"

Lan Wangji moved back slightly, "Why do you not resist?"

Wei Wuxian wrapped his legs around his waist to prevent him from rising. Leisurely rubbing against him, he chuckled, "Oh well, there's no helping it. As soon as you press me, I can't help spreading my legs for you, I can't keep them closed them at all. Where am I supposed to find the strength to resist? You call it laborious, it's also laborious for me… Well, let's stop, come on, I have something to show you first." He took out a sheet of paper from the folds of his clothes, "Lan Zhan, I have something to ask you. How could you make a mistake writing such a simple character? Weren't you paying attention in class? Or were you too busy thinking of something else all day?"

Lan Wangji glanced at the paper without saying a word but what he meant could be read clearly in his gaze: Wei Wuxian was the kind of person whose wild handwriting was barely legible [2] and who was quite adept at denying that his sloppy work was riddled with mistakes and yet he had the nerve to find fault with him for writing a single character wrong.

Wei Wuxian feigned not to understand the meaning in his eyes and continued, "Look, you have the date written, let me think… You were 15 or 16 at the time? To still make a mistake at this age, you…"

A flitting thought on the date inscribed made him realise that it coincided with the three months he spent studying in the Cloud Recesses.

Wei Wuxian was instantly filled with delight, he deliberately prodded, "Could it be that as a little boy Lan Er-Gege couldn't concentrate on what he wrote because he could only think of me instead?"

In those days when Wei Wuxian was made to copy in the Library Pavilion as a punishment, he would spend the day making all sorts of unreasonable scenes in front of Lan Wangji, rolling about, playing possum, disturbing him by every means possible, disrupting Lan Wangji's concentration and generally making thinking difficult. Lan Wangji nevertheless perseveringly bore the burden of both supervising his copying and attending to his own studies. Under the circumstances, writing only one character wrong was truly admirable.

Wei Wuxian said, "Hey, how is it my fault? Are you blaming me?"

"…" Lan Wangji stated in a tight voice, "It is your fault!"

He let out a troubled breath, he wanted to seize the incriminating paper staining his person. Wei Wuxian loved seeing his affected expression, he promptly stuffed the paper back into the depths of his clothes, concealing it against his chest, "Come and take it if you can."

Lan Wangji put his hands inside his clothes without the slightest hesitation. And left them there.

Wei Wuxian, "So you can indeed!"

The two of them made plenty of noise for a long part of the night. Midnight came before they could manage to speak a few proper sentences.

Wei Wuxian was still lying on Lan Wangji with his face nestled in the other's neck. The only thought passing through his mind was that the scent of sandalwood on Lan Wangji's body was even more fragrant. Languidness suffusing his entire body, he squinted, "Is your brother doing well?"

Lan Wangji embraced his bare body, hand repeatedly stroking the length of his back, "Not so well."

The two of them were drenched with sweat. The caresses produced a tickling sensation that Wei Wuxian felt course from his skin to the bottom of his heart. He twisted a bit uncomfortably and from below him Lan Wangji held him tighter.

Lan Wangji said softly, "During my years of seclusion, only Brother came to talk with me."

Now the situation was reversed.

Wei Wuxian no longer needed to ask what Lan Wangji was doing during his years of seclusion.

He laid a kiss on Lan Wangji's white as jade earlobe and pulled the quilt to cover them both.

In the early morning of the following day, Lan Wangji rose at 5 o'clock as per usual.

He and Wei Wuxian had been living together for several months during which Lan Wangji had strived to correct Wei Wuxian's sleeping pattern. However, it turned out to be a futile attempt. By the time the disciples brought the hot water for the bath, Lan Wangji had already been dressed properly long before. He extracted the stark naked figure of Wei Wuxian from the thin quilt and carried him in his arms to the bath. Wei Wuxian had the remarkable ability to soak in the water while remaining asleep. As Lan Wangji gently massaged him, he took Lan Wangji's hand to kiss the palm and the back of his hand and to nuzzle his face against it, still asleep. He let out a few annoyed groans during the massage and pulled Lan Wangji to him, eyes still closed. He cupped Lan Wangji's face and kissed his cheeks several times, mumbling unintelligibly, "Be a good boy, be quiet. Pretty please, I'll get up in a bit. Mmh."

After a yawn, he rested against the edge of the cask, still asleep.

Were the house to catch on fire, Wei Wuxian would most likely just find another place to keep on sleeping. Despite this, Lan Wangji persevered relentlessly every morning, starting to  call his name at 5 o'clock and withstanding composedly a barrage of small pecks peppering haphazardly his face.

Bringing breakfast to the Jingshi, Lan Wangji placed it on his writing desk where in the past there had solely ever been his brush, paper and ink-stone. Afterwards, he pulled out the still heavily sleeping Wei Wuxian from the bath, wiped him dry, put on his clothing and tied his sash. Lan Wangji then casually fetched a book, flipped it open to the pages containing a bookmark with a dried flower and sat at the table to read at leisure.

At precisely 9 o'clock, Wei Wuxian bolted upright as expected and sat on the bed. He fumbled drowsily out of bed and made a beeline for Lan Wangji, finding his way to his embrace and rubbing customarily his thigh. After washing his face clean at full speed, he was a bit more clear-headed and felt his way back to the writing desk. Wei Wuxian took several bites of an apple and then saw that the plates were piled high with food. As the corners of his mouth rose, he asked, "Isn't your Sect holding a family feast today? Isn't that a problem to eat so much beforehand?"

Lan Wangji calmly straightened out the headband and forehead ribbon Wei Wuxian had been fiddling with a moment ago and replied, "Eat your fill before."

Wei Wuxian had already had the pleasure of sampling the meals served in the Cloud Recesses: watery soup and insipid fare that were dominated by vegetarian dishes. Everything in sight was filled with various shades of green, there was tree bark, grass turfs and a profusion of medicinal ingredients. From all of the dishes emanated an ominously bitter smell tinged with a strange underlying sweetness. Were it not for this, Wei Wuxian would not have proposed to roast these two rabbits when they were younger. It was highly likely that the food served at their Sect’s family feast would leave much to be desired in terms of quantity and quality.

Wei Wuxian knew in his heart that the Gusu Lan Sect regarded these matters of the upmost importance. Letting him attend was tantamount to acknowledging his position as Lan Wangji's cultivation partner. Lan Wangji had to unremittingly wear Lan Qiren down while fighting for his merits. He sighed before putting on a smile, "Don't worry. I'll be on my best behaviour, I won't embarrass you."

Concerning the family feast, the one held in the Cloud Recesses was completely different from the other family feasts Wei Wuxian knew of.

The family feast of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect was held outdoors in the training grounds of Lotus Pier where a dozen long tables would be installed. Everyone, men and women, the older and the younger, all sat together with calls and shouts ringing out throughout the feast. The kitchen was also relocated outside, the blaze from a row of stoves rose high and the aroma wafted in the air. You could help yourself to whatever you wanted to eat and the food never seemed to be cooked quickly enough. Although he did not attend the family feast of the Lanling Jin Sect, their Sect was never stingy and spared no effort spreading far and wide the sumptuous details such as the performance of a sword-dancing master, jade corals in a wine pond, red brocades spread as far the eye can see and other astonishing sights.

Compared to this, the family feast held in the Cloud Recesses was both dull and plain.

The Gusu Lan Sect's teachings have always been dreadfully strict, do not speak when eating and stay silent. Even though the family feast had not officially began, none of the people attending uttered a single word apart from those entering the hall greeting respectfully the seniors in a low voice. There was hardly any talk, let alone cheerful banter. Wearing the same white clothes, the same rolling clouds patterned on white forehead ribbons, the same facial expression solemn to the point of appearing wooden, they seemed to all have come out from the same mould.

Beholding the "mourning clothes" filling the entire hall, Wei Wuxian pretended not to notice the astonished or hostile stares of other people. He complained inwardly, "They call it a family feast but a funeral is more lively than this."

Right at this moment, Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren entered the hall. Lan Wangji who was quietly seated at Wei Wuxian's side made a slight move in reaction.

Lan Qiren probably only needed a glance at Wei Wuxian to have a stroke and consequently he simply chose not to look at him at all, gazing fixedly ahead. Lan Xichen wore his habitual genial smiling expression like a cleansing spring breeze with the corners of his mouth carefully held. However, Wei Wuxian did not know if it was due to the seclusion or not but he thought that Zewu-Jun appeared considerably thinner.

After sitting down as head of the family, Lan Xichen spoke in a few sentences the conventional greetings and inaugurated the feast.

The first dish brought out was a soup.

It was customary for the Gusu Lan Sect to start meals with a soup. The container was an unadorned round cup in black eggshell pottery, small enough to fit in one's palm and smooth to the touch. Lifting the delicate lid to take a look, he discovered as he expected another heap of greenish vegetables, leaves, tree barks and grassroots.

A look was enough to make Wei Wuxian shudder a bit. Despite steeling himself earlier, he couldn't help closing his eyes and resting his head in his hand after drinking a spoonful.

After a moment, he recovered from the brutal attack that overwhelmed his sense of taste, elbows on the table barely keeping him upright. He thought, "…If the ancestor of the Lan family was indeed a Buddhist monk, he was an ascetic one for sure."

Wei Wuxian could not help reminiscing about the family feast held in the training grounds of Lotus Pier, the cauldron filled to the brim with lotus roots and pork ribs soup and the mouth-wateringly fragrant smells of the meat and lotus floating at the surface. All the neighbouring children drawn by the scent tried to climb the courtyard wall to catch a peep, saliva dripping. They all returned home wailing and shouting that they wanted to become disciples of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect. In contrast, he did not know at this very moment who was more pitiable between his current self whose mouth was saturated with bitterly sweetness and Lan Wangji who was brought up eating that from childhood.

Seeing in the hall that all the Lan family members had finished drinking their soup without batting an eyelid, their movements and expressions effortlessly graceful with perfect composure, Wei Wuxian was embarrassed that he alone left his cup mostly untouched. Moreover, among the four thousand rules of the Lan Sect, wait, he did not know how many thousands there actually were now, he remembered several pertaining to table manners, for instance do not be picky about food and leave leftovers, do not eat more than three bowls. Although he felt that this kind of family rules was simply outrageous, he did not want to give Lan Qiren a reason to spurn him so quickly.

He was bracing himself for another spoonful of that foul medicinal soup but just as he raised his head, he unexpectedly discovered that the cup in front of him was already empty.

Wei Wuxian was stupefied.

He involuntarily picked up the delicate cup, thinking to himself, "I'm sure I only drank once? Did it leak from a hole at the bottom?"

But the top of the table was evidently clean, no soup had spilled.

Wei Wuxian looked sideways just at the moment Lan Wangji nonchalantly finished the last sip of his soup. He put back the lid on top and he used a snow-white napkin to lightly wipe the corners of his mouth, eyes downcast. 

But Wei Wuxian remembered distinctly that Lan Wangji had already finished his soup at an earlier time.

He also realised that Lan Wangji's part of the table seemed to be much closer to him than before the start of the feast as if he had discreetly shifted nearer.

Wei Wuxian, "…"

Raising an eyebrow, he mouthed silently towards Lan Wangji: Hanguang-Jun, you're pretty quick with your hands, huh?

Lan Wangji put down the napkin, glanced briefly aside at him before tranquilly gazing away.

Translator's notes

[1] The actual wording is 强奸 whose literal translation is 'rape'. Since the scene is supposed to come across as playful, I'm purposefully using the milder term 'surprise attack' here instead and afterwards the word 'ravish' which is more in line with their kink.

[2] Wei Wuxian's handwriting is 狂草 (kuángcǎo) which means 'wild cursive', it is a type of calligraphy with fast unbridled strokes which can be beautiful aesthetically but is is generally illegible (Example). In contrast, an earlier chapter mentions that Lan Wangji writes in 正楷 (zhèngkǎi) or regular script, the proper and tidy way of writing  (Example).

[saezutte]

Dear Yuletide Writer

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Happy end-of-the-year season! Thank you for writing for me!

This is my first time signing up for Yuletide, though I’ve been reading Yuletide fic for 14-15 years and it’s one of my favorite yearly traditions. Now I’m turning over a new leaf of active participation in my old age! I guarantee you I am much more worried about what I’m writing than what you’re writing—I’m pretty easy-going about the fic I read and I am going to try to help you out as best I can with this letter. If there’s something you’re unclear about, feel free to contact the mods or stalk me to find my preferences.

My AO3: saezutte

My public twitter: juncassis

My tumblr: here but I do not use tumblr much anymore, sorry.

Do Not Wants

[note: I have no actual triggers, nothing you can write for me will make me any more depressed or anxious than I already am]

Death (of major/important/beloved characters)

Suicide attempts

Rape

Angst without a happy ending, really too much angst at all

University/college settings

Established relationship

Cheating

Actual Unrequited Feelings

Pregnancy (the actual process; breeding kink is fine)

Scat or watersports

Hard BDSM or any kink complicated enough that the characters would have to discuss it ahead of time

Non-canon cisswapping or gender change (it’s ok if they do it in canon, e.g. HX/SQX)

Homophobia as a plot device

Excessive attention to sexual identity or queer politics

Note on AUs: I am ok with the usual popular AU tropes (except, see above, university settings) but I do not want them combined, e.g. A/B/O is fine and coffeeshop is fine, but I don’t want an omega barista getting his scent all over the lattes he makes for some alpha lawyer who comes in every morning. (Ridiculous example, but you get the point.) For AU/modern settings of fandoms with magic, I often like it when the magic is still there in the AU setting. I also like AUs which maintain the general outlines of the character’s relationships, like if the characters are childhood friends in canon, I like to keep that intact.

General preferences:

I am a pretty basic bitch when it comes to fanfic: I like it when two clueless boys pine for each other through some shenanigans and then lock eyes/lips/dicks.

If you fed a neural net every fanfic written in Stargate Atlantis fandom between 2005 and 2010, the result would probably be some nonsense I’d enjoy.

I love many tropes. Tropes! Bed-sharing. Sharing an umbrella. WASHING EACH OTHER’S HAIR? Confessions where they are having an argument and then one of them yells “Because I love you!” 

I love situations where characters are forced to spend time in close proximity and find themselves with feelings.

I love fakeness: fake dating, fake marriage, arranged marriage, marriage of convenience, fake lust induced by sex pollen or heats, aliens make them have sex, whatever. 

I’d prefer story/romance/build-up to PWP but you are welcome to write porn

Tian Guan Ci Fu

Requested characters: He Xuan, Shi Qingxuan

Note: If you don’t want to write those two, I would be happy with Hualian! There are other pairings I like as well, like Fengqing. I requested these two because they are the ones I want the most, but I like almost all of the characters in TGCF so if you want to write me something that sells me on your pet pairing, go for it. Caveat is that I don’t like Qi Rong (sorry cousin)—he makes me anxious, haha.

Why I like the canon: Tian Guan Ci Fu is my favorite of MXTX’s novels, which took over my life this summer. What I love about it is the gods/mythology angle. The different story arcs remind me of reading myths about gods going out on adventures—I love folklore and myths! I love Xie Lian, I respect him so much, and I love Hua Cheng. I love how dark the story gets and I love that I could read it while being relatively assured of a happy ending. But with MXTX, you only ever get that happy ending for the main pair, hence why I requested my side pair.

Why I like these characters: I was in love with these two when He Xuan was pretending to be a grouchy Earth Master who reluctantly goes along with whatever Shi Qingxuan wants. When it turned out to be ABOUT REVENGE and they have FATES WHICH ARE ENTANGLED TOGETHER, I promptly lost my mind. I like the contrast in personalities.

I love Shi Qingxuan as a happy gossip god who is friends with everyone and yet also still pretty good at his job (unlike a lot of the gods around). I like his struggle with realizing he wasn’t meant to be a god and I honestly like where he ends up at the end of the novel—but personally I’d like it better if he re-qualified as a god, haha. I love his sex switching and you are welcome to play with that, though I would prefer if it weren’t a straightforward switch where he (she) settles as a woman. With He Xuan… I love that he’s on this dark completely-justified vengeance quest but he is also kind of a mess? How in debt is he to Hua Cheng? Has he totally neglected his ghostly duties to play Earth Master in heaven? How did he feel starting to be friends with SQX when he’s still planning on ruining his life?

What I would like for these two is something between pure fluff / all the issues are solved / “decapitated brother who?” and angst. I think they mirror Hualian in a lot of ways and I wish they had a chance together!

Prompts:

Them meeting again post-canon: He Xuan not knowing what to do with his (after)life now that he’s got his revenge and not being totally sure what’s keeping him around now that his business is over. SQX living his happy beggar life and HX not sure how he’s still so energetic.

A canon divergent AU where He Xuan doesn’t pull off his revenge plot ? Instead something else happens?

A soulmate AU would work well for these two IMO

Modern AU where HX is infiltrating the company that destroyed his family business and falls in love with the heir to the company president

SQX reascending to godhood as a beggar god and HX suspecting he will come for him in revenge but he just wants to be friends again

The Untamed (RPF)

Requested characters: Wang Yibo, Xiao Zhan

Why I like the canon: Uh, it took over my stupid life this summer. I haven’t liked an idol in years. I have frequently said I don’t like RPF because the canon is too diffuse to keep up with! And yet look at my twitter. I’m living in a hell of my own making.

Anyway, I got into the RPF side for The Untamed initially because the fictional canon here was very overloaded with its status as an adaptation of a novel where the characters are already together and where there aren’t many points for a writer to jump in and add to it. So I got more interested in the actors’ dynamic particularly because it’s different from Wangxian—WYB is a gremlin! Xiao Zhan is the serious professional one! And then I fell in love with them and now this is my life.

Why I like these characters: I just love their stupid handsome faces, I can’t help it. Don’t look at me. I am more of a Xiao Zhan fan but I want to be Wang Yibo’s best friend and bully him.

With Xiao Zhan, I love his smile and I love that he can write a whole essay on Wei Wuxian’s character and I love that he was a regular person who worked in an office before deciding to join one of wjjw’s basically-a-scam idol raising shows and then accidentally becoming the most famous man in China. He’s so professional and serious in interviews and it’s a great contrast to how we see him goofing around with WYB and the others on set.

With Wang Yibo, I like that he’s a wild boy who will run off to race motorcycles at any minute. I would like to shove him a little bit, in an affectionate manner. I love that he’s always looking at XZ and smiling and doesn’t seem to care if anyone notices.

Prompts:

Fooling around on set leads to love? The most basic of basic  

AUs with different settings/meetings—maybe XZ is still a designer and his company ends up working with WYB (who is still an idol)? Or WYB is a pro motorcycle racer and XZ is a sports photographer?

They drift apart now but meet again in 10 years with Regrets

Porn star AU

Having to share a bed

WYB is scared of something! XZ comforts him!

Any dumb AU you want but I would like to veto ABO for this, it’s too weird for me when they’re real people.

The Untamed (TV)

Requested characters: Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian

Note: There are other CQL/MDZS pairings I like, namely Jiang Cheng/Nie Huaisang. I also like the junior trio (as OT3 or as various twosomes.) Also, one night I read a Jiang Cheng/Lan Sizhui fic and suddenly I got all these ideas for inappropriate uncle pairings JC/LSZ and LXC/JL. If any of that speaks to your heart instead, go wild.

Why I like the canon: So obviously I read the novel and plunged into this MXTX abyss for 100 years. With this adaptation, there are a few things I don’t like versus the novel but I’m happy to ignore them because I love what they did with the visuals and music and the acting choices. Some of the changes I also do love—I love how WWX seems to be so much more into LWJ from the beginning! I love seeing them goof around, I love drunk!WYB in the drama.

I also don’t like established relationship fic for the most part, so the censorship in this adaptation means I have more to play with in fanfic!

Why I like the characters: They invented love!!! They did. I particularly like them both as kind of messes… It’s easy to forget with how great Hanguang-jun is but he’s also bad at expressing himself and it gets him into trouble. Then you have WWX the deviant genius troublemaker with a heart of gold (even when he doesn’t have his golden core). They’re immature kids who can’t figure their shit out before things get serious and then 16 years later, they are emotionally stunted 30-somethings and (tbh) I feel that. These two are meant for each other and meant to wander the country following the chaos and getting into adventures together while fucking a lot.

Prompts:

How do Wangxian get together in this universe? Was it as teens? During the war? Did they split up? Did LWJ give in to temptation earlier than in the novel? When did WWX realize his feelings?

Fix-it for the ending where they separate!! Duh! Does anyone think them being apart is going to last?

Star Trek AU with the Lans as Vulcans

Uh, I really like A/B/O fic for these two.

MAGIC SEX CURSES. Fuck or die! Sex pollen! Particularly if they’re not a couple yet and this leads to awkwardness and getting together.

Nirvana in Fire (TV)

Requested characters: Mei Changsu, Xiao Jingyan

Note: I also love Lin Chen so if you want to write some MCS/LC or LC/Fei Liu or LC/MCS/JINGYAN OT3??? go for it. I am also a Nihuang/Xia Dong shipper so if you want to put that in… somehow… my gay little heart would be happy. I also like Nihuang/MCS/XJY or MNH/MCS + MCS/XJY but I’d like the focus on the men in that case! 

Why I like the canon: I watched this show because someone recommended this show to me as, like, Chinese Game of Thrones but good. I think it’s genuinely one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen. I love plots and revenge and good people doing bad things for justice. Even the ending is good for me though obviously it left me unsatisfied on several points.

Why I like the characters: I am deeply into sickly doomed genius MCS and every time he got even more deeply ill, I fell deeper in love. Every time he coughs up blood, my heart would race. I love his terrible schemes and stupid self-sacrificing choices. I find watching this show very soothing because I knew he would always come out on top in his schemes. I trust him. I love handsome clueless Jingyan and how he’s just so good (it’s terrible.) I love his mom and how much he cares for her. I love him but he is useless, he needs his Xiao Shu and I need fanfic to restore him to him.

Note: So my limited research on this says that male/male sex practices were accepted and well-known in this time period in history, so I really don’t want them thinking “oh no what are these weird gay feelings.” There are other barriers to them being together, like a ruler or official being overly attached to one person was considered very bad. I am also a big supporter of the socially-approved polygamy of this time period, so I don’t need Jingyan to refuse to sleep with his wife or something out of loyalty to MCS—he has to do it! Or all their plans are ruined! And he can enjoy spending time with her or the concubines without affecting his feelings for MCS—you could explore that complexity in fic if you like.

Prompts:

Mei Changsu isn’t dead, he’s hiding again, Jingyan searches for him

They start having sex during the series, the ending is averted [somehow]

Post-canon, MCS is alive and Jingyan hides him in the palace with his consort/concubines to keep him on as an advisor without anyone objecting

AU where male/male marriage is customary (maybe aristocratic men are expected to have one male and one female consort?) and so MCS decides the best way to influence and help Jingyan in the capital is by becoming his wife or one of his concubines

anything just get them together and happy.

Promare

Requested characters: Galo, Lio

Why I like the canon: I love this film but I also find it to be… not enough? I wanted more character development, I wanted more plot, I wanted the goddamn Burnish to stay burning things. So I requested it because I want more! Please help me.

Why I like the characters: I love freedom fighter idealist Lio who will kick everyone’s ass for what is right. I love idiot idealist Galo who wants to fight all fires and learns to love exactly one fire. I think now that they aren’t saving the world by punching global warming, they should have a nice romance. I also like they points where they clash in the film, so I’d love to see them adjusting to “normal life” and having to deal with not having the crisis to make sure they get along.

Prompts:

Galo and Lio rebuilding the world together

Lio regaining Burnish powers?

AU where the Burnish are still a thing but it’s not a big crisis/battle and they just have normal jobs and there are integration programs and Lio is an angry Burnish teen and Galo volunteers at a community center helping Burnish control their powers. Like a world that’s more everyday X-Men than X-men in full adventure war mode.

This is the one request where I’d probably enjoy gen fic with lots of worldbuilding.

I would also enjoy lots of horny porn, preference for Galo topping with his giant stupid dick? I’m sorry I’m like this.

I do want to note ahead of time that I might be traveling (as in, possibly literally on a plane) when fics go live, so please do not be upset if I do not comment on the fic right away! But I definitely will! I know this can be a sore spot for authors so I wanted to give some warning. 

I think that is all! Thank you very much and I’ll see you at the end of all this.