#when the rest of the cultivation world will appreciate wei ying

[boxoftheskyking]

Something Good, Part Twelve

I decided to end the chapter here for the moment because it got kind of long

Also there are only like 3 sets in this piece because we are on a BUDGET so everything happens in the laundry yard. Sorry take it up with the finance department

In which there is a Party (Also self-worth doesn’t come from rich people)

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven

Engagement celebrations are not traditional in Gusu, but they are in Qishan, and the husband’s family are responsible.

“So, basically, His Excellency is demanding the Lan Sect throw him a party,” Wei Wuxian says. “That sounds like Wen Ruohan.”

“Oh, yes, Wei Ying,” Wang Xiaolu teases, flicking water at him from where she’s kneeling on the paving stones. “You know everything about the noble houses! You are so worldly!”

“Aiyah, Lulu!” Wei Wuxian starts chasing after her with his broom.

“Children!” Madam Xiao shouts, wagging a gnarled finger at them.  “You will have plenty of time for nonsense once the celebration has come and gone. I may not know everything about the noble houses, but I will not be the housekeeper that lets dust collect on His Excellency’s hem.”

All of the disciples are practicing a demonstration for the honored guests, so their lessons stretch late into the evening. The little ones seem delighted to be in classes with their older cousins and siblings, taking their roles very seriously even though they’re mainly tasked with holding supplies and staying out of the way.

Wei Wuxian tries to steal time here and there to watch them practice, giving them giant smiles and exuberant applause for every skill performed. Lan Wangji stands next to him, and Wei Wuxian could swear he sees the corner of his mouth twitch. Every time it happens he cheers louder.

But the result of all the cleaning, cooking, and other preparations is that Wei Wuxian barely has any time with the children. He makes sure they’re fed, washed, and in bed by nine, but there’s very little play time. 

He’s hemming some new robes for the Sect Leader—he’s still quite proud of his new sewing skills, so he’d begged Lan Biming for the job—when Lan Wangji stops by the laundry yard.

“Wei Wuxian.”

“Hey, Master Lan! Check out these stitches. Have you seen anything straighter?”

Lan Wangji actually comes over to crouch next to Wei Wuxian where he’s spread out on the ground, carefully lifting the fabric and looking intently at the fresh hem.

“It is very fine work.”

“Thank you!”

Lan Wangji stays crouched next to him for a moment, saying nothing. Wei Wuxian carefully ties off his thread and folds up the robes before turning to him.

“Well?”

“Well?”

“Are you just visiting the laundry yard to get away from the preparations? I imagine Lan Qiren is as demanding as ever.”

“Uncle is— This is the first major event held at the Cloud Recesses since the ambush. The first under Lan Xichen’s leadership. Everyone is taking it very seriously.”

Wei Wuxian salutes him, the effect somewhat ruined by the way his trousers are riding up on his legs, his knobby knees sticking out.

“I wonder, if you have time, if you could take the junior disciples to the back hill for a while this afternoon.”

“To see the bunnies? Of course! Are they finished with rehearsal?”

“Uncle would like to continue working with everyone, but I think it would be best if the younger ones departed for a short while.”

“They need a break, huh?”

Lan Wangji nods.

“I’d be delighted! Just let me get these robes to Master Lin and I’ll be over.”

Lan Wangji is, as usual, correct. As soon as they leave the main compound, half of the kids go absolutely wild, running and screaming and rolling down the hill.

“Hey, watch it! You’re not wearing your play clothes today, and the Grandmaster will have all the hair off my head if you get grass stains on your nice robes!”

Lan Ting flops down into the grass. “Wei-qianbei, will you please cover me with rabbits? I am so tired and my brain is so confused, I just need to be covered with rabbits.”

Wei Wuxian laughs and straightens the boy’s robes over his legs. “Feifei, Yixian, come help me catch some rabbits to bury your cousin.”

He sits down in the midst of them all and lets himself enjoy the shift in energy. He likes the other servants quite a bit, and they like him more than they used to, but it’s nothing like being in this crowd of wild, chubby-cheeked troublemakers.

Lan Jingyi comes up behind him and leans against his shoulder. “I miss you, Wei-qianbei,” he says and he tucks his arms around Wei Wuxian’s neck.

“Ah, Jingyi, I still see you every day.”

“But not all of the day.”

“No, because I have work to do. Don’t you want to be proud of the Cloud Recesses when all the other clans come to visit? It must be sparkling clean! It should be as shining in the sun as if a fresh layer of snow has fallen over the whole mountain!”

“But you’re my Wei-qianbei, and I need you to play with me.” 

Wei Wuxian hauls him over into his lap. “How about a nice cuddle now instead?”

“Okay. Can you cuddle me and I cuddle a rabbit?”

“Yes, of course.”

All in all, it’s the nicest day he’s had all week.

The day before the other sects are to arrive, Lan Wangji comes back to find him in the laundry yard where he’s wolfing down dinner, grateful for ten minutes of quiet. It’s going to rain, which makes him rather resent the time he’d spent mopping down the entry stairs. Half of his hair is falling out of his topknot and whipping around his face, getting into his bowl, striping chilli oil across his cheek.

It seems unreal that the day is almost upon them. He has been carefully not thinking about what will happen when the sects begin arriving, trying to keep his thoughts blank and focus on cleaning this stone, chopping this turnip, carrying this child. Nothing beyond.

“Wei Wuxian.”

“There’s no one else here,” he says, with his mouth full.

“Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan.”

Surprisingly, Lan Wangji comes over and sits next to him on the bench. He’s warm, noticeably so in the chill. On a normal day, he thinks that would hold his attention; he’d be hyper aware of the solidness of Lan Wangji’s shoulder, how he warms Wei Wuxian’s arm down to the elbow. But today his mind is empty, wind whistling through.

“Wei Ying. Tomorrow the sects arrive. It will not be the largest gathering, but all of the leaders will attend. That means Wen Ruohan. And also Jiang Wanyin.”

Wei Wuxian shoves in another mouthful, nodding.

“Are you—” Lan Wangji sighs, frustrated. Wei Wuxian chews and lets him think.

“Is there an assignment,” Lan Wangji says, slowly, “that would make the next few days easier for you?”

Wei Wuxian swallows, wipes his mouth. “How do you mean?”

Lan Wangji glares, slightly. “It will be best for everyone if you are out of the way of Wen Ruohan, to avoid any unnecessary disruption. But if you’d like to see Jiang Wanyin, you could—I don’t know—tidy the guest rooms where he is staying.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“If I want to see him. If I can see him.” Wei Wuxian puts down his bowl. “Is— Do you know if my sister . . .”

“I don’t. I haven’t heard who is attending.”

Wei Wuxian nods, looks up at the sky. It starts to rain, spitting down on him.

“I will instruct Lin Biming to assign you wherever is easiest,” Lan Wangji says.

“Probably best if I keep out of the way, don’t you think?” Wei Wuxian closes his eyes against the rain. When he opens them, Lan Wangji is gone.

---

He ends up on dish duty, which is fine. He’s only crossed paths with visiting servants so far, and most of them don’t give him a second glance. 

He’s clearing the tea service from a private meeting room when he sees Jiang Cheng. Wei Wuxian is inside, and his brother walks by the open door. He’s in his customary purple, but with a golden sash which seems to pay homage to Lanling Jin. Wei Wuxian sets his tray down silently and moves to the door, watching him as he turns into another pavilion.

He seems thinner than Wei Wuxian remembers, his jaw possibly sharper. My, Jiang Cheng, is Shijie not feeding you?

When he’s out of sight, Wei Wuxian sinks down onto his heels, leaning against the wall with his arms wrapped around his knees. I thought I’d feel it, he thinks to himself, trying to drown out the buzzing in his ears. Shouldn’t I be able to feel it when he’s near? Shouldn’t he feel me?

But he doesn’t rise, chase after him, call his name. He breathes until his hands quit shaking, then he gathers up the tea tray and goes back to the kitchens.

He manages to stay safely out of the way for the first two days, but on the third he decides to risk discovery to watch the children perform their demonstration. He sneaks in the back of the crowd, head tucked down and hands occupied with the small kettle of tea that is his excuse for being there in the first place. He can’t quite relax without being in danger of burning himself, but it’s helpful to remain alert.

Wen Qing is seated near Wen Ruohan, shimmering gold headpiece and even more intricately embroidered robes than usual. Jiang Cheng is at the side of the room farthest away from the door, seated with Jin Zixuan and Jin Guangshan. Jin Guangshan leans over and says something to him, and a polite smile flashes across his face. It looks unnatural. Wei Wuxian shifts so that he’s blocked by another servant. Yanli is not there.

Wen Qing looks around as the disciples enter and catches his eye. She’s made up in a way he’s never seen before, looking more like a delicate flower than the solid oak he knows her to be. She gives him a little smile before turning back to watch the children.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t honestly pay a lot of attention to the demonstration. It’s not that it hurts, he tells himself, to watch young people reveling in their spiritual power, tossing it around like it’s nothing, like it’s never-ending. It’s just that he’d rather watch his children, see who stands properly still, who’s fidgeting, who misses their cue and has to scramble across the stage. Normally he’d cheer and whoop and shout out each name, but he just claps politely and grins at the ones who spot him.

After the demonstration, it’s time to serve more tea. He tries to be clever and serve some low ranking member of a minor sect who may not recognize him, but he gets turned around in the shuffle and ends up standing beside Wen Chao. After the first pour he doesn’t look up, but Wei Wuxian feels himself begin to sweat, like an animal stuck inside a trap in the moment before the net pulls tight. They’ll need to pour at least three more cups to cover all of the toasts.

The first toast, proposed by Wen Ruohan, is dedicated to the hosts in Gusu Lan. The second—Wei Wuxian’s hands only shake a bit as he pours—goes to the happy couple, Lan Wangji and Wen Qing. Lan Wangji has taken his place with the other members of his sect following the demonstration, so all eyes scan across the room between him and Wen Qing. Wei Wuxian braces himself, but their gazes just slide over him.

For the next toast, Jin Guangshan speaks up.

“Honored sects, it is Lanling Jin’s great happiness to announce the engagement of my son and heir, Jin Zixuan, and the sister of our loyal ally, Jiang Wanyin. The wedding will take place in one year, and will bind Lanling Jin and Yunmeng Jiang together in the bonds of family.”

He nods to Jiang Cheng, who straightens. “Yunmeng Jiang is honored to join with Lanling Jin, and my sister is blessed with a fine husband-to-be.” He looks around, awkwardly, then finishes with “We are very happy.” He even smiles.

The handle of the kettle creaks in Wei Wuxian’s grip. How dare he, he thinks. They won’t even say her name, like she’s just an object, or an animal changing ownership. Like she’s a treaty to be signed.

He pours the last cup, and his hands shake, sloshing tea over the side.

“Aiyah, you fool!” Wen Chao yells. He yanks back his sleeve and glares up at him. So does everyone else.

Wei Wuxian freezes and stares down at the ground, hoping they just see the grey uniform and topknot, no one worth noticing.

“Wei Wuxian,” Wen Chao says at top volume, anger transforming into delight in an instant. “Of course it would be you. Look, this demon tried to burn me.”

The room explodes into noise, murmurs and scoffs and whispers and even a few bursts of laughter. Wei Wuxian can’t help himself, he looks up directly at Jiang Cheng. His brother’s eyes are fiery, jaw clenched and hand on the hilt of his sword. For a moment the rest of the room fades away and Wei Wuxian almost speaks, almost says his name. Jiang Cheng looks away.

Wei Wuxian feels an insistent hand on his elbow and lets himself be tugged backward.

“Come on, Wei Ying,” Lin Biming says in his ear. “Give the kettle to Xiaolu and go.”

The kettle is gone—he doesn’t notice it happening, just the sudden absence of weight, and then suddenly he is outside under grey sky with his hands pressed hard against his middle. He doesn’t realize he’s not alone until he feels hands on his shoulders.

“That’s it, breathe. You’re all right, boy, just breathe.” Lin Biming tugs him gently down the walkway until the uproar from inside fades into nothing more than rising and falling tones.

“Sorry,” Wei Wuxian forces out, all air.

“No, don’t worry. It’s all right.”

“I just wanted to see . . . I wanted to . . .”

“I know, it’s all right. I should have protected you.”

Wei Wuxian looks up, startled. Lin Biming’s red face is all concern, and though his features aren’t the same, he looks so much like Uncle Jiang it’s difficult not to lean in and rest his cheek against the man’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to—”

“That’s my job, to protect you all.”

Wei Wuxian gives in and hugs him, earning a small grunt of surprise. It’s like hugging a tree trunk, but eventually he feels a gentle pat in the center of his back. Despite everything, it does actually make him feel better.

Lin Biming leaves, flustered, and Wei Wuxian wanders somewhat aimlessly back to the kitchen. He feels naked, like he’s been stripped in the middle of Caiyi Town, left standing on his own with nothing between him and the wind.

Time passes, somehow. People move around him, shifting him gently into a corner so they can clean the dishes, start preparing dinner. A few folks pat his cheek, tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, squeeze his shoulder. Part of him—most of him—feels it like embers inside him, like something that will become a warm and comforting fire when he can pull the lid off and expose it to air. 

Dinner is served without him. He stays in the laundry yard, grateful to find a torn bedsheet on the line that’s been left for later. He stitches as the sun goes down, slow, deliberate, each stitch exact in length and straightness. It’s almost becoming hard to see when Wen Qing finds him.

“Jiang Wanyin asked me if I knew where you were,” she says, evenly.

Wei Wuxian tucks the needle into the fabric and joins her where she’s leaning against the stone wall.

“To make sure I stay out of sight, I suppose. Out of trouble.”

“He wants to see you.”

“What are you doing, talking to strange men at your own engagement party? Have some shame, Lady Wen.”

“Wei Ying.”

He turns and rests his forehead on her shoulder. “I can’t. I can’t see him. I can’t.”

“How long has it been?”

“He was at the trial. I can’t face him after that. You don’t know what it’s like, watching him just sit there—”

“Watching the people who are supposed to be my family sit in silence while Wen Ruohan decides my future for me, separates me from my brother and everyone I know to fill a role I never wanted and don’t belong in? Clearly I have no idea what that is like.”

Wei Wuxian groans. “I know. I know. I just can’t. The way he sat there and talked about Shijie, like she’s nothing. I expect it from Wen Ruohan, not from Jiang Cheng. Before— When we were together he hated Jin Zixuan as much as I did. Now, he announces their engagement and he smiles? Truly, anyone can be bought.” 

“He does what he has to do.”

“So do you, but you don’t smile about it.”

Wen Qing shoves him off her shoulder. “I’m clearly not performing as well as I thought. Wei Ying, you have to understand. Wanyin and Yanli had nothing when the Jins took them in. Jiang Wanyin approves of Jin Zixuan because he protects her.”

“He doesn’t protect her. Jin Guangshan and his money protect her.”

“He protects her from Jin Guangshan.”

It takes a moment to hit him, then he hits the wall. He doesn’t notice he’s done it until the skin on his knuckle splits.

“Fuck!” he punches again, smearing a line of blood across the stone. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” As he strikes again and again, a thin stream of black smoke emerges from between his fingers.

Wen Qing grabs his arms. “Stop it!”

“Fuck!” he shouts again, fighting her. But he’s not strong enough; he couldn’t overpower her if he wanted to. Not without Chenqing, not without summoning more than he can handle. “Fucking useless,” he breathes, dropping his forehead against the wall, hard.

“It’s all right. She’s under Jin Zixuan’s protection, no one will touch her.”

He whirls on her. “What about those that aren’t? Would I be protected in Lanling? Someone like me?”

“You’re not really Jin Guangshan’s taste.”

“Wen Qing.”

“There’s nothing to be done. Someday Jin Zixuan will take over and things will be better.”

“That’s not good enough. I hate this. I hate this. I didn’t know it would be like this. I never thought the power mattered, but to just sit and watch— ”

“I know.”

“You don’t.”

“Wei Ying, what’s my fucking name? Of course I know what it’s like to be powerless, to sit and watch. But we don’t sacrifice ourselves if there’s no chance of success. We don’t waste our lives on battles we can’t win.”

“Fuck.”

“Calm down, all right? Sit down, come on.”

Wei Wuxian leans against her side and breathes, eyes closed. Lifts one hand on an inhale, breathes out, pushing away. I am glad for . . . I am grateful for . . . I have . . . I . . .

It takes a few minutes, but his heart rate slows, the red recedes from the corners of his vision. His hands are clear, no black smoke.

“It’s not fair.”

“I know.”

“She shouldn’t have to marry him just for that. That shouldn’t be enough.”

“Everyone pays for protection, Wei Ying. Even you.”

“You mean serving the Lans? That’s not payment.”

“Not people. Are you saying there wasn’t a cost? For feeling powerful again, feeling whole?”

Wei Wuxian nods. “It never felt whole. It just wasn’t empty.”

Wen Qing pulls a jar of salve and roll of bandages out of her bag and starts treating his hand.

“Even in your engagement robes, you’re always ready.”

“Wen Ruohan can make me what he wants on the outside, he has no power over anything else.”

Wei Wuxian grins at her, then hisses at the sting. “Ah, Wen Qing, it may not be your first choice, but I am so glad you are here. And that if you have to marry someone you don’t want to, it’s someone in Cloud Recesses.”

Wen Qing ties off the bandage but keeps a hold of his hand. “It could be worse.”

Wei Wuxian gasps in mock indignation. “You’re marrying Lan Wangji, and that’s the best you’ve got? It could be worse?”

Wen Qing rolls her eyes, but stays with him and watches the shadows lengthen. 

“I need to go back,” she says finally, rising and brushing off her robes. “Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen will be playing music tonight. You’ll be able to hear from outside. It may do you some good.”

“I do miss music,” he says, walking her to the entryway. “I really could play. Remember? Those weeks we were together, you’d work and I would play?”

“You’ll play again.” She gives him half a smile and leaves. 

He goes back to his torn sheet, folding it neatly until he begins to hear a guqin—faint, but pure, calling him out of the yard, pulling him along like a tide.

Part Thirteen

[wangxianficrecs]

Follower Recs

~*~

Have you come across a fic on ao3 called All The Dark Places by SheSailsBelow? (Pretty sure they have a blog @she-sails-below​ here on tumblr too o.o) i came across it not too long ago it’s one of the most unique and darkly poetic dystopian/apocalyptic fics ive read in a long time. It even has reincarnation, past lives, and soulmate tropes, and it really is amazing so far. it just made me sad that the author doesnt have much exposure for it yet so i wondered if you could post something about it. Thanks!

All The Dark Places

by SheSailsBelow (M, 18k, wangxian, WIP)

Summary:  In a world where the earth is barren and dead, dreaming is illegal, bodies are fragile and the Wens reign supreme, Wei Wuxian meets his soulmate. The consequences are deadly.

The body may forget, but the soul will always remember.

~*~

for follower recs, i am going FERAL about stiltonbasket's flowers in the palace series! basically, lesbians wangxian are both consorts in emperor nie mingjue's harem (no wangxian/nmj here, he's hopelessly in love with his empress lan xichen) and there's political intrigue and boss ladies!

Flowers in the Palace

by stiltonbasket (T, 9k, wangxian, nielan, xuanli, jiang siblings, series in progress)

Summary:  In which Nie Mingjue is the son of heaven, Lan Xichen is his beloved Empress, and his harem is full of hopeless lesbians. Imperial AU!

~*~

Hey Mojo, just wanted to drop by to tell you how much I appreciate everything you do for us and this fandom, and to leave a rec! It’s “Unavoidable” by diamondbruise on AO3. I just finished it this morning and I loved it (which means that I cried lmao)! It’s a post-canon amnesia fic! If you already recced this, ignore this message lol I’m not always sure what has already been recced and what hasn’t ^^ Have a nice day! ~ @rainbowsamidstclouds

Unavoidable

by diamondbruise (T, 19k, wangxian)

Summary: Lan Wangji, generally speaking, did not make note of people. Of course there were exceptions, once faced with special kindness or distaste, but most often others left an imprint so light that it would fade from his mind in only a few days, if not minutes.

He didn’t feel right in his skin for the rest of the day after meeting Wei Wuxian.

or, lwj cannot remember wwx

~*~

Hi mojo, can I suggest “Three Changes” by orange_crushed for when the next recommendations post happens? It’s a sweet Cloud Recesses summer based story and it really captured my heart reading it. ❤️ ~ @dulachodladh

Three changes.

by orange_crushed (M, 19k, wangxian)

Summary: Wangji risks a glance across the aisle; Wei Ying’s gaze is tilted down to his book, a model of diligence. But he’s smiling as he writes, and when his eyes flick over to Wangji’s, just for a second, they’re alight with something beautiful.

This is love, Wangji realizes, right then. This is what it feels like. It's happening afresh even as it dawns on him.

He copies the next line wrong, and the next.

~*~

Fic rec! I laughed so hard when I read this that I cried. It just keeps getting better with every paragraph, and I can feel the characters reactions to lwj's words in my soul. It has everything a crack fic needs: canon fix-it, lwj adopting a-yuan, public declarations, babies! Many babies, all the babies; there's also an hilarious jc cameo. ~ @evadingreallife

Taking Responsibility

by deliciousblizzardshark

T, 6k, wangxian, my bookmark

Summary: When Lan Wangji falsely claims, in front of the entire cultivation world, that he impregnated Wei Wuxian in his dreams and is the father of A-Yuan, he’s not prepared for the consequences of his actions.

[qinghe-s]

After the third bow, after finally having their lives put properly in place — here, in the mountains of Gusu where it matters, if not in the wider set of the world — after having whispered husband against a warm mouth until sleep had claimed him, Lan Wangji finds every reason he can to say it again.

He goes to Caiyi and speaks to shopkeepers for the opportunity to say it’s for my husband. My husband will appreciate this. They are my husband’s favourite. Wrap it, please, it is a gift for my husband.

It causes gossip, he knows, but this is the sort of gossip he doesn’t mind. Each repetition is one less Yiling Laozu, one more Hanguang-jun’s husband, kept safe where the clouds come to rest until the cultivation world settles into something gentler. Something worthy of having his Wei Ying be part of it proper, not just for nighthunts and brief adventures with the juniors.

It also creates bonds Lan Wangji hasn’t had before. The man he buys liquor from asks two for your husband? each time he approaches the stall (and he could get more, make his trips less frequent, but then he wouldn’t get to have this; his marriage known and cared for in some small way by a stranger). The spice merchant puts bundles of ginger, chili, cassia in his basket, says your husband will like this! and Lan Wangji thanks her as much for the wares as for her words. 

And here, another reason to return often, to speak of Wei Ying with others: when they go together and stop by the stalls Lan Wangji frequents the merchants will smile and say ah, here’s the husband, finally! and the husband in question will laugh, and agree, and allow himself to be painted as belonging. In Gusu, in Caiyi, in Cloud Recesses.

Most importantly: with Lan Wangji.

It’s a thrill to think it, every time. To know that it is a fact that will never again be questioned and Lan Wangji keeps filling his mouth with the word husband over and over like an indulgence. There are many opportunities; every flash of red and black among the arid pavilions — excuse me, I see my husband. Before each meal; my husband is waiting for me.

Still, the sweetest thing: not to speak it but to hear it when his Wei Ying says Lan Zhan, come, come here, I want a kiss from my husband!

[vrishchikawrites]

Its a prompt! (And dont worry about it, absolutely love reading your writing XD) Okay so dimension travel, so we all agree in a world where WWX was raised in another sect (like Lan/Nie) That he would be absolutely adored by them and everyone, healthy relationships( even Jin Zixuan and Wei Wuxian wouldn't be on a bad term much because no WWX JYL interaction) so! Canon!WWX from post ssc timeline gets transmigrated/summoned to one of these worlds where hes raised by either Lan or Nie so 1/2

They're a bit confused seeing WWX in black clothes, and seeing his gaunt/tired appearance and him being so on guard around them (since he's usually open and loved) that they ask him why is it so? Does he not know Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue back from whicher place he came from, and Wei Wuxian goes 'Ive met them/we're not close' they ask 'sorry if its a bit personal but who were you raised by?' and WWX replies the Jiangs and cue everyone horrified cuz Jiangs areopen in their heavy dislike of WWX2/2

'It's my fault.' Nie Huaisang thinks as he frantically collects all the materials needed, 'It is my fault, I need to fix this.'

His er-ge was gone. His brother, Da-ge's pride and joy, the shining star of the Nie Clan.

Gone. Just like that.

One minute they're on an easy nighthunt and the next, Wei Wuxian is pushing him away to take an attack straight to his chest.

He knows his brother is gone. His body may be alive, but just barely. He's drowning in his own blood and there's nothing Nie Huaisang can do. There's no cognition in his eyes, that bright silver gaze is dull and blank.

He has to do something.

The ritual may not work. It came with so many warnings that Nie Huaisang lost the patience to read them all the way through. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong.

"Huaisang! What are you doing?!" Da-ge's voice is loud but Nie Huaisang doesn't pay any attention to it. The room is sealed and it would take da-ge some time to break through it.

"Nie Huaisang!"

Good, Lan Xichen is here. He'll take care of da-ge if something goes wrong.

"Huaisang!" There's a loud crash but he doesn't pay any attention to it, "Stop! Don't do something stupid."

"I need to save him. It is my fault, I need to save him!"

"Huaisang!"

There's a bright red flash and it drowns out everything.

---

Miraculously, he survives.

His fledgling Golden Core has shattered and melted into nothing, but he has survived.

And he has done it.

"Does your stupidity known no bounds?" Da-ge demands as Lan Wangji kneels by er-ge's bed and feeds him potent spiritual energy.

Wei Wuxian is alive. His cognition is intact and his Golden Core is stable but he's soaked in Resentful Energy.

"You destroyed your Golden Core, Huaisang! There's no recovering from it!"

"Wouldn't you do the same?" He demands, turning around to look at his oldest brother. He ignores Lan Xichen's alarmed voice and focuses on Nie Mingjue, "Is his life worth less than my Golden Core?"

Da-ge locks his jaw but doesn't reply. Of course, Wei Wuxian's life is worth more than a Golden Core.

"Huaisang," Lan Xichen sighs, "a-Xian wouldn't have wanted this."

"Look at Wangji-xiong and tell me that again." He says bluntly. He is tired and drained but no one can convince him that reviving er-ge wasn't the right choice.

Xichen-ge doesn't reply because no one can look at the devastated expression on Lan Wangji's face and say it wasn't worth it.

Huaisang doesn't feel the absence of the core as keenly as someone else might. He had only developed it during the Sunshot Campaign, after all.

He isn't like er-ge or Wangji-xiong, with their powerful cores and potent spiritual energy. The loss would've been devastating to them but is only an afterthought to him.

---

They realize something is off when Wei Wuxian opens his eyes and looks at them with distant wariness instead of familiar affection. He looks around and is instantly on guard, "Where... Why am I here?"

He looks directly at Wangji-xiong, "Lan Zhan? What are you... Have you brought me here?" He demanded, his expression shifting to something hostile, "Are we in Gusu?"

"Wei-gongzi," Xichen-ge calls for his attention, "I know you're very confused but please don't be alarmed. We're in your home at the Unclean Realm, not in Gusu."

Er-ge narrows his eyes and Huaisang recognizes that expression, even though it has never been directed towards them. A look of cool calculation as er-ge tries to decipher their motives. "My home?" He asks.

Wangji-xiong knows er-ge almost as well as they do. He reaches forward, "Wei Ying, let us explain, please."

It appears that this Wei Wuxian is just as vulnerable to Wangji-xiong as his brother had been because he softens immediately. His body is still tense but he seems to be willing to listen.

"You died in this world, saving Huaisang's life." Da-ge begins gruffly. Huaisang winces at the bluntness but er-ge seems to appreciate it, his sharp gaze focusing on their elder brother, "Yes, this world," Da-ge confirms, "Our didi decided he wouldn't tolerate it and decided to use one of our forbidden rituals to revive you. He didn't read things clearly. The ritual dragged your soul from another world and placed you in his body."

Er-ge's expression is skeptical, "Our didi..."

Wangji-xiong sucks in a sharp breath, "Wei Ying," His brother's gaze moves to his 'best friend', "You are Wei Wuxian, 23 years old, the Head Disciple of QingheNie Sect, the adopted younger brother of Nie Mingjue and older brother to Nie Huaisang. You were adopted by the former Nie-zongzhu when you were six years old."

Er-ge stares at Wangji-xiong in stunned disbelief but there's no denial in his expression.

No wonder, Wangji-xiong never lies. That must be true in his world as well.

"a-Xian," Er-ge winces and looks at Xichen-ge, "You need to rest and recover. Your Golden Core is stab-"

Er-ge gasps and immediately sits up, placing his hand on his chest. He closes his eyes and almost violently summons his spiritual energy.

"Wei Ying!" Wangji-xiong calls out in alarm but his brother doesn't pay any attention, his focus entirely inward.

"I have my Golden Core back..." Er-ge breathes, astonished but his skin goes white and he loses consciousness.

They exchange stunned glances before scrambling forward to check on him.

---

No one can deny Wei Wuxian has changed. It takes a month for his body to recover but his heart is still unsteady. He puts on every appearance of being alright, but Huaisang has grown up with this man. He knows something is off.

It is only when er-ge decides he needs to start training again that things start to become clear. Er-ge has trained all of his life to fight with a Dao. His movements are powerful and aggressive, designed to overwhelm the enemy.

Er-ge's mind, however, is accustomed to the traditional Jian. He seems to expect his movements to be lighter, faster. More agile and less powerful.

The dissonance makes him clumsy and he loses his first fight against Lan Wangji in a long time.

"Wei Ying?" Wangji-xiong frowns, "Your movements."

Da-ge has his concerned scowl on and he grabs Baxia, stepping into the training field, "With me, Wuxian."

This fight is faster and more brutal. Huaisang almost wants to protest but he can see er-ge adjust and adapt quickly.

His eyes gain a razor-sharp focus and his battle instincts come to the fore. "Good," Xichen-ge observes, "He's accepting his body."

Indeed, he is. Against da-ge's overwhelming force, there's nothing er-ge can do but react instinctively. They engage in several bouts and keep at it for over a shichen.

By the end of it, er-ge is exhausted but faintly triumphant.

"Lan Zhan, again!"

"Wei Ying, you need rest." Wangji-xiong says with a shake of his head, "Don't strain yourself."

"Why were you fighting like you wanted to wield a Jian, didi?" Da-ge asks sternly, "You were hesitant and weak in some strikes."

Er-ge grimaces and Xichen-ge steps forward. It has been over a month and though er-ge has seen how much they all care for him, he remains wary.

"a-Xian," Xichen-ge begins gently, "You weren't a part of the Nie Clan in the past, were you?"

Da-ge's scowl deepens at the thought of er-ge belonging to anyone else but them. They had suspected something like this, of course. But they had hoped that er-ge would've still been a part of the Nie Sect if not the Clan.

Er-ge remains wary but sighs, "No."

"Not the Lans," Xichen-ge observes astutely, "Not the Jins either. Were you a rogue cultivator? Or from a smaller sect?"

Er-ge studies him before shaking his head, "I was the Head Disciple of the Jiangs."

"What?" Wangji-xiong asks, his voice uncharacteristically sharp, "Jiangs?"

Da-ge looks furious and Xichen-ge seems pained. No wonder, given how... problematic the Jiang situation is. That family is entirely unsuitable for someone as loving and giving as his er-ge!

Jiang Wanyin is a complex mix of pride and insecurity. He lags behind all sect heirs, though Huaisang is fairly certain their batch of cultivators is particularly skilled. Er-ge and Wangji-xiong are exceptional in every way and Jin Zixuan is barely a few steps behind.

In the face of such competition, skilled but ordinary cultivators can't help but be overshadowed.

Jiang Fengmian, according to da-ge, is a meek little imitation of his former self. The man that pursued er-ge's mother had been strong and wise. He had the skill, political acumen, and grace to be an admirable Sect Leader.

His marriage to Yu Ziyuan ruined him.

And Yu Ziyuan is a nightmare. The one time she met Wei Wuxian, she had left such an impression that da-ge had cut all ties with the Jiang Sect until its Madam apologized to the Nie Sect Head Disciple.

That hadn't gone down well and the relationship between them is still sour.

"Do you want to return to them?" He blurts out, unable to help himself. If Jiangs are this Wei Wuxian's family then maybe-

"No."

They still because that's a very firm no. It is a complete and utter rejection of the very thought of it.

"No."

---

Getting the whole story out of er-ge is like pulling teeth but between Wangji-xiong's pleas, Xichen-ge's gentle questions, da-ge impassioned demands, and his own begging, they manage.

This Wei Wuxian doesn't love them yet but he sees their love for him clearly. That softens his heart and they get to hear every painful, excruciating aspect of his past life.

Wangji-xiong looks furious, da-ge paces, Xichen-ge is pale, but all of that doesn't matter.

He recognizes the look on er-ge's face. He has never seen it on him before, but he recognizes it.

Er-ge expects them to reject him. To abandon him for his 'sins'.

"Well, I don't have a Golden Core. Can you teach me Demonic Cultivation?"

"Huaisang!" Is yelled from almost every direction but he only has eyes for his older brother.

He sees those tired silver eyes study him for a moment before they soften completely, turning into the color of liquid moonlight. "You brat," Er-ge murmurs affectionately, "The thought of you wielding that power is nothing short of terrifying."

"But er-ge! Can you leave me defenseless, just like that? Don't you feel sorry for me-"

"Huaisang!" Da-ge snaps, "Stop trying to manipulate your brother!"

"Really, a-Sang, it isn't right for you to-"

Er-ge laughs. It's familiar, loud, and openly joyous. Silver eyes sparkle as he looks at them, "Don't worry, da-ge, he's a hundred years too early to manipulate me."

Wangji-xiong huffs, "Wei Ying."

"Lan Zhan," Er-ge teases, "How is that you manage to reprimand me by only saying my name? Shall I try it too? Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan!"

"And they're flirting again." He murmurs under his breath, drawing an amused look from Xichen-ge.

"Perhaps we really need to start betrothal negotiations," Xichen-ge says and da-ge scoffs.

"Not going to happen unless you're willing to part with your brother. Mine is my heir. He's not marrying into the Lans."

"Da-ge, be reasonable-"

Huaisang tunes them out and waves his fan in front of his face, his mind whirling.

He doesn't care about er-ge's marriage negotiations. He has bigger fish to fry.

Really, those Jins and Jiangs are getting too bold.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: Au where lwj marries wwx after the bloodbath at nevernight, taking him back to gusu and hiding him in the jingshi, just like qhj did with madam lan. Also presumably like madam lan, wwx did not ask for it, nor does he appreciate it. The difference: wwx has the power to do something about it - after all, you can seal qi, but there’s no way to stop someone from performing demonic cultivation. (and, the lan sect forgot that a prison would probably have quite a bit of resentful energy in it)

“So, about half of that plan worked,” Wei Wuxian said, and Lan Wangji had the grace to look embarrassed. “Didn’t think the second half through, did you?”

Lan Wangji refrained from commenting, but then again, he was Lan Wangji.

“They don’t seriously think I’m going to just sit here in this tiny room for the rest of my life, do they?”

Lan Wangji looked – long-suffering.

It was a good thing, Wei Wuxian reflected, that Lan Wangji had confessed his feelings quite so desperately in those brief moments they’d been alone in the cave, or else he would be really upset with him right now.

Well, he was a little upset.

But it was difficult to be too upset when Lan Wangji had looked at him with that gaze, said those words, pressed his mouth to his –

“Oooh, wait, are you supposed to stay in seclusion here, too?” Wei Wuxian asked interestedly. “That’s the precedent, right? We get married and both go into seclusion, and then churn out a few kids – I could definitely give trying to make kids a solid effort, if you know what I mean –”

Lan Wangji’s ears turned red when he was embarrassed. “Wei Ying!”

“Oh no, it’s too late now,” Wei Wuxian said gleefully. “You rescued my Wen sect, you married me, you told me you like me; you’re stuck with me now! And in our very own fuck shack!”

“Wei Ying!”

Wei Wuxian didn’t know what he would do if he’d recovered from the paralysis Wen Qing had put him in to find them all dead – he would have reacted terribly – instead of the whole cultivation world ablaze with the news of Lan Wangji having stolen them right out of the Jin sect’s hands. If that hadn’t happened, he wouldn’t have stopped to wait for news, confused by the sudden twist; he wouldn’t have encountered Lan Wangji, rushing to find him, wouldn’t have read the message he’d passed along from Jiang Yanli, wouldn’t have heard him confess…

Wouldn’t have married him.

Lan Wangji was looking at him like he was the sun, moon and stars again, just at the mention of their marriage, and the only way handle the emotions churned up by that was clearly to start chanting, “Fuck shack! Fuck shack! Fuck shack!” on repeat until Lan Wangji covered his face with his sleeves in despair.

Yes, Wei Wuxian had heard the story about Lan Wangji’s mother, how this had been her place to live after her own crime – how she must have conceived her two sons here.

Yes, he was aware that calling it a fuck shack was in terrible taste.

No, he didn’t care as long as it got him out of having to confront feelings.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” he said after a little while, laughing. “But seriously. What’s your sect’s plan here? Do they think that locking away my spiritual energy –” 

Nonexistent spiritual energy, coincidentally. 

“ – will allow them to keep me here forever? That’s not how demonic cultivation works.”

After all, there was plenty of resentment here to work with.

Wei Wuxian carefully didn’t think about how much of that resentment must have been from Lan Wangji’s mother.

“Unnecessary,” Lan Wangji said.

“So there is a plan,” Wei Wuxian said with satisfaction. “Well, not your sect’s, but you, yourself, have a plan. What is it?”

“Once matters calm, my brother will propose a debate with the other sects on the subject of my actions and yours, with the goal of agreeing that our punishment be left wholly in the hands of the Lan sect, the Tiger Seal sealed away or destroyed and both the Wen sect and you to be carefully monitored,” Lan Wangji said. “During that time, my uncle will come let us out.”

“Teacher Lan? Really?”

Lan Wangji didn’t repeat things, so he didn’t say anything, but he looked pleased – a little surprised himself, but happy to have had his suspicions proven right.

With both Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen on their side, it would be very difficult for the Lan sect elders to carry through their original plan. Lan Xichen would very carefully not agree to exactly what type of “monitoring” would be appropriate, allowing them to make their own assumptions, and if after everything had been settled the Sect Leader agreed that Lan Wangji could be the one to “monitor” Wei Wuxian, well, that was too bad for them. 

An argument that would only be strengthened by the two of them being far away already, because to argue too much would be to lose face in front of the rest of the cultivation world - the only thing the Lan sect elders liked even less than his demonic cultivation.

“Huh,” Wei Wuxian said. “I didn’t think he liked me that much.”

“He does not,” Lan Wangji said. “If events were otherwise, he would have tried to keep me from you. But since things have come this far, he would prefer for me to be happy.”

“What happens after we leave?” Wei Wuxian asked.

Lan Wangji shrugged.

Wei Wuxian supposed that they could be rogue cultivators, staying at the outskirts of the other sects’ territories until the furor died down; with the Tiger Seal gone and Wei Wuxian technically under the supervision of a member of the Lan sect, they wouldn’t have much basis to argue. Travelling together – probably letting Wen Ning tag along – maybe with a donkey – 

“We could have a farm,” Wei Wuxian said, brightening. “Just the two of us!”

Lan Wangji smiled.

Wei Wuxian’s heart skipped a beat.

“Yeah,” he said, a little weakly. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

And maybe they wouldn’t need to fight the whole cultivation world off with his demonic cultivation to do it…although if that were necessary, he was willing and able.

No one was getting in the way of this marriage.

[chuplayswithfire]

Is Nowhere To Be Found

Inspiration grabbed me by the throat the second I finished the fic@robininthelabyrinth posted today, and I just HAD to share my idea of whodunnit.

Summary: Wei Wuxian was stabbed, found barely breathing, left for dead. His would-be murderer has no regrets.

0000

The Cloud Recesses were abuzz with chaos, serenity abandoned in the wake of the attack on Wei Wuxian. The news had already spread that he would live. That soon he would be sure to wake and then to carry on with his second life. Gates had been shut, entrances and exits barred to prevent escape. Disciples were combing every building, every potential hiding place.

Lan Chaoyun was not hiding.

The knife that he had used lay before him, still stained with blood that had dried now, tacky, flaking like rust in the air. The iron scent had faded, as the blood dried, as the incense burned. It was a paltry offering, he knew now, marred by failure as it was, but it was an offering. He hoped that Lan Tianming would appreciate it, that his wife would know he had done his best to give her justice.

Perhaps it was not justice. Perhaps it was revenge. He no longer knew, just as he no longer cared. It was her birthday, and the knife, the flowers, the incense - he could only hope that all would reach her, that all would grant her peace if she had not yet moved onto her next life.

Gradually, the incense burned, one by one each stick dwindling to ash. When the last had been lit, and the last burned, he bowed low, face to the ground.

"I may be joining you, this night," he said. Her silent tablet offered no response. "Forgive me my delay."

Still, nothing. He knew there would be nothing. He knew that Inquiry had yielded no answers, that her spirit was gone from this world.

It did not stop him from wanting, aching, wishing.

0000

The noise was louder, outside of the memorial hall. It seemed the rules for running and shouting had been discarded. Lan Chaoyun was not surprised.

Many rules had been discarded for the sake of Wei Wuxian.

He walked among the hurrying, searching, worrying masses, tranquil as the feather that falls to the river and floats along its surface. His path was set, his fate lifted from his hands. He felt no fear and carried no worry, as he walked to the courtyard where discipline was carried out and knelt on cold stone.

Lan Chaoyun inhaled, filling his lungs with cool, sweet mountain air, and exhaled slowly. He would clear his mind, and he would breathe. He would wait, settled patiently.

It would not take long for him to be noticed.

0000

"Hanguang-jun! Hanguang-jun!"

Shouting at the door of the jingshi, the banging of a fist - enthusiastic or fearful or both, and Lan Wangji rose from his place as silent sentinel. The path to the entrance of their home from their bedroom was a short one, crossed in a few brisk step.

If he jerked the door open rather than slid it with grace, if wood groaned at the strength of his grip, who would complain?

"What?" Bitten out, terse. Wei Ying was sleeping and this noise would wake him. Short, yet eager. No one would disrupt them without reason. "What is it?"

A junior stood at the door, round-cheeked with youth and shaking. The top of this one's head would have barely met Wei Ying's shoulder. His name escaped him, lost to Wei Ying, his health, his stuttering breaths and still form.

"Z-Zewu-jun sent for you!" The stuttering child near-shouted, his hands coming up to his mouth in horror. He was nervous. Lan Wangji should have reassured him.

Lan Wangji did not.

"The - the culprit has been found - and Zewu-jun has called for you to -"

He did not hear the rest of what was said, either. The culprit has been found. Nothing else was as important as this.

No, one thing was as important as this.

"Where?"

0000

Lan Chaoyun held his head high. His meditation was long concluded with the arrival of so many others, but his poise still held, even - no, especially - with the weight of so many eyes on him.

Lan Qiren and Zewu-jun both stood before him, faces dark with anger. On any other day, the sight of them united against him like this would have set his guts to tightening in fear, his knees weak. It was their misfortune that this was not any other day.

It was their misfortune, not his, that he regretted nothing.

A sudden stirring behind him, the hurried rustle of fabric, the swift snap of steps across the stone.

"Hanguang-jun," was the whisper, the breaking of the heavy silence. More than one voice spoke, silent Lans set to chittering like startled birds.

Lan Chaoyun kept his silence. The arrival of his distant cousin was nothing for him to fear. He had known from the moment he woke this morning that this would break whatever remained of the tie between them, and he had made his peace with it.

Only his cousin's happiness had kept him oblivious to the fact that that bond had been one-sided, rotted from within and long decayed.

He would understand, now.

He heard those crisp footsteps falter, a brief stutter in an otherwise perfect rhythm. Were he looking, Lan Chaoyun was sure he'd be seeing the moment his cousin recognized exactly who knelt for punishment before their sect's leader.

"Lan Chaoyun," Lan Wangji said, voice tight. Nothing else followed. Perhaps he was at a loss for words.

How fortunate for him that that was his only loss.

"Lan Wangji," Lan Chaoyun returned. He did not look at his cousin. He did not want to see his face.

More whispers, at that. It had been many years since any save Zewu-jun and Lan Qiren himself referred to the great Hanguang-jun by name.

Zewu-jun cleared his throat, a quiet noise that nonetheless silenced the gathered crowd and drew all attention to himself.

"Lan Chaoyun, you confess to and submit yourself for punishment to this crime?" For all his anger, his voice was remarkably steady. Lan Chaoyun had wondered if seclusion would restore his control, his still-lake facade.

"I do," he confirmed, locking eyes. Zewu-jun too was his cousin. Younger, though their cultivation meant that such distinctions were impossible to see and their status meant them inert. "I stabbed the Yiling Laozu. My regret is only that he lives. I should have cut his throat instead."

Lan Qiren flushed with anger at Zewu-jun's side, his nostrils flaring. "Have you no shame at all for what you've done?"

Of all things, this was what sparked the smile to Lan Chaoyun's face.

"My only shame is that I waited until A-Tian's birthday to take justice for her," he said. If he relished in the surprise that spread over Lan Qiren's face, in the realization that filled Zewu-jun's eyes, for the anger the tightened Lan Wangji's jaw -

who here could justly blame him?

"Did you forget?" He asked, knowing he was being cruel and caring not for it. What was one more broken guideline in this place that bent to the whims of any ruling Lan? "I understand. It has been fourteen years. I didn't."

Zewu-jun drew breath, undoubtedly intending to begin a pacifying speech on the nature of rules and grief and the unjust nature of revenge. Lan Wangji spoke first.

"Wei Ying did not kill Lan Tianming," he lied, his hand clenched around his sword's hilt. Perhaps he didn't know he lied. Perhaps he thought he spoke the truth.

"His fierce corpses did. Perhaps you did not know. I understand you were busy ferrying him from the battlefield that night, but I bore witness to my wife's murder. I know who is responsible, and the corpse of our shidi was only Wei Wuxian's murder weapon."

The sight of him, white robes stained with blood and draped in black, arms filled with the body of the man responsible for that unending hell, had been the second worst of Lan Chaoyun's life.

Lan Tianming's face as she breathed her last, their shidi's clenched fist still driven through her chest, had been forever seared into his eyes, haunting his waking days, his dreaming nights, but his cousin's back as he fled that field of death with the murderer in his arms was not a sight he could forget.

All these years, he'd kept silent. Wei Wuxian was dead. His cousin may have betrayed them, but it had been for nothing, and the punishment had kept him off his feet for years. Lan Chaoyun had never forgiven it, but he had been willing to keep his peace.

Ruining Lan Wangji would not have brought Lan Tianming back to him, would not have restored the laughter in his life, the song that matched his guqin, would not have re-lit the flame of their small dreams, their hope of a family.

But Wei Wuxian was no longer dead. Wei Wuxian breathed this earth's air and ran through the Cloud Recesses and his laughter rang through every corner of their home and Lan Tianming would never breathe or run or laugh again.

His home, her home, every corner of it tainted by her murderer's life, his joy, his happiness, as if a single brief lapse (what more was a death that ended than a lapse?) were enough to account for her death.

Lan Wangji's throat worked but no sound left his lips. The knuckles of his sword hand were white where they gripped at Bichen.

"I attempted to murder the Yiling Laozu," Lan Chaoyun said again, voice raised. He met Zewu-jun's gaze once more. "I submit myself to punishment, Zewu-jun. I do not regret offering my wife justice. I do not regret the knife that now rests before her in offering. I regret only that she is dead and her home is defiled by the presence of her killer, who failed to so much as kneel before her tablet and beg forgiveness."

Whispering. No amount of throat clearing now would silence them. Zewu-jun seemed to know that - his eyes were hard as he bowed his head.

"Lan Chaoyun. The punishment for raising a weapon to one of our own is -"

[demonictales]

May I ask for headcanons with Wei ying, Jiang Cheng and Nie huiashang (if I spelled that right). Where reader was their one of their best friend and a Wen, but soon disappeared when the Wen clan started to take over the other sects. Boys then finding their friend, disabled from their golden core and imprisoned in a remote place where no one could have found them, because they rebelled against the clan leader. Could be more angsty if they lost their hearing or sight, because they were tortured.

oh, i’m excited how this one will turn out. here we go! my heart while writing this went →↑→↑←↑↓↑→↑←↓ also I know you said imprisioned but i got kinda carried away writing this. I'm so sorry okijd

TW: TORTURE, BLINDNESS

GUSU LAN CLAN LECTURES

First of all you were Wen Chao's cousin, unfortunately. However, you pretty much did as you wanted to because who could really control you, so of course you went along to the Lan Clan's lectures alongside Wen Qing and Wen Ning.

Of course you arrived in old fashioned Wen manner and interrupted the ceremony already breaking rules at the entrance. When no one else but Wei Wuxian spoke up. It did indeed amuse you the way he spoke up agains Wen Chao so you carefully watched him.

Excused for the day all three of you eventually went their own way. You had no idea what Wen Qing was up to or Wen Ning, so you eventually walked around the clan, exploring your new home for the few lectures to come. Eventually, in the back hill you bumped into Wei Wuxian who thought Wen Ning to use bow and arrow until that nearly backfired when Wen Qing's voice rang through the air.

"Let's say we are even now that you nearly killed Lady Wen. ---" You were joking obviously, but refering to the earlier incident.

He wasn't quite sure how to deal with you yet but it seemed you made quite the point. Eventually you walked along with him, leaving Wen Ning and Qing to their own.

Meeting Jiang Cheng once more you, indeed did apologize for interrupting his greetings earlier that day. You were quite different than most in the Wen Clan, you did apologize and show manners, though you weren't completely innocent.

As much as you did enjoy art and classics, you were also a little troublemaker, It was a healthy combination of mischief and manners that allowed you to walk the grey zone. So of course you soon bonded with Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huiasang.

You became great friends soon. You learned about Wei Wuxian's mischief, enjoyed his stories of bickering with Lan Zhan, came to know Nie Huiasang's grand taste and love for art and other not so lady like things, as well as his dislike for fighting and of course Jiang Cheng, he was rather complicated but you still enjoyed his presence. You could never quite tell what was on his mind but you knew for sure he deeply cared for his family. He was in fact, someone who seemed to long for his own little happy ending.

Meeting up in secret for a drinking which was strictly forbidden, you had lots of fun until the next morning when you were called for punishment. Even though you were a Wen, you could simply walk away but decided to stay and take the 50 hits. You had made friends for a lifetime during the lectures.

WEN CLAN LECTURES

You'd lie if you say you weren't excited to see your friends again, however, it weren't the best circumstances. You greatly disliked the way it had processed to far yet there they stood, all clans: Nie Clan, Jin Clan, Jiang Clang and eventually Hanguang Jun.

This wasn't much of a lecture, more of Wen Chao showing of his power due to the enormous power the Quishan Wen Clan had gathered. You weren't sure if you were embarrassed or disgusted by your cousin but either way, knowing Wei Wuxian's character you soon had something to laugh. And you were right.

Wen Chao made him recite the Wen Clan rules which ironicially, he didn't even know himself so you nearly busted a lung and earned an angry side eye from your cousin when Wei Wuxian recited the Lan Clan rules.

Of course this would not go without punishment, not for you not for Wei Wuxian and co.

Eventually you helped with the dung being spread, being trapped between Jin Zixuan, Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan. Fun times. Once more, you apologizes for his behaviour knowing your words could do nothing. The only thing this gave you was the title of Gentle Wen. An embarrassment to your family but in the cultivation world between your friends quite the praise.

You tried getting their swords back but with no luck. You only ended up being grounded in your own room with guards outside.

You weren't able to help your friends out and it did annoy you. It seemed as if you tried harder the more complicated it would get for you to get out of here. It did drive you insane.

When every visitor was suppossed to hunt the monster that roamed through the mountain you once again were by their side, refusing to speak nor act according to your cousin's order.

Which led to quite the argument between you, who stood on your friends side, and Wen Chao and his woman, who for the love of cultivation, wondered where she came from

Either way, you stood between him and Wang Lingjiao when she had ordered to use Mianmian as a sacrifice. You at this point who would believe you, matter of fact, you knew that he was just being abusive. Safe to say it did piss your cousin off and ended up in a fight, eventually were Wei Wuxian would get hurt.

Just like the rest, you got stuck in the cave alongside the rest of the cultivators. Proofing your loyalty to your friends once more. Not so much to the other clans.

This time you helped out Huaisang the most. The poor guy was frightened to death. He was such a soft boy. You felt bad about it and apologzied multiple times while staying by his side, doing your best to help him through the situation. At this point, if you were no traitor to the Wen Clan what else could you possibly be?

You followed Jiang Cheng's introductions to leave the cave through the water, Nie Huaisang by your side.

After all you had made it out word spread proufoundly about you and the Wen Clan. Some said you were a spy, working for the Wen Clan and earning sympathy, others said you were honest about your intentions, later was some encouring words by Nie Huaisang. You truly did appreciate his words.

The moment you stepped foot into Qishan, you were confined to you room until they needed you. They made use of your connections to Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang whenever they needed to. Tricky but smart.

WEN CHAOS HAVOC + SUNHOT CAMPAIGN

It was only when you dumb cousin started to wreak havoc among the clans that you started to see the situation clearly and did not want to have anything to do with it. After cloud recesse had been burned to nearly ashes you spoke up, you were against it. Precious memories were made there and now they had became ashes, quite literally.

If you had known about all the scheming you'd have told Lan Xichen right away, made sure nothing would happen to the Gusu Lan Clan. But being confined barely gave you any choices until one day you fought your way out, meeting your uncle, confronting him about it.

You knew that the Wen Clan was better than that, but the yin iron had taken up to much of his sanity, he instructed Wen Chao to take care of you.

Of course it pained you to see all the chaos and blood being she'd of cour once former friends familie's. There did not a day go by where you begged him to stop. You even tried going against him, but failed miserably.

Wang Lingjiao enjoyed her given power, using it to destroy every piece of hope you still had. Even bringing you along to Lotus Pier to watch the massacre of your closest friends parents.

Daily torture was on your agenda. Being wipped, being burned, being starved or simply kicked and punched by her minions. But you were to prideful to give in just so easily, especially when you head news of Jiang Cheng being captured.

Again, you tried your best to stop him but Wen Chao had enough of your antic and ordered Wen Zuhliu to end it but his woman had a better idea. Get rid of her golden core and blind her. It was her revenge for you spitting the hot soup right into her face, eventually burning her slightly. It was worth it.

You were left in pain, after you felt the power leave your body, the spiritual power who kept healing you in a very slow pace if you needed it but eventually had lost it. The worst was losing your sight, the light of day, not knowing if it was day or night, not being able to navigate on your own.

Treason, that was the reason. You could have had so much more if it wasn't for your weak heart. The words were spoken as hot iron was pushed into your eyes. Your screams were hunting the people who were present. Yet you had lost all of hope and strength in one night, being dumped somewhere on a mountain with nothing but the purpose to die.

After the sunshot campaign people had wondered what happened to you as you were nowhere to be found, yet they all agreed to not search and leave things as they were, the Qishan Wen Clan was extinguished.

PASSING YEARS

Years had passed and you had managed to get yourself back on your feet, even if it wasn't as safe anymore. You learned to live with your blindness.

Deep in the forest in an abandoned little hut. It was perfect for you. You secluded yourself from the world, living in peace. You remembered some tricks your old friend Wei Wuxian had once taught you, and even though your golden core was gone, little tricks like these did do. Obviously you had to renew them every now and then but it was no bother at all.

What you did not know was that the mountain, or rather the forest you lived in belonged to a clan, and possible night hunt had given up your days of silence and years being secluded.

Only when you heard footsteps that did not belong to anything on your small land, you ended up hiding in your small hut, a knife held firmly in your hands.

The voices you could make out seemed familiar but you stayed quiet, perhaps they'd leave.

Of course they did not leave and soon it seemed, three people were standing in your small front yard where chicken where quietly eating and living.

They surely were surprised that someone had managed to live on the mountain of the Jin Clan largest property. That did put you quite in panic. You knew they were your death sentence if they would find you, so you tried to sneak away, but of course Wei Wuxian was one step ahead of you.

" Where do you think you're going ?"

" Wei Wuxian? "

Your voice was hesitant yet filled with surprise but you could definitely make out his voice between a hundred people. A smile almost creeped upon your lips, soley depending on your hearing.

Your attire was still very much simple. A very out worn red hanfu, the logos of the Wen Clan faded but still slightly visible. It was Nie Huaisang that pointed this out. Of course he would notice such details, so he still was alive and breathing. You were deligthed to know this.

However, it was Jiang Cheng who put 1 and 1 together.

" Lady Y/N ? ---"

Silence filled by gasp of Nie Huaisang, as you nodded quietly.

"Guilty."

You were not sure how to feel, happy that you finally met the people you once called friends or scared knowing it could now mean your death.

"I'm glad to hear you are all still well. How have you been all these years? -----"

They would have expected anything but not to meet you. It were raw and mixed feelings. You know you owed Jiang Cheng your live for your family had taken his. You dared not to move your head his way and kept it strictly on the ground.

It was also Wei Wuxians family but it wasn't as deeply rooted.

Nie Huaisang was the first one to approach you, carefully. Asking what had happened to you. So until late night, you told them what happened to you, what your clan did to you, how you ended up here.

You also apologized again, falling to your knees, knowing you could not make up for the loses they had suffered. You started crying, begging for forgiveness.

They explained what had happened on their side, and also admitting they hoped they had not lost you but eventually gave up. You on the other hand did not blame them.

It was a bittersweet reunion after years of forming friendship, betrayal and chaos. Feeling pain and rejoycing again.

[ibijau]

Burn it down AU // on AO3 // extras on AO3

Nie Huaisang doesn't let Lan Wangji know who the man he loved in his youth was and just like that, their fate is changed

(aka the one where nhs and lwj fall for each other instead of pining after men who turned away from them)

warning for self harm

Lan Wangji went to meet his husband, now sect leader Nie, to offer him comfort one last time before returning to the Cloud Recesses, and to gift him a small porcelain bird. He found the other man drunk and clearly depressed, but still appreciative of the present in spite of his state.

“A magpie,” Nie Huaisang sighed. “They’re clever, you know? Mate for life, or so it’s said. Don’t know why anyone would do that, but they do.”

“Hm.”

Lan Wangji sat near his husband, unsure what to do or say to comfort Nie Huaisang when he was so obviously distressed.

“I’ve heard that the Lans too only ever love once,” Nie Huaisang continued, carefully putting away the bird.

“Hm.” It was an old tale, one Lan Wangji had never given much consideration until recent years. He still wasn’t sure how he felt on that matter.

“Do you ever regret that it was Wei Wuxian?” Nie Huaisang asked.

“No,” Lan Wangji replied, the very thought of loving anyone else impossible, repulsing almost. It had always been Wei Wuxian. It would always be Wei Wuxian. To consider anyone else would have felt like a betrayal, like giving in to the voices around him.

“Lucky you,” Nie Huaisang chuckled bitterly, taking another sip of wine. “If I could, I’d choose someone else. Maybe you. At least I’d know where I’d stand if it were you, and I think you wouldn’t be a bad person to love instead of him.”

Lan Wangji frowned. “Huaisang is in love with someone?”

His husband starts laughing, only for it to quickly turn into heavy sobs. Lan Wangji immediately leaned closer to pat his shoulder, as he had done more than once in the past weeks. Nie Huaisang’s tears only doubled in strength. He moved as if he might try to hug Lan Wangji, only to stop himself at the last moment, curling up on himself instead.

“I just want it to stop,” he whined. “I just want things to be good. Nothing has ever been good since the war. I miss the time before, when I didn’t even know I loved him and it was easy! But now I’ve lost all my friends, and I’ve lost Da-ge, and I’m losing you and A-Yuan and… I was happy, I was so happy with you two! Wasn’t it good, all three of us?”

“It was,” Lan Wangji agreed, partly to comfort him, but also because it was true. They had gotten so comfortable together. It had taken a while to get used to this situation none of them had wanted, but… happiness was a good word for what they had built.

Lan Wangji too was sad to lose this, but he knew by then that nothing good ever lasted.

-

Nie Huaisang arrived in the middle of the night, furious and panicked, ranting about his brother’s body having disappeared. Lan Wangji took him to the rabbits’ pen so they could discuss what they had both discovered about the tomb, about a song played wrong, about betrayal from a man Nie Huaisang had called his friend and trusted as a brother.

“I needed to tell someone,” Nie Huaisang sniffed when he was done explaining. “And there’s no one… I can’t trust anyone except you. You’re Hanguang-Jun, you’re the best person I know and I… I can’t do this alone. I need your help.”

For a moment, Lan Wangji stared at his husband, his ears ringing with those words he had desperately wished to hear from another mouth. Once, he would have given anything to be asked for his help by the man he would have wanted as his husband, only to be rejected time and time again.

It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the right man who had run to him, and Lan Wangji wondered if Nie Huaisang would have turned to him at all, had he had any other option. But it still made something shift inside his chest to have his assistance finally wanted like this.

“Of course I will help.”

Nie Huaisang smiled at him, a weak little smile without much joy to it, but one that spoke of trust and gratefulness beyond anything Lan Wangji had ever received.

-

Lan Xichen was devastated when Lan Wangji and Nie Huaisang told him about what Jin Guangyao had done, but he believed them and offered his support.

“You have a good husband,” Lan Xichen said when he was alone with his brother. “I’m… glad things worked out.”

“I’m glad too,” Lan Wangji admitted. “I am glad you chose him.”

Lan Xichen smiled. It looked so forced that his brother could only notice it, but he kindly chose not to comment on it. After a day filled with such difficult conversations, it did not surprise Lan Wangji that his brother found it hard to rejoice at that time.

-

The trip to Nightless City did not go quite as planned, and what they found there horrified both of them. Lan Wangji was glad neither of them had tried to go there alone, because neither of them would have managed without the other.

It was odd that he had come to make such a good team with Nie Huaisang. Lan Wangji would never have expected that. He’d always believed that whoever shared his life would have to be an exceptional cultivator, his match in all the art, a swordsman beyond compare with who he would go on Night Hunt to right the wrongs of the world. Nie Huaisang was none of those things, but he had proven that he was not a bad person to have at one’s side.

Still, as they rested at an inn that night after attempting to contact Nie Mingjue’s soul, Lan Wangji worried for his husband. First, because Nie Huaisang had been wounded in the fight with his brother’s arm, and was only then finally letting Lan Wangji treat his wound. Secondly because Nie Huaisang was never this quiet normally. His mood worsened with every passing moment, until he looked almost as severe as his brother did sometimes.

“What is on your mind?” Lan Wangji asked as he finished bandaging Nie Huaisang’s throat.

Nie Huaisang shrugged.

“We’d had an argument before he died, about Jin Guangyao. I think he still hates me. He was the only person left in my life who liked me and I’ve made even my brother hate me.”

Lan Wangji’s hand stilled against his husband’s neck.

“Not the only one.”

“A-Yuan doesn’t count. He’s just… he’s still a baby and I’m like family. He just hasn’t grown out of it yet.”

“I like Huaisang,” Lan Wangji corrected. 

Nie Huaisang made an impatient gesture. 

"You're used to me, it's not the same. If you'd had a choice in this, you would have happily gone the rest of your life never talking to me." 

Lan Wangji fell silent, taking a moment to consider that statement. It was true that he only became close to Nie Huaisang because they were forced to spend time together. But the same might have been argued of any pair of friends. Without the right circumstances, people failed to get close even if they were perfect for one another. 

He liked Nie Huaisang. It was a different emotion than the one provoked by Wei Wuxian. Less reluctant. Less desperate also. It was oddly easy to like Nie Huaisang, because their life together had been easy, as if they had been old friends from the start, or old spouses rather. There was no one else Lan Wangji would have trusted so much with A-Yuan, no one else he would have managed to talk to about his worries and hopes. He had never managed to reach that sort of trust with Wei Wuxian, no matter how he had desperately wanted to. But with Nie Huaisang… 

It really had been so easy to like his husband, and it had been painful to lose his constant company. 

"I like Huaisang," he insisted once he reached that conclusion. "I'm glad you were chosen for me." 

"I'm not the person you really want at your side though." 

"Wei Ying never wanted to be at my side."

It hurt. After so long it still hurt. It might never stop hurting to have been rejected again and again by the person he had most wanted, but… but Nie Huaisang gave him a crooked half smile, and took his hand, which soothed some of that old ache. 

"His loss," he said with a warmth and affection that had become rare since his brother’s death "Wangji's side is a good place to be." 

-

It took a while to prepare that final corpse finding spell, and all the while Nie Huaisang’s mental state became worse and worse. It brought back terrible memories for Lan Wangji, of seeing Wei Wuxian slowly crumbling into pieces before his eyes, unable to do anything to help.

Nie Huaisang too tried to push him away, but he wasn’t as good at it, or perhaps he was simply less reluctant to be helped. After what was probably the first true fight of their marriage, Nie Huaisang gave in and agreed to have Cleansing once again played to him. It did not take all his pain away, but he no longer seemed so desperate, and stopped talking about slaughtering every single Jin.

Then finally, after months of patience, the spell was ready for use.

Lan Wangji left A-Yuan with Hou Tianjian as soon as he received the news from Nie Huaisang, warned Lan Xichen that he had to go, and flew straight to the Unclean Realm. Nie Huaisang immediately took him to his house, and started explaining how this would go. It was an unpleasant spell to say the least, using methods that Wei Wuxian would have probably not frowned upon. It made sense that the Nie sect did not want these methods of theirs to become too well known.

"This one will work for sure," Nie Huaisang said, emptying a small vial of blood on a compass. “It has never once not worked since its creation. We’re going to get my brother back, Wangji!”

Lan Wangji dared not asked where the blood came from. At best it was an animal's, at worst a criminal's. Either way, he would rather not know.

But just as Nie Huaisang promised, this time they got a reaction. The compass’s needle started moving, pointing them toward four different directions. It was not a surprise to find that Nie Mingjue’s body had been cut in parts, they’d been expecting it, and yet it was still a shock. Nie Huaisang paled and trembled at this confirmation that Jin Guangyao had truly desecrated his brother’s body in such a manner. Lan Wangji grabbed his shoulder so he wouldn’t collapse, half wishing to pull him into a hug. It seemed like something that Nie Huaisang might need. Before Lan Wangji could act on that impulse, Nie Huaisang had himself back under control and was taking notes as to the direction they should head to first. 

-

They did not go very far for the first part of Nie Mingjue.

They did not even leave the lands owned by Qinghe Nie.

To both their horror, they found the legs of Nie Mingjue inside a mausoleum belonging to the Nie sect. Nie Huaisang explained its purpose while they searched it, his voice growing increasingly desperate with each new use of his blood compass which seemed to point at nonsensical directions once they were inside.

“The walls,” Lan Wangji said when his husband finished explaining how that place worked, what it did, and the horrifying understanding of what Jin Guangyao had done dawned on him.

Nie Huaisang furiously shook his head, tears forming in his eyes that he would not allow to spill.

“It can’t be! I was there when we repaired it! I supervised it, I wanted to be a good sect leader, to take responsibility, I… I would have seen it! All the bodies were whole, I saw it, I saw them!”

“Yet Chifeng-Zun must be there.”

Nie Huaisang wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and together they opened the wall in the place the compass pointed to. There was a body there, a whole one. They exchanged a look, and without a word Nie Huaisang started undressing that man, checking first his right arm since they had found the left one already, then his torso. Nie Huaisang cried out in horror at the sight of a line of careful stitches attaching foreign legs to that man’s torso, their skin a different shade than the rest of his body.

Nie Huaisang roared like a wounded beast.

“I trusted him!” he shouted, breaking into tears. “I trusted him, I liked him so much! But Da-ge was right, he was always right! I trusted him and he did this, I trusted him…”

Lan Wangji looked at his husband, kneeling next to the half body of his own brother, curled up and shaking from tears and rage. He moved without thinking, kneeling next to him and pulling him in his arms. It did not bother him when Nie Huaisang’s arms encircled his waist to cling at his back, when the other man buried his face against his chest to sob.

Nie Huaisang had long ago become one of those precious few people whose touch Lan Wangji welcomed.

More than welcomed, perhaps.

Lan Wangji rubbed circles on his husband’s back, silently trying to comfort him, to show him that he was not alone, that there was someone else for him to trust. Someone who would not turn on him the way Jin Guangyao had.

Nie Huaisang cried and cried, until he had no tears left, until he was just sobbing and hiccuping in Lan Wangji’s arms, until he calmed down, still clinging to his husband’s back. They remained like this a long while, longer than was safe in such a place. But Lan Wangji refused to be the one to break the contact, not when it felt right to be holding Nie Huaisang who so clearly needed it, and it seemed Nie Huaisang as well refused to be the one to give up on it.

They only let go of each other when they heard the voice of a Nie disciple calling out to them, surprised to find them there on his patrol.

Nie Huaisang quickly tore himself from Lan Wangji’s embrace and went to meet his disciple to feed him a lie about an anomaly he’d detected with one of the entrapped corpses, and how it would need to be discreetly replaced.

Lan Wangji tried not to think too much about how right it had felt to be holding his husband this close.

Fierce corpses and conspiracies he could deal with, but this he was not ready to face yet.

-

It took Lan Wangji over a week to finally understand where the blood used in the tracking spell came from.

When he entered their room at an inn and found Nie Huaisang cutting into his own arm to get fuel for the compass, Lan Wangji felt stupid for not understanding sooner.

“It’s the only way!” Nie Huaisang hissed before his husband could say a word. “It has to be a blood relative or it doesn’t work. If you don’t like it, go away, I’ll find him on my own!”

Lan Wangji said nothing. He closed the door behind him, and put down the tray of food he had bought for their dinner. Still silent, he came to kneel next to the bed on which Nie Huaisang sat, and grasped his husband’s arm. Nie Huaisang barely resisted before letting him inspect the cut. It was deeper than it probably needed to be, and longer too. Lan Wangji sent some spiritual energy into it so it would heal faster.

“I have to do it like that,” Nie Huaisang insisted, nearly pleading now. “I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you wouldn’t like it. It’s bad magic, I know, but…”

“I don’t like it,” Lan Wangji agreed. “Not because it is bad. Because Huaisang is hurt.”

Nie Huaisang huffed, and tried to pull his arm away. Lan Wangji did not allow it.

“Ah, Wangji, careful with what you say. I’ll start thinking you care about me if you say things like that!”

“I do,” Lan Wangji protested.

Nie Huaisang was his friend, his husband, the other father of his son. Of course he cared. He thought he had made it clear.

He would need to make it clearer, because Nie Huaisang gave him a very odd look, as if he were almost scared to hear those words, and that wouldn’t do. He needed Nie Huaisang to know he was appreciated.

“How much blood is needed?” Lan Wangji asked, hoping that subject would be less distressing to his husband.

“That full vial every time.”

It was not a lot of blood as such, but they had been using the compass every day. Even for a stronger cultivator, this would not have been ideal. Lan Wangji quickly gave the situation some thought.

“We stop using it every day,” he decided. Nie Huaisang opened his mouth to protest, but Lan Wangji silenced him with a gesture. “We do not need it every day. We will take note of the direction and follow it. If the direction changes, we act accordingly. Your diet must also be changed to help you replace that blood. I will be monitoring your health.”

“It’s not necessary, I’m just fine,” Nie Huaisang pouted. “It’s just a little blood, who cares?”

“I care,” Lan Wangji reminded him, distractedly stroking the skin of the arm he was still holding. “I do not want Huaisang to be hurt.”

Nie Huaisang stared at him with an intensity neither of them could quite handle, forcing both of them to look away.

“You don’t have to do this,” Nie Huaisang muttered, weakly trying to pull his arm away again. And again, Lan Wangji refused to allow it.

“I have to do this. You are important.”

“To A-Yuan,” Nie Huaisang huffed, a spot of colour on his cheeks.

“To A-Yuan,” Lan Wangji granted him. “To me as well.”

More colour spread to Nie Huaisang’s face, and Lan Wangji felt the other man’s heartbeat quicken. He looked intently at Nie Huaisang, wishing to say something that he could not yet quite put into words, not even in the secret of his own mind. He wanted to explain just how important Nie Huaisang was to him, how much he cared, how deeply it saddened him that Nie Huaisang couldn’t see it, how he wished he were better with words to say it the way it needed to be said.

Lan Wangji hadn’t found it so hard to speak on any subject since he had made a similar realisation about Wei Wuxian, years before.

That, perhaps, ought to have been a clue as to what was happening.

But before Lan Wangji could fully process his own thoughts, Nie Huaisang started complaining about being hungry. That took precedence over Lan Wangji’s internal ramblings. He finally let go of his husband’s arm and went to pick up again the food he had brought. He made sure that Nie Huaisang ate his whole share, even when he accused Lan Wangji of being a nagging mother.

Someone had to take care of Nie Huaisang, and Lan Wangji did not mind being that person.

-

It had been good luck to meet Song Lan, more so than they realised at first.

Of course, Lan Wangji was a little star struck at first upon meeting such a renowned rogue cultivator and being offered to travel together since they were headed the same way. It was hard to say if Song Lan noticed, but Nie Huaisang did and teased him mercilessly over it every time they were alone. Lan Wangji did not mind. If anything, he was glad that Nie Huaisang’s mood was decent enough to think of joking this way. It had become rare since his brother’s death, and Lan Wangji had missed it.

It was good to have met Song Lan.

They only understood how good that had been when a blind girl led them to the place where she lived to meet a man that she claimed was Xiao Xingchen, and they found themselves facing Xue Yang instead.

Lan Wangji and Song Lan fought against him, while Nie Huaisang forced the blind girl to come with him so they could warn Xiao Xingchen of what was happening. Furious to see whatever nefarious plan he had come up with fall apart like this, Xue Yang pulled out every dirty trick he could. In a moment of distraction Song Lan was hit with corpse poisoning, distracting him just long enough that Xue Yang would have had a chance to slice open his mouth, if not for Lan Wangji’s intervention.

It was then that the fog already present around them since the start of that fight grew thicker, blinding Lan Wangji. Xue Yang was light enough on his feet that it made his attack nearly undetectable, the only warning his killing intent.

Thankfully Xiao Xingchen joined them at that point, and it seemed that not being able to see was not a problem for him. Lan Wangji, at that moment, guessed it had to be that the rogue cultivator’s level was simply great enough for it. He only understood later the true reason behind his ease, and cursed Xue Yang all over again.

It was a thrilling fight. To be side by side with two such renowned cultivators, trying to capture a black hearted villain whose crimes could not be denied because he had confessed to them with dark glee… it was the sort of life Lan Wangji would have dreamed of in his youth.

It only occurred to him too late that if Xiao Xingchen was there, then Nie Huaisang might have returned as well. Lan Wangji would have expected his husband to wisely remain hidden, since he was no fighter. And perhaps Nie Huaisang did remain hidden, but not well enough, because Xue Yang found him.

Lan Wangji’s blood froze in his veins when he heard Nie Huaisang’s pained cry coming from inside the fog.

He dashed ahead, following the sounds of a commotion. In the thick fog he spotted two figures struggling, the taller one having the clear advantage, the smaller one trying to protect a third shape curled up on the ground. Later, the blind girl who wasn’t blind in the least explained that Xue Yang had stumbled into the place where she and Nie Huaisang were hiding, and that he had wanted to make her pay for her betrayal. Nie Huaisang had tried to protect her, only to be stabbed. When Lan Wangji found them, Nie Huaisang was trying to stop Xue Yang from pulling his sword away so he could not strike again.

Distracted by this struggle, Xue Yang could not defend himself when Lan Wangji attacked, slashing at him with enough strength to sever his arm. The shock of that wound was such that Xue Yang could not resist the talismans Lan Wangji and Song Lan, alerted by the noise, threw at him to immobilize him.

With this taken care of, Lan Wangji turned to his husband. They were close enough that even in that fog he could see Nie Huaisang smile at him.

“I knew you’d rescue me,” Nie Huaisang said, before collapsing on the ground.

Lan Wangji heard a shout, which he did not realise then was his own. He rushed to Nie Huaisang’s side, inspecting his wound with trembling hands. He swiftly removed Xue Yang’s blade from his husband's body and poured as much spiritual energy into healing the wound as he could, desperate to heal him.

He could not lose Nie Huaisang.

Not him as well.

Lan Wangji was not sure he would have the strength to survive another loss.

He wasn’t sure he’d have the will to survive this.

The universe must have taken pity on him that day, because Nie Huaisang’s wound reacted well to Lan Wangji’s spiritual energy and soon stopped bleeding. Xiao Xingchen, although clearly shaken by everything that had happened, promptly offered to take them to his house so they could better care for Nie Huaisang and make sure that Xue Yang was properly chained up.

Lan Wangji picked up his unconscious husband in his arms, holding him close to his heart as they made their way to the house in question.

Later, when Nie Huaisang’s life was certain to be in no danger, when it was sure that Xue Yang would not escape, Lan Wangji came to sit on the side of his husband’s bed. He took the other man’s hand, needing to feel its warmth, and set out to patiently wait for Nie Huaisang to wake up. Before too long, he had the surprise of being joined by Song Lan.

Song Lan, with that cold politeness of his, enquired about Nie Huaisang. He appeared relieved to find that the other man was stable. His own corpse poisoning had been handled already. Aside from Xue Yang, nobody would have lasting sequels from that fight. Not physically, at least. It would probably take Xiao Xingchen a little time to recover from the ways Xue Yang had manipulated him, but he was a hopeful person and already making plans to leave Yi City so he and that not-so-blind girl could start travelling with Song Lan, exactly as he had once done before Xue Yang ruined his life a first time.

“Sometimes, life gives you a second chance,” Song Lan said, looking outside where Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing were putting their things in order. 

Lan Wangji nodded, his hand still holding Nie Huaisang’s. His husband would be fine with a little rest. His ridiculous, impossible husband who should have known better than to put himself in danger but had done it anyway, because Nie Huaisang was nothing if not dedicated to doing what was right. 

It had never occurred before to Lan Wangji how much Nie Huaisang trusted him. Even though the other man had turned to him time and time again since his brother’s death, Lan Wangji had told himself that it was simply by lack of choice. But the way he had said he knew Lan Wangji would rescue him, as if it had been an evidence to him… and he was not wrong. Lan Wangji had come running at the first sign of trouble. Lan Wangji would have done anything to protect that husband of his, this man he cared so much about that he did not know how to handle it.

Satisfied with that conversation, Song Lan left the two of them alone. Through the window, Lan Wangji saw him walk up to Xiao Xingchen to help him with something. Once, it would have filled Lan Wangji with envy to see the two of them work together like that, their every movement speaking of trust and habit even after years apart. But there was no envy that day. There would not be envy again, Lan Wangji realised.

It took him a moment to notice when Nie Huaisang woke up, but Lan Wangji eventually noticed the more rapid pulse in the hand he was still holding. When he looked down at the bed, he found his husband looking back at him with an expression he could not quite read.

“You saved me,” Nie Huaisang whispered.

“You knew I would,” Lan Wangji replied, letting go of his husband’s hand to push away the hair that had fallen before his eyes.

Nie Huaisang smiled weakly, leaning into that touch. Without thinking about it, Lan Wangji cupped his cheek, which made the other man’s smile widen.

“Ah, Wangji, Wangji,” he sighed. “I’ll be getting ideas if you keep being so nice to me, so you should stop.”

“They would be the right ideas,” Lan Wangji calmly replied.

He felt Nie Huaisang flinch, saw his eyes widen as if in fear.

“Wangji, don’t make me hope for something I can’t have,” he whispered. “I can’t go through that again. I know who you want, who you love.”

“I want a man who stands at my side and is happy there,” Lan Wangji said as he gently stroked Nie Huaisang’s cheek with his thumb. “I love a man who sees me and finds me worthy of trust.”

“Lans only love once.”

Lan Wangji huffed at that old tale. He had never thought of it in his youth, before clinging to it with desperation when everyone tried to order him to turn away from Wei Wuxian. Now, though, it felt as nothing more than a story, a cautionary tale to encourage Lan children to be careful with their affections.

“Not all Lans,” he stated, leaning forward to carefully kiss his husband.

Nie Huaisang gasped against his lips, but did not push him away.

It was a sweet first kiss, Lan Wangji thought. Different from the one he had stolen on a tree, so many years before. Nie Huaisang’s lips were a little parched but retained a certain softness, and he was leaning eagerly into the kiss rather than fighting to escape it.

When they parted, Nie Huaisang was smiling more brightly than he had in months. More brightly than he ever had before, Lan Wangji thought, and the realisation that he was the cause for such happiness made him smile as well.

He then kissed Nie Huaisang again, simply because he could, because it was allowed, because it was welcome, because he loved this man he had married, with whom he was raising a child.

Lan Wangji loved him and after that second kiss Nie Huaisang returned those words to him before kissing him again, and again, both of them too happy to stop.

[grapefruitsketches]

Silly Dreams, Barred Teeth

For fytheuntamed’s Untamed Fall Fest 2020 Day 27: Fright

Rated T, Words. References to CQL only scene, Wangxian, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, post-canon 

Also available on AO3

Wei Wuxian awoke in a cold sweat. Eyes shot open and he stared into the dark, only the faint light of the moon reminding him where he was. But that didn’t change when he’d been, mere seconds ago.

A stifled groan next to him, a voice husky with sleep, “Wei Ying?”

Oh. He supposed he was shaking. He shifted away from his slowly waking husband, chuckling apologetically, “Ah, Lan Zhan, go back to sleep. Just kicked the blankets off, got a little cold is all.”

He didn’t move, pretending he was going back to sleep himself. But instead of a quiet hum, maybe a slight shift in position, and an easy return to his previous stillness, he heard Lan Zhan sleepily but purposefully sat up.

“Wei Ying, look at me,” Lan Zhan said.

Wei Wuxian sighed, then complied, turning over to face him.

Lan Zhan’s slight frown. The crease between his brow. The way his eyes hung heavy with sleep but sharp as they examined his husband’s face in return. Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but let his expression soften, a gentle smile replacing his nervous grin.

But as the tension eased, he also couldn’t stop the pricks of tears rising to his eyes. He only hoped it was too dark for Lan Zhan to notice.

“I’m fine, Lan Zhan. Really,” he whispered, his earlier laughter echoing in his ears, reverberating against the near silence. He leaned in close, closing his eyes and nuzzling back into his husband’s chest. He knew too well that he could only feign sleep right now given how fast his heart still raced, but maybe Lan Zhan could at least get his rest.

“Another dream?” Lan Zhan asked softly, not even acknowledging Wei Wuxian’s obvious lie. He draped an arm around Wei Wuxian and pulled him closer.

“Yeah,” Wuxian let out a huff of laughter, “Just another dream...” his grip on his husband tightened involuntarily.

“Tell me about it.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whined, cracking his eyes open to better pout at his husband, “You don’t want to hear about boring things like my dreams now do you?” His voice had a teasing edge to it, but not the intended effect. Lan Zhan flinched, closing his eyes to the word “boring.”

“Things that trouble you are never too boring,” he said, earnest. Stubborn.

Wei Wuxian let out a breath and pushed himself up, leaning against the headboard, “No. Really Lan Zhan, it was nothing. I’m sorry I woke you.”

Those words were met only with a long, patient, but unwavering stare.

The stalemate lasted what felt like minutes, but was truthfully likely only moments before Wei Wuxian broke, “Fine, fine. If you need to hear all the embarrassing things that keep your poor husband up at night…”

“If it would help you to tell me, I want to hear it,” Lan Zhan said, voice steady and calming, like the lakes Wei Wuxian had grown up on, “You wouldn’t be telling me for me. You would be telling me for you.”

A part of him – the old part of him, the part of him trained to be everything, but to expect nothing – wanted to laugh, to tease Lan Zhan for being so serious about something as trivial as a dream.

But he had grown past the need for such a mask, particularly around Lan Zhan. That old part of him was no longer in control. Lan Zhan had seen, accepted, and loved everything behind it. And a larger part of him wanted him – wanted someone – to finally know. His voice took on a mumble as he averted his gaze, the old part of him still carrying a bit of power, “It was that dog.”

To his credit, Lan Zhan didn’t so much as blink in surprise, only murmuring, “Which dog?”

“It’s… it’s…  like I said it’s silly,” at the admonishing look from Lan Zhan, Wei Wuxian sighed, “Fine, not silly, just… I don’t know, of all the things I could have dreamed about, this one shouldn’t have bothered me.”

A longer stare, a tiny encouraging nod, from Lan Zhan. Not interrupting, not commenting, only acknowledging.

“It was…” Wei Wuxian narrowed his eyes, trying to remember that time all those years ago, “Did I ever tell you where I was taken after our – ah – gardening expedition in Qishan?”

Lan Zhan shook his head, stiffening at the reminder of the Wen indoctrination, all those years ago. He said nothing, but Wei Wuxian leaned into his touch as Lan Zhan began carding his fingers through Wei Wuxian’s hair.

“Ah… well… see, Wen Chao had this… this dog…”

By the end of the story, Wei Wuxian appreciated just how much Lan Zhan was trying to maintain a calm demeanour, but still, he looked just about ready to try and revive Wen Chao himself just to kill him again, perhaps more brutally this time. Wei Wuxian, meanwhile, was trying his best to keep the tone light, the problem simple, but the memories… the dream…

That lunge... right at the end... teeth... chasing... closing the gap.

He shook his head, “Anyway,” he smiled, gaze fixed not on Lan Zhan’s face, but his shoulder, “It’s all over now, right?” he yawned, stretching his arms theatrically, “Maybe now that I’ve told you, I can finally put it in the past and–”

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan cut him off abruptly, gently tipping Wei Wuxian’s head back by the chin, lowering his own head bringing their eyes in line with one another, “That never should have happened.”

“Aha, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian gulped, even now reddening at this kind of proximity with his soulmate, “You remember how I was. A night in a dungeon is the least I de–“

“No. You did nothing to deserve any harm. No one does, least of all you.” The tone was firm. Affectionate, but adamant.

“Lan Zhan, I–“ He had carried that memory through two lifetimes. Told himself he shouldn’t make such a big deal out of it. Hid it. Told no one.  Had been ashamed at how ludicrous his paralyzing fear had been. How he, one of the top ranked youths in the cultivation world, who would face worse even before he left Qishan, had cowered at the beast, still had nightmares of it, just because it was a dog.

Lan Zhan shook his head, continuing, “You were afraid. That wasn’t wrong to feel. The only wrong was that you were there in the first place. Do you understand?”

Wei Wuxian nodded quietly, letting the words sink in, the cool stream of acceptance flowing through him, relieving points of tension he hadn’t known he’d been holding so long.

“You will tell me next time you feel afraid, no matter what the cause? Let me help you?”

And Wei Wuxian’s face finally cracked into a warm, genuine smile. He nodded, leaning back into Lan Zhan’s chest, “Mmhm… I will,” he paused, then sat back up, “On one condition,” he said, suddenly stern, though with a hint of playfulness in his eyes.

Lan Zhan frowned, “What condition?”

Wei Wuxian smiled, “You’ll tell me if you’re afraid, no matter what. You’ll let me help you too?”

Lan Zhan blinked. Once, twice, then a soft smile grew on his face as well.

“I will.”

[mhalachai]

advance snippet: Updating Wednesdays on Patreon (The Untamed)

So. Do I need to write an Untamed modern!AU with a college twist (Lan Xichen is a music professor in Canada) in which Wei Wuxian attempts to self-therapy himself by creating a graphic novel fantasy AU version of his life (aka the real story of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) and Lan Xichen attempts to rebuild his life after a toxic relationship ended? I mean probably not but has that ever stopped me?  here’s the intro snippet we’ll see how things go.

(Title is tentatively Updating Wednesdays on Patreon because i don’t know what to call this thing)

~~

The first day of August finds Lan Xichen in a coffee shop, tinkering with the syllabus for his new music theory course, when his phone pings with a message.

> Lan Wangji: Brother.

> Lan Wangji: Wei Ying has asked me to inform you that he will be publishing the first collection of pages in his new graphic novel on Patreon this afternoon.

Lan Xichen smiles at Lan Wangji's tone. For all that his little brother is more verbose in electronic communication than verbal, he's always so exact.

> To Lan Wangji: Can't wait! What's it about?

The little cursor blinks for a while as Lan Wangji continues to type. Lan Xichen just hopes that his brother-in-law's creative enthusiasm isn't running up against Lan Wangji's sensibilities.

Finally, a reply appears.

> Lan Wangji: Wei Ying wants me to tell you that it is completely fictional.

This gives Lan Xichen pause. Why on earth would Wei Wuxian, or Lan Wangji himself for that matter, need to make that declaration?

> Lan Wangji: It is a high fantasy xianxia story.

Before Lan Xichen can ask why that is causing this odd message exchange, another notification pops up on his phone.

> Wei Wuxian: Lan Xichen! Lan Zhan types so slow! It's just a different art style I wanted to try out and it snowballed from there!

> Wei Wuxian: I know you follow me on Patreon so you're going to get the notification this afternoon so I wanted to warn you hahaha

> Wei Wuxian: All names and places are purely fictional. I don't really have a sword.

Another message arrives, with all the information Lan Xichen needs.

> Lan Wangji: This matters a great deal with Wei Ying.

Lan Xichen smiles at his brother's words. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have been together since their junior year of high school, through a great deal of personal difficulties on both sides, and are still as fiercely protective of each other as ever. He loves them both for it.

> To Lan Wangji: Thank you for the information. I'm sure it will be great.

> To Wei Wuxian: Can't wait to see it! Anything you do is always great.

No more messages arrive, so Lan Xichen goes back to considering how to change the quiz structure of his musical theory class to avoid a marking crisis with the evaluation of his ensemble class.

Finally, as Lan Wangji gathers up his papers to leave, one last message comes in on his phone.

> Lan Wangji: Thank you for your support. We all appreciate it.

Attached to the message is a photo taken of Lan Wangji's family, he and Wei Wuxian holding Lan Yuan between them. The toddler grins at the camera, his arms around Wei Wuxian's neck. Wei Wuxian's looks at the camera, dark circles under his eyes like he's working through the night again, while Lan Wangji only has eyes for his husband.

It's so wholesome and loving that a sliver of pain rakes through Lan Xichen's heart. He's happy for his brother. His brother deserves the world. Lan Wangji deserves being loved, and to love.

Not everyone gets that. Sometimes, that falls apart.

Sometimes, for some people, love is just an illusion.

Lan Xichen tucks his phone away and leaves the coffee shop.

~~

He gets home mid-afternoon, and spends a while stowing away the groceries he picked up on his walk. The neighbourhood has several Greek and Persian markets and he's able to buy most of what he needs on foot, saving the Chinese markets in Richmond for his weekly dim sum brunches with Lan Wangji's family when he can borrow the use of Lan Wangji's sensible and economical mini-van.

He doesn't drive any more, not since—

Lan Xichen stops and puts down the bag of avocados. His mind is a funny place, bringing up the oddest things at the most inconvenient of times.

He doesn't drive anymore. He doesn't need to, using the bus and the odd taxi to transport his instruments up to the university for performances. The public transit system is so much better.

Safer.

He goes back to putting away the vegetables, pulls out a cookbook (new, spine uncreased, bought for him by Lan Qiren for his birthday) and opens it at random. He's never had coconut curry salmon before, but he has all the ingredients.

Trying new things. He's supposed to be trying new things.

The recipes says it will only take half an hour to make, so he goes up to his office and turns on his computer to check his work email. The message fly fast and furious, some about the new department head, some about class enrollment, a few from students asking if they can get onto his waitlist. He replies to the most urgent, files the rest, then checks his personal email.

The notification from Wei Wuxian's Patreon is up, so Lan Xichen clicks it.

Then he sits back, frankly impressed. He's seen Wei Wuxian's comic style progress since the boy was drawing silly cartoons to entertain Lan Wangji in history class, but even he wasn't prepared for this.

The art is gorgeous. Stylized figures, intricate period costuming, rich backgrounds – it's truly a work of art.

Then he gets a better look the two characters' faces, and laughs out loud. It's Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, clear as day, with long hair and flowing robes. Wei Wuxian's even managed to capture that exasperated-yet-fond look Lan Wangji has whenever Wei Wuxian is being particularly loud.

The introduction is even better. "Join our hero Lan Wangji and dashing rogue Wei Wuxian as they battle deadly monsters and forge a path with demonic cultivation!"

Wei Wuxian hasn't even changed their names. True, he uses his mother's surname professionally, so Cangse Ying can't be easily tracked back, but still.

Lan Xichen wonders for a moment if Lan Wangji is okay with this, but then he notices that the project text is available in both English and in Chinese, with the Chinese written in Lan Wangji's style.

They worked on this together, then.

Trying not to think about why that makes his chest feel funny, Lan Xichen opens to the first page--

-- Which features a bruised and bloodied Wei Wuxian falling off a cliff while a horrified Lan Wangji screams after him.

Confused, Lan Xichen makes sure he hasn't accidentally read the last page first. No, this is the first. Still a little baffled, he clicks to the next page, sees the stylized banner that reads six years ago and relaxes. This is Wei Wuxian's style of using flashbacks to interrupt the narrative flow. Lan Xichen spent most of Lan Wangji's university years hearing his brother's despair for Wei Wuxian's artistic choices in essay form.

But enough about the past. Lan Xichen settles in to read the first chapter of the story, where Wei Wuxian and his siblings (Jiang Yanli drawn lovingly, Jiang Cheng with a bigger frown and more menacing eyebrows than Lan Xichen remembers) traveled to the Cloud Recesses (the sarcastic nickname Wei Wuxian gave to Lan Qiren's West Vancouver mansion) for cultivator lectures. Lan Xichen is there on the page, too, drawn taller and far more imposing than he is in real life.

The first encounter between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji is fantastical and improbable and, according to Lan Xichen's recollection, almost completely accurate. Wei Wuxian had mouthed off at Lan Wangji at the weekend orientation camp for their new arts high school, Lan Wangji glared the boy into submission, then later that night when Wei Wuxian tried to sneak back onto school grounds with alcohol, he and Lan Wangji had gotten into a fight. Verbal, instead of with swords, and without the supernatural murder victims, but Lan Xichen remembered everything else from Lan Wangji's indignant recitation on his return home.

He keeps reading, enjoying the art and the lyrical narration, and keeps enjoying it right up to the scene when Nie Huaisang appears on the page to offer Lan Qiren a present, Meng Yao standing right behind him.

Lan Xichen doesn't remember standing up, but here he is, two feet away from his computer, heart pounding. He hadn't—Why—

What was Meng Yao doing in a story about Wei Wuxian's high school years?

Taking a deep breath, Lan Xichen makes himself return to his desk. As far as he knew, he was the one who introduced Meng Yao to Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, when the boys were in university and after he and Meng Yao started dating--

Lan Xichen can feel his heartbeat slow, as he tries to breathe. He needs to stop this foolishness over Meng Yao. They dated before living together for a while, that was all. They broke up. It happens to people all the time.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were in college for most of that time, anyway, living their lives. They barely knew Meng Yao, even if Wei Wuxian's sister married Meng Yao's half-brother. They couldn't know how badly Lan Xichen had messed up their relationship, how terrible he had been to live with. It was his fault that—

Stop.

Stop.

It's over. In the past. A story that has Meng Yao as a minor character isn't going to mess with Lan Xichen's head. He's not going to let it.

He exhales and makes himself look back at the screen.

Meng Yao only shows up a few more times. For some reason, he's the only character who isn't tagged with his own name. He's there handing over the present to Lan Qiren, standing in front of Nie Huaisang when the Wens arrive, then in two last panels in which he tells the on-screen Lan Xichen that he has to return to Nie Mingjue's side.

Lan Xichen's stomach sours. He and Nie Mingjue had been close, before Meng Yao came into Lan Xichen's life. After that, Lan Xichen hadn't had much time for anyone else. That was normal, Meng Yao always said. People in love only needed each other.

Lan Xichen picks up his phone, then puts it down. He can't ask Lan Wangji about this. It would be weird. Wei Wuxian must just be making artistic narrative choices.

The chapter ends soon after, with Wen Qing and Wen Ning welcomed grudgingly into Cloud Recesses. The next chapter is due up in two weeks, the page declares, and welcomes any comments or feedback. A few people are already posting, gushing over the art work and discussing the teaser from the opening page.

Wanting to be supportive, Lan Xichen writes a small review, complimenting the artistic style, the intricacies of the outfits, poses a query as to the different colour palettes between the first page (dark, red, menacing) and the flashback scenes in Cloud Recesses (light, airy, hopeful), then translates the comment into English and posts both versions up. If Lan Wangji is going though all the trouble of ensuring a bilingual experience, then he will too.

He should go start dinner, he really should, but some part of him is drawn back to the first panel in which Meng Yao appears. He's shorter than Lan Xichen remembers in life, the long hair and braids suiting his face.

It's been so long since Lan Xichen last saw Meng Yao. He's not sure what he's thinking. Is he wistful? Mournful? Sad?

He doesn't know. He never knows what he feels about Meng Yao, which was the problem. He's not normal about feelings. Even Lan Wangji, whose brain is a unique and complicated thing, looking for order and reason and patterns in an illogical and messy world, loves fiercely, feels passionately. Maybe he got all the love in the family, and Lan Xichen got stuck with the stunted and undergrown heart.

Stirring, he pages back to the first appearance of his on-screen twin. The Lan Xichen on the screen looks patient, kind, a smile hiding behind his eyes.

He hadn't realized this is how Wei Wuxian sees him.

He picks up his phone.

> To Wei Wuxian: What an incredible achievement! The art is amazing!

> To Wei Wuxian: Where is the story from? As it's a work of fiction and has nothing to do with your real life ;)

> Wei Wuxian: Oh hahahha the story is a collaboration of a bunch of ideas! I can't tell u more (sworn to secrecy by my collaborators) but so glad you like it!!!!!!

> To Lan Wangji: Did you do the writing? I love the dialogue.

> Lan Wangji: Wei Wuxian did most of the English. I made it better and did the translation.

> To Lan Wangji: Have you told uncle about this project?

> Lan Wangji: He prefers to speak of my composition achievements.

Lan Xichen puts his phone down and rubs his eyes. The old tension between Lan Qiren and Lan Wangji never goes away. It started in high school with Lan Qiren's disapproval of Wei Wuxian, continued into university with Lan Qiren's disapproval of Wei Wuxian as well as Lan Wangji's decision to attend a local university for musical studies instead of going to Julliard in Lan Xichen's footsteps, and outrage at the news that Lan Wangji asked Wei Wuxian to marry him before they even finished their undergraduate degrees.

The resulting years had been a long-standing cold war, with Lan Xichen trying to mediate in the middle. Even the arrival of Lan Yuan on the scene twenty months previous hadn't softened both sides into anything resembling ease.

If Lan Wangji doesn't want to tell their uncle that he and his husband are collaborating on a semi-biographical graphic novel, Lan Xichen isn't going to muddy the waters.

> To Lan Wangji: It sounds like you're enjoying the project.

> Lan Wangji: Working with Wei Ying on any project is enjoyable. I read that couples with young children should try to engage in a mutual hobby outside of parenting.

> To Lan Wangji: Very wise.

He wonders if he should ask about Meng Yao, types out a message to that effect, then deletes it.

> To Lan Wangji: I should start dinner – see you on the weekend for brunch?

>Lan Wangji: Yes.

Lan Xichen puts his phone down. The days are long in August and the sun still bright, but he's tired and he doesn't know why.

~~

anyway that’s where this whole disaster is going. new fandoms are fun. 

[boxoftheskyking]

Something Good, Part Fifteen

Here’s the second of the Very Difficult Chapters. a great relief

Look, I don’t know shit about mythical ancient China, but I feel some kind of way about any society with a noble class, and you know what so does Wei Ying

In which we hear The Tale of Wei Ying

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

—- Once there was a family, like many families. Mother, father, son, daughter, and somebody else. Don’t sigh like that, Lan Zhan, I’m telling the story. The children could either do nothing wrong or nothing right, depending on who you asked. One year they spent a summer on top of a mountain to learn from the wisest and most beautiful scholars in the world. I’m talking about you and your brother, not your uncle. Are you blushing, Lan Zhan? 

Fine, fine, I’ll skip what you already know. We heard there was an attack, and we left. Did you notice we’d gone? Of course you’d say that now. Fine, fine. 

Uncle was dead when we got there. Madam Yu nearly dead. Jiang Cheng ran out— We tried to stop him, but he’s always so reckless. He’s all heart, Jiang Cheng. People don’t realize that, but he is. 

It was Wen Zhuliu, and some others—I didn’t recognize them. Everything was burning, and Wen Zhuliu came out of the dark … Have you seen him? Have you ever seen what Core Melting Hand can do? It’s like he drained the life out of him. I never thought Jiang Cheng was some glowing, ethereal beauty, ha! But the light was gone. He was a corpse, a breathing corpse. Skin like paper. And Yanli and I stayed out of sight, and they left him for dead and Lotus Pier in flames. So we ran. 

You know Wen Ruohan was behind it, right? All of these attacks on smaller sects, these rogue agents—I’d bet anything I used to own that the Lan Sect ambush was them as well. Oh, your father was there, wasn’t he? I’m sorry, Lan Zhan.

Right.

It took a month, I think. Jiang Cheng kept trying to die. Yanli was barely holding on. Every time he’d try something, she’d break down. It was just me, trying to keep us hidden, trying to keep them alive. They’re so— They feel everything, you know? They feel it so strongly. They can’t help it.

So I wrote to Wen Qing. In code, of course, but she’s clever. She got Yanli safe somewhere with some old aunt or another. I don’t know where. I suppose if I asked—

Ah, I’m stalling. You can tell, can’t you? 

Lan Zhan, have you ever heard of a core transfer? 

Just legends, right? That poem about Yao Ling and Yao Xiulan that romantics like to recite.

You can hold my hand, but not so tight, okay? Don’t be upset. Everyone is fine.

We told Jiang Cheng to meet the mysterious Baoshan Sanren on a mountain and then knocked him out. Wen Qing loves her needles. That’s something you should know about her. 

And so … Ah, it’s hard to say. Why is it so hard to say? So Wen Qing did surgery and gave my golden core to Jiang Cheng. Hey, not so tight. I’m just a poor common man after all. No, I didn’t mean let go!

I don’t know where she learned it. I think she made some of it up, because she’s a genius. I don’t think anyone else could have done it. No one appreciates Wen Qing the way they should. No one but us, now, Lan Zhan.

So we recovered, and I ran. I couldn’t let him find out. It would destroy him. You know—well, you don’t know him very well, do you? Trust me. Maybe someday, far in the future when he’s been a mighty sect leader for years and nothing like this could threaten his position, who he thinks he is. Maybe then I’ll find a way back to Lotus Pier. See Shijie again.

Because I can’t lie to her. And she can’t lie to Jiang Cheng. I couldn’t— can’t risk her seeing me. She’d look me in the eyes for a moment and she’d know. She’s kind of like you in that way, the way she can look into your soul. 

Lan Zhan, you’re shaking. Are you cold? Look, it’s almost dawn.

You know the rest, anyway. I didn’t know how to be mediocre, and the resentful spirits in the Burial Mounds felt it, knew it, filled me up. 

What? Yes, I’m all healed. I can show you the scar if you don’t think it’s too shameless.

It— Two days, I think. I—

I’m not going to tell you about that, Lan Zhan.

–

The sky is a glowing grey, turning everything monochromatic. Here in the dirt Wei Wuxian can’t see much difference between the white and grey of their clothing. Lan Wangji is leaning a bit towards him, still holding his hand. His eyes are distant, aimed somewhere at the ground but not focused on anything. For his part, Wei Wuxian feels like laundry. Boiled and scrubbed and rung out, now swinging in the early morning breeze. He’s as light as a bed sheet, and just as pale.

“You gave your golden core voluntarily,” Lan Wangji says quietly, frowning. “Because of Jiang Wanyin.”

“For Jiang Cheng. Not because of him. It wasn’t his fault.”

“You gave it to him. All of it.”

“You would too, for Zewu Jun.”

“You couldn’t keep any? You had to give it all to him.”

Wei Wuxian blinks at him. “I— You know what, Lan Zhan? I didn’t actually think of that. Wen Qing probably did. I don’t know how she’d split a core, anyway. Huh. I really never even thought to ask. I wish you’d been there!”

Lan Wangji looks up at him, his face twisting painfully

“You didn’t ask. You just gave it—”

“Yes, yes, don’t keep saying that. Now I feel silly.”

“That’s not—” he glares at their joined hands. “Who knows? Who else knows?”

“You. Wen Qing. Zewu Jun now, I suppose. That’s it. You can never tell him, you can never tell Jiang Cheng. You promised.”

Lan Wangji’s glare grows stronger, and Wei Wuxian imagines he can see it drilling into the dirt.

“The transfer. Transplant. How did Wen Qing know—”

Wei Wuxian waves his free hand. “I don’t know. I already told you; I don’t know how she figured it out. It worked though. Aiyah, that’s the worst part of this whole thing! She’s done something no one in the world has dared to try, and it worked! And no one knows.”

Lan Wangji’s head snaps over to him.

“Lan Zhan, she’s so talented. You have no idea, she’s the most— It’s really the worst part of it, not being able to tell anyone. I’d yell it from the top of the mountain if I could! She deserves far greater praise than mine. She’s incredible, your wife.”

“She’s not my wife.”

Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes and gets stiffly to his feet, brushing off his trousers. “Come on, Lan Zhan. If I’m staying then I need to get breakfast for the children.”

“That is the worst part?” Lan Wangji asks, suddenly. He rises in one smooth movement, not a wrinkle in his robes.

“What?”

“Not being able to praise Wen Qing publicly. That is the worst part for you?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs. “Yeah. It’s not fair.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Are you just going to repeat—” he cuts off with a squeak as Lan Wangji grabs onto his collar and doesn’t let go. “Lan Zhan—”

He’s silenced by Lan Wangji’s mouth, firm and unmoving on his and so incredibly warm. He chokes, with dignity, stumbles closer. Lan Wangji is as still and solid as a statue, until Wei Wuxian shifts and lets a hysterical giggle slip out between their lips. It’s like sunlight melting ice, and his hands come up to hold Wei Wuxian’s neck, his head tilts, and his lips soften into a true and sincere, heart-wrenching kiss. 

Wei Wuxian wonders, for a moment, if he is the statute and life is breathing into him, animating his body and calling his spirit back from the dark, cold place it’s been hiding. He’s kissed people before, but it’s never been like this. It’s always felt like a give and take, but this is giving and giving and falling and rising at the same time.

When Lan Wangji pulls back, Wei Wuxian realizes his eyes are closed and his hands are pressed to the broad chest in front of him, which feels startlingly intimate

“Wei Wuxian,” Lan Wangji says seriously, and he freezes at the sudden formality. Oh no. No, no, no— “You have been wronged.”

Ah. He melts back to a watery smile and meets Lan Wangji’s eyes.

“Not by you, Lan Zhan.”

“Yes, by me. By all of us, the whole cultivation world. It was wrong. What can—” he cuts off, frustrated, eyes darting to the side and back. “What do you need?”

“What?”

“It has to be made right. What do you need me to do?”

Bow. Weep. Marry me. Fight Wen Ruohan in single combat. Give me land and a donkey and make everyone leave me alone. Give me your core.

“Just—” he looks down at his hands against the white fabric. They’re rougher than they used to be, callused, scarred, nails dirty and a little ragged. He turns them, runs his thumb over his fingertips. They don’t hurt. They haven’t hurt for weeks. “Let me stay.”

“You were the one leaving. I was going to ask you to stay. To try and make you stay.”

“Good.” 

He back looks up at Lan Wangji, who doesn’t look satisfied. He sighs.

“Look, Lan Zhan, I’ve spent a long time thinking about what could happen if people knew the truth. That’s why it— well, it broke me a little when I thought you did. But nothing I imagined ever felt right. And I think I figured it out today. Nothing can go back to the way it was. Not for any of us. There’s going to be a war, whether Qishan or Lanling starts it, and even if I’m pardoned that doesn’t give me my core back. I still did bad things. Whatever my reasons, I did reckless things that hurt people. When I was cultivating the dark path, I used people, hurt people, ruined graves to wake corpse puppets without even a thought that they had families, that they mattered. I deserve punishment for that. But it’s made me think. How many cultivators would you say there are in each province compared to common people?”

Lan Zhan furrows his brow. “I would need to research.”

“Sure. But who makes the laws for all of these people? Who negotiates trade routes and tariffs? Who starts wars?”

“Hmm.”

“Do any of the people setting a price for grain know how to harvest it? How to tell by touch if the soil is fertile? How to prevent pests, or rot, or any other disaster? What does a bad year mean to the men negotiating the trade of that grain to a province with none? And compared to the common men who pack it, haul it, grind it? When war breaks out, who gives the command to burn the field?”

“I understand.”

“You don’t, but I don’t think I do either. Not exactly. I just— I have questions that I’ve never had before. I think I’ve been telling myself my whole life that there are two options. You can be a cultivator or you can be nothing. That’s how we were raised. But that’s not true. That’s just arrogance. My own pride brought me down, but the problem wasn’t that I was proud, arrogant, entitled. I was just the wrong kind of arrogant.”

Lan Wangji takes both of his hands. “What do you need me to do?”

Wei Wuxian laughs, and the sound startles a tree full of birds into song. “Dear Lan Zhan, we’re not going to solve the world this morning. Come help me get breakfast for the kids.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. Well, kiss me again first. Then—”

Lan Wangji huffs. “Wei Ying, you don’t need to work in Cloud Recesses. I don’t believe the sentence was just, and Brother won’t either. You can live here, and we can find someone—”

“No. I’m staying, and I’m taking care of the kids. Not someone else, and not Wen Qing. Me. Deal?”

“If that’s truly what you want.”

“It is. For now. What I really want right now, more than anything else, is to go home with you and get breakfast for the kids.”

Lan Wangji nods solemnly, a final judgement. “Then that is what we will do.”

Part Sixteen

[wangxianficrecs]

Fic Finder

~*~

1.  Hi, I'm looking for an Untamed fic, maybe you'll be able to help. It's a canon divergence AU in which WWX doesn't lose his core, Jiang Fengmian lives and it's implied that his core was transferred to JC (heavily implied; JFM retires as the Sect Leader after that). This is absolutely not the most important part of this fic but it's a paragraph that I've got stuck in my head and now I'm searching for the rest @_@ Thanks in advance! ~ @otemporaetmores

FOUND! by @notsobabblespace, who was reminded of  I’m aching and I know you are too by edenwolfie (part 3 in series, M, 23k, wangxian)

FOUND!  by @jim-is-spocks-thyla, who suggests ❤️ to arrive late is better than not to arrive at all by Moominmammashandbag (M, 35k, wangxian) [ETA:  Oops, not this one.  JFM has no core, but he didn’t give it to JC]

~*~

2.  Hi Mojo! I’m in need of you/your followers help in finding a fic that I read a little while ago. It was a fic where Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi lived together in Cloud Recesses and their children were Sizhui and an OOC that was younger than him. I remember SiZhui faced a lot of criticism for not being the chief cultivator’s real child? And they were happy he had a younger sibling that would be sect leader in the future because he was blood. Come to think of it, this is probably an ABO fic too. Thanks for your time 💜

FOUND! @andidontmeanto believes this is Blue Blood by PotterheadAvengerDemigod (T, 91k, wangxian, my post)

~*~

3.  Aksks it's like 3 am but I just remembered a fic and I can't find it?? I'd really, really appreciate your help. It was a wangxian fic, maybe a oneshot idk, and lwj was kind of a nerd and wwx a badboy? So basically lwj has a massive crush on him and dresses up like wwx etc. (i think he even got an undercut) and after a party they sleep with each other at lwj's place?

~*~

4.  i’m looking for a fic set in the where lwj’s mother killed his father? i don’t think that was a main plot point but it did show up in his backstory - any idea what this might be? ~ @thehype

FOUND!  @rentslirott thinks this could be ❤️the best of you by sysrae (E, 42k, wangxian, my post)

FOUND!  @castaways-logbook offers  The Right to Care by travelingneuritis (E, 39k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

5.  ... same as #6 ...

~*~

6.  Hello friend, sorry for the inconvenience but I wanted to see if you could please find me a fic that I lost but I only remember more or less the final part, it goes more or less like this, lan zhan and wei ying are kidnapped by jin guangyao and lock them up if not I'm wrong in some cells next to lan xichen after the fights jin guangyao dies but lan xichen did know how bad jin guangyao had done and he didn't care and then to get revenge he wants to kill wei ying but lan zhan kills him and sizhui gets scared It was more or less like that, please help me ~ @isa0123lol

FOUND!  by @wangxiansfics who says that tragically it’s no longer available, but @dulachodladh found it on WaybackMachine here: Thread and Needle by haysel (M, 86k, wangxian)

~*~

7.  Hi, Mojo! I'm glad that you're back but I hope you enjoyed your time off tumblr! Can you and/or your followers help me find a fic? I think the summary was talking about wwx and somehow they were asking mingjue for help since he's the only one who can help. The summary was in italics and it's a dialogue from some guy? And a shorter summary below. Sadly this is the only thing I can remember but I hope you can still help me

FOUND!  @alwayswenning suggests love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, wangxian, has it’s own fanfic here, I just finished this last night!, my bookmark)

~*~

8.  Sorry to bombard you as soon as you're back, but this one's driving me crazy--a modern AU where they met online. WWX thinks LWJ is an old man from how he talks. I don't remember much except the excerpt made it seem like he still was amused by/enjoyed talking to him, and Wen Qing was telling him it was a bad idea and to stop. It's not How to Fall In Love With a Catfish, tho that one is brilliant! (Also any top notch identity porn would be great) Hope your break was restful, you deserve it! Thanks

Here’s my #identity porn tag, but I’m not sure about this exact story.

I'm the anon for #8 on the fic finder. Though I'm excited to read it, the suggested fic isn't the one I was looking for. I swear I thought I saw it on here around a month ago or slightly more, but searches have failed me.

FOUND!  Rating: General Audiences by Mishaa (T, 18k, wangxian WIP) -  mysterious author LWJ (speculated to be an old man because of his formality) and infamous artist WWX paired up for an Untamed Big Bang (in an AU where JGY was the series’ antiheroic protagonist; this fic was written before the release of CQL.)

FOUND?  could you be looking for  Something Real by Latios (G, 5k, wangxian, my post) - wwx thinks lwj is an old man, but there’s no WQ.  There are many pictures of bunnies.

SIMILAR! @emilysidhe thought of ID Bro Saga by Bowandtie (T, 39k, wangxian)

~*~

9.  Hey, how are you? Could you help me please? I've read 3 fanfics once, but I can't find them anymore. 1 - Nanny Problem, Wei is going to be the babysitter of A-Yuan, he is an omega and Lan is an alpha. 2 - Doctor Perfect, Yibo is an omega nurse and Xiao is an alpha doctor. 3 - The Baby of my Omega, Yibo is omega and Xiao is alpha, both of them are bodyguards, but Yibo has to protect Xiao in the beginning. I think they were at ao3, but I really can't find them. Can you help me please? Thank you!! ~ @weallmad

~*~

10.  Hi! Im happy you’re back. I hope you had a good break. I missed your recommendations, but at the same time i got a break from fics and actually studied to my tests haha.  [Ah!  I’m glad to hear your time was spent productively!]  I’m looking for a fic like Linger in the Sun by etymologyplayground. In the fic im looking for wangxian slowly lose their senses instead of all of them at once. Like they lose their hearing, then touch, sight etc, They can’t see each other or hear each other. I’m sorry i can’t explain very well.

FOUND?  Could you be thinking of  ❤️shadows in the sun rise by Yuu_chi (E, 25k, wangxian)?  Only lwj losese his senses one by one in this one, though.

~*~

11.  heyyy im trying to find this fic where wwx died the first time he was thrown in to the burial mounds then 10 years later he gets resurrected or something. I can't find it on AO3 and it's been bugging me for days. Thank you!

FOUND!  Well, @moku-youbi offers both of these as possibilities:

Did I Not Explain Why the Sunset Turns Red? by 3988Akasha (E, 100k, wangxian)

we're starting at the end by Miss_Enthusiasimal (M, 95k, wangxian)

~*~

12.  Hi I am looking for a fic where wwx is a witch (/mage?) in a world where magic is being persecuted (especially in Gusu) except for Yunmeng/Lanling I think but they're still frowned upon nonetheless. Then after accidentally hurting Shijie, wwx runs away, and ends up hiding in Gusu pretending to be a servant to lwj (lwj is a prince, lxc is the emperor) but lwj actually knows of his identity and tries not-so-discreetly to protect him from being caught. Thanks!

FOUND! by @bibliobasilisk who gives us Witchfinder by misbehavingvigilante (E, 86k, wangxian)

~*~

13.  Hi! Firstly, I'm glad to see you're back, and I hope your break was a good one! I'm trying to find a LWJ/WWX story that I had planned to read and ending up losing before I could. It was set in the immediate aftermath of the 33 lashes, LWJ is in the Jingshi recovering when a healer(?) discovers he's pregnant (by WWX). It may have been a/b/o verse, but I'm not 100% on that. Part of the story was a flashback to when WWX was still alive. Thank you!

FOUND!  by nonny themself.  It’s Unexpected Surprise by Glucose_Gremlin (E, 4k, wangxian)

SIMILAR! @mondelgel suggests my heart is kept as pure as ice in a jade vase/一片冰心在玉壶 by Daledesu (M, 21k, wangxian, WIP)

SIMILAR! from @impending-cuttlefish:  something new, something white, something blue by ariskamalt (E, 140k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

14.  I'm trying to find this one fic where Jin Ling finds this diary that Wei Ying wrote as the Yiling Patriarch that basically reveals everything, including the golden core reveal and it even has training tips that helps Jon Ling improve. When Wei Ying comes back, he tries everything to keep him there because he is THE best uncle now. I need to find it because it is a N E E D.

FOUND? by @theladypeartree who says, “The Truth (Untold) is jl reading jyl's journals, not wwx's though. And mordant is jl returning wwx's journals that he found, not grew up with. Neither fit #14 properly, but I seriously could not find anything closer after two solid days of searching. Good luck!“

The Truth (Untold) by anxiouswreck0_0 (g, 3k, wangxian, jin ling & wei wuxian)

or this one on ffn:

mordant by tennisnotensai (M, 18k, wangxian, here’s the link for mobile)

~*~

15.  I have heard tell of a Sizhui/Jingyi fic where the boys end up going to Wangxian for advice about how to be intimate. Can you help me find it?

FOUND!  @manaika-chan says this one is On Advisement by LaMachina17 (M, 19k, wangxian, zhuiling, chengyi)

~*~

16.  nm

~*~

17.  Hi! Sorry, do you happen to know that nsfw fic where wwx is still studying in the cloud recesses and he’s reading a novel (im not sure if it was from nhs) that features a cultivator couple and there’s a scene in the book where the woman was pegging her husband? Basically wwx got curious about this and tried fingering himself. I remember he was hiding in the back mountains and then lwj eventually caught him

FOUND?  Could you be thinking of  Deep in the Woods by malkinmalkout (E, 5k, wangxian, my post)?

~*~

18.  Ahhh I'm going crazy trying to think of a fic that I've read where Lan Zhan killed Wen Chao in a locker room and nie huaisang stood guard outside the door! Then lan zhan went to lan huan and said I killed someone and he said did they deserve it? Then it's fine. And I can't remember the name of the fic! Have you heard of it? ~ @uchihaautumn

FOUND! @artemisisdiana offers So Full Of Love (Wouldn't Know Where to Start) by witchupbitch (M, 54k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

19.  Hi, I was wondering if you could help me find a fic. I read it a while ago and I don't really remember all the details but it was a modern au where Lan Wangji was a police officer in this small town and Wei Wuxian comes back after years, having left the town due to some stuff. Thank you in advance.

Btw love your blog. I live for your fic recs.  [Thank you!]

FOUND?  Could you be looking for medium blues by dark_and_terrible (E,193k,  wangxian)?  It appears to be taken down atm, but it might come back (it’s done it before).

FOUND! by @grannyweatherwaxshat who offers When a Bird Flies, It Leaves Feathers by Bem_Kofi (not rated, 75k, wangxian)

~*~

20.  Hi mojo!! First of all I luv your blog Thank you so much for all those ficrecs.  [You’re welcome!]  Actually I’m looking for a fic I read months ago. I probably found the fic from your blog. But I can’t seem to find it now 😢 it was a modern au wangxian fic (inspired by call me by ur name?) wwx was like 5 years older than lwj. (And lwj was like 16?) Wwx lives in another city but he spent around a year in cloud recesses with lwj in the past. And wwx yanli and jc visits cloud recesses again and wangxian gets 2gether

~*~

[My ko-fi.]

[amoret-the-leaf]

Summary: Wei Wuxian is determined. After seeing his Lan Zhan yawning, yawning of all things, he makes it his mission to let his husband take a rest. Though, as with many things in life, it doesn't go according to plan. Many years had passed since the esteemed Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch had found themselves stuck in a cave on death's doorstep, confessing deeply rooted traumas to each other. Wei Ying would give everything he had and more to never let it happen again. Never. He was going to cherish Lan Wangji like he deserved, until the day he died.

Ship: Wangxian

Word Count: 5130

Author’s Note:  This story is a result of MDZS/CQL frankencanon, and may contain differences in titles and ways of addressing due to subtitle variations. This work may not be completely accurate to Ancient Chinese and Xianxia culture. If something has been written inappropriately/offensively, please let me know!

The crisp air carried soft flakes of white across the frostbitten sky. The Cloud Recesses was coated in a blanket of thick, plush snow as far as anyone could see. The rabbits had been tucked away from their place on Back Mountain into a warmer abode. Tonight, that abode happened to be the Jingshi, where a cheeky Wei Wuxian had smuggled the bunch inside to surprise his almost always overworked lover.

These days, both he and Wangji had been teaching the juniors alongside various night hunts. Though things had been mostly peaceful in the cultivation world, and currently none of the clans were at each other's throats, spirits and other nuisances were still running around causing trouble. But of course, where there was trouble, there was the esteemed Hanguang-Jun and the ever chaotic Yiling Patriarch. The current problem of their teachings was in the execution. Where he was laid back and experience based in his lessons, Lan Zhan meticulously laid out everything, leaving no room for creative exploration, and holding many lectures Wei Ying himself was guilty of falling asleep during. Monotony was somehow effective for disciples like Sizhui, but for those whose brains hadn't become entirely indoctrinated by years of rules- well, it reminded him of the boring hours during his time as a student in Gusu. Lan Qiren's tedious way of drilling said rules of the Lan Clan didn't do much either, all things considered. Like uncle, like nephew.

Though he didn't agree with endless hours of just sitting and listening, his Lan-Er-Ge was insistent. He was also insistent in just the planning alone of those dull, dull lessons. Not to mention overseeing the individual growth of each disciple, and the several times he'd be called out during the evening to help get the group of teenagers out of trouble. Wei Ying tagged along those nights, of course, but he didn't exactly wake up at sunrise most days, nor did he hold anywhere near the same amount of responsibilities the Second Jade did. He could sleep in, and it was expected of him.

So now that he could see his beloved Lan Zhan not-so discreetly yawning after their last night hunt, Wei Ying made it his secret mission to (politely) force him to take a break tonight. What better way to do that than shielding their dear rabbits from the cold? If he was lucky, maybe he could even get Lan Zhan to cuddle with him. He could be a rabbit too!

So when the door slid open, Wei Ying was already darting forwards with two fluffy bunnies in hand. "Lan Zhaaan~!" He beamed, nearly falling face forward as he stopped abruptly. "I brought in the- Eh?"

That wasn't Lan Zhan. No, he was too short to be Lan Zhan. Short and flustered. "A-Yuan?"

Sizhui looked down, apologetically. "S-Senior Wei! Sorry for coming in unannounced!" He bowed, already getting overly worried about the littlest things when it came to courtesy. Like he wasn't allowed here whenever he pleased, he and Lan Zhan didn't mind. He'd have to break this kid from being so polite! It was poisoning him!

"Ah, A-Yuan A-Yuan! Who decided you call me Senior Wei? You used to call me Xian-gege!" Wei Ying huffed, setting the rabbits down to hop around the place once more as he leaned on the doorframe. "Or maybe you prefer to call me Baba now since I clearly raised you!"

"But Hanguang-Jun ra-"

"Hanguang Jun raised you like a bunny. I raised you to be a gentleman!" He exclaimed, proudly sporting his widened smile. "Eat carrots, sit around and be cute. That's for a rabbit. I taught you all the important things! Like how to plant a little radish! And look, you got more radish friends in the end! Isn't that great?" Hands contently sat on his hips as the once feared Yiling Patriarch bragged his true colors. The two couldn't help a light chuckle from that. "But I assume you didn't come to listen to me badger about being the better parent, right?"

Sizhui shook his head. "Actually, Hanguang-Jun asked me to keep you company while he finishes some of his work." The boy explained, gladly coming in from the cold as Wei Ying stepped aside from the doorframe. He had the expression of a giddy puppy... on second thought, A-Yuan was too well mannered and tame to be compared to any dog. "Hanguang Jun must work very hard to still be reviewing this late in the evening. It's only an hour from curfew now."

Wei Ying sighed. Of course Lan Zhan had sent Sizhui to distract him. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the disciple's company, but he wanted his husband by his side again. Life was so boring and lonely when he didn't have his beloved to pester. That, and his husband was going to run himself into the ground if he didn't take a break soon.

One of the rabbits bounced around, before contently nibbling on Sizhui's robe as the teen set out some tea. Of course, Wei Ying wouldn't tell the kid that the tea was only for him, and that Wei Wuxian had poured a heaping's worth of Emperor's Smile into his own cup. That would be 'setting a bad example'.

"Believe it or not, Hanguang-Jun is just as stubborn as I am. Won't admit when he's struggling, and won't easily be swayed from his duties." He spoke, a bit scornfully. As the two sat down for their drinks, most of the bunnies piled around the junior disciple, one even hopping upon his lap. "Traitors! I brought you here!"

The teen gently ran his fingers across the rabbit's forehead. He was accustomed to this, Wei Wuxian was sure of it. Either that, or they were trusting of their own kind. Lan Zhan fed him and raised him to be a rabbit, maybe they knew he was secretly their kin. "Senior Wei, do you think Hanguang-Jun is struggling?" Sizhui asked, now showing worry on his face.

"He yawned today."

Well that was definitely a surprised look. "So it's true then. He never yawns." A hand was brought to his chin. "I don't think I've ever seen him tired before."

Still pouty, Wei Ying closed his eyes. "Considering he kept a straight face after being wounded by the Xuanwu, I can say for certain he's been working too hard for too long. And I'm gonna do something about it!" Downing the rest of his drink, he abruptly stood. If Lan Zhan wasn't planning on taking a break anytime soon, he would be now. "I have an idea, and I'm gonna need your help with it. You and... where's Jingyi right now? We need a messenger who knows how to keep a secret."

-

Wangji took his work in the Lan Clan very seriously. Uncle begrudgingly learned to tolerate Wei Ying's presence over time, and his brother was always supportive of his decisions- his desires more specifically, a rare thing to him to imdulge in. Therefore, his responsibilities were tied to his sense of gratitude. Lan Wangji was grateful that he and his soulmate could reside here in peace, at least for the time being. Perhaps the Cloud Recesses wouldn't be their home forever, but for now, everything- it was as it should be. So he had to work hard. He would work hard to keep things this way.

He had sent Sizhui to hopefully entertain Wei Ying. They enjoyed each other's presence and talked frequently of the past. How he silently wished to be with them, but he had to grade papers tonight. He would sit and write as long as he had to, complying with the curfew time of course. Wangji had hoped to spend some time with his lover before the late hour came, but it would have to wait for another day. As long as they were together in the night, as long as the single lotus of the Cloud Recesses was beside him when the moon was high, he could be satisfied.

What he had presumed to be a peaceful last hour of writing changed when another of the current disciples, Jingyi, had come rushing to his side. "Hanguang Jun!" He called out, in a manner that was unnerving for Wangji. Worry. Fear. A distinguishable type of fear, shared only with those who were familiar with... "It's Senior Wei! He- something's wrong!"

His brush fell from his hand, sliding across his desk to a graded paper, leaving blotches of ink scattered on it. "What happened?" He asked, coldly. Wangji knew he was idolized by the disciple, but right now, he knew the stern, serious gaze that took hold of his face would be enough to intimidate even those whom he loved the most. His brother had so politely gotten accustomed to calling it, 'The Wei Wuxian Effect,' but that was beside the point.

Jingyi, and his inability to have the specifics, was still catching his breath. "I-I only heard yelling!" The teen looked as though he was cowering. It was only then that Wangji had realized that not only was his brush dropped, but broken in half, the second part still wrapped in his hand by knuckles that were turning white. He hadn't remembered doing that. "Hanguang-Jun! Sizhui is still with him! I don't know what's happening!"

Without needing to hear the rest, he was up and moving. As fast as any rules would forbid, he was moving. Across the paths of dusty white, he was going. The Second Jade was preparing himself for anything, clutching Bichen as the brisk pace he was taking barely left any time for marks to be formed in the snow. Wangji couldn't lose him again, his husband or their son, he wouldn't let it happen. He'd be faster this time.

Possibilities flooded his mind. Across the many towns, certain people swore vengeance to the Yiling Patriarch, for one reason or another. In the same sense, many sought out the demonic cultivator in hopes of being taught the art form, and would even carry out heinous acts to do so. Wangji sincerely hoped neither was the case. Spirits were enough of an issue, but he would always silently prefer the threat of the unliving rather than the unagreeable nature of man. Whatever the threat, he would never let Wei Ying go again. Never.

'Wei Ying!'

The doors burst open with a thud, Wangji using a great deal of strength to pry them open. Wisps of smoke lingered all around the room, coming from a tapestry set ablaze; the remains just barely intact to still hang on the wall. Sizhui was frantically trying to suppress the flames with a basin of water, but to no avail. "It's no use! I got it!" Wei Ying yelled, grabbing a section of the cloth that had yet to be touched by fire, and carefully holding it away from the wall. He bent over, gathering a pile of ashes that had collected on the ground with his other hand, smudging them across his fingers. "It has the remnants of a fire talisman. It won't be put out easily-" A glance came to his direction. "Huh? Lan Zhan when did you get here?"

Before he could answer, Jingyi had caught up, looking confused. "Huh?! When did you switch the plan to fire?! What happened to the first plan?!" He exclaimed. At that, both Sizhui and Wei Ying shot him a glare. In Wangji's experience, that meant they were hiding something. Not the first time it had happened. "I mean, what plan? There was no plan!"

"Plan?" The Second Jade asked. Hesitant looks and a light laugh were exchanged between the three. No one wanted to come forward. However, silence from Hanguang-Jun rang loudly, or so he'd been told. Though he had not intended to be intimidating, it was effective.

"Hanguang-Jun," Sizhui bowed, "Senior Wei noticed you've been working hard recently, so..." His sentence trailed off. "We came up with a plan to have you take a break. Jingyi was our messenger. Apologies for the initial deception. The fire was not part of this." The junior disciple confessed. Jingyi joined the other in his apologetic stance.

Wei Ying sighed, seeming to forget what he was holding as the last of the fire grazed his hand. Yelping, he let the last of the material go, as it succumbed to ash midair. Wangji was already by his side, holding the injury to his eyes and looking over the redness that had been left on two of his fingertips. "Should be treated." He spoke, softly. Fortunately, he had both the right balm and proper dressings nearby, as Wei Ying had a bad habit of being injured, and the healers were busy enough.

"Lan Zhaaan..." He whined, already having the gauze wrapped around by the other. "Lan-Er-Ge, this stuff won't work. I need you to kiss it better for me!" A pout smuggled on his face as he threw his arms over his lover's shoulders. "It hurts! It hurts so much! This is the end, Lan Zhan! The end of the Yiling Patriarch! I'm headed back to the afterlife for sure!"

The Second Jade sighed, looking content as he planted a gentle kiss atop his husband's now treated hand. "Be more careful." Wangji breathed out, letting Wei Ying put his head on his shoulder, still quietly embracing the hug from behind. When met with eyes that held a mischievous gaze, he repeated. "Need to be more careful, Wei Ying."

The pair of junior disciples weren't sure if they should be seeing this. Red hues brought on by embarrassment heated their cheeks. Still half-nuzzled into Wangji, Wei Ying couldn't help but laugh, looking up to the ceiling. "You kids! So easily flustered, just like your Hanguang-Jun used to be! You need to get out of this stuffy old place more often! Do some real labor, talk to the townspeople! They'll teach you how to have fun! And maybe you'll get to meet a pretty-"

"Wei Ying, the fire?"

One of the many conversational cues of the Second Master Lan- this one insinuating he wished for them to speak alone. Finally. Letting go of Wangji, much to his concealed displeasure, he shuffled away, closer to the duo of teenagers. "Alright alright. We've had enough excitement for one night, haven't we? Mission... Unconventional Success? The adults need to talk now." He teased, "and I'm sure the rest of your little duckling friends want to hear all about what happened, hmm? Run along now my little henchmen~!"

Jingyi stepped forward, seemingly wanting to protest, but A-Yuan grabbed his arm. "Right." The more daring of the two mumbled.

"Have a good evening Hanguang-Jun, Senior Wei." Sizhui added. Both of the disciples turned to leave, clearly hesitant. Wei Ying couldn't blame them for wanting to stay longer, after all, he was just so cool to be around, and spontaneous fires were certainly going to be an interesting thing to deal with if this was going to be a recurring thing! But the curfew was fast approaching, and he'd dealt with the consequences of rule-breaking enough to know that it wouldn't exactly be taken lightly should they be out longer than needed. His hand cramped just thinking about it! So much writing...

When the doors were sealed shut, the solemnity of Lan Wangji wore off. Loose shoulders, small flakes in his golden-toned eyes lighting up ever so delicately, the corners of his mouth turning upwards- to anyone unenlightened, they would notice no difference. But Wei Ying was enlightened, so very enlightened; educated and experienced in the ways of the Second Jade. Every magnetic movement made was put to a makeshift memory. His Lan Zhan was just so magnificent, he could study him for hours.

"You didn't start the fire." Wangji spoke, looking to the other for confirmation. Just as Wei Ying was experienced in his lover's expressions, Wangji was equally versed. "Good."

"We had sent Jingyi out to get you when it happened." The other started, sliding his fingers along the charred outline on the wall. "No trace of how it happened; didn't even catch our attention at first. By the time I had noticed, it was halfway singed through. What I find interesting..."

Wei Ying started digging through piles of scrolls. They had many maps, but on different scales. The one he took showed all of Gusu, and only Gusu. "It burnt one item. Of all that could have been set to fire, it burnt one item, and one that was mounted far enough from the wall as to not endanger anyone with a large scale blaze." A hand was brought to his chin. "Where did that tapestry come from?"

"Yuanwei Village." The Second Jade replied.

"Yuanwei... Lan Zhan! Did you name a town after me and A-Yuan?" A smirk crept onto the Yiling Patriarch's face. A devilish one, one of skillful teasing. He didn't remember anyplace called Yuanwei. He didn't remember a lot of things though. But there was no way-

"Farmers and merchants established a community eight years ago. Became a village. Asked to be recognized and named." He stopped, only for a minute. Wei Ying loved it when their eyes met like this. "I was given the task." Wangji informed, nonchalantly. His gaze strayed back to the map as his husband slowly turned red.

Beet red. "Lan Zhan!!! You-! You can't just say these things casually!"

"Does it bother Wei Ying?"

"No! But you can't just... But I guess you already have... Aiyahhh, I guess I'll have no choice but to love you for being so extravagant." Chenqing tapped against his hip as he held his arms around Wangji's waist. It seemed almost like a one-sided hug, but a hint of intimacy shared between them. This was nice.

Still holding onto his beloved, he turned the two of them around so he could see. Wangji had to look over his shoulder to see the map, but he didn't mind. "Yuanwei. The tapestry is from Yuanwei. There was no one close enough to cast an ordinary fire talisman, and it seems like this is too calculated to have been an attempt on our lives. Good! It's such a chore when people want to kill us."

"Mn."

Wei Ying sighed, dreamily falling into Wangji's always alert arms. "So eloquent my husband is!" Just as quickly as he dove towards the floor for the Second Jade to catch him, he bounced back to his feet. "In any case! I'm sure Zewu-Jun would want to hear about this. Especially if this was a threat to the Lan clan. Shall we go visit him, Hanguang-Jun?"

Wangji lightly shook his head. "Brother is not in the Cloud Recesses tonight. Visit to Qinghe."

The former Jiang disciple snapped. "Ah! I forgot! Huisang called a conference right? Doesn't he come back tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Great!" He tugged on Wangji's sleeve. "Then he can know tomorrow. And youuu~" Wei Ying placed a single kiss on his cheek. His voice was no louder than a whisper. "You can take a break, Lan Zhan. You've been working so hard-"

He stopped.

Why did he stop? A smile stayed on Wei Ying's face, though pained. Ah, not this again. A glint of raw emotion, a single tear rolling down from eyes just barely dusted by pink under eyes, barely noticeable. But the Second Jade did, he always would, and it was too late to turn away. Tears? Why was he crying? He hadn't been feeling sad all day. He wasn't even sad! Lan Wangji was by his side again, and they were talking. It's what he wanted. So why... "You look so tired, Lan Zhan."

He didn't want to see him like this.

"...Wei Ying?"

"Hah." He breathed out, clutching his chest. "I don't know where these tears came from... I promise you I haven't been sad this whole time. I'm not even sad now! I promise. It's just- ahh I'm sorry this keeps happening!" That much was true. Unfortunately, sometimes what he went through crept up at the most inconvenient times. Memories of the past swept in with the happenings of the present. Something his husband had assured him was fine, but he still couldn't help but feel guilty. Bandaged fingers laced between his soulmate's hand. "I just... I don't want to see you so run down, Lan Zhan. Apparently my fragile heart can't bear it." He smiled.

Wangji knelt down, kissing the top of the other's hand in desperation. "Can't bear it." He repeated. "Can't bear to make Wei Ying cry."

"I'm not crying! You didn't make me cry! See? No more tears! You didn't make me sad! I wasn't sad I promise I-" Words will do nothing. Lan Wangji never cares for words. And so, he took the other's lips himself. Passionate yet delicately making sure the Second Jade couldn't speak another word of blame towards himself. Brief, but very effective.

A finger flicked against the tip of Wangji's nose. "My Lan Zhan is so funny, thinking he could ever make me sad." A giggle escaped the Yiling Patriarch. "No, I wasn't sad. I was so happy. Happy to see you again. It feels like it's been forever to be awake beside you, but only when you don't yawn. Do you know how traumatizing that was to see? My Lan-Er-Ge yawning? Unthinkable." Wei Ying mumbled, contently sitting on the floor where his beloved still knelt. He put a head on his shoulder. "Your knees must hurt, sit properly. No need for this apology stuff. I want to lay my head in your lap-"

He rambled. Wangji liked it when he rambled. It was so vibrant, and he was so curious. Despite always being clad in black, Wei Ying was ever colorful in his soul. Wangji never cared for words unless they were his. But he could only be consoled by actions. Had he really done no wrong? Wei Ying didn't cry because of him?

"-and the ground is hogging your lap! How dare it! I should've let that tapestry burn it all! We'd build a much nicer floor in its place you know!"

Wangji let out one, singular laugh. A grin formed on his single lotus's face as he shuffled over to place his head in the now sitting comfortably Hanguang-Jun. "The floor cannot have me."

"Good. I won't let it." Wei Ying smirked throwing his hands behind his head. "Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, you should really take that break tomorrow. We could have a relaxing day here all to ourselves. Or we could go into Caiyi Town and have some loquats- take A-Yuan and A-Yi to have dinner with us. Would you like that Lan Zhan?"

"...Would that make Wei Ying happy?" Wangji finally gave in, closing his eyes briefly in hesitant acceptance. But seeing Wei Ying light up the way he did, nodding vigorously, he would do this a thousand times over and more if he could. "I will take a break, then." He murmured, running his hand through the other's hair. Knowing they would be retiring for the night soon, he reached for a brush, undoing the tie of his husband's red ribbon. Wei Ying's hair was both silky smooth and yet small tangles always hid beneath the layers. They straightened easily with a gentle tug, never too hard.

Meanwhile his soulmate took to rambling once more. "Lan Zhan I had to go to such great lengths to bribe A-Yi to be the messenger for our plan! And I didn't even need to! One of the other disciples would've come to get you when the fire started! But now I have to get the whole lot of them sweets anyways!" He pouted, leaning his head back further to look at the other. "If I were them, I would've broken out for sweets myself! Why do they need me to do it? Kids!"

Wangji had finished brushing through the hair, letting go of it gently. "What were you planning?" He asked, both curious and a bit concerned. Nothing dangerous, and nothing that would upset him- those were out of the question. But upset uncle or the others... they were not graced with the same protections from his husband's mischief.

"Nothing special. I had brought up the rabbits earlier and was going to tell you they hopped up here all by themselves looking for you." Scooching across the floor, he picked up a basket that had been turned over on the floor. Hiding underneath, bunnies were practically stacked on top of each other. Strange, there was enough room for them all to be on the floor. "Good thing I put them in there before the fire started. Sizhui wanted to let them hop all over- but I told him you might trip over them if you were scared. That Jingyi... I told him to not scare you when I sent him!"

The rabbits hurriedly sprung over to their precious Hanguang-Jun. They had clear favoritism, even after Wei Ying had given them a talking to. Wangji let the few who were bold enough to hop onto him get settled where they liked. "A-Yi heard screaming." He started, sweetly stroking a hand on its head. "Glad he reacted."

"I guess you're right. I'd much rather you save me from a blaze than watching those juniors try and fan it."

Wangji nodded. The rabbit he'd taken to the most, the only one of dark fur they had, made its way up to his arm not long ago. It sat peacefully on his shoulder, but seemed to nuzzle into the man for more attention. Understanding the request, he lifted it up, holding it out just far enough from his body to be comfortable. "A-Ying."

Wei Ying nearly choked hearing that. His face went through thousands of shades of red, from a subtle pink to a burning strawberry, moving closer to his husband. "Eh!? First a town and now this! You never quit do you?" He asked, desperately, though sure he already knew the answer. "You never even call me A-Ying! What gives? Spoiling me and then calling the rabbit the cute name?"

He didn't need to say another word. Lan Zhan was already putting the rabbit in his lap. "A-Ying-" The Second Jade murmured, placing his head on the other's shoulder. "A-Ying is so handsome. Cute. Kind. Courageous. Strong. All the good things. Good like a bunny."

Grinning. He was grinning like a lovesick fool. Giddy, he took the brush that had been set aside, and took out ornaments in his lover's hair. Though wedded, nowadays he looked for permission before touching the sacred Lan headband Wangji wore proudly across his forehead. When he go the nod, he was quick to fumble with the tie that kept it fastened, before letting it slide gracefully into his hands.

Ha, how naive he'd been all those years ago. He'd picked a lover without even knowing it. A good choice, the best in fact, but a choice unconsciously made so young. He'd be gentle now, respectful. He owed so much debt to this elegant piece of cloth, but an eternity more to the one who wore it. Years. Life had kept on a steady pace in the blink of an eye for him, though in a new body. But... no he'd rather not pry that tonight. He was already tired, no need to bring up those memories. No more surprise crying!

Wangji's hair was damp from now melted snow. Wei Ying carefully glided a towel over it. "Lan Zhan, you shouldn't keep your hair damp. It's bad for your health."

"Mn."

When it was softened again, he ran the brush through. "We should go to bed soon. You need the extra sleep."

"Still have time. Curfew bell did not ring."

He sighed, pressing his face into the other's white robes. Sandalwood. He still had that rich, wooded trace clinging to him. "You need to sleeeeep~" Wei Ying mumbled, affectionately.

That's when the other turned around, causing him to nearly face-plant into the ground. But he was caught at the wrists. "Want to look at you." Wangji admitted, the tips of his ears tinged with a sweet pink. "Don't see you enough. Need to see you."

"You'll see me all tomorrow when Zewu-Jun comes back. You should rest now or else I'll make you take a nap then!" He teased. But of course, Wangji took it seriously, pulling away and heading for the bed. Wei Ying couldn't help but giggle as the other stared at him, waiting to be joined. "Alright alright, I'll come too. But I might be up earlier then! Maybe I'll make you breakfast!"

When they were laying beside each other, Wangji shut his eyes. "Wei Ying will sleep in."

"Is that a request or a fact?"

"Fact."

Wei Ying shuffled, propping himself halfway up with his shoulder, head sitting in his hands. "Is that so? What if you're wrong?" He poked the Second Jade's cheek. "Has Hanguang-Jun ever been wrong though? Maybe the entire cultivation world should listen to you more often. Things could be a lot more quiet."

"To us. Wei Ying is insightful." Lan Zhan added, opening his eyes once more. Turning slightly, he blew out three candles that illuminated the room. One... two... three, and the room was dark. Wangji not-so gracefully fell back onto the bed, before, turning towards the other. "Sleep." He breathed out.

"Sing to me." Wei Ying offered, only to be met with a confused, sleepy gaze. "Wangxian, sing it to me."

He tilted his head. Adorable. "Meant to be played on the guqin."

"Ahbut Lan Zhan," Wei Ying started, taking a thoughtful stance. "Your guqin is only an echo of your beautiful voice. It can't compare." An explanation that could be seen as biased, but bias was his specialty. They were married, Wei Ying could be biased compared to everyone else. He was the only one allowed to be biased when it came to Lan Wangji.

A moment of quietness passed, the only sound being the wind that whistled outside. Then, notes. Words... Words?

"You made words to this?"

"Mn."

The Yiling Patriarch brushed stray strands of velvet black out of his eyes, then Wangji's. "Lan Zhan." He coaxed. "Lan Zhan. Lan-Er-Ge. Ji-xiong. Hanguang-Jun. Lan Wangji." The names were all beautiful, each in their own way. Yet, there was one yet to be spoken. A-Ying... He liked that. Maybe his angel in white would like... Was it too bold? A-Ying was meant to be a rabbit, but he had no rabbit by the bed to blame it on. But Lan Zhan used it, so maybe- maybe he'd wanted to hear a response all these years? Only one way to tell.

"A-Zhan, it's beautiful. You're beautiful."

He smiled.

-

Author’s Note: Updates come every Sunday! There will be four chapters total :)

[vrishchikawrites]

Hello, this is the prompt I wanted to send you.

WangXian fic set during the sunshot compaign after one of their famous fights. They stumble upon an array that shows the future and It activated when WWX touched it. The array started showing glimpses of married and in love WX going on dates (yunmeng date), night hunting together, kissing, pillowtalks and aftercare, adopting children, teaching at the CR... YLLZ! WWX feeling jealous and bitter and not understanding why. The reveal that LWJ's husband is WWX, his falling out with the Jiang sect and JC's role in his death. Basically a fic where YLLZ! WWX finds out that after all these hardships he is finally going to be happy, have his own family and be with the love of his life where he is loved, cared for, respected and appreciated. And longing to have that future with LWj.

It can be a fix it fic with a happy ending please.

Posted on Ao3 here

Alternating POV - Wei Wuxian - Lan Wangji - Wangxian - A bit angsty with happy ending - Mature. Betaed by Moonyju.

I hear your heart beating in your chest

Wei Wuxian isn't the one to dwell on the past or look towards the future. He lives every day as it comes and faces every challenge without carrying burdens forward.

He has never planned for his future, not really. Some vague dreams here and there, but nothing real. Wei Wuxian learned at the tender age of four that the future is unpredictable. One day you wake up to your mother's warm smile and your father's gentle words. The next day, you have lost those things forever. Life has proven this to him repeatedly.

Future is uncertain, present is the only certainty Wei Wuxian believes in.

So, when he and the illustrious Second Jade of Lan stumble into an array while rescuing a few civilians. An illusion of sorts surrounds him, obscuring the real world outside the array. He doesn’t pay much attention to what it reveals. Instead, he focuses his attention on the array itself, carefully examining its intricacies. A single glance is enough to tell it is some sort of temporal array, a shade of what cultivators use for preservation purposes. But it also seems to have some form of an illusionary element to it. He tilts his head to the side and crouches down to study it.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan calls, almost in warning but Wei Wuxian is content to ignore him for once. Lan Zhan has always drawn too much of his attention and it rankles now more than ever.

Another quarrel, another needless argument about Wei Wuxian not understanding the depth and implications of his actions. Sometimes he wonders if Lan Zhan intends to sound as dismissive or haughty as he does when he confronts him about Mo Dao. He likes to believe Lan Wangji is above such petty things, but the man’s dogged refusal to accept Wei Wuxian’s path and his relentless quest to fix something that can’t be fixed is getting on his last nerve.

“Wei Ying,” He looks up at the sharp tone, meeting a pair of golden eyes in question only to be arrested by something akin to embarrassment tinting Lan Zhan’s stoic features. He glances towards the illusion and stills, somewhat stunned by the scene before him.

It is Lan Zhan. Or a version of him. He’s broader, with more mature features and a much sharper gaze. But that’s not the most astonishing thing, no.

Lan Zhan is… kissing someone.

It is someone shorter than him, with long hair tied up and away from a fairly pretty face. Wei Wuxian eyes the way Lan Zhan cradles the face and guides it towards his kisses, gentle and full of affection.

It entrances him for a moment. He can’t help but stare at the scene, taking in how Lan Zhan seems to lean in again and again, to press closer like he can’t get enough. His heart races and he doesn’t really understand why it is suddenly so…

“Wei Ying!” He drags his eyes away from the illusion and looks at his Lan Zhan, who seems increasingly flustered despite the relatively calm expression on his face. His ears are bright red and he’s pointedly not looking in the illusion’s direction.

He smiles teasingly, “Aiya, Lan Zhan, it looks like the older version of you is more relaxed.”

“It is a trick.” Lan Zhan protests immediately but Wei Ying dips his eyes down to scan the array again and shakes his head. There are several clues that highlight the array’s purpose clearly. Lan Zhan is no less knowledgeable than he is so he must see it too.

The denial is already fading from the Second Jade’s features and Wei Wuxian stands up, brushing his knees absently. He glances at the illusion and feels something strange pool in his stomach, something like dread, when he sees the pair again. Lan Zhan is pressing the strange person to the tree behind them, pinning her- no-

He peers closer, swallowing when Lan Zhan’s hand disappears into the person’s robes. Lan Zhan’s… companion is clearly not a woman, that much was apparent at first glance. But it is even more apparent when those robes fall open under Lan Zhan’s questing fingers.

Somehow, that feels worse.

He struggles to maintain his composure and fixes a grin on his face, “Well-” The scene shifts abruptly and Wei Wuxian barely withholds a gasp, his eyes immediately drawn to the older Lan Zhan’s peaceful face. He’s sleeping, his arms wrapped loosely around the same companion from before. The room around them seems like it is in Cloud Recesses, perhaps Lan Wangji’s home?

His eyes turn back towards Lan Wangji and he takes a careful breath, heart aching for some reason. He pointedly doesn’t look at the man’s companion and silently turns to look at the array again. The time element is solid, undisturbed and clean. More than a simple illusion, a clear glimpse of the future.

But…

He looks up and the scene has changed again. Lan Wangji is with that man again. They stand side by side and the man is leaning against the Second Jade brazenly but Lan Wangji doesn’t seem to mind. He has his hand low on the man’s back, a gesture that reads distinctly possessive. The scene wouldn’t be out of place in any family. There’s a husband, there’s a wife, there’s a child clinging to the wife’s robes, and there’s a young man standing before them with a smile that speaks of affection.

The array seeks to show people a glimpse of their future. Lan Zhan is seeing his life as a settled man of a good family.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t exist.

He takes a careful breath as that thought settles in his mind. He has always known his path is treacherous but something in him burns to see life move on so peacefully without him.

The world has never had much space for him. When he was a child, no one had space to let him rest. As a youth, his place at the Lotus Pier was small, surrounded by thorns. The space keeps shrinking and shrinking ever since he stepped out of the Burial Mounds. He imagines at some point it will vanish altogether and Wei Wuxian will be forced to vanish with it.

Melancholy doesn’t suit him but the ache of it strikes him powerfully now.

The sight of Lan Zhan moving on – they’re not even friends, what does he need to move on from? – shatters something in him.

He can’t summon a smile.

Wei Wuxian locks his jaw and ignores his racing heart as the scene goes on. The young boy saying something to Lan Wangji’s partner and the partner grinning in response.

Lan Wangji’s expression is soaked in affection, despite how stoic it appears. The corners of his mouth are softer and there’s a fond light in those golden eyes. Wei Wuxian has never seen something so beautiful.

He watches as the young man leans down and plucks the child off the ground and carries him away, both of them waving to Lan Wangji and his partner until they’re out of sight.

Wei Wuxian’s heart shudders when Lan Wangji discreetly pulls his partner closer and buries his nose in his hair, expression content.

Suddenly, it is unbearable.

He brings his thumb to his mouth, ready to tear into his flesh and disrupt the seal with his blood. It would take very little to get them out of here safely. Lan Zhan has seen enough good things about his life, there’s no need to linger.

No need for him to find out that Wei Wuxian wouldn’t exist during this peaceful time. He knows the man cares about him enough to be upset if he is lost.

Just as he’s about to bite into his thumb, fingers wrap around his wrist tightly.

Wei Wuxian looks up to see Lan Zhan gazing at him with wide, stunned eyes.

```

Wangji accepts what is happening almost immediately after Wei Ying shakes his head. He has always had a more intuitive understanding of spells and talismans. It is rare for Wei Ying to be mistaken in such matters.

So, this is his future. A glimpse of things that will happen a few decades down the line. Wangji is uncertain what to make of it. His ears feel warm as he witnesses the intimacy between partners. There’s enough affection written on his older self’s face to know the relationship is real.

He looks at his… companion. He doesn’t lack beauty. A delicate countenance, inky black hair, and a pleasing form. He looks almost alarmingly similar to Wei Ying, with only small differences. There’s an echo of Wei Ying in his smile and even the way he tosses his head back and laughs reminds Wangji strongly of the man beside him.

Only Wei Ying has never looked at him like that. This man’s face is flushed with passion, lips bitten red by his partner’s kisses. There’s a teasing sparkle in his eyes that makes his breath still in his chest for a moment. It reminds him of the expression Wei Ying wore all those years ago when they ran across the rooftops in Cloud Recesses.

How… is it possible for this man to be so similar?

He glances down at the array, trying to decipher what it seeks to accomplish. Wangji has never seen anything like it but there are enough familiar elements in it to deduce its purpose. It is clearly designed to show them their future, to create a sort of mirror that reflects images of their future life into the past.

Wangji tears his eyes away and turns to Wei Ying, a few questions already forming in his mind.

Wei Ying’s expression arrests him.

Wangji stills, unable to move his gaze away from Wei Ying’s face. There’s something bitter about his grimace and flinty in his eyes. He watches the scene with an almost animal expression, lips pursed in displeasure – furious – Wangji realizes with an indrawn breath.

For a short, heartbreaking moment, he fears it is disapproval, disgust for a cutsleeve relationship.

That impression doesn’t last.

Wei Ying’s hand goes briefly to his chest and something very much like open, raw pain crosses his face, wiping away the anger. The expression… is nothing close to disgust.

It is a short, unguarded moment and it ensnares Wangji completely. His heart races in his chest as several realizations happen in an instant.

Wei Ying is an ever-smiling sprite, mischievous as they come. He rarely shows any true sorrow and Wangji has only seen him show true anger three times over their acquaintance. It is easy to become convinced that nothing can touch the formidable Wei Wuxian. But standing there, looking at Wangji’s future with a bitter expression, Wei Ying seems shattered.

The expression is devastatingly open. In that instant, Wangji has no problem understanding Wei Ying better than he has ever before.

Wei Ying’s expression twists before every inch of vulnerability is gone from his face. It is wiped clean and almost cold, colder than he has ever seen Wei Ying be. He locks his jaw and brings his hand to his mouth, his movements stiff and sharp.

Wangji shoots forward, wrapping his fingers around Wei Ying’s wrist. He feels the pulse hammering under his fingers and his own heart races in an echo of it. Wei Ying’s eyes are sharp and defensive, hiding the pain that Wangji had glimpsed clearly before.

In contrast, Wangji feels almost breathless with elation, “Don’t,” he says, pulling Wei Ying’s hand away from his mouth. His hand doesn’t shake but he feels shaken. Wei Ying scowls at him, which is also something he has never done, “Don’t.”

“Lan Wangji,” Wei Ying says curtly, “This isn’t for me to see and we have seen enough. Let go.”

Wangji tightens his fingers, unwilling to let go. He studies Wei Ying’s face carefully, finding it unreadable once again. In fact, Wei Ying is uncharacteristically quiet, not teasing him about his future partner, not commenting on the cutsleeve relationship, not even mentioning his older self’s appearance.

The silence speaks loudly.

'Don't nurture foolish hope,' Wangji thinks to himself but it grows in him anyways. It is strange that a single glimpse of an unguarded emotion is enough to alter Wangji’s perspective so much, but it does and now he isn’t inclined to let the matter go.

“Don’t destroy the array,” He requests, “Something isn’t right.” Wei Ying should be present. The array shouldn’t focus on Wangji’s future only. He doesn’t know who the strange man is but he can’t imagine being with anyone but Wei Ying.

Is his heart so fickle? Can it stray from Wei Ying that easily?

It is unsettling to consider it.

“We can figure it out once we’re away from this illusion,” Wei Ying says, making a visible effort to muster his usual nonchallance but Wangji sees they way his eyes flicker away, looking at the couple in the illusion briefly before glancing down at the array like he can’t stand the sight of it.

“Wei Ying-”

“Aiya, er-gege, what are you doing to your poor Wei Ying?”

Wangji glances sharply at the illusion as Wei Ying stills, his arm going tense in his grasp.

The pair in the illusion are now closer and somehow their conversation is audible. The voice is strange but the cadence and rhythm is entirely Wei Ying, teasing, playful, pleasant.

Wangji’s grip tightens as he sees his future self pull his companion onto his lap, a spare Lan forehead ribbon in his grasp. It has the clan markings, it belongs to a clan member but Wangji’s ribbon is already on his forehead.

He swallows and feels the pulse beating against his fingers speed up as his future self wraps the ribbon around his partner’s forehead.

“Wei Ying must wear it for today’s ceremony,” His older self says and his Wei Ying sucks in a sharp breath, his hand going lax in surprise, “Xiongzhang has requested it.”

“Well, if Xichen-ge has requested it, this one must obey,” Wei Ying sounds… happy. And it is Wei Ying. The face is different but the smile, full of mischief and life, is the same.

“What… is this?” His Wei Ying asks, baffled. He looks down to study the array more keenly, trying to determine why the illusion looks different.

Wangji is hearted to see the stiffness of his features melt into curiosity, “Lan Zhan, why would the array alter my appearance and not yours?” He asks, no longer attempting to pull away from Wangji.

The illusion is still playing in the background, showing what will happen several years down the line. But Wangji isn’t curious now. The present is so much more interesting.

Wei Ying is looking at the array, the conversation in the background is cheerful, full of intimacy and affection, the pulse against his fingers is still beating rapidly.

There’s a flush crawling up Wei Ying’s neck.

Wangji observes. He sees the blush crawl further and settle on Wei Ying’s cheeks. He sees teeth digging into soft lips, anxious. He sees eyes flicker towards him, towards the illusion, before moving away.

‘How can I bear it,’ He asks himself and gives in. He pulls the hand in his grasp to his mouth, pressing his lips against the center of Wei Ying’s palm and closing his eyes.

---

Wei Ying fears his heart will fail if this continues. The lively chatter of a couple in love surrounds them and his Lan Zhan is pressing his precious face against Wei Ying’s hand, cool but utterly content. The feel of his petal-soft lips against the rough skin of his palm is enough to drive him to distraction.

He doesn’t know how to react or what to say. He doesn’t want to pull his hand away but there’s a strange, almost unsettling sensation low in his stomach, not unpleasant, but very unfamiliar. Wei Ying has flirted with people before but he has never felt any true attraction towards them.

But the longer he remains inside this array, the more he learns about himself.

Lan Zhan moves, taking a step closer, dipping his lips lower to brush against Wei Ying’s exposed wrist.

His breath trembles as he gasps. The sensation is almost sharp, knife-like. He feels his entire body change and respond to it. He feels his fingers curl, his hair stand on end, and his body lean forward.

There’s a flash of teeth.

“Lan Zhan,” His voice is shamefully raw, everything he feels is written in the tone of it. Lan Zhan reacts immediately and Wei Ying goes, helpless against him. Lips slide over his and a warm, strong body presses close. The kiss is harsh, full of tongue and teeth. Desperate like Lan Zhan has been holding himself back and has finally been granted permission.

Wei Ying sways in place, lightheaded as a tongue slides over his and licks the roof of his mouth. ‘What is this,’ he wonders dazedly. There are strong fingers around his wrist and neck, showing no indication of every letting go. There’s a slight popping sound in his ears and he absently notes that the illusion has dispersed but Lan Zhan doesn’t give him time to think.

He yelps when Lan Zhan moves a hand down his back and grabs him under his thighs, lifting him up in a smooth movement. Next thing he knows, he’s pressed against a rough surface and his lips are captive again. His skin burns wherever Lan Zhan has touched it. His mouth feels raw and hot when they pull apart.

He stares when bright golden eyes look at him, edged with heat that he didn’t think Lan Zhan was capable of feeling.

It takes a moment for him to collect his thoughts under that direct gaze but he manages, his bruised lips curling into a teasing smile, “Er-gege, how shocking!” He leans forward, confident that Lan Zhan won’t drop him, “Look at what you’ve done to your poor Wei Ying!” He lifts the hand Lan Zhan had kept captive, showing off the redness he can feel around his wrist.

Lan Zhan glances at it but there’s no remorse in his expression, not even a hint of apology.

Wei Ying feels a delighted laughter bubble in his chest at this new revelation. The reserved and taciturn Hangjuang-jun is capable of such passion! “My, my, who would have thought you’d take advantage of me like this?” He drapes his hands around Lan Zhan’s neck, bringing his lips close to a flushed red ear, “You didn’t even ask, just held me tight and took what you wanted. How bold! How shameless!”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan’s voice is lined with warning but Wei Ying doesn’t care. He feels utterly safe, utterly content, for the first time in years. What can touch him when he is in Lan Wangji’s arms?

“Is it always going to be like this?” He teases, “Now that you know I am to be yours, probably your husband or will it be wife? Will you kiss me… maybe even fuck me, whenever you wish?”

“Be silent.”

“Aiya, Lan Zhan, how can I be silent now? You have awakened my curio-” Another fierce, biting kiss interrupts him and Wei Ying laughs, delighting in Lan Zhan’s eagerness. Everything fades, all serious and practical considerations hold no meaning. Later, when he is alone in his tent, he will think about how unreachable this dream is, but now he is happy to submit to Lan Zhan.

---

War progresses as it must. Wei Ying continues to remain on his cultivation path but his touch is a bit gentler now. He isn’t as ruthless as he used to be.

It takes effort and patience. It takes many bitten back reprimands and angry words. It takes months and months of careful questioning before Lan Wangji understands the incredible, breathtaking sacrifices his beloved has made. Not even Wei Ying can stop him from seeking out Wen Qing and asking for her assistance. Not even his brother can stop him from offering shelter to her family in exchange. Not even Jiang Wanyin’s bitterness can stop Wangji from protecting Wei Ying.

He does what he must because he understands. That Wei Wuxian, the one from the array, had endured terrible strife. More strife than Wangji can ever allow his Wei Ying to suffer.

Wei Ying will survive and thrive.

Wangji will make sure of it.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

So I’ve feelings about ur two ficlets of NHS offering NMJ his body and when I said feelings I meant that I’m crying like a baby rn but I’ve to ask bc I’m a sadist how do u think LXC reacted when he realises that NMJ is back? Happy to kinda see his sworn brother? Guilty bc of his part in NMJ death? Guilty bc he knows that NMJ would have wanted him to take care in NHS but apparently he did not do a good job about that? :)

Ha HA, sorry about this incredibly dialogue-light 3zun Angst Chat that doesn’t even have NMJ in it.  I had to cut it in half because it got long and I have another ask about this exact concept anyway so w/e.

(the Nie Brothers Ritual Thing, which I’m increasingly starting to think I should title)

It’s Wangji who warns him.  And it is a warning, make no mistake, with the precise way that Xichen’s brother comes and sits at the table and pours them both exacting measures of tea.  Wangji visits him with the sort of meticulous scheduling that they once kept to when visiting Madam Lan, and today he is somewhat windswept and it should be another four days before their next appointment.  But he comes, and sits, and then says, with the kind of quiet bluntness that Xichen has always appreciated, “There is something you should know.”

Xichen sighs and sips his tea.  It’s the sharp morning blend that Wangji prefers, which is not a good sign.  If he was hoping to appease Xichen, hoping to appeal for help from the elder brother who, even now, probably couldn’t refuse him, it would be something softer, more soothing.  This means that Wangji is trying to brace Xichen for something.

Xichen doesn’t know what else he could be braced for, these days.  

He finishes the cup in silence and sets it down, and Wangji fills it again, because he has the good grace not to pretend that he’s inscrutable to Xichen.  Xichen waits until the cup is full and the pot restored to its resting place, and then says, “What is it, Wangji?”

It would be a lie to say that Xichen expects it to be about anything but Jin Guangyao.  A-Yao.  His youngest sworn brother, with his gentle smile and whip-sharp tongue and bloody, bloody hands.  For the first time in decades, Lan Xichen misunderstands his brother.

“Someone else has used the sacrifice ritual,” is what Wangji says.

Xichen does the math, quickly, and tries to think of anyone who might still be loyal to Jin Guangyao.  His own collateral guilts, the price of his years of inaction, have been tallied meticulously since he went into seclusion five months ago--Jin Rusong, Qin Su, the Wens.  But who might have survived Jin Guangyao’s death throes, to bring him back?  A disciple in Lanling, seeking revenge?  How much does Jiang Wanyin hate his brother?  How much did Jin Rulan love his uncle?

And then Wangji speaks again, and Xichen’s thoughts come to a halt so quickly that his ears ring.

“Nie Mingjue is coming to Cloud Recesses.”

The world reels around Xichen, his hands shaking as they come to rest on the tabletop.  Wangji reaches out to touch his shoulders--Sizhui really has been good for him--and waits, holding Xichen steady as he breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

It isn’t until Xichen’s hands have stilled that Wangji says quietly, “I am sorry, xiongzhang.  There wasn’t--a kind way to tell you.”  And he would know, of course he would know, Xichen’s ever-steady brother who chased any word of the Yiling Patriarch like it would kill him to stop.

“Who--?” Xichen chokes out.

Wangji closes his eyes, sits back on his heels.  He is Hanguang-jun, one of the finest cultivators of their day, and he has been as strong and youthful as he was the day he left seclusion all the years since.  Now Xichen thinks he looks very tired.  Too old for this.  They grew up in a war and came of age in a genocide and Xichen allowed it and Wangji lost nearly everything in it, and he wishes that the world hadn’t come to settle so firmly on Wangji’s shoulders, after everything.

“His brother.”

Bile gathers at the back of Xichen’s tongue.  He drinks more of the sharp tea, bitter and beginning to be oversteeped, to wash it away.

Xichen can picture Nie Huaisang perfectly--as he was when they were young, when he was a student at Cloud Recesses four times over and Xichen was amused at the idea of stern, driven Mingjue trying to harass his brother into studying.  Like a hunting dog trying to corral a cat, while Huaisang blinked liquid black eyes and pouted and refused to be managed.

Xichen can picture A-Yao, dimpled and quiet and brilliant, at his elbow.

Xichen blames Nie Huaisang for the death of Jin Guangyao.  Xichen blames himself for the manipulations of Nie Huaisang.  Xichen is grateful to Nie Huaisang for his brother’s happiness.  Xichen hates Nie Huaisang for making him complicit, one last time, without even the cold comfort of knowing if he had truly been used.  Xichen loves Nie Huaisang because he knows how to love him, how to protect his dage’s brother, with the surety of years of practice.

Mingjue will be so angry that Xichen did not stop this.

“When?” Xichen whispers, and Wangji, brilliant Wangji, knows what he is asking.

“He was perhaps two hours behind us.  Wei Ying will stall him at the gate, if you need longer.”

“No,” Xichen says, and he cannot hope to make his voice strong, but he manages to keep it from shaking.  “Let him in."

“Xiongzhang,” Wangji says, watching him with their family’s brilliant golden eyes like he’s seeing every fracture line hidden under Xichen’s skin.  He thinks he’s mostly fracture lines, these days.  “This was not your fault.”

“No,” Xichen agrees, bringing one hand up to cover his own eyes.  The clear, pale light streaming through the paper covering the window seems very bright, suddenly.  His eyes are burning.  “Like so many things, this was not my fault.  Not in any way, except in idleness.”

He does not need to see Wangji’s face to know that he is only barely holding back an argument, by the iron hand of his self-control and the precepts against arguing with seniors and family members.  Wangji only follows those precepts when it suits him, these days--Chief Cultivator is a title that buys a great deal of leeway--but he keeps his silence.

Xichen’s brother has always been kind.  He drinks his oversteeped bitter tea and pretends that he does not see the escaped tears running down Xichen’s cheeks.

[wangxiangiftexchange]

Winter Solstice Gift for withbroombefore

A very happy solstice to you, @withbroombefore! I really enjoyed your prompts!! <33 

Read On AO3

*****

if you desire healing (let yourself fall ill)

It was cold when Wei Wuxian woke up.

Or well, not cold, precisely, but the pleasant cool of a late spring evening, before the weather warmed enough for the evenings to be hot and sticky.  But the last that Wei Wuxian could remember, everything around him had been scorching hot.  The blazing sun of Qishan’s banners originally had been adopted in recognition not of the Wen’s ego but of the truest enemy to Wen prosperity, the burning celestial light that threatened to turn their farmlands into deserts with its near-constant presence.  Wei Wuxian had never understood the choice better than in the months of the Sunshot Campaign, stuck in the constant sweltering heat and resultant dust clogging the air without the possibility of any of the relief found in Lotus Pier’s rivers and lakes.  Qishan had never gotten cooler than not-hot-enough-to-be-actively-uncomfortable, so when Wei Wuxian woke up to a pleasant chill, he knew that he could not be in the wilds of Qishan.

Eyes still closed, he took a deep breath, inhaling a smooth mixture of cedarwood, juniper, and lavender.  Healing incense was burning somewhere in the room with him.  Healing, so not a particularly deep dungeon.  A pleasant surprise.  Had Wen Ruohan been defeated?  He thought so.

The soft sound of the guqin reached him then.  It sounded familiar.  Wei Wuxian struggled to open his eyes, turning his head.  He groaned quietly in frustration when his eyelids refused to lift.  The guqin stopped.

“Wei Ying?”

There was the gentle sound of cloth slipping against cloth, and a faint hint of sandalwood on the air as a hand wrapped lightly around his wrist, another hand displacing a cloth from his forehead to feel his brow.  Wei Wuxian struggled once more.  He forced his eyes to open, dragging all his energy to gain the smallest view, and was rewarded with the sight of familiar golden eyes looking down at him.

“Wei Ying, rest.”  Lan Zhan said.  “Heal.”

Well.  It wasn’t like Wei Wuxian had the energy to argue with him.

~

Weeks ago, as Wen Ruohan lay dead at their feet, Meng Yao atop the stairs with a malicious smile on his face, Wei Ying had fallen back into Lan Wangji’s arms, and for one terrifying moment, Lan Wangji was convinced that Wei Ying was dead as well.  He did not respond to Lan Wangji’s cries, but a quick grasp of his wrist confirmed that his heart continued to beat.  His spiritual meridians had felt like glutinous rice, so thick and sticky was the resentful energy in them.  

Someone ran up, nearly falling on the stairs beside them.

“Wei Wuxian!” had said Jiang Wanyin.  “Is he - ?”

“Alive,” Lan Wangji had replied, with a relief that seemed to echo in the easing of Jiang Wanyin’s breath.  “He needs healing.  I will take him.”

He had shifted Wei Ying sideways in his arms and had an arm under his knees.  Lan Wangji was on his sword and already flying off as Jiang Wanyin found his voice to shout after him, “Lan-er-gongzi!”

Lan Wangji did not turn around.  Their healers had kept pace, moving camp each day based on the safest position amongst the troops, with the most severely wounded ready to be escorted back to Qinghe at the earliest opportunity.  He had scarcely left the palace grounds when he came upon them, passing Wei Ying to them and forcing himself not to resist as a team of them pushed him aside.

Wei Ying would recover.  Lan Wangji would not accept any other option.  This was the thought that had run through his head constantly, for the week and a half in Nightless City as the defeat of the Wens was finalized and Wei Ying remained unaware of the world changing around him until it came time for them all to head home.  

Xiongzhang had made the offer, almost certainly because he knew Lan Wangji would have insisted on going back to Lotus Pier with Wei Ying if the offer had not been made.

“Your brother is still recovering from the efforts needed to defeat Wen Ruohan,” he had said to Jiang Wanyin during a calmer moment at the banquet to which he had dragged Lan Wangji, having sought a private word while the guests were circulating and sharing small toasts with one another.  “If you will forgive my blunt speech, Lotus Pier suffered tremendously during the Sunshot Campaign and is itself still in need of recovery and repair.  While Cloud Recesses were damaged, we lost fewer and have had more time to repair, such that our healing halls have been restored to good order.  If you would permit us, we of the GusuLan would bring your brother back to Gusu with us, to assist in his recovery.”  

Jiang Wanyin had hesitated.  “Your offer is generous, Zewu-jun, and YungmengJiang thanks you for it.  It is true that our brother remains in need of healing, and we appreciate Hanguang-jun’s kindness in playing healing music for him these past days.  You must understand our hesitance to be separated from Wei Wuxian while he is in this condition.”

“Entirely understandable,” Xiongzhang had responded, nodding his head.  “We are happy to extend the invitation to Jiang-guniang as well.  As a Sect Leader, I am certain that you wish to return home immediately to deal with the necessary repairs, though we would, of course, welcome you as well.”

“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli had interrupted, grabbing the crook of her brother’s elbow just as he began to open his mouth.  Jiang Wanyin had met his sister’s eyes, and Lan Wangji wondered, in that moment, whether she intended to turn his mind to permit them to take Wei Ying or to force him to keep Wei Ying with them as they returned to Lotus Pier.  Jiang Wanyin stood still for a long moment, then sighed.

“On behalf of both of my siblings, we gratefully accept your offer,” Jiang Wanyin had replied, bowing.  Xiongzhang had returned the bow, and that had been that.  The following morning, Jiang Yanli and Wei Ying had been settled into a carriage bound for Gusu even as Jiang Wanyin led his sect home.  On foot, as many of their soldiers had been, and given Qishan’s distance from Gusu, the trip had taken well over a week.  Xiongzhang had not asked Lan Wangji’s preferences for returning to Gusu, a wry smile playing on his face as he had instructed Lan Wangji to lead their soldiers and the injured back carefully.

Arriving in GusuLan brought some of the sect’s most experienced healers into play - those too old or too injured to be risked on the fields of war.  Lan Jinhua had been old before Lan Wangji was even born, and had been prevailed upon to stay behind in deference to her ongoing recovery from a leg injury sustained during Wen Xu’s attack on Cloud Recesses.  Wei Wuxian, still unconscious, had been carried in on a stretcher and brought directly to her.  

“If you’re going to stay, play Clarity,” she instructed Lan Wangji before ignoring him to examine her patient.  Lan Wangji had not discerned anything odd in her examination until she gave a quiet gasp, saying, “Oh, you poor boy!”

Lan Wangji’s hands frozen above the strings, losing the tune.

“Healer?” prompted Jiang Yanli from where she had folded to her knees near Lan Wangji, waiting patiently as her brother was examined.

Lan Jinhua tilted her head back, as if just recalling that they were there.

“What do you know of what happened to this boy?” she asked, releasing her hands from Wei Ying’s form.  “Where did his seal come from?”

“Apologies, but my brother has not spoken of the seal’s origins,” Jiang Yanli replied.  “I do not know if word reached here, but he was missing for three months not long after the Wens attacked Lotus Pier.  He did not speak of where he had been when he returned, able to use resentful energy to direct corpses on the battlefield.  Aside from using different cultivation, my brother has otherwise been engaged in the same business as the rest of the Sunshot Campaign.”

Lan Wangji shifted minutely when Jiang Yanli indicated that Wei Ying had not spoken of his disappearance.  With another healer, one less acquainted with himself, the change might have been unnoticed.  Lan Jinhua turned to him in an instant, head tilted to await an answer.

“Burial Mounds,” Lan Wangji replied.  Beside him, Jiang Yanli gasped.  Lan Jinhua looked grim.

“That would explain it,” the healer said.  “I will ask you both to remain calm.  His meridians are intact, but his core has been overwhelmed - his golden core is gone.  That is not the most immediate problem.”

“What could be more immediate than his golden core?”  Jiang Yanli asked.  Her voice shook, and when glanced at her, Lan Wangji saw that her whole body trembled with it.

“He is possessed.”

Lan Wangji’s head snapped back to Lan Jinhua.

“That can’t be,” Jiang Yanli was saying, shaking her head.  “He returned to us over a year ago.  Surely we would have noticed, would have seen some sign of the possession in all that time.”

Lan Jinhua held up her hand, waiting for Jiang-guniang to stop.  “Under ordinary circumstances, most likely, you would have, and that you did not speaks both highly of his will and greatly in favor of his chances of recovery.  It is not just one spirit that possesses him, but dozens, if not more.  We must first cleanse him of the possession and the resentful energy before we can restore his golden core.”

“Can it even be done?” the younger woman asked.  “When A-Cheng was struck by the Core Melting Hand, Wen-guniang told us that there was no way to recover his golden core.”

At this, Lan Wangji turned once more to Jiang Yanli, eyes wide.  He had seen Jiang Wanyin wielding sword and spiritual whip alike not three weeks before, as he had for the entire length of the war.  Jiang Yanli, sensing his confusion, turned to him and shook her head.

“I don’t know how A-Cheng’s was restored.  He and A-Xian asked Song Lan to bring me to Jinlintai for my safety.  They were separated shortly thereafter, and that is when A-Xian went missing.”

“You say that your brother’s golden core was restored after being destroyed by the Core Melting Hand?”  Lan Jinhua stepped forward, then visibly stopped herself.  “I would be grateful for anything more that you could say on that theme at a later date, as it would help many of our cultivators who suffered at his hand.  But for the moment, let us return to your brother here with us now.”

A tiny smile flashed across Jiang Yanli’s face to hear Wei Ying acknowledged as her brother.  Lan Wangji idly wished Wei Ying had been awake to hear it.

The plans were fairly simple, though their execution had ultimately taken several weeks more before the first day that Wei Ying cracked open his eyes.  Incense was mixed to strengthen the mind, release foreign influences, and promote healing.  A mixture of musical cultivation and talisman were used to pull the spirits possessing Wei Ying away from him.  And during this time, Lan Jinhua began the preparation of the necessary elixir that would allow Wei Ying to pick up his sword once more.

With consent from his uncle, who after years of railing against Lan Wangi’s association with Wei Ying had been surprisingly sympathetic when the situation had been explained to him, Lan Wangji spent that time by Wei Ying’s bedside, playing for him among the healers.  Jiang Yanli was a fixture of the room, there at all times when the healers had not insisted she leave.

Jiang Yanli made surprisingly pleasant company.  She did not insist on speech, and had either brought with her or acquired from the sect garments in need of repair, so that she could sew while he played.  At regular intervals, she would brew tea, a process at which she was excellent, and on some mornings she would bring small treats with her that she must have made herself, for Lan Wangji knew that such things were not part of the regular cuisine of Cloud Recesses.

Other than that, there was nothing to do but wait.

~

“ - you eat pork at all?” said a familiar female voice the next time Wei Wuxian swam back to consciousness.  “I have made A-Xian’s favorite soup for him to eat once he wakes up, and I am sure that he would be pleased to share the meal with you.”

“Mn,” an equally familiar, warm voice hummed in response, and the room was quiet other than the soft clacking of tea cups on wood.

“-an Zhan?” Wei Wuxian mumbled, eyes still closed.  He heard a shifting of cloth, and then each of his hands was grabbed, one by a large calloused hand, the other by a softer and more delicate touch.  

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan replied.  “Open your eyes.”

And really, who was Wei Wuxian to refuse?

Shijie and Lan Zhan held his hands, both smiling at him.  Or, well, the corner’s of Lan Zhan’s mouth were turned up just the tiniest bit and his eyes were crinkling in a way that seemed like pleasure, and Shijie was wiping away tears but she was truly smiling, warm and genuine.

“How do you feel, A-Xian?” Shijie asked.  Then, slightly louder than she perhaps should have in Cloud Recesses, Shijie called, “Lan-yisheng, A-Xian is awake!”

Nothing hurt.  The absence of pain shouldn’t be something that one could forget, but he very clearly had, because Wei Wuxian couldn’t remember the last time that there hadn’t been at least a dull ache in his chest, if not throughout his body.

“Wei Ying?” asked a concerned voice.

“Ah, I’m fine, Lan Zhan, Shijie,” he replied, struggling to sit up.  “Thank you for worrying.  We are in…?”

“Gusu,” Lan Zhan said, reaching behind him and supporting him into a sitting position.

“Gusu?" Wei Wuxian asked as Lan Zhan tucked pillows behind his back.  "But the war - ?  Wen Ruohan - ?”

Without shifting focus in the slightest, Lan Zhan replied, “We won.  He’s dead.”

“Really?” Wei Wuxian asked as a healer strode into the room.

“Mn.”

“Jiang Cheng?” Wei Wuxian asked, turning to his sister.

“A-Cheng is back in Lotus Pier, doing well, rebuilding,” Shijie responded, clasping her hands together, “but before we give you all the news, you should hear about what has happened with your own health.”

"Yes," interjected an unfamiliar voice.  Wei Wuxian looked over to see a tiny grandmother standing in the doorway.  She limped as she shuffled forward, reaching out to grab his arm and feel for his pulse-point.  "Jiang-guniang is entirely correct about the order of priorities.  Wei-gongzi, how do you feel?"

Wei Wuxian instinctively went to pull his hand away, but for a grandmother, she had surprising grip strength.  

"Wei-gongzi, you have been under my care for some time," she said, "I can assure you, you have no secrets from me."

Wei Wuxian tried to smile.  Tried to relax.  Tried, for a truly wishful moment, to be anywhere else.

"Don't worry, Xianxian," said Jiang Yanli, grabbing his unoccupied hand.  "Lan Jinhua-yisheng has said that she can heal you fully."

Wei Wuxian very politely refrained from saying that Lan-yisheng was incompetent or giving in to the strong impulse to scream from frustration.

Introductions were made, and explanations given.

“It's true, Wei-gongzi.  You truly are quite lucky, in that your meridians remain intact, and your body has suffered no long-lasting physical hurts while you lacked a core, ” Lan Jinhua said, releasing his arm with a neutral expression.  “GusuLan have developed methods of external alchemy that create an elixir which can be used to restart the circulation of your spiritual energy, which will enable you to re-cultivate your golden core.  It will be a long process to restore it to its prior strength, but your body-memory will make it faster than the first time you cultivated your golden core.”

Wei Wuxian’s hand broke from Shijie’s and rose involuntarily to clutch at his lower dantian.

“You’re saying - “  He swallowed.  “You’re saying that I can build a new golden core?”

“Yes,” the healer replied, with the faintest smile.  “Though I must warn you that doing so is likely incompatible with continuing to practice your new style of cultivation.”

“That’s fine!” Wei Wuxian yelped out, and it was only when Lan Zhan squeezed Wei Wuxian’s shoulder that he realized that Lan Zhan had kept his hand on it throughout the conversation.  He glanced down at it, then looked up to warm golden eyes and the most approving near smile he had ever seen on Lan Zhan’s face.

“You should eat and rest until the elixir is ready,” Lan Jinhua said, rising to her feet and withdrawing from the room.

“Yes,” said Shijie, getting to her feet as well.  “Let me bring you some soup, A-Xian.  I made your favourite.”

“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian replied without turning his head.  His hand lifted to join the place where Lan Zhan’s hand was wrapped around his, covering Lan Zhan’s hand with his own as he kept his eyes on Lan Zhan.

“Wei Ying.”

“Lan Zhan.”

Was there anything else to say?

Slowly, as if giving him time to move away if he chose to, Lan Zhan brought his free hand to join their grasp.  His hands were pleasantly warm in the cool air of Gusu.  Wei Ying stared into Lan Zhan’s eyes, watched pleased as Lan Zhan met him steadily.

“You will return to the sword path?”  Lan Zhan asked softly.  Wei Ying laughed, softly rolling his eyes.

“If I had had a choice, I never would have left it, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying replied.  “You’ll have to protect me until I recover enough to fight with you again, okay?”

“Mn.”

“And keep me company while I’m stuck waiting for my body to be well again.”

“Mn.”

“And come night-hunting with me once I’m healed again - ”

“Wei Ying.”  Slightly annoyed, with a sigh.

Wei Ying laughed.  “All right, all right, Lan Zhan.  We will save making plans for after I’m better until I’m actually better, and then we can decide where we want to go.”

The tips of Lan Zhan’s ears turned a bit red as he replied, “I will go anywhere, if Wei Ying will also be there.”

“Lan Zhan!”  Wei Ying flushed to the root of his hair, turning away.  “You can’t just say things like that!  Have pity on this poor coreless man.”

Lan Zhan scoffed, and Wei Ying found it in himself to turn back towards his soulmate.

“We can discuss when you are well.”

“Yes, and also when we are not in the infirmary and there’s no chance that your uncle will happen to choose an inopportune moment to drop in and decide that he hates me even more because - “

“Because?”

“You know why!”

Lan Zhan’s eyes were dancing, but he did not respond.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying shouted, but his annoyance was mostly play, and the look on Lan Zhan’s face said that he had, at last, figured that out.  Wei Ying gave up the act with a laugh.

It was all right.  They would have time to figure it out.