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kurowrites · 4 years

Note

cute AU prompt? “You’re my roommate who’s super cute and it’s the middle of the night and you’re cramming for your exams in your flannel pajamas and disheveled hair and it’s becoming increasingly hard for me not to kiss you” i can see wangxian doing this!!! wei ying staying up until past 5am studying, lan zhan waking up and getting out of bed to see that wei ying is still fucking awake and hasn't moved since where he left him last night

“Wei Ying.”

“Nn,” Wei Ying replies, but it’s clear that he’s not really paying attention.

“It’s time to go to bed, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan tries anyway.

“I know, Lan Zhan, I know,” comes the distracted answer. “I’ll go soon. I just want to finish this part.”

Lan Zhan sighs, but he gives in. It’s completely useless to try and talk sense into Wei Ying when he’s in this state. Lan Zhan knows that from experience. He’s failed to pry Wei Ying away from his desk when he’s on a study binge too many times already, and he’s not up to giving it another try tonight. He’s mostly just tired and wants to sleep.

“Good night, Wei Ying,” he says instead of any other words that might weigh heavy on the tip of his tongue, and turns towards his bed, folding back the cover.

“Night night,” Wei mumbles as Lan Zhan slips into bed.

Lan Zhan can’t help the sweet feeling that spreads in his chest. He looks at Wei Ying’s figure, framed by the weak light of the desk lamp as he is bent over a thick book, and he feels both affection and longing. A slim figure dressed in black-and-red flannel pyjamas, with bare feet and tousled hair.

Wei Ying is cute. Cute and everything else that Lan Zhan has ever wanted.

And Lan Zhan will never, ever tell him that he feels that way.

Lan Zhan closes his eyes.

---

When Lan Zhan wakes up the next morning, it’s still dark outside. He doesn’t need an alarm clock to wake up at 5 am sharp; the habit has been ingrained into him for many years. The world outside the window is still dark, but the dorm room itself is illuminated by a small source of light.

The desk lamp on Wei Ying’s desk is still turned on, and Wei Ying is still sitting at the desk in the same half curled-up position that he had been in when Lan Zhan went to be last night. The only difference to the night before is that his hair is even messier, and that a different book is placed in front of Wei Ying now.

Lan Zhan gets up quietly, slipping into a robe to shield himself from the chilly morning air. The room, along with the rest of the dorm, isn’t exactly well-isolated. He wonders how Wei Ying isn’t freezing right now, with his bare feet exposed to the cold night air.

He moves over to the desk.

“Wei Ying,” he says, quietly. “Good morning.”

“Mmmh,” Wei Ying replies; a sleepy sound.

He looks up from the book and blinks a few times, as if trying to bring Lan Zhan into focus. He looks tired, and wrinkled somehow, though not in a physical sense. Lan Zhan feels tempted to reach out and smooth Wei Ying out.

Wei Ying smiles once his gaze clears and he recognises Lan Zhan.

“Lan Zhan,” he says with the happiest expression on his face. “There you are.”

He blinks with a slowness that makes it clear he can barely keep his eyes open.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says. “It’s time to sleep.”

“I’m almost finished,” Wei Ying resists.

“You were almost finished eight hours ago,” Lan Zhan reminds him. “You need to rest.”

Wei Ying smiles another happy smile, but his eyes close, and he sways a little to the left.

Does Wei Ying know how tempting that face is, Lan Zhan wonders. Turned up towards him so trustfully, eyes closed, a quiet confidence in Lan Zhan’s willingness to take care of him. It’s almost too much.

“Lan Zhan is so good to me. Always making sure I’m fine. So good, so good.”

It’s clear he’s barely awake now. How he held out so long, Lan Zhan will never know.

It is easy, so very easy, to reach out and place his hands on Wei Ying’s hips. He’s done it before. There is no resistance when Lan Zhan takes hold of Wei Ying and lifts him up, makes him stand and walk the few steps over to his bed. When Lan Zhan folds back the covers, Wei Ying crawls in obediently.

Still, he complains, even as he snuggles into his pillow.

“Lan Zhan, I still have so many things to do, I can’t sleep yeeeeeeeet.”

The end of the sentence turns into a huge yawn.

“I will wake you when I’m back from class,” Lan Zhan promises. “You need to rest a little now.”

“Night night,” Wei Ying whispers, and then he’s out like a light.

Lan Zhan carefully wraps him in his blanket, makes sure he won’t get cold, and…

Sometimes, he is weak, he admits.

He leans down and places a gentle kiss on Wei Ying’s forehead.

“Sleep well, Wei Ying,” he whispers back. Then he straightens up. He leaves their shared room to head to the bathroom and get ready for the day. It’s only a little past five; at this time of the day, the bathroom will be deserted, as it always is.

Lan Zhan will have time to collect himself before he has to face the world outside of that small dorm room, and the strange, messy person that is currently asleep in it.

---

When Lan Zhan returns from class, he finds two eyes watching him from inside the blanket burrito on Wei Ying’s bed.

“You are awake?” Lan Zhan asks.

“Lan Zhaaaan,” the blanket burrito whines. “I slept for too long.”

“You needed it,” Lan Zhan replies.

“There are only so many hours in the day,” Wei Ying pouts. “It’s a waste to spend half of it asleep.”

“It’s also a waste to spend the rest of it too tired to do anything,” Lan Zhan says; it’s an old argument, well-worn by now. “I brought you food.”

He holds out a bag that contains a sandwich he knows Wei Ying likes.

That’s motivation enough for Wei Ying to pop out of his cocoon and make eager grabby hands for the bag of food. Lan Zhan hands it to him, and watches him dismantle it with quick movements.

Wei Ying looks up at him, smiles, and slaps the empty space on his mattress repeatedly, inviting Lan Zhan to take a seat.

Who is Lan Zhan to refuse? He gingerly takes the offered seat.

Wei Ying takes that as an invitation himself, and lets his head drop onto Lan Zhan’s shoulder, leaning against him as he unwraps the sandwich. He’s still sleep-warm, and he looks soft and tousled, and Lan Zhan finds himself wishing to monopolise this sight forever with shocking intensity.

“Yesss,” Wei Ying says when he sees that Lan Zhan has brought him one of his favourite sandwiches, the bánh mì from the Vietnamese food truck with a generous helping of hot sauce. “Lan Zhan is indeed the best.”

He takes a few quick bites and chews enthusiastically.

“Hn,” Lan Zhan agrees. Wei Ying should better be aware of that: That Lan Zhan is the best. That he takes care of Wei Ying. Not the girls that he keeps flirting with.

“Mmh,” Wei Ying hums, satisfied. “Delicious. Ah, if only I could marry someone like Lan Zhan, I would be the happiest man alive. So well taken care of.”

Someone like Lan Zhan. Someone like Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan feels a crushing weight on his chest. Why is it always someone like Lan Zhan, and never Lan Zhan himself? Why can’t he be an option? Is it because he’s not a girl, and Wei Ying likes girls that much? He’s confident he could take care of Wei Ying’s needs very well. All of his needs.

It makes him angry, somehow. Lan Zhan has been right there, ever since the first year of university when they started to share a dorm room, and he thinks he’s amply demonstrated by now that he’s the ideal candidate. How can Wei Ying still not know?

Something hot and insistent rises in his chest. Before he can help himself, he opens his mouth.

“Wei Ying can always marry me.”

Wei Ying jerks and looks up at him in shock, before he quickly dissolves into laughter.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” he chuckles. “That would be terrible! You should go and marry a nice girl, have adorable and extremely smart children, and live happily ever after.”

Lan Zhan freezes. He struggles for a moment, trying to settle his feelings. Does Wei Ying… does Wei Ying not know? Has he somehow missed the way Lan Zhan feels in all these years?

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying asks, and Lan Zhan notices that Wei Ying’s mirth has turned into a worried expression. “Did I say something wrong? You don’t have to marry if you don’t want to, you know.”

Oh, Lan Zhan very much wants to marry. Only it’s not a girl he wants to marry. It’s never been a girl he wanted to marry.

“That would be fine really,” Wei Ying muses as he takes another bite of his sandwich. “We could be single together. No girl wants to marry me, so I’ll probably be single forever.”

How, Lan Zhan wonders. How can the person he loves be so stupid? How can he not understand? How much more obvious does he need to get?

“Wei Ying. Can always. Marry me,” he presses out, emphasising every word. Trying to make it as clear as he can that he means every word. That he would marry Wei Ying, if only Wei Ying would say yes.

This time, it’s Wei Ying that freezes, his sandwich forgotten halfway on its way to his mouth.

“If you say such things, Lan Zhan,” he says eventually, his tone light, “I might take you seriously. You don’t want that.”

Lan Zhan breathes out. Doesn’t want that. Like hell he doesn’t want that. He would drag Wei Ying to the registrar’s office right now, if Wei Ying agreed. How can Wei Ying be so oblivious of his feelings? What else does he have to do?

“Wei Ying should marry me,” he says.

And with Wei Ying’s face right there, it’s easy to turn his own, and place another kiss on that forehead.

Wei Ying is silent for far too long after that.

Then, he starts to laugh.

“Ah, Lan Zhan!” he exclaims. With quick fingers, he rewraps his sandwich and pushes it aside. “I warned you.”

The next thing Lan Zhan knows, there is a faint trace of hot sauce prickling on his lips, and Wei Ying is prancing towards the door of the room.

“I’m gonna brush my teeth,” Wei Ying says as he turns back for a moment. “After all, I don’t want to traumatize you. I want you to kiss me again.”

Wei Ying has slipped out of the room before Lan Zhan can tell him that it would take a little more than hot sauce to keep him from kissing Wei Ying. Again and again.

If he’s allowed to, now.

#kuro writes #ask meme #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #the untamed #a little fluff to soothe the soul #anonymous #mdzs headcanons

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rosethornewrites · 3 years

Text

Fic: a grain of millet drifting, ch. 1

Relationship: Niè Huáisāng & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn

Characters: Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, Original Characters, Nie Huaisang

Additional Tags: Assassination Attempt(s), Introspection, Regret, Travel, Post-Canon, POV Third Person, POV Wei WuXian

Summary: Wei Wuxian wanders after parting from Lan Wangji, looking to understand the changes in the world since his death, seeking to understand his place in it. He doesn't realize he's being watched. Frankencanon, so this has a liberal mixture of CQL and MDZS.

Notes: See end.

AO3 link

-------------

Wei Wuxian hadn’t lied to Lan Zhan after their brief confrontation with Nie Huaisang in Cloud Recesses, not exactly.

Knowing why he’d been brought back, whether somehow his old friend had chosen him specifically for his own reasons, or if that had been entirely Mo Xuanyu’s call, wouldn’t change anything.

And part of him didn’t want confirmation of how much Nie Huaisang had meddled with along the way.

So much had been broken, so many people lost, and a part of him wanted to believe the façade that the indolent Nie Huaisang he had known during their days in the Cloud Recesses still existed.

But once he’d left Lan Zhan and set off on his travels with Little Apple, once he started getting used to being alive again, to having even the tiny wisp of a jindan, barely beyond zhuji, that Mo Xuanyu had gifted him, something he could build on, something other than the gaping hole that had ultimately consumed him, he’d had to face some truths.

He had no family, no home. He didn’t know if Jiang Cheng would ever want anything to do with him, and he wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. As much as he would always love Lotus Pier, he didn’t know that it had ever really been his home.

In some ways, his leaving had been inevitable. Despite being head disciple, he’d never been welcome. And the fall of Lotus Pier would forever be his fault, the ghosts of his own doing. He’d never regret protecting Mianmian and Lan Zhan, but he would always regret the massacre that had followed.

Even if he’d technically been absolved of the death of Jin Zixuan and the bloodbath of Nightless City and shijie’s death, his actions had still led to them.

Wei Wuxian spent long, sleepless nights under the stars and listening to Little Apple snore outrageously coming to the understanding that he’d left the Burial Mounds with his sanity shredded. The war and continued use of resentful energy without a jindan had only worsened it. He’d raised the dead, the ancestors of their enemy, defiling their bodies to win the war, and he’d earned a dark and deviant reputation in doing so.

After the war, he’d taken to drinking to dull it all, and doing so had destabilized his mind further. He was sensitive about his inability to cultivate, but couldn’t explain why. Surrounded by people who wanted him to do what he could not, he had spiraled.

Really, by the time he’d saved the Dafan Wen temporarily from their fate and gone back to attempt to live in the Burial Mounds, he’d been hanging by a thread. Wen Qing had bullied him into taking care of himself, for the most part, but he’d spent more days than he could count in the Demon Slaughtering Cave capable of little more than opening his eyes, what little energy he had dedicated to keeping the Seal under control.

He remembered very little past Jiang Yanli’s death and waking up in the Burial Mounds with the remnants of the Wen who knew death was coming. The seal wanted more, another Nightless City. And he’d known he could absolutely destroy the Jianghu—but that the Seal wanted it gave him enough pause that he knew he needed to destroy it and end it all.

He’d managed to find a way, but the Siege happened just as he was ready. What little sanity he had left went toward an attempt to hide A-Yuan—maybe the one good thing he had managed. And then, as the aunties and uncles and popo were massacred around him, he could only focus on destroying the seal.

Dying in the way that he had, ripped to shreds by corpses, had been agonizing, though the benefit of Jiang Cheng stabbing him had meant he’d died faster. He didn’t know if his shidi had meant it to be a kindness, but ultimately it had lessened his suffering before he died. It was likely a better death than anyone else would have given him.

But Jin Guangyao had been right: even before he’d absconded with the Wen remnants, his actions during the war, his temper and frayed sanity, his rages, his desecration of the dead… All of it had painted a target on him.

No, he’d painted it on himself with blood.

Wei Wuxian had come back in a body not tainted by the resentful energy that had burrowed its way into his bones before his death, despite it being his old one free of scars and birth marks, his sanity somehow restored, and was able to see his own self-destruction and how he had made that the only path he could walk through his own trauma-fueled hubris.

Maybe those years dead had done something to heal whatever damage he had inflicted on his own soul, as well. He remembered nothing of that time, and waking up in a body had been like opening his eyes after a long sleep. He’d known he’d been dead, had known time had passed, though not how much at first. Everything that had occurred leading to his death felt so immediate, particularly shijie’s death and the knowledge he’d left A-Yuan hiding but didn’t know if he’d survived.

The relief he felt that he had at least saved one person couldn’t be quantified.

Part of the journey was trying to find where he fit into the world now, but most of it was reflection and coming to terms with the reality that now existed.

He’d steered away from larger cities, opting to travel smaller roads to villages off the beaten path. Many, it seemed, had problems with restless spirits and the like—the occasional yao, even. He took care of what he could, and drafted letters to Lan Zhan when it was something that required more than he was currently capable of.

Perhaps that was something he’d learned—to rely on others and not try to fix everything himself. He could probably handle it all, but there were costs of using resentful energy too much, and in this life he didn’t particularly want to pay them.

So he communicated with the odd hungry ghost, used talismans to take down roaming fierce corpses, and handled the smaller yao that he could handle with the jindan he had, using these night hunts to help develop it further, hoping one day he could retrieve Suibian from Jiang Cheng and be able to wield the blade again—assuming his once-brother would let him have the sword.

Everything beyond, that would require more spiritual energy than he had or more resentful energy than he was comfortable using, he sent to Lan Zhan so the local cultivation sect could be alerted. He dared not send them a letter himself; people still had strong feelings about the return of the Yiling Patriarch, and it was just as likely he’d be blamed for the problem as anything.

The rural route he took left him able to travel in anonymity as a rogue cultivator, offering essentially any name but his own. Thanks to the ugly Yiling Patriarch talismans, the common folk didn’t know what he looked like. Most often, he went by Wei Yuandao, reminded of Mianmian’s happiness at seeing him when he did, that there were people in the world who didn’t hate or fear him. The villagers didn’t know him, were grateful for his help, whether in setting a spirit to rest or helping with odd jobs in exchange for a meal and a place to sleep by a hearth.

Much of the time, though, he slept beneath a blanket of stars.

One night like that, he heard the sounds of a scuffle and rushed to see what was going on. He expected to need to fight off a bandit, but instead he found a man in Nie colors running through a man dressed head to toe in black, face masked.

As he stood gaping, the Nie disciple bowed to him.

“Wei-gongzi.”

That confirmed a suspicion, and the logic of the situation ran through his mind at the speed of light. The courtesy, the Nie colors, what was clearly a would-be assassin’s body at his feet. Finally, Wei Wuxian sighed.

“How many assassins?”

The young man smiled.

“Five in as many weeks. You are as smart as Nie-zongzhu said.”

Wei Wuxian snorted at that.

“Not if I didn’t realize assassins were being sent after me. I’m guessing Nie-xiong knew they’d be hired and sent you to protect me in secret?”

He’d honestly thought he was being left alone by the cultivation world, especially since he wasn’t causing any trouble. How very naïve.

The man nodded curtly, then bent to rifle through the corpse’s clothing, looking for clues and stripping it of valuables, every bit a Nie.

“He wanted you to be able to travel without worry.”

Ah, Nie-xiong…

Perhaps Nie Huaisang was used to working from the shadows and had an agenda, or perhaps he truly just wanted Wei Wuxian to be undisturbed. Whatever his reasons for the secrecy, with this that ship had sailed.

But Wei Wuxian had no idea why Nie Huaisang would bother, not after he threatened him at the Cloud Recesses. Implied threat, but still—he’d expected that would burn a bridge. Not… this.

“I suppose I’m overdue for a visit to the Unclean Realm,” he said after thinking it over. “You may as well travel with me openly, unless Nie-xiong would prefer you watch over me in secret?”

Despite the protection he’d sent, Wei Wuxian didn’t know if he wanted the Nie clan officially associated with the Yiling Patriarch.

“Sect Leader was not specific about this eventuality. Traveling together openly may deter assassins, though it is easier to catch them off guard if they believe you unprotected.”

Ah, so Nie Huaisang didn’t care. Wei Wuxian waved off the concern. Now that he knew the threat, it was easily dealt with.

“I can set talisman traps around the campsite. Probably should have done that to begin with.”

But he’d been trying to have faith in the cultivation world, he didn’t say. Once again, misplaced faith and he should’ve known better.

“At least that way you can get real sleep as we travel to meet with Nie-zongzhu.”

They were a week of travel from the Unclean Realm, and he supposed he’d get answers to questions he hadn’t known he had then.

He headed back to his campsite, happy to see his Nie protector was following, and set a gourd of water near the fire to heat and pulled out some tea.

“In the meantime, we can talk about these assassins, eh? We’ll bury the body in the morning.”

It’d been over a decade since he’d last dug a grave, and it wasn’t to bury a body, but he was sure he could manage with the Nie’s help.

----------

Zhuji is the foundation building stage of cultivation, the stage before forming the jindan/golden core. Basically, Wei Wuxian is saying Mo Xuanyu was barely into the stage of forming a golden core, so it’s barely a wisp, but is still something that has the foundations built for him.

This fic was… unexpected. I wanted to write something for Nie Huaisang’s birthday, kind of a reconciliation between him and Wei Wuxian, and this happened. It will likely be no more than three chapters.

The title is a reference to a translation of a Su Shi poem, “First Ode on the Red Cliffs,” which was written after his first exile (he was exiled twice, both times for his poetry), while he wandered. There are several translations floating around, but I liked the wording of this one.

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #cql #mdzs #wei wuxian #wei ying #nie huaisang #untamed fanfiction #untamed fanfic #untamed fic #cql fanfic #cql fanfiction #cql fic #mdzs fanfic #mdzs fanfiction #mdzs fic #my fanfiction

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boxoftheskyking · 4 years

Text

Something Good, Part Sixteen

I know this is late, and not to be That Guy, but it is the playoffs

In which there is music and Wei Ying is awkward

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen

Lan Wangji kicks him out of the kitchen, but kindly.

“The children will be worried,” he says, nudging Wei Wuxian towards the door. “They didn’t see you last night. I will prepare breakfast, and you should wake them.”

So Wei Wuxian wakes them, just as he always does. It’s one of his favorite moments of the day and is the only thing that makes rising before five worthwhile. Sizhui and Jingyi always stumble over to him where he kneels, rubbing sleep out of their eyes and tumbling into his arms. He holds them for a long few seconds, feeling their warm little faces against his neck, their messy hair tickling his nose, their tiny fists pressed against his chest and shoulders.

“Are you dreaming, little ones?” he always whispers before picking them up and spinning them awake.

This morning he stays down on the floor with them for a long time. Jingyi starts snoring, a little whistling hum, which makes him laugh, which makes him cry.

“Wei-qianbei,” Sizhui says when he lets them go. “Are you sad?”

“No, A-Yuan. No, I’m not sad.” He wipes his eyes. “Ha! Come on now, everyone. Breakfast! Breakfast! And I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?” Ouyang Zizhen hops over, grinning down at him.

“Yes! Yes, come on. Up! Up! Hanguang Jun is making breakfast today!”

“Hanguang Jun can cook?” Su Meiling asks with her undershirt stuck over her head.

“Hanguang Jun can do everything,” Lan Ting says.

“Clothes! Clothes, now, come on.” Wei Wuxian gets Su Meiling sorted out and darts around tying sashes and pulling up boots.

Wen Ning stays back in his corner, dressing silently and staring at him, blank. Wei Wuxian, still a coward, sends all the children out before approaching him.

“Are you going to leave?” Wen Ning asks.

“No.”

“Are you going to change your mind?”

“I’m not going to leave unless they send me away. Unless you all want me to leave.”

Wen Ning nods.

“Do you—” Wei Wuxian scratches his nose. They’re really only a few years apart. He suddenly feels like the young one, desperately seeking approval. “Do you want me to leave?”

There is a very, very long silence. Three years at least. Then Wen Ning throws himself forward, wrapping his arms around Wei Wuxian’s waist and pressing his forehead into his shoulder.

“No, no, please don’t go. Don’t go.”

“Aiyah, Wen Ning. They’ll have to fight me off.”

Wen Ning mumbles something into his shirt.

“What? Here, I can’t hear you.” He pulls the boy back by the shoulders.

“Why were you going to leave?”

Wei Wuxian chews on his lip. “I was wrong about something. I thought something had happened that would mean I couldn’t stay, but I was wrong. Now I know where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to do.”

“And what’s that?” He’s shrewd, this kid, gentle but iron underneath.

“Look after you. For as long as you need it.”

“And Jiejie?”

“What Wen Qing does is her business. The junior disciples are mine.”

Wen Ning makes him wait for it, but finally a sunrise smile takes over his face.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Wen Ning salutes him and dashes out the door to catch up with the others.

In the afternoon, the children quietly practice their brushwork. Lan Wangji doesn’t look like he’s been up all night, but he’s passed on teaching lessons and set them busy work instead. Wei Wuxian is leaning against the doorway and keeps jerking himself awake. They’re mostly very attentive, focused on their writing with furrowed brows, tips of tongues poking out from serious faces. Wei Wuxian doesn’t notice that Lan Wangji has left until he comes back with Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren.

That wakes him up, trying to stand at attention and look responsible. The look Lan Xichen gives him is so kind and almost proud, it reminds him of Yanli and makes it very hard to not do something ridiculous like hug him. Lan Qiren is impossible to read. He doesn’t look completely furious or disgusted, so Wei Wuxian assumes he’s been told the whole story.

Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to say something, can’t think of anything, and bows instead.

“Wei Wuxian,” Lan Qiren says. Wei Wuxian bows again. “I’m told you will be staying in Cloud Recesses.”

“If allowed by the Grandmaster, of course,” he says diplomatically.

“Hmf,” is all the response he gets.

“We are honored by your continued service to our sect,” Lan Xichen says. Wei Wuxian scratches the back of his neck and barely stops himself from scuffing the toe of his boot against the floor.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says suddenly. Lan Xichen’s eyebrows raise and his lip curls up in surprise. Now Lan Qiren looks furious.

“Yes, Hanguang Jun?” Better to play it safe.

Lan Wangji says nothing more, just reaches into his sleeve and pulls out Chenqing, holding it out to him with his jaw set and shoulders straight. Wei Wuxian looks hastily around the room, wondering if a set of guards or angry villagers might burst through the windows. Nothing happens. The Sect Leader and Grandmaster also do nothing, though Lan Qiren’s face is nearly as red as Lin Biming’s. Wei Wuxian takes the flute from him, giving an awkward little half-smile, and then tucks it quickly away inside his shirt.

“Wei-qianbei!” Lan Feifei pipes up. “Is that a flute?”

“Yes, Feifei, just a flute. Just a normal flute, for a normal man. To play normal music.”

“Will you teach us?”

“Oh, yes, teach us!” Lan Hua and Su Ming shout from the back of the room.

“Uh. I, uh . . . We’ll see.”

Lan Qiren storms out of the room. Lan Xichen smiles, bows to them, and follows, graceful as a summer breeze.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian hisses to him. “He may not be able to send me away, but he can still kill me with his mind.”

“Who?”

“Your uncle!”

“He can’t—”

“Never mind!” Wei Wuxian waves him off, suddenly feeling restless. “All right, disciples! You’ve all worked very diligently today, and you behaved so well during the festivities this week, how about we spend the rest of the day with the rabbits? Good, yes?”

Lan Wangji raises an eyebrow at him.

“Really, Lan Zhan, get your face under control,” Wei Wuxian mutters to him before heading out the door.

“I will see you this evening,” Lan Wangji says.

Wei Wuxian spins back around to him and pouts. “No bunnies for you?”

He shakes his head. “There is work to be done now that the guests have all left. But I will ask Madam Xiao to supervise dinner and bedtime tonight. Come to the Jingshi.”

Wei Wuxian looks at him for a long moment, waiting for some crack in his expression. “All right,” he says finally. “Deal.”

He spends the afternoon playing Chenqing for the children and the rabbits. When the children ask him “What song is that? Is it about something?” he makes up fantastical stories about cranes that turn into old women and children that grow in place of radish bulbs.

He’s hit the point of being awake for so long—and he’s realizing how little he’s been sleeping all week—that he’s tapped into a kind of manic energy. Part of it surely is being able to play music, freely, as much and as loud as he likes, for the first time in years. He lines the children up and tries to assign them each a little melody.

“Now, Yao Hualing, when I play this figure—” he blows a little trill— “then that means I’m calling you. Ready?”

He plays it again, and she hops up. Su Meiling hops up, too.

“No, A-Ling, this is you.” He plays a slightly different trill, and she frowns at him.

“I can’t tell the difference, Wei-qianbei.”

“Me neither!” Lan Yixian yells, hanging upside down from a tree branch.

Wei Wuxian sighs. “Well, we’ll call that a failed experiment. Who knows a song to teach to everyone?”

After a number of favorite songs sung too many times, and an intense argument over how many children Mother Chaochong has in the “real” version, it’s time to eat. He turns the children over to Madam Xiao and apologizes for the inconvenience. She just pinches his cheek, which makes the children scream with laughter.

When he gets to the Jingshi, the door is closed, and he’s not certain if Lan Wangji is around. He kicks some stones around on the pathway, nerves bubbling up inside his ribcage, until the door opens and Lan Wangji looks around, face worried.

“Lan Zhan!” he calls with completely false confidence. “Here I am! Are you going to play the gu—”

He loses his voice and his mouth goes completely dry when he gets to the doorway. Lan Wangji is dressed for bed, only wearing one layer of robes, hair down around his shoulders. It’s an odd sight when the sun hasn’t even started to go down yet.

“What—” he can’t think of what to ask, so he takes his boots off and holds them. Lan Wangji sits down on the bed, and Wei Wuxian is quite sure the skin on his cheeks is about to melt away.

“You haven’t slept.”

Wei Wuxian shakes his head.

“You should sleep.”

Wei Wuxian coughs. “I have a— I have a bed.”

“There are other people there, in the servants quarters. You won’t sleep well.”

“There’s other people here. I mean, you’re here.”

Lan Wangji’s brow furrows. “Would you like me to leave?”

“No!” Wei Wuxian shouts and drops his boots. “I mean. Unless you want to. But you’re not dressed, so that would be a scandal. What would everyone say? Wen Qing might see you, and then where would we be? Not—”

“Wei Ying.”

“Yes, Lan Zhan?”

“Come here. And sleep.”

He has some kind of hypnotizing powers. That’s the only explanation for how Wei Wuxian is suddenly next to him, one knee up on the bed.

“And what about you?”

“I will also sleep,” Lan Wangji says, as if it’s that simple. He rises and closes the door, then crawls onto the bed, settling near the wall. There is plenty of space.

“There’s no way I’m going to sleep,” Wei Wuxian breathes. Lan Wangji just looks at him, a challenge, and far be it from Wei Wuxian to not meet a challenge.

He lays down on his side and stares over at Lan Wangji. “I mean it, there’s no way—”

“Shh.”

Wei Wuxian glares at him, then squeezes his eyes shut as dramatically as possible.

He’s asleep before he can take another breath.

Part Seventeen

#assorted writings #something good #the untamed #cql #mo dao zu shi #this chapter is brought to you by Mania #yer gal needs some SLEEP

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lightshadowverisimilitude · 4 years

Text

The Uncle Trap

@sassassassins is phenomenal and has sent me so many pretty screenshots for my episode summary project!!

As a thank you: Post-cannon, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng forced to cooperate to rescue their disaster!nephew, with guest appearances from Lan Wangji, Sizhui, and a very startled troll.

~*~

The inn was neither the worst nor the best he’d stayed in during his travels. The wine was better than that sour swill from the last place, but, of course, it had nothing on Emperor’s Smile. The food was edible, the floor in his room was clean, and the table was not sticky. It was as much as he could ask for, and better than he had most days.

He was eating his way through a plate of greasy spiced chicken when a commotion at the door caught his attention. He blinked at the figure silhouetted against the last of the light. For one chest-compressing moment, he thought it was Lan Wangji, but then the figure moved, too animated, too quickly for Lan Wangji.

“Lan Sizhui?”

“Wei-qianbei!” He darted in between tables, gracefully avoiding hitting anyone, even when other patrons turned around quickly to see what the fuss was about.

Wei Wuxian watched, bemused, as Sizhui came to a somewhat messy halt in front of him and offered a quick salute.

“It’s Jin Ling,” he said in a rush that caught Wei Wuxian’s heart somewhere between his breastbone and his voicebox. “We were on a night hunt - it was supposed to just be a simple haunting!”

Keeping the rising panic off his face and out of his voice, Wei Wuxian pressed, “What happened?”

“It was so fast - something took him. I heard him screaming, and then he was gone.” Sizhui looked up at him hopefully, as though Wei Wuxian might snap his fingers and pull Jin Ling out of thin air. He filed that thought away - maybe he could do that, with the right set of spells - and stood quickly. He scattered a handful of coins on the table, probably too much, but he didn’t want to take the time to count them out.

As they ran out of the inn and down the street, Sizhui gave him a rundown of their hunt, the hungry ghost they’d dispatched, and the blur of motion that had snatched Jin Ling, screaming, from the back of their party. Wei Wuxian cursed again at his inability to fly, and made no protest whatsoever to jumping up alongside Sizhui for the trip. It would be quick by air, but convincing Little Apple to get him there any sooner than next week would have been a nightmare.

“Go to Cloud Recesses,” Wei Wuxian ordered, hopping down when they were a few feet from the ground in the last place Jin Ling had been seen. If there was some kind of junior-cultivator eating monster up there, the last thing he needed was having to keep an eye on Sizhui while he was hunting for his disaster of a nephew.

“Wei-qianbei!”

“Go tell His Excellency that the Jin sect leader is missing!” Wei Wuxian ordered. “I’ll probably already have him before you can duck around Old Man Lan to get to Lan Zhan, so just go.”

Face twisted with worry for his friend, Sizhui finally nodded and took back to the air. Wei Wuxian was vaguely surprised that he went so quickly, but, then, he must have been terrified for Jin Ling, and, of course, he would want Lan Wangji. Perhaps the greater surprise should have been that Sizhui came for him first, though that might have been only a matter of proximity.

It was full dark by then, but Wei Wuxian lit a fire talisman and did his best to search the area for any clues. Unfortunately, it was a crossroads, and well travelled, so he couldn’t pick out any footprints. He ventured a little ways off the road in the direction Sizhui had indicated, but he was worried that he might destroy some vital clue in the dark, and was forced to stop.

Sitting cross-legged against a tree, he pulled Chenqing out and cautiously played a few notes. His stomach twisted in knots as he did. What would he do if Jin Ling’s corpse came shambling out of the trees? In any event, he didn’t have to find out. He was playing softly so he didn’t accidentally summon a whole army, and the only dead he would summon would be those very close by. One lone spirit did manifest, a man dressed in ragged homespun with a gaping mouth. He wasn’t even strong enough to speak, so Wei Wuxian couldn’t ask him if he’d witnessed anything at the crossroads. After a few minutes of listening to him moan piteously, Wei Wuxian sighed and put him to rest. He continued to play, but no other spirits came to investigate.

As soon as the sky was light enough to make out the details of his own shoes, he was back on his feet and combing through the underbrush. A short distance away from the road, he found a tangle of golden threads caught on a tree branch, and some fifteen feet further on, a snapped branch even higher up. Whatever had taken Jin Ling, hadn’t carried him on the ground. It narrowed down the list a lot, but not enough to know what he was walking into.

“Hey, you!”

Wei Wuxian froze at the familiar voice and turned only reluctantly to see Jiang Cheng wading through the underbrush with a look on his face to make thunderclouds cry. He stopped when he recognized Wei Wuxian. Around his wrist, Zidian spit and crackled purple lightning.

“What the hell are you doing here? If you-”

Wei Wuxian interrupted him before he could finish that accusation and force Wei Wuxian to punch him in the face. He knew it would take a long time before they would have any real trust between them again, if ever, but if Jiang Cheng could suspect him of hurting his own nephew, his shijie’s son, Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure how they could come back from that.

“Sizhui brought me last night,” he said, turning away so he didn’t have to watch Jiang Cheng’s response.

Jiang Cheng grunted. He was silent for a moment, and then offered, “Ouyang Zizhen made it to Lotus Pier in the middle of the night.” He glared at Wei Wuxian, but jerked his chin up to indicate the fluffy bundle of gold threads in Wei Wuxian’s hand. “What did you find?”

Handing it over, Wei Wuxian returned to the trail of broken branches. Muttering under his breath something about how he would cut his nephew’s legs clean off this time, Jiang Cheng followed after him. Wei Wuxian glanced back at him as they drifted apart to look for further clues. Jiang Cheng looked pale and drawn, his mouth tight with anxiety and brows pulled together like they’d been sewn that way. He probably hadn’t slept any more than Wei Wuxian had the previous night.

“Anything?” Wei Wuxian called back when his scant trail of broken branches dried up and there were no more convenient wisps of fabric to go on. Couldn’t the boy at least have managed to drop some beads or something? He owed Jin Ling a lesson on how to be inconvenient to captors and make a good trail for his uncles to follow if he ever got snatched again. They had to get him back first.

“Nothing,” Jiang Cheng said after a tense moment. “Ouyang Zizhen said he was screaming murder like he was being eaten alive.” The last came out in a small, worried voice.

“No blood,” Wei Wuxian said, though the lack of it was not really a comfort. It had been raining the day before, hadn’t it? When had it stopped? He thought it had still been drizzling a little when he’d gone into the inn late in the afternoon, and Jin Ling would have already been gone for hours by that time. He was being dragged away screaming murder while Wei Wuxian was eating greasy food and congratulating himself on having enough money for an inn with clean floors and wine that wouldn’t burn through his stomach.

Sizhui wouldn’t have known exactly where he was, though Wei Wuxian did his best to make sure Sizhui had a general idea of his whereabouts in case he needed something. It had been maybe five hours of hard flying straight from the inn to the crossroads, so if it had taken a few hours on top of that for Sizhui to find him, and presumably some time trying to find Jin Ling himself, then whoever - whatever - had Jin Ling could be half-way to the moon.

They doubled back to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, and then turned without discussion for the road. There was a village a short way up the hill. With an angry huff, Jiang Cheng unsheathed Sandu and stopped in the road, glaring at Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian just stared back incredulously.

“Well?” Jiang Cheng demanded after a minute had passed in awkward silence.

Jiang Cheng couldn’t possibly mean for them to fight right there! Even if Wei Wuxian had taken Jin Ling, what good would it do for Jiang Cheng to kill him in the road with no idea of where he was being held? Wei Wuxian wanted to call him an idiot for it, but he also didn’t want to fight about it at all, he wanted to find Jin Ling. Wei Wuxian put a hand on Chenqing, but Jiang Cheng just rolled his eyes and held out his left hand impatiently. The gesture startled the breath out of Wei Wuxian’s lungs when he realized what it meant.

"It's too slow to walk," Jiang Cheng said ungraciously, but his eyes went left and right and his sword hand moved unconsciously over his stomach.

Wei Wuxian rubbed the back of his neck. Even though Sizhui was so much his junior (depending on how one counted years, they might have been about the same age) and his adopted son, it hadn't felt awkward to be carried by him. Jiang Cheng though…

Sighing, Wei Wuxian took Jiang Cheng's hand, and they jumped up on Sandu together. Jiang Cheng pulled Wei Wuxian against his side to make him as manageable a package as possible, but his hand was fisted in Wei Wuxian’s robes like his grip was the only thing holding them both up. Wei Wuxian almost laughed, remembering how impressed he'd been when Lan Wangji had carried him and Su She together on Bichen. Back then, Lan Wangji had carried him by the scruff like he was a naughty kitten. Jiang Cheng glared ahead as if daring Wei Wuxian to say a single word to him.

Because Wei Wuxian never had been able to let a challenge go unanswered, he made a loud noise and asked, “Can’t you go faster?”

They were too close together for Jiang Cheng to give Wei Wuxian the full benefit of his glare, but he still turned his head with his teeth clenched tightly together. If they hadn’t been going after Jin Ling, Wei Wuxian thought it was very likely Jiang Cheng would have thrown him off right then. Without even meaning to, he clutched Jiang Cheng tighter, just in case. The last time he’d been thrown from a sword in flight, the Burial Mounds had reached up and grabbed him out of the air, and things had gone sideways afterwards.

“Hey, hey, I’m kidding!” Wei Wuxian said, but Jiang Cheng still dropped him the last six feet when they came to the village. Wei Wuxian thought it was only polite to stumble and run headlong into a fence post, since Jiang Cheng had gone through the effort and all.

Looking pleased with himself, Jiang Cheng descended with something like grace. People were already starting to gather, since they had been seen while they were still in the air. It was a small village of only maybe two dozen houses clustered around a pair of roads with a single crossroads. Being so far up a mountain not known for anything in particular, they probably didn’t get a lot of visitors.

“A cultivator has gone missing,” Jiang Cheng said with no preamble at all. He glared around at the gathered villagers, already cataloguing them in his head like they could possibly be suspects. “What has been happening on this mountain lately?”

No one answered him immediately. They shot him a lot of nervous or annoyed glances. It was still early enough in the day that not everyone had left for the fields, and there were a dozen or so men and younger people sprinkled in among the old folks and children. They had started to mutter amongst themselves - who did this guy think he was, just making demands like that? Just because he was a cultivator and wore fancy clothes, he thought he could order them around?

“Ah!” Wei Wuxian said, dusting himself off and strolling over to lean on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder. He patted at Jiang Cheng’s chest, which got him a nasty glare, and continued, “Sandu Sengshou didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. He’s a bear early in the mornings! See, the cultivator is our nephew, and we’re worried, you know?” Jiang Cheng pinched him hard, but Wei Wuxian didn’t budge.

Sympathy rippled around the gathered cloud. An old granny even reached out to pat Wei Wuxian’s arm.

“Lots of folks going missing on this mountain,” she said. She only had maybe three teeth left, but her smile was kind. “Just last night, the woodcutter’s boy gone.”

Jiang Cheng stopped subtly trying to pinch the life out of Wei Wuxian’s side and they exchanged worried looks. Most creatures didn’t take a new victim until they didn’t need the old one any more. They had to hope there was more than one monster, or maybe Jin Ling had managed to escape and that was why it had gone after another snack in the night.

They questioned the villagers more in depth, Wei Wuxian letting Jiang Cheng go so he could help the old granny to her chair in the shade. There were ten small villages on the mountain, and this one was neither the biggest nor the smallest. No one could even agree on a name for it, but there were a dozen stories of children, mothers, fathers, old men, and young women going missing. A lot of it had to be an exaggeration, or there would be no people for a hundred miles around with how many folks they claimed had gone missing.

Always at night, they said, some giant shadow would swoop down and then the person would be gone, screaming high up in the air. The sound of their screams always went higher up the mountain, and thunder followed them. According to the villagers, no one had ever been recovered, and theories ran the gamut from an angry mountain god to wild, flying dogs. Wei Wuxian really wouldn't be able to handle it if he found a wild flying dog. It was bad enough that they ran so fast on the ground, giving them wings just wouldn’t be fair.

Wei Wuxian frowned as he listened to another such story, this time a whole village just vanishing overnight. Jin Ling had been taken in the morning, surely, and from a group of cultivators. The juniors were young, but they were a promising bunch, and a few of them were quite strong, even considering their youth. Sizhui, Jin Ling, and Ouyang Zizhen were already on their way to fame.

“Thank you, granny,” Wei Wuxian said. He helped her peel an orange and handed her a section to suck on before turning the task back to the woman’s youngest granddaughter and meeting Jiang Cheng in the middle of the road again.

“Could have been a hungry ghost,” Jiang Cheng said as they turned to walk shoulder-to-shoulder.

“Sizhui said they found and suppressed one. Could there be more?”

Jiang Cheng hesitated. “It’s a small area for two hungry ghosts that strong.”

“Hmm,” Wei Wuxian agreed. He took Chenqing out and spun her idly between his fingers while he thought. It was unlikely that they were making up all the stories wholesale. All legends started from some kernel of truth, and there were too many people reporting missing loved ones, and not just that they knew someone who heard once that so-and-so’s husband’s great uncle saw something.

“What has that fool boy gotten into?” Jiang Cheng gritted out. He unsheathed Sandu again, and Wei Wuxian didn’t even hesitate to jump up alongside him.

~*~

They did find another hungry ghost, just not a very hungry one. It looked like it had been a young girl in life, but it was barely even corporeal and its voice sounded like it was very far away. She couldn’t have been dead very long, and Wei Wuxian doubted she’d had any victims yet. If they let her go about her business, in maybe a decade or so, someone would come to the mountain to hunt her.

Where was Lan Wangji with his guqin when they needed to talk to a muttering spirit, anyways? Wei Wuxian put a hand out to stop Jiang Cheng from suppressing her. He put Chenqing to his lips and ignored the way Jiang Cheng’s own lips narrowed down into a disapproving line that reminded Wei Wuxian a lot of Madam Yu.

Still, Jiang Cheng didn’t try to stop him, just huffed out a breath and spun away. Wei Wuxian played, but softly, just for her. She hadn’t even really noticed them before, but after the first couple notes, she turned to face them. Her head dropped down toward her shoulder and she opened and closed her mouth a few times. Very faintly, Wei Wuxian heard a click-click-click noise, the memory of teeth.

He didn’t want to stir up her resentful energy anymore than it already was, so he just plucked at the ragged edges of her form with the music, nudged her along, suggested to whatever passed for a mind in a hungry ghost to take them to someone hungry like her. There was still something on the mountain grabbing people, and most creatures didn’t grab people except to eat them in one way or another.

She made an unhappy gurgling noise and fought against him, but finally relented. They followed after her. She was most visible in shadow, but the sun was bright, and they often lost her when she moved out from under the trees. The only way Wei Wuxian still knew to follow her was the tickling pull on the back of his neck.

Without making her into a real monster, they had to follow at her pace, and she hadn’t been dead long enough to realize that she didn’t have to walk like a human anymore. She was also a weak spirit, and it was difficult to hold onto her attention span enough to keep her going in the right direction.

Still, his playing called other spirits, and Jiang Cheng was kept busy fighting them off.

“Even like this, you have to be a nuisance,” Jiang Cheng complained, flicking the lingering resentful energy off his blade. It spattered black on the ground and started smoking in the sunlight.

Wei Wuxian couldn’t stop playing or he’d lose the hungry ghost, so he manfully ignored the comment and continued up the path. She led them up some steep switchbacks, and then onto a plateau densely covered in pines. Once there, however, she stopped and gave Wei Wuxian a baleful look, refusing to go any further.

Not breaking the song, Wei Wuxian stepped sideways and nudged Jiang Cheng with one elbow. He nodded toward her, and Jiang Cheng stepped forward with a grunt to suppress her. Wei Wuxian was probably imagining her accustory shout, but it wasn’t his fault, really. He wanted to tell her that being a hungry ghost wasn’t any fun, and to hurry up and reincarnate into a better life.

“What good are you?” Jiang Cheng asked. “We wasted a lot of daylight and cleared out a few decades of haunts, and Jin Ling is still missing!”

“There’s something up here she was afraid of,” Wei Wuxian said, massaging his jaw. They had walked for hours, and it was harder to play soft and sweet and keep it so focused than it was to call up an army. He probably could have woken up every corpse and ghost on the whole mountain and not been as sore.

Jiang Cheng scoffed. “Hungry ghosts don’t fear anything.”

“Everything fears something,” Wei Wuxian told him softly, and then pointed toward the trees. The wind was picking up hard, and Wei Wuxian’s hair was whipping around his face like a flail, lashing at his cheeks.

They moved into the cover of the trees, but they had only gone maybe fifteen minutes before they heard a whistle. Wei Wuxian recognized the tune and sighed aloud. At his side, Jiang Cheng went tight with blossoming irritation, and sped up his steps.

Jin Ling was sitting with his back to them, tossing seeds up into the air and attempting to catch them in his mouth. He missed three, and stopped to whistle another few notes of one of Wei Wuxian’s own songs. If he’d put any power into at all, he’d probably have a few hungry spirits of his own crawling up to him.

“You little shit!” Jiang Cheng snapped.

The seeds went flying into the air and Jin Ling jumped about three miles straight up. He held his sword in front of him, still sheathed, as if it would be any impediment to Jiang Cheng’s wrath at all. Wei Wuxian tried very hard to school his expression into something stern and disapproving, but the quick succession of expressions marching across Jin Ling’s face - shock, fear, stubbornness, back to fear - was just too much, and he had to hide his face in his hand. Relief poured through him in waves that almost came out as laughter, but then Jiang Cheng would probably turn on him, and he didn’t want to die.

“I should break both of your legs!” Jiang Cheng shouted, grabbing Jin Ling by one arm and giving him a good shake. “Do you know you’re a sect leader? I had two dozen disciples following after me! They’re crawling all over this mountain by now looking for you, and probably as many Jin disciples too!”

“Uncle! I can explain!” Jin Ling tried, but didn’t get any further than that before Jiang Cheng was shaking him again.

“I'll teach you to explain!” Jiang Cheng roared, somewhat nonsensically, but the effect was carried if Jin Ling’s wide eyes were anything to go by.

Unable to hold back any longer, Wei Wuxian burst into laughter. Both of them turned on him at once with identical expressions of outrage. It made Wei Wuxian laugh even harder. Zidian snarled as it lashed out at the ground, and Wei Wuxian jumped, holding both hands up in surrender.

“Alright, alright!” he called, dancing out of range of the whip while Jin Ling shoved at his uncle’s arm.

“Don’t attack him, he didn’t do anything!” Jin Ling said.

“How are you taking his side?” Jiang Cheng demanded, going splotchy with anger.

“I’m not! You’re being a bully!” Jin Ling returned.

“Okay, okay, no one is taking my side!” Wei Wuxian said, interrupting them before they started fighting for real. “Jin Ling, where are you keeping the woodcutter’s boy?”

Mouth already opened to shout at Wei Wuxian, Jin Ling stopped. His expression twisted in confusion. “What woodcutter’s boy?”

“You must have him somewhere, so people would think there was still a monster up here kidnapping people,” Jiang Cheng prompted. “Where is he? If you took him from his village, I will string you up by your ankles and leave you there until your head pops up!”

“I didn’t!” Jin Ling said.

Wei Wuxian drew in a breath to speak, but a sudden explosion of noise sounded deeper in the trees. At once, they pulled together. Suihua and Sandu came out with twin chimes, and Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng stepped apart to put Wei Wuxian between them. Eyeing the trees distrustfully, Wei Wuxian put Chenqing back to his lips and waited.

Another great crash sounded - certainly the thunder the villagers had reported hearing - and somewhere the splintering crack of a tree coming down. With a roar, a troll burst into their clearing. It was twelve feet tall at least, face more closely resembling the rocky mountainside where it made its home, teeth like broken stones in its mouth. It bellowed at them so loudly that Wei Wuxian could feel the wind of its rancid breath.

Before Wei Wuxian could get a single note out, the troll abruptly stopped. It made a peculiar choking noise.

“Did it swallow a bug?” Jin Ling asked incredulously.

“More like a bird,” Jiang Cheng answered.

The troll groaned, and then toppled over dead.

For several long seconds, they all three just stared at it in dumb silence. Jiang Cheng turned to give Wei Wuxian a suspicious look, but Wei Wuxian just shrugged at him. He hadn’t done anything, he’d barely even got a breath in.

“Uncle…” Jin Ling prompted with the same suspiciously narrowed eyes.

“I didn’t!” Wei Wuxian insisted.

“It didn’t just die on its own!” Jiang Cheng snapped, rounding on him.

Wei Wuxian thought about letting them think he had somehow killed a mountain troll with the power of his thoughts alone, but he didn’t trust Jiang Cheng not to take that seriously and start some new crusade against him. He was only just starting to get to the point where he could give out his name in a new town and not get mobbed by angry townsfolk.

The decision was taken from him shortly in any event. The distinctive song of a sword being dropped into its sheath had them all turning back to the trees. Lan Wangji stepped out from the shadows like a ghost himself, dressed splendidly in blue and silver, with only the smallest touches of white at the collar and the detailing on the breast.

“Excellency!” Jin Ling stammered.

“Excellency,” Jiang Cheng said flatly, glaring at Wei Wuxian.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian chirped and enjoyed very much the look of utter disgust on Jiang Cheng’s face.

“Mmn,” was all Lan Wangji had to offer.

“That damn Sizhui!” Jin Ling exploded before he could catch himself. “He was supposed to keep Hanguan-jun away, not invite him over!”

Jiang Cheng cuffed him sharply, and he ducked, already complaining at the treatment, and didn’t Jiang Cheng think that was too much, striking another sect leader when their sects were in good standing?

“The day I can’t cuff my own stupid nephew is the day I will take YungmengJiang to war against you!” Jiang Cheng said. He lifted his hand again, but he didn’t take another swing and Jin Ling, who danced out of his reach anyways.

“The Jin sect would grind you into dust!” Jin Ling declared boldly.

Jiang Cheng’s eyes widened. Wei Wuxian hurried to put a hand on his arm. “Don’t kill him. He’s my favorite nephew.”

“I’m your only nephew,” Jin Ling reminded him somewhat peevishly.

“Maybe if you two are going to go around declaring war, you should do it out of His Excellency’s hearing?” Wei Wuxian asked with a laugh.

Jin Ling looked smug at the suggestion rather than rightly terrified. “That wouldn’t be enjoyable at all!”

Of course, once Lan Wangji had stepped into conversational distance, he was quick to give his bows and put himself behind his uncles. Wei Wuxian laughed at the color spilling hectic-hot across Jin Ling’s face as Lan Wangji observed him with what must be the expression he gave all the sect leaders when they came to him with their problems and petty disputes.

Slinging an arm over Jin Ling’s shoulders, Wei Wuxian tweaked the boy’s ear. “Oh, what fun we had together, right, Jiang Cheng?” He winked at Jiang Cheng, who gave Lan Wangji a sideways look before apparently deciding not to respond. Wei Wuxian patted Jin Ling on the shoulder. “You ever do anything like this again, and I’ll hold you down so your Uncle Cheng can do a good job breaking your legs, got it?”

“I only did it so you idiots would talk to each other,” Jin Ling muttered, but he ducked out from under Wei Wuxian’s arm and edged closer to Jiang Cheng.

“What a story they’ll make of this!” Wei Wuxian laughed. “A troll so big and powerful it took two sect leaders and the head cultivator to take it down!”

“And you,” Lan Wangji added.

“Ah, well, what did I do? Maybe I’ll be the one who writes the story about His Excellency sweeping in to save the defenseless Yiling Patriarch,” he suggested, peering at Lan Wangji sideways and laughing when he only nodded.

Making loud groaning noises as if they might fall over dead themselves, Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng retreated from them at once. Jiang Cheng had Jin Ling by the arm, but Jin Ling wasn’t fighting at all.

Jiang Cheng stopped a short ways into the trees and turned back to point at Wei Wuxian. “Come to dinner,” he said, but as if it were a threat instead of an invitation. Next to him, Jin Ling beamed.

Wei Wuxian stared at them both blankly. “What?”

“Don’t sneak through my territory like a thief anymore! Next time you come to Lotus Pier, come to dinner like a normal person and tell me you’re there to my face. Stop disrespecting me!”

As roughly as it had been delivered, Jiang Cheng’s cheeks were touched with pink as he stared Wei Wuxian down. Wei Wuxian had crept through Lotus Pier or the surrounding territory a few times since he’d taken to the road, following night hunts, and maybe, maybe, missing the taste of roasted lotus seeds and the floral scent of the lakes when the lotus were in bloom.

“I will,” Wei Wuxian said. What he didn’t say was that he thought he would never be allowed to walk upright into Lotus Pier again as long as Jiang Cheng was alive, and the notion was at once terrifying and filled him with smothering longing. Wei Wuxian didn’t trust himself to say anything other than that.

Glaring at him a moment longer just for good measure, Jiang Cheng turned away again. He could be heard lecturing Jin Ling halfway down the mountain, apparently intent on making him walk all the way back to Carp Tower.

“Lan Zhan, you saved me from an evil mountain troll.”

Lan Wangji hiked an eyebrow at him, but he was quick to reach out to catch him when Wei Wuxian fainted dramatically into his arms.

“You have to carry your damsel away now,” he prompted.

He didn’t have any right at all to be surprised, but he still was, just a little tiny bit, when Lan Wangji nodded and swept him up like a bride. Wei Wuxian laughed and squirmed to be put down, but Lan Wangji had decided on carrying him, and Wei Wuxian lacked every necessary kind of the strength it would take to get away.

Without even doing Wei Wuxian the courtesy of pretending to struggle with holding him, Lan Wangji carried him back through the trees, bypassing the massive body of the mountain troll. He did finally set Wei Wuxian down on his feet when they found Sizhui waiting somewhat sheepishly deeper in, a rawboned teenager sitting dazed at his side. Presumably, he was the woodcutter’s boy, and immensely lucky that Jin Ling had gotten his friends involved in such a ridiculous farce.

“A-Yuan!” Wei Wuxian said, putting both fists on his hips. “Who taught you this kind of mischief, hm?” When Sizhui only flushed and looked down, Wei Wuxian sighed longsufferingly. “Well, I guess you’re my kid anyways, huh? You’re lucky there really was a troll.”

Lan Wangji made a noise in the back of his throat and Sizhui flinched as though he'd been struck. He made a bow to Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, and then, more deeply, to the traumatized boy.

"Young Sir, please accept my deep apologies. If we had completed our investigation more thoroughly, you would not have been taken."

The boy looked up at him as though seeing through him. His mouth moved soundlessly.

"You will return him to his family and remain there for a span of three months," Lan Wangji said. "You will be helpful."

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian protested. "Three months?"

Lan Wangji met his eyes evenly. Wei Wuxian wasn't used to that immovable expression being turned on him anymore. He suddenly felt a lot of sympathy for those sect leaders trying to wheedle favors out of him.

Sizhui broke the tension by bowing again. "It is too lenient," he said.

"There will be more," Lan Wangji assured him. He turned away without another word, and Wei Wuxian slung an arm around Sizhui's shoulders.

"I'll work on him so you aren't copying lines until you're forty. Tell me you won't do it again."

Sizhui swallowed hard, but nodded. "I won't do it again."

Craning his neck to make sure Lan Wangji was out of immediate hearing range, he set his forehead against Sizhui's. "Thank you."

Sizhui sucked in a quick breath and pressed tight to Wuxian's side.

"Ah! Enough, let's get this poor boy home." He gave Sizhui a shake. "And get you settled in your new life chopping wood!"

#cql fic #the untamed #wangxian #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #jin ling #ladyshadowdrake writes

87 notes · View notes

real-espanadrid · 4 years

Text

Please Call Me Again

Pairings: wangxian, background xuanli, xiyao, chengqing

Tags: modern setting, college au, fluff, silly, mutual pining, no courtesy names, single dad/physics student wwx, music/literature student lwj

Summary: Lan Zhan prank calls Wei Ying pretending to be a scam caller. It’s supposed to be a one-time thing. (Spoiler alert: it isn’t.)

Author’s Note: i decided on a whim to delve into the world of cql fic-writing...here’s my first attempt! enjoy!

Lan Zhan glares at the figures of Nie Huaisang and Jin Zixuan blatantly laughing at him as he lifts his phone to his ear, furiously contemplating the pros and cons of committing homicide against the two people who he grudgingly accepts as his friends. While he waits for the person on the other end to pick up, he asks himself why he keeps accompanying his brother to these Lan-Jin-Nie family get-togethers when he knows Nie Huaisang always has some ridiculous scheme planned that both he and Jin Zixuan always, without fail, end up getting roped into.

This time, Nie Huaisang has apparently decided that today is a good day for prank calls. Jin Zixuan has already been dared to call Jiang Yanli using Jin Guangyao’s work phone, which Nie Huaisang had stolen while Jin Guangyao was greeting Lan Huan with the usual single-minded focus that characterizes all his interactions with Lan Zhan’s brother.

The task had been to pretend to be a volunteer with a generic charity organization, but Jiang Yanli, in a twist that wasn’t really a twist at all, considering the enormous crush she has on the man, had recognized Jin Zixuan’s voice immediately. Lan Zhan had been forced to watch Jin Zixuan stutter his way through an explanation while Jiang Yanli’s gentle laughter filtered through the phone’s speaker and Nie Huaisang smiled knowingly behind his ever-present hand-painted fan.

The intention behind the dare is obvious, in Jin Zixuan’s case, because he’s been pining after Jiang Yanli for months now and hasn’t done a thing about it, despite her equally evident interest in him. It does, however, make Lan Zhan a little concerned about whose phone number Nie Huaisang has made him dial, because for him, the end goal is less clear.

Lan Zhan isn’t given the chance to fully mull over his apprehension, though, because the phone finally stops ringing as someone picks up.

“Hello?” It’s the voice of a man, fairly young-sounding. He seems totally unfazed.

“Hello,” Lan Zhan says stiffly. “How are you today?”

“I’m great!” says the man brightly.

Lan Zhan blinks, taken aback by the unexpected enthusiasm of the reply. “...Good,” he says, unsure of what an appropriate response to that would be. “I am calling because – your IP address has been compromised.” Making up dialogue on the spot is horrible, he discovers. He fixes Nie Huaisang with a look that he hopes will haunt his friend’s dreams for the next few nights. “I will need you to – get in front of your computer so we can fix your account.” It feels unlikely, but maybe the man on the other end hasn’t noticed Lan Zhan’s hesitation as he fabricates a reason for his call.

“Okay!” the man agrees, still unsettlingly excited. Lan Zhan wonders who this man is and why Nie Huaisang thought Lan Zhan, of all people, should prank call him. “There’s one thing I’m wondering, though.”

“What?” Lan Zhan finds that he actually is somewhat curious.

The man laughs a bit. It’s a distractingly pleasant sound. “You really couldn’t think of a better lie? Like, my ‘IP address has been compromised.’ How, exactly, does an IP address become ‘compromised?’”

There’s a long pause following the question. Maybe the man is waiting for Lan Zhan to reply. If he is, he’s going to be disappointed, because Lan Zhan has no idea what to say to this. He suddenly feels a pang of sympathy for any real scam callers who have called this number before.

The man seems to realize he isn’t going to get a response because he cheerfully continues talking. “I was just wondering, that’s all!”

This is a logical point in the call to hang up. Lan Zhan has technically already carried out Nie Huaisang’s stupid dare – he’s impersonated a scam caller and spoken to this man for long enough. But for whatever reason, he hears himself speak again. “Why did you answer?”

It’s the man’s turn to fall silent. Lan Zhan lets himself feel a little smug at being able to leave this man speechless for a few moments. “What?” the man finally asks.

“If you knew this was not a legitimate call, then why did you answer?” Lan Zhan presses. He wants to know the answer, he realizes. He’s intrigued by this man, wants to know why he’s still talking to Lan Zhan despite believing he has possibly malicious intentions.

“Oh!” the man says, and he sounds a little awkward now. “I just thought I would, uh, you know, have some fun at your expense!”

Lan Zhan frowns in confusion. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Nie Huaisang and Jin Zixuan watching him with poorly-hidden amusement. “What expense? Talking is no expense to me.”

The man lets out a hum. “Well, you’re currently not accomplishing your goal.”

“My goal?” Lan Zhan asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Your goal of scamming Granny,” the man says matter-of-factly, like Lan Zhan should have already been aware that the number he called is not, in fact, the man’s number – and Lan Zhan is decidedly not disappointed about that – but his grandmother’s. “You’re not accomplishing that! I’d call that an expense.”

Lan Zhan can’t help himself – he improvises a new question. “Well, can I scam you?” Jin Zixuan’s eyes widen in surprise, and Nie Huaisang looks faintly impressed.

The man is silent once again. “Did you –” he breaks off, sounding bewildered, which for some reason feels like a victory.“Did you just ask if you can scam me?”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan confirms, and then just to be clear, he asks again. “Can I scam you?”

“Uh – um, sure, you can try,” the man says, and for the first time in this call, he sounds a little flustered.

Lan Zhan can’t believe that worked. He quickly cycles back to the start of the conversation and his original request. “You need to be in front of your computer.”

The man lets out a huff of laughter. “Yeah, that’s still a problem. I didn’t sleep last night and I’m eating tater tots right now and I don’t really feel like getting up.”

“Okay,” Lan Zhan says, and he isn’t sure what makes him do it, but he continues, “I will call you tomorrow morning, then.” Jin Zixuan and Nie Huaisang’s jaws both drop at that.

“I...I might not answer,” the man says after a moment of hesitation. Lan Zhan wonders if he came on a little too strong. “Granny definitely won’t.”

“You answered today,” Lan Zhan points out.

“Ahaha,” the man says, his laughter coming across as slightly nervous. “Touché?”

Lan Zhan nods, before he remembers the man can’t see him. “Mn. I will call you tomorrow. Get some sleep tonight. Have a good day.” He hangs up before he can hear the man’s response.

“Lan Zhan,” Nie Huaisang says the second Lan Zhan pockets his phone. “That was insane.”

“I completed the dare as you asked,” Lan Zhan says, perfectly aware that he went way beyond what was necessary, and that both Nie Huaisang and Jin Zixuan know it too.

“You are way too good at scam calling,” Jin Zixuan says in a vaguely accusatory way. “Who were you even talking to, anyway?”

At that, Nie Huaisang’s smile becomes a little more amused. “Well, since Lan Zhan is going to be calling him again tomorrow morning, why doesn’t he just ask then?”

“I do not intend to call him,” Lan Zhan says, even though lying is forbidden.

Nie Huaisang gives him a look that’s somehow both sympathetic and condescending. “Sure you don’t.”

Lan Zhan and Jin Zixuan eventually get back at Nie Huaisang later in the day by “accidentally” revealing to Jin Guangyao that they know where his work phone has disappeared to, but Lan Zhan doesn’t get his usual momentary satisfaction from watching Nie Huaisang unsuccessfully try to convince Nie Mingjue that he doesn’t know anything about the missing phone. Instead, his mind is stuck on a bright, cheerful voice and the sound of sweet laughter.

~~~

Wei Ying has been having a weird couple of days. On Wednesday, he experienced the high of finishing his solar spectroscopy lab two days early, which has never happened before in this entire semester. On Thursday, things quickly deteriorated when Wei Yuan threw a tantrum because he wanted to spend an extra ten minutes watching TV instead of going for his bath, and then got even worse when Wei Ying realized that in his eagerness to finish the lab early, he forgot to do his Quantum Field Theory problem set for the week and had to pull an emergency all-nighter.

Then yesterday, in his sleep-deprived state, he had a bizarre conversation with the strangest scam caller he’s ever interacted with – not that he’s interacted with many to begin with, but still – and now, here he is again, picking up Granny’s landline because somehow, the scam caller has made good on his promise to call again.

“Hello,” Mr. Scam Caller says, and his deep, calm voice is somehow even more attractive than it was yesterday.

“Mr. Scam Caller!” Wei Ying says happily, and he’s a little surprised by how genuine the emotion in his own voice is. “You called again! I wasn’t expecting you to actually do it.”

Mr. Scam Caller doesn’t say anything for a few moments. “I said I would,” he finally says.

Wei Ying can’t help laughing at that. “I guess you did.” Mr. Scam Caller is silent again, but that’s fine with Wei Ying – he can do enough talking for both of them. “I’m Wei Ying, by the way. Since you were good enough to call me back, I think you deserve my name, even though you’re trying to scam me.”

“You should not give out your name to random people,” Mr. Scam Caller says, like he doesn’t collect sensitive information from people for a living. “Especially scam callers.”

“Ah, but you’re not just any scam caller,” Wei Ying says. “You’re my scam caller. You even told me to get some sleep last night, and I did! I slept for almost five hours, aren’t you proud of me?” He wants the answer to be yes, he realizes as he asks, but he isn’t quite sure why.

“Mn,” Mr. Scam Caller says. There isn’t much inflection in his tone, but it’s clearly supposed to be a noise of agreement, and Wei Ying flushes.

“Ahahaha, Mr. Scam Caller,” he says, trying not to sound too affected by this very basic form of praise. “Don’t you think you should share your name with me too? It’s only fair since you already know mine, after all.”

Mr. Scam Caller is silent for so long that Wei Ying is about to take it back and laugh the request off, but then he speaks again. “Lan Zhan.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying repeats, testing out the name. It sounds familiar, somehow, but he can’t figure out why that is. “Lan Zhan! What a good name! I could say your name all day, Lan Zhan.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Ying is not prepared for hearing his name coming out of Lan Zhan’s mouth. “Do not joke.”

“I’m not joking, Lan Zhan, I promise!” Wei Ying says intently, holding up three fingers before remembering that Lan Zhan can’t see him. “Lan Zhan is a great name.”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan says. This ”Mn,” is different from the one before, Wei Ying thinks, more noncommittal, like he’s neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

There’s a lull in the conversation, and Wei Ying is suddenly desperate to keep it going. “So, Lan Zhan,” he says. “How are you going to try to scam me today?”

“You need to be in front of your computer,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Ying is startled by the brief flash of disappointment he feels that Lan Zhan didn’t just call simply to talk to him again. He brushes the thought away a second later – of course Lan Zhan only called because he’s a scam caller and it’s his job.

“Ah, Lan Zhan, I can’t,” Wei Ying says. “A-Yuan is using it to play games right now. How can I disturb him when he’s so clearly enjoying himself?”

“A-Yuan?” Lan Zhan asks.

Wei Ying grins. “My son!” he says, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice as he talks about the little boy who stole his heart the moment they met.

Lan Zhan is quiet for several long moments. “I see,” he finally says, sounding more stiff than he had before. “I will stop imposing on you, then.”

“Huh?” Wei Ying says, his smile vanishing. “What do you mean?”

“I have been disturbing you and your family,” Lan Zhan says, his voice still cold compared to how it had sounded previously. “I apologize for intruding on your time. Goodbye, Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan, wait!” Wei Ying blurts out. He holds his breath, straining his ears to hear whether Lan Zhan is still on the other end. When he hears the steady sound of breathing, he exhales shakily. “You aren’t intruding, Lan Zhan,” he explains in a rush. “You’ve been really great all two times I’ve talked to you, you know? And you didn’t have to look out for my sleep schedule but you did, and now you’re trying to protect me and my son from yourself, and I know you’re a scam caller, but I – I mean, talking to you is...nice?”

Lan Zhan stays quiet for a long time, and Wei Ying worries that he’s scared him off. “It is nice speaking to you as well, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says after several long moments that feel like forever to Wei Ying.

“Good,” Wei Ying says, and he truly has no idea why he’s so overwhelmingly relieved. “Good, then don’t hang up on me yet, Lan Zhan. You haven’t even tried to get any sensitive information from me!”

“Do you want me to try to get sensitive information from you?” Lan Zhan asks, which is an incredibly baffling question to hear from a scammer.

“Yes,” Wei Ying says, before he considers the question more carefully. “No? I don’t know, Lan Zhan, now you’re confusing me! What kind of scam caller makes their customer confused by asking odd questions instead of going on with their scamming?”

“I apologize,” Lan Zhan says. “I will refrain from asking confusing questions and focus on scamming you in the future.”

Wei Ying bursts into laughter. “Lan Zhan!” he says delightedly. “Has anyone ever told you how funny you are?”

“No,” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Ying can’t see his face but he imagines that Lan Zhan looks a bit puzzled, which is adorable. “People generally tell me I am not particularly funny.”

“They’re all wrong,” Wei Ying declares confidently. “You’re very funny, Lan Zhan! And a great conversation partner. Even while you’re in the middle of scamming someone.” Though, he belatedly notices, there have been very few attempts on Lan Zhan’s part to actually commit any kind of scam. “You’ll have to call me every day from now on, so you can have someone to remind you how funny you are!”

It sounds like Lan Zhan says something along the lines of “Mark your words,” but Wei Yuan suddenly runs into the living room, distracting Wei Ying. “Baba, Baba!” he says, practically vibrating with enthusiasm as he launches himself into Wei Ying’s arms.

Wei Ying manages to tuck the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he sweeps Wei Yuan onto his lap. “What’s the matter, kiddo?”

Lan Zhan makes an inquisitorial noise on the other end of the phone as Wei Yuan beams up at Wei Ying proudly. “I got the best, most highest score!” Wei Yuan reveals. “All by myself!”

“The best, most highest score?” Wei Ying repeats, grinning down at Wei Yuan. “That’s extremely impressive!” He’s speaking into the phone before he can think better of it. “Lan Zhan, did you hear? A-Yuan got the best, most highest score on his game all by himself, he must be even better than me now!”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan says. “Congratulations, A-Yuan. You did well.” He says it so solemnly that Wei Ying can’t help laughing again.

“Lan Zhan, you’re so serious,” he says playfully, before addressing Wei Yuan again. “A-Yuan, Lan Zhan said you did well.”

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Yuan asks, peering up at Wei Ying curiously. “Who?”

Wei Ying is on the verge of offering the phone to Wei Yuan when he belatedly realizes that Wen Qing probably wouldn’t be too thrilled if he let the son he adopted from her family speak to a scam caller, no matter how sweet and pleasant to talk to said scam caller is. “He’s my, uh, my phone call buddy,” Wei Ying explains hastily.

Wei Yuan nods. “Thank you, Phone Call-gege!” he says with a toothy smile.

“You made him smile, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying says, clutching his heart with the arm that isn’t keeping Wei Yuan in place on his lap. “How can you be so good? Even before meeting him, you already won him over.”

“I am glad I could make him happy,” Lan Zhan says in that unaffected voice of his. It makes Wei Ying want to do something to make him lose his composure.

“Do you want to make me happy too?” Wei Ying asks, and even though Wei Yuan is in the room, he lowers his voice enough for it to unmistakably be an attempt at flirting. “I can think of a few ways you could do that.”

Lan Zhan audibly inhales sharply, and Wei Ying mentally celebrates. “I...must go,” Lan Zhan says a second later, and Wei Ying’s mental celebration is halted in its tracks.

“Will you call tomorrow?” Wei Ying asks quickly, trying to stall him, trying to do anything he can to ensure he can talk to this strange, fascinating scam caller again. “After all, you didn’t manage to scam me yet.”

There’s a beat, before Lan Zhan speaks. “Mn,” he says, and Wei Ying can’t stop smiling. “I will call you tomorrow. Goodbye to you and A-Yuan.”

Like he did yesterday, Lan Zhan hangs up before Wei Ying has the chance to reply, but Wei Ying doesn’t care too much. He pulls Wei Yuan into a hug and sighs happily.

Wei Yuan looks at Wei Ying. “Baba is happy that Phone Call-gege will call him tomorrow?”

“Yeah, kiddo,” Wei Ying says, patting Wei Yuan’s back contentedly. “I am happy.”

~~~

Lan Zhan isn’t sure how things got to this point. He had called Wei Ying back the day after his prank call with the intention of explaining the truth – that he is not, in fact, a scam caller but simply a fourth-year music and literature student – but the conversation had gotten away from him and he missed his chance.

Now, a month later, having called Wei Ying every day since then, Lan Zhan wonders why, in all that time, he still hasn’t tried to correct Wei Ying’s perception of him. Maybe, he thinks, it has something to do with the fact that when he’s talking to Wei Ying, he’s helpless to do anything but go along with whatever conversation Wei Ying feels like having. He now knows that Wei Ying’s son, Wei Yuan, was adopted a year ago, and that Wei Ying lives with Wei Yuan’s grandmother and two cousins. He knows all about Wei Ying’s perfect sister – coincidentally, she turns out to be none other than Jiang Yanli – and his angry brother. And over the course of a month, Lan Zhan has somehow become Wei Ying’s scam caller, and the highlight of his day is always making that call.

Nie Huaisang and Jin Zixuan, traitors that they are, had decided that it would be a good idea to inform Lan Huan of Lan Zhan’s daily conversations with Wei Ying. Predictably, Lan Huan had been delighted to hear about Lan Zhan’s first real display of interest in another person, which is why Lan Zhan is currently in a coffee shop, listening to Lan Huan try to convince him for at least the tenth time to arrange a meeting in person with Wei Ying.

“Didi, you clearly like this Wei Ying quite a lot,” Lan Huan says reasonably. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to try meeting him in person. Imagine if I hadn’t gone to meet A-Yao when Mingjue-ge mentioned him for the first time.”

Lan Zhan graciously does not point out that, had Lan Huan not met Jin Guangyao, Lan Zhan would not have to wake up at odd hours to strange noises coming from the other bedroom in their shared apartment. “He has an obligation to his son,” he says instead, just like he always does every time they have this conversation. “I do not wish to pull him away from that duty by imposing my feelings.”

“You know Huaisang is friends with him,” Lan Huan points out. “Surely he would have told you by now if Wei Ying is not interested in pursuing any relationships.”

There’s nothing “sure” about anything when it comes to Nie Huaisang, Lan Zhan thinks, but he doesn’t say it out loud, not wanting to be rude to his brother who, ultimately, is only pushing the matter because he has Lan Zhan’s best interests at heart. “Regardless,” Lan Zhan says, “it is unnecessary to meet Wei Ying in person.”

The barista calls out their order, and Lan Zhan gets up to retrieve their drinks before Lan Huan can say anything else. As he’s making his way back to the table, though, drinks in hand, he’s stopped in his tracks by the appearance of a small weight clinging tightly to his leg. “Gege!” says the weight. It is, Lan Zhan finds when he looks down, a small boy, no older than three or four.

“Hello,” Lan Zhan says, trying not to let his panic show. As a rule, he tries to avoid interacting with children he doesn't know when their guardians aren’t present. “Where is your caretaker?”

“Baba is sitting over there with Auntie Qing and Angry Uncle!” the boy says, pointing to a table in the far corner of the shop.

Lan Zhan looks in the direction the boy is pointing and blinks a few times. Sitting at the table are two men Lan Zhan recognizes from Nie Huaisang's alternate friend group, the one he spends time with outside of Lan-Jin-Nie gatherings, and an unfamiliar woman who bears a slight resemblance to the boy still holding Lan Zhan's leg. “You must go back to your Baba,” Lan Zhan says carefully. “He will wonder where you went, otherwise.”

“But,” the boy says, a pout forming on his face, “Baba said that you were a very pretty gege and he wished he could talk to you.”

Lan Zhan wonders what kind of parent lets their child go off to talk to random strangers they find attractive. The last thing Lan Zhan wants is for this boy to start crying, though, so he nods. “I will accompany you back to your table. You should not worry your Baba by leaving him to talk to unknown people.”

The boy’s unhappy expression vanishes instantaneously, replaced by a bright smile. “Okay, Pretty-gege!” he agrees. “Come meet my Baba!”

Lan Zhan belatedly realizes he’s still holding the two cups of tea, but it’s too late to do anything about it, because he and the boy have already reached their destination.

“Baba!” the boy exclaims happily, climbing into the lap of the man who, presumably, is his father.

“A-Yuan!” the man says, sounding equally excited, and Lan Zhan freezes, both at the voice and the name. “Where did you run off to, huh, kiddo?”

“I found Pretty-gege for Baba,” A-Yuan says seriously, and his father looks at Lan Zhan for the first time. “Now Baba can talk to him.” Then, apparently deciding that his work is finished, A-Yuan promptly unlocks his father’s phone and starts playing a game.

Lan Zhan is still unable to move as he stares into the man’s sparkling grey eyes. “Wei Ying,” he says, because it feels like the only thing he can say.

The man – Wei Ying, Lan Zhan is certain it has to be him – gapes at him, his eyes widening in shock and what can only be recognition. “Lan Zhan?” Somehow, the sound of his own name rolling off Wei Ying’s tongue is even more appealing to Lan Zhan in person than it is over the phone. “You’re Huaisang’s gorgeous friend that I’ve been begging him to introduce me to for literally years? Huaisang is friends with a scam caller?”

The man sitting next to Wei Ying slams his hand against the table. “This is your stupid scam caller boyfriend?” he demands. “You haven’t shut up about wanting to meet him for weeks, and he was easily accessible in person this entire time?”

“A-Cheng,” the woman at the table reprimands, rolling her eyes as she lays a hand on the man’s arm. She shoots a pointed look at Wei Ying as she continues, “Relax. We already knew Wei Ying is an idiot.”

“He is not,” Lan Zhan says reflexively, somewhat irritated that these people are insulting Wei Ying for no discernible reason. “Wei Ying is very intelligent.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan, it’s okay,” Wei Ying says with a laugh, though his cheeks have turned a soft shade of pink. “Jiang Cheng and Qing-jie are just like that. I always say they’re the grumpiest couple in the world. It’s like they really were made for each other!”

“Shut the hell up,” Jiang Cheng says, making an aborted movement towards Wei Ying before apparently remembering the child in Wei Ying’s lap and settling for clenching his hand in a fist instead.

“Language,” Wei Ying says with a sunny smile. “A-Yuan is a growing little boy who doesn’t need to hear words like that.” He turns to Lan Zhan and his smile somehow grows even bigger. Lan Zhan is torn between looking away to avoid being blinded by its intensity and being absolutely transfixed by how lovely it looks on Wei Ying’s face. “But enough of that. Lan Zhan, I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you, and it turns out you’re actually the same person I wanted to get to know anyway!”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan says. “I recognized you as well, from Nie Huaisang’s friend group.”

Wei Ying looks momentarily annoyed. “I’ve been asking him to introduce you to me for so long.” The displeasure seems to pass a moment later, when Wei Ying beams up at Lan Zhan again, and Lan Zhan has to remember how to breathe. “Of course, I should have guessed that Lan Zhan would find a way to introduce himself to me first!”

“Wei Ying was the first to introduce himself,” Lan Zhan reminds him, recalling their second phone call.

“You have such a good memory, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying says with an almost dreamy sigh, his eyes shining. “I bet you remember all our phone calls.”

“He’s a scam caller,” the woman Wei Ying had addressed as Qing-jie – which means she must be Wen Qing, one of Wei Yuan’s cousins – interrupts. “It’s unlikely that he remembers everyone he calls, let alone what he says when he calls them.” She narrows her eyes at Lan Zhan. “So why, exactly, have you continued to call our home?”

“I am not a scam caller,” Lan Zhan says firmly, relieved to be telling the truth at last. “I am a student of music and literature.”

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, shaking his head. “What do you mean you’re not a scam caller? The first time you called the house, you were trying to scam Granny.”

“I was not,” Lan Zhan says. “I was dared to make a prank call, and you made assumptions.”

Everyone is silent for a moment, and the only sounds come from the background chatter in the cafe. Lan Zhan is reminded of his brother, who’s still waiting for his tea, and sends a silent apology to him in his mind. “A...prank call?” Wei Ying finally asks. “So you were never really trying to steal our sensitive information?”

Lan Zhan nods. “Mn. Nie Huaisang provided the dare and the number.”

“Of course it was him,” Wei Ying mutters, seemingly to himself. “When I get my hands on him...” He trails off, before a new thought appears to strike him. “But Lan Zhan, that means he did kind of introduce us to each other after all! If it weren’t for him, then who knows if we ever would have met each other?” He pauses, his head cocked to the side. “You know, I always thought you didn’t try very hard to scam me. I thought maybe it was because we were so close, but now it all makes sense!”

“We are close,” Lan Zhan feels the need to clarify. “If I were truly a scam caller, I would not have tried to scam you after speaking with you as we have been.”

Wei Ying’s entire face flushes as Jiang Cheng snorts and Wen Qing looks simultaneously exasperated and amused. “Lan Zhan! How can you say something like that so easily?”

“Lying is forbidden,” Lan Zhan says matter-of-factly, which doesn’t quite answer the question, but reveals enough of his reasoning to have Wei Ying burying his face in his hands with a moan.

The noise must distract Wei Yuan from his game, because he looks up at Wei Ying and asks, “Baba, okay?”

“Yeah, kiddo, I’m okay,” Wei Ying says, smiling reassuringly at the boy. “Lan-gege here was just saying some very sweet things.” It’s Lan Zhan’s turn to get flustered by the sudden nickname, his ears heating up as Wei Ying grins innocently at him.

“Pretty-gege is Phone Call-gege?” Wei Yuan asks, and Lan Zhan is mildly impressed that such a young child was able to piece together a conversation he was only half listening to. He nods, and Wei Yuan claps his hands happily. “Good! Baba likes Phone Call-gege and Pretty-gege and it would be hard to pick but now those geges are the same!” He looks at Lan Zhan intently. “Gege will stay with us?”

“A-Yuan,” Wei Ying says hurriedly, “you shouldn’t – ahaha, Lan Zhan, don’t take him too seriously, I’ll explain to him later –”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan cuts him off pointedly. “A-Yuan. I must return to my brother for now.” Both father and son look visibly deflated, so Lan Zhan takes a deep breath and continues. “But I would like to see you again.”

“O-oh,” Wei Ying says, looking both hopeful and more stunned than he really should. Really, how could he possibly think that Lan Zhan wouldn’t want to see him again? “Well, of course you can see us again! Just give us a call any time, you already have our number, after all.”

“I would like your cell phone number,” Lan Zhan says before he can chicken out. “For convenience.”

“Yes, of course!” We Ying squeaks. Lan Zhan can relate – he had no idea he had it in him to be so bold. Wei Ying holds out his phone with the “New Contact” screen open, and Lan Zhan saves his name as “My Scam Caller” before sending a text to himself. “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says breathlessly when he takes his phone back and sees the contact name. He stares at Lan Zhan with starry eyes. “You’re so funny. I like you so much.”

“I like you so much too,” Lan Zhan says automatically, and the corners of his mouth pull upward into a soft smile. Wei Ying gasps and smiles so radiantly that Lan Zhan doesn’t even care that they aren’t alone, that at least four sets of eyes are fixed on them right now – he’s under no illusion that his brother hasn’t been watching him this whole time.

They reluctantly say goodbye after Lan Zhan promises that he’ll meet Wei Ying and Wei Yuan tomorrow after his classes end. Lan Zhan feels light as he returns to his brother’s table, the tea in his hands completely cold by now.

Lan Huan smiles knowingly at him as he sits down. “So,” he says, “you were saying that meeting Wei Ying in person was unnecessary?”

Lan Zhan takes a sip of cold tea to avoid speaking, but he doesn’t need to – he knows that to his brother, his happiness level is at the point where he might as well be fully grinning. But he’s allowed to be this elated, he thinks. He’s allowed to not care about Nie Huaisang’s meddling or Lan Huan’s amused expression or Jiang Cheng’s attitude.

After all, he has Wei Ying’s number in his phone, a date planned for tomorrow, and a whole future together, just waiting for him to reach out and take it.

#wangxian #the untamed #writing

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somepinkthing · 5 years

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thirty four is a rough age when you’re a shitty sect leader

A/N: Basically a collection of post-canon NHS centric fics. My OC's pop up on occasion too! But the story can be read without worrying too much about them. Qinhe Nie is just free real estate given we do not know the name of a single disciple or servant so I needed to create some. This is part 1!

[LIST AND DESCRIPTION OF OC's FOR THOSE INTERESTED]

---

Huaisang found himself at a loss these days. He never really thought that the death of Jin Guangyao would fill the hole in his heart that his brother left, but he at least thought it would make his life a little easier. Foolishly, he’d believed that once his world stopped being constantly tinged red with rage that his life would become clearer. Like maybe life would seem a little clearer to him instead of this hazy fig. As if this one event would make his life less like a pathway crumbling rapidly behind him at a pace that left him scrambling forward. One month and a hundred hours of paperwork later and Huaisang suddenly was hit with a horrible realization.

“Oh shit. I actually have to start being a sect leader on my own now.”

---

“I’m surprised you’re actually willing to talk to me.”

Wei Wuxian smirked, downed another drink, and leaned beck with a sigh.

“Is there any reason I shouldn’t be willing to talk to you, Huaisang-xiong? Have you done something wrong?”

Nie Huaisang smiled that perpetually gentle looking smile of his and matched his drinking companion by downing his own cup like he was drinking water. An absurdly high alcohol tolerance was one of the perks that came with being a Nie and while Huaisang had fallen into the short end of the gene pool in all other areas, he somehow managed to inherit this particular trait.

“Don’t be like this, Wei-xiong. Is there any need for these games anymore?” he asked before pouring himself another drink and gulping it down just as fast as he had the last five.

Wei Wuxian copied the action. “No, probably not. I just figured you wouldn’t want it getting out is all.”

“Whether it gets out or not is out of my hands now, isn’t it? I just have to believe I’ve covered my tracks well enough. That’s all I can do at this point,” Huaisang said in a wry tone.

“That’s true.”

“Besides,” he continued, “As far as convincing you or the others at the temple anymore... well, there’s really very little chance of that, isn’t there? I can learn from the mistakes of my enemies, Wei-xiong. Some things you just have to let go. I’m afraid that no matter what I say, it won’t make any of you think any better or worse of me. That’s the way it is with these things, isn’t it?”

It occurred to Huaisang that perhaps he’d had a bit more than the six cups he’d thought he had and that maybe, just maybe, he was a little too tipsy to be entrusted with his own secrets. Still, nothing he’d said was untrue nor was any of it damning. It was just... what it was at this point.

Wei Wuxian hummed in agreement.

“So how’s the sect leader life?”

Huaisang raised one perfectly curated eyebrow. “Same as it has been for thirteen years?”

Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes.

“Now who’s playing games?”

Huaisang really didn’t want to get into this. He’d taken Wei Wuxian up on his invite more out of curiosity that anything else. The last thing he wanted was to admit to the man how much he truly sucked at running a sect.

Because he did. He sucked. Reason number one of many with the plan of “Just Kill Jin Guangyao And Go Back To Normal” was that, well, his normal sucked. Huaisang truly was awful at being a sect leader! He didn’t have the presence or brute force his brother had. He had taken classes in diplomacy but only went as far as had been expected out of the sickly second young master and the son of a courtesan to boot. When he’d first approached his brother’s sworn brothers for help, it had been out of sincerity. He’d had no idea about the truth that early on! He hadn’t been trying to get Jin Guangyao to underestimate him back then! He really was just bad at leading a sect! And, as it turned out, spending over a decade playing at incompetence didn’t make him any more competent at running a whole providence.

Apparently leading a sect involved more than playing deadly mind games, late night detective work, and honing your ability at espionage.

Apparently being perceptive and cunning and secretly good at managerial roles couldn’t totally make up for a lack of experience and leadership ability.

Apparently leaving most of his sect’s important affairs to Gusu Lan and Lanling Jin for the past decade in the attempt to gain their trust actually had consequences.

Apparently secretly plotting the death of your arch nemesis didn’t magically make you a respectable sect leader. Apparently it couldn’t make your presence more commanding, it couldn’t make your weak little arms and stronger, and it couldn’t make suddenly having no support any less daunting. Apparently relying on a man you intended to see dead was a bad long term plan for the continued success of your sect.

Go figure.

But like hell he was going to admit that to Wei Wuxian in the middle of a seedy bar in Caiyi.

“Why am I here, Wei-xiong?” he asked instead. An obvious change of topics but hopefully Wei Wuxuan had learned how to take a hint in the long years since they'd been children.

Wei Wuxian smiled that same blinding smile that had seemed so strong and comforting to Huaisang a lifetime ago.

“To drink, of course!”

Huaisang mildly wondered how Wei Wuxian managed to make inhabiting someone else’s body seem so seamless. Mo Xuanyu had been his own person with a his own lifestyle and his body reflected that.

Mo Xuanyu had been his own person....

And now he wasn’t.

Was that Huaisang’s fault? He certainly hadn’t tied the boy’s hands and forced him to do what he did. He hadn’t created the situation the boy was in. In fact, the information he’d provided Mo Xuanyu had been blatantly upfront about what he could expect to happen. Mo Xuanyu chose his fate knowing what it could cost. He'd wanted revenge with the same fervor Huaisang had. All Huaisang had done was suggest a possible option. That was fine, right?

As if. Huaisang was weak and cowardly and afraid to face his problems upfront, but he was also raised a Nie. He knew better than to try and deflect blame. He had made his choice, there was no point in sugarcoating the facts now. True, Mo Xuanyu had chosen his fate but Huaisang was the one who benefitted. He did not kill him nor had he either forced or coerced the boy's hand but he had knows what would happen when he'd approached the boy. He'd known that the decision would be, had seen the same hatred he saw every morning in the mirror burning in Mo Xuanyu's eyes. It's not as if murder and blackmail were the only crimes a person could commit (they were just the most heinous, right DaGe?).

“Huaisang-xiong~” a lilting voice called out to him, breaking through the shroud of guilt that he feared may have been all too visible for someone as sharp as Wei Wuxian.

“Huaisang-xiong, you’re really spacing out a lot today. Rough month? Can I offer you a drink in these trying times?”

Huaisang couldn’t help but laugh a little. With everything else in between them, he’d almost forgotten how easy it was to like Wei Wuxian.

“Don’t be like this, Wei-xiong. Don’t tease me about my suffering! As if a glass of wine could possibly solve all my problems,” Huaisang lamented dramatically, “Do you have any idea how much paperwork goes into being a sect leader? It’s one thing to see a stack but to fill it out? I haven’t slept in weeks! Weeks!”

“Ah yeah, I know what you mean. Lately Lan Zhan’s taken to sleeping at his desk filling out all that garbage.”

...since Zewu-jun is no longer in any condition to.

It probably wasn’t what Wei Wuxian had meant with that comment but it was certainly what Huaisang heard.

“Well I understand his pain,” Huaisang commiserated, swallowing down his bitter feelings surrounding the first jade with a swig of sweet wine, “Sometimes a desk is better than nothing.”

“But he doesn’t have nothing!” Wei Wuxian whined, taking another huge gulp, “He has a husband! A lonely, lonely husband who’s rotting away waiting for him in the jingshi!”

Upon finishing, he dramatically threw his head down into his arms and groaned at the counter. Instinctively, Huaisang brought his hand up to pat Wei Wuxian on the back.

Suddenly Huaisang had an inkling of why he was here.

“Wei-xiong, were you feeling lonely? So you invited me out?”

It was a notion so preposterously simple that it seemed almost unbelievable. And yet...

“Well, of course!” Wei Wuxian replied, “Why else would I have flagged you down on your visit? Do I seem like someone who just goes out drinking with everyone I see? I’ll tell you what, maybe that’s what I was like in my youth but I’m a married man now! I can’t just do things like wander off with anyone who catches my fancy anymore. I have my husband’s reputation to think of...”

His voice trailed at the end. Wei Wuxian was always the kind to be openly joyful but was as tight lipped as Lan Wangji when it came to his pain. But a childhood of living with his brother and a decade of learning Jin Guangyao’s tells had made Huaisang a little bit of an expert at reading in between the lines. Wei Wuxian was laughably expressive in comparison to that fox if one just learned where to look.

“I can’t imagine trying to marry into the Lan family,. How many rules is it now? 3000?”

“Over 4000,” Wei Wuxian moaned miserably, “Can you believe that? Are there even that many things to restrict?”

If there were, Huaisang couldn’t think of them. Then again, with rules like “no excessive sadness” he supposed it was easy enough to come up with 4000.

“If I’ve heard correctly, one of them is that no one is to speak to you?” Huaisang couldn’t help but to dig deeper, it was practically second nature at this point. And besides, he really just wanted to know how that worked. For all that he knew Lan Qiren to a proud and slightly ridiculous man, he was a bit flabbergasted when he heard of the most recent rule the Lan’s had chiseled onto that mountain.

“Hm, your information is as sharp as always, Huaisang. They barely put that up a week ago. How’d you hear of it so fast? Someone leak it to you?” Wei Wuxian was the kind of person that couldn’t help but dig either it seemed.

“Nothing like that!” Huaisang replied honestly, “I’m simply in correspondence with the disciples we send to the Cloud Recesses. Some of them I’ve known since they were children. They mention night hunting with you quite often so I was curious as to how that worked.”

Wei Wuxian laughed lightly. “It doesn’t really. The kids there are all really good kids and most of them are more used to answering to Zewu-jun or Lan Zhan more than they are to Lan-laoshi at this point. But they’ve been avoiding me a bit out of fear of punishment ever since the rule officially went onto the wall. Lan Zhan assures me that it’ll die down within a week and that he’ll see it removed from the wall soon.”

Wei Wuxian smiled fondly before catching himself and coughing while hiding his blush.

Interesting how admitting to want to bed a man didn’t embarrass him but admitting that he thought fondly of his husband was enough to send Wei Wuxian reaching for the wine.

“I didn’t even know that was possible,” Wei Wuxian continued after downing another glass, “I mean the rules are literally chiseled into the wall. But Lan Zhan said he’d do it so...”

Huaisang also doubted it was possible but he also remembered how easily Bichen had sliced through the thick stone walls of his ancestral tomb. He doubted the mountain face would fare any better against Lan Wangji’s fierce protectiveness.

“Still,” Huaisang said, “even with that new rule in effect, surely you didn’t need to hunt me down in order to have a drink? Wouldn’t someone else have been closer?”

And less dangerous? More trustworthy? A better candidate in general?

Wei Wuxian snorted.

“Huaisang-xiong, you may be overestimating me. Even I cannot afford to single out juniors to take out to drink. And Lan Zhan is great but he’s my husband! Some time apart is supposed to be... beneficial. And-and...”

Wei Wuxian shrugged, no longer interested in finishing his sentence it seemed. But Huaisang heard him loud and clear:

“And other than that, who else could I ask? Who else would be willing to even receive an invite from the Yiling Patriarch?”

Newly cleared as his name was, many cultivators still held onto their hate. Not an entirely unexpected reaction given all the damage and death dealt by one man alone but it would make it hard for Wei Wuxian to find willing friends his own age.

Huaisang wasn’t a fan of bloodshed or the rules of war, but he had been raised a Nie. Contrary to popular belief, he had some understanding of honor and duty (though he was well aware his actions hardly reflected that). That “conference” had been a war council. And even before that, the ambush at Qiongqi Pass had been as good as a declaration itself. You didn't attack a man during peacetime without the intention of starting something. So, for all the blood that was shed, Huaisang himself held no ill will towards Wei Wuxian. If you pick a fight then, win or lose, you better be ready to finish it--that was something his father had drilled into both his sons before passing. Huaisang had always taken that lesson to heart, it was why he didn’t pick any fights!

"Well. If that's all then let's go somewhere with nicer wine. I don't know how much more of this I can choke down. If we plan on drinking the night away let's go find wine that's drinkable."

"You don't seem to be having much of a problem."

"I just have an excellent poker face."

---

Somehow, they both woke up in The Unclean Realms in Huaisang's rooms.

"How did we get here?" Wei Wuxian asked, groggy and holding his throbbing head.

"Maybe we flew?" Huaisang answered thinly, still hiding his head under covers.

"Impossible. I can't fly and you can't carry me."

"Well," a rumbling, amused voice jutted into their conversation, "I can both fly and carry two drunkards. What do I win?"

"Fan HuaLan," Nie Huaisang sighed, "get lost...."

"Now is that any way to speak to your savior?" she asked.

"Is that any way to speak to your sect leader?" Huaisang shot back.

HuaLan barked out a loud, utterly grating laugh. "It is when you're the sect leader."

Huaisang groaned at the volume. HuaLan was a mysterious woman and, by nature, didn't say much... except with him. He took a second to mourn the days where she would salute him like a proper subordinate and didn't speak out of turn.

"You're fired and I'll have you stoned to death for this disrespect," Huaisang muttered into his pillow.

"Try it, trick-ass-bitch."

There was a noise outside.

"Huaisang?" ZiShen called in, voice slightly muted but still loud as hell drifting through the closed door, "Huaisang are you awake?!"

Suddenly the doors burst open and a veritable giant of a man bolted in, jumping right on Huaisang's bed illiciting a pained yelp from his sect leader.

"You should have seen yourself!" ZiShen said with a smile, "I don't think I've seen you that out of it in years! You threw up on JuDuo-daren! It was hilarious!"

Zhang ZiShen. As loud as the day Huaisang met him all those decades ago, when a better man ran the sect.

"Nie Huaisang, shut that guy up..." Wei Wuxian moaned.

"If I could, I would. Just ride it out."

"Hey everyone!" ZiShen called out the still open door.

Huaisang paled. "Zhang ZiShen, don't you dare! Shut your mouth!"

"THE SECT LEADER'S AWAKE!"

Huaisang never regretted The Unclean Realm's long, echoing hallways more than he did now. Not even when his brother used to roar down them about saber training or whatever else it was that Huaisang had recently skipped out on doing .... Huaisang took it as a small victory that the memory of his brother's booming voice brought more fondness than it did pain. He really was hungover.

A crescendo of loud, mostly annoyed voices started heading towards them almost immediately. Huaisang got up reluctantly. No point in going back to bed now. Might as well get on with his day.

"By the way," HuaLan stage whispered to him as soon as he found his footing, "who's your friend?"

"Wei Wuxian. The Yiling Patriarch. Better watch out."

HuaLan raised an eyebrow at Huaisang. A silent question. Huaisang shook his head. He was safe. Even Wei Wuxian wouldn't be bold enough to try anything within the halls of this fortress.

"Huh," HuaLan carried on with a smirk, turning to appraise their guest, "I thought he'd be taller."

Huaisang watched Wei Wuxian's groggy facial features immediately twist into afront.

"Wha-HEY! I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW THIS IS NOT MY ORIGINAL BODY. I WAS AS TALL AS LAN ZHAN!"

"Wei-xiong. Shut up."

---

"I'll tell Xichen-gege that you're doing well."

"I doubt he'd be interested."

Wei Wuxian smiled an actually genuine smile. The kind that Huaisang used to try and coax out of him in those months they'd had together.

"You don't just stop loving people once they hurt you, we'd all have an easier time if that were the case."

Suddenly, a lot of things made sense. The sudden invite. Wei Wuxian's abnormal friendliness. HuaLan knowing precisely where to find him. Wei Wuxian's silent observation during this morning's commotion despite it being just the type of chaos he usually revelled in.

"And you accuse me of being the sneaky one," Huaisang muttered without any malice. As far as sneaks getting into his home, this one he didn't mind so much.

Wei Wuxian only laughed.

"Tell Sect Leader Lan that I am doing fine. The Nie Sect isn't the type to fail just because of one man's incompetence."

"Let alone the fact that no one around here seems incompetent," Wei Wuxian said.

That caught Huaisang off guard. Was that... a genuine compliment? Aimed at him? Or at his disciples? Or a pointed comment? Unsure of how to take it, all he could do was stay silent and try not to gape.

Wei Wuxian didn't comment on the sudden silence. Instead, he looked off to where JuDuo was yelling at HuaLan who was obviously not listening. ZiShen stood off to the side, trying to listen in without drawing either of their ire. The younger disciples nervously flapped around, trying to get them to stop in vain. Huaisang figured they'd stop soon enough once GuanJia finally dragged himself over to the training field and drew all of JuDuo's ire and energy just with his presence.

"This is nice," Wei Wuxian muttered so softly that Huaisang almost didn't catch it.

It occured to Huaisang that perhaps, like any good lie, Wei Wuxian's ruse had held a bit of truth in it. Truly, who else would be willing to recieve an invite from the Yiling Patriarch? Who other than the Headshaker? And perhaps Huaisang felt for him, just a bit. He too knew the crushing feeling of that the empty, lonely hole left behind by those already passed and the sharp sting of having no one else to turn to.

......

......Huaisang shouldn't. This would be bad for his sect and awful for him. Wei Wuxian would report everything to his husband and there were things Huaisang definitely didn't want confirmed. This was a bad idea.

But then again, when was the last time he'd had a good idea? And when was the last time he'd made a decision without the fear of being found out? Was he to live like this until the end of his days? Was this fear and secrecy all that was left for him now that he'd killed his enemy? Was that to be the climax of his life, everything before building up to that moment and everything after consumed with recovering from it? Had Jin GuangYao stolen this from him as well?

"If it's nice," Huaisang said carefully, unsure, "then feel free to stop by more often."

Now it was Wei Wuxian's turn to be caught speechless. That was fine, Huaisang knew how to wait.

"I-I couldn't possibly intrude on the sanctity of your home, Sect Leader Nie," Wei Wuxian finally choked out with his signature it's-all-fine smile. So easy to see through, so transparent.

"Nonsense. If you hadn't noticed yet, there's no sanctity in this home anymore. Nor is there much worry about intruding. My subordinates are all vile beasts," Huaisang said, trying to keep as much affection out of his tone as possible. It wouldn't do for them to think he approved of nosiness, funny as it was.

"But they seem to like you," Huaisang continued, "and I could do with a drinking partner. All of them are lightweights except for ZiShen. And I value myself too much to drink with him."

Huaisang didn't consider himself an overly sentimental man (not anymore anyways) but the way Wei Wuxian's head snapped up, the way his eyes shone hopefully, made Huaisang feel warm. Like maybe he'd made the right choice for once.

#nie huaisang #wei wuxian #wei ying #yiling patriarch #yiling laozu #nhs #wwx #mdzs fic #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #founder of diabloism #gdc #my fic #my writing #oc

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autumnspritesworld · 6 years

Text

WangXian Week Day 1

Here’s my ficlet for the first day of @wangxianweek! There’s a happy fluffy ending I promise

firsts | longing | modern au

tell me there was worth, in all the ways that it would break

(read it on ao3)

before

Years have passed, and Lan WangJi still thinks of a dead man at night.

Wracked with equal amounts of self-loathing and bone-deep longing, he spends those dreadful hours between nine p.m. and five a.m. wishing, regretting, pondering, fantasizing. It’s nothing short of torture - but what could he do to avoid it? It’s not like there’s anyone awake in these hours for him to talk to, to try to keep his mind off of all these ghostly feelings. It’s not like he can decide not to retire to his bed at night, in favor of simply staying awake constantly; he may not sleep well, but he does sleep some, and although the nightmares still plague him regularly, he’d turn into a walking corpse within a week if he completely forewent sleep.

And it’s not like he can forget about Wei Ying, either. It’s not like he can simply find someone else to fill the gaping hole that the Yiling Patriarch left in Lan Wangji’s heart. No, Lan Wangji has long since made peace with the fact that he will likely die alone. It’s what he deserves - after all, Wei Ying had to die alone, as well. All because Lan WangJi failed to protect him.

At night, he replays all those critical moments in his mind, those points of no return, and he keeps himself awake thinking of what he could have done differently. Maybe if he hadn’t pressed Wei Ying so frantically to come back with him to the Cloud Recesses on the night Wen Chao died, Wei Ying would have ended up there of his own volition eventually. Maybe if he’d gotten to Wei Ying quicker on the day Jiang YanLi died, he would’ve been able to stop him from using that infernal Tiger Seal. Maybe if he’d hidden Wei Ying away better after he used it, if he hadn’t gone back to Gusu to accept his well-deserved torture, if he’d dodged his punishment just once in his life, he and Wei Ying could’ve made a life together, even as fugitives.

Some nights, he thinks of what he could have done, and he cries. When this happens, he doesn’t cry quietly - he always feels as if something, some beast made of grief and fury and regret, is trying to claw its way from between his ribs; deep, heaving sobs wrack his body for hours on end, and he is always powerless to stop it; he can only thank the gods that his jingshi is relatively secluded, and it is not likely anyone will hear him.

It’s mostly during those moments that he anticipates the moment when he will finally break. Because surely, life is not sustainable under such an emotional weight as the one that is slowly smothering his mind and heart. Sometimes, he thinks he comes close - he hasn’t a clue what it will be like to cave under the pressure at last, but whatever this caving consists of, he has come within a hair’s breadth of it. And every time, he has managed to stay sane - whether by some sort of primal self-preservation instinct, or simply by panicking, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he wants to break, to let his feelings, memories and wishes finally crush him, but sometimes he wonders if that’s where things are headed.

There are times when he functions just fine - during the day, mostly, when he has to stuff down the screaming beasts and ghosts inside him and hide them behind the stoic mask of the Second Jade of Lan. He thinks he must present a good front, because no one treats him as if anything is wrong. But he has no idea when he became such a good actor; because no matter how busy he is, how serene his face appears, he is constantly thinking of him.

His smile - the one he had when he was a boy of fifteen, long before war corrupted them all; his quick wit, enough to stun and infuriate elders from every Sect; his longing for justice, even when things were at their bleakest for him. His playful banter with little A-Yuan, his dedication to the remnants of the Wen Sect, his unshakable confidence that everything would be all right in the end.

His sculpted body as he stood in the cold springs beside Lan WangJi when they were teenagers; when Lan WangJi felt, for the first time, stirrings of desire for another. His long neck as his head tilted back, allowing a small, glistening drop of wine to roll down from his lips, tracing a heavenly path down the column of his throat that Lan WangJi yearned to follow with his own tongue. The way his lips had tasted, soft and tentative, uncertain and sweet against his own, that day on Phoenix Mountain when Lan WangJi had, regrettably, caved to his more primal impulses.

Lan WangJi thinks of these moments at night, and he imagines even more. He imagines Wei Ying being alive now, and he imagines him reciprocating Lan WangJi’s terrifying, all-encompassing feelings. He imagines Wei Ying pulling off his forehead ribbon again - this time with intent in his eyes, pressing his lips to the skin it covered the moment before. He imagines spending these long nights with the warm body of the only man he has ever loved by his side. And some nights, he fights the urge as long as he can, until his ache is so deep that all he can do is guiltily take himself in hand as he imagines himself repeating that stolen kiss in the field over and over and over - their kisses growing more heated, their hands and lips wandering, Wei Ying calling his name again in that infuriating, devastating way of his -

- and when he spills over his fist on those nights, he almost always snaps back to reality to find tears blurring his vision and fingers of ice gripping his heart. How sick can he be, thinking about a dead man this way? He’s unhealthy, he knows that. This is further proof - he cannot move on, he never will, he’s doomed to endure these lonely, sleepless nights until the inevitable night he finally breaks - whatever that may entail.

after

It’s been a long time since Lan WangJi has been back in his jingshi, so maybe that’s why he’s suddenly finding himself having trouble sleeping. He’s actually slept remarkably well these past few months, in comparison to the last decade of torturous solitude.

He’s almost happy to be awake now, though. His body associates this room with pain and restlessness - to be here with Wei Ying finally, finally by his side makes him think that, maybe, he can start patching those dark memories over with new ones.

The new memories will be of soft moonlight trailing in through the window, falling over a pale shoulder and long, elegant neck, glistening over inky black hair and illuminating the blessed rise and fall of his lover’s breath beneath the sheets. Recollections of moments where Lan WangJi came close to losing himself give way to ones of bite-marks and bruises blooming softly over Wei Ying’s skin, of the little sounds he lets out as he dreams, of the natural scent of him that Lan WangJi forgot about until it started suffusing whatever Mo Xuanyu’s own scent had been.

Lan WangJi shifts forward to wrap his arms around Wei Ying’s middle and to press his lips below his ear. Wei Ying stirs, heaving a sigh; soon enough, he turns around to blink blearily at Lan WangJi.

“Lan Zhan, you’re awake?” he rasps, his lips stretching in a yawn.

“Mn.” Lan WangJi tucks a strand of hair behind his beloved’s ear.

Wei Ying furrows his brow, making Lan WangJi’s heart melt a little more. “Why?”

The corners of Lan WangJi’s lips quirk upward. “I’m happy.”

“Happy about what?”

So many people would have been satisfied with HanGuang-Jun’s brief, curt answers, his unwillingness to speak more than necessary. To many, it makes him appear wise, powerful - sometimes more attractive, even.

How he’d missed Wei Ying’s refusal to take him at first glance, again and again. The incessant questions, sometimes meant to tease, sometimes from genuine curiosity, always out of love - they are what Lan WangJi has to look forward to now, every day for the rest of his life.

He leans forward and presses a lingering kiss to Wei Ying’s lips.

“Mmm,” Wei Ying hums when they break apart. A sleepy smile spreads lazily across his face, and his half-lidded eyes say more than all the words in his vocabulary probably ever could.

And this is where we complement each other, Lan WangJi thinks to himself, you challenge me to open up, and I’m the only one who can render you speechless.

Wei Ying shifts closer, tucking himself in where he fits perfectly, right under Lan WangJi’s chin. They twine their bodies together in the way they’ve become accustomed to, and Lan WangJi falls into a better slumber than he’s had in years.

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rosethornewrites · 3 years

Text

Wednesday’s T and G reading

I’ve reached page 1 of my to-read list on AO3. Once I’m done with this page, I’ll be going back to page 58 to repeat the backward-reading process, this time with all fics under 5k words. So future lists may be smaller.

Finished:

Tumblr:

LQR redemption for the creepy!JFM prompt, by @angstymdzsthoughts

Teen:

bunnies, by wearing_tearing

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, the papers will still be here in a few hours,” Wei Ying says and brushes a soft kiss to the hinge of Lan Wangji’s jaw. “Come spend time with your husband, Lan Er-gege. I miss you.”

Lan Wangji rarely finds within himself the strength to deny Wei Ying.

recovery, by wearing_tearing (third in a series)

The brand on Lan Wangji’s chest does not hurt anymore.

wherever the chaos is, by wearing_tearing (fourth in a series)

“But, Teacher Wei—”

“I believe in you! If you really need my help, I’ll come down from the tree, I promise.”

Lan Wangji does not regret his decision to let Wei Ying teach classes in the Cloud Recesses.

emperor’s smile, by wearing_tearing (fifth in a series)

“What are the conditions?” he asks, going back to the point. If he does not know the conditions, he will miss Wei Ying’s kisses.

That’s unacceptable.

Lan Wangji knows he does not have to, but he does not stop himself from grabbing a cup, filling it to the brim with Emperor’s Smile, and gulping it all down.

My Brother's Keeper - Vinegar, by ArchiveWriter (second in a series)

Jiang Cheng is angry and not quite sure what to do with it, so he as usual directs it at Wei Ying (for being stupid and crazy) and Lan Wangji (for being a stuck-up arrogant self-important snooty... well, the list is long, but mainly for being possessive of Wei Ying. Watching them from afar allows for silent fuming. Not to be taken too seriously - some Jiang Cheng soul-searching bound to result in self-conflict. Image a fly in a glass with no lid and still banging against all the glass walls... This is set post-canon, post 'Love Song', pre 'My Brother's Keeper - Most Treasured' and elaborates on what went on in Jiang Cheng's head when watching WWX and LWJ in the markets with them being oblivious. I had fun cramming as many adjectives as I could think of into this, so it's probably 'purple prose' :-) This might be a bit more light-hearted but I still can't see WWX and Jiang Cheng reconcile.

Though the Good and the Bad, by TheKrystalSakura

Wei Wuxian can’t sleep because intrusive thoughts keep plaguing his mind after all these years. Lan Wangji is there to listen to everything his husband has kept bottled up.

Right of First Approval, by AerinD

You know how "based on a true story"...isn't really? Five hundred years later, Jiang Cheng hates that phrase.

under the starlit sky, by b_ofdale

There have always been people who wanted to hurt him, learn from him, steal from him. . . but Lan Wangji?

Lan Wangji has only ever wanted to love him.

Practical Lessons in the Backhills, by Eliza (third in a series)

The Jiang motto is “Attempt the Impossible” but Wei Wuxian’s personal one is closer to “You don’t know until you try.”

Love Me Over Sunrise Tea, by Eliza (fourth in a series)

On the days they aren't on morning watch, Sizhui makes tea. Jingyi doesn't really like tea.

But for the World to See, by Eliza (fifth in a series)

Lan Wangji can't keep his hands off of Wei Ying.

Every Good Boy’s Dream, by Eliza (sixth in a series)

Temptation has never been a problem for Lan Xichen; he’s been giving in to it for years.

We Blossom in the Water, by Eliza (seventh in a series)

Jiang Yanli basks in the Yunmeng sun, her husband’s love, and a moment of freedom.

A Good Idea at the Time, by Eliza (eighth in a series)

Not every bad decision can be blamed on blood loss, but that doesn’t stop Wei Wuxian from trying.

Grief and Blame, Interwoven, by donutsweeper

Wangji's punishment was supposed to be severe, not fatal.

But since it was, Xichen needed to find a way to change that.

things that go honk in the night, by worldoshaking

Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi investigate a fearsome beast that has been terrorising the villages nearby. No one is quite sure what it looks like, but people live in fear of the sound of its honk and the patter of its webbed feet.

greens, by silverclaw

Wei Ying’s plants have been flourishing ever since Lan Zhan moved into the apartment next door. This causes more misunderstandings than one might expect.

The one I like…is you., by Liebing

The one I like has long dark hair, and a perfect smile, he is truly the handsomest Lan!” Wei Ying announced with his usual levels of endless enthusiasm.

Lan Zhan's shoulders dropped. That description had to be his brother. So Wei Ying liked his brother. He tried to ignore the heavy disappointed feeling as it washed over him. As much as he tried to ignore Wei Ying, he had to admit that the boy was irreversibly etched into his heart but it seemed the feeling wasn’t mutual.

someone i could save, by yuer (vintageblueskies)

Lan Wangji has nightmares of Wei Wuxian falling. It gets worse before it gets better.

Encounter - The Broad River, by ArchiveWriter (second in a series)

A meandering study of Lan Zhan's and Wen Yuan’s bond as Elder / Younger Brother during the years of LWJ’s grieving for WWX.

General:

family, by wearing_tearing (sixth in a series)

The warm bubble of happiness inside of Lan Wangji’s chest expands. The people he loves most in the world—his family—are here, around him, and even the day’s exhaustion could not dampen the joy he feels.

After an exhausting day, Lan Wangji has dinner with his family.

A Letter, Addressed to Sect Leader Jiang of Lotus Pier, by darth_meg

Jiang Cheng,

Please don't throw this away when you see who it’s from. There are many things I want to say, but I know I talk too much, so I think it’s best to write as few words as I can. I’ve rewritten this letter many times, crossing out what isn’t completely necessary. I hope you believe me.

Or, Wei Wuxian writes one letter to his brother.

Remedy, by abbymyg

Lan Wangji has been vomiting and with a fever all night, and Wei Wuxian hadn't slept at all.

Lan Qiren calls the doctor to treat his nephew and enters the Jingshi for the first time in years.

Where you ought to be, by Lucky_Moonly (second in a series)

Lans were Ravenclaws.

Which was why Lan Wangji wasn’t as stressed as the other first years as he awaited his sorting in one corner of the Great Hall.

Talk to Me, by MillenarianHappinessTheorem

Lan Huan hasn't spoken to his brother in three weeks. Maybe Jiang Cheng can give him some much-needed relationship advice.

dog days, by silversshadow (second in a series)

Yu ZiYuan will not allow weakness to hold back the Yunmeng Jiang sect.

Jiang Chengs dogs do not leave the Lotus Pier.

i need someone, by aurora_chiroptera

Jiang Cheng is worried about his brother. He thinks if Wei Wuxian marries someone respected from another sect, that he will be safer.

Wei Wuxian is not so sure.

From the prompt: “No one’s going to hurt you.”

Music Jams..., by Ladycroft4evr (third in a series)

It's a musical day at Cloud Recesses... we open with a WangXian music jam, followed by some family bonding over music for Wei WuXian and Sizhui... let's join Lan WangJi and enjoy a leisurely evening with their little family ❤

blinding, by acoostic

Lan Wangji grew up around snow. His hometown of Gusu was up north in the mountains.

The same can not be said of Wei Wuxian, who grew up in Lotus Pier, where the lakes and rivers kept the climate humid and relatively warm year round.

And you'll still be by my side, by hamlets_ghost (fourth in a series)

Nie Mingjue meets the young Lan Clan heir.

He also gets stuck in a tree.

Where His Heart Resides, by Preludian_Staves

He realizes belatedly two months after his marriage that his heart has finally found itself a new home.

Unfinished:

Rated T:

Another Letter, Addressed to Sect Leader Jiang of Lotus Pier, by darth_meg (second in a series)

Sect Leader Jiang,

I write to inform you of my intention to take Wei Ying as my husband and cultivation partner.

Or, Lan Wangji invites Jiang Cheng to discuss something.

The Red Ribbon, by NoMore_17

What if Mo XuanYu sacrifices his soul out of love instead of revenge?

#the untamed #untamed fanfiction #chen qing ling #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #cql

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