#tfw your previously-ace ass gets a Crush (derogatory)

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

WIP Wednesday

I'm taking a bit of a break from Polyship week (I'd still like to write today's prompt 'soulmates' but I'll probably try to post it on the free day instead since I don't have a single word written for it) but it's still Wednesday, so I've got a little something! I don't know when I'll actually sit down to work on it next, but I have a bit of the next chapter of Technically A Cutsleeve started, so here's that. We're switching back to Mo Xuanyu's POV after having Jingyi's for a bit.

--//--

Cloud Recesses is precisely as Mo Xuanyu remembers it. He hasn’t stepped foot in Gusu in years, not since a discussion conference years ago when Mianmian was too sick to come and Zixuan had needed an advisor. But he can say with confidence that very very little has changed for the Lan seat of power since then.

They’re welcomed with all the proper pomp and circumstance befitting a visiting Sect Leader and his entourage, the occasion so unlike when any of their family — yes, even the Lan family — comes to visit them in Jinlintai. Meng Yao is at least there to join Qingheng-Jun in welcoming them, and he’s the one who shows them to their guest quarters rather than the high-ranking disciples who flank their Sect Leader for the welcome. It’s all very…stuffy. Very Lan, even the part when Meng Yao takes over, guides them away, and lets his father-in-law greet the next retinue. He’s even wearing Lan blue as he does for most special occasions, though Mo Xuanyu will allow he at least has small hints of Jin gold and Nie silver or green dispersed tastefully through trimmings or jewelry (and of course his vermillion mark sits squarely between his unmistakably Jin brows). He seems to take this duty seriously, since he acts all proper and Lan just like everyone else, unlike when he comes to Jinlintai and actually relaxes for a minute. 

It’s been less than a shichen and Mo Xuanyu’s skin is starting to crawl with the desire to stop all this stoic nonsense and act like they’re actually a family, damn it.

“You didn’t have to accompany me, Yu-didi,” Zixuan reminds him — gently, for him — once they’re safely ensconced in Zixuan’s quarters and Mo Xuanyu is free to pace back and forth with voluminous swishes of perfumed silk. “Why the sudden interest in discussion conferences anyway? You haven’t been to one outside of Jinlintai in ages.”

“Just felt like a change of scenery and you were already coming here anyway,” Mo Xuanyu shrugs, the lie smooth and easy in a way his oldest brother will never be able to accomplish (and that his second brother taught him how to do). “Besides, I need to annoy Uncle Lan, Xichen-gege said he’s working himself too hard again lately.”

Lan Xichen has, in fact, told him no such thing, but if there is anything Mo Xuanyu can rely on in this world it’s that Lan Qiren is perpetually in a state of overworking himself whilst reminding everyone else around him to properly balance their lives. Someone needs to cajole the old man into resting, and though Wei Wuxian is well placed to be that person he apparently doesn’t do it unless things get dire. Probably because he’s busy overworking himself too and is kind of shitty at recognizing it in anyone else. The longer Mo Xuanyu thinks about it, the more he’s able to almost convince himself that’s actually why he tagged along this time.

The true reason is, of course, a secret, one that literally no one but him knows. For his entire life, up until roughly two months ago, Mo Xuanyu has very loudly and very firmly declared that though he appreciates the male form, he has very little (or no) desire to appreciate it up close and personal — certainly not for any significant length of time. He’s considered it recently in an abstract sort of way, but nothing serious.

And then Lan Jingyi just had to tumble into Jinlintai and made a liar out of him. So rude! Though Mo Xuanyu had kept his distance as much as he could during the last week of the boys’ visit, it would’ve been ridiculously rude to ignore the boys when they’d gone out of their way to help him feel included, and considering the most vocal of the four of them in wanting him around had been Lan Jingyi…is it any wonder Mo Xuanyu had developed a crush?