#The next chapter will be from Xichen's POV!

[guqin-and-flute]

Are You Here to Stop Me? –Ch. 7 [Peony to Lotus!Verse, Yaoli]

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5][Chapter 6] [First post in Peony to Lotus Verse]

[Ao3 Series]

[CW: Mention of blood, canon and era typical internalized ableism and misogyny from Yanli]

"You're sure you don't need me to get your parasol, furen?" 

Yanli opened her eyes to the buttery autumn sun and smiled up at her maid, who hovered by her elbow like a nervous bird. "A-Si, I’m fine--” she began to insist, gently.

But the girl was already spinning, hurrying away up the garden path and calling back over her shoulder; “I’d better get it, just in case! I’ll be right back!” 

With a sigh of fond surrender, Yanli settled back into her heavily cushioned chair, hands resting on her stomach. Nothing moved inside, yet, and it was no more round than it ever was, but there was life there. Wen Qing--Qing-mei, as she had begun to call her in the weeks they had spent so much time together--was certain of it.

Yanli was certain of it, now, as well. In the weeks following the diagnosis, she had felt the changes beginning, quite apart from her the recovery symptoms of lingering wet heaviness in her chest. There was the horrid nausea and sickness in the mornings, the aversion to foods she once loved, a craving for foods of a strange combination. Her belly didn’t look any different, but it certainly felt fuller. And she was so tired. Wen Qing had assured her and A-Yao that it was normal when she was recovering as well as metabolizing for 2.

And ever since the fact had “accidentally” gotten its way around to the rest of her family, as well as the Wen, the servants, and disciples, she was being treated as if she might trip and fall to pieces at any moment--treatment which she amiably bore. Even if it was excessive. Would such pampering really go on for 9 whole months? Her health had always been fragile but now, she hardly had a moment alone! 

“You’ve hardly grown at all, yet, and everyone is taking such good care of you,” she murmured down to her own belly, slowly rubbing it.

 She wasn’t certain exactly how news got out, as she and A-Yao had intended to wait the 3 customary months to announce the pregnancy--but somehow, everyone in Lotus Pier now knew. She might have suspected A-Xian, with his mischievous streak as wide as the lake, or A-Cheng, who was truly terrible at keeping any secret back from his face; but it just as well might have been given away by the fact that she couldn’t stop cradling her middle or the way that A-Yao’s doting attention on her had increased tenfold. 

Besides, A-Xian was far too preoccupied working himself ragged reviving poor Wen Ning, and A-Cheng too busy entrenched in the steps of that cutthroat political dance he must perform to gossip with anyone. It took all of their attention just to keep this whole affair afloat. 

She let out a sigh, watching her belly rise and fall with her breath, the tiny purple beads on her hanfu sparkling with every movement. They were all now in an uncomfortable stalemate—which, she supposed, was better than one of the alternatives, being outright war. From what she heard of the initial meeting, it had been tense and heavy, just barely above outright threats. Yanli was just as happy not to have been in any shape to go to Koi Tower and have to face anyone there. A-Cheng seemed incredibly stressed about the outcome, from what she had seen of him, and Yao seemed unhappy, but simply assured her that it was to be expected, assured them all that his father was keeping a wary eye on the other Sects. Jin Guangshan was too politically savvy, he said, to act purely from anger. They still had time to maneuver. And other meetings scheduled.

Even then, they had received plenty of correspondence of outrage, from rival and allied Sects alike—some even from their own people. They had not forgotten the pain of being occupied as a Supervisory Office. The wounds of the loss of all of those in the Lotus Pier compound were not even scarred over, yet, still red and furious. A-Yao was doing things behind the scenes to work on public opinion, but had once described it as carefully walking a tightrope. Yanli would agree, and secretly add that it felt as if it were one high in the air, above crashing waters and hungry mouths. The Jiang still held a strong standing in the jianghu, solid reputation held there equally by the legacy of their parents and A-Cheng's monumental success in the rebuilding of their Sect at his age.

But the children of the Jiang knew better than anyone, save perhaps the other Clans wiped out by the Qishan Wen, to never rely on that remaining true. They were not safe yet. There were miles yet to go, in this.

She wished she could be of more help, but she was still too weak to do much else besides be led about to bask in the shade, as she did now. Today was the first time in a long time she had felt well enough to consider reading, or perhaps embroidery. Maybe even cooking something simple, if she had help. And, in truth, there was not much she could do amidst the street gambler’s Shell Game they were attempting to pull with the Wen amidst the already complicated match of go they always played with the rest of the jianghu. 

And so, the leak of who told who about the pregnancy remained a mystery. It didn’t truly bother her; the excitement and congratulations, A-Yuan’s sweet, probing questions. She was just as relieved to be able to not have to keep a secret on top of the upwelling of emotions that swamped her daily. Elation. Terror. Anticipation. Pride. Anxiety. Satisfaction. And, of course, love.

Most of all love.

She had hardly been able to properly absorb what Wen Qing was saying that day, to express the elation and terror that coursed through her--and through A-Yao as well, if the shock in his pale face had been anything to go by--before Qing-mei had somehow herded him out of their room after A-yuan and closed the door firmly behind them. “Jiang-furen,” she had said, coming to sit on the edge of her bed. There was an edge of steel in her face and tone that was nowhere to be found in the gentle hands that folded around Yanli's own. “Please, speak freely. Tell me the truth. Is this what you want?”

Exhaustion had sapped into her bones, as wet and heavy as her breath. “Is…what?” she had trailed off, dizzy.

Wen Qing, seeing this, had first helped her settle back down flat onto her pillows. When the gnawing swirling in her gut and head had abated, slightly, Qing-mei continued, unflinchingly; “This pregnancy. If this isn't what you want, there are ways I can help you that no one will be able to detect. If you are being pressured by Jin Guangyao to--”

“What? A-Yao?“ Yanli had repeated on a laugh more of startlement than humor that had turned into a coughing fit. 

As it had squeezed her already sore middle, a strange, aware panic had suddenly overcome her--would coughing so hard hurt the pregnancy? She had curled around her stomach and tried to stifle them, with limited success. From now on, she would be housing another that would share in her discomforts. The thought was…unimaginable. 

When the coughing had finally passed, she had gasped, weakly, “Ah, oh no, no…this was planned, we both want to start…. I...we didn't expect...I'm just surprised, I suppose.”

The worried disbelief on Qing-mei’s face had made her close her eyes in weariness, praying for patience and words enough to convince her. She would not live through another well meaning woman trying to pry her marriage apart at the seams because they did not think he deserved her. How to explain to them a husband who laid every choice at her feet? How to properly convey just how safe she had been made to feel in her own marriage? The easiest love she had ever been gifted? “You have gotten the wrong impression, meimei, I'm delighted, I'm...I'm....” Going to have a baby. A baby! 

The thought had made her more lightheaded still, either with giddiness, terror, or a combination of the two, she hadn't quite been able to tell.

Even then, it had taken a significant amount of effort to convince her suspicious sister-in-law that, no, her husband was not impregnating her in some sneaky bid to solidify a place of power in their Clan; no, he did not scare, control, or force her; no, he had not been the one to somehow put the idea of transferring her own core to A-Xian into her head. That had been there a while all on its own.

It was still close enough to the failed conversations she had had with Madam Jin that she might have begun to feel the same helpless frustration, if Wen Qing hadn't subsided into a still suspicious acceptance of her wishes and the quickly growing whirlwind of shimmering excitement hadn’t begun swarming through her limbs as every time she said ‘my baby’ and ‘our child’, the future seemed that much more tangible.

And Qing-mei meant well, Yanli knew. Whatever she had seen in A-Yao in their time at the Scorching Sun Palace had clearly scared her deeply, and Yanli wasn't going to dismiss that. Her husband was cunning and clever, able to change faces with the ease of a passing cloud when he needed to. She had seen it herself and she could not, would not deny it. But she knew his heart, knew that he was also kind, sweet, gentle, and frightened--she loved him for all of it. That included the parts he regretted, the parts that Wen Qing hated. Yanli would never have anything to fear from him.

She could tell that Wen Qing still thought she was either helplessly hoodwinked or naive, but she seemed at least satisfied that Yanli wanted this for herself and her family and did not bring up the idea again. In fact, each new day she got to spend with the girl, she seemed to be a little more relaxed. At least she had far more color in her face and light in her eyes than when she had first laid eyes on her in that Lanling forest, looking as much like a corpse as her brother--just a walking one. Yet, even with the improvements to her health and mood, even after weeks, she and A-Cheng still circled each other warily. They practically fled the room whenever they saw that the other had entered. 

It might have been amusing if it weren’t so tragic. 

How did one matchmake a couple who was, effectively, already married? Yanli thought that she might be able to have some clue, seeing how her and A-Yao’s love had blossomed with care and time, but if the two wouldn’t even share the same air….It reminded her uncomfortably of their parents’ relationship; prickly silence and separate rooms across the Pier. It raised ugly gooseflesh down her back to think of A-Cheng resigning himself to be as miserable in marriage as they clearly had been. She might not have dared to think so as a child, but after her own delightful marriage, knowing what it could feel like…she wept for her parents and all that they had become. For what they both so clearly wanted but didn’t know how to get without sacrificing parts of themselves they refused to let go of, for better or worse.

A-Cheng and Qing-mei didn’t need to love each other. Yanli knew the seed of love was there, in her brother at least, knew that yearning look in his eye. She had seen him as a teenager eagerly waiting for her eye to turn to him--a warming Wen sun, not a burning one. Everything had become hopelessly tangled with rage and regret and duty and grief during the murder of their Clan and the war. But irreparably so? She hoped not. They didn’t need to love each other, but Yanli would have them at least comfortable in their living with each other. She would love to actually host a real wedding for them, one day, in private.

What little she could do for A-Cheng, she tried, probing him gently once in a while--when he had a spare moment to visit, which wasn’t often. She complimented the clothes he had admitted to ordering for Wen Qing; robes in a spectrum of rich plums, burgundies, and muted magentas--red the undertones of each. “Did she ask for those colors in particular?”

“No.” His whole affect always sagged, dulled whenever she gently probed him about his wife and he would stare at his hands.

“Did you choose them yourself, then?” 

“...Yes. I…Yes.”

She had been delighted to be surprised by this, though she shouldn’t have been--he had always been a smart dresser with a keen eye for color. Besides some of her Jiang shimei’s and the tailor, she had specifically sought his opinion on her own wedding outfit. He and A-Xian had been planning her entire wedding since they were 8, after all, he was bound to have opinions. And he certainly had--her wedding dress had had both of her brother’s stamps of approval.

Lately, when he came by, he was always well groomed, but could feel the stress humming through him and behind his tired eyes. He could act so prickly, she wondered if anyone was pestering him to make sure he slept well. If they would let themselves, she was sure a wife would be a perfect person to do so. Whenever Yanli tried, he would just say that she shouldn’t worry about him with everything going on with her, that he was sleeping fine, and would proceed to fuss over her instead.

“A-Cheng, what’s troubling you?”

“Nothing, jiejie.”

“You’re a terrible liar, sweetling.

“I don’t have the time to worry about pretending to be married, right now.”

“You could just try talking to her, you know. Just…start a conversation.”

His face scrunched up in a combination of self derision, confusion, and agony, wrinkling his nose and narrowing his eyes. Waiting, she had stroked his hand where it lay balled up on her blanket, his knuckles a pale bite against the rich emerald and purple. “I wouldn’t know what to talk about,” he had finally said, shortly, his voice more of a mumble than the gruff dismissive tone she thought he might have been aiming for.

“You could ask her what she’s feeling, how she likes it here.”

“I don’t think I want to know.” He was staring down at her bedspread, bleakly, tight lines of worry between his brows.

When she had reached up to try to smooth them away, admonishing his doubt with a gentle, “A-Cheng--” he had caught her hand and pressed the backs of her knuckles against his cheek, eyes squeezed shut. After a sharp, indrawn breath, he had announced that he needed to go--and she needed to rest. There was nothing more she could say without making him flee faster.

What a mess all of this was.

Qing-mei was not much more of a help on that front. And Yanli was even less inclined to force her, poor girl--they didn’t have the history and she didn’t want to trap her. Every time she brought up A-Cheng or their marriage or what she felt about the whole relationship, she clammed up and grew solemn. “I’m grateful to Jiang-zongzhu. To all of you,” was all she would ever say, regarding their arrangement.

 At least Yanli had finally convinced her to stop calling her Jiang-furen, insisting that if they were going to be sisters now, it only made sense. She had confided in the younger woman that she had never had a little sister before, that she was excited to have someone to call ‘meimei’. At that, quite apart from her unflappable, self assured doctorly attitude, Qing-mei had offered, shyly, that she had never been a little sister before and that she found the idea quite odd. This tacit acceptance of the role delighted Yanli beyond words.

Qing-mei had taken to visiting her long past the time she had finished checking and treating her, taking tea and meals in her room either A-Yao came back or Yanli would, embarrassingly. fall asleep mid sentence. They hadn’t been able to visit like this very often when she had sheltered them in Yiling--Wen Qing would be called away and there had been work to be done, healing A-Cheng. Now, though, they had time and privacy, and their conversations would wander both wide and deep, over being elder sisters to trouble-prone younger brothers, about their shared time in Yiling, their mothers, their favorite books. Qing-mei was very clearly reluctant to confide her worries in her, whether in not wanting to cause her further stress or simply due to her own innate reservation, and so their conversations rarely included fears or the far future. 

But, sometimes, she would talk about Wei Wuxian’s progress and Wen Ning. “I don’t know what I’m more afraid of,” she had whispered one evening as the sun set outside, stock still next to Yanli’s bed, staring at the screen that threw spindly shadows of willow’s fingers across like thrashing ropes. “The idea that he may never come back. Or that he might…and I don’t know what he will be.” She had turned her head then, her neck and spine braced bravely, but her large, sweet eyes shining with tears in the low lantern light. “Da-gu, he’s so cold,” she had choked, barely audible. 

When Yanli had sat forward and reached out her arms, there was no hesitation when Qing-mei huddled into them, shaking silently.

Yanli herself had not yet seen what was left of Qing-mei’s gentle brother since she had landed at Lotus Pier, barely conscious herself. It hurt her heart to remember the shy, earnest boy she had seen attempting to become invisible behind his sister, despite his standing several inches taller than her at the Cloud Recesses what felt like eons ago. She hardly knew a thing about him, and all she did was through Xianxian and Qing-mei’s eyes. Hopefully there was a future possible for them to get to know each other on their own terms. 

Though she wholeheartedly believed in Xianxian’s brilliance and dogged tenacity, she had to admit…a conscious fierce corpse had never been achieved before. And the work was hard and damaging. It had scared her when she had finally seen what A-Xian had looked like after a week of what was clearly just a diet of half forgotten food and resentful energy. She had found him in the family shrine just a few days ago, when it was too rainy to sit outside comfortably. The early autumn had been washing warm, wet storms over them almost daily, but often, they came and went within minutes and she would patiently await the sun beneath a tree and her parasol. That day, however, the day woke to rain, and it had stayed, churning the lake cloudy with disturbed particulates. 

Though she enjoyed a good walk in the rain, everyone--A-Yao, A-Cheng, He Si, Qing-mei, Liu-popo, her childhood doctor-- had cautioned against going out in it when she was still fragile, and so her maid had helped her shuffle slowly across shining walkways and summer-verdant ponds pebbled with raindrops, huddled together under a waxed parasol and cloak. When she saw a hunched, dark shape within, she had paused at the door, squinting into the incense and candle warmed gloom within. When she recognized the set of her brother’s shoulders, she had quietly dismissed He Si with a lift of her chin. 

A-Xian had looked up when she moved from the fresh, silvery air of the outside to the space of quietly splashing water and remembered prayers. Immediately, the comforting hiss and patter of rain receded even more when she slid the door shut, leaving them surrounded only by the pale darkness of the ornate lotus screen panels--a private little universe. When she turned, A-XIan was already there, helping her out of her cloak, taking the dripping parasol from her hand. “Shijie! Are you sure you should be up?” The shadows beneath his eyes were dark and he had missed a spot on his jaw shaving this morning.

“I don’t think staying in bed for the rest of my pregnancy would be good for me or my baby, A-XIan.” She had softened the already gentle jibe by brushing back the hair from his face and patting his cheek, feeling the prickle under her fingers. “Help me to the cushions?”

He, of course, did, supporting her elbow, his other hand wrapped protectively around her far shoulder. The scent that clung to him was sharp and unpleasant, wholly unlike the memories she associated with him. Long ago, she had buried her nose in the top of his little boy head, and would breathe in soap and sunshine and love--and now, as a man, he used to smell like the spices he liked to eat and something fresh. Now, he smelled like…danger, soot, blood. That alone would have unnerved her. But when they sat next to each other and her eyes adjusted, she could take in the whole of him.

“I know, I know, I look terrible. I look worse than I feel, don’t worry,” he waved off her eye’s widening with feigned ease, smiling.

He had lost weight quickly, leaving him hollow cheeked and wan. His hair was only hastily brushed, his topknot uneven, slightly lopsided, and his eyes were bloodshot. On his hands, cinnabar, soot, and old blood was smeared, half-heartedly wiped, then smeared again, darkening around his nails. “A-Xian,” she had intoned with enough force that he immediately sat up straight, sucking in his lips like a child caught out doing something he knew he shouldn’t be doing. “After we talk, you’re going to take a bath and eat a full meal outside your room. Alright?”

“Really, I’m--” 

“A-Xian!” She had broken in, frowning, eyebrows drawn down. 

He hunkered down, pouting as he muttered, “Yes, Shijie.” Tilting doleful eyes and pushed out lip up at her, he then whined, “Shijieeee, don’t be mad at me. I’ll do better. Sorry if I’m smelly.” To illustrate this, he theatrically lifted up his sleeve to sniff it, then wrinkled his nose in real distaste. “Ugh. Alright, I get it.”

With a sigh, she had reached for his hands. He had seemed to wake to what was on them and scrubbed his palms on his thighs before taking them. “It’s not that, Xianxian, you know that. I’m worried about you. I’m worried about both of you.”

Apparently, he and A-Cheng had also been warily circling each other, like they did after most fights. Their spats, she had heard from a combination of A-Yao, He Si, and Qing-mei were more mundane and brotherly, now, weeks later--though they ended as often with eye rolling and secret smiles as hurt feelings and tight lipped silences. It had been bad right after their return, she had heard--A-Cheng storming around with a poisonous temper for days and A-Xian working on Wen Ning all hours of the day and night, refusing to leave his room. She hated that she had to hear about it second hand, that they visited her one at a time, that when she was able to emerge from her room, they were often away, doing what they could. She wasn’t around to soothe their rough edges from grinding against the other.

Qing-mei was with her the most, A-Yao a close second, when he wasn’t helping A-Cheng or something else that needed doing around the Pier. Xianxian had only come in a few times, sometimes too exhausted to do anything but drape himself over the edge of her bed and childishly request hair stroking, which she, of course, gave. Once, a day or two after she had discovered she was pregnant, apparently deciding that she was well enough for a scolding, he had come and very seriously told her to never even think about giving him her core again. “Aren’t you glad Wen Qing said no to that nonsense?” he had demanded, frowning at her in displeasure.

Yanli thought it was rich of him being so incensed about it, but she had let it go. “I wasn’t…I don’t remember doing it. It was the fever, I think.”

“Well, don’t even go thinking it!” he had said, fierceness belayed by him anxiously petting at her arm. “Put it out of your head! Alright?”

She thought about a great many things that she didn’t share with him. It wasn’t something she thought of…constantly. Or even very often. It was just something that had reared its head when she had learned of what A-Xian and Wen Qing had done. When he had sat before A-Cheng and herself with A-Yao by his side and tried to pretend it wasn’t the worst thing they had ever heard. She felt sick when she remembered it--sick for both her brothers. She couldn’t think about it too long, or….

But she was, indeed, glad that Qing-mei had stoutly refused her delirious babble. Her core, weak and pitiful as it was, was going to have to support her and this child through her pregnancy. At least it was finally good for something.

With a start, Yanli blinked out of her hazy, sunwarmed ruminations of the past few weeks and back into the garden, now shaded a brilliant blue from the after images her orange eyelids had left. She couldn’t have been dozing long, for she could hear footsteps returning back down the path. But something in the back of her mind perked up at their familiarity and the knowledge that it wasn’t He Si’s stride. Delighted, she levered herself back entirely upright in the chair and twisted around to see her husband emerging from around the dwarf maple whose leaf edges flirted with gold. “A-Yao!”

“I’ve brought you something, Jiang-furen,” he announced with a twinkle of humor in his dimples, presenting her favorite scalloped, lavender parasol, dotted with intricate plum blossoms on a branch. “He Si was very keen that you have it.”

She laughed and shook her head, reaching out to him for a greeting kiss, which he warmly bestowed on her. He smelled and tasted lovely, like he had been walking around out in the fresh air all day. “She frets so much. It couldn’t have anything to do with you fretting so much, could it? Is she coming back?”

“I dismissed her for other duties, as I assumed you might wish to spend time together.”

Delights up on delights! “Oh, always!”

He helped her up from her chair and walked pressed to her side, his arm sure and firm around her, his fingertips brushing her belly beneath her sleeve, out of sight from passing eyes. Oh, A-Yao; her beloved, tangled up A-Yao. 

Despite his calm outward face, was so clearly terrified by everything about this, including the prospect of not being by her side at every moment. He was constantly on the move, organizing and advising and assisting and whatever else his clever mind decided that they needed--but in between all this, he would appear anxiously at her side at all hours, asking what he could do, if He Si was attending to her properly, if she needed something. Come to think of it…perhaps she had better make sure her husband had no overt hand in her maid’s currently overly fretful state.

She was fairly certain he was more scared than she was about the prospect of becoming a parent, which was endearing, considering she was the one that would have to give birth and not him. He hid it quite admirably, even for him, buried underneath the more typical worry for her--and now, the baby’s--health. And he clearly planned to “burden” her with none of it. But she could see it in his eyes, could feel it in the way he held her.

When they had discovered she was with child, that night, he had asked to make love to her, and had done so exquisitely sweetly. Well, every time they had made love so far had been sweet, but that night, he had been even more tender, more warm and attentive than ever before. Every press of his skin had been gentle enough that she could barely feel where he began and she ended. Ever since then, he had been treating her as if she were made of precious glass. From him, her husband, she happily accepted the attention. The way that he doted on her never made her feel lessened, like he thought she was some incapable child or weak, silly girl. It only made her feel wanted and precious.

He had been appalled that he had let her go on the arduous trip to find Wei Wuxian, and when she had asked with her expression, smiling softly; Let me?, he had amended that he should have begged her to come back with him to Lotus Pier. She had had to remind her that she couldn’t have. A-Yao had simply sighed deeply and said that he knew. Running her hands over his jaw, where the yellow-brown ghosts of the bruises on his jaw from Zixun were finally no longer visible, she had said, “I’ll be careful now. And so should you, yes?”

He had kissed her slowly into sleep.

Now, together, they agreed to try some cooking in the smaller kitchen, so as not to get in the way of the cooks. It was the most activity than she had attempted in days, but there was no tremble to her hands and her muscles felt like actual muscles today, instead of some wet, quivering mud. Standing felt good instead of arduous. And she would never get her strength back if she lived in a chair for the next 9 months. This kitchen was more cluttered than the main one, and a little darker for the smaller windows, but by no means dirty--it also gave them the added benefit of privacy. It was because of this, she was certain, that A-Yao felt comfortable enough to press up behind her as she stood at the counter and sliced up figs. His arms rested comfortably about her waist, palms pressed to her belly and chin resting on her shoulder as he observed her work. Though his whole front pressed warmly against her back, there was no lascivious invitation in it, only closeness and trust. In public, he was not overtly performative with his affection; a supporting arm while walking here, laying a hand atop hers there. It was when they were alone he felt he could cautiously touch her more freely, as if the eyes of others made his love something lewd. Well…she supposed that might in fact be a concern for him. No matter. Whether a peck in private, a brush of her cheek in public and everything in between--and sometimes more--she adored it all. 

“I’m not going to fall over, A-Yao,” she teased. “I’ll let you know if I need to sit down.”

“Of course,” he answered easily, but did not move away, instead nuzzling his face into the crook of her neck.

Contended, she hummed and paused in her knife strokes, laying her cheek atop his shoulder. A golden glow, at once fierce and tender, had a permanent place in her chest nowadays. It had nothing to do with her fading illness and everything to do with this bright new future she had been gifted. She was so lucky. 

Outside the widow, across the courtyard, someone screamed. 

A-Yao spun her back from the window as the bright afternoon outside was split with a crash, an inhuman roar, and more screams, one right after the other. Yanli stumbled, pressed herself against the far wall, her heart pounding wildly against her ribs. Icy gooseflesh cascaded over skin, her stomach knotted in fear. A-Yao, a dagger suddenly in hand, was peering out the window, motionless. She couldn’t see anything from her angle and the leaves outside, but the wild screaming, the roaring continued. The sound of running feet. “What is it?” she whispered, voice pressed thin. 

He only wordlessly shook his head, scanning back and forth. A tree stood in front of the window, she knew, obscuring most of the view of the outside. 

What on earth could it be? Lotus Pier was protected, there were talismans and wards and--

A-Cheng bellowed something, voice harsh with fear.

A-Cheng.

“A-Li, no--!” A-Yao’s shout followed her out the door, but she couldn’t stop.

Her brother was in trouble. I won’t be left behind again, I can’t, I can’t-- 

The courtyard stones flew beneath her feet, then the bridge and she could see, flashing into her mind like blinding light off of waves. A-Cheng, across the walkway, Sandu flashing in the sun, Zidian crackling. Still bellowing, pointing. Disciples running to him as quickly as the servants flooded away, wailing in terror. A towering black figure on the other side of the ornamental pond, wreathed in writhing smoke. It ripped out another unearthly snarl as it flung something big away from itself. A body, a person, flailing in midair, screaming. A snap as they crashed through a carved banister and landed in a sickening, motionless heap, a loose pink ribbon fluttering to earth behind them. “He Si!” 

A hand clamped on her arm as she started forward. A-Yao had caught up. “A-Li!”

“We can’t! A-Si!” She struggled forward, clutching his sleeve, dragging him along.

Shouts and screams bled into the pounding in her ears, pulse a frantic bird in her head that shrieked. She was only across the walkway, only a dozen steps away. Clangs, a thump, a grunt--oh gods! Then she heard A-Cheng’s voice still shouting orders--not him. A-Yao’s face was sharp and hard. His other hand rose to her shoulder. He was going to pick her up and carry her away, saw his thoughts written like script across his face and she couldn’t, she clutched at him and pleaded, “No, please! A-Yao, please, please!” They couldn’t just leave her here, bleeding, in danger!

His eyes darted, then his pull changed, urging her forward, running with her instead of pulling her back. Her movements were loose with fear, jerky and wild and she nearly fell up the steps onto the walkway. Blood covered the girl's face, pooling crimson rapidly onto the shining wood around her. They bent, dragging her back to get better purchase on her limp body. Her feet dragged pitifully. Yanli’s hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t close them around her arms properly. One still held the knife from the kitchen. She had forgotten she still had it. 

The girl wasn’t moving. A-Yao hefted her torso up in his arms, turned to her, opened his mouth--

A fresh wave of screams.

“Jiejie!” A-Cheng’s voice cracked from across the second bridge as she heard a shuffle of wind, a thump behind them and suddenly, the roots of her teeth ached, and that smell--the sharp, burning metal-blood smell that clung to A-Xian--flooded her.

Looking up, the sun blinded her for a split second before vicious smoke--resentful energy stung her eyes, flooded her throat--white hand filled her vision.  Then, something canoned into her side, knocking her away to sprawl away from He Si. Blood and sky spun around her. Battlefield gore, fear, death choked her throat. Gasping, coughing, she scrambled, to her hands and knees, head whirling. When she looked up, her entire body went ice cold and all she could hear in the world was screaming.

It was Wen Ning, black veins sprawling across his face, the empty white holes of his eyes fixed on who he now held by the throat. A-Yao, who had knocked her aside.

No!

Even though the foul resentful energy wreathing them both, her husband’s eyes were alight with more rage than fear, teeth bared. He had already buried his dagger hilt deep in Wen Ning’s chest, right in his heart. The fierce corpse vented another noise human throats should not be able to make and lifted A-Yao, like he was light as a rag, off his feet. Thrashing, choking, A-Yao brought up a leg to kick the dagger hilt deeper, another already in his other hand.

Wen Ning’s other hand shot out, latched around his wrist. Yanli felt the snap in her chest more than heard it. His dagger clanged to the ground. She could see those fingers closing further, like a vise, crushing. A-Yao made no sound--couldn’t, his throat was squeezed, he couldn’t--he couldn’t--

 Screaming--she was screaming, that noise was her--she stumbled up, forward, swinging the kitchen knife up to hack at Wen Ning’s arms, wrists, anything to free her husband. She was close enough that the writhing mist stung like nettles over her skin when something collided with her again, knocking her back from them, sending the knife clattering away from her grip. Qing-mei clung to her, dragged her back, shouting something into her ear. She fought against her, still screaming. He had A-Yao!

 It had been only moments since Wen Ning had landed behind them, but time was boiling, stretching, bursting around them. No no no no no--

Crackling, blinding purple wrapped around Wen Ning’s pale throat, pulled tight and he at least dropped A-Yao’s arm, snarling, clawing at it. Zidian. A-Cheng was there, yanking back on Zidian hard enough to bow Wen Ning’s spine back. But he still had A-Yao’s throat clenched in his grip, still held him up entirely as he kicked at him, hands locked on Wen Ning’s wrist.

“A-Ning, stop! Stop!” Wen Qing cried, arms still knotted around Yanli, still dragging her back as she struggled. 

The disciples clamored nearer, shouting, flinging talismans that sizzled into ash as soon as they met the corona of energy spilling from Wen Ning. Some were already limping, bleeding, and A-Cheng shouted at them to stay back. A piercing, chilling note shrieked above the clamor, freezing Wen Ning still as stone. 

A-Xian. 

Frantically, Yanli searched for him, found him pelting around the corner of the Banquet Hall, Chenqing at his lips. “Wei Wuxian!” A-Cheng roared over at him. “Make him stop!”

A-Xian was pale and wide eyed as his fingers flew over the black lacquer of his flute. He skidded to a halt to suck in a huge breath and trill a complicated, twisting melody that raised all the hairs on Yanli’s body. A shudder went through Wen Ning like a wave across the pond and he began to shake. A quiet, abrupt gasp broke from A-Yao’s lips, as if the fingers around his throat had loosened fractionally. But his face was almost blue, eyes rolling back--and black veins were snaking from under the fierce corpse’s palm. 

“A-YAO!”

In that instant of brief stillness, like a shadow, A-Cheng rose up from behind Wen Ning, Zidian pulled taut in his hand, Sandu raised--his face was dark as a thundercloud, death in his eyes. “Zongzhu!” Qing-mei’s gasped, “Husband, please! Don’t hurt him!”

A-Cheng’s hesitated, eyes flickered, his killing intent cracked. “A-Cheng!” Yanli shrieked, fighting and thrashing, throat raw.

She didn’t even know what she was begging him to do. All she knew was that A-Yao was now just twitching instead of kicking and she could not get free. 

A-Cheng’s face hardened as Chenqing’s tone shrilled up and down a haunting scale, and, with a huge heave, he wrenched Zidian back. The frozen Wen Ning toppled down sideways with the force of it, collapsing both he and A-Yao over into the ornamental lotus pond beside them with a splash. Yanli no longer had to break free of Wen Qing’s grip, for they were both racing to the pond as fast as they could.

 But A-Cheng slid in front of them, flinging out his arms to block them both with his chest as Chenqing’s notes cut off, A-Xian’s panicked voice instead yelling out a warning; Wen Ning reared up from the water behind him, roaring, thrashing, and splashing. 

A-Yao did not.

#Yaoli #jgy #jin guangyao #jiang yanli #jyl #peony to lotus #my stuff #rarepair #mdzs #the untamed #my fic #the untamed fanfic #Well hellooooo there :3 (said while showing up a year later with the update) #I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY I TRIED TO GIVE YOU A NICE BREAK BEFORE ACTION AND ANGST AGAIN 😬 But don't worry every little thing's gonna be alright #The next chapter will be from Xichen's POV! #I may come back and do some editing of grammar things because I've rearranged it a few times

[wangxianficrecs]

Follower Recs

~*~

I'd like to make a rec or two for WIP week!

The first is this one, a SVSSS crossover where BingQui raised WWX, and it's a fix-it from the point after WWX breaks the Wens out of Qiongqi pass. The author said they only had a couple scenes left before it was complete, and despite it's unfinished state, it's still a pretty complete read!

回家/Huí jiā

by Exaigon

T, WIP, 68k, Wangxian & Bingqiu

Summary: Wei Wuxian makes his way back to the parents who raised him. Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe are inordinately pleased by this, and aren't willing to entertain the cultivation world's silly thoughts about their son being evil and needing to be killed.

~*~

Next is a Royalty AU with Royal Lans and Concubine WWX playing identity shenanigans on everyone but LWJ. Political intrigue! Mystery! Angst! Silly outsider POVs! The first two parts of the story are complete, but the third is not, but what is there is very good!

The Concubine Mo Chronicles

by Enigmatree

T, Series, WIP, 99k, Wangxian

Summary: An AU where the Lan Xichen is the Emperor; Lan Wangji is the Crown Prince; the Jin, Jiang, and Nie are Dukedoms; and even 13 years dead, Wei Wuxian is still the most feared man in all of China. Newly resurrected, Wei Wuxian would love nothing more than to cultivate a core and go become a rogue cultivator. Except, there's something very suspicious going on in the Imperial Palace, and while Wei Wuxian might not be able to help Lan Wangji in solving it, the unassuming and soft-spoken "Prince-Concubine Mo" sure can.

~*~

And finally, one of my new faves. An Addams Family AU! A locked fic though! Each individual chapter is it's own story that are all loosely connected, but it's still very funny!!

The Altogether Ooky WangXian Family

by FluffyHippogriff

T, WIP, 64k, Wangxian

Summary: This was a perfectly normal town, once upon a time. Perfectly normal people with perfectly normal hobbies and perfectly normal jobs leading perfectly normal lives. And then the perfectly abnormal family at 0001 Cemetery Lane enrolled their oldest child in school, unleashing countless "horrors" upon their fellow citizens. [Chapters are individual stories, with loose sitcom-esque overarching narrative]

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for these hard-working authors if you like – or think others might like – these stories.)

#WIP Rec Week #WIP #Work in Progress #October 2023 #Wangxian Fic Recs #follower recs #mdzs #the untamed #follower rec #MDZS #Mo Dao Zu Shi #The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #Wangxian #The Untamed #Chenqingling #CQL #Chenqing Ling #回家/Huí jiā #Exaigon #The Concubine Mo Chronicles #Enigmatree #The Altogether Ooky WangXian Family #by FluffyHippogriff #SVSSS #Bingqiu #long fic > 50k #Teen

[lgbtlunaverse]

POV switches in chapter 108

This is generally me trying to figure out which parts of the novel are from wei wuxian's limited perspective and which ones are omniscient, as they switch pretty frequently and without warning. And also specifcally because @darkfalcon-z asked in a reply to a post I made earlier today!

Obvious disclaimer that this meta looks pretty closely into specific wording, and that my source remains a translation. I haven't read the original text and so can't attest to my accuracy there.

So MDZS gets real messy with its narration. It obviously starts in omniscient with celebrating Wei Wuxian's death, but spends a lot of its time in limited, most exemplary shown by the enduring obliviousness wei wuxians has towards lan wangji's feelings never being explicitly undercut by the narration.

The novel... does NOT telepgraph when it switches povs. Moreover, wei wuxian does sometimes make confident statement about how other characters feel. Prime example being him talking about how jiang cheng would react to finding out about his core

This being, notably... NOT what Jiang Cheng's actual reaction is when he does find out. That's because wwx is working with incomplete information here, he didn't know Jiang Cheng was willing to lose his core for him to begin with.

Also, he afformentioned obliviousness to Lan Wangji leading to him, multiple times, attributing the wrong motivations to lan wangji's actions.

The novel doesn't outright say "wei wuxian assumed/ thought that jiang cheng would react like that" in the screenshot above, but it DOES clearly show, by leading with him thinking about why he thought he coudn't tell jiang cheng about the golden core transfer, that we're in his head at the moment. And so the following statements are also his thoughts, not omniscient narrations. The difference is very subtle. But it's there

So we're in chapter 108. right before Lan Xichen stabs Jin Guangyao, an we're clearly in omniscient.

Lan Xichen's feelings are stated plainly and there's not very much focus on Wei wuxian at all. It switches over briefly to him and lwj checking up on Wen Ning but his feelings are not overriding everything else.

Then the stab happens

We're still in omniscient here. "Lan xichen felt his heart go cold" a detail Wei Wuxian couldn't know, stated plainly as a matter of fact.

However.

I think this part

Is where we retreat from omniscient back into wei wuxian's pov. We're not told anything about either of these character's inner worlds, but do get some extra litte commentary that jgy was so slow that even Jin Ling could catch him with his eyes closed! That's not something either Lan Xichen or jgy would be thinking of right now. It is, however, a comment Wei Wuxian's inner monologue might think to make.

In the context of my earlier post, which this was inspired by. It also makes some assumptions. Namely, that Xichen is just going after jgy to catch him. It doesn't explicitly say so, because we're not in omniscient anymore but it's clear Wei Wuxian thinks so as he'll feel the need to warn him in a few seconds. This is interesting, as it directly contradicts a popular fan interpretation of this scene, that's become explicitly canonized in multipe adaptations, which is that Lan Xichen is intentionally going along with and is willing to die with him. I'm not saying this theory is correct based on its popularity alone, obviously. I was actually surprised to find out it was so vague when I read the novel considering its popularity!

By the next chapter we'll be unambiguously back into wei uxian's head, and after "Lan Xichen could no longer persuade himself to silence him again" which is in the paragraph before the one in the image above, we are no longer told any other character's feelings or inner thoughts except for Wei Wuxian's. Specifically, this:

So this describes wei wuxian realizing a "something" what something? well, this something.

Again, the difference is subtle. The statement of "He was fighting with his last breath to lead Lan Xichen towards Nie Mingjue, so they could die together!" might seem like another one of those "other charcters' feelings" statements. But we're not IN Jin Guangyao's head right now. This is describing actions, not thoughts. He's not trying to get away (a visible action wwx would be privy to) which must be because...see statement above.

And all of this is framed under the banner of Wei Wuxian saying he realized something, and that being that Jin Guangyao isn't trying to get away and Lan Xichen needs to get away from him because... see statement above. This line basically starts as a repitition of what Wei Wuxian said, repeating his assumption, and then clarifying what Wei Wuxian DOES think is happening. The whole paragraph between is just buildup for the payoff of what that "something" of the realization is. MXTX could have writtern "wei wuxian, however, realized something. Jin Guangyao wasn't trying to get away! Instead he was trying to lead Lan Xichen towards Nie Mingjue so they could die together" and them describe the scenario, it'd be functionally the same in the manner of what information was conveyed, but the little gap in setup and payoff increases suspense and makes the reveal more engaging. It's a good little writing trick!

That wording above does make it way more obvious that that statement? Is one of wei wuxian's. That's what HE thinks.

In the line where jgy pushes lan xichen away, we're still not privy to their feelings or thoughts at all.

But we do get this curious litle "yet,"

That means this is a subversion, something that goes against what was previously established. Namely, that jin guangyao would want lan xichen to get caught by nie mingjue. The actual reality of the situaton conrasts hat we were told earlier. it's a surprise. to who? Well, to all the other characters watching this go down. wwx among them. We get other little commentaries, like how the sight of jgy being choked by nmj is frightening, placing us even further away from his inner world and into the shoes of someone watching him in the temple.

The style being used here is similar to the one in the next chapter, when nie huasang's plan is unveiled. First you get bit of dialogue with clear implications from Wei Wuxian, and then we go into wei wxuxian's head. In a few lines it's explicitly established that he's questioning things, and we are following his line of thought. And then a whle account of nie huasang's plan is given. With no further affirmation that we're still in wei wuxian's head. That's based on context clues given prior. Is this recount of the plan correct? Most likely, yeah! But we're never expicitly told. We are still in wei wuxian's head.

This bit on Jin Guangyao is similar. From the removal of stating other character's feelings (a possible exception might be the statement that "Nie Mingjue is not afraid of spiritual weapons" but that is something observable to wwx who's been seeing nmj not give a shit for a good few minutes now. We get nothing he's not privy to) and a clear indication that we're inside his head now. What we get next is his reocunt of the events, and they're fairly factul as he simply tells us what he sees, but when he gets into the reasons for why things ar ehappening? Well, if we wanted to, we could doubt that.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #wei wuxian #god perspective in this novel is EXHAUSTING #every writing advice blog and course i've ever seen is like DON'T SWITCH POVS MID SCENE IT'S CONFUSING #and mxtx took that as a personal challenge #narrator so unreliable you don't even know who's narrating half the time #apologies for not including alt text! it's midnight here and the site i'm using to get these screenshots doesn't allow me to copy-paste! #i'll add id tomorrow morning

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Soldier, Poet, King

Part 12

[Beginning] [Previous]

[AO3] [Masterpost]

I asked and y'all unanimously voted for shorter chapters of individual POV's for the next few updates so I am delivering ♥ Have almost 6k words of emotional bonding as a treat (before shit hits the fan lol)

--//--

Nie Mingjue is completely exhausted both mentally and physically, which is why he’s sleeping so deeply he doesn’t even hear Jin Guangyao returning to their quarters until his partner is already climbing into bed with him and Lan Xichen.

“Ow, A-Yao, fuck!” he grunts when a particularly sharp jab from his lover’s tiny (read: bony) elbow lands squarely in the soft patch between two of his ribs.

Lan Xichen makes some garbled noise beside him that sounds vaguely like, “Gonna break the bed, ge.” (Though whether he’s awake and talking about all three of them piling into it together or else dreaming and talking in his sleep about the…enthusiastic sex the two of them had before passing out, Nie Mingjue isn’t sure.)

Jin Guangyao ignores both of them anyway and continues worming his way in between them with a liberal application of shoving and elbowing and kicking that Nie Mingjue would very much like him to stop. In the interest of making that happen he huffs a sigh and scooches back as far as he can until he’s practically fused with the wall behind the bunk to give Jin Guangyao space between him and Lan Xichen, who also turns on his side, his back to the rest of the room, to accommodate their partner.

“Need those big beds, ge,” Lan Xichen mumbles, and he’s definitely awake this time so Nie Mingjue makes sure to roll his eyes at him before he turns his attention to Jin Guangyao getting settled.

There’s a hint of impatience feathering the edges of his voice when he asks, “Are you comfortable, dianxia?” but then Jin Guangyao looks up at him and he looks two seconds away from dissolving into hysterics, his lashes already clumped together with tears and his eyes shining in the low light. Nie Mingjue’s irritation vanishes like it never was.

“A-Yao?”

“Can we all share? Just for a bit?” he asks, and it’s slurred with the alcohol Nie Mingjue can catch the faintest whiff of on his breath under his toothpaste – but it’s also so wet and fragile that Nie Mingjue’s heart cracks wide open.

“Of course. What’s wrong — what happened?”

He’ll never say it, but he can’t stand it when Jin Guangyao goes out. He’s not thrilled about Nie Huaisang going out either, he gets into far too much trouble and his typical escape plan seems to be ‘look and act pathetic enough that no one will want to hurt me’ which is not an effective strategy, but that is a battle Nie Mingjue refuses to lose again. Jin Guangyao doesn’t usually want to go out, but of course sometimes it’s necessary, and Nie Mingjue is well aware that this was one such time.

That being said, just because he understands it doesn’t mean he likes it. Jin Guangyao isn’t someone the average Shanghai citizen would recognize, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who do know who he is lurking out there waiting to do any damage they possibly can to the workings of the shatterdome. People who know that if anything happens to Jin Guangyao it’s not an exaggeration to fear that things in the ‘dome would grind to a crawl within the week.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Jin Guangyao whimpers. Lan Xichen suddenly looks wide awake on the other side of the tiny bed, his arms already snaking around Jin Guangyao’s waist properly while Nie Mingjue tries to lean back far enough to look his partner over for injuries.

“Okay, answers please,” Nie Mingjue says, tightly controlled, when he can’t see anything immediately concerning so he ducks in to kiss Jin Guangyao’s forehead instead. “More than one syllable at a time, you’re worrying me.”

Jin Guangyao sniffles and whimpers under his breath as his tears finally well up and spill over, his lips trembling as he manages to say, “I…I – I really love you,” through his attempts not to blubber. All the anxious tension slides right back out of Nie Mingjue in a rush as he lets out a tired sigh.

“Fucking Huaisang,” he hisses.

“A-Yao,” Lan Xichen is murmuring in between tiny kisses to their partner’s face, his arms still tight around him. “What’s wrong with loving us, hm?”

Nie Mingjue snorts before Jin Guangyao can hiccup his way through an answer. “What’s wrong is that A-Sang must have given him tequila. A-Yao’s a maudlin drunk on anything, but especially tequila shots.” He’s even less inclined than before to coddle his lover when Jin Guangyao flails over in a flurry of limbs to smash himself fully into Lan Xichen’s chest and hide there as he cries, kicking and hitting Nie Mingjue more than once in the process.

Lan Xichen looks up to meet his eyes with a smile as he hums, “Mm. I think it’s sweet, A-Yao never lets himself be soft.”

“Fine, then he can cry and smear snot all over your shirt,” Nie Mingjue huffs. Lan Xichen is nice enough not to call him out on the fact that he still hasn’t gotten out of bed to go to the empty one in the other room that should have been Jin Guangyao’s for the night.

“Don’t wanna lose you,” Jin Guangyao mumbles, heartbroken as he looks like he’s trying to burrow inside Lan Xichen and never emerge again. “Stay with me.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Lan Xichen tells him, soft and sure as he starts carding his fingers slowly through his hair where it’s getting a bit longer than usual on top. Nie Mingjue settles again as much as he can on roughly 6 inches of mattress and readjusts his free arm to sling it around both Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen’s waists to attempt to find a bit of extra room for his limbs. 

“Good thing we’ve got a rest day tomorrow,” he grumbles while Jin Guangyao sniffles and mumbles incoherently into Lan Xichen’s chest. “None of us are going to be able to sleep like this.”

“Mm. Should one of us move to the other bed once he’s asleep?”

The ‘yes, obviously’ is right on the tip of his tongue, but Nie Mingjue meets Lan Xichen’s tired eyes in the semi-dark, and he tangles his ankles together with Jin Guangyao’s to get him to stop shuffling his feet, and he thinks about how it felt to be tied to them down to his very soul even for the brief moments they’d gotten during the experiment, and he just…

“No,” he murmurs, though it’s not low enough to hide how ragged he suddenly sounds. “We can deal with one night of shitty sleep. Let’s just..just stay.”

Lan Xichen smiles like he can see right through him, but of course he’s too nice to call Nie Mingjue out on it directly. Instead, he simply leans in as much as he can with Jin Guangyao still sandwiched half-between and half-on top of them to kiss him goodnight. It’s an awkward angle, more of a bump of the corners of their mouths against each other more than anything, but it helps him feel like he’s not quite so alone in his skin so it’s perfect.

Lan Xichen hums softly in the back of his throat, amused as he whispers, “Hold me so I don’t fall off?”

Nie Mingjue obliges and hitches him closer, ignoring Jin Guangyao’s whine that he’s getting squished. He can’t help but think that it’ll be nearly impossible to fall asleep again with at least two different limbs going numb and Jin Guangyao’s hair tickling his sweat-tacky throat, his undershirt already sticking to his chest and back from all three of them pressed together far too tightly.

He falls asleep surprisingly quickly.

It feels like roughly five minutes later when there’s a fresh jab between his ribs and Nie Mingjue growls low in the back of his throat, thoroughly pissed now. “Meng Yao I swear to god if you elbow me one more time–!!”

“Don’t ‘Meng Yao’ me, stop snapping and just let me up,” his partner hisses as if he hadn’t been the one to glue himself between them in the first place.

Nie Mingjue tightens his arm around Jin Guangyao’s waist and forces his dry, aching eyes open to try to figure out what’s going on now. Jin Guangyao is attempting to glare at him while twisted around from where he’s still laying on his side, his cheek creased with rumpled lines from Lan Xichen’s t-shirt.

“I can’t let you up, I’m holding Xichen so he doesn’t fall off.”

“What??” Nie Mingjue stays still as Jin Guangyao wriggles one arm free to pat his palm down the length of his arm from shoulder to wrist, right down to where his hand is tucked under Lan Xichen’s waist to keep him looped safely in his grip with Jin Guangyao.

“See?”

“No, I can’t see anything, I’m too busy suffocating in Huan-ge’s tits.”

“And whose fault is that?!”

“My loves, I adore you. I will destroy you both if you don’t stop arguing right in my ear before sunrise.”

“Huan-ge, please let me up,” Jin Guangyao says perfectly politely and with no jamming of elbows into Lan Xichen’s soft tissues. Nie Mingjue leans in to bite his ear in irritation for the unfair treatment before Lan Xichen groans and rolls off the edge of the bed (relatively gracefully). The release of pressure when Jin Guangyao pops to his feet after him feels like heaven and Nie Mingjue happily flumps down face first into the blessedly empty bed the very second he can, his limbs starfished as much as they can be on the twin mattress.

“Where are you going?” Lan Xichen asks around a jaw-cracking yawn as he rubs blearily at one eye.

“To sleep in the other bed.”

“Why?”

“You two are making my skin crawl,” Jin Guangyao mutters with a shudder. Nie Mingjue flips him off without lifting his face out of the pillow, more than used to his boyfriend’s posturing, but Lan Xichen makes a quiet noise of distress.

Nie Mingjue turns his head just enough to be able to speak legibly. “Don’t listen to him, A-Huan. He’s embarrassed he cried on us so he’s being a bitch. Go sleep in the other bed with him, he still wants to be held.”

Jin Guangyao swats at the back of his head a little too sharply for it to be fully playful, so Nie Mingjue reaches out blindly to smack his ass, also definitely too hard to not be at least a little serious. Lan Xichen knocks his hand away with his hip when he steps in between them to keep them from retaliating any further.

“Stop it, both of you. A-Yao just..stay here for a moment, I will be right back.”

Silence descends again as Lan Xichen slips out of their room into the hallway and Nie Mingjue lets himself drift fuzzily in and out of semi-consciousness, still reveling in the unexpected space that okay, yes, he understands why Jin Guangyao wants as well. He loves his partners, he really really does, but now that some of the fragility from their Drift has worn off he wants to breathe.

“I told A-Sang not to give me tequila,” Jin Guangyao eventually grumbles — it’s as much of a concession as he’s likely to give, so Nie Mingjue grunts his acknowledgement and reaches out to brush his fingertips against the outside of Jin Guangyao’s thigh, just catching a glancing brush against his pajama bottoms before he lets his hand flop down to hang off the edge of the bed again, knuckles brushing the floor.

“D’it go ‘kay?”

“Mm. It went how it went. Did you and Huan-ge talk about the Drift?”

Nie Mingjue sucks in a deep breath through his nose and turns his head a bit more to crack one eye open and look up at Jin Guangyao standing next to the bed, arms crossed over his chest and his gaze trained on their door still open just a crack, enough to light him up with a narrow strip of the red nighttime lights from the hall.

“No, waitin’ for you. Rest day today, ‘member? Fucked really good about it, though.”

Jin Guangyao snorts at that and finally looks down at him, one eyebrow raised and the little smirk that Nie Mingjue finds particularly devastating hiding in the corner of his mouth. “Well that explains why you both reek, at least.”

Nie Mingjue swats at Jin Guangyao again, though this time there’s absolutely no power behind the gesture and he ends up just curling his hand around his partner’s calf to jostle him in slow-motion instead. “Not like we were expecting you to come try to sleep with us.”

“Would you have showered after if you had been?”

“Nope. Too tired.”

Jin Guangyao wrinkles his nose at him but Nie Mingjue just shrugs and turns his head to smush his face into his pillow again, the angle required to look up at Jin Guangyao a bit too strenuous on his neck if he wants to avoid a headache when he wakes up for real in a few hours. They linger there in comfortable, companionable quiet as Nie Mingjue’s breathing slows again and he’s just hovering on the edge of sleep when there’s a sudden clang out in the hallway, immediately followed by their door sliding fully open again only slightly more quietly.

“Huan-ge what in the world-”

“My very polite and formal complaints about the bed issue in this ‘dome have gone unheeded, so I am taking matters into my own hands,” Lan Xichen reports blithely, despite the fact that — as Nie Mingjue sees when he sits up and gives up on sleeping anytime soon — he’s lugging a mattress into their room through the doorway that’s only barely big enough to accommodate such a thing.

“Xichen,” he sighs and scrubs his hands against his eyes and then through his hair. Lan Xichen’s jaw is set mulishly so Nie Mingjue doesn’t bother arguing with him, he just flops back down onto his back and throws an arm over his eyes to pretend like this isn’t happening at fucking 5 in the morning after they were up half the night anyway.

“Hush, Mingjue. Get up, I’m fixing this right now.”

“Mmm. I like you stubborn,” Jin Guangyao purrs, clearly enjoying anything that contributes to Nie Mingjue being inconvenienced. “Mingjue look at him, he’s the avenging angel of DIY king size beds.”

“He could look like the patron saint of goddamn porn stars and I couldn’t care less right now. I want to sleep!”

“Wanyin’s bed is free. The sheets are fresh, go across the hall if you want.”

Nie Mingjue stays stubbornly where he is for a beat until he hears Lan Xichen take a threatening step forward and then he rolls to his feet with a groan. He snags the pillow and top sheet with one hand and Lan Xichen’s jaw with the other to hold him still for a bruising kiss. “You are a menace,” he grumbles around Lan Xichen’s bottom lip between his teeth. He breaks away to grab Jin Guangyao the same way, leaning down to nip at his lips just as hard as he adds, “And you are a snake. I love you both, but I’m going to go sleep.”

“Have a good rest, love,” Lan Xichen replies like he isn’t an absolute terror. Nie Mingjue grunts at him and shoulders his way out into the hall, straight across to what was once the Lan brothers’ room and is now Jiang Wanyin’s alone. As promised, it’s currently empty, and Nie Mingjue doesn’t bother wondering where Jiang Wanyin is instead as he tumbles into the other man’s bed and promptly passes out.

–/–

When he wakes again it is, at least, on Nie Mingjue’s own terms. Sort of. It’s clear that Jiang Wanyin is at least trying to be quiet as he moves around the room (it’s not his fault Nie Mingjue is a light sleeper when sleeping somewhere strange). Besides, judging by the quality of light coming in under the door from the hallway it’s definitely around mid-morning, the artificial lights out in the hallway meant to mimic sunlight to try to keep them all from going nuts in here. He should wake up anyway.

“Hey,” he grunts at Jiang Wanyin’s back as the man fiddles with something at his ‘nightstand’ (i.e. the standard issue ‘large crate someone found somewhere’ that they all have).

“Morning, Chifeng-Zun. Trouble in paradise?”

“Watch it, Jiang.” Nie Mingjue doesn’t exactly invite his pilots to be overly casual with him, mostly because he’s not exactly a casual sort of person (with anyone save his brother and his partners), but of all the pilots in the ‘dome he feels like he understands Jiang Wanyin on a level he doesn’t necessarily get the others. Nie Huaisang would probably laugh and say it’s because they’re both ill-tempered and too stubborn for their own good, and he’d most likely be right about that.

“Seriously — need me to tell A-Xian to tell Wangji to kick Xichen’s ass or something? Not much I can do to your Jin Guangyao though if it’s his fault, unless you want me to sic A-Sang on him or something.”

Nie Mingjue’s retort is lost in the surprise of hearing Jiang Wanyin refer to his brother so casually and he raises an eyebrow at the other man. There’s a beat of silence before he seems to register what he’d just said and he turns to face Nie Mingjue, sitting up on the edge of his bed now and more than alert enough to wonder more seriously just where Jiang Wanyin has been all night. Nie Mingjue has to fight not to snort at the way he dips hastily into an apologetic bow.

“Stop, don’t worry about it. You keep your nose out of my business, and I’ll keep mine out of yours…and my brother’s,” he says, feeling generous. At least if Nie Huaisang is interested in someone in the shatterdome — a respectable pilot, to boot — it’ll mean fewer trips out to the clubs that ring the seedier districts around the shatterdome where he likes to do a bit too much thrill seeking for Nie Mingjue’s tastes.

“Uh…yes. Okay. Thank you.”

“Sure. Thanks for the bed,” he replies with a shrug and a hard clap to Jiang Wanyin’s shoulder that makes the pilot wince a little as he passes him on his way out, pillow and sheet once again in hand. He plans to step into their quarters just long enough to grab a spare set of clothes and head off for the shower Jin Guangyao was correct in saying he definitely needs, but the sight that greets him when he steps through the door is enough to make him reconsider.

He should have known that anything Lan Xichen is so determined to fix would be fixed, but somehow what he’s done still manages to draw Nie Mingjue up short.

“Morning, da-ge,” Jin Guangyao hums from the middle of the veritable ocean of a bed that takes up over 75% of the already-cramped room. He’s lying on the thing sprawled out comfortably with Lan Xichen equally sprawled out with him, an arm thrown over his waist and his face currently buried in Jin Guangyao’s neck, though he’s clearly not sleeping there.

“What the hell did you do?” he asks, more bemused than anything as he tosses his stolen linens onto the bed and climbs in with his partners — and he has to actually make an effort to get in close enough to run a hand through Jin Guangyao’s hair and lean in to kiss Lan Xichen’s exposed cheek (a silent apology for snapping at them earlier; he knows already that they’ll understand).

“Huan-ge pilfered.”

“No one was using my old bed, it was wasted sitting there empty in Wanyin’s room. And it’s hardly as if any of us enjoy splitting up every night to sleep two-and-one, so I brought the other bed in here as well then simply pushed them all together, with some spare nightstand crates for support in the middle. It is not pilfering, I simply…combined our households.”

“He stole,” Jin Guangyao stage-whispers, clearly gleeful about the whole thing (or perhaps just a little sex-giddy. Nie Mingjue thinks it’s safe to assume his partners have made very thorough use of their newly expanded bed already once or twice this morning judging by the incredible ‘cat that ate the canary’ energy they’re both exuding and the fresh hickeys ringing Jin Guangyao’s throat and chest like a necklace).

“You’re both ridiculous,” he mutters and lays down properly on Jin Guangyao’s free side to take his hand and kiss his knuckles. “But thank you, Xichen.”

“Mm my pleasure, believe me.”

They lapse into cozy silence. Domestic. Nie Mingjue gets comfortable and figures out how he wants to fit himself up against the twosome his partners make together. He winds up on his side, head propped up on his fist and his free hand roaming slowly over Jin Guangyao’s warm, smooth skin as he watches Lan Xichen kiss him silly, taking him apart with as much skill as he does everything else in his life.

When Jin Guangyao’s expression is relaxed and cracked open as wide as they’ll probably be able to get it today, Nie Mingjue leans in to capture his lips and his attention with a firm, punctuating kiss to his reddened lips.

“We need to talk about the Drift,” he says. Lan Xichen rewards him with a little kiss of his own for reading his cue correctly.

“Ugh. I suddenly regret allowing you two to combine forces,” Jin Guangyao grumbles, but he doesn’t push either of them away so their efforts to relax him have apparently been deemed good enough.

“Logistics or feelings first?” Nie Mingjue is fairly sure both he and Jin Guangyao would much rather talk about logistics than feelings any day of the week, but he’s also sure that Lan Xichen won't let them off the hook that easily and it’s likely better to just give into the inevitable now than fight him on it later.

“Logistics,” Lan Xichen replies anyway with the sort of self-satisfied smile that says he knows exactly how surprised Nie Mingjue is by the concession. “Though I admit it is difficult to decide which logistical issue is the most pressing.”

Jin Guangyao clears his throat delicately before he says, eyes trained steadily up at the low ceiling overhead, “First: We do not have a Jaeger, and modifications to accommodate three are both expensive and lengthy, particularly if the Jaeger must be refashioned into a less humanoid shape such as Lotus Spider to accommodate three minds, three fighting styles. Second: Mingjue and I are both traumatized in different ways that make it extremely unclear if we’re able to face a Kaiju in battle even if we can get out there. We’ll need to find time in our schedules to test ourselves safely first before we even think about going out to fight. Third: Xichen must still make runs with Wangji unless we plan to end this war within the next two battles, which is highly unlikely as we’re not much closer to a permanent solution than we were six months ago. This leaves him vulnerable and more likely to sustain injury or to…Well. He’s simply at higher risk than Mingjue and I are in here. Fourth: –”

“Stop, that’s enough. Don’t go down the rabbit hole,” Mingjue chides with a kiss to Jin Guangyao’s cheek to (gently) drag him back out.

“Mm. I agree with A-Yao’s ranking, I believe finding a Jaeger for us is the first priority as it will take the longest to acquire, and the others can be handled in the interim. I believe I can confidently say that an entirely new Jaeger is out of the question, both financially and in terms of how long they take to construct even in an emergency, which leaves us the option of finding an existing Jaeger no longer in flight rotation that can withstand extensive modification.”

“Tall order,” Nie Mingjue grunts, though he knows his partners are right. He forces himself to breathe through the way even thinking about facing a Kaiju again directly makes him want to hide in a deep cave and never come out again; forces himself to think about it in a more clinical way. Acquiring a Jaeger doesn’t automatically translate to fighting Kaijus in active duty. He can address the problem of a Jaeger without having to immediately link it to going out to fight again, himself. Definitely.

“But not impossible. An older mech would be best,” Jin Guangyao says without missing a beat as he takes hold of Nie Mingjue’s free hand on his chest to kiss his fingertips in silent acknowledgement of the knot of complicated emotions in his chest. “Mach 3, I’d say. Outdated so it’ll be easy enough to get, but not so out of mode that it’ll take special engineers to repair, as Immortal Mountain does. We’ll likely have to ask Wei Wuxian to oversee the three-way Drift modifications himself, but I doubt he’ll be opposed to having a new tinkering project.”

“Should we put him on the scent to look for one, then?” Nie Mingjue wonders, viscerally hating the idea of adding anything else to Jin Guangyao’s plate (or their brothers’, for that matter) if he doesn’t have to.

“Mm, that’s a good idea, ge. I can assist him as well,” Lan Xichen murmurs between kisses to Jin Guangyao’s bare shoulder. “There isn’t much for me to do besides help down in research, but I don’t believe they need me for anything pressing at the moment now that A-Sang has the information he needs about mine and Wangji’s fighting style and what to do with updating Jade Dragon. Perhaps I could help Wuxian hunt down something that will suit our needs?”

“Sure, if you want to. Two heads are better than one.”

Jin Guangyao snorts a little and stretches, languid and liquid as a particularly contented cat. “What else will we decide from the comfort of our bed, hm?” he explains when Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen both look at him in question. “Now that Huan-ge’s made it so nice for us should we just conduct all the important business of saving the world from here?”

“We can do whatever you’d like, A-Yao,” Lan Xichen hums, as indulgent as ever. Nie Mingjue rolls his eyes, resigns himself to no more shop talk if those two are going to be sharing lovesick looks like that, and flops down onto his back with a soul-deep sigh of contentment that he can finally spread out somewhat and still hold hands with Jin Guangyao beside him.

Despite knowing that there’s still a conversation they still need to have, Nie Mingjue finds himself dozing off again to the sound of his lovers talking quietly in between trading kisses like they have all the time in the world to enjoy each other. Falling asleep is easier than thinking about how much he wishes their life could be just like this, that they weren’t in danger, that they weren’t fighting for their lives, that they could love each other just like this; that their conversations about logistics could be arguments about whether to plant tomatoes in the front yard or the back. The back will get more sun, but the front will appeal to Lan Xichen, he thinks, who will want to be able to chat with the neighbors who pass by while he carefully weeds and tends to their garden. 

Falling asleep is preferable to remembering that auntie’s words from so long ago, that the Nie family is cursed by the blood they shed, so he drifts and doesn’t think about anything at all except for how nice it feels to be loved.

“What are you crying for, ge, hm?”

Nie Mingjue doesn’t open his eyes as Lan Xichen brushes a soft fingertip through a tear track he hadn’t even known was there, damp and cool between the corner of his eye and his temple. He clears his throat and finds suddenly that he isn’t sure he can even open his mouth to speak without losing his composure (alright, so maybe sleeping instead of facing his issues isn’t his best coping mechanism after all).

“Mingjue and I are more likely to have emotional fluctuations after a successful Drift,” Jin Guangyao says with a tiny hint of distaste in the back of his throat, though he still sounds a little fragile himself, feathered and raspy around the edges.

“Mm,” Lan Xichen hums, soft with understanding. He settles in on top of Nie Mingjue, stretching out all the long lines of himself to pin Nie Mingjue down and keep him steady as he continues the tender stroking of a single fingertip along the contours of his face. Nie Mingjue doesn’t dare open his eyes to look up at him — he’s pretty sure if he looks at Lan Xichen like this, so gentle, so tender, so kind in the middle of the hell they live in, he’ll lose control of himself entirely.

“We all hold so much in all the time, and we never really let it go,” Lan Xichen continues after a few long moments. He’s barely speaking above a murmur, and Nie Mingjue is glad for it. As he is, a single loud noise might just shatter him. “I believe we are now all intimately aware of that fact. I don’t believe it is a habit we should continue when we are alone together.”

“I don’t think we’ll have much of a choice, Huan-ge.”

Nie Mingjue sucks in a shuddering breath and slings his arms around Lan Xichen’s slender waist to squeeze him so tightly he squeaks a little in the back of his throat. He drags in another breath and manages to rasp, “A-Yao asked us last night not to leave him. You just said we can do whatever we want. But we can’t. We can’t promise anything, we can’t just do whatever we please.” Nie Mingjue manages to open his eyes, finally, only to find he still has to blink a few times to see Lan Xichen clearly where he’s perched over him and stroking his hair back from his forehead with gentle hands.

“We have duties. Responsibilities. We’re in danger, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Do you know what I really want?”

He does, they all do after their Drift, but Lan Xichen still shakes his head ‘no’, probably sensing how badly Nie Mingjue needs to put his desires into words at least once. If he says it, maybe it won’t feel like such a dirty secret.

“I want to live a peaceful life — with both of you. I want a family I don’t have to send into battle or push to keep working long past their endurance limits because humanity hangs in the balance. I want to be the end of the Nie curse, but I think in the end I’ll die just as violently as all the rest of them do.”

Lan Xichen tuts softly in protest and presses the pad of his thumb to his temple to catch a fresh tear rolling down towards his hair.

“I’ve told you before, I broke your curse,” Jin Guangyao sighs and lays his head down on Nie Mingjue’s shoulder. Nie Mingjue turns his head to press a kiss to his hair since his arms are still occupied with holding Lan Xichen close so he can’t reel him in just as tightly. “You died out there with Lao Nie, and what came back was not you anymore. You had the madness that your aunt said always comes for your family, and I pulled you back out of it.”

“Mmm A-Yao has a point,” Lan Xichen hums, taps his thumb softly against Nie Mingjue’s cheek as he thinks. “And when this is all over, and we find somewhere far away to go — because I will not allow more helplessness, we will get through this — we’ll find a way to really live. None of us has ever been allowed to be. But we will, I have no doubt.”

Silence reigns as Nie Mingjue processes such a confident assurance, Jin Guangyao clearly doing the same at his side if the restless tapping of his fingertip on Nie Mingjue’s arm is any indication.

“Why aren’t you an emotional mess?” Jin Guangyao finally grouses, breaking some of the tension, and Lan Xichen’s delighted laughter is a perfect balm for many of Nie Mingjue’s frayed edges.

“My love, I believe if you both left me to my own devices for longer than 30 seconds you would find that I am similarly affected.”

“He’s fawning, is what he means,” Nie Mingjue attempts to tease, to push through the melancholy scraping gory blood-soaked fingers through his diaphragm. “Because A-Huan takes care of others to hide that he also needs to be cared for.”

“Oh dear.” Lan Xichen at least has the sense to look a little abashed. “Nonsensical as it is, I suddenly find myself wishing I could ask you two to forget what you’ve seen in the Drift. It’s a bit…disconcerting to be seen through so easily.”

“Didn’t need the Drift to see that, gege, don’t worry.” Jin Guangyao sighs, a punctuation, and rolls over to the edge of the bed to stand and stretch luxuriously. Nie Mingjue unashamedly watches him, breathing through the ache (a good one) that sometimes hits him at unexpected moments to see Jin Guangyao so comfortable in his own skin. He’d been so nervous, so eager to please when they were younger. He’d been terrified during his brief stint working under Wen Ruohan in Tokyo, and horribly in pain and slighted every day he lived under Jin Guangshan’s roof with no one to help him. If Jin Guangyao really did cure him of the Nie curse, such as it might be, then he hopes that he’s helped Jin Guangyao just as much in return.

“Now — this has been wonderful and necessary and all, but I would very much like to scrub my skin off if at all possible, and you two may either join me or not but when I get back I will not share this bed with you if you aren’t clean. Choice is yours.”

Nie Mingjue laughs at that, at the adorable way Jin Guangyao’s nose crinkles in disgust and Lan Xichen’s hangdog expression at the thought of being an unacceptable bedmate because of something so silly as a bit of lingering sex funk that is absolutely (mostly) his fault, and he loves these men more than life itself. It chases away the worst of the lingering fear and melancholy, replaces it with a feverish desire to do everything within his power to protect them long enough to see Lan Xichen’s predictions of their peaceful future made real.

He bullies Lan Xichen up and off him so they can make themselves decent enough to follow Jin Guangyao down to the bathrooms, and he keeps his partners close for the rest of the day and into the night. And he thinks maybe they really will be alright, in the end.

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #Pacific Rim AU #background/implied Sangcheng #Nie Mingjue #Lan Xichen #Jin Guangyao #don't think too hard about the logistics of the king size bed lol #xichen is just magic like that

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for a Fic...

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1.  Hello! I have a request for the next itmf if you don't mind!! I see fics all the time where it's kind of a running joke that animals/babies/anything really don't like wwx, or just that they like lwj or jc or someone else more. And it kind of makes me more and more sad every time because I genuinely don't think I've read a fic where wwx is first pick for anyone but lwj? So I'd love to read some fics where wwx gets some love!! From people or kids or animals, doesn't matter, I just want to see our best boy being shown love and affection like he deserves!

Postcards from the Horizon by The Feels Whale (miscellea) (T, 7k, WIP, WangXian, Epilogue, Yunmeng Bros Reconciliation, Rabbit Acquisition, Second part of a series) Chapter two of Postcards From the Horizon has a pet bunny prefer reincarnated!WWX over immortal!LWJ.

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2. for the next im in the mood for, is there any fics where lwj runs away? it can be modern or canon divergence, he can run away from his family or simply leave them behind, if he's older and all (if there is another ask like this just ignore me, i remember writing and not sending it, but i can be wrong) thank you <3

Life as a House by Terri Botta (Isilwath) (T, 55k, WangXian, Modern AU, Corporate Espionage, Post-Divorce, Father-Son Relationship, Reconciliation, Therapy)

You are all that I want by ThisIsWhereTheMagicHappens (G, 3k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, wangxian meet as kids, the lan handfasting reinvented, lwj doesn't grow up in the lan sect, wangxian live a happy life free of worries, Happy Ending)

moonlight falls Series by RoseThorne (T, 11k, WangXian, Modern AU, Corporate Espionage, Family Fluff, Adoption, Bad parent LQR)

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3. For the next "in the mood for," how about some fics where either Nie Mingjue or Lan Xichen find out about the wen remnants?

Unexpected Solutions by Eleanor_Fenyx (G, 6k, wangxian, LXC/NMJ, fix-it of sorts, LXC pov)

the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break by RoseThorne (E, 70k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a happy ending, LSZ is a Wei)

Hysterical Strength by covalentbonds (Not Rated, 3k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Parent WWX, Fix-It of Sorts, Everybody Lives/Nobody dies) is kinda 2zun discovering about the Wen remnants. But it’s more WWX will murder anyone trying to kill his baby. (As for LWJ thinking WWX/WN is a thing, towards the end of one fic where WWX babysits Wen Yuan for Wen Chao and his mistress, when LWJ meets Wen Yuan again, there is a span of time where he thinks WWX/WN happened when he was gone. Don’t remember the title though.)

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4. Hi for the next in the mood for do you know any where wen ruohan adopts wei wuxian or just like gets close to him/takes care of him? Doesn't have to be a good!ruohan fic he could still be power hungry and murdery but maybe wei ying is his one soft spot? Maybe he wages war on the other sects in retaliation for how they treated wei ying? Anything is fine really I just want to see a good relationship between wen ruohan and wei wuxian. Thank you!

Scars of Lightning by  The_peregrine_falcon (T, 6k, WWX & YZY, WWX & WRH, wangxian, not YZY friendly, wen WWX, major character injury, heavy angst, muteness, hurt kinda comfort)

This one isn’t adoption, instead an actual son, but you might like it anyway Transpose by Marinelifeclub (Not rated, 35k, wangxian, time travel, wen WWX, canon divergence, Qishan Wen wins, not Jiang friendly, bitter WWX, WIP)

All Things Belong by kuroi_atropos (M, 24k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, WWX is a Wen, Abuse, Whipping, Manipulations, Smart WWX) For the Wen Ruohan & Wei Wuxian ask, All Things Belong. Wen Ruohan is surprised to discover he is a very doting grandfather.

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5. Hello! For the next iitmf, can I get 3zun fics with a happy ending? I apologize if this has been listed before but I can't find it in all my scrolling back. Thanks!!

Troika by Nirejseki (T, 3k, 3Zun, Telepathic Bond, Dream Sharing, Lucid Dreaming, Snark)

3zun Raise Jingyi AU by Deriliarch (T, 86k, 3Zun, Fluff, Light angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/comfort, Kid fic) @guqin-and-flute on tumblr

Where There's A Will, There's A Road by little-smartass (T, 35k, 3Zun, Canon Divergence, Case fic, Hurt/comfort)

Company Is Coming! by AlfAlfAlfAlfAlf and tardigradeschool (E, 26k, 3Zun, Modern AU, Domestic fluff, Slice of Life, Emotional Hurt/comfort, Explicit Sex)

Silverspun by Sleepless_Malice (E, 26k, 3Zun, Arranged marriage, Explicit Sex, Threesome, Touch-Starved, Size kink)

3Zun Fixit AU Series by Eleanor_Fenyx (E, 132k, 3Zun, Angst with a happy ending, Time Travel, Established Relationship, Hurt/comfort, Fluff)

Modern Sunshot AU Series by Eleanor_Fenyx (E, 174k, 3Zun, Modern AU, Angst with a happy ending, Fluff, Light angst, Smut) I have two different 3zun series that are both happy endings, one time travel fix-it in canon-verse and one modern sort-of-Sunshot-Campaign AU

10 Things I Hate About Dating at Gusu Academy by KouriArashi (T, 59k, 3Zun, Modern AU, High school, Developing relationship, Mutual Pining, Happy ending) I have a favorite 3zun fic. It’s modern au, but happy ending

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6. Hiii Thanks you really for everything that you do ✨ And I’m really sorry because I have a lot for your IITMF 😅 do you have A) teenage wwx being a father but not modern au more like canon B) a Wangxian fif but with wwx & nhs being bff like annoying master mind 😂 and C) still Wangxian but with wwx & wq acting loke brother an sister ( wwx calling her jie and calling yanli shijie) thanks again 🥰 @ihaveasoftspotfora-yuan

6A)

I’m not the father! I swear! by Fairygirl34 (T, 9k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Crack treated seriously, Kid Fic)

6B)

Nie Huaisang's Ten Steps to Fix The Fucked Up Reality by cosmic_zephyr (astralcelestia) (T, 62k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, scheming, BAMF WWX, BAMF WQ, BAMF NHS, BAMF LWJ, manipulation, WIP)

Crowded by nirejseki (G, 2k, NHS & WWX, wangxian, LWJ/WWX/NHS, canon divergence, different body offering ritual, sharing a body, sentient sabers)

and so falls the fan by b_ofdale (G, 4k, NHS & WWZ, post-canon, reconciliation, light angst, hurt/comfort)

your problem as a mountain. by cupofwater (E, 31k, wangxian, NHS & WWX, canon divergence, no sunshot, epistolary, getting together, misunderstandings, pen pals, sexual fantasy)

while covered in mud by merthurlin (T, 12k, NHS & WWX, NHS & NMJ, NHS & Wen remnants, mentioned wangxian, canon divergence, fix-it, NHS goes farming and Hates It)

Counting Brushes by Fortune_Maiden (T, 6k, NHS & NMJ, NHS & WWX, wangxian, canon divergence, fluff & crack, humor, hurt/comfort)

6C)

the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break by RoseThorne (E, 70k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a happy ending, LSZ is a Wei) this also counts

Nie Huaisang's Ten Steps to Fix The Fucked Up Reality by cosmic_zephyr (astralcelestia) (T, 62k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, scheming, BAMF WWX, BAMF WQ, BAMF NHS, BAMF LWJ, manipulation, WIP)

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7. Hiii would you know any teacher wwx and teacher lwj fics ? Ive read some but maybe i missed some? I really enjoyed the ones where the students find out wangxian are married

Buried Deep by NeverEnoughWangxian (T, 11k, wangxian, modern, teacher WWX, professor LWJ, pining, miscommunication, angst w/ happy ending, getting together)

starlight shining brighter by Sienne (Not rated, 20k, LJY & LWJ, LJY & WWX, LJY & The Juniors, fluff, the 13 years, post-canon, parent LWJ, teacher LWJ, teacher WWX)

Star-crossed by MrsKnightleysDays (G, 1k, wangxian, moder, teacher LWJ, teacher WWX, misunderstandings, middle school)

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8. Hi 👋 for the next "im in the mood for " post, can you please recommend fics where wangxian enter a dom/sub relationship with dom wwx and sub lwj (something similar to the crazy in love series ). Preferably with wwx pov.

Your love has lifted me higher by Lanwangjisnights (E, 5k, WangXian, WIP, Modern AU, Dom WWX, Top WWX, Bottom LWJ, Marathon Sex, Explicit Sex)

Friday Nights Series by Lanwangjisnights (M/E, 15k, WangXian, Modern AU, Dom WWX, Top WWX, Switch LWJ, Falling in Love, BDSM, Explicit Sex)

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9. I'm in a mood for your favorite fluff fics! Y'know, the ones that kinda make you want to go scream into a pillow!

A Wallet Found by AShippingAddict (T, 6k, WangXian, Modern AU, Baby LSZ, Kid Fic, Single parent WWX, Fluff, Meet-Cute)

Please Call Me Again by legendlanzhan ( T, 5k, WangXian, Modern AU, Kid fic, Single parent WWX, Prank calls, Fluff, Humor)

Lost & Found // 有缘千里来相会 by la_muerta for ChaoticAndrogynous (T, 6k, WangXian, Modern AU, Kid fic, Family feels, Fluff, Accidentally taking someone else's suitcase, Single parent WWX)

First Errand by Zacksy (G, 7k, WangXian, Modern AU, Single parent WWX, Fluff, Baby LSZ, Kid Fic, Meet-Cute)

One way to me by ThisIsWhereTheMagicHappens (T, 3k, WangXian, Modern AU, Switch WangXian, Domestic fluff, Getting together)

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10. Drop the top 3 best fanfic of wangxian you've ever read

🧡Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 348k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement)

🧡 close your eyes, feel my heartbeat by ThatDesiGirl (T, 11k, blind!WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, Rewriting Canon, not a fix-it but a what-if, Golden Core Transfer)

🧡I Don't Want to Debut! by countingcr0ws (G, 56k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reality show, Idols, Actor LWJ, Forced Contestant WWX) (I have a really hard time keeping a consistent top 3 of anything 😅 So instead here are 3 fics I really enjoyed reading, it's really hard not to add more...~ Mod C)

Oof, it really is super hard to choose top three :’D Here are definitely three fics that really have stayed with me after reading them ~Mod L

💖symmetry by bleuett (M, 45k, wangxian, scifi au, space au, non-sexual intimacy, angst w/ happy ending, time travel, yearning, reunions, hurt/comfort)

💖Teen Project to Change the World animeloverhomura (Not rated, 596k, wangxian, watching the series, fix-it of sorts, bamf!wwx, WIP)

💖love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, wangxian, immortal WWX, slow burn, pining, arranged marriage, Mojo’s post)

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11. Hi! How are you doing? I was wondering whether there are fics where lan wangji thinks wen ning and wwx are married!!

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12. Hi! I hope your day is going great! For the next in the mood for… I was wonder if anyone has recs of fics with lan an’s wife? Could be the character herself or just stories about her, thanks!

No Paths Are Bound by CataclysmicEvent (E, 803k, hualian, novel retelling therefore major spoilers ahead!, hurt/comfort, horror elements, internalized homophobia, graphic violence, torture, suicide attempt, genderfuid character, sexual content, sexual assault, domestic violence, refs to MDZS & SVSSS, WIP) While this is TGCF fic it has Lan An's story in it! Unfortunately I can’t remember how detailed it is since it has been a while since I read any of this ~Mod L

Here in the Garden Where You Grew by Admiranda (G, 3k, wangxian, lan an/lan an’s cultivation partner, modern, hippies, fluff)

Yearning for Miles by Murahi (M, 378k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time travel, Fix-It, Angst with a happy ending, Fluff stories and flashbacks, they feature in the second half

~*~

13. Can you recommend me the best non jc friendly?

Bottles of White by ThisIsWhereTheMagicHappens (T, 6k, LWJ&JC, Canon Compliant, Missing Scene, we don't like LQR in this work, Hurt No Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Grief/Mourning, Emperor's Smile) not sure if its "the best" but its def non JC friendly. At least Ch1?

Preludian_staves work

The Core Issue by Hauntcats (T, 21k, wangxian, WQ & WWX & WN, NHS & WWX & NMJ, canon divergence, golden core rebuilding, golden core tied to soul, angst w/ happy ending, not JC friendly)

All will be well when the day is done by abCEE (T, 76k, wangxian, canon divergence, time travel, fix it, not Jiang friendly, lan WWX, butterfly effect, no sunshot)

I'll Take the Path of Thorns by Admiranda (G, 6k, wangxian, cloud recesses study era, curses, not JC friendly, clever WWX, baby wangxian)

bleed by justdoityoufucker (T, 5k, wangxian, time travel, canon divergence, families of choice, getting together, not JC friendly, fluff, hurt/comfort)

Resilience. by Vrishchika (T, 7k, wangxian, time travel, not JC friendly, golden core transfer fix-it)

All will be well when the day is done by abCEE (T, 76k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time travel, Fix-It, Good uncle LQR, Not Jiang family Friendly, Lan WWX)

~*~

14. do u know any fics with people/wwx mixing up the twin jades shenanigans (or them deliberately for some reason being 'desguised' as one another)?

The Twin Jade Problem by bonyenne (T, 22k, WangXian, Modern AU, College AU, Fluff, Misunderstandings, Humor, Mistaken Identity) "The one where Wei Wuxian thinks Lan Zhan is twins (yes, both of them), and Lan Wangji thinks Wei Wuxian is dating Lan Xichen."

one out of three by everythingispoetry (T, 9k, wangxian, cloud recesses study era, misunderstandings, fluff, “LZ” is actually identical triplets, romantic comedy, matchmaking siblings)

~*~

15. Howdy! I'm always grateful for every mods hardwork ❤ I Wonder if you or any otherbperson knows of good A/B/O wangxian where its alfa!wwx and omega!lwj or a strange pairing? Like alfa x beta, both alpha or both omegas... that would be delightful! @nia-rarita

举头望明月 - Looking up at the bright moon by Lanwangjisnights (M, 39k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Alpha LWJ, Omega/Alpha WWX, Fox WWX, Explicit Sex, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Mpreg, Dual Cultivation) This is a series about different dynamics than usual a/b/o. Not sure if this is what had been searched for, but I thought I'll offer

What makes me by deliciousblizzardshark (M, 11k, wangxian, non-traditional ABO dynamics, trans omega LWJ, sexism, found family, supportive WWX, YLLZ WWX, the omega revolution, fluff, hurt/comfort, bitching as gender confirmation surgery)

ornament by iliacquer (E, 5k, wangxian, extremely dubious consent, ABO, alpha WWX, omega LWJ, public sex, public humiliation, exhibitionism, breathplay, collars)

plant the seed of your love, let it take root by lulu_kitty (E, 37k, wangxian, modern, ABO, alpha WWX, omega LWJ, in quarantine, getting together, mating cycles/in heat, nesting, knotting, mpreg, unplanned pregnancy, fluff & smut)

❤️spider lilies to sunflowers by cicer (E, 33k, wangxian, ABO, YLLZ WWX, fairy tale elements, mpreg, omega LWJ, alpha WWX, LWJ topping from the bottom, Mojo’s post)

i am the storm by everythingispoetry (M, 4k, wangxian, canon divergence, sunshot campaign, ABO, omega LWJ, omega WWX, BAMF WWX, protective WWX, pre-relationship, mentions of non-con, mentions of miscarriage)

How to Deal with the Conundrum of Your Past Self: A Case Study by anatheme (E, 16k, wangxian, ABO, post-canon, established relationship, YLLZ WWX, a!YLLZ/a!LWJ/o!WWX, pining, sexual tension, bottom LWJ, switch wangxian, knotting, happy ending)

so full of love i could barely eat by cicer (E, 40k, wangxian, ABO, canon divergence, breastfeeding, lactation kink, golden core reveal, fix-it)

~*~

16. Hi all! For the next I'm in the mood for, does anyone have any Xuanli fics? Other ships are acceptable but I would love ones that focus at least partially on their relationship developing. Thanks for all you do mods!

Letters to My Partner in Crime by pupeez4eva (T, 17k, XuanLi, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Study Era, Matchmaking, Humor, Public confessions)

Rise of the Peacock by JustAWanderingBabbit  (Not Rated, 62k, WIP, XuanLi, 3Zun, Canon Divergence, Time travel Fix-It, Jin Siblings bonding)

Jin Zixuan Vrs. Consequences by Dei_Starr (DeiStarr) (M, 15k, Xuanli, JZX & JGY, JYL & LXC, arranged marriage, broken engagement, consequences, awkward JZX, getting back together, xuanly endgame, BAMF JYL, political alliances, angst & humor, happy ending, WIP)

Jin Zixuan Does the Time Warp by marigold_sigil (G, 6k, Xuanli, JZX & everyone, time travel fix-it, crack treated seriously, temporary character death, everyone lives au, bad humor, not JZ or JGS friendly, sect leader JZX)

Aftermath by KouriArashi (T, 57k, JYL/JZX, wangxian, everybody lives (except JGS) au, romance, developing relationship, family, attempted sexual assault, processing trauma)

Teen Project to Change the World animeloverhomura (Not rated, 596k, wangxian, watching the series, fix-it of sorts, bamf!wwx, WIP) While it is mainly focused on wangxian and the whole watching the series, relationship between Xuanli is developed rather nicely in it

~*~

17. Hi mods! Lately, I have been craving modern fics where wwx disappeared for however many years, and lwj happens upon him with a-yuan (or any child) and thinks that wwx must've married someone and had a child with them. Pls and ty for the recs!

a sensational team series by twigofwillow (G, 29k, wangxian, modern, fluff, little bit of angst, found family, librarian LWJ, afrmers market WWX, greenhouse au, tea, friendship)

estuaries by vesna (mrsronweasley) (E, 34k, wangxian, modern, break up/make up, pining while fucking, single dad, angst w/ happy ending)

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic recs #i'm in the mood for a fic #the untamed #wangxian fic search #wangxianficfinder #long post

[rosethornewrites]

From the next chapter of “and sings the tune without the words.”

Note that last time I wrote from Jiang Yanli’s POV, but I decided that Nie Mingjue should write Lan Xichen instead.

—————

Not that I expected it to be the typical discussion conference with what’s happened, but I also didn’t think I wouldn’t be allowed to attend—not that I want to hear about Wen Ruohan’s resentful energy experiments any further than I have, as what has been trickling in to Jiang Yanli has been unsettling and there is much the servants won’t tell us about. It’s bad enough that we’re not relaying any of it to the younger ones, and poor Wen Qing’s exhaustion is understandable if she’s been forced to watch much of it. I gather Wen-zongzhu felt it constituted medical training for her to be present, so no wonder she grabbed at the opportunity for her entire family to flee from the Wen sect.

As much as the discussion conference started with accusations against Jiang Wuxian, I’m of the opinion that, had Wen Ruohan lived, a war would have been inevitable; either he would have gone mad from wielding resentful energy, or he would have sought more power, or perhaps both. That he was killed basically attacking the boy should have made it clear he caused his own demise, but some among the gentry need an even clearer indication he is a villain somehow—I’ve made note personally of those who would excuse an attack on an ill child, as I don’t think they should be trusted, and I will share them if you wish, but not on paper. I think your uncle will be largely concerned with the disposition of whatever artifact Wen Ruohan was using, which I’m sure some in the Wen sect would like to keep, if it is to be found.

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #nie mingjue #lan xichen #jiang yanli #wen qing #wen ruohan #untamed fanfiction #my fanfiction #wip wednesday

[not-rude-ginger]

Loved your most recent chapter. Xichen developing a crush on Jiang Cheng (that IS what’s happening, right?) was not a development I saw coming. Seriously can’t wait for the baby’s appearance!

All will be revealed in the next chapter, which is the 3rd and final interlude, from JLs POV.

But yeah, he's not being very subtle, is he. But JC is not good at reading this stuff so he'll have to spell it out.

#my writing #anon ask #asked and answered #jiang cheng #lan xichen #for what for all but myself

[silvysartfulness]

Sent this ask a while ago but Tumblr most likely ate it so I'm gonna copy and paste it: Just read chapter 46 and as usual it was a rollercoaster of emotions, can't wait for the next one 💚 Glad to see our disaster trio have a new plan, but unfortunately I think they're gonna fail once again because if this story follows Cql canon, Lan Xichen is supposed to be in seclusion so the letter won't be able to reach him nor the Lan Jade is gonna be interested in becoming Chief Cultivator. Wangxian are traveling the world right now, so the only authority figure they're gonna find in Cloud Recesses is... Lan Qiren! Good luck with that 🤣 Unless you don't plan to change LxC's decision and have him out of seclusion for whatever reason. Honestly, I hoped our heroes would reach Guanyin Temple in time to change Jin Guangyao's fate but unfortunately that didn't happen. I'm a huge XueYao fan (as partners in crime, not lovers) so I wanted to see XY and JGY interact more 😔 Changing topic, I think SongXue's quarrels at this point are caused by misunderstandings and unspoken feelings rather than by grudges of the past. From his pov, XY after the sweet moments they spent last night where SL was gentle and seemed to care about him (he was almost convinced), was expecting to see at least some glimpses of that change of attitude the day after, but for his own disappointment SL went back to his stoic behavior as if last night never happened. XY at that point thought that the last night meant nothing to SL and was hurt, so he went back being hostile. He most likely thinks that SL is an hypocrite who in private acts sweet with him to get what he wants and later act as if nothing happened, a double faced asshole who dates two ppl at the same time where one is the official lover who proudly presents to the world, the other is the secret lover destined to stay in the shadows because is ashamed of him. And he's most likely still convinced that SL wants him gone so him and XXC could love each other without obstacles. That's why XY suggested that XXC doesn't know SL so well as he believes, he pretends to care when he really doesn't. XY is a pessimistic guy, so of course can't really see nothing but negative things.

When it comes to SL, at this point he's perfectly aware that pretending to not have feelings for XY is useless, but is not ready to use the "love" word to describe his emotions. He's living an inner turmoil, deep dows he knows to be in love with XY but still sometimes feels guilty for loving him because of the memory of Baixue ppl and because he's "cheating" on XXC. SL is a man who shows his emotions through actions rather than words so at this point he'd expect XY to get that, if not that he cares about him, at least that he doesn't want him gone. But when XY accuses him of being disappointed because with JGY dead, he'd lost his chance to get rid of him, he feels outraged and hurt so he just leaves. So yeah, both are expecting from the other a certain behavior/understanding and when they're disappointed in their expectations, misunderstandings happen. I think at some point said misunderstandings will cause a heated conversation between SongXue and in that occasion, XXC could overhear something about their secret affair. At this point XXC has two choices: one is to feel hurt and betrayed and to dump them both and the other is to feel relieved about SongXue loving each other so that he won't be forced to choose between them also because in this case, neither XY or SL would willingly play the 3rd wheel role, XY in particular. One of them would be forced to go away.

Looking forward to the next chapter, bye 👍🍬💋

Oh, man, I'm so so sorry it's taken me so long to reply to this!

I LOVE long amazing comments like this, they're absolute life fuel for me, but they can also be a bit overwhelming to respond to!

THANK YOU, truly, for writing such an amazing long message, I can't thank you enough, it's absolutely wonderful!

As for how the future plot (and the poor characters' struggle to make Xiao Xingchen's great dream come true) play out, that is of course something you'll have to read the rest of the story to find out! There's quite some way to go yet, and the trio have only just found out about some of the major changes happening in the cultivation world, making their plans best they can for now.

And Song Lan and Xue Yang... Yeah. They're very much talking past each other, but also themselves. Song Lan, at least, has enough self-insight to (very very grudgingly) admit to himself that he has grown fond of Xue Yang. maybe even more than that. He still doesn't like thinking that thought to the end.

Xue Yang, on the other hand, is notoriously bad at parsing emotions, his own and others', and so remains blissfully unaware not only of Song Lan's affection, but the fact that he himself has grown to love Song Lan, too. He's such a mess, I love him. ♥

So no, he's not even aware that Song Lan likes him, and so not hurt by the idea that he doesn't. If anything, he's a bit disappointed, because teasing Song Lan with sexual innuendos is fun, and the next morning Song Lan was completely unfazed, and thus boring. The way he brushed his hear real tenderly was nice though...

And yes, as you say, Song Lan is trying to convey his torn affections through gifts and gestures, and so far it's hit-or-miss whether Xue Yang even realizes, not to mention how he'll react. Poor Song Lan. He never asked for this chaos in his life. XD

Their relationship is incredibly complicated, and will keep being complicated as they go forward, though at least there is profound fondness there now. Whether the idiots in question want to admit it or not. 😁

Thank you so much again for your long comment! Chapter 47 is currently being beta'd and translated, so if everything goes to plan, I'll post it next week!

#asksilvy #the happy songxuexiao roadtrip story

[thebiscuiteternal]

This was originally a twitter thread and I told myself I wasn’t gonna clean it up and post it until after I finished the next chapter of Cage, but we all know I have the impulse control of a hamster, SO.

“All Your Sins On Show” Murder Plots, Violent Death, Grief, Talking to the Dead, Literally, Creating Your Own Personification of Guilt, Open Ending, Mixed Adaptations, Second-Person POV

Ao3 Link if you prefer.

__________

It comes down to this: Your father wants the Nie out of his hair by any means necessary.

No, no, that's not right. He specifically wants the Nie heir dead.

"Anyone can see the useless little bitch is their only weak spot. Kill him and they all crumble, especially that oaf Chifeng-zun," he says, then gives you the knife-edge smile he reserves for when he knows you'll give him anything for a more authentic one. "Can you get it done, or do I need to find someone more reliable?"

And you ignore the discomfort worming through your insides, smile back, and bow.

It comes down to this: The plan doesn’t take very many parts to set into motion. The smaller sects are still struggling after the decimation the Wens dealt to the cultivation world. It's easy enough to find a disciple desperate for more than his leader is paying.

It's even easier to goad Nie Mingjue into pushing his brother to join a ‘simple’ training-level night hunt, since Nie Huaisang has been avoiding using his saber yet again.

It goes like this: At your signal, the bribed disciple 'panics' and shoves Nie Huaisang into the path of a rampaging cursed beast that he has no chance of winning against, and then you make sure your turncoat doesn't escape either.

In the chaos, no one notices how seriously Nie Huaisang has been injured until the monster falls and someone realizes he never got  back to his feet.

Horrified Nie disciples crowd around, flooding his body with spiritual energy to try and save his life, but between his cracked open ribcage and bitten throat, anyone with eyes can see it's a lost cause.

Nie Huaisang dies choking on his own blood, and all anyone can hope is that the shock of the first blow left him too numb to suffer.

It goes like this: The inhuman howl of anguish Nie Mingjue makes when heartbroken disciples hand him his brother’s ruined body is everything your father has likely been hoping for.

Only then, watching him fall to his knees, do you remember that their father came home in similar condition after being set up by a friend, and your stomach knots so tightly you nearly throw up right there in the courtyard.

Only then, looking at the small figure cradled in the sobbing man's arms, death white save for where he is covered in rust red, does it hit you that for the first time, you have killed someone who never did anything to harm you.

Who never did anything to deserve it.

Who was only in the way of what your father wanted.

You'd been prepared to fake tears.

You don't have to.

~"Da-ge?"~

It goes like this: The voice, confused and nervous and as wispy as if being carried by wind, makes ice form around your spine.

Because it belongs to the body lying before the three of you.

Your hands clench on your knees as you brace yourself and glance to your right, but neither of your sworn brothers seem to have heard the plaintive call. Lan Xichen has been in meditation since he arrived to join you, the furrow between his eyebrows and the unnatural pallor of his skin the only signs of his sorrow, and Nie Mingjue has long exhausted himself into silence, staring with empty eyes at the coffin.

~"Da-ge! Come on, this isn't funny!"~

The ice spreads into your blood when you see him.

Nie Huaisang pulls and shoves at his older brother, every bit the child upset by an adult ignoring them when they’re used to getting a reaction.

Except Nie Huaisang is also in the coffin, and unlike that one, this one still bears all the ruinous injuries that ended his life at all of twenty-three.

~"I'm sorry about the argument,"~ he pleads, his demeanor growing more desperate and despondent with every moment Nie Mingjue doesn't respond. ~"I'll go on the hunt, just talk to me! Da-ge!"~

Your breath locks in your chest, surrounded by frost.

He doesn't know.

You swallow hard, forcing down the mixture of bile and hysterical laughter that threatens to bubble out of your throat.

Because you are kneeling in a tomb with the body of someone whose death you set up, and he is also right there next to you, begging his mourning brother to acknowledge him because he can’t see that he’s dead.

Who wouldn’t laugh, faced with that kind of absurdity?

"A-Sang."

The name falls from your mouth so quietly that your sworn brothers don't even twitch, but Nie Huaisang straightens like a startled deer.

There are bloody tears steadily trickling down his cheeks, but it's the hope that floods eyes clouded over by death that makes you feel lightheaded. ~"San-ge? San-ge! Tell him I'm sorry, he’ll listen to you!"~

And it's because Nie Mingjue listened to you, despite you having given him so many reasons not to do so anymore, that Nie Huaisang's ghost is begging for your help now, rather than his whole self.

Hands covered in still dripping blood reach for you beseechingly, and that's the last thing you remember before the world goes black.

It goes like this: You wake up in the healers' ward, Lan Xichen hovering worriedly by your bed. "Liu Feng says your qi is disturbed," he says, gentle as always.

You involuntarily glance at the figure by his side, miserably pulling at his sleeve in an attempt to be noticed.

"Too many late nights," you say. "Nothing more."

For once you want him not to believe you, to push for a better explanation than that, but he simply nods. "I'll let the healers know you're up," he says.

And then it's just you and... him .

~"San-ge, why is everyone else acting like I'm not here?"~ he asks, small and broken and unaware of the blood ceaselessly dripping from his mouth and throat and chest to pool around his feet. ~"Even Er-ge won’t speak to me! I know Da-ge and I haven't been getting along, but have I really been that much of a brat?"~

"No..." you say, barely managing to get enough air in your lungs to expel the word. "That's not it. A-Sang-"

'I killed you. You loved me and I killed you because you weren't the one I wanted to be loved by.'

"A-Sang... you went on the hunt you and your brother argued about. There... there was an accident."

The slow dawn of understanding in his expression is horrible to watch.

Worse is watching him break down sobbing.

It goes like this: A lost and dazed Nie Huaisang lingers next to you during the funeral, icy fingers clutching your sleeve, and you can't help but wonder if he can see or experience it at all when Nie Mingjue burns the joss for him, or if he sees only a vacant courtyard.

He only leaves you twice when it's over, and each time he returns to you a little more heartbroken by his continued failure to make contact with his brother.

~"San-ge... San-ge, what will I do?"~ he asks quietly, head bowed and kneeling in the ever-present pool of blood that forms wherever he stops long enough. ~"If I can't make him see me, what will I do? What will happen to me?"~

"I don't know," you say, though you have an inkling.

Clearly the circumstances have bound him to you. When you leave, would he follow? Would he linger? Would he disappear? Would he have a choice in the matter either way?

How the hell did this happen? Surely he hadn't done anything to warrant such a cruel punishment from the heavens, so is it a punishment for you? Or is there a simpler answer, something to do with the specific monster that killed him?

But that... you will look into the matter later, when you have built back up the necessary mental fortitude for what you might find.

For now, it ends like this: Seeking the only comfort available to him, he curls at your side to rest his head against your knee.

It’s a familiar seating position for the two of you, old and comfortable from the days where he would insist on sleeping next to you while you finished late reports.

Except now he is dead and instead of gentle warmth, there is a cold that shocks through you at the point of contact between you and it’s sharp and bitter and spears all the way into your bones.

You bite back a gasp of pain, then collect yourself and reach down to run your fingers through blood-slick hair.  You force yourself to ignore the sensation of frostbite in your fingertips and how each stroke stains your hand a darker red.

Because you deserve it.

Because he needs you.

Because no one else will see.

#mdzs #nie huaisang #jin guangyao #cameos by nie mingjue and lan xichen #sangyao #Bad End #fanfic

[weiying-lanzhan-fics]

Friday Night Drunks by piecrust

Best line from this story IMO:

NM: “Poor weirdo brother.”

Don’t get it? Read the story. Hilarious!!!!!

Four chapters each with a different POV (LZ, LX, WY, and NM).

Me: Should I have posted this on a Friday? Maybe… Can I pretend Sunday is Friday? If I squeeze my eyes shut and never get out of bed 😜

Quotes:

Lan Xichen has never made a mistake in his life.

Lan Wangji knows this and loves this about him.

Except…

His brother – his wonderful, perfect, kind older brother – has fucked up this time.

Has seriously fucked up.

Wangji watches his Wei Ying draped over this “da-ge” that Xichen has brought over and it’s almost surprising, even to him, how much murderous rage he’s feeling in that moment.

————

Wei Wuxian can’t decide whether making the Lan brothers drink with him was a good idea or a bad idea anymore.

Lan Zhan must decide that Wei Wuxian has averted his gaze away from him for too long because he physically forces Wei Wuxian’s face into his chest.

“You are not qualified to look at Wei Ying,” Wei Wuxian hears Lan Zhan say.

There’s a beat of silence where Wei Wuxian thinks Nie Mingjue might be weighing the pros and cons of smashing Lan Zhan’s head between his biceps.

“Next time, only Xichen drinks,” Nie Mingjue says finally.

G, 5k

Summary:

Wei Wuxian and Nie Mingjue get drunk and the Lan brothers go out of their mind.

@sincerelystranger

#lan wangji #lan zhan #wangxian #wei wuxian #wei ying #wangxian fic rec #the untamed fanfiction #the untamed fic #untamed fic #mdzs fic #modern au

[guqin-and-flute]

fanfic wip game! white, damp, heady, foolish

[White] 3zun AU, working title ‘Stairs’, JGY POV (o o f);

A-Fu watches him with wide eyes white all around, like the edges of a glazed plate, his hands drawn up, clutching his play sword up to his gut.

[Damp] PtL AU, next chapter in Are You Here to Stop Me? (IT’S COMING ALONG, FINALLY), JC POV;

Chill from the young evening settled into their still damp, days old clothes.

[Heady] Xiyao one shot, JGY POV;

With his nearness, his bed warmed clothes bring a gentle waft of smoke and concentrated Lan Xichen--a mixture of sandalwood and warm, clean man that fills Meng Yao’s throat when he makes the mistake of opening his mouth to breathe and it crowds his lungs in a heady delight that dizzies him a moment.

[Foolish] Xiyao one shot (again!), JGY POV;

Seeing him whole and startled leaves him feeling foolish, drained of his frantic energy, and he begins to bow. “Zewu-jun, I am so sorry--”

#Ask #ask game #ahh this is fun #this is probaby exactly what I needed to get excited about a few of these WIPs again! #Anonymous #my stuff

[wangxianficrecs]

Follower Recs

~*~

Hello Mojo, hope you're doing well and that you had a good break! I wanted to signal boost the MDZS May Diaspora event collection on AO3, and point out my favorite fic from there: 归心似箭 | Longing to Go Home by dragongirlG! It's both tender and bittersweet and it features such mature writing. The author got some hate for it when it initially got posted so I wanted to counter that and give it some love instead! [Who would do such a thing?!  @dragongirlg-fics I’m sorry that happened to you, and here, have *so many hugs!* I’ll try to do a thing just for the diaspora event, but meanwhile, I’ll just treat this as a follower rec.]

归心似箭 | Longing to Go Home

by dragongirlG (M, 8k, wangxian)

Summary:  The destruction of the Yin Tiger Seal does not kill Wei Wuxian; it ages him instead. He takes shelter in a cave expecting to die, but instead he lives, slowly learning to embrace life with each new day.

Thirteen years later, a young man with a Lan forehead ribbon stumbles into the cave. His name is Lan Sizhui.

~*~

Hi Momjo!!! I recently read the most *adorable* fic, and I loved it so much that it dragged me out of seclusion (read: social anxiety cave) to rec it. It's called 'Covered in Bees' by ScarlettStorm in which the Cloud Recesses is an apiary, and Wei Wuxian has suddenly found himself host to a swarm of bees. ~ @akyra-talanoa

Covered in Bees

by ScarlettStorm (T, 8k, wangxian)

Summary: “Cloud Reccesses Apiary,” says a toneless, deep masculine voice, with zero question in it. Wei Ying doesn’t care, because whoever possesses that voice is probably going to come save him from bees like a fucking hero while wearing like, a suit of armor. That’s what you wear to catch bees, right?

“I have like, so many bees outside my front door right now,” he says, mouth running out ahead of him before he can even begin to think about reining it in. “It’s like a sandstorm of bees out there. There are so many bees. I got out of my car and there were just bees and I don’t want these bees. Do you want these bees? Please tell me you will come get these bees. I can’t leave my house and I have enough food for maybe a week but then I’m gonna have to learn how to cook dry beans and no one wants that, especially not me.” Wei Ying runs out of air, takes a breath, and belatedly adds, “My name is Wei Ying. Hi.”

Or: The beekeeping AU that no one asked for.

~*~

Hi, you are a bless to this fandom. Your blog feels like a library, so thoroughly arranged and always within hand reach. [Thank you, wow!]  Recently, I was going through Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn is a Wēn tag and came across a fanfic, it has 3 chapters till now and is so intriguing that i thought to recommend it to you. I don't know if I can recommend or if you have already checked the story, The legendary Phoenix and his Dragon by Devipriya. I am in love with this story. I hope you will enjoy it too, do check it out

The legendary Phoenix and his Dragon

by Devipriya (T, 7k, wangxian)

Summary:  Wen Wuxian, the essence of who he is, he is a naughty child, a prankster, an enchanting dizi player, a graceful dancer, an irresistible lover, a truly valiant warrior, a ruthless vanquisher of his foes, a man who left a broken heart in every home, an astute statesman and kingmaker, a thorough gentleman, a righteous individual of the highest order, and the most colorful incarnation.

He has been seen, perceived, understood and experienced in many different ways by different people. Different people saw different facets of who he is. For some, he is God. For some, he is a crook. For some, he is a lover. For some, he is a fighter. He is so many things.

But the phoenix, seen from the eyes of time was just a playful man. A man who plays with his awareness, with his imagination, with his memory, with his life, with his death. An individual who does not just dance with somebody. He dances with life. He dances with his enemy, He dances with the one he loves, He dances even at the moment of his death.

To taste an essence of who is Wen Wuxian, be with me in the journey of exploration, NO! playful exploration of life of a playful man.

~*~

Hi! Thanks for running this blog, it's helped me find so many fics. For your next follower recs post, I wanted to rec "This love like a flood, a fire, a fear" by natcat5. Its summary is vague (which I suspect is why it isn't better known) but it is a beautiful retelling of canon from LWJ's POV with slight canon divergence. I love the author's characterization of him and the prose is gorgeous. It is easily my favorite fic in the entire fandom, and I don't say that lightly. ~ @nyanja14

This love like a flood, a fire, a fear

by natcat5 (M, 57k, wangxian, lan wangji & lan xichen)

Summary:  “I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch everything go wrong.”   - Lemony Snicket

~*~

i came to this ask to rec this baseball one called "Waiting for Spring" by thievinghippo on ao3. It somehow made me care about baseball soooo 'nough said ~ @scifikimmi

Waiting for Spring

by thievinghippo (E, 131, wangxian)

Summary:  “It is a well-known fact across the major leagues that one does not smack Lan Wangji’s ass.”

Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes. Everyone smacks everyone’s ass in baseball. It’s how the game is played. Lan Wangji does not get to be exempt from this most sacred of baseball traditions.

Wei Wuxian will make sure of that.

Or, a Major League Baseball AU

~*~

hi mojo! i wanted to rec Something Good by boxoftheskyking (a loose sound of music/canon divergence au) and also MDZS: The Golden Engine by iffervescent (immortal wangxian modern au where they gotta solve a mystery and save china, featuring jiang cheng/lan xichen)

Something Good

by boxoftheskyking (T, 43k, wangxian)

Summary:  "That Wei Wuxian, you know he used to be such a promising cultivator. Head Disciple of the Jiang Clan, can you believe it? You see, juniors, the punishment for traveling the path of demonic cultivation. No golden core, not so much as a whisper of spiritual power."

As a punishment for real and imagined crimes, Wei Wuxian is sentenced to work at Cloud Recesses as the lowest of servants. When a surprising reassignment lands him with eleven children to care for, everything changes again.

A Sound of Music AU

MDZS: The Golden Engine

by iffervescent (E, 82k, wangxian, xicheng)

Summary:  In the modern era, immortals Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian return to Gusu. New evil and old friends + new friends and old evils.

~*~

Hi Mojo! First of all let me just tell you that you are amazing and this blog is like a gift from the gods! Bless you and your endless patience and hard work. [Oh, thank you so much!]  I know that you have just accepted follower recs and I have missed miserably but I still wanted to write and bring attention to a writer by the pseudo Xiao_Hua on ao3, I think they are quite good and I just recently found the account with so much content. If you do have the time to check them out, I'd rec catfish, my fox or the red ribbon.

The Red Ribbon

by Xiao_Hua (M, 21k, wangxian, TGCF crossover)

Summary:  Wei WuXian died but not before saving HanGuang-Jun and A-Yuan, leaving so much more behind than just his ribbon.

My Fox

by Xiao_Hua (E, 13k, wangxian)

Summary:  Once he headed to YiLing that all changed for him. His priorities have been mingled with and ordered in complete disarray even without him noticing as he was left heavily influenced by a creature.

Or one where Lan WangJi is a dragon-spirit and he finds his mate in the form of a fox.

Catfish

by Xiao_Hua (E, 15k, wangxian)

Summary:  Wei WuXian has a common sense that believes it has a nine-to-five job while Lan WangJi finds that incredibly hot.

Or one where two catfish realise that neither of them truly catfished.

~*~

Hi Mojo i'm recommending this amazing fic it is called song of joys and regrets. it's a time travel AU it's amazing. And your Blog is a Godsend Thank you! [Aw, you’re so sweet!]  ~ @highgoddess

Song of Joy and Regrets

by HelloKitten (not rated, 59k, wangxian, WIP)

Summary:  The Archery competition at Qishan this year has hit a snag. As the Sects face the wrongs perpetrated by their future selves, Wei Wuxian finds himself adopted by half of the cultivation world who are determined to save him from himself.

Baby Wangxian suffers. Adult Wangxian's job here is done.

"I'm starting to see a pattern to all his plans..." "Do they all involve him being bait?" "Yes" came deadpanned responses.

~*~

Here’s a 2021 Reverse Big Bang entry, in time for Father’s Day; [Oops, my bad, sorry!]  Under a Blanket of Black Wings, by ChaoticAndrogynous (#31398395); LWJ, recuperating from the 33 lashes, tells A-Yuan a series of fairytales about a heroic monster and the brave little boy he befriended. Vampire! WWX (in the framing story as well as the story-within-the-story); happy ending.

Under a Blanket of Black Wings

by ChaoticAndrogynous (T, 19k, wangxian)

Summary:  Lan Wangji tells A-Yuan a bedtime story about a beautiful monster and the brave little boy who was his friend. Thirteen years later, the monster returns.

~*~

Hello Mojo! Have you read ‘Key Differences’ by Pupeez4eva? Its a MDZS!WWX meets CQL!WWX and its really good! [It’s on my list!]

Key Differences

by pupeez4eva (T, 6k, wangxian)

Summary:  “I don’t understand,” Wei Wuxian said, while his alternate self continued to stare at him with almost a look of hurt in his eyes. There was longing in there too, which Wei Wuxian would have easily recognised if he paid enough attention. “How could you not get together, after everything. What even went on in the Guanyin Temple if you didn’t confess?”

“The Guanyin Temple,” Wei Ying repeated incredulously. “You’re asking me if I confessed at — honestly, a lot went on that day. It was a life and death situation. There was no confessing.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him, appalled.

(Wherein Wei Wuxian ends up meeting an alternate version of himself who, much to his horror, never married Lan Wangji. Obviously he has to do something to fix this).

~*~

Hey Mojo i would recommend this fanfic if you already haven’t, it’s called “ take me back to a time “ by DizziDreams. It’s sooooo good

take me back to a time

by DizziDreams (T, 144k, wangxian, 3zun)

Summary:  Wei Ying has a lot on his plate right now.

It’s finals week -- which isn’t so bad. He’s never had to study much to do well in classes. But that just means that things are that much more tense with Jiang Cheng, who, as far as Wei Ying can tell, only takes study breaks long enough to glare at Wei Ying where he sits on the couch playing video games.

It’s not studies that have Wei Ying stressed out. It’s everything else. It’s the recruitment for the research trial he’s coordinating. It’s jiejie and her impending marriage to His Royal Douchebag Jin Zixuan. It’s the volunteer work at the palliative care facility. It’s Wen Ning’s worsening condition. It’s Wen Qing working herself thin to care for her brother and Wen Yuan. It’s the way Wen Yuan never seems to have enough food.

So, yeah. There’s enough on Wei Ying’s plate already, meaning it’s not entirely welcome when he comes home and finds a man standing in his bedroom. A man in extravagant white robes, a ribbon tied around his forehead, long hair gathered into a topknot, fist clutching a sword at his side, who asks him, “Where am I?”

~*~

Idk if this has already been rec’d (I’ve been off the grid for a while now), but there’s this absolutely incredible fic called Restitution by an anon on ao3 people should definitely check out!

this one?

on restitution

by Anonymous (M, 78k, wangxian, jin ling & wei wuxian, lan sizhui & wei wuxian, WIP)

Summary:  When Wei Wuxian regains consciousness, he is in a bed. A real, proper bed, not the slab he called a bed in his cave in the Burial Mounds.

Jiang Cheng is glowering above him.

Wei Wuxian doesn't die during the siege of the Burial Mounds. Rather, he is captured in secret and confined at Lotus Pier. Things change accordingly.

~*~

Hi momjo! I feel like every time I come to your blog there's twenty more new and amazing fics for me to read. Thank you for everything you do for this fandom!  [Thank you, sweetie!  And yes, I think there ARE 20 new fics every day out there in the fandom.  It’s amazing!] Today I come bearing my own rec to you. I've recently read this and it's IMO one of the best fics out there. It's called Lapsteel by carriecmoney and it's a modern stormchaser AU featuring country songs and coming home. ~ @manaika-chan​

Lapsteel

by carriecmoney (T, 42k, wangxian)

Summary:  Now and then, I think about you now and then...

It's been thirteen years since Wei Ying ran for the prairies, leaving behind a family in shambles and a secret on the Pacific wind. What happens when the storm he swirled catches up to him?

Modern AU with country music star Lan Zhan, stormchaser Wei Ying, and shared crossroads.

~*~

#wangxian fic rec #follower recs #wangxian #mdzs #the untamed #follower rec #I HAVEN'T READ THESE YET

[lady-of-the-lotus]

Xue Yang, still alive and disguised as Xiao Xingchen post-canon, befriends a nihilistic Lan Xichen as part of his plan to bring Xiao Xingchen back. Xue Yang whisks our boy off on a jaunty little murder roadtrip to raise the daozhang and Meng Yao from the grave.

Fractured Ice retold from Xue Yang's POV - M - XueXiao & XiYao - It does work as a standalone but I consider Fractured Ice to be flagship story of the series

Come for a delusional Xue Yang talking to Xiao Xingchen’s spirit-trapping pouch, stay for Lan Xichen sad boi hours.

Chapter 1   - Read on AO3

Lan Wangji is surprisingly easy to fool.

He’s a busy man, of course, and is distracted by all that fuss over the watchtowers when Xue Yang shows up. He spends no more than five minutes with Xue Yang, most of which is him writing a letter of introduction, and Xue Yang speaks as little as possible to avoid giving himself away, but Xue Yang likes to think it’s his Xiao Xingchen impersonation that does the trick.

After all, he’s spent years perfecting it.

Xue Yang bows low as Lan Wangji hands him the letter. “And Wei Wuxian?” he asks in his politest voice. “I trust he is well? I was hoping to see him again as well.”

Lan Wangji’s face doesn’t so much as twitch. “He is gone.”

So it's true. Wei Wuxian is in the wind.

Xue Yang sits up that night in the inn, staring at the sealed letter before him on the bed.

Too late. Had he found Lan Wangji a month or two earlier, he could have found Wei Wuxian too and wouldn't have to resort to the extreme measures he’s contemplating. The last time Wei Wuxian disappeared, it had taken sixteen years for him to reappear.

He can’t wait that long.

It’s not like I need Wei Wuxian’s help , he reminds himself. He still has half of the reforged Stygian Tiger Amulet. Has the incantation. All he needs is a cat’s-paw, and the means to that is resting in front of him on the mattress.

It will work. It will work because it has to work.

The trip to the Cloud Recesses takes a month, as he doesn't dare fly on his sword and draw attention to himself. He’s learned to keep Xiao Xingchen's highly-recognizable sword in his qiankun sleeve after being waylaid too many times by whiny villagers eager for the great Xiao Xingchen to help them clean up some ghost or fierce corpse or monster.

Not a bad-looking place, he decides upon arriving at the Cloud Recesses—mountain streams, trees, all the things the daozhang used to write his awful poetry about—but the stuffiness chokes him the second he’s escorted through the gate.

Better get used to it. If all goes well, this will be your home for the next while.

He’s given a small but elegantly-furnished guest room. Nicer than any place he’s been in a while. Gauzy blue curtains around a soft bed, a painted screen, glossy brown furniture and embroidered cushions. It's perched on the edge of the mountain, with a majestic view of the surrounding mountains and valleys.

But the quiet—

He sets Xiao Xingchen’s spirit-trapping pouch on the silky white bedclothes and begins to hum, anything to fill the crushing silence, but it only amplifies the Cloud Recesses’ stillness. He stops humming, gets up, walks around the room, drums his fingers on the windowsill, and sits back down. He unwraps the thick bandages covering his mangled left hand and gently cups both palms around the pouch.

Nothing yet.

“I’m here,” he tells the pouch. Keeps his voice low, in case anyone is listening. “I got in, no problem. These Lans aren’t that bright.”

Still no response from the pouch.

“Fucking naive idiots,” he says. Watch your language , he almost hears Xiao Xingchen chiding him. “Anyone carrying this letter could have gotten in calling himself Xiao Xingchen. I mean, I doubt that stuck-up prick of a Chief Cultivator would imagine someone could actually kill you and steal the letter, but that’s because he doesn’t know what an easy mark you are.” He likes doing that, teasing Xiao Xingchen like he used to. Let Xiao Xingchen know that things aren’t too far away from normal.

A faint pulse from the pouch. He smiles. He knew that last jibe would rouse the daozhang.

He tucks the letter and spirit-trapping pouch away in the qiankun sleeve of his inner robe and stretches out on the bed. Comfortable beds here at the Cloud Recesses, at least. Like a cat, he can sleep anywhere, but also like a cat, he’d prefer his bed to be warm and soft.

He can’t risk removing his Xiao Xingchen mask yet, itchy as it is, or risk having Jiangzai beside the bed as usual where anyone entering the room might see it. Instead he places his knife within easy reach and stretches out on the bed, Shuanghua tucked under the covers. Antsy as he is, he drops off almost instantly. A habit he’s developed. Sleep has to be grabbed whenever he can get it.

He’s up early the next morning thanks to the bells that are probably supposed to evoke some kind of bird chirp or mystical meditation gong or something equally stupid but instead jerk him awake like a kick to the head.

He bolts upright at the unexpected sound, knife in hand, and then, cursing, lies back down for a few minutes before rolling out of bed and dressing in the most unassuming of his robes, a white-and-green ensemble he thinks the daozhang would have liked had he consented to wear anything other than dull, dull white and gray.

“Not that it looked bad, but it always looked like you were on your way to a funeral,” he explains to Xiao Xingchen as he finishes winding his air into a simple knot. “And you called me morbid.”

A knock at the door. Breakfast. It’s far too early to eat, and the food itself is bland congee and steamed buns, but he never turns down a meal. He’s been too hungry too many times in the past for that. Keeps dried jerky in his qiankun sleeve, nowadays, just in case.

After all, you never knew.

“You’d like the food here,” he tells Xiao Xingchen as he eats, his pouch set across the table from him. “Bland as all hell. Just like yours.”

Another gong, another knock. A disciple escorts him across the Cloud Recesses to the lecture hall, a wide, low building in the main courtyard.

A second disciple stops him at the door. “Invitation?”

Bowing, Xue Yang hands him the letter of introduction. “Of course.”

“Is everything alright?” A tall, extremely handsome man has appeared in the doorway. He’s dressed in blue and white with an unnecessarily elaborate silver hairpiece and a forehead ribbon like Lan Wangji’s.

This is him. This is Lan Xichen.

Xue Yang bows again, more deeply this time, and assumes an air of unassuming placidity as he straightens and hands Lan Xichen the letter.

“This was written by Hanguang-jun.”

Xue Yang ducks his head. “I met him during my travels, and he was kind enough to write me a letter of introduction.”

“It is a pleasure to have the famed Xiao Xingchen here in the Cloud Recesses, but surely a class for juniors is unnecessary for someone of your stature and experience?”

Xue Yang bows again and makes a mental note to tell the daozhang about Lan Xichen’s compliment over dinner that night. “I am here to learn what I can of earthly cultivation, Zewu-jun, in an effort to understand this world better.”

That utter bullshit ought to fix him, he thinks, and hides a smirk as Lan Xichen ushers him inside.

The next few days are almost unendurable. Hours of meditation coupled with mind-numbing lectures that would put a corpse to sleep.

He spends his time covertly watching Lan Xichen.

The Clan Leader stands off to the side, a faraway look in his eyes. There’s something sad about him, a combination of wistfulness and…worry? Something like that. Whatever it is, he gives off a subdued impression of nerves.

I can work with that.

“…example, Zewu-jun?” Lan Qiren is looking at Lan Xichen. “Zewu-jun?”

Lan Xichen doesn’t respond. He’s staring fixedly at the glimpse of courtyard visible through the open doors, a blank look on his face.

“Zewu-jun?”

Lan Xichen starts, almost dropping his flute. The class shifts uncomfortably. “I—I beg your pardon?”

Interesting.

It’s on the second afternoon that Xue Yang realizes that Lan Xichen is studying him just as much as he’s studying the Clan Leader, albeit in a dreamy, unfocused way.

Xue Yang approaches him after class on the third day. Bows. Waits for the Clan Leader to speak.

“Would Xiao Xingchen care to join me for dinner?” Lan Xichen asks without preamble.

Well, that was easier than I expected.

The meal itself is the same bland fare he’s gotten used to, served on nicer dishes. He’s been looking forward to some conversation, but Lan Xichen shushes him as soon as he opens his mouth.

Xue Yang does his best not to squirm or play with his hair tendrils. Best table manners, he reminds himself, no matter how bored you are.

“Is that all?” Xue Yang asks as the table is cleared. It was bad enough that the food was all steamed rice and vegetables, but there hadn’t been enough of it to make up for the lack of flavor. No wonder everyone in the Lan Clan is so thin.

“Rule 41. ‘Do not eat more than three bowls.’ ” Lan Xichen says.

“Have you ever thought of getting bigger bowls?”

Lan Xichen frowns slightly. Great. Xue Yang had to pick someone without a sense of humor. He’s been hoping Lan Xichen is like Xiao Xingchen, who, though humorless at first glance, is in fact someone who appreciates a joke more than anyone else he’s ever met.

“Daozhang,” Lan Xichen starts, then stops as if unsure of how to censure the great Xiao Xingchen and unwilling to start an argument.

Note to self: no more making fun of the Lans' rules.

“ ‘Rule Seven: Do not fight without permission,’ ” says Xue Yang, immediately disregarding his own advice. “Surely that only means physically, and surely Zewu-jun can grant permission, anyway?”

Lan Xichen rises. “Good night, daozhang.”

Xiao Xingchen was never this touchy. Not even in the beginning when he still had a stick up his—

Xue Yang bows low.

“Please forgive me, Zewu-jun. I see that joking is frowned upon in Cloud Recesses. I should have known, after hearing Rule 10. But surely the Clan Leader did not ask me here to silently eat rice, recite the rules, and part for the night?”

He thinks he’s gone too far, but instead of coldly dismissing him, Lan Xichen motions at him to follow.

They stroll through the Family’s courtyard, talking. Finally. He hides it well, but Lan Xichen seems desperate for company and conversation. There is an oddly hollow quality about the man, as if he’s waiting for someone to come along and fill him up with something even he can’t name.

He hadn’t been aware of any tension these past few days, but Xue Yang feels a slight relaxing sensation as they chat. His instincts had been right.

Lan Xichen is the right choice of Subject.

They walk out again the next evening, and the next, and the next.

“He lets me do most of the talking,” Xue Yang tells Xiao Xingchen as he lies awake one night. The pouch is on the pillow beside his head, Shuanghua warming him under the covers. “Reminds me of you a bit, that way, except his smiles are all fake and you were never good at shamming that kind of thing.” He brushes the spirit-trapping pouch with the pad of his thumb. “Good thing for us that they’re all fake. A happy Lan Xichen would make things much harder."

He’s been at the Cloud Recesses for three months before he and Lan Xichen become something other than mere walking companions.

They’re in the Family courtyard, with Xue Yang idly teasing Lan Xichen about how many people it takes to design and create his elaborate robes, when Xue Yang, bored with Lan Xichen’s lack of reciprocation, plucks a leaf from a nearby tree. He likes fiddling with things, touching them, poking at them, and there aren’t enough things to putter with in the Cloud Recesses.

He’s reaching for the second leaf when he notices Lan Xichen is on his knees, struggling to breathe, eyes wide and jaw clenched.

Great. Now what?

He looks around. Nobody around. Of course.

Maybe this is a good thing—

Yes. He can work with this, especially as Lan Xichen has been almost stubbornly dense these past few months.

“Zewu-jun?” He takes Lan Xichen’s arm. He’s not sure of what to do in a situation like this. Just treat him like you would the daozhang, he tells himself. But the Clan Leader’s arm is more muscular than Xiao Xingchen’s ever was, throwing him off in a way he doesn’t expect. He fights through it, sliding his hand up higher under Lan Xichen’s arm and touching his shoulder. “Is the Clan Leader ill?”

No response. Sighing, Xue Yang half-carries him to his chambers, laying him down in bed and slipping off his shoes.

Lan Xichen is…not what he expected.

Everybody has heard stories of the great Zewu-jun. The war hero. The leader. The man who had liberated countless villages from the Wens, the man who had destroyed entire battalions of fierce corpse puppets almost single-handedly. The top-ranked cultivator of his generation, the untouchably pure and perfect paragon of all that is strong and wise and good.

Given how his closest peer was Nie Mingjue, and given the legends of his exploits during the Sunshot Campaign, Xue Yang had been more than a little worried that he’d have something like Red Blade Master to work with.

The man lying before him on the bed, though—

A mess, to put it bluntly. And in all the time he’s been there, Xue Yang has yet to see him so much as pick up a sword, let alone swing one.

At least he is kind and gentle. To the extreme.

Thankfully.

If he hadn’t lived up to his reputation as a pure soul, then—

But Xue Yang doesn’t want to think about that.

His health is another unexpected bonus. He’d heard that the Clan Leader was ailing, but although Lan Xichen is thinner than the few times Xue Yang glimpsed him at Koi Tower, he seems fit enough.

Physically, at least.

He removes Lan Xichen’s hairpiece. The thing is even bigger than it looks when on Lan Xichen’s head and is probably worth enough to support a peasant family for ten years. “You could kill someone with this thing,” he says, setting it on the table. “Is that one of the Lans’ secret attacks?”

Xiao Xingchen would have found that hilarious, but Lan Xichen just frowns and blurts, “Is your hand missing?” seemingly out of nowhere.

“Not missing, just injured.” Xue Yang rises and strolls around the room, trying to deflect attention from his bandaged left hand. “I was cutting through the forest outside Pingyang—”

Lan Xichen doesn’t appear to be listening to any of this, but he powers through several stories, including the one about how, armed with nothing but a pair of chopsticks, he killed a demon-wolf. (Well, a rabid badger, anyway.)

“—and that’s why I no longer eat scallion pancakes,” he finishes the last story. Not so much as a smile from Lan Xichen, dammit. The chopsticks story was one of Xiao Xingchen’s favorites. “Clan Leader, would you like some water?”

He helps Lan Xichen drink, holding him upright. The Clan Leader, tall and muscular as he is, gives off the impression that he’ll flutter back to the bed like a fallen flower petal if Xue Yang were to let go. He feels light against his arm, like a paper funeral doll brought to life.

“Drink,” he encourages when Lan Xichen just stares down into the cup. “It will make you feel better.”

“You know?” Know how it is to feel like this, are the unspoken words.

A surge of irritation. He hadn’t intended to reveal anything of Xue Yang to this man. Perhaps Lan Xichen isn’t so out of it after all.

“Well, I know that it won’t make you feel much better, but it can help stop you from feeling worse,” he responds. Dammit. In this kind of mood, Lan Xichen might go so far as to ask him how he knows this—

Doesn’t mean you have to answer, he reminds himself. You’re Xiao Xingchen, and would he have answered such a personal question?

Perhaps, come to think of it. They had been far too touchy-feely back at his mountain cult. Xiao Xingchen, it seems, had been a bit more detached than the others, but he had never learned how to organically deflect awkward questions, never learned guile or deceit.

Xue Yang begins to talk again, changing the subject, regaling the Clan Leader with tales of his travels. Some true, some not. Lan Xichen says nothing. Barely seems to hear him. Annoying. Xue Yang likes an audience.

“Feeling any better?” he asks him after a long time.

Lan Xichen is staring up at the blue curtains around his bed.

“Shall I leave?” Xue Yang rests his hand on the Clan Leader's shoulder. This would be a perfect time to do more than touch his shoulder, but something tells him to wait. See how things go before resorting to that.

Lan Xichen shakes his head.

“People will talk…” Xue Yang smirks suggestively, raising an eyebrow. “Us two, alone, after all our walks.”

“They know I’m not like that.”

“Ah, Rule Four.” Do not commit acts of promiscuity.

Wonder of wonders, Lan Xichen actually smiles a little. It’s unlike his usual fake gentle smile, or his rare smile of genuine amusement, but it’s better than the creepily distant look he’s worn all night. “Not that.”

Xue Yang twirls some hair around his finger, something that’s more habit than an attempt at flirtation. “They’re used to your taking young men to your rooms, then?”

Lan Xichen actually laughs. “Definitely not,” he says, sitting up.

“I’ve heard…rumors.”

Lan Xichen shoots him a sharp glance, and Xue Yang worries he’s revealed himself too soon “About?”

“Zewu-jun and Jin Guangyao,” Xue Yang says, slowly and deliberately.

He watches Lan Xichen closely. Waits.

“The rumors were false,” says Lan Xichen. There’s a catch in his voice, as if speaking is an effort.

“Of course they were. As if Zewu-jun would do something like that to the good Madam Jin.”

Lan Xichen stares at the blue ceramic cup pressed tightly between his palms as if he can see visions in the water. He begins tapping the cup against his teeth, a bit too hard.

Xue Yang pulls the cup away from his lips. On the off-chance that only half his plan works, it wouldn't do to have Lan Xichen have any broken teeth.

“They know me here,” Lan Xichen says. “They know I have no interest in…”

Xue Yang tries to keep a demented grin off his face. “Young men?”

“Or old men. Or old women. Or young women. Or anything in between.”

Oh. He’s serious.

Something else that’s unexpected, but not in a good way this time.

“None at all?”

“Not in that way. So, if you had…”

“Ulterior motives?”

Lan Xichen reddens. “Of course not!”

Xue Yang grins. Alright, then. Lan Xichen is lonely enough without Xue Yang resorting to using means other than friendship to gain his help. Besides, he doesn’t fully believe him.

Zewu-jun has a… reputation.

Xue Yang had worked with Jin Guangyao for years. There was no way the little weasel and Lan Xichen were just friends.

And if they were—

The plan could still work. It could still work...

“I can assure you, Zewu-jun, I don’t run after men,” he says, still grinning. “I am here in friendship and friendship only.” He hands Lan Xichen another cup of water. “What are they going to do about an heir, though?” Something that’s occurred to him several times over the past few years, not out of any true interest in what the clans were going to do, but out of curiosity about what kind of civil wars were going to break out when the current clan leaders died. “This generation of clan leaders has really dropped the ball. The Jiang, the Nie…”

The conversation drifts on, Lan Xichen telling him about his uncle’s disastrous matchmaking attempts and what he had discussed with the matchmaker. Xue Yang only pays it half a mind, still rethinking a strategy he’s spent three months building.

Looks like Lan Xichen really doesn’t have an interest in young men.

Unless they were small and doe-eyed with an unfortunate taste in hats.

“I know somehow who sounds very much like what you described to the matchmaker,” Xue Yang says, deciding to risk it.

“I knew someone like that, too,” Lan Xichen says. His voice is low and husky, eyes far away. “But he’s gone, now.”

Xue Yang swallows a grin.

He'd been right. The dimpled little freak's feelings were reciprocated.

Lan Xichen’s hands are shaking, but his eyes slip shut as if he's worn out by the stress of the evening. Xue Yang begins talking again, trying to smooth over the moment, hide the depth of his interest in Jin Guangyao. Lan Xichen’s chest rises and falls softly, his handsome face gradually relaxing.

“A-Yao,” Lan Xichen whispers as he drifts off. “A-Yao…”

* * * *

Xue Yang skips classes the next day, sleeping in for the first time since coming to Cloud Recesses.

But first he’s woken by the usual knocking on the door.

Dammit. It’s a wonder how anyone survives here. The early-morning wakeups are enough to drive anyone completely insane.

“I’m not attending the lecture today,” he calls, and turns over and sleeps until the sun is high in the sky. He’d been up late the night before, sitting with Lan Xichen and then repeating the conversation to Xiao Xingchen.

Not all of it, of course. He knows the daozhang wouldn’t approve of his plan or the things he’s done in service of it. A one-sided conversation explaining things would be worse than keeping Xiao Xingchen in the dark. He’ll have to wait until Xiao Xingchen is sitting before him and Xue Yang can answer his questions. Besides, he knows that once the daozhang is back, is whole, he won't look too closely at how he got back so long as Xue Yang has a plausible explanation for him.

“I know Lan Xichen can help us,” he tells the spirit-trapping pouch sitting across the table from him as he eats a very late breakfast. “It’s only a matter of time before I get into that library, and I know the rest of the manuscript is there.”

He reaches out, touches the bag. He thinks he can feel a faint hum of approval through the fabric.

Not thinks. Knows.

He doesn’t see Lan Xichen all day.

“Indisposed,” a servant tells him.

Indisposed. Of course.

“Everything is fine,” he tells the spirit-trapping pouch as he eats dinner. He sits on the doorsill of his guest chambers, watching the flaming pink sun sink beneath the mountains as he eats, the spirit-trapping pouch set on a handkerchief beside him. Sitting on the doorsill is forbidden, as is eating outside except for in the designated dining areas, and he feels better just sitting there and casually breaking the rules. Every day the desire to rip his skin off grows stronger and stronger.

“Rip my skin off,” he grins, running his finger around the itchy edge of his mask. “That’s funny.” He sets his empty bowl down and stretches. “I’m sure he’ll be back to himself tomorrow. These little mental breakdowns really take it out of you.”

A slight worried vibration reaches him through the wood of the doorsill.

“Not that I would know,” he explains quickly. No need to upset the daozhang. “I’m just saying. You should have seen him the other night. Poor man,” he adds, not because he cares but because Xiao Xingchen always liked hearing him say things like that. “The Lan really did a number on him. You ought to meet his uncle. How anyone survives here is a mystery.” He traces one of the bloody symbols on the side of the bag with a fingertip. “I know, I know, it’s probably no worse than how you grew up.”

He’s up on time the next morning despite having slept badly the night before. Asks around for Lan Xichen, eventually finds him in the library.

The Clan Leader is kneeling behind one of the low tables, painting.

“What are they saying?” Lan Xichen asks without looking up from his brush.

“Gusu Lan is the most rumor-proof clan I’ve ever been to,” Xue Yang says, though everyone on the mountain knows that Lan Xichen routed the arms-master out of bed the night before and made her spar with him for hours. “I didn’t see Zewu-jun yesterday, and wanted to make sure he was alright after the other night.”

“He is all right. More than all right. And I think much of it is thanks to you.”

Xue Yang ducks his head. “An honor, then. May I ask what I said?”

“Many things were said. How is your arm? I would love to spar with one of your famed skill someday.”

Xue Yang feels an appreciative hum coming from his qiankun sleeve. Xiao Xingchen, it seems, is just as delighted with Lan Xichen’s pathetically lucky choice of conversation as he is.

Subconsciously he touches the bandages. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for that, Zewu-jun.”

“Was the wound truly that terrible?”

There’s venom in Xue Yang’s smile. “Far worse than Zewu-jun can imagine.”

“Will you be able to use it again someday?”

This is it. What he’s been waiting for.

Xue Yang lets his eyes fall to the floor as if hesitant to speak. His heart thuds against his ribcage—dammit!—but he draws strength from the calming throb in his sleeve. “I wanted to speak to you about that, actually. I was wondering if perhaps there was a remedy in the secret library of yours.”

Lan Xichen blinks, cowlike. “Secret library?”

“I know it survived the Wen fire. I know it exists.”

“… How do you know?”

“To be quite honest, I wasn’t sure it existed at all.” Information obtained via torture isn’t always reliable, after all. “I’ve spent years trying to heal my hand, and nobody has been able to give me anything but false hope.”

“Is it paralyzed?”

“It’s gone. Gone, but still here, and I need it back. And I will get it back.”

“I have some experience with medicine. Perhaps if you showed me your hand, I can look through the medical texts—”

“No! I mean—” He ducks his head at Lan Xichen. “I thank you, Zewu-jun, but, I can’t show it to anyone.”

“Injury is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Xue Yang feels his cheeks flush hotly beneath his mask and hates himself for losing control so easily. “I’m not ashamed!” he says. Fuck you! he adds in his head.

“If I can help—”

He’s on his feet. He means to remain kneeling quietly before Lan Xichen, but he can’t control his own limbs. “I’ll take my leave, then.”

“Please understand, only Family and clan elders are allowed into the Forbidden Chamber—”

“I understand perfectly. Outsiders be damned, am I right?” A thousand ideas flash through his mind— Leap at Lan Xichen right now, force him to take me to the library—Kidnap a disciple, hold him hostage—Break in at night and tear the place apart —but the surge of desperation coursing through his veins is driven by the knowledge that none of that will work. That he needs Lan Xichen as an ally, needs him for his entire plan, not just to get into the library—

“If there is anything else I can possibly do, daozhang—”

Xue Yang shoves his panic down, forces himself under control. He can save this. He can salvage the situation—

Casually he begins to play with the long tendril of hair framing his face.

“I heard that Zewu-jun was practicing his flute again,” he says. “I was glad to hear it. Have you taken up your guqin again as well?”

Lan Xichen begins to shake.

“I’ll take that as a no, then.” Xue Yang hides a smile, sits back down across from him, relaxes his shoulders. “A shame.”

“Rules 32 and 27; I know.” Lan Xichen glances up at the banners embroidered with the rules that hang around them like blue-and-white shrouds.

Xue Yang waves dismissively at the banners. “No, I don’t care about any of that discipline and training the mind and body business. I mean because of this .”

He draws Xiao Xingchen’s pouch from his sleeve in a fistful of orange qiankun sparks.

“One of my master’s spirit-trapping pouches,” he says, enjoying the surprised look on Lan Xichen’s typically dreamy, somewhat nervous face. “Inside this bag, Zewu-jun, is the man who can heal my hand.”

Lan Xichen is blinking again. “And you want me to communicate with him?”

“Zewu-jun is the foremost cultivator of his generation. I believe he can succeed where others have failed.”

“Failed how?”

“Using Empathy, for one. They’ve all told me there’s not enough left of his spirit to communicate with. Frauds! Liars! They—” He grips the pouch, drawing on Xiao Xingchen’s aura of calmness, wrestling himself under control. “They failed. Everything for the past seven years has failed. But Inquiry…nobody I’ve met has been skilled enough. Only the direct Lan family members are taught it, I have heard.”

“Why did you not ask my brother?”

“I met him but briefly, and had no wish to extend our acquaintance.”

Lan Xichen is frowning. He’s surprisingly touchy for one of his stature.

“Frankly I found him rather intimidating,” Xue Yang adds, lying. Well, it's not like he can explain to Lan Xichen that he couldn't risk blowing his cover or that he found his brother completely unbearable. “The man is a living legend. I couldn’t ask the Chief Cultivator to help me with my petty problems.”

“I can try,” Lan Xichen says after a few moments.

Xue Yang waits for him to continue, but instead Lan Xichen glances down at the painting. He’s spoiled it during their conversation, distracted, not that it took much to ruin. Droopy trees in moonlight. How original.

“When?” asks Xue Yang when Lan Xichen still doesn't speak.

“We can…tonight, I suppose.”

“Where?”

“My mother’s house.”

“All right, then.” Xue Yang changes the subject. Lan Xichen has gotten maudlin on the few occasions Madam Lan has come up, and Xue Yang can’t risk Lan Xichen getting so depressed he does something stupid. “Enough of that, then. Have you eaten today?”

“I had tea.”

Xue Yang takes him to Caiyi Town. Gusu is closer, but Xue Yang is dying to get away from Cloud Recesses. Far, far away. Away where there he’s not surrounded by people wearing white, where he doesn’t have to keep thinking he sees a familiar flash of white-and-gray out of the corner of his eye—

Lan Xichen orders steamed rice and vegetables.

Exactly what Xiao Xingchen ordered on the few times they ate out together.

He watches Lan Xichen eat. The Clan Leader has the same far-too-good table manners that Xiao Xingchen had, the same affected way of holding his cup, even the same way of working the chopsticks—

Xue Yang shoves the thought away. That’s just how all well-brought-up people eat. Nothing special about it. He himself eats that way in a perfect mimicking of Xiao Xingchen. He knows this thanks to the time he bought a mirror to prop up across from him during meals.

A mistake, that. He’d shattered it the next morning as soon as his hangover dissipated.

Now he avoids mirrors, for the most part, when his mask is on.

Pointless, anyway, that entire fucking stupid mirror idea. What’s the point of having a fake Xiao Xingchen watching him from a cold piece of glass when he can have the real thing warm and humming in a pouch on the table beside him?

“Two hours after curfew, then,” says Xue Yang to Lan Xichen as they part at the Cloud Recesses.

He spends the rest of the evening trying to calm his mind, meditating as Xiao Xingchen taught him, but all he can think about is What if he too fails, what if—what if—

He strikes himself on the forehead hard enough to bruise the skin beneath the mask, grabs hold of what’s left of his little finger and squeezes it until the pain chases all other thoughts from his mind.

He rises, takes out Xiao Xingchen, and walks around the room with the pouch cradled in his hands.

No movement. No warmth.

“Fuck,” he says to the pouch. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—”

There. A faint stirring.

He sinks to the bed, suddenly weak.

“Predictable, aren’t you?” He presses the pouch to his cheek, laughing. “Think it’s funny, don’t you? I've wasted all my most creative curses on you without so much as a twitch, but one word and you’re scolding me as usual.”

The pouch feels smug. Xiao Xingchen always enjoys the times he’s able to make Xue Yang laugh.

Xue Yang tucks the pouch away and heads to the rendezvous.

* * * *

The Silent Room is a medium-sized house outside the main living areas of the Cloud Recesses, bound by a burbling stream, courtyard, and forest full of spindly trees, all half-obscured by mist. Xue Yang had been there once before, but hadn’t gone inside.

The interior, to him, looks exactly like the rest of the Cloud Recesses, but Lan Xichen stares at everything as if it’s his first time seeing them.

Can we speed this up? Xue Yang wants to say, but he just follows Lan Xichen, letting the man have all the time he needs though every second spent waiting is agony.

Lan Xichen sits him at a low table in the house's main area and kneels before a matching one across from him. He produces a long, highly-polished brown guqin from his silk qiankun bag, then freezes.

Xue Yang is about to risk asking him if he’s all right when the Clan Leader comes to life again, abruptly rising.

“Switch places.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sit here. I’ll sit there.”

But he seems no better sitting in Xue Yang’s seat. His long slim fingers tremble as he holds them over the guqin strings, throat working spasmodically.

Xue Yang is in an agony of suspense, but he remains silent as he sets Xiao Xingchen’s pouch down on the table before Lan Xichen, discomfort swelling in his gut. Everyone else he’s let set eyes on the pouch is now dead.

To have a living person’s eyes rest on Xiao Xingchen—

Temporarily living , he reminds himself as he returns to his seat. He tries drawing comfort from that fact, but it still feels like he’s plopped one of his own organs down on the table for Lan Xichen’s inspection.

“Xiao Xingchen?”

Xue Yang starts. “What?”

“What do you want me to ask the physician’s spirit?”

Xue Yang swallows hard. There’s a smile on his face, but it’s an uncomfortable one. “Ask him how I can bring him back.”

“What about your hand?”

“Ask him how to bring him back. But not his name! He’s extremely private. Won’t respond at all if you ask that.”

Lan Xichen nods. Strums the guqin.

Again.

And again.

Nothing.

“The spirit is too badly fractured,” says Lan Xichen, looking up. “I can barely so much as feel it.”

“Try again.”

“Xiao Xingchen,” says Lan Xichen, his voice coming from the end of a long tunnel, “there is no getting information from this man’s spirit.”

“Try again!”

“Daozhang—”

Xue Yang is on his feet, heart beating so fast he thinks he might pass out. “Try again!”

“Complex questions are always a shot in the dark, daozhang. Qin language is not—”

Xue Yang heaves the table across the room, sending it tearing through a delicate screen painted with blue cranes. “Try again, fuck you!”

Lan Xichen’s eyes widen. It’s all Xue Yang can do to keep from grabbing him by the front of his shitty blue robes, twist his collar until his eyes pop out of his stupid gently smiling head—

Plink. Plink. Plink.

Lan Xichen freezes again.

“Well?” Xue Yang’s entire body has gone numb. “What did he say?”

Lan Xichen rises, drifts outside. By the time Xue Yang has tucked Xiao Xingchen away and hurried after him Lan Xichen is already waist-deep in the mountain stream, stark naked, clothes strewn on the bank.

Xue Yang watches from the bank.

His plan calls for reincarnating Xiao Xingchen in Lan Xichen's body. He plans on eventually returning Xiao Xingchen to his own carefully-preserved body, but if he were to fail, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Not ideal, of course. No matter how handsome Lan Xichen is, Xue Yang wants his daozhang back. But just in case anything goes wrong—

Not that it will.

Xue Yang has no way of measuring time, but it feels like an eternity before he manages to coax the Clan Leader back into the house. Gently, so as not to spook him, he puts the badly-shaking Lan Xichen to bed, standing solicitously beside the bed even though he wants to grab the man and shake him so hard his neck snaps.

Xiao Xingchen had spoken—Xiao Xingchen had spoken actual words—

“What did he say?” he asks. Despite his best efforts his voice comes out in an excited babble. “He’s in there, isn’t he? I knew he was! I knew he wasn’t gone—”

Lan Xichen looks at him with blank black eyes.

“Your hand,” he says. “Show me your hand, and I’ll tell you what he said.”

Xue Yang doesn’t know how Lan Xichen made the jump—surely Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t have told him anything to incriminate Xue Yang!—but he knows the time has come.

This is it.

Without a moment of hesitation Xue Yang unwraps his right hand.

Nothing changes in Lan Xichen’s expressionless white face as he drinks in the sight of Xue Yang’s trademark black glove.

“…Xue Yang,” he says.

Xue Yang claps slowly, grinning. He wasn’t planning on revealing himself so early in the game, but after three mind-numbing months of good behavior he’s glad to have something new to sink his teeth into, a new challenge, and he's still riding too high off the euphoria of tonight's events to care about anything else.

“Excellent detective work, Zewu-jun,” he says. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, tell me, what did he say?”

“Xue Yang.”

Xue Yang draws his knife. It’s a relief to feel its cold weight in his hand again, to make a good old-fashioned straightforward threat. “Tell me what he said,” he says, “and I won’t slice your face off.”

Lan Xichen begins to laugh.

It’s not a happy laugh. Half-hysterical, if anything. But Xue Yang hears a second voice joining it, realizes it’s him, and can’t stop himself any more than Lan Xichen can.

They laugh until they cry.

A shame Xiao Xingchen can’t join. Nobody is fonder of a good laugh than the daozhang...

Lan Xichen’s laugh reminds him of Xiao Xingchen’s. Just a little. Lan Xichen’s is a kind of squawking sound, while Xiao Xingchen’s is a silent hrr-hrr-hrr, but something about the way their eyes both crinkle—

“Nothing matters,” Lan Xichen informs Xue Yang once they’ve gotten themselves under control. Xue Yang is sitting beside the bed, feet up on the bed frame. “Nothing at all.”

“I guess not,” Xue Yang agrees. He’s still trying to catch his breath, ribs aching. “And, as that’s the case, maybe you can tell me what he said?”

“ ‘Xiao Xingchen.’ ”

A stab of joy so sharp it almost hurts pierces Xue Yang. “He said that?”

“His name would be impossible to confuse with any other words.”

A shudder passes through Xue Yang, and he suddenly feels like throwing up. “I knew he was still in there,” he says. “I knew it—” He opens his eyes. “I did it,” he says. “I brought him back, I nursed his spirit—”

“My brother didn’t recognize you,” Lan Xichen says.

Xue Yang forces himself to focus, to tamp down on the joy blazing brightly in his chest. The next few minutes are crucial.

“Face-mirroring talisman,” he says, pointing at his face. “Itchy, but comes in handy. I didn’t stick around long, though.”

“Let me see your true face.”

Without a word Xue Yang peels off his mask, setting it in a basin of water to keep it fresh and moist.

“A bit of a downgrade,” he says, rubbing at his jaw, “but I haven’t gotten many complaints.”

“And underneath?”

“Underneath?”

Lan Xichen looks away. “Were you flirting with me before?”

Xue Yang blinks. “…What?”

“Before. Because I can’t always tell.”

Xue Yang laughs, tossing his knife in the air. “Honestly, I didn’t think you’d say no to a pretty young man,” he admits. The more honest he is, the more likely Lan Xichen will swallow the rest of his story. Besides, he can’t help but like the Clan Leader. He doesn’t deserve the truth—the entire concept of anyone “deserving” something so abstract as “truth” makes no sense—but Xue Yang didn’t mind throwing him a bone.

“You were trying to…” Lan Xichen’s face is pink “… seduce me into helping you?”

Xue Yang shrugs. “I’ve done far worse trying to get him back than fuck someone else.”

This time he’s just trying to shock the Clan Leader for fun. Lan Xichen’s eyes widen, and then he dissolves into another fit of laughter. A silent one this time but far more violent than the first, rocking the entire bed with mirth.

“What now?” he asks Xue Yang once the fit has subsided. He’s breathing heavily, his bare chest rapidly rising-and-falling beneath the tousled blankets. “What was your plan, exactly?”

Xue Yang stops playing with his knife. “You’re going to help me?”

“Of course not. But I’m curious.”

One step at a time. One step at a time…

Xue Yang stares at his bandaged hand. “I was going to tell you that I know for a fact that there’s a ritual for bringing someone back to life in that forbidden library of yours, and, in exchange for you helping me bring back Xiao Xingchen, I would do everything in my power to help you bring back Jin Guangyao despite the fact that the little weasel did his best to murder me.”

“Execute you.”

Xue Yang shrugs. “Murder, execute, same thing.”

“What could you do?”

Xue Yang looks up from his hand. “Everything you aren’t willing to.”

“Get out.”

“But—”

There’s not a trace of merriment, no matter how warped, left on Lan Xichen’s face or in his voice. “Get the hell out.”

Xue Yang reaches into his qiankun sleeve, pulls out a second spirit-trapping pouch, and sets it on the table.

“For your friend,” he says, and leaves.

* * * *

Xue Yang lies awake for a long time that night.

For the first time in over a year, he doesn’t take Xiao Xingchen out.

He doesn’t know why. But he doesn’t.

He lies with Shuanghua under the covers beside him as usual, one arm around the ornate silver-and-white sheath, the other tucked beneath his head, his mouth mere inches from the qiankun sleeve in his inner robe.

He wants to speak, say something to Xiao Xingchen, but can’t bring himself to.

What’s he going to say? Anything he might say would make Xiao Xingchen think he had ever doubted he was in there.

Because he hadn’t doubted. Not for a moment.

“Not for a moment,” he says out loud. “Not for a moment—”

He wants to take the pouch out, feel its reaction to his words, but is too afraid to.

“He’ll help us,” he says instead. His voice is thin. The night’s heady euphoria has given way to an exhausting, hollowing fear that he hates all the more for how he can’t control it. “I know he will. I know he will, I know he will—”

He falls asleep repeating those words over and over. I know he will, I know he will, I know he will—

It’s almost dawn when someone rips Xue Yang’s door open with a sound of splintering wood.

Xue Yang shoots up, snatching his knife up from the bed frame.

“Oh, it’s just you,” he says, breathing hard. It was a lucky thing Lan Xichen had remained in the doorway or the Lan Clan would be one clan leader short. “I almost bit my tongue off!”

“The library,” Lan Xichen says. “Now.”

Xue Yang bites his lip so hard he tastes blood.

* * * *

They spend all week in the library.

Nothing.

At the end of the week Xue Yang finally tells him about the page he’d found earlier that year, ripped from a Lan manuscript, that contains the ritual to raise someone from the grave.

“Destroyed in a fire,” he tells Lan Xichen.

“And you didn’t think to tell me sooner?”

Xue Yang shrugs. “Then you’d only be looking for a torn book instead of looking for potential alternatives. For example, at first I thought we could find the location of Baoshan Sanren’s mountain somewhere in the books, though it’s become clear that that’s impossible. No sense in closing off other potential avenues.”

Lan Xichen sighs and rises. “Put your face back on. We’re leaving.”

Under Lan Xichen’s bed is an elegantly-carved blue chest full of scrolls, books, and wooden slips, each with a section missing. He seats himself at the table while Xue Yang rummages through the chest.

Jin Guangyao, it seems, got into far more than just the Collection of Turmoil.

“…Not many cookbooks vandalized, I’ll guess,” Xue Yang says as he searches. “The food at Koi Tower was always good, if too oily. No need to steal recipes from the Lan, of all people—Ah. Here it is.” Grinning, he holds up a thin, ancient-looking book with unraveling binding and no title. “Let’s take a look, shall we?” He sets it on the low table and kneels across from Lan Xichen.

“You read it,” says Lan Xichen, going to stand in the doorway.

Xue Yang smiles to himself as he begins to copy out the relevant passages that flesh out the page he’d brought with him to the Cloud Recesses. It’s become increasingly obvious over the past few months how Lan Xichen had allowed himself to be hoodwinked by Jin Guangyao. Unbelievable as it is to someone like Xue Yang, whose wits are the only thing that's kept him alive this long, the sheltered, coddled Lan Xichen prefers to stick his head in sand, to be led, to exist in the purest version of the world even if that version is pure fantasy.

As if overhearing Xue Yang’s thoughts, and wanting to further separate himself from reality, Lan Xichen pulls out his ridiculously large flute (Xue Yang had assumed he was compensating for something before seeing him in the stream last week) and begins to play. A soft, wistful tune that mixes well with the dreamy mistiness of the night.

Xue Yang is glad of it. It covers the sound of his tearing out certain pages and stowing them, along with their copies, in his sleeve.

“Here.” Xue Yang comes to stand beside him and offers him certain other innocuous pages that he’s copied. “Want to take a look?”

He needn't have bothered with the deception.

"Just tell me what my role in all this is," says Lan Xichen. "Where are we going?”

“The Unclean Realm. We need to extract his spirit from the coffin before we can do anything else. Yes, we’re starting with that dimpled little freak. I figure he’s smart, he can help us with my half—”

“I’m not going to the Nie Clan.”

“Clan Leader Nie has the coffin.”

“I refuse to so much as speak to that—that—”

“The twat-nosed little fucker,” Xue Yang suggests. The existence of bad blood between the two clan leaders is news to him, but he’s always happy to help people devise new curses.

“That—” Lan Xichen stops, unable to force the word past his lips.

“Fucker,” Xue Yang says encouragingly.

Lan Xichen shakes his head.

Laughing, Xue Yang pats his arm. “I’ll do all the talking to that half-witted little fucktoad, my friend. You just try not to trip and accidentally-on-purpose impale anyone on your hairpiece.”

Lan Xichen’s jaw tightens. “The mere idea of being in the same room of him makes me want to tear my own skin off.”

“Like this?” Xue Yang peels off his mask, still laughing.

Lan Xichen slides the door shut. “Put your face back on, please, and please leave.”

Xue Yang seats himself on the table instead, watching Lan Xichen clean up the mess he’s left. It’s enjoyable, watching the Clan Leader do actual manual labor.

“What were you planning for the journey?” Xue Yang asks. “Full procession, servants, half-dozen outfit changes, increasingly ridiculous hairpieces, inns fit for an emperor—”

“What other way is there?”

Xue Yang smirks. “Leave it to me.”

* * *

Up Next: Super chill low-key escape from the Cloud Recesses with absolutely zero casualties + fun murder roadtrip + Nie Huaisang's fan-painting time is interrupted by our heroes

Chapter 2

#xue yang #lan xichen #mdzsnet #xuexiao #xiyao #Control xy #cql fanfic

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Soldier, Poet, King

Part 13

[Beginning] [Previous]

[AO3] [Masterpost]

Time for Jin Guangyao's POV, and it's even longer than Nie Mingjue's so I'm very glad that y'all voted to split this current portion into three separate chapters lol.

Warning for Jin Guangyao having a Not Great Time (flashbacks, PTSD, etc.) related to his trauma from Jin Guangshan using him for Kaiju bait as well as a brief mention of the way he was abused by the Wen family when he worked for them in Tokyo.

--//--

Jin Guangyao wakes with a start, sitting upright and climbing out from between his partners in a tightly controlled rush without thinking about it, only realizing why a few seconds into stumbling into his trousers.

Nie Mingjue is even faster than him — he’d come back to their quarters late last night after a visit to research and so he’d just fallen asleep in his trousers and undershirt like he used to do more regularly, which means that he’s up and out the door into the pulsing red lights in the hallway while Jin Guangyao (and Lan Xichen behind him) are still hurrying to dress.

“JIN ONE, LET’S GO!” he barks in the direction of the room Jin Guangyao’s brother and cousin share. Jin Guangyao shares a glance with Lan Xichen before they hurry to join their partner out in the hallway, the doors along the corridor clanging open under the wailing sirens in an uneven cacophony as the pilots and the technicians further down the hall finish their own preparations nearly in tandem.

The technicians all run past them, a flurry of hurried jostling and the pounding of boots up the corridor, but the pilots cluster there in the hall, all bright-eyed, if a little confused. Jin Guangyao doesn’t blame them — the countdown clocks scattered throughout the ‘dome report they still have weeks to go before their next attack. But just because Mo Xuanyu’s predictions are frighteningly accurate doesn’t mean they’re incontrovertible fact, and they all know the unpredictability of their opponents too well to be truly shocked.

Jin Zixuan is the first into the hallway, already suited up in his stupid gold and mother-of-pearl getup, but it’s Jiang Yanli at his side, not Jin Zixun. Jin Guangyao feels a faint tickle of something a bit too nebulous to name ‘dread’, though it’s close.

The sirens, their purpose served, shut off abruptly between one wail and the next.

“Where is he?” Nie Mingjue snaps at his normal (still loud) volume.

“I haven’t seen him in over 24 hours, Chifeng-zun, I don’t know,” Jin Zixuan reports steadily enough despite how pale he looks in the lights that are still dropped down to flashing red. Jin Guangyao makes some quick calculations and grips Nie Mingjue’s forearm so tightly his knuckles ache.

“No one else can go,” he says and he’s relieved his voice stays steady as well. “Lotus Spider and Jade Dragon are both stripped down for weapons upgrades, Golden Thunder and Immortal Mountain are docked for maintenance repairs. It has to be Sparks.”

There’s only one way that Sparks Amidst Snow can make the drop, and before his partner has even opened his mouth to give the order Jiang Yanli is turning to dart down the hallway quick as a minnow to the room she shares with Wen Qing.

“Wait! You can’t send jie out like this! Hey–!”

Jin Guangyao ignores Jiang Wanyin — as does Nie Mingjue, who simply turns to begin striding down the hallway. Jin Guangyao falls in at his partner’s left, Lan Xichen at Nie Mingjue’s right, and the remaining pilots, save Jin Zixuan, hurry to fall in behind them, their little group eerily silent as they hurry through the boiling shatterdome up to the comms tower.

“A-Su, go find Xuanyu,” Nie Mingjue orders when they reach the branching hub that leads down to the basements. “Bring him up to comms, I want him in the tower for all drops from now on. Wuxian, Wangji – go give the orders to evacuate the harbor neighborhoods and supervise it. I want everyone who can to take shelter in the nearest bunkers they can access.”

Qin Su, Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji peel off to their assigned tasks without missing a beat. Jin Guangyao has to jog to keep up with Nie Mingjue’s loping stride.

They’re nearly there when the lights drop blue, the siren resumes its wailing, and then they’re all breaking into a dead run, instinct guiding them to react to the emergency warning despite the fact that there’s nothing they can do except wait for Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli to drop.

“Chifeng-zun!” Jiang Wanyin shouts over the whooping alarm. “Jiejie isn’t a combat pilot!! You can’t send her out without backup!”

Jin Guangyao skids to a stop just in time to slam his hand down on the button for the lift up to communications as his partner rounds on Jiang Wanyin with an ugly snarl twisting his face.

“Then you make yourself useful and attempt to find Jin Zixun and another goddamn Jaeger within the next five minutes, but I have an invasion to get under control!”

“Nie Mingjue!!” Jiang Wanyin practically screams, spittle flying, and Jin Guangyao has to admire his balls of steel at least — just because Nie Mingjue is functional that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily well, especially not when there’s no doubt that he knows what they all do; the crux of the matter on both sides is that this will be a suicide mission, and they have to run it anyway. Jin Guangyao knows that it’s not a decision Nie Mingjue is making lightly, but it’s the reality they have to live with. It’s one of the nightmares that keeps his partner up at night, tormenting himself with what-ifs and should-haves, but he’s a good commander. He’ll do whatever it takes.

Even a suicide run.

Before it can become a murder as well, though, Lan Xichen steps between Nie Mingjue and Jiang Wanyin to bodily force Jiang Wanyin to stand down while Jin Guangyao ushers Nie Mingjue into the lift. 

“She’ll be alright,” Luo Qingyang attempts to comfort as they all clamber into the lift after them. “She’s stronger than she looks-“

“I know that!” Jiang Wanyin snaps. Jin Guangyao stays silent and steady at Nie Mingjue’s side, fingertips gently pressed to the inside of his wrist at his side to monitor his partner’s pulse and make sure he isn’t about to pass out from the unexpected stress. “I’m her co-pilot! Me! No one knows what she’s capable of better than I do, and this will kill her!!”

“Jiang Yanli is a world-class pilot,” Jin Guangyao says, his well-trained voice devoid of every emotion roiling through him. “She is aware, as we all are, that every day could bring death, and she chooses to remain a pilot. It’s a sacrifice we are all willing to make.”

“What do you know?” Jiang Wanyin turns to sneer at him, his eyes so wide the whites are visible all the way around. Jin Guangyao can’t really fault him, no matter how irritating this outburst is. “You’ve never even stepped foot out of a ‘dome during a battle, you have no idea what it’s like to face these things head-on —“

Jin Guangyao is too slow to stop Nie Mingjue punching Jiang Wanyin square in the nose so quickly his hand is a blur. Jiang Wanyin crumples to the floor like a sack of rice with a heavy thunk. It speaks volumes about their emotional states that neither Lan Xichen nor Luo Qingyang pass comment, instead merely lifting Jiang Wanyin’s unconscious form between them to carry him into the comms tower when the doors to the lift open again.

“Sparks?” Nie Mingjue barks at Nie Zonghui, mercifully already in his seat and frantically getting the Drift systems up and running. Jin Guangyao flings himself into his own seat to begin his half of the work monitoring the incoming Kaiju, reading miles of data as it pings in from their sensors out in the ocean to give him any information at all that will help them win.

“They just arrived, strapping in now,” Nie Zonghui reports, terse and businesslike.

“Kaiju?”

“It’s stealthy,” Jin Guangyao bites out, still scanning every piece of data that’s coming in with ever-increasing urgency. “I can’t get a read on it, but it’s fast. Not as fast as the last one maybe, but very close to it.”

Nie Mingjue just grunts his acknowledgement and turns to lean over Nie Zonghui so he can press the switch to talk to the pilots, announcing their Drift initiation and giving them their orders once the connection establishes and stabilizes. The orders are quite simple, nothing more than, “Keep it from landing, kill it as quickly as you can,” but Jin Guangyao knows that that’s much easier said than done.

Sparks Amidst Snow drops and they make a beeline straight for the open bay doors, disappearing into the night with the thundering boom of tens of thousands of gallons of displaced water, audible even all the way up in the tower. Inside the communications room, there’s grim silence once again as they watch the glowing dot that marks the Jaeger cross the radar at a quick clip that Jin Guangyao isn’t entirely sure will be quick enough. Not through any fault of Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli’s — they’re in a top of the line Jaeger that’s been further enhanced to be one of the absolute best in the world — but simply because it would seem the Kaiju have learned, yet again, how to best them.

“Cat 5,” Jin Guangyao yelps the moment his scanning attention catches on all the right data points. “Ge—“

“Nothing changes,” Nie Mingjue tells him through a deadly sort of calm, so different from his urgency on the way here. “They’ll get there, or they won’t. They’ll kill it, or they won’t. Our hands are tied.”

That’s remarkably bleak for Nie Mingjue but Jin Guangyao doesn’t have the time to glance at the others in the room to see how they’re taking it. The Kaiju is closing in fast, skimming along the shoreline like it knows it needs to come to the port to do the most damage — which he doesn’t doubt that it does. Thanks to Xue Yang’s experiments, Jin Guangyao has no doubt that the Kaijus they face from now on will be remarkably clever about their attacks in addition to being brutally strong. It’s nigh impossible to tuck that thought away where it can’t hurt anything rather than letting it convince him that they’re fighting a war they’ve already lost, but with a mental wrench he manages it.

Even if it’s a losing battle, a losing war, they still have no choice but to fight it.

“20 miles out, northward, speeding quickly along the shoreline,” Jin Guangyao reports directly to Sparks, clipped and businesslike. The camera feed ‘copters catch up with them just as they swing more directly north, adjusting to the collision coordinates Jin Guangyao is typing as quickly as he can into their navigation system to ping it up on their Jaeger’s map display. “My guess is the goal is to make landfall and cause as much destruction as possible here in Shanghai or else it would have already landed along the way.”

“They’re strategizing,” Jiang Yanli notes, her voice as calm and soft as ever. “Strategies can always be countered.”

“We still don’t know how they think after all this time,” Nie Mingjue leans in to say. “They won’t strategize the way we would.”

“They will likely employ the information that Xue Yang has given them,” she replies, blithe as ever. “And there are only so many ways to reach their goal anyway. Don’t worry, Chifeng-zun, it’ll be alright.”

“Jiang Yanli is a masterful strategist,” Lan Xichen murmurs. “We’ve sent out the best team capable of stopping it, Mingjue.”

Jin Guangyao keeps his certainty that it will still not be enough very firmly behind his teeth.

“Closing in,” he informs Sparks instead. “It’s evading the sensors so I can’t get a good read on its physiology, but you are facing the first ever Category 5 Kaiju. Be careful.”

“I’m here! Why is Jiang-xiong passed out on the floor?”

“Come here, A-Yu,” Jin Guangyao calls his brother away from investigating Jiang Wanyin’s prone form, bloody nose, and blackening eyes. “Category 5.” Those two words are enough to snap Mo Xuanyu out of his lighthearted curiosity and beckon him straight over to the bank of monitors, his expression tight. He sneaks a hand over the back of Jin Guangyao’s chair to clutch at the shoulder of his jumpsuit in a vice grip.

“Is that Zixuan-ge?” he whispers when he spots the flashes of gold in the spotlight beam from the helicopter.

“And Jiang Yanli. Yes.”

The lights in the ‘dome flicker up to their usual sallow yellow abruptly, the emergency alarm switching off now that it’s done its duty. A hush of bated breath and the fear of fish trapped in a barrel suffuses the room as they all turn to watch the video feed when the glowing radar dot that is Sparks Amidst Snow is fully overlapped with the collision coordinates Jin Guangyao had given them.

The battle begins where they can’t see it. A heave of black water and the sun-bright flash of a nuclear charge are their first indication that contact has been made. Mo Xuanyu’s hand tightens further in the thick canvas of JIn Guangyao’s uniform.

When the Kaiju stands up out of the water, Jin Guangyao wonders if souls are real, as he’s pretty sure his has just left his body. The Kaiju towers over Sparks Amidst Snow, the bottom of its long-pincered face easily clearing the peak of the Jaeger’s helmet with an entire torso-length to spare. It’s broad as a building, a wall of black and blue and phosphorescent green in the dancing, jittering beam of the helicopter spotlight. Jin Guangyao counts at least four appendages that could be very loosely qualified as arms before the lamp stops its wandering to focus on one of the Kaiju’s iridescent violet eyes the size of a house, irritating it into screeching so loudly the camera shakes. Jin Guangyao is relieved they can’t actually hear it.

“Qingyang,” Nie Mingjue rasps.

“Sir?”

“Evacuate the ‘dome. I want everyone who doesn’t have to help with this battle down in the basement bunkers. Now.”

Jin Guangyao knows that Luo Qingyang most likely wants to be there in the tower with them where she can at least see what’s happening to her childhood best friend, but she leaves without a word of complaint. She takes Qin Su with her, it sounds like, and the remaining handful of them in the tower drop into a loaded silence again as the fight continues.

It takes roughly three rounds of earth-shaking blows traded back and forth before Jiang Yanli’s voice returns. “It’s pulling its attacks, Chifeng-zun. A Kaiju this size should not be this weak with its offense, I think it’s trying to keep us busy.”

“Tokyo’s reporting the attack,” Nie Zonghui suddenly pipes up at his right. Jin Guangyao tears his eyes away from the battle on the monitor to look at Nie Zonghui’s screen instead, where he’s got news coverage from Tokyo pulled up and muted, subtitles flying as the reporter speaks. “It hit there like Xuanyu predicted the next one would, but it broke off to head for us with no warning.” The playback switches from a reporter down in the evacuated streets to the footage of the fight itself, and sure enough there’s the Kaiju they’re currently dealing with towering even further over Wen Xu and Wen Chao’s mach 4 Eternal Sun than it is over Sparks Amidst Snow.

For the first time since his realization downstairs, Jin Guangyao starts to hope that this won’t be a suicide mission after all. If the Kaiju was already locked into a fight with Eternal Sun and gave them the slip, there’s no way two pilots as egotistical and proud as the Wen brothers will allow it to actually escape them. Their seabed sensors only go out so far, but now that they obviously know exactly where the Kaiju is he returns to monitoring the output from the fringes of their territory practically obsessively, hunting for the signs that will mean there’s something the size of another Jaeger entering their waters.

Backup from the Wen is in every way an absolute last resort, but they don’t exactly have the luxury of being picky at the moment, and there’s no way the Manila ‘dome will be able to get one of their pilots up here in time to help. It’s Tokyo, or it’s nobody.

From the corner, weak and fuzzy, Jiang Wanyin mumbles, “Jiejie?”

Jin Guangyao has no attention to spare for the continuation of Jiang Wanyin’s breakdown, but considering his own brother is out there too he can’t exactly fault the man for being so distraught. He’s trying very hard not to think about it.

“Jiang Wanyin, if you can keep control of yourself you may stay,” Nie Mingjue tells him with no room for argument. “If you’re going to continue questioning my leadership and disrespecting my partner then I will have you forcibly removed and shoved into a bunker with the rest of the ‘dome.”

Sparks Amidst Snow collapses like the world’s largest sack of potatoes into the water and the Kaiju pounces on it, battering it down beneath the waves for a heartstopping moment where all they can see is churning black water capped with foam, erratically lit by the helicopter spot.

“I’ll stay,” Jiang Wanyin whispers, agonized. “I…I have to know.”

The Kaiju erupts from beneath the waves again in a spray of water and bright blood as high as a skyscraper, a gaping hole punched straight through its hide the source of the acid-blue gore. Sparks Amidst Snow emerges a moment later, nuclear core in its chest still glowing from its latest discharge as Jin Zixuan engages the blasters attached to both forearms and sends another round of charges straight at the Kaiju’s face. It’s brutal and inelegant, but effective nonetheless as the Kaiju rears back and collapses down into the water with another shriek that they can’t hear but that must rattle the world for miles.

“A-Li is right, it’s pulling blows,” Jin Zixuan pants into the comms, sounding exhausted already. Mo Xuanyu’s free hand finds Jin Guangyao’s other shoulder as they both lean in, and Zonghui, thoughtful as ever, gets rid of the news from Tokyo to instead pull up the camera feed from inside the Jaeger for the two of them to see. Jiang Wanyin crowds in close as well, even though all that there is to see of their siblings is the light reflecting off the faceguards of their helmets and the obscuring bulk of their Jaeger armor, softly gleaming gold and violet nearly identical in the low light of the cockpit.

“Is A-Yu there?” Jin Zixuan asks next as he begins to go through the motions of charging up his next blaster round in the guns mounted on Sparks’ greaves, Jiang Yanli mirroring him automatically through their Drift. Jin Guangyao doesn’t quite understand how having a non-combat pilot works in a twosome with a combat pilot, but if it works for them then he doesn’t really need to know, at least not mid-battle.

“I’m here, Zixuan-ge!”

“Any idea what it might be waiting for? Reinforcements? Anything??”

“Reinforcements aren’t a thing, ge — the Breach closes behind each Kaiju that comes through, and it’s never opened back up quickly enough to allow a second one out so soon after the first.”

“Well it’s doing something! It feels like it’s..toying with us—“

“A-Xuan!!”

“FUCK!!!”

Jin Guangyao jumps at the sudden tension snapping through both of their voices and scrambles to figure out what it is that startled them so badly, but there’s nothing strange on the sensors, no sign of the Wens yet —

“Zonghui!” Nie Mingjue snaps, “Alert all areas of the city to evacuate into the bunkers immediately. It’s coming.”

Jin Guangyao’s entire body goes cold, understanding dawning. It was waiting for them to drop their guard. To pause. To get tired, as all humans do.

And then, against the aggressive patterns of all Kaiju before it, it left.

Sparks Amidst Snow races at top speed in the wake of the Kaiju. Jin Guangyao keeps anxiously watching the signals for any sign of the Wens giving chase even as his fingers fly over his keyboard, tapping out a furious request for help to be broadcast to every single shatterdome this side of the Pacific. It doesn’t matter anymore if they get here in time or not — if the Kaiju levels Shanghai it won’t stop there, and the others should at least be on alert if nothing else. Someone will have to stop it, even if they can’t.

He barely registers the sound of Zonghui giving the order into the military emergency channel to get the entire city to hunker down.

This deep in the ‘dome the warning sirens out in the city are a quiet, high-pitched whine, soft as a fly buzzing in the corner. He can imagine the panic on the streets, the mad rush to get to safety. The bunkers will hold everyone in Shanghai and then some, they were designed well, but that only works if everyone is where they’re expected to be.

And people so rarely are.

It’s the middle of the night. The pleasure districts will be stuffed full. The business districts, bare. The residential districts will be slow to respond as the inhabitants are roused from sleep and frightened into action.

There will be neighborhoods with half-empty shelters. There will be bunkers so full they physically cannot cram another body into them. There will be children separated from their parents, and partners terrified that they’ll never see each other again as they’re swept away from each other on the street, the panicking crowd dragging them in their current like leaves caught in a diverging stream.

Jin Guangyao cannot panic, he has no time or space to panic, but it grabs him by the throat anyway. It stills his fingers on the keys. His vision dims.

He could be on the street.

He could be laying in the rubble of a battlefield, unable to get up on his own, left to die while the fight rages on around him.

He could die.

The people he loves could die.

Nie Mingjue’s voice echoes from the bottom of a well when he calls a terse, “Xichen.”

Jin Guangyao’s final, faint tether to his surroundings disappears with his brother’s hands leaving his shoulders. His next exhale scrapes his throat raw.

There’s a flash of gold in front of his eyes and he’s staring up at Golden Thunder, her pilots unaware that he’s there, vulnerable, hurt, crying out for sympathy, for rescue, as he’s left behind to die.

“Shhhh A-Yao, it’s me. We’re here.”

“What’s going on with him?!”

Lan Xichen’s voice, soft but urgent, immediately followed by Jiang Wanyin’s sharp bark (that’s absolutely worse than his bite) is enough to drag him clawing back towards reality. The chalky scent of crumbled concrete and the acrid tang of ocean brine and Kaiju blood is replaced with the stale nothingness of the ‘dome’s filtered air on his next rattling inhale. His hands aren’t scrabbling on shredded metal and broken glass, they’re clutched tightly in Lan Xichen’s strong grip and his partner is rubbing slow, firm circles into the undersides of his wrists right over his hammering pulse.

“Father used Yao-ge as Kaiju bait once,” Mo Xuanyu mumbles. Jin Guangyao can’t even find it in himself to care that his most hated secret is out. Lan Xichen is scared, he can see it in his eyes, and it drags Jin Guangyao another precious inch closer to him, away from the edge of crumbling back into the past he can never fully escape. “He snapped his ankle and left Yao-ge right in the path of a Cat 3, as an experiment.”

Jin Guangyao hears Jiang Wanyin say…well, something, anyway. His ears are ringing too much to catch whatever it is he breathes, and quite frankly he doesn’t really care what Jiang Wanyin thinks of him in the end. He can see Lan Xichen’s lips moving as well but he can’t hear him either, much though he wishes he could. His chest is too tight. It feels like every muscle in his body is clenched, attempting to curl in on himself but unable to do so.

The ringing in his ears grows louder and Lan Xichen must see something in his face because a blink of an eye later he’s shifted a bit to the side and Jin Guangyao is getting sick into the wastebin his partner is holding for him.

“Yu-didi, I don’t believe your recounting it is helping A-Yao stop reliving it.”

“Fuck, right, sorry. Sorry Yao-ge!”

“Pull it together, A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue says, quiet and rough and right in his ear, his familiar, heavy grip tight around the straining back of his neck. “I need you.”

Jin Guangyao squeezes his eyes shut and forces his breathing to even out — easier to do once Lan Xichen takes the bin away again and replaces it with himself, letting Jin Guangyao rest his head on his shoulder and breathe as he tries to do what Nie Mingjue needs. If he can’t do it for himself, or even for Lan Xichen, he can do it for Nie Mingjue.

“We have landfall,” Zonghui says. Jin Guangyao doesn’t even have time to shiver before Nie Mingjue is hauling him up from his chair, shoving the chair aside, and yanking Jin Guangyao to his chest to wrap his arms around him so tightly he can hardly breathe.

It tucks all the raw, bleeding parts of him back into the shape of his skin and he gasps as much as he can, hands clawing at his partner’s arms to ground himself as he’s finally wrenched fully back to the present. Sirens are blaring again, the distinctive, irregular, bass whooping that means the Kaiju has reached the shore. He opens his eyes to force them onto the helicopter’s feed again in time to see Sparks Amidst Snow come barrelling out of the water to collide with their foe at top speed, destroying a skyscraper and the cluster of lower buildings around it in one fell swoop.

“The harbor is empty,” Lan Xichen says like a mantra, calm even as he has to raise his voice over the sirens. “Wangji and Wuxian evacuated there first, right when Sparks deployed. They had time. Buildings can be replaced, and we’ll recover from this.”

Jin Guangyao’s heart pounds in his throat and he can’t let go of Nie Mingjue’s arms for fear of losing his way again in this moment when it’s vital, crucial, that he doesn’t. But he can watch his monitor from here; he can stare at lines of data, his familiar, bloodless job that can help him make sense of such a messy universe, and he can do everything in his power to ignore what’s happening in the city to keep watch for what will (hopefully) be the turning point of this battle.

For long minutes, there’s nothing but silence from every person in the room as the whooping siren makes itself background noise, as the lights drop to deep blue to make the ‘dome less of a visible target from the outside, as Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli stop talking even to each other in order to focus entirely on the fight at hand. Jin Guangyao watches his monitor and breathes in time with the pings from each seabed sensor, their dispersing signals guides for each inhale.

Exhale.

He breathes.

The fight rages on.

Until —

:Incoming long-range message:

The cool, feminine AI cuts through the tension and the sirens that shut off in the comms tower alone to allow the message to be heard.

:Tokyo Wen Jaeger Eternal Sun requests flight clearance: the AI recites, the message punctuated by the signal from the sensors that Jin Guangyao has been looking for. There, from the northwesternmost point of their territory — a Jaeger entering Shanghai’s waters at top speed.

Nie Zonghui turns to their own long-range radio and leans in to say, crisp and clear as a mountain river, “Granted.”

The door to the comms tower clangs open and Jin Guangyao jerks in Nie Mingjue’s arms that tighten around him with his own tension.

“ ‘Dome’s empty, all in the bunkers,” Luo Qingyang reports as she and Qin Su step forward to crowd with the rest of them around the monitors. Nie Zonghui switches the camera feed to the interior of Sparks again and only then do the pair let out twin shaky sighs of relief.

“The Wen brothers are incoming, they’ll be here in minutes,” Lan Xichen informs them, calm despite it all. “And Sparks has so far managed to keep the Kaiju within the business district near the harbor — it’s most likely to be empty.”

“It’s the best we can hope for,” Qin Su replies. “They’re doing well.”

“Xuan-ge’s getting tired,” Luo Qingyang whispers. Jin Guangyao doesn’t allow himself to look at the monitor showing Sparks’ internal cam.

“Don’t worry about Zixuan.”

A beat of silence follows Jiang Wanyin’s terse statement.

Naturally, it’s Nie Mingjue who breaks it. “Explain.”

“It’s because of jie. She can’t be putting much of her energy into this fight yet, just enough to support him so that he doesn’t tear himself to shreds. They’re unevenly matched, that’s why he’s tiring out. That’ll change soon.”

“Your Drift!” Mo Xuanyu suddenly pipes up. Jin Guangyao had nearly forgotten he was here, but no, he’s there holding hands with Qin Su (their knuckles are white they’re clutching each other so hard; Jin Guangyao is privately, guiltily relieved that he doesn’t need to soothe his siblings and can instead continue to be comforted himself.)

“Sorry — your drift with your siblings I mean. I was studying it. The reason there has to be all three of you –”

“It has to balance,” Jiang Wanyin cuts in, sharp as a knife. “We’re all too strong for each other in different ways, but if all three of us are there it’s like…it’s like a game of rock paper scissors. We hold each other in check. Jie’s not fit for combat because she can’t commit the standard amount of energy from the start, she has to build up to it. It’s too much for most individual pilots to frontload and they burn out before she can support them, but if there are two pilots to share the load first before she’s needed, or if a single pilot is abnormally good at carrying all the weight of his Drifts because he’s been doing it this whole time without even realizing it…”

Jin Guangyao blinks at that and wonders abruptly if he’s been missing something..horribly wrong with the way his brother and his cousin Drift. He hadn’t ever thought to look into it too deeply (and it’s not like Jin Zixun would welcome his prying into their stats anyway), but if that’s the case, if Jin Zixuan is used to bearing the brunt of all of their fights and he hasn’t even breathed a word of complaint..

“So what’s going to happen when he wears out? Why don’t we have to worry about it?” Nie Mingjue bites, getting to the heart of the matter as they watch another skyscraper crash into uncountable billions of shards of glass, twisted steel raining down to the street as Sparks yanks a massive I-beam support free from the scaffolding to swing at the Kaiju like a baseball bat to the head.

“Jie can’t start out a drop like a standard pilot, but once she’s ready she’s like…she’s like a supernova. She’ll burn straight through him, but before they burn out they’ll be the strongest pilots in the world.”

She’s a furnace, Jin Guangyao thinks a little giddily, stress somehow managing to dredge up some ridiculous notion he once picked up from the trashy Wuxia romance novels he used to steal from Meng Shi when she was busy working. He wisely keeps the thought to himself as they all collectively process what they’re likely about to witness — it still changes nothing. This was a suicide mission from the moment it began, why should it matter that it still is, only instead of dying in the clumsy, mundane way of exhaustion and overwhelm they’ll instead go out in a blaze of glory? The result is miserable either way.

Jin Guangyao startles again at a sudden crackle of static, loud enough that he’d be tempted to clap his hands over his ears were he not still locked up in Nie Mingjue’s arms.

:Shanghai?:

“Nie Zonghui, Shanghai Shatterdome. Eternal Sun?”

:Yeah it’s us. Where is it? What’s happening?:

Jin Guangyao breathes slowly, silently in through his nose and out through his mouth. It’s Wen Xu on the comms, which means they can at least hope for a relatively civil conversation, but that voice still haunts his dreams. He’s heard that voice deliver impossible cruelty with barely a shift in inflection, bland and blithe as if talking about the weather. He’s done horrible things that Wen Xu ordered him to do, speaking on behalf of his father. He’s writhed in agony when Wen Xu ordered him to be tortured for failing to deliver on an impossible promise on at least six separate occasions before Jin Guangyao grew too high in Wen Ruohan’s favor to be so debased.

They need the Wen brothers for this, he knows that, and it’s a miracle that they’ve come in time to be of use. But he’d very much like to curl into a ball and never emerge again so long as they’re within speaking distance of Shanghai.

“Landfall in the harbor, Sparks Amidst Snow is currently keeping it contained to the business district but I don’t know how much longer it’ll stay put,” Nie Zonghui reports, blind to everything but his need to carry them all through this hellish night. At least someone here isn’t moments away from shattering into a thousand pieces. “Just fly straight in, you can’t really miss it.”

:It’s fucking huge, yeah: Wen Xu snorts. :Don’t worry, we’ll mop it up for you:

“Generous of them,” Nie Mingjue mutters mutinously in his ear, shocking Jin Guangyao into finally letting out that hysterical little giggle trapped in his chest. He buries his face in his hands and shakes apart, half-laughing half-sobbing in a way that he wishes could be cathartic.

“A-Yao,” Lan Xichen murmurs with a hand stroking through his hair. “It’s alright, shh.”

Jin Guangyao waves him off and squirms out of Nie Mingjue’s arms to return to his seat, manic giggles still escaping him in bursts as he finally clicks away from the long-range sensor software to instead see if there’s anything they can get from the short-range on the Kaiju’s biometrics now that they’re not also trying to track its position.

“Uh oh,” Mo Xuanyu whispers. “Yao-ge’s losing it.”

Jin Guangyao giggles again when Qin Su reaches up to smack the back of Mo Xuanyu’s head.

A tentative hope is creeping like sunlight through their pocket of artificial gloom. Sparks will be getting a second wind any minute now, if Jiang Wanyin is to be believed. The Wens will be arriving even quicker at the rate they’re running. The Kaiju, having made landfall, seems content to follow all previous patterns now and go for a pummeling offensive, barely a defensive maneuver or escape tactic to be seen. 

They can do this. They can fight like this.

Jin Guangyao doesn’t buy it for a fucking second, but the palpable relief in the room is nice while it lasts.

“Yao-didi?” Jin Zixuan pants into their comms, sounding absolutely ragged. It sobers Jin Guangyao up quickly, his horribly giggling dying down in the sudden swoop of realizing that this may still be the last chance he ever gets to talk to the brother he’s had a…complicated relationship with for so long, but that he still loves for what he is. What they can be.

“I’m here, Xuan-ge.”

“Did they get the pleasure district evacuated? Can you see?”

Jin Guangyao hurries to check the sensors — a delicate task when the kaiju’s signature is everywhere, overwhelming the delicate machinery and filling it with floods of data that muddle the signatures of anything smaller than a five story building.

Thankfully, the bunkers are big enough to register as their own independent signature when they’re full, and as Jin Guangyao seeks them out he finds each one full to capacity, burning bright with the lives of so many of Shanghai’s citizens.

“The bunkers in the pleasure district are full,” he says, because that’s the truth. He doesn’t know if the streets are fully evacuated, but he knows that the bunkers are full. He breathes through another brief flash of stragglers barred entry from safety scrambling for any cover they can find — he doesn’t know if that’s true, and if he torments himself with imagining it then he can’t perform his role here, which does more harm than good.

“Good,” Jin Zixuan groans — and Sparks drops to its knees like a puppet with its strings cut. “I just…I need a minute, I’m sorry-”

Jin Guangyao’s heart is in his throat and Lan Xichen has to bodily pull the others away from the monitors as they try to crowd closer with ragged cries of dismay and fear, boxing Nie Zonghui in too tightly.

“It’s alright,” Lan Xichen soothes them all equally, hands patting shoulders in between restraining them. “He’s alive, he’s okay, it’s just what Wanyin said would happen. They’re still in the Drift, he’s only tired.”

Jin Guangyao watches helplessly as the Kaiju bellows a fresh cry and rushes past the sudden drop in defenses to head deeper into the city.

There’s no way he can realistically feel the impact of its passage here within the ‘dome and 20-odd stories up in the air as they are, but the mind is a funny thing. The floor seems to shudder under his boots in time with the Kaiju’s loping stride through the city, and the vertigo he always gets when he’s down in the streets creeps in, making his head spin as he tries to keep getting a read on the Kaiju. Is it nearly dead? Is it only getting started? He doesn’t know, but if he can find out maybe he can help. Maybe he won’t feel so horrifically useless.

“Oh god.” It’s Luo Qingyang this time, her voice so flat the exclamation barely counts as one. “It’s them.”

It’s who?! Jin Guangyao wants to demand, but considering the Wen brothers still haven’t arrived (any second now, he repeats like a mantra) there are only a handful of people who could elicit that reaction.

“I haven’t seen him in over 24 hours, Chifeng-zun,” Jin Zixuan had said.

“Make it hurt,” he had told Xue Yang. “Make sure he knows who’s behind you telling you to pull the trigger.”

Jin Guangyao tears his gaze away from his data to look at the camera feed only to find it’s been hijacked — it takes a long moment for the offset, grainy CCTV feed to make sense to his scattered mind, but when it does he feels his blood run cold.

There, in the wind and the rain ripping through Shanghai, stands Xiao Xingchen in glowing white. Song Lan in deep black, little more than a pale moon face in the gloom. Between them, sagging with exhaustion and with blood clearly running from both nostrils, is Xue Yang grinning wickedly straight up at the camera, wild-eyed and sharp around the edges despite the fact that he’s only standing thanks to the support of his companions gripping his arms.

Behind them, in the rubble of the street, two barely-identifiable figures attempt to crawl for cover.

Jin Guangyao can tell even through the horrible camera quality that their legs are not at all at the right angles to allow them to get very far.

Xue Yang blows a kiss at the camera before he allows the others to haul him away, but rather than escaping for cover between the buildings they hurry straight down the wide, empty street, the wind whipping their hair and traditional-looking robes in a flurry of movement that has Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan turning to look over their shoulders in tandem, cybernetic eyes glowing pinpoints of light in their faces as they crane their necks up - up - up.

“It’s following Xue Yang,” Jin Guangyao whispers with horrified understanding. “It’s his..his Kaiju Drift. He’s connected to them permanently. They’re tracking him.”

“He’s guiding it inland,” Jiang Wanyin says.

“No,” Mo Xuanyu corrects, softly horrified. “He’s using it as a weapon.”

Jin Guangyao rises to his feet without conscious thought, and Lan Xichen doesn’t attempt to stop him as he approaches the monitor until he’s close enough to see each individual grainy pixel in the footage. Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, and Xue Yang have disappeared out of the frame, but all that means is that there, perfectly captured in the center of it, lie Jin Guangshan and Jin Zixun, twin crumpled heaps in the street outside the brightly-lit facade of the brothel they frequent the most.

Directly in the path of the Kaiju currently barreling through Shanghai unchecked.

His nose is nearly touching the screen when the Kaiju swings into frame and crushes both of them underfoot as casually as he might step on a crumb.

Qin Su screams, hastily muffled in her hand. Mo Xuanyu chokes on a gasp. Jiang Wanyin shouts an inarticulate swear, Luo Qingyang adds her own mess to his in the bin, Lan Xichen grabs him by both shoulders and squeezes hard enough to bruise.

Nie Mingjue plants both his fists on the desk to close his eyes and breathe.

Jin Guangyao processes all of this through the numbing cushion of shock protecting him from losing his mind entirely.

The screen cuts black for a second before their helicopter feed is allowed through the transmission again, as if it wasn’t already clear enough that they’d been meant to see every second of that. Jin Guangyao steps back from the monitor to sit at his desk again and mechanically return to his task.

The fight is still on. The Kaiju is still out there, running rampant and following Xue Yang wherever the others have taken him. If they’ve escaped then it’s likely the Kaiju will as well, and no matter what else has happened there are still civilians to protect.

Jin Guangyao’s hands shake as he types fresh coordinates into the mapping system for Sparks and conveys the same to the short-range radio to deliver to Eternal Sun.

“What happened?!” Jin Zixuan begs through the comms. “Is everyone alright?”

No one seems to have the strength to answer him.

The rest of the battle and its aftermath goes like this:

Eternal Sun sweeps in and drags the Kaiju back towards the harbor kicking and shrieking to pay for its crimes.

Jin Zixuan pushes through his exhaustion to return to the fight when it’s dropped right at his feet.

Jiang Yanli, acting as a reserve of near-boundless energy needed for the final push, screams herself hoarse as she and Jin Zixuan push themselves beyond the limits of what any pilot should ever experience in their Jaeger to deliver the killing blow.

They will never be able to drop again, but will forever be the first pilots to successfully kill a Category 5 Kaiju.

The moment Jin Guangyao confirms the death of the Kaiju, Nie Zonghui yanks them out of their Drift and sends their Jaeger into emergency shutdown to be retrieved later.

Eternal Sun will claim the spoils of the kill, but agree to allow Sparks the glory.

Jin Guangshan and his nephew are dead in the street, and their bodies aren’t able to be cleared away before the news broadcasters catch wind of it and begin plastering the news on every screen in Shanghai.

Jin Guangyao, the moment his duties are done and everyone else’s survival is assured, faints and doesn’t wake for two full days.

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #Pacific Rim AU #background/implied xuanli #background/implied songxuexiao #Jin Guangyao #Nie Mingjue #Lan Xichen #Jin Zixuan #Jiang Yanli #I really don't want to tag everyone who's there since it's most of the ensemble lol #also read a bunch of the fic for funsies last night and this morning and I have two main thoughts: #This fic is a lot better than I give it credit for whenever I'm in the middle of writing it #and I make people 'bark' a lot in this lol #But like. They're in a military setting! It's tense! Orders are barked! what else am I supposed to use?? 😂😅

[grapefruitsketches]

And when I break it's in a million pieces (1/5)

Next

Rated T

Twin Jades post-canon case fic, POV Lan Xichen, angst, hurt/comfort, canon-typical injuries/blood

Chapter 1 - For fytheuntamed’s Untamed Fall Fest Day 8 - Lan Xichen (better late than never!)

Also available on AO3 

“No.”

“Wangji. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“No.”

Xichen sighed, letting his eyes close, letting his mind calm, allowing a patient but firm smile to grace his face.

Lan Xichen had left seclusion only a short few weeks ago. It had become more and more difficult to resist the awareness of the responsibilities he had abandoned, had piled onto his uncle, his brother, maybe even the younger disciples. But even as this understanding crushed him, it had taken still another month for him to finally work up the courage to stand up, to walk out, to announce that he had returned.

Now he just needed to convince his most stubborn family member to let him take those responsibilities back.

“Wangji. You’re busy. You’ve taken on so much,” he looked his brother straight in the eye, “Let me do this for you.” He saw something flicker in his younger brother’s eyes at these words. The smallest motion, but a flinch all the same.

“I’m going with you.”

“Wangji…” but Xichen knew he’d already lost this battle.

A part of him approved of his brother’s resolve. His little brother seemed to intuitively understand that sometimes, whether someone should be trusted should be questioned.

And was Xichen really in a place to criticize such a perspective?

“Fine,” Xichen finally relented, smiling softly at his brother’s unwavering expression, “Perhaps it would be nice to have a companion in this task after all,” he looked into his brother’s eyes, “But only if you truly think you can be spared without too much trouble later?”

His brother smiled almost imperceptibly, and nodded.

--

It was to be Lan Xichen’s first night hunt in… longer than he cared to remember. Even before his seclusion, there had been his sect leader duties, various diplomatic missions, his own personal studies and training there to draw him away from working in the field. After the fallout from the Sunshot Campaign, he had never minded the quiet. But he had to admit, a part of him had missed this.

It had been too long since the Twin Jades had set off on a journey together, just the two of them. Though they walked in silence, a part of him, deep within, smiled.

And another part resented that he dared to enjoy this.

There had been a call for help near Gusu’s western border. Details had been shaky, but the distress real. The pain evident in the letters sent to the Chief Cultivator by those who had lost loved ones. Sent to his brother.

The notion of Wangji as the Chief Cultivator still felt odd to Xichen. It wasn’t that Xichen thought his brother wasn’t suitable for the role – no matter how distinguished and respected the name Hanguang-jun, Zewu-jun had always managed to think even more highly of him than the cultivation world at large – instead, he was surprised that his brother had accepted it. He knew when his brother was happiest: with his guqin, with Wei Wuxian, or, at one time at least, on the road with his brother.

But tedious politicking? Mediating disputes?

His brother could be good at it, if he wanted to be. But did he want to be? Or had the Cloud Recesses been left so damaged, so vulnerable without its sect leader, that Wangji had had to commit himself to something he had never wanted to do? Had every moment Xichen spent wallowing in seclusion, every moment piecing himself together after he had let himself shatter, been a moment tearing his brother apart?

“We are here.” Wangji said, and Lan Xichen shook himself out of his reverie. Centering himself and seeking to take in and enjoy his surroundings.

It was town that could easily be confused for any other in this part of Gusu. Pockets of shopkeepers selling their wares. An inn with only a small handful of rooms. Little houses lining the streets, which mirrored the river’s path.

“Shall we… go to the inn?”

Lan Xichen blinked away memories of other towns, other times, like this, and nodded, following his brother to check in to their rooms. He didn’t fail to notice, but still chose to ignore, Wangji’s long, hard stare. He was concerned. Xichen knew his long silences on their way here hadn’t helped. It was jarring, even to Xichen, flipping their dynamic such that Wangji could now be said to be the more talkative of the two, But perhaps it was simply a result of the choices each brother had made: Lan Wangji had become more connected, more grounded, to the world around him, even as it seemed Xichen was liable to simply drift away at any moment, back to the quiet that had comforted him in seclusion.

Xichen only hoped that through this mission he could assuage these concerns, convince his brother that he could focus on other, more important things.

They arrived at the inn, and Wangji booked their two rooms as Xichen stood by his side, thoughts far away, but ensuring that a part of him maintained a polite smile.

It wasn’t fair, Xichen thought as he allowed himself to rest, to sit on the bed, to close his eyes. Wangji asked for so little, but did so much. Of course Xichen should have seen it coming. Should have known that by offering to take on this call for help, he was effectively asking his brother to join him, to add one more thing to the long list of responsibilities he carried. Xichen sighed, wondering what tasks his brother kept hidden from him, which concerns he kept secret, in order to protect the older brother who should instead be the one protecting him.

A knock at the door. Xichen flinched and immediately admonished himself for wasting time ruminating so darkly when he and his brother had agreed to freshen up quickly, and meet up to begin their investigation. The quiet was comfortable, familiar, easy to fall into. But comfort and familiarity were not what he should be permitting for himself right now. He had taken too much already.

They had work to do. He had to do this – so that Wangji could trust him again, so that Wangji didn’t feel obliged to tag along, could continue his own work without worrying that his brother might be struggling elsewhere.

A knock again, a questioning, “Xiongzhang?”

And Lan Xichen stood himself up, breathing deeply, pulling his mouth into a smile, and was halfway to the door when his brother slid it open.

“I’m coming, Wangji,” Xichen said, not missing the brief look of panic Wangji had carried when he’d slid the door open.

Xichen chastised himself – be on time – he reminded himself. How could he consider himself reliable if Wangji couldn’t even be sure he’d follow the most basic etiquette?

--

They had spent the afternoon making inquiries in town, and Xichen was just… tired. He didn’t think he could handle hearing another story of grief, of hope mixed with fear. Whatever was taking these people seemed to take some kind of sick pleasure in preying on those who were already down. A farmer who had shared an area of land with a friend, who’d disappeared not long after a devastating fire. A man who had vanished shortly after his sister’s marriage to his best friend had fallen apart. A couple who had only just lost a child when one of them had been taken.

Xichen watched as Wangji bowed to the shopkeeper and made his way back to his brother.

“Anything helpful?” Xichen smiled wanly, already knowing the most likely answer.

Wangji, predictably, shook his head, “More of the same. Disappearances. Travelers last seen taking the north path out of town, not rejoining their companions later,” Wangji paused, “But the shopkeeper also said he thought only one was ever taken, even if a pair went out.”

Xichen nodded, adding, “So it would seem our culprit has a type. People it can lure out, maybe it is looking something specific in the victims?”

Wangji hummed in agreement.

Xichen let out a breath, turning towards his brother, “Should we try the path to the woods themselves tomorrow? See what clues may be there? It will be dark soon, and we should eat.”

His brother nodded and two walked back, side by side, not quite in the lock step they had once fallen into so naturally.  

--

Lying in bed that night, staring at a strange ceiling, a long overdue change of scene, Xichen found the familiar thoughts returning to him. The desperation, the anger in da-ge’s face that he had so readily dismissed the last time he had seen him. The pain, the shock of a-Yao when Xichen had finally dared open his eyes to see what he had done. The steely, determined look in his brother’s eyes as he let himself be beaten half to death, as Xichen let it happen right before his eyes.

He had seen, but not understood. Understood, but not quite seen. Both seen and understood, but even then, refused to act.

It was no wonder Lan Wangji, burdened with Chief Cultivator duties as he was, still did not want Xichen to travel alone. To be asked to make observations, assessments, decisions.

Xichen sighed, closing his eyes and trying to coax sleep forward, urge it to take over for now. Lan Xichen had learned the hard way how years of overwork, of insufficient support, could chip away at someone. Could turn someone you thought you knew into someone unrecognizable. He knew his brother to be strong, capable, willing to do whatever was necessary, but he couldn’t let his brother’s appearance of being held together dissuade him. Could not let himself ignore the burdens of being a younger brother. A Chief Cultivator.

Not again.

He needed Wangji to know he could tell his brother anything, ask him for help whenever it was needed. If he wouldn’t, how could Xichen prevent Wangji from breaking, like so many Xichen had supposedly loved but ultimately let down before him?

#untamed fall fest #lan xichen #lan wangji #twin jades of gusu #twin jades of lan #twin jades #the untamed #cql #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #my writing

[gusu-emilu]

Cantatio: Chapter Three

Ship: Lan Zhan / Wei Ying (POV Lan Zhan)

Summary: Once Lan Wangji breaks curfew, there’s no going back >:)

“Lan Zhan, I think you owe us an explanation,” Wei Wuxian said.

“Mn?”

A mischievous fire blazed in his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, slippery, supple.

“What were you doing in Lady Wen’s room after curfew?”

Cloud Recesses Academy AU, Rated T, TW: creepy-crawlies - read on AO3

< Ch. 2 | Ch. 4 > |  chapter list

Lan Wangji stared at the closet door. He clutched Bichen, ready to strike at the slightest movement. The tree rings in the wooden door seemed to blink back at him questioningly.

The closet had refused to open before, but if someone had really screamed inside, he needed to try again.

Lan Wangji yanked at the door with all his strength. To his surprise, it flew open and smacked the wall. The door was so light that Lan Wangji could have moved it with a finger. Why was it so easy to open now? Had someone forced it open and hidden inside?

Despite the glow from lanterns in the room and moonlight from the windows that should have illuminated the closet, its interior was pitch black.

“Show yourself,” Lan Wangji said.

Silence.

There was only one thing left to do. Lan Wangji drew in a breath, braced his muscles, and attuned every one of his senses in preparation. Bichen gave a steady quiver of approval in his grip.

He entered the closet. Its darkness swallowed him greedily.

After a few steps, Lan Wangji found himself not in front of the dusty back wall of an old closet, but beside a bed.

He was in Wen Qing’s room.

The fierce young doctor who had spoken so boldly to Clan Leader Nie was now standing on top of her bed, clutching a blanket in front of her chest and shivering. Her moonlike eyes were wide with terror, her pointed chin drawn upward, her lips in a grimace.

He was in Wen Qing’s room.

A girls’ dormitory.

Rule #7: Disturbing female cultivators is prohibited.

Lan Wangji, head disciple, had broken one of the gravest rules on his first day at the Cloud Recesses Academy, and he didn’t even know how it had happened!

Wen Qing flinched at Lan Wangji’s sudden materialization.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped.

He gaped at her with an expression that said, I have no idea.

A pulsing headache crept into his skull. He felt dizzy. He glanced around the room, which was empty except for them.

“Did someone scream?” he asked.

Wen Qing sighed and stiffened her shoulders. “Yes, that was me. It’s nothing to worry about, though. I don’t know how you got here, but you may leave.”

Lan Wangji blinked. “Why are you atop the bed?”

“Well, I was about to go to sleep, and then I found a…um…a bug in my sheets. I have entomophobia. I’m afraid of bugs.” She shook her head as she spoke, as if she refused to believe the words out of her own mouth.

A miniscule black beetle crawled on the floor next to Wen Qing’s bedframe, wriggling its scratchy legs in mild irritation.

This scene was becoming more and more absurd. Lan Wangji magically appeared in a girls' dorm room, and the cool, composed Wen Qing cowered in fear of a harmless little beetle?

Lan Wangji did the only thing that made sense in this lunacy: help the person in need. He did his best to quiet the hundreds of questions that besieged his mind as he circled around to the other side of Wen Qing’s bed. He bent down to pick up the bug.

“What are you doing?!”

“Transferring it outside.”

“Okay…” Wen Qing exhaled a long, shaky breath.

As Lan Wangji was about to guide the black and green-striped beetle into his palm, a strange bump appeared on its shelled backside. Lan Wangji paused and furrowed his brow.

“Why aren’t you picking it up? Second Young Master Lan?”

The beetle was growing. Rapidly.

“Stand back!” he bellowed.

A terrible crackling sound filled the room as the beetle’s exoskeleton swelled and crunched. Within seconds, the beetle had grown seven feet tall and four feet wide. Its stiff, crooked legs scraped across the wooden floor and reached toward the two young cultivators like the hooked weapons of a demon. Its antenna brushed the ceiling, causing sawdust to fall, and its pincers clicked menacingly.

The beetle had been possessed by a monster!

Lan Wangji unsheathed Bichen and lunged. With a strike and a mighty snap, he sliced off one of its legs. As it flailed in pain, another of the beetle’s legs hurled Lan Wangji to the other side of the room.

Having thrown off its attacker, the beetle now turned to Wen Qing.

Wen Qing had jumped off her bed and into a corner of the room. She dug her fingernails into the wall behind her, her face deathly white and her mouth wide open, too petrified to scream.

Lan Wangji struck the floor with the hilt of Bichen to draw the monster’s attention from Wen Qing. The beetle recoiled at the vibrations in the wooden panels beneath it, then pounced toward Lan Wangji, knocking over a table. Jade china shattered on the floor.

With a powerful leap, Lan Wangji flew into the air and swung his feet in front of him until his body was horizontal. He arched his back as he slipped through the space between the top of the beetle’s head and the ceiling, zipping past one thick antenna on each side of him. He landed on the beetle’s thorax.

He flipped onto his stomach and raised Bichen as energy surged into his biceps, ready to plunge the sword into the monstrous head, but the beetle reared in panic. It jerked its head upward and smacked Lan Wangji into the ceiling. His knuckles cracked against the wooden boards, and his sword was battered off course. The blade pierced the beetle’s right eye instead. Cloudy discharge spurted out of the wound. Lan Wangji tugged at Bichen, but it was stuck in the beetle’s eye socket.

The beetle gnashed its pincer and wildly shook its head. Lan Wangji slid off the beetle’s back and crashed face-first into the floor. He groaned with pain.

The fall had knocked the wind out of him. He gasped and clutched his stomach as he rolled to the side, dodging one of the beetle’s legs that nearly punctured through his torso.

Shing!

An angular white blade flashed through the air. A second blade whirred next to it.

With a thin cry and a thunderous crunch, the beetle’s body was severed in half. It toppled to the floor with a thud.

Lan Wangji looked up, still gulping air that refused to move down his throat.

Between the two chunks of beetle that oozed gunk onto the floor stood Wei Wuxian and Luo Qingyang, back-to-back in a martial stance with swords braced above their heads. A crowd of wide-eyed disciples had formed in the doorway of the dormitory. Some of them were still in their colorful clan robes, which now looked more like various shades of grey in the dark night, while others wore white undershirts, apparently having been roused out of bed by the commotion.

Wei Wuxian grinned and lowered his sword. He let his arm fall slack at his side.

“Nice one, Mianmian! I’ve never seen such a clean strike!”

“What are you talking about, I only got halfway through its body! That was you who killed it.”

“Was it really? Hey, Lan Zhan, did you have a good view of that? Did you see which one of us slayed the monster?”

Lan Wangji was still on the floor, barely comprehending the words that bounced off his dazed mind, but he was finally able to breathe again. He propped himself up with his hands, his knuckles bloody. He looked at Wei Wuxian with dizzy eyes.

“Lan Zhan, are you okay?”

“WHAT IS GOING ON?! HOW THE HELL DID A GIANT BEETLE GET IN HERE?!” Nie Mingjue yelled as he shoved disciples aside and barreled into the room.

Lan Xichen sprung in right behind him. “We came as soon as we heard! Is everyone alright?”

“Yes, everyone is safe,” said a voice above Lan Wangji. It was cool and steady as ice.

Wen Qing had appeared next to him. She stood motionless with her hands folded at her chest and her lips gently pursed. All evidence of her previous hysteria had disappeared from her face. Even her hair had been smoothed down to a silky sheen.

“Second Young Master Lan needs injuries treated, but the rest of us are well. I owe much thanks to Young Master Wei and Lady Luo. They arrived in the nick of time. I give my gratitude to Second Young Master Lan as well for a valiant fight,” she continued.

Jiang Yanli rushed into the room and embraced Wei Wuxian. “A-Xian!” she cried.

Wei Wuxian laughed and patted her back. “I’m okay, Shijie.”

“I’m so sorry we did not arrive sooner," Lan Xichen said. "We have failed you as senior disciples. All of you, you have done a spectacular job in slaying this beast. The clan leaders will be very impressed."

Luo Qingyang bowed. “Thank you, Young Master Lan.” She frowned and turned to Wen Qing. “Lady Wen, why did you tell us everything was fine after we heard you scream a few minutes ago?" It was a sparse show of concern for the enemy Wen disciple, but concern nonetheless.

“Everything was fine, until that vermin transformed into some spawn of Hell,” she said bitterly.

Lan Wangji raised his eyebrows. When he appeared in Wen Qing’s room, everything had, in fact, been far from fine. Wen Qing had been crying on top of her bed like a child, held captive as a beetle the size of a fingernail took free reign of her dormitory.

But Lan Wangji thought it would be prudent for him to omit that information.

“That’s great, but how did it get here?” said Nie Mingjue.

“I do not know,” Wen Qing answered.

Nie Mingjue glared suspiciously at Wen Qing but did not press further. Lan Xichen bent down and helped Lan Wangji to his feet.

“Can you stand?”

He nodded and stepped out of his brother’s hold.

Wei Wuxian was swinging his sword casually at his side and beaming at everyone as they spoke.

“Lan Zhan, I think you owe us an explanation,” he said.

“Mn?”

A mischievous fire blazed in Wei Wuxian’s eyes. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, slippery, supple.

“What were you doing in Lady Wen’s room after curfew?”

Lan Wangji blinked.

Lan Wangji had never been one to care if others stared at him, or judged him, or whispered about him as he walked past. He was a righteous young man. If people wanted to slander him, their words would fall upon deaf ears, incapable of bruising his ego or damaging his reputation.

But now, standing in the middle of a girls’ dormitory with his breath short and his chest throbbing, he was aware of every pair of inquiring, juvenile eyes that bore into his soul. His face was hot as a furnace.

He felt insecure.

And for some reason, the fact that it was Wei Wuxian who raised this question against him made him feel twice as insecure.

Lan Wangji fumbled for words. What explanation could he give? He didn't even know how he got there. There was nothing more to do than shoulder the blame and move on, but his voice would not function.

Eventually, it was Wen Qing who spoke. “Wei Wuxian, I think you could ask yourself a similar question. Why were you out after curfew with Lady Luo?”

“Oh, ahaha, yes.” Wei Wuxian fiddled with his earlobe. “Ummm, first I’d like to say that Lan Zhan should really be answering before me, but anyway—”

“I was giving him a present,” Luo Qingyang interrupted.

“Yes, she was!” Wei Wuxian stuck his index finger in the air, then reached into his robes and pulled out a satchel of fragrant herbs. “See, she was just thanking me for a favor I did! We didn’t have the chance to meet until late at night. A lot of the other disciples were out too—so many that we didn’t even realize it was past curfew.”

Nie Mingjue frowned and glanced over his shoulder. The fully-robed disciples in the doorway shifted uncomfortably.

“Okay, that's my story. Lan Zhan? Are you going to answer now?” Wei Wuxian said.

Lan Wangji straightened his spine. “Wangji has violated Gusu Lan Clan rules and accepts due punishment.”

“No, hold on,” Luo Qingyang said. “Clan Leader Nie, Young Master Lan, it was my fault. I invited Second Young Master Lan to give him a present, too. I wrongly insisted on having him wait in my dorm while I talked to Young Master Wei, and he was too polite to refuse. Luo Qingyang is sorry.”

Lan Wangji opened his mouth to protest this blatant lie, but before he could, Wei Wuxian made a low ‘bzzt’ sound and shot him a look of warning.

"Oh, you know what, now that I think about it? I remember that. That's exactly right," Wei Wuxian chimed.

Nie Mingjue shook his head. “You’re all halfwits. Classes haven’t even started yet, and you’re breaking rules left and right.” He whipped around to face the doorway. “What’re you all staring at? Shouldn’t you be sleeping in your dorms?!”

Like a dropped piece of jewelry that burst apart into its fragile beads, the disciples scampered away in all directions. In the frenzy, Nie Huaisang tripped on his robes and fell. He looked up guiltily at his older brother, then fled with a yelp.

“Well, Mingjue, you’re right that classes haven’t started yet,” Lan Xichen said. “Since it’s so early, let’s give everyone a pass for what happened tonight. After all, these four did slay a monster. We're lucky they're still with us.”

Nie Mingjue snorted. “It’s not like I was going to go through the trouble of telling Lan Qiren, anyway. Scaring them into behaving is good enough for now. After all, Baxia is always ready," he said as he hovered his saber in the air and glowered at the four disciples below him. But a playful levity flickered through his voice.

“…Yes.” The corners of Lan Xichen’s eyes crinkled with loving disapproval.

As the thrill of the night’s battle died down, Lan Wangji felt calmness return to his mind. However, the calmness was soon shattered by the memory of the closet door that apparently teleported him into Wen Qing’s room.

There were two things he needed to address.

“Brother. I have broken clan rules. I must—”

“Wangji, no,” Lan Xichen said.

“Tell—”

“Wangji, return to your dorm.”

“Brother—”

“Please, it’s alright. You have been pardoned. Go tend to your injuries.” He turned away. "Mingjue, let's begin cleaning the remains of this monster so these young women can go to sleep."

Lan Xichen assumed that Lan Wangji would only insist on disciplining himself. Lan Wangji did not need his brother’s permission to atone for his crimes—he would do that anyway. He wanted to talk about the closet door.

Lan Wangji started toward Wen Qing instead, but he was pulled back by Wei Wuxian.

“You heard the man! Back to the dorm it is! I’m a rule-follower now, did you know that, Lan Zhan? It’s my duty to keep you in line! Otherwise, who knows what scandalous things you might do?"

After a round of tugging and bickering, Lan Wangji found himself accompanied by Wei Wuxian to the infirmary to gather medical supplies, then drawing his mouth into a thin line of forfeit when Wei Wuxian insisted on carrying them all. And last he was trudging along next to his spirited roommate down the moonlit stone path and dewy grass trail to their duplex.

"...Thank you," Lan Wangji said.

Wei Wuxian cocked an eyebrow. "For what?"

For protecting Wen Ning from bullies. For saving me from the monster. For caring about my injuries.

All these words danced on his tongue. But in the end, Lan Wangji let the night breeze answer for him.

When they arrived at the dorm, Lan Wangji immediately marched over to his closet. He hesitated, then pulled the door.

It was locked again.

This was very, very strange. Lan Wangji glared at the door, feeling offended. It had gotten him into a lot of trouble.

Could it be that somehow this closet held a portal to the girls' dormitory?

He needed to set this straight. First thing tomorrow, Lan Wangji resolved to speak to Wen Qing.

Unfortunately, he soon learned that it would be very hard to keep Wei Wuxian out of his business.

* * *

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