#and the donghua makes WWX seem more terrifying than the live action ever managed

[jasontoddiefor]

people who talk trash about The Untamed but then praise the donghua need to take a break have you seen the pacing of that thing what the fuck

[robininthelabyrinth]

....Ok so I know that wwx & lwj are hardcore soulmates, but I honestly want too see what would happen if lwj loved jc instead? Like if he saw jc pet a dog or something, while at the same time protecting his brother? Idc but I’ve had the idea in my head for days

Donghua verse

Lan Wangji didn’t have much of an impression of Jiang Cheng at first, during his time at the Cloud Recesses.

He was supposed to have joined in the first round of lessons with him, in fact, but he’d instead chosen to remain in seclusion a few extra months, focusing on strengthening his will and his heart. This had meant, according to his brother, that he’d missed a truly epic showdown between Jiang Cheng’s unruly shixiong and his uncle – something Lan Wangji was grateful for, to be honest. He knew too well that if he was there that his uncle wouldn’t be able to resist comparing them, or requiring Lan Wangji to watch over him, or something like that, and honestly this Wei Wuxian fellow seemed like he’d require a great deal of effort and forbearance.

Instead, Lan Wangji came out only after Wei Wuxian had been sent away and Jiang Cheng left behind, and he found Jiang Cheng to be a serious and earnest young man, which was much more to his taste. He was diligent and hard-working, talented and intelligent and a little bit gullible, and it was a relief to learn next to someone who was neither as silly and frivolous as Nie Huaisang – who was so devoted to being useless that it routinely amazed Lan Wangji – nor as arrogant and self-absorbed as Jin Zixuan. The only flaw Lan Wangji could identify in Jiang Cheng was that he was a little chatty sometimes – always looking over his shoulder as if he expected someone to chime in – but in some ways that was good, too; he could sit next to him and let Jiang Cheng fill the silence, and having a regular companion made his brother stop looking so worried about him all the time.

Still, they were only classmates, not true friends. He thought he was nice, but nothing to really trouble himself over – and that was a relief, too, given how much his yang qi had been out of control around that time. Adolescence truly was a burden.

It wasn’t until later that he started appreciating Jiang Cheng.

Perhaps it was at the indoctrination camp, when Jiang Cheng had quietly passed along his condolences but didn’t burden him with too much company – he was too busy trying to keep the famous Wei Wuxian from starting trouble with the Wen sect, which honestly pissed Lan Wangji off; it was as if the other boy didn’t realize that they were representing their families as well as themselves, and that whatever nonsense he got into would be paid in blood and tears by them. If even Lan Wangji were willing to set aside abstract questions of justice and righteousness in favor of protecting those he loved in the only way he could, couldn’t Wei Wuxian do it too, even if only for a little while?

Perhaps it was only that he thought if he were clever enough about it, they would blame only him.

It was the tired expression in Jiang Cheng’s eyes, the burdens of the sect that Lan Wangji recognized from his brother’s face merging in with the familiar mix of love and mild irritation at an older sibling’s ridiculousness that Lan Wangji knew was often in his own, that had drawn Lan Wangji over to him – he couldn’t do much without threatening what was left of his family, his still-injured uncle and his dying father and his missing brother, but he could sit near to Jiang Cheng on the nights that he couldn’t sleep and offer him the silent support of company, if nothing else.

He found himself wishing that he could play the guqin for him, though of course he wasn’t allowed an instrument; he ended up drumming his fingers against a convenient log to create a calming tune, and Jiang Cheng would smile at him from across the flames of the campfire; sometimes, it even felt as if they were back in their quiet schooldays, sharing with a glance their mutual amusement and frustration with their classmate’s ridiculousness.

Jiang Cheng was someone who understood the burden of duty, while Wei Wuxian looked only at the burden of sacrifice, Lan Wangji had thought to himself then, and he would later be proved right even if he wouldn’t know about it for years on end.

Perhaps the indoctrination camp was where it started, but it was during the Sunshot Campaign that the spark finally caught, kindling in his heart. Jiang Cheng had lost everything, just the way Lan Wangji had, and his beloved shixiong had gone missing as well, just like Lan Xichen had after the burning of the Cloud Recesses; Lan Wangji at once volunteered to go help him in whatever way he needed.

It was good for sect unity, and safer, too, so Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren had agreed, but in his heart of hearts Lan Wangji wondered if he hadn’t gone just because he wanted to see how someone else was handling the same pain that he had.

The answer, to be frank, was badly, but – but Jiang Cheng was still that serious and earnest young man, diligent and hard-working, and armed with nothing more than his own determination he managed to resurrect a fallen sect and turn it into one of their most deadly weapons against the Wen sect.

Lan Wangji played him the guqin whenever he could, and listened to Jiang Cheng when he spoke – still looking over his shoulder for Wei Wuxian, an instinct he couldn’t seem to break – and found to his surprise that he had, somewhere along the way, grown quite fond of this man, grumpy and bitter and always trying so very hard to do his best.

It wasn’t what he’d thought love would feel like, the way his father had suffered from it: a sudden explosion in his heart that overwhelmed him and swept him away, a flood that consumed him and destroyed all self-restraint, a sudden single-minded selfishness, a single person becoming the light of his life to such an extent that it cast all else into shadow, with no room left behind for anything else, not self, not sect, not family.

No, this was – quieter. A recognition that his days were richer for having Jiang Cheng filling his eyes and ears, the feeling of comfort and familiarity that before had only been associated with his family, the slow realization that he wanted this to be his every day: this companion, by his side, working together.

The realization that he wanted more than this.

He wanted to have the right to take Jiang Cheng into his arms when he was sad, to take him to his bed when he was happy, to be greedy for those rare soft smiles and proud when others admired him –

Lan Wangji had long ago come to terms with the fact that he was a cutsleeve (it had been struggling to accept that realization, in fact, that had kept him in seclusion those extra few months), and he knew that there was a greater than average chance that he would be rejected, but he knew Jiang Cheng well enough by now to know that following his first instincts to keep his feelings hidden within his heart would only hurt Jiang Cheng more later on.

After the fall of the Lotus Pier, Jiang Cheng had learned to despise things outside his control – it was what he didn’t know that terrified him, the hidden motives in people’s hearts of which they never spoke, and he hated most of all the idea that people were making decisions on his behalf.

(He spoke of that hatred, sometimes, when the other sect leaders or remaining Jiang sect elders tried to order him around for what they believed was his own good, and his hands would always rise up to rub his arms as if he were cold; it was only after Lan Wangji heard the full story of how he had been bound by Zidian and forced away to save his own life, his parents overriding his desires and treating him as a child for the final time, that he understood the source of it.)

Lan Wangji knew that if he broke Jiang Cheng’s trust, his dreams of a future would never come to anything, and so he stiffened his spine and told him.

Well, he wrote him a letter, knowing his own lack of eloquence would trip him up if he tried to say it out loud, but he handed him the letter and waited while Jiang Cheng read it. The letter contained a myriad of assurances that Lan Wangji would never take any action if the feelings were unwelcome, that he was fine with being rejected and that nothing would change, that he merely wanted Jiang Cheng to know.

Jiang Cheng’s eyes went soft when he read the letter, and for a moment Lan Wangji had hope, but in the end he was rejected – but not for the reason he’d thought.

“You haven’t met Wei Wuxian yet,” Jiang Cheng said, casting his eyes down. “One archery competition and a few distant glimpses during the indoctrination camp don’t count. You can’t – I know you think you like me, but you haven’t met him yet. And you will, one day, when we find him again, and that’s why I can’t agree.”

Lan Wangji hadn’t understood what Wei Wuxian had to do with anything.

“It’s like a man who’s only ever seen the moon suddenly encountering a sunrise,” Jiang Cheng tried to explain. “I can’t let you make a mistake that you’ll regret later on.”

In the end, Lan Wangji did get a chance to meet Wei Wuxian, and he understood a little of Jiang Cheng’s fears: Wei Wuxian was indeed a rising star, his utter brilliance in all aspects too-easily eclipsing Jiang Cheng’s not inconsiderable talent. He was witty and charming, charismatic without trying, a clever and imaginative thinker that refused to take no for an answer – he took the Jiang sect motto of ‘attempt the impossible’ as if it were a challenge that he were capable of living up to, and perhaps it was because of that no one noticed the dozens of impossible acts that Jiang Cheng quietly did every day.

It had been the same before, Lan Wangji suddenly thought to himself; in the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter, Wei Wuxian had energetically challenged the creature, and nearly come to grief – if Lan Wangji hadn’t turned his back away from him, irritated for no reason in particular, he might have missed the shaky-handed disciple that would have undoubtedly shot Wei Wuxian himself instead of the beast, and the blood would have sent the creature into a frenzy from which they might not escape.

Jiang Cheng had been the one to lead the disciples out, finding a way out through the murky water while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had fought the Xuanwu, but it was only Wei Wuxian’s brilliant idea of having Lan Wangji use Chord Assassination while he lured the creature in to be beheaded that anyone ever remembered; it had been Jiang Cheng who had put the injured Wei Wuxian on his back and walked seven days without rest to get him to the Lotus Pier for treatment, evading the Wen sect the entire time, but it was Wei Wuxian’s righteousness and witty challenge to Wen Chao that people recalled.

Wei Wuxian was as bright as the sun in the sky, but his light was blinding, the heat of it scorching those that came too close. Lan Wangji could have loved him, Jiang Cheng was right about that; Wei Wuxian had a way about him that was nearly irresistible. If he had been the first light that Lan Wangji had seen, he could have been blinded by it, unable to see any other, swept away the way his father had been – an explosion of love, a flood of it.

He hadn’t been, though.

Lan Wangji’s greatest achievement in his life, he would later think, would be that he had caught Jiang Cheng in a private moment shortly before Jin Ling’s one-month party and told him that he found that he preferred the quiet pleasures of stargazing by moonlight over the brilliance of a sunrise; it meant he had seen Jiang Cheng’s wide-eyed expression of utter delight, uncomplicated by sorrow or bitterness, for what may have been the very last time it appeared on this earth.

Later, after everything, Lan Wangji came to live in the Lotus Pier. He did not speak of love, for Jiang Cheng could not bear to think of such things at the beginning, and he only offered his company and his music, the way he had before. He helped Jiang Cheng learn the limits of his grief all over again, the line between righteous anger and merely lashing out; he helped guard against Jiang Cheng descending into nothing but bitterness and anger that would consume the rest of his life.

He stayed, and Jiang Cheng, who had started to doubt if anyone ever would, slowly grew to love him for it.

(It was Lan Wangji who realized that something had been off about Wei Wuxian’s demise, and started investigating it privately, although oddly enough in the end it was silly, frivolous Nie Huaisang who figured it out first – even if the way he went about it wasn’t something Lan Wangji would ever approve of.)

After Wei Wuxian returned in Mo Xuanyu’s body, after the three of them travelled together to investigate what had happened to Nie Mingjue, Jiang Cheng turned to Lan Wangji with old doubts he hadn’t seen in over a decade, and said, “You’re not going to –”

“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji said, and Jiang Cheng smiled.

“Ugh, you two are so married,” Wei Wuxian whined, as if he wasn’t still very firmly in Lan Wangji’s bad books for the whole revelation regarding what he’d done with his golden core without telling Jiang Cheng about it. “Why aren’t you married, actually? Jiang Cheng! For shame! Be a man and do your duty!”

“Get lost,” Jiang Cheng said, but there was a lightness in his eyes that Lan Wangji rather liked. Even with all his secrets and his lies, having Wei Wuxian back was good for Jiang Cheng, and what was good for Jiang Cheng was something Lan Wangji approved of, even as troublesome a thing as Wei Wuxian. “We’re not married.”

“We could be,” Lan Wangji said, and predictably Wei Wuxian started whooping in joy even as Jiang Cheng turned bright red. Lan Wangji ignored the troublemaker and reached out to take Jiang Cheng’s hands in his own. “I am yours. First and foremost.”

Jiang Cheng’s hands tightened on his, and even if he turned his face away to hide the fact that he was crying, Lan Wangji knew that he’d won his prize – that future every day that he’d dreamed of for so long – at last.