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mlm-writer · 3 years

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Rutterly Filled (Omega!Wei Wuxian x Alpha!Male!Reader)

Pairing: Omega!Wei Wuxian/Wei Ying (The Untamed ver.) x Alpha!Male Reader (NOT trans-friendly) Rating: Explicit Words: 3416 POV: Second Summary: You have not had a rut ever since you have been captures with the other Wens. Now things are going well on Burial Mounds, your body decides it is time. Unfortunately, your prolonged period of being rutless meant your next one was going to be extreme. Fortunately, the Yiling Patriarch is secretly an omega and you two have been flirting ever since you met. Notes: This is 200% self-indulgent. I saw the twink, I fell in love, I wanted to wreck him. Do I need an excuse? Tags: Omegaverse, a/b/o dynamics, ruts, idiots in love, being in a relationship without realising it, reader is a himbo, loss of control, magical restraints, breeding, knotting, multiple orgasms, does Wei Ying have a dick and a pussy or a dick and an ass? up to you!, self-lubrication, fingering, blowjobs, facials, handjobs, gēge kink and fuck or die

There was no qi flowing anywhere. The only thing that filled your ‘internal stream’ was utter rage. “I told Wen Qing this would not work without a golden core!” You exclaimed as you got up and started stomping around. The alpha pheromones were rolling off you in waves and you were low key glad you were the only alpha present on Burial Mounds or you would have started a fight the second you caught a whiff of any other alpha.

“It was still worth a try. I do not think there is a way to stop your rut now.” You stomped around Wen Qing. You did not want to lash out at her. Were it not for her concoctions, you would have gone into rut a few days ago without a backup plan at all. Your hands clenched and unclenched at your sides. “There is one thing I have not yet told you.” You let out a grunt, indicating you were listening. “Wei Wuxian is an omega and has offered to help you through your rut.”

You stilled for a second. The Yiling Patriarch was an omega. It only took a second for you to process. Wei Wuxian was not known to adhere to any stereotype or standard. It was not crazy to think that the Yiling Patriarch, a figure that induced fear and hate in many cultivators, was a fragile omega. He may carry himself around like a big figure, but truth to be told, he was skinny like a twig and if he was not such a good fighter, anyone could snap him in half. It all made sense, it was not a crazy thought.

“Master Wei has saved my life. I am already indebted to him. I will wait out my rut in the tent Wen Ning set up in the woods.” You were already walking to the door of Wen Qing’s humble hut, but she stood in your way. Sometimes you suspected her of being an alpha as well. One never knew, when cultivators could just simply suppress their second gender, making them all appear like betas.

“You have not had a rut in a long while due to the poor conditions we have been under. Your first rut in a while may be much more intense than you are used to.” You clenched your fist, digging your nails into the palm on your hand. Your eye twitched. “Wei Wuxian can defend himself against you, should there be any need. He is also the only omega on the whole mountain. His only condition is that you do not mark him.” You violently shook your head before you could agree to it. The man was the prettiest boy you had ever laid eyes upon and while you two had been flirting, you had not yet confessed that every flirty word you shot his way was truthful. The thing between you two, unnamed and not yet romantic, was too good to risk.

You walked away from the door, before you were going to physically lash out at Wen Qing. “I will not take advantage of master Wei. I owe him too much already.”

“Your excuses are so weak, I’m starting to think that you don’t think I’m attractive.” Your whole body whipped to the door, where the omega in question had appeared with a pout on his face that made you want to kiss him. His lips were pink and glistening. They looked so full and soft. Wen Qing told him to get out, but you already caught a whiff of the omega scent you had never noticed on him before. Before you had any control of your tongue, you had agreed to spending your rut with Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch. Want bubbled up from deep within you. There was no way back now.

You followed him and his scent like a blind puppy, as he let you between trees to a tent Wen Ning had set up earlier in case you could not suppress your rut. You saw the dark red fabric in the distance, when suddenly you were caged against a tree by Wei Wuxian. “Scent me,” he whispered into your face and he did not need to say it twice. You rubbed your nose all over his neck and down to where it met his shoulder. You took deep breaths, letting your lungs fill with the sweet and spicy scent that you from now on would know as Wei Wuxian. You didn’t know how long you were rubbing yourself on him and smelling him, but after a while, the fog of alpha hormones cleared and you had a bit more grip on what was going on and what was about to happen. “Better?” Wei Wuxian giggled as he rested against you. You held him close and slowly breathed in his scent.

After a few slow breaths, you nodded and took his hand to drag him to the tent. It was big enough that you two could stand inside and there were supplies inside, mostly food and water, but also extra robes. You didn’t hear the sound of a lake behind the tent, as you dragged Wei Wuxian inside and pushed him down onto the straw mat on the ground. You crawled on top of him, but as your eyes met his, you were awfully aware of how you were acting. “Sorry, maybe we should talk about what I can and cannot do, before I lose all my patience.” Wei Wuxian laughed and shifted so you two were sitting on the straw mat, facing one another. His robes had fallen open a little and the sight of his chest threatened another frenzy to make itself known.

“You can do anything, but try not to claim me. It is a little early in our relationship for that.” You almost choked on your own saliva and started coughing. Wei Wuxian handed you a waterskin, but you needed a solid minute, before you had enough breath to actually attempt drinking anything.

“I’m sorry, but… relationship?” You watched Wei Wuxian through teary eyes from your coughing fit. He seemed to turn red in an instant, his face now matching the ribbon in his beautiful silk black hair.

“Yes? I mean I thought… we always flirt? And we drink together and you sometimes feed me at dinner? We also cuddled when we were drunk? I know we never talked about it, but we are in a relationship or something… right?” You stared at him, a little dumbfounded. He did not lie; those things happened. You just took all those things for things Wei Wuxian would do with anyone.

“I didn’t think of it that way,” you immediately regretted your words as you could see Wei Wuxian’s heart breaking all over his face, “but! But! But!” He looked at you, hopeful in a way that seemed plainly desperate. “I want it to be that way! I just didn’t realise what we were, but I want to be…” There was a flare of hormones and you shuffled forward to bury your nose against Wei Wuxian’s scent gland. “I want you, even when my rut is over, but also now. Right now.” A slight shift and you noticed you were hard between your legs.

Wei Wuxian might have noticed it too through your robes, because he was shoving at your clothes. You stood up, ripping everything off in a hurry and grabbing Wei Wuxian by his ponytail. You pulled at it until his lips were around your hard cock. You let out a moan of relief, as he immediately started sucking on the length. He resisted when you tried to get him to swallow more of you. Wei Wuxian only took the tip, but with the way he was sucking and licking, it was enough for now. You threw your head back, grunting into the air, while Wei Wuxian sucked you off. His tongue cupped the head of your cock and played with the ridge between the head and the rest of your length. The wet sounds of his mouth seemed so loud in the small space. Before he even took more of you in his mouth, you grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. Wei Wuxian took the hint and with a wet pop he pulled his mouth off your cock. You would have protested, were it not for the hand on your hard length.

The cultivator squeezed the knot at the base of your cock, everytime his hand was at the bottom of your length. You looked down at him, seeing him with his tongue out, a smile hinting behind that lewd expression, cheeks a beautiful rosy colour that matched his spit-glistened lips. You let out a groan and kept a firm grip on his shoulder. Ropes of cum spilled from your cock. Wei Wuxian’s face, hair and robes were painted white with your seed. When he finally let go of your cock, your face heated up at the sight of him. A mixture of embarrassment and arousal swimmed inside your belly. “I’m sorry,” you whispered out of breath, but Wei Wuxian just smiled at you and started taking his soiled robes off, wiping himself off with a sleeve. When he was mostly clean off your cum, he laid himself down on the straw mat, completely naked and stretched out like a meal for you to devour.

“Don’t apologise, I want this too,” he confessed with flushed skin and a hard omega dick twitching between his legs. You kneeled down and hoisted his legs onto your shoulders. Your tongue automatically fell from your lips at the scent of omega slick filling your nostrils. Lapping up the slick that had escaped his wet hole and trickled down his thighs, drew a gasp from Wei Wuxian’s lips. “Don’t tease me.”

You huffed out a laugh at the annoyance in his voice. “Or else? Will the Yiling Patriarch haunt me like a ghost and eat me?” You didn’t let Wei Wuxian reply. You held him up with one hand and pushed your tongue inside, the other hand touching his cock. The omega mewled and moaned as if he was putting on a show for you. Maybe he was. When was Wei Wuxian not making a scene? “Wei Wuxian sounds so perfect,” you growled as you licked the slick off your lips.

“If you are going to knot me until I can’t walk, at least call me Wei Ying,” the demonic cultivator huffed, his eyes ravishing your body. You smiled as you put his legs around your waist and lined your cock up with his wet hole.

“Wei Ying is perfect.” And with those words, you slid into his heat. Wei Ying gasped as he stretched around your thick alpha cock, the slick making the slide easier, but he was not in heat. You got halfway, before the resistance became too much. “Wei Ying needs to relax,” you grunted as you rutted inside him, micromovements trying to make further entrance possible.

“You’re too big,” he complained, hands on your arms and squeezing your biceps. You leaned down and caught his lips in a biting kiss. Soft, pink lips turned red under your onslaught. A hand made its way to his throat and he gasped deliciously against your wet lips. Wei Ying squirmed and gasped for breath as you frantically fucked his hole open until you were slipping in deeper. “So big, too big, I’m going to tear in two!”

You would be more concerned for him, were it nog for the thick cloud of alpha hormones clouding your judgement. Instead of sounding fearful, Wei Ying’s voice fuelled the fantasy of a helpless omega at your mercy. “Pretty omegas like you can handle this,” you growled in a voice no one woud have recognised as your own. Both hands landed on Wei Ying’s hips and you sat up, so you could thrust inside him with vigour.

Wei Ying’s voice would have been audible from miles away as he screamed mostly in pain. Coherent thoughts had long left your mind and all that was left was ‘mark’, ‘claim’, ‘fuck’, ‘knot’ and ‘breed’. Pleasure was all on your mind as you closed your eyes to fully enjoy the stretch of Wei Ying’s walls around your cock. That was until you found yourself unable to move. “No! No! No!” You growled as Wei Ying slid off your cock. He pushed you onto your knees and sat down across from you.

“I’m sorry, alpha, but don’t worry I will not leave you like this,” he croaked out as he struggled with sitting down comfortably. His chest rose and fell in deep, but ragged breaths. You now noticed the redness around his eyes and the wetness on his cheeks. Worry paved a little clarity in the lustful fog dominating your head.

“Cruel bastard,” you found yourself snarling back, in spite of the seed of worry Wei Ying’s image planted deep inside you. Before even the last syllable left your lips, Wei Ying had his hand tight around your cock and stroked, drawing a guttural groan from you. “That’s not enough, I need more,” you breathed out at the torture that was the grip of Wei Ying’s hand. It felt good, but his omega hole had felt so much better.

“And I need more preparation, I am not in heat,” Wei Ying huffed back as he reached behind himself. You could hear the wet squelch of him fingering himself and it drove you into a frenzy. You demanded being released, so you could once more claim your omega, but Wei Ying did not release you. He let you cum with his hand. Once he needed a better angle to shove more fingers inside, he switched his hand for his mouth, so he could support himself with one hand while he tried to shove his whole fist inside. His mouth felt better than his hand, but you already had had a taste of paradise and this was not it.

“You’re open enough, please, I feel like I’ll die,” you whined, shortly after you covered Wei Ying in your fourth load. No matter how often you came, it would not be enough until you knotted the omega in front of you. Wei Ying seemed to take mercy on you and he turned around. Wei Ying lowered himself onto your cock. The mercy got you moaning. You could see where you entered him as he bounced on your cock, his hole gripping your length visibly. “Yes, you feel so good omega,” you moaned as he rode your fat length. “Release me and I’ll pound you so good. I will knot you and fill you with my cum and then pound you again.” Wei Ying gasped, a hand moving to his cock to stroke it. The smell of his slick as it dripped down your cock was intoxicating.

“Gēge, you talk so indecently when you’re in a rut.” You wanted to pin him down and fuck him so bad when he called you ‘gēge’ and Wei Ying seemed to know. The glint in his eyes as he shot you a look over his shoulder was quite telling. “But I’m afraid gēge will break me if I release him. Gēge is such a strong alpha and I’m just a frail omega,” he spoke dramatically, knowing fully well he was far from a frail omega. His words would have made you cringe were it not for the fact you were in a full-on rut. The idea, the thought, the image of him being so fragile and breakable and at your mercy suddenly got something flowing in you. The feeling was unfamiliar, as was the strength it brought.

You had no mind to think about it, but enough instinct to use it. With this new-found energy, you broke yourself free from whatever was holding you in place and grabbed Wei Ying by the back of his neck. A hard shove and Wei Ying was face down, ass up on the ground with your cock plunging into his wet hole. “Maybe they are right, the Yiling Patriarch is cruel,” you drew a loud moan from the man below you with a hard thrust, “and evil.”

Wei Ying did not move from where you had him. Instead, he took your punishing pace with the prettiest moans you ever had the honour of hearing. His voice filled the tent with a symphony of pleasure, which only grew louder when you pressed inside and your knot slipped in. Wei Ying screamed in pleasure and pain as you slotted the two of you together and filled him up with your hot seed.

Still, it was not enough. He was beautiful, had the most breedable body you ever laid eyes upon. How could it be enough to only fill his slick hole once?You only stilled for a minute inside of him, before you pulled out until the knot pulled painfully at the inside of his rim. Then, you pushed back inside, as deep as you could go. Wei Ying whined as you fucked him like that, the knot dragging against his walls and drawing out the melody of pain mixed with pleasure. He moaned and screamed about how he was stretched to the limit, but there was no urgency in his voice this time.

Everything was a blur from there. Somewhere between rutting inside him and fucking him with your knot, Wei Ying had gone near-silent. His ass had become so open that your knot no longer served its purpose of keeping you inside as you spilled your seed. You didn’t know how many rounds you went, how often you filled the Yiling Patriarch with your load or how often the omega came himself. In one final mind-blurring explosion of pleasure, you passed out. Whether it was on top of him or if you managed to fall beside him was out of your control.

When you woke up, however, you found Wei Ying on top of you. The smell of sex still hung heavy in the air, mixed with pheromones, both alpha and omega. A groan left your dry throat as you lifted your head to take a look at the man to whom you were indebted with your life, twice. He looked like he was not going to wake up for another 100 years. You tried to brush the hair out of his face, but your fingers got tangled in the silk black strands. Guilt filled your heart at the sight of bruises on his hips and sides. A respectful look down revealed there was still cum dripping out of his hole.

You untangled yourself from him. It took you a good hour to get Wei Ying cleaned up and placed on a clean towel; the straw mat was completely ruined. You had him on his side, still sleeping peacefully, while you tried to comb the tangles carefully out of his hair. You were almost done when you noticed him stir. “Wei Ying?” You called out softly, hand shooting for the waterskin. You held it to his lips. “Don’t move; drink first.” To your surprise, he obeyed. He tried to sit up, but winced. You took the hint and helped him sit on your lap, the gap between your legs perfect for his ass to rest between with no pressure on it. “I’m sorry. I lost control.”

Wei Ying blinked at you and then reached for the jar of wine in the corner. You chuckled and handed it to him, still cradling him close. He took a few gulps, before speaking up. “I thought I would die,” he pouted in a somewhat playful way that gave you conflicted emotions about his words. “Gēge, you were such a monster. Next time, I will use a stronger talisman to keep you down.”

You inhaled sharply. ‘Next time’, he had said. You licked your dry lips and nodded, agreeing with him. A signature smile painted the omegas lips, before he snuggled closer to you. “Gege is adorable when he is worried about me. I’ll be fine, I swear. Just don’t make me do anything for a few days.” You let out an empty laugh, relieved and still worried. Another nod as you put a hand on his head, holding it close to your shoulder. You twisted your head, placing a kiss upon Wei Ying’s temple. He hummed happily and closed his eyes.

“Wei Ying! You need to eat before you go back to sleep!”

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stiltonbasket · 3 years

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Prompt for renouncement verse. At some point before the Oh my god this is a real marriage moment, when Wei Wuxian realizes Lan Qiren doesn’t see him as a nuisance at best, and a dark spot on Lan Wangji’s sparking reputation at worst. (Or, if you feel so inclined, is forcibly made to realize that Lan Qiren cares about him, since it seems the key to making Wei Wuxian realize these things is through aggressive validation.)

(author’s note: please reblog, since that’s how we get prompts for future chapters!)

In all honesty, Wei Wuxian wasn’t expecting his marriage to be received very well by the Lan sect. He expected that the elders would all be against it, starting with Lan Qiren; but the elders clearly weren’t against it, because they were the ones who wanted him to marry Lan Zhan in the first place.

(He still hasn’t figured out why, of course, but that’s beside the point.)

But in much the same way, Wei Wuxian assumed that the rest of the world wouldn’t care whom he married. He doesn’t have any special privileges or rights as the Chief Cultivator’s spouse, and the title Zewu-jun bestowed upon him is only a formality; all he does in the Cloud Recesses is mind his own business, so why would anyone outside Gusu Lan care about his presence at the conference?

“What does it matter if you’re not doing anything wrong now?” a tall, well-built youth from Baling scoffs. “You’re here, aren’t you? That’s just proof that you--that you seduced his Excellency for your own ends, and now you’re going to take over the sects through him, since you couldn’t do it with your dark cultivation!”

Wei Wuxian hasn’t seduced anyone, since he’s one of the only chaste married men in the world, but he can’t exactly say so to this idiotic young master. “Do your sect leaders know you’re here?” he sighs, too exhausted by the day’s debates to bother arguing. “I can send a butterfly to fetch them, if you’re lost.”

“See that!” someone from the Pingzhou Cheng sect snaps. “He even learned the Jin sect’s messenger butterfly technique! That’s secret knowledge, and--”

“My brother-in-law taught me,” Wei Wuxian says idly, tapping his fingers on Chenqing and grinning when the boys in front of him blanch and take a step backwards. “And Jin Guangyao taught him, sometime after they took their vow of sworn brotherhood. Now, do you mind getting out of my way?”

“You ought to do his Excellency a favor and take yourself out of his way!” one of the youths in the back yells. “Have some shame, Wei Wuxian!”

Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to reply--this time by pretending to call Wen Ning, just to see the boys squirm--but someone else wearing white and blue appears before he can say anything, whipping out a familiar ferule and throwing himself in front of Wei Wuxian.

“For shame!” Lan Qiren barks, cracking his ruler over the boys’ heads until they howl and back away. “What grounds do you have to say so to the Chief Cultivator’s husband, and the father of his children--and what sort of ingrate speaks against another’s marriage, when your own clans were honored at the event as courtesy demanded? Never, in all my days, have I heard such blatant discourtesy--now begone! I will be having words with your sect leaders, make no mistake, and you will be serving punishment for your behavior if you have the face to attend the Lan lectures with your clan in the spring!”

Cowed, the young men bow hurriedly and flee as quickly as they can, holding their bruised heads as they go. Lan Qiren scoffs and tucks his ferule back into his sleeve, and then he takes Wei Wuxian by the sleeve and hauls him back down the corridor towards the banquet hall.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Shufu,” Wei Wuxian offers, while Lan Qiren’s pale face turns purple with fury. “I didn’t mean to--”

“Sorry, indeed!” Lan Qiren snaps. “If Wangji were to hear of this--well, I will tell him all the same, since you are his husband and under his care, and it is his duty to defend your honor. I am sorry that I had to hear my own family insulted in my presence, but what do you have to be sorry for?”

“They really didn’t say anything about Lan Zhan, though!” he protests. “They just said they he was, um, fooled into marrying me, and it’s a reasonable thing to believe when Lan Zhan is so good, and I’m...”

“You are good for Wangji,” his uncle-in-law scolds, in no uncertain terms. “You are a good senior to the little ones, and an excellent father to A-Yuan and Xiao-Yu, and your presence in the Cloud Recesses has cheered Wangji up immensely, not to mention Xichen. I do not wish to see you tolerating such disrespect again, Wei Ying. Is that clear?”

Winded, Wei Wuxian nods and almost trips over the high threshold to the banquet hall. “Clear as day, uncle! This discip--nephew will reflect, and endeavour to handle the situation more prudently next time.”

“See that you do,” Lan Qiren sniffs. “Now, go back to Wangji, and don’t wander away again. And for heaven’s sake eat something, you're as pale as a sheet.”

And with that, he sweeps away towards the Lan side of the feasting chamber, leaving Wei Wuxian to gather up his glittering skirts and return to his husband’s side.

“Xingan,” Lan Zhan says anxiously, taking Wei Wuxian’s hands and guiding him down onto the gilded seat at his right. “Where did you go? I only turned around for a moment, and then--”

“Xiang-gong,” Wei Wuxian returns (because he does like to make Lan Zhan smile, even if they don’t have that sort of marriage, and he’s allowed to like it.) “I’m sorry, Lan Zhan. I got distracted.”

“Do not leave my side again,” Lan Zhan scolds. “Here, take some of the noodles.”

He picks up a few spicy noodles with his chopsticks, and holds them to Wei Wuxian’s mouth in front of everyone: not even bothering to hide his hands with his sleeve, like he does whenever he eats, as if everyone was supposed to see this!

“Shameless!” Wei Wuxian whispers, as he takes the mouthful. “Lan Zhan!”

“My sweet husband,” Lan Zhan whispers back. “Eat.”

Wei Wuxian nearly blushes himself to death on the spot.

(But that’s been a regular feature of his marriage so far, so he survives. Unfortunately.)

#wangxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #wangxian arranged marriage au #renouncement verse #also known as: shufu protects duckling number 3 #he loves his nephews!#ALL of them!#and that includes wei ying #T-T

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buffintruder · 4 years

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can you imagine what the untamed would have been like from Lan Sizhui’s pov because that would have been so funny

like first of all, you’re just going about your regular business, hunting evil spirits with your squad, and you meet this guy who used to be part of the Jin sect but got kicked out and apparently is crazy and always wears a mask? but he’s also clearly being mistreated by his family, and you know that whatever got him kicked out, he does not deserve this humiliation and abuse

you feel sorry for him, even when he stomps a spirit-summoning flag into the ground and runs unprotected into the middle of a fight and generally causes mild distress and irritation to your fellow juniors.

except then it turns out he actually seems quite competent and he even figures out a lot of what’s going on with the goddess statue, and sure he has weird habits, but he is nothing like how Jin Ling describes his bastard uncle. also maybe he summoned and sent away the Ghost General with his flute? but that’s impossible because the Ghost General should be ash, and anyway, the only one who could control the Ghost General was—

And that’s not even the weirdest part, because then Hanguang Jun arrives. You are certain the two of them have not been close in the past, because surely he would have mentioned it, and besides, when would their paths even have crossed?

But Hanguang Jun is your adopted father/mentor figure, and even though he has shown you nothing but kindness, you know how stoic and reserved he is to the rest of the world. Yet he treats Mo Xuanyu with a care you have never seen him offer to anyone besides yourself and his brother. He is never like this around strangers, and you don’t understand what is going on.

(edit: now on ao3)

You part ways, then meet back up again not too long afterwards, and any pretense Hanguang Jun might have had at not being incredibly close to Mo Xuanyu dissolves. When they fight together at Yi City, there is a familiarity in the ease of their movements, the way they never have to look to make sure the other has his back. Sometimes when Hanguang Jun looks at Mo Xuanyu, you see more open emotion than you possibly have ever seen before. Hanguang Jun never flinches away from Mo Xuanyu’s touch.

Any pretense Mo Xuanyu might have had at being anything less than an expert cultivator also vanishes. He slips into the role of mentor and protector with ease, joking to keep all of you calm while he teaches you how to save your lives, always putting your safety above his. You wonder if it would be weird to consider a near-stranger fatherly.

He feeds your poisoned fellow Juniors ridiculously spicy congee, and it does cure them, despite all their complaining about how it murdered their mouths. You had tasted some when helping him make it, but even with how strongly it burned your tongue, there was a strange part of you liked it. For some reason it taste familiar, like home somehow, even though you have lived in the Lan sect for as long as you can remember and they only have bland, spiceless food.

That’s when the memories begin coming back, slow and weak, like a faint flute melody in the wind, too quiet to fully make out.

You do not remember your early childhood. This is hardly an unusual phenomenon, but you still feel its loss. You were not always a Lan. That development came when you were around four or five, according to what others have told you. Four seems an old enough age that you always thought that you should have at least some idea of what happened before, but you never have.

But now you have the faint impression of a different vendor in a different city selling a similar grass butterfly to the one you bought on impulse despite being far too old for toys. You think of the familiarity of congee, of the reedy melody you heard the night you met Mo Xuanyu and then again as the Ghost General stopped attacking the juniors and ran off into the trees. You have a handful of clues, but they paint no coherent picture.

These thoughts haunt you for three months, but since Mo Xuanyu returns to Cloud Recesses as you continue on your night hunts, there is nothing but the occasional sparks of familiarity around random items or phrases to fill in the missing parts.

And then the word comes out that Mo Xuanyu is actually Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, the founder of demonic cultivation. This is the man who killed thousands, who betrayed the clans, who murdered his own family, including the parents of your—your friend? the boy you’ve run into a few times and survived life-or-death situations with?

Except when everybody else reacts with anger and fear, you... don’t. You can’t explain why, but the name Wei Wuxian brings an echo of comfort, half buried under all the horrible stories you’ve heard about him.

Part of you wonders if it has anything to do with the whispers of memories, that faint deja vu that has started haunting you. Or maybe it’s the way that Hanguang Jun has always turned sad at the mention of Wei Wuxian, how he never speaks a bad word about him despite their alleged rivalry. All your fellow juniors are terrified and furious and hurt at having been deceived, at having grown to like this eccentric man who teased them and saved their lives then turned out to be the monster from all their childhood bedtime stories, and even though you understand them, you feel none of that.

He saves all of you not too long afterwards, and you can’t say you are surprised. Even when all evidence pointed to him being the one to trap you and your friends in a cave for days, it never seemed quite right to you.

It was a set up you learn, as he and Hanguang Jun and the Ghost General save you from an army of corpses and reveal the true traitor. All those terrible deeds you’ve spent your whole life hearing about are not explained away, but this one is, and you have faith that Wei Wuxian is not the villain everyone has made him out to be.

His Ghost General, Wen Ning, certainly isn’t. A living corpse who has slaughtered armies sounds terrifying, but in reality he’s rather sweet. There is something so soft and hopeful in his eyes as he approaches you and asks you for his name. Your friends keep their hands on their swords, but you offer him a smile and an answer. There’s something familiar about him too.

Maybe that’s why you talk to him, despite the intense look in his eyes. Or maybe because he seemed so sad, alone, separated from everyone else, and the intensity seems anything but dangerous. “You—look like my cousin,” he says, and you start to wonder, everything so close to sliding into place.

You don’t know who your parents are or where you came from, but there is something about the clan name Wen that feels so close to something right, despite all the tales you’ve heard about the destruction they wrought.

Then he gives you a grass butterfly, so similar to the one you bought at the market, so similar to something you know was important to you long ago. And like one last pebble taken out from the base of a wall, this small token brings everything above it crumbling down, and suddenly the memories start spilling in. You look at him properly now, because this was your relative, and you once lived with and played with him. He sees the recognition in your eyes, you know, because he steps forward, trembling.

Of course, Jin Ling has to ruin the moment, but now that you know, there is nothing in the world that could keep you from talking to him and finding out more. You were a Wen, you think. You must have been raised in the Burial Grounds by Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch. You were one of the people he betrayed all the clans to protect. No wonder you never feared the stories of the monstrous Wens and Yiling Patriarch. How could you when they were your family, when you were one of them?

You never could have lived among the Lan Sect if people knew, so you understand why it had to remain a secret.

Still. You have to know more.

“Did Master Wei really put a five year old child in the soil like a turnip?” you ask Wen Ning, at the nearest opportunity. That child was you, and both of you know it, even if you can’t say it out loud, not this close to all these people who would be willing to turn on Wei Wuxian on any excuse, who would be willing to turn on you if they knew the truth.

Wen Ning smiles and nods, and there is more life in the glow of his eyes than any corpse has the right to have. “Just like this!” he says, gesturing, as sparks of memory come back even stronger than before.

And then of course everything goes wrong. Wen Ning throws you into the temple where all the leaders of the four main clans plus Wei Wuxian and Hanguang Jun and a few others are. Jin Guangyao is holding a thread around your friend’s (you think you can call him your friend by now) throat and there is blood, and so many secrets spilled, confessions made.

In the midst of it all, you see Wei Wuxian for the first time since you started to remember, and now there are more memories, sharper, clearer. You remember his spicy congee, the toy butterfly so similar to the ones you hold now that Hanguang Jun bought for you that day Wei Wuxian took you out into the city. Back then, you hadn’t really understood the significance of all those things, why you lived on a mountain full of buried bones, why Wei Wuxian hadn’t bought that toy himself, but now you are older and you know some of the history behind it. Not all of it, you are sure, since so many assumptions of the past have just been proven wrong tonight, and the history you were told had never mentioned the existence of a small child among the supposedly evil remnants of the Wen clan.

You do not know the full truth, but you want to.

Even once everything is over, with the enemies dead and gone, there are a million things going on, relationships being broken or repaired for the first time in over a decade, injuries to be treated, people to reassure that you are okay, that you made it out alive. It takes a bit for you to peel away from everything, to speak to Wei Wuxian, but you find Wen Ning, and the two of you manage to catch up before Wei Wuxian and Hanguang Jun can go far.

Your thoughts and memories are still chaotic and scattered, little bursts of images and sensations that only barely form a coherent picture. But you summon all your determination, sixteen years of questions that are now clamoring for answers in your brain. You take a deep breath. “I have something important that I must ask you.”

Your heart is pounding, and in the past few days, you have faced an army of fierce corpses and fought against the Ghost General (for which he has apologized a thousand times) and helped confront a master manipulator, and somehow this is the most terrifying thing you have done. You are so sure of the truth, but some part of you doubts. How can you truly be sure when you were so young? And even if the man in front of you helped raise so long ago, how can you know if he still has any affection for you, that he is willing to recognize you? These are irrational fears, you know, but they weigh heavily.

Still, you meet his gaze with eyes that are already starting to water and begin to speak of your long-buried memories, the words spilling out with more and more ease as you continue to talk, as his expression changes from confusion to something full of grief and slow realization.

“Wen was my surname,” you say, now confident of this fact, your previous doubts melted away in the face of Wei Wuxian’s teary eyes.

He looks away, blinking as if he can’t believe it and mutters, “Wen was your surname? Isn’t Lan your surname? Lan Sizhui... Lan Yuan... Lan Yuan.” Then he looks up at you with so much hope, full of a scared longing that you know is the same as what fills your own heart. “A-Yuan.”

It has been a lifetime since you last heard your name called out in that voice, and you wonder how you could have gone so long without even knowing you were missing it. You nod. Tears threaten to spill out of your eyes, but you can’t be bothered to fight them.

You can tell it doesn’t seem quite real to him, the way he looks so afraid to believe it. He thought you were dead this whole time, you realize when he turns to Hanguang Jun for confirmation. And that breaks your heart a little more. He had lost so much, and you had lost so much even if you weren’t fully aware of it, but now you have found each other all over again, and the miraculousness of that is almost too much to bear.

You rush forward to hug him, sixteen years of Lan propriety forgotten. You are a child again, clinging onto a man you have always loved, except you are also an adult with so many years of separation only hitting you now that you are finally reunited. You are both and neither, and as his arms come up to wrap around you, you know that all that matters is that you are home.

#the untamed #lan sizhui #lan yuan #wei wuxian #lan zhan #lan wangji #wen ning #wen yuan #my post #my writing #mo dao zu shi #mdzs

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Fire and Light (ao3) - on tumblr: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

- Chapter 8 -

A small group of sects unexpectedly announced that they wanted Wen Ruohan to adjudicate a boundary line dispute – some were affiliated with the Jiang sect, others with the Jin, and they wanted a neutral party. Wen Ruohan was pleased, even smug, that they had chosen him rather than the Lan sect, which with its righteous reputation was more typically called upon to mediate for the other sects.

“Maybe none of them have a good argument,” Nie Huaisang mused. “They’re all awful, and they want someone more self-absorbed than either side to broker something out.”

“Not everyone is awful, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said, tucking the blankets around him. “Most people are good. Besides, there are some pretty renowned sects involved, so even if it’s true, you shouldn’t say it.”

Nie Huaisang heaved a sigh. “But da-ge –”

“Time for medicine,” Nie Mingjue said firmly, and lifted the bowl to his lips.

Nie Huaisang had a mild case of food poisoning, causing a stomachache, vomiting and a low-grade fever – Wen Qing had determined that it wasn’t infectious, but also, rather grimly, figured out that the source of the illness was most likely a particular treat that Nie Huaisang had generously shared with both her and Wen Chao, and sure enough they were both bedridden less than a day later. Luckily, Wen Qing had had enough time to boil the base for the medicine they needed, and while he wasn’t at her level, much less the now-absent Wen Ning’s, even Nie Mingjue could follow directions well enough to add the final ingredients right before serving.

(Even Wen Zhuliu, who remained Wen Chao’s bodyguard despite their best efforts, had fallen ill, except his version had been significantly worse – more or less non-stop emissions out both ends, and out of self-preservation Nie Mingjue had insisted that he remain in the servants’ quarters far away from all of them.)

Nie Huaisang finished drinking the medicine, making a face that only went away when Nie Mingjue stuffed something sweet into his mouth to help get rid of the taste. “Will you be all right helping out?”

“Of course I will,” Nie Mingjue said. “I haven’t forgotten how to help host a party.”

“No, I meant…”

Nie Mingjue shrugged. Normally, Wen Ruohan had enough concern for his face to prefer that Nie Mingjue avoid showing his own shortly after he’d been insolent enough to warrant punishment, but due to the food poisoning they were short on young masters to greet all the incoming people – and their guests were too important not to be greeted by someone with status.

“I’ll use some powder, it’ll be fine,” he said. “And anyway, even if someone notices, it’s not like they would be bold enough to comment; they’re here to ask Sect Leader Wen for a favor, after all. Who will even pay attention to me long enough to notice?”

The answer, Nie Mingjue swiftly learned, was Yu Ming, a crotchety old grandmother from Meishan Yu in Sichuan who didn’t like the food (not spicy enough), her chair (the first one was too rickety, the second too soft), her peers (idiots, all of them), her drink (they’d served tea and she wanted wine, and then later on it was the other way around), and, most problematically, was one of the more influential sect leaders on the Jiang sect’s side. Not exactly someone they wanted to offend by providing inferior hospitality.

Nie Mingjue ended up abandoning his now habitual corner in the back of the room to dash back and forth dancing attendance on her, run ragged and breathless by all of her demands.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise when she approached him in his corner during the banquet’s dessert course, and he straightened up at once, saluting politely. “Sect Leader Yu,” he said, suppressing a desire to moan and maybe beg for mercy; his legs were killing him. How this managed to be worse than serious saber training he had no idea, but it was. “Is the dessert not to your liking? I can get you something cool instead –”

“Sit down, boy,” she growled. “The crystal cakes are fine, and I’m tired of looking up at you. How tall are you? Six chi?”

“…five and a half, maybe five and three-quarters,” he confessed, sitting down obediently. At this point, she could tell him to jump out a window and he probably would – she had a very sharp walking stick and no hesitation about waving everywhere. No sympathy for her miserable victims, either.

“And you’re how old?”

“Seventeen.”

“Slowed down yet?”

“…not yet.”

She huffed. “That’s all we need, another Nie giant. I told your father that he was making a mistake, marrying a woman that needed to duck to get through doors…that how you got that black eye?”

“Huh?” Nie Mingjue said unintelligently, still caught by the mental image – he scarcely remembered his mother, having been very young when she left, but it was nice to think that it wasn’t just the perspective of having been a toddler that had made her appear quite so towering. “Oh, I – uh – training accident.”

Yu Ming squinted at him. “Same training accident that dislocated three of your fingers and a kneecap, did a number on your ribs, and cut your back up so bad that you need bandages and –” She inhaled. “– at least two doses of bai mao gen to replenish the blood lost?”

Nie Mingjue opened and closed his mouth wordlessly. Finally, yielding under her glare, he muttered, “I didn’t dislocate my kneecap.”

He might’ve preferred that, actually. Dislocations could be shoved back into place with relatively little issue; he’d sprained it, instead. A bad fall from when he’d shamefully broken and tried to run from the Fire Palace, futilely seeking safety, a place where he neither had to hurt people nor be hurt himself.

Not that such a place existed in the Nightless City, of course. He’d only been dragged back after, as he ought to have expected, and then things had gotten much worse, but he hadn’t really been thinking his actions through at the time.

“Dislocated, not dislocated, whatever. Has to be something, the way you’re dragging that left leg of yours behind you when you trot,” she said practically. “You’re a rotten liar, did anyone ever tell you that?”

“Many people,” Nie Mingjue said with a sigh. Most of them currently in bed with food poisoning, except for lucky Wen Ning away at the Lotus Pier and miserable Wen Xu now stuck standing by his father’s side, pretending to smile. “Does it matter?”

“Matter? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Other than going and applying more powder, there’s not much I can do about it even if it does offend your sight,” Nie Mingjue pointed out, reasonably enough in his view. “And no matter how many times or ways you ask it, the answer’s still going to be ‘training accident’, whether or not you believe me.”

Yu Ming poked his forehead with her finger, then his cheek. “And this is with powder,” she said, scowling and rubbing the remnants of it between her fingertips as if she hadn’t believed him that it was there until she’d verified it for herself. “If you won’t tell me anything other than ‘training accident’, will you at least tell me what you did to deserve this type of training?”

“I don’t remember,” Nie Mingjue said, and he really didn’t. All the thrashings more or less flowed together pretty well after a while, and in the end it didn’t really matter if he’d intervened on Nie Huaisang’s behalf or Wen Chao’s, whether he’d played whipping boy for Wen Xu or distracted attention away from Wen Qing – they were all close enough to be proper family now. What he did was nothing more than what you ought to do for those you loved, and he’d die before he forgot how to do that.

“Rotten liar,” Yu Ming said, maybe because she could tell he wasn’t lying, and spat on the ground. “It’s a filthy business.”

“I’m hardly going to disagree with you,” he said dryly.

“You might look a little less ragged if you did.”

He shrugged. “They say people can’t change their essential nature.”

“And what’s yours?”

“Blunt to the point of stupidity.”

“Say rather that you cut straight to the point,” she said.

“Well, you know, sabers have one blunt edge, one sharp,” he said, unable to resist a smile even if it pulled at the bruises around his eye. “I can be both.”

She was staring at him.

“…what?”

“You have dimples.”

“I’m…aware?”

He didn’t quite understand the calculating look Yu Ming had in her eyes – or, perhaps better said, he didn’t want to understand that look, and he was willing to put in a great deal of effort behind not understanding it if he had to.

“Do you want another crystal cake?” he asked her abruptly before she could say anything else. When she arched her eyebrows, he elaborated: “Sect Leader Wen will undoubtedly ask me whether I was taking good care of you, being as you are after all one of our honored guests.”

Don’t tell me anything, he meant. Even if you pity me – especially if you pity me. He has ways to make me talk. He likes making me talk.

“…fine, then,” Yu Ming said. “You said something about there being something cool?”

Nie Mingjue suppressed a groan as he dragged himself out of his seat and headed to the kitchen to see if they still had any sorbet left over.

“– going to be tricky,” Nie Huaisang was saying to a nodding Wen Xu as Nie Mingjue walked by. “Lanling Jin isn’t fond of making decisions.”

“But they are fond of profit,” Wen Xu pointed out.

“The question will be if there’s a way to strike the right balance without giving too much away –”

Nie Mingjue decided to believe that they were talking about pornography. People said Jin Guangshan was into that sort of thing, didn’t they?

Nie Mingjue trained with Baxia at least once every day, and usually more. He found the repetitive actions calming, like an active form of meditation, and he was happy to sink into the mindlessness of physical exertion and forget his worries.

Baxia was warm under his hand, as always – he thought sometimes that she’d never quite adjusted to the warmer temperatures of the Nightless City, preferring as he did the cooler weather of Qinghe.

Perhaps, in time, she would forget it.

Perhaps, in time, so would he.

Forget the cool air filling his lungs, the crisp snap of an autumn day just about to begin; forget the smell of the forests and the feeling of gravel under his shoes. Forget the strain on his muscles from climbing up a steep cliff, the taste of an early snowfall on his tongue – the metallic tang to the water, the lingering smell of smoke in the air even when there wasn’t anyone around for miles.

It felt unforgettable.

But he knew that it wasn’t. In the face of time, all things were ground down into the dust.

He would be eighteen years old this year. Still a little shy of proper adulthood, an unlucky year, if luck had anything to do with his life any longer. He’d been here for four years, just shy of a quarter of all the years he’d ever lived.

Perhaps that was what made him melancholy.

Or perhaps it was only that he had been unable to light incense on the anniversary of his father’s death yet again this year. Wen Ruohan took particular pleasure in ensuring that he couldn’t – he had spent the first year unconscious, the second year immobilized, the third…he tried not to remember.

It didn’t really matter, he supposed, since he’d always agreed in advance that Nie Huaisang would light the incense on behalf of them both, both on the anniversary and on Qingming – they hadn’t ever been given leave to return to Qinghe to sweep their ancestral graves, not once, not even when some of the other sects had complained about the impropriety of it. No one ever paid attention to Nie Huaisang, underestimating how sneaky he could be, and so he’d managed it just fine. Still, the failure to do it himself tugged at Nie Mingjue’s heart, disappointed him in himself - in his failure to be a good son, just as he so often failed to be a good brother.

He sank back into his training by force of willpower.

His cultivation was increasing at an acceptable rate, he thought – shockingly fast by all metrics, but all of his teachers said that his foundations were good, steady as mountains, and his progression through each stage was smooth and unhindered by bottlenecks. The consequences of genius, they said with a shrug.

It was about the only thing that was going in an acceptable manner.

Ma Liyuan had fallen out of favor, as Wen Xu had predicted – she’d failed to remain pregnant despite repeated efforts, and Wen Ruohan took such pleasure in criticizing her for it that Nie Mingjue suspected he’d dosed her tea with contraceptives specifically to set her up for the failure, since he didn’t actually need more sons – but her usefulness remained, so she was married in with all pomp to Wen Chao’s household as a secondary wife.

(She’d been promised the position of first wife, and threw a fit when she realized the change, but Wen Ruohan had reminded her, sneering, that that had been when she’d been a pure and untouched maiden; she really couldn’t expect them to pay such a high price for secondhand goods, now could she?)

Wen Chao obviously had no interest in her at all – she’d tried, once, to make herself up and smile at him and he’d recoiled as if he’d seen a snake, then stared at her and said, “You’re joking, right?” – so she’d taken the next best option and sent her maid to seduce him in her stead.

Wang Lingjiao was pretty enough, with curves enough to make just about any man stare, and pretty cunning to boot. In a different world, a world where Wen Chao had fallen for his father’s nasty little tricks and become a stupid oversexed princeling, a waste of space that would have been incited into fighting against Wen Xu for the sole purpose of being crushed to prove some imagined point of about the necessity of cruelty, she probably would have been able to crawl into his bed and keep her place there without much difficulty.

Wen Chao was a bit of a romantic, after all, no matter how much he tried to deny it.

As it was, when her first few efforts at flirtation failed – or, well, mostly failed, given that Wen Chao held her hands in his own during a garden stroll in the moonlight and told her, with great earnestness, that she was very beautiful and it was such a pity that he wasn’t allowed to think of women romantically until he was fifteen on pain of utmost humiliation and also was she aware of the dangers of venereal disease – Wang Lingjiao pulled back and recalibrated her approach.

This time, she went for Nie Mingjue.

“You’re joking, right?” he asked her.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Is that a deliberate reference to what Wen Chao said?”

“No, just the same idea. I’m not interested.”

“That much is obvious enough,” she said, tossing her hair. “I want you to tell me what I need to do to get someone to be interested. I don’t want to be a servant any longer.”

Nie Mingjue was at something of a loss for words.

“There must be something I can provide,” Wang Lingjiao demanded. “Some service, some use…I’m a weak cultivator, but that clearly doesn’t bother you lot – your younger brother is weak, too, though I’m still a bit worse. I’m not as dumb as Ma Liyuan; I know there’s more you can sell in life than sex, even if that’s easier. What do you want? What do any of you want?”

Wang Lingjiao was from the Yingchuan Wang cultivation clan, Nie Mingjue abruptly remembered. A smaller sect, with too many children, but a standalone sect nonetheless; their children were born as gentry, not servants. No, they must have sold Wang Lingjiao into servitude, though whether it was to get an in with Qishan Wen or simply to get rid of a budding problem – and extremely beautiful young women with poor cultivation were often a problem, especially when their beauty suggested how their mothers had gotten themselves selected to be wives, or, more likely, concubines – he did not know.

“Do you mix your own makeup?” he asked, and she stared at him. “It’s very well done.”

“…yes,” she said, giving him a strange look. “I do. None that’ll fit you, though.”

He blinked, then laughed. “No, I don’t want any; the only use I have for powder is to cover up bruises when I need to be presentable. I just meant that it seems you have a steady hand at mixing things and judging proportions – A-Qing appreciates those qualities.”

“Wen Qing?” Wang Lingjiao asked, bewildered. “You want to send me to a woman?”

“She’s expressed before that she would like to have more female company,” Nie Mingjue explained, and Wang Lingjiao’s expression only got more fish-like as she gaped at him. “A fair while back, in fairness, but the numbers really are skewed fairly strongly against her. I thought you might get along. Be friends.”

“I’ve never had a female friend in my life,” Wang Lingjiao told him.

“I thought – you’re always chatting with the other serving girls…?”

Wang Lingjiao rolled her eyes as if he were being stupid. He probably was. Forget Qishan ways, the ways of the teenaged girl were utterly beyond his grasp.

“I don’t see what you have to lose by trying,” Nie Mingjue pointed out. “I’m not interested, Xu-ge’s too paranoid to get within touching distance of anyone he thinks has an ulterior motive, A-Chao isn’t allowed to touch women for a few more years –”

“Why is that?”

“He’s gullible, and has both questionable taste and sibling-inflicted trauma relating to brothels,” Nie Mingjue explained, and Wang Lingjiao wrinkled her nose, looking a little amused despite herself. “A-Ning isn’t the type to womanize, and Huaisang is too young. Also a vicious cutthroat when it comes to interpersonal relations, so who even knows what type of person he’d like, if any.”

“I’d noticed that about him.”

“In sum, A-Qing is your best bet,” he concluded. “And all the more so if you approach her in a business-like fashion: make clear to her what benefits you bring and how you’ll compensate for the drawbacks, be practical and reasonable, and you’ll do fine. Do well, and you won’t ever need to fear being sent back to Ma Liyuan – or to Yingchuan.”

Wang Lingjiao stared at him for a moment – she hadn’t expected him to be able to figure that out, he thought, since she was just clever enough to manage to puzzle out that he was the heart and core of their little group but not quite smart enough to realize why – but in the end she seemed to take his advice to heart, nodding and walking away.

He hoped Wen Qing didn’t kill him for sending her a terrible lab assistant.

#mdzs #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #wen xu #wen chao #wang lingjiao #wen qing #wen ning #my fic #my fics #fire and light

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apolloval · 3 years

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Happy Valentine’s Day!! Here is the super compilation of art I did!

A side note, this was originally going to be called “Goodnight, my Valentine” but then I slowly stepped out of drawing just sleepy couples. So here’s a compilation of mostly nighttime couples, but a few other things!

1.) QingMian!

“Wen Qing always carries MianMian to bed”

2.) WangXian!

“I would have drawn them making out but I felt that was too spicy”

3.) ChengChao!

“Wen Chao falls asleep very easily. Jiang Cheng is very strong”

4.) Jiang Parents! (THEY DESERVED BETTER)

“We’ll be so good this time, Yu.”

5.) XuanLi and Jin Ling!

“Goodnight, my sweet child”

6.) Junior Quartet Cuddle Buddies!

“There is nothing gay about cuddling up with your homies”

7.) 3zun!

“Jiggy falls asleep resting on his beloved Da-Ge and Er-Ge”

8.) Zhing! (My oc Song Zheng , Wen Ning!)

“Nothing like going on a date dressed in your pre-death sect’s robes”

9.) XunYang! ( @wifiwuxians beautiful ship!)

“Xue Yang’s gift to Wen Xun was candy and a kiss”

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wangxiangiftexchange · 3 years

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Winter Solstice Gift for moonanstars124

The request was for fluff, found family, annoying the extended family, and AU coffee shop vibes (which I took extremely literally). I had a lot of fun writing this (my first actual coffee shop AU!) and I hope you enjoy it @moonanstars124!

Read on AO3

*****

The Burial Grounds

“Is there even a point in telling you what I want?” Jin Zixuan asks. “As you’ve never once made what I ordered.”

Wei Wuxian beams at him. “Of course! It gives me direction. A genre, if you will.”

“You do have a specific listing for a surprise drink.” Jin Zixuan resettles a-Ling on his hip. “If I wanted that, don’t you think I’d have ordered it?”

“Well, no,” Wei Wuxian explains reasonably. He reaches across the counter and pats the baby’s cheek. “If you wanted to get what you ordered, you’d have asked Wen Ning to make it.” Wen Ning turns from where he is setting up the soup tureen to shrug in apologetic agreement.

Jin Zixuan sighs deeply. “Someday I’m going to stop tipping you.”

“You can do that on the day that you don’t like what I make you,” Wei Wuxian informs him. “I mean, you won’t, because ajie would never stay married to someone who didn’t tip. But I would understand if you considered it.”

Lan Wangji half-listens to the exchange from his corner table. It is a familiar one, enough so to be pleasant background noise without distracting too much from his book. When the proper disruption comes, it is neither unexpected nor unwelcome, as it happens every morning around this time. He has already closed his book and moved his empty cup to make room for the small chalkboard that appears in front of him.

“Spicy vegetable for the soup,” Wei Wuxian announces, flinging himself down in the other chair. It is not yet nine in the morning, and he already looks happily tired. Lan Wangji nods and wipes the board clean—perhaps not strictly necessary, but if he redoes the borders, Wei Wuxian will sit with him for longer and take a proper break. “White chocolate and cranberry scones, because ajie loves us very much. And...hm. I’ll do a blueberry mint lemonade today, I think. Do we have blueberries?”

This last is for Wen Ning, who sets down Wei Wuxian’s coffee, Lan Wangji’s refill, and a plate with two of the aforementioned scones. “We do,” Wen Ning confirms. “But they’ll go moldy soon, so you should use them up.”

“Perfect.” Wen Ning smiles at both of them and returns to the counter. Wei Wuxian leans back in his chair, stretches his legs full-length, and looks around the coffee shop with satisfaction. One of his ankles comes to rest against Lan Wangji’s. Without looking up from the chalkboard, Lan Wangji puts his free hand on the table. Wei Wuxian laces their fingers together and dips a scone in his drink.

This is how mornings have gone nearly every day for a few years now. Wen Ning arrives early to open; Wei Wuxian staggers down from the apartment upstairs after being prodded awake by Lan Wangji, who claims his table and reads as the coffee shop comes to life around him. Jin Zixuan arrives at some point, bearing the day’s soup and pastries from Lotus Pier Cafe and often as not a dinner invitation for all of them from Jiang Yanli. Lan Wangji earns his coffee by writing out the day’s specials; Wei Wuxian seizes the opportunity to sit down for as long as it takes him to complete the task. Then Lan Wangji gives his table over to the morning rush and goes to work himself. Cloud Recesses Books is close enough to walk to in good weather, and he gets there in time to open. When the coffeeshop closes at three, Wei Wuxian wanders over and spends the rest of the afternoon doing his own reading or debating with Lan Qiren. It is a pleasant routine, and Lan Wangji sometimes has to stop and wonder at how happy he is.

There has been a coffee shop here for decades, under one owner or another, but the Jiangs bought it only three years ago. Lan Wangji remembers perfectly the first time he visited it after that. It was Lan Xichen’s idea to see what the new management had done with the place, and they went for lunch the first month after it reopened. “‘The Burial Grounds?’” Lan Xichen reads, pausing outside the door. “Interesting name choice.”

“After the Burial Mounds, presumably,” Lan Wangji points out. “The nature preserve outside the city.”

“Ah,” his brother says. “Naturally.”

Despite the name, the inside is entirely pleasant: walls repainted to brighten the space, spider plants hanging in the windows, a detailed menu in plain neat lettering on the chalkboard above the counter, specials in the same writing on a smaller one by the pastry case. “They must outsource their food,” Lan Xichen observes, nodding at the familiar lotus image. “The Jiangs own Lotus Pier too, so it makes sense.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji says. He is listening. He is.

Lan Xichen follows his gaze to the mug on the counter, which holds pens for signing receipts and also a small rainbow flag. “Ah,” he agrees. “That is a pleasing development.”

The line is long enough that they can take their time reading the menu. This is good, because it contains none of the conventional titles. The Med Student, Lan Wangji reads. Four espresso shots in a cup. Below that is The Jiejie: soooooup! (See Specials board for today’s variety). And on and on: The Peacock (a white chocolate mocha with nutmeg), The Angry Brother (chamomile and hibiscus tea), The Adorable Nephew (warm milk with honey), The Headshaker (“Decisions are hard, so let us surprise you!”). Some have less of a story, Lan Wangji thinks: The First Timer is just a latte, and The Adventurer promises undisclosed amounts of cayenne. The result is a place that feels well-loved without being unwelcoming.

“It certainly has character,” Lan Xichen observes as they near the counter. The young man who takes their orders has a quiet earnest smile; he carefully lists the non-dairy milk options for Lan Wangji.

Despite the line, they find a window table easily enough—it is towards the end of the lunch hour—and they watch the street while they wait. It is only a few minutes before a different employee appears with their orders, mugs and bowls balanced precariously enough that Lan Wangji watches the soup in some alarm. But the dishes and their contents reach the table safely, which means that he can look up when the server says brightly, “Can I get you anything else?”

Lan Wangji thinks, Oh. He only barely prevents himself from saying it aloud, and the effort keeps him from speaking at all.

“Oh, wow,” the beautiful man says, staring back at him. Then he shakes himself. “Uh. Sorry. Is this your first time here?”

“We thought we’d see what the new ownership had done with it,” Lan Xichen explains. There is laughter in his voice, subtle enough that Lan Wangji hopes nobody else can hear it. “Our family owns Cloud Recesses, the—”

“The bookshop down the street!” The server’s face lights up—lights up more—and Lan Wangji gives up any hope of forming words himself. “I’ve been in there a few times. I thought you looked familiar.” This is to Lan Xichen; to Lan Wangji, he says, “I haven’t seen you before, though.” He does not say, I would remember, but the sentiment comes through clearly enough that Lan Wangji feels his ears go pink.

“My brother just finished university,” Lan Xichen explains. The amusement has become noticeably less subtle. “He will be working with us.”

“Oh wonderful!” the beautiful man says. “We’ll hope to see you again, then. Both of you, of course.” He sticks his hands into his apron pockets. “I’m Wei Wuxian, the manager. Which is, you know, terrifying. I’m probably not supposed to tell customers that part, though.”

Lan Xichen laughs aloud now, kindly, and Lan Wangji loves his brother for the way the beautiful man—Wei Wuxian—relaxes. “We understand,” Lan Xichen says. “Starting a business is a rather stressful experience at the best of times. I am Lan Xichen; this is Lan Wangji.”

“Welcome to the Burial Grounds, Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji,” Wei Wuxian says gravely, eyes dancing. “Please do let me know if you need anything. Or Wen Ning, he’s honestly much more capable than I am.” He jerks his head towards the counter, where the young man who took their orders is wiping down the espresso machine. “Anyway, I have to get back to work, but I hope you’ll come back.”

“I am certain we will,” Lan Xichen assures him. Wei Wuxian’s eyes linger on Lan Wangji’s face for a moment. When he manages to nod agreement, the smile widens. Wei Wuxian ducks his head at both of them and disappears into what is presumably the back room.

“Well,” Lan Xichen says, after a moment. “This is a delightful discovery.”

“Brother,” Lan Wangji says, deeply pained. He suspects that his ears have gone full scarlet by now.

“I mean the coffee shop, of course.” Lan Xichen takes a sip of his latte and hums with pleasure. “And as a small business ourselves, it’s only right to support others in the neighborhood. We shall have to become regulars.”

Lan Wangji sighs.

He returns alone the next day, just for a coffee in the morning. The one after that, Wei Wuxian sets his drink on the table with a hesitation that already seems out of character. When Lan Wangji tilts his head in question, he says, “I, uh, made you something special. If you want the one you actually ordered, I’ll do that instead, I just...sometimes I get the idea for new things, and I thought you’d like this one.”

Lan Wangji looks at the mug in front of him. It looks like the perfectly dull mocha that he had ordered, unsure what else to get, except that there are flower buds of some kind on top of the foam. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just nods and takes a cautious sip. “Lavender,” he says. He closes his eyes, which helps keep his brain from panicking when Wei Wuxian sits down in the empty chair. “Salt. Something sweet, apart from the chocolate?”

When he opens his eyes, Wei Wuxian’s smile is brilliant. “Birch syrup,” he confirms. “Good, I wasn’t sure how much that would come through; I haven’t used it before. But do you like it? You’re the first person to try that one.”

“Mm.” Lan Wangji looks down at the cup again: something made just for him, not for anyone else. “I like it.” He lifts his head again.

“Oh, wow,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, as he had the first day. “Sorry, I know I’m being weird. I just hadn’t seen you smile before.”

“Not weird,” Lan Wangji says, when he finds his voice. “At least, I don’t mind.” He clears his throat. “Thank you. For the drink. You should put it on the menu.”

“Yeah?” Wei Wuxian grins. “I can do that.”

There is indeed a new listing on the large chalkboard the following day: Dark chocolate mocha with lavender, sea salt, and birch syrup. Lan Wangji looks at the name of it and swallows. The Beautiful Stranger, it says, printed neatly in white chalk below The Headshaker.

When he has been coming to the Burial Grounds several times a week for a month, Lan Wangji arrives one morning to find Wei Wuxian darting frantically back and forth behind the counter. “Wen Ning called out sick,” he explains, when Lan Wangji gets to the front of the line. “This is definitely my reminder to hire more staff. I meant to, since we’ve been doing pretty well, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it. Anyway, sorry, what can I get you?”

Lan Wangji looks at the smear of cocoa powder on his cheek and says, “Is there anything I can do? I do not know how to use the machines, but I could help with other things.”

“You know,” Wei Wuxian says, “that would actually be amazing. Uh, let’s see. I need to get the Specials board up but my handwriting is atrocious. Would you mind? We’ve got chicken dumpling soup and vegan ginger snaps. No drink specials because I have too much else to worry about today.”

When that task is done (“Oh my god,” Wei Wuxian says, staring. “Well, I know I’m never ever showing you my writing”), Lan Wangji clears tables and wipes down the counter and takes orders. All the while, Wei Wuxian darts around the shop like a cheerful whirlwind. “Don’t you have to go to work?” he asks at one point, managing to pour a perfect latte and read the next ticket at once. “I’ll manage. I mean, I don’t know how, but—”

“I have texted my brother,” Lan Wangji says calmly. “He and uncle will cover the bookshop today.”

“...Right,” Wei Wuxian says. “I feel like I should fight you on that, but also I don’t have time. Thank you.”

At three o’clock, Wei Wuxian sets the Closed sign, draws the curtains, and collapses facedown onto the couch where the college students like to study. Lan Wangji regards him for a moment, then puts down the rag he was using to wipe down the last table. He still cannot use the espresso machine, but the kettle is a more familiar creature.

Wei Wuxian lifts his head blearily at the clink of saucer on table. He sits up enough to drink his tea without spilling it, and he devours two of the ginger snaps that Lan Wangji brought over in rapid succession. Lan Wangji sits down in the armchair across from the couch and sips his own tea.

The cookies seem to revive Wei Wuxian a little. “Thank you,” he says. “Again. For the tea and for, you know, everything. How can I repay you? Not a rhetorical question.”

Lan Wangji cradles his tea, glad to have something to do with his hands. “Well,” he says, “when I came in this morning, I meant to ask if you would have dinner with me.”

“Oh!” Wei Wuxian looks at him, wide-eyed. “I—hang on, past tense? Did you change your mind? I guess you did just get the total immersion experience, which I’m told is a lot—”

“I enjoyed the experience,” Lan Wangji says. “But I do not wish you to feel obligated. I will not ask you in a conversation about compensation for my labor.”

“...Right,” Wei Wuxian says. “Because you think about things like that, because you’re a ridiculously good person as well as gorgeous and in possession of unbelievably nice handwriting. Hold on.” He sets down his mug and goes to the counter, does something out of sight involving paper and a pen, and returns. “Here.” Lan Wangji puts down his own tea and inspects the offering: a gift certificate (filled out in a scrawl that is admittedly dreadful) for enough to keep him supplied with coffee for a month, more if he cuts down on his visits. “And I’ll get you all the tips from today, once they’re counted.”

Lan Wangji does not imagine that he will be cutting down on his visits.

“This will do,” he decides, and tucks the paper away in his wallet. “And half the tips. You worked very hard.”

When he looks up again, Wei Wuxian is fidgeting beside his chair. “Sure,” he says. “Great. So is the compensation conversation finished? Can we have the other one now?”

Lan Wangji smiles; he cannot do anything else. Deliberately, he stands up so they are facing each other. Wei Wuxian swallows, but his eyes are bright and he is smiling helplessly as well. Lan Wangji says, “Would you like to have dinner with me?”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian replies immediately. Then, “You mean like a real date, right? I mean, I’d still say yes either way, but just so we’re clear.”

“A real date,” Lan Wangji confirms.

“Oh wonderful,” Wei Wuxian says. “I really hoped that was what you meant. Yes. Did I already say that?”

He is still in his apron, which has great smears on it from when a cup of coffee spilled on the counter earlier. His hair is coming loose from its tie for at least the fourth time that day; there is raspberry syrup on his forehead and powdered sugar on his nose. He is very, very beautiful.

Lan Wangji reaches up and tucks one loose strand of hair behind his ear. It does very little to help anything, but it means that he gets to feel the slight intake of breath as Wei Wuxian goes still. Lan Wangji does not drop his hand back to his side. Instead, he cups Wei Wuxian’s cheek very gently. He whispers, “May I—”

“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says, a little hoarsely. “Yeah, yes, please—”

Lan Wangji kisses him. Wei Wuxian makes a soft sweet sound and puts both arms around his neck; Lan Wangji cradles his face a little more firmly and drops his other hand to the small of Wei Wuxian’s back, drawing him in.

And so now it has been three years, or near enough. Lan Wangji dutifully writes out the Specials board every morning; the main menu also bears his script. He has met Wen Qing, who is now a surgeon and no longer the Med Student of the four expresso shots but who remains alarmingly intense. He has also met the Adorable Nephew and the Headshaker as well as the Peacock, Jiejie, and the Angry Brother, all three of whom received him with some combination of suspicion and amusement. “So you’re the Beautiful Stranger,” Jiang Cheng says, having shown up at the Burial Grounds to demand an introduction all of two days after that first date. “Hmph. He’s been yammering about you for a month; you better have been worth it.”

Lan Wangji is trying to be worth it. He plans to ask Wei Wuxian to marry him soon, and he thinks that Wei Wuxian will probably accept. This doesn’t really make the prospect of proposing any less daunting; what does is the way Wei Wuxian pulls him back to bed for sleepy kisses in the mornings, trusting and sure of affection reciprocated. Lan Wangji rather expects that he will slip and ask the question at one of these times, rather than at the dinner date he has scheduled for their anniversary. He doesn’t really mind the idea.

#moonanstars124 #wangxiansolstice20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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biwenqing · 3 years

Note

for the 5 times meme! wei wuxian, losing things

i looked at this prompt and thought “oh i could go so angsty with this” and then tried to find as much fluff potential as possible 😂 thank you so, so much for sending this in, i adored writing it! i added a plus one time he finds something!

give me a character, and a situation, and I’ll write you 5 ficlets on 5 times that situation occurred

#1) Lotus Pods “See, this is how you take the seeds out.” Jiang Cheng sat on the bank of the river and Wei Wuxian crouched at his side. Wei Wuxian wasn’t quite sure what to think of his new brother’s often surprising temper, but he had decided that he very much liked having a brother anyway. “Now you try.”

Wei Wuxian looked down at the lotus pod in his own hands. He carefully tried to pluck out a seed as Jiang Cheng had shown him, but it slipped to fall on the ground.

“It’s okay, you can have some of mine,” Jiang Cheng said, holding out a seed.

Wei Wuxian cupped his hand and Jiang Cheng carefully put the seed in it. He ate it with a smile. It was still odd (and wonderful!) to be able to eat food even when he wasn’t hungry. “Thanks!”

“Hmph,” Jiang Cheng said, which meant ‘you’re very welcome’ Wei Wuxian was pretty sure. “Go pick more pods, I’ll get the seeds and we can bring them to shijie.”

“Okay!” He scrambled up, being careful not to knock over the basket they brought. Taking off his shoes and rolling up his pants, he splashed into the water. He began picking pods, but dropped them after just a moment as he called, “I see a frog!”

“Really? Where?” Jiang Cheng left the shore and carefully waded his way.

“Shh, right in front of me, behind some leaves,” Wei Wuxian whispered. “Should I catch it?”

“Bet you can’t,” Jiang Cheng challenged.

Glancing over his shoulder he saw the other boy was smiling. Grinning back, Wei Wuxian called, “I bet I can catch more frogs than you can!” before diving into the lotuses, the pods he’d already picked floating forgotten (and later lost) in the water.

#2) A Drawing

Wei Wuxian dug around his spare clothes, tossing them to the side.

“Aren’t you supposed to be packing?” Nie Huaisang asked, appearing to lean against the doorway.

“He is,” Jiang Cheng, the traitor, said from his side of the room.

“I will, I will, I just need to find something first!” Wei Wuxian said, looking around.

“What’re you looking for?” Nie Huaisang moved closer, ignoring the way Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes.

“It’s nothing really!” Wei Wuxian said but not loud enough to cover Jiang Cheng.

“A picture for ‘Lan Zhan’.” The name was said in Jiang Cheng’s rude (in Wei Wuxian’s opinion) imitation of Wei Wuxian’s voice. He didn’t sound like that!

Nie Huaisang gave a little laugh. “Oh really? And why would an esteemed Jade of Lan want that?”

“No reason,” Wei Wuxian said quickly. It was a drawing of some of the rabbits from the cave. That way Lan Wangji could have a reminder of them and of the promises the two of them made together. Wei Wuxian remembered the way Lan Wangji smiled at the lantern art.

“Of course.” Nie Huaisang was covering a smile with their fan. “Did it fall behind the bed?”

Wei Wuxian stopped digging through his clothes and tugged the bed a little way from the wall. Sure enough, the paper had slipped behind. He pulled it out triumphantly, before carefully holding it so neither Nie Huaisang nor Jiang Cheng could see what was on it. They wouldn’t understand.

“You’re welcome,” Nie Huaisang said, and then looked from one brother to the other. “Any other way I can be of help?”

“No, you’ve done enough damage,” Jiang Cheng grumbled. “Though I guess now he will pack.”

“I need to give this to Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian hurried out of the room.

Nie Huaisang’s laughter and Jiang Cheng’s cursing could be heard from behind him as Wei Wuxian navigated the Cloud Recesses one more time. He hoped Lan Wangji would smile again.

#3) Chenqing “You lost your spiritual tool,” Wen Qing asked flatly.

“I wouldn’t say lost it...” Wei Wuxian tried to persuade. He was washing a-Yuan’s clothes at the moment and Wen Qing had appeared to drop her own and Granny’s on the pile for him to clean as well. “I just don’t have it right now.”

“Can’t you feel it?” Wen Qing asked.

Wei Wuxian didn’t really like talking about his connection to Chenqing (and it would only make her worry), so he joked instead. “I think the blood pool ate it!”

“The blood pool didn’t eat it.” She settled on a rock near him.

Wei Wuxian was glad to see her taking even a little bit of a break. Wen Qing had been using so much of her energy healing all the Wens. None of them had been in good shape. “Maybe Uncle planted it?” he offered next

“No.” She hadn’t laughed, but the tension in her face lessened.

“It would grow and make cursed fruit,” Wei Wuxian chatted on, turning to focus on some dirt that was packed into the knees of a-Yuan’s pants. “Then we can have cursed fruit wine and sell it at a high price!”

“Who would want to buy cursed wine?” She took the wet clothes when he passed them to her and set them on a different nearby rock to dry.

“Someone who has already had too much regular wine?” he mused.

“Alright, but how do we sell it to a vendor?”

Wei Wuxian thought that over. “We’ll just have to open an inn. Be our own vendor.” Finally, she gave a little snort of laughter. He turned away to hide his own smile.

“I see. I’ll inform Uncle of the plans.” Wen Qing stood then, stretching. “Get some rest after you finish here.”

“Only if you do the same!”

“We’re both going to die of exhaustion,” she declared with a sigh as she wandered away.

#4) a-Yuan “A-Yuan!” Why did he always have to run off when Wei Wuxian was trying to buy potatoes? Had Wen Qing trained him to do this to prevent him from bringing potatoes home? If so, it was a very clever tactic.

Wei Wuxian moved through the crowd, swallowing down the hope that once more Lan Wangji would appear and save the day. That was something that would only happen once in their lives.

“A-Yuan!” He came around the corner to find a-Yuan was playing with two kids who seemed to be close to him in age. They were all playing with little grass butterflies, which was probably what attracted a-Yuan away from Wei Wuxian in the first place.

A young woman who was nearby spotted him and came over. “Are you his dad?”

Wei Wuxian nodded because the truth was too complicated and there was something that longed for her simple question to be that truth.

She smiled. “Oh good, I was worried where he might have come from when my girls got his attention. Sorry, they gave you a scare.”

“As long as he’s safe,” Wei Wuxian smiled back. “We don’t live in town, so he doesn’t get to play much with other kids.”

“Ah, I wondered why you didn’t look familiar,” she said. “He’s been very good and gentle. He’s a very sweet kid.”

“Yes, he is. Thank you,” Wei Wuxian felt something calm in his heart. A-Yuan’s smile... that was why they had done all of this. This was what made all their hardships worth it, seeing a-Yuan grow and learn and be happy.

Now if only he could teach the kid to stop wandering away...

#5) A Teacup Wei Wuxian stared at the table and frowned, hands on his hips. He had wanted to surprise Lan Wangji by putting together a meal for them to share (and making sure it wasn’t spicy at all). Lan Wangji had been so busy with his new duties and Wei Wuxian knew how much his husband could use a break. A quiet evening together would be the perfect surprise.

But one of the teacups was missing. Wei Wuxian crouched and looked to see if it had rolled under the table and then looked under all the other furniture in the room. The little white cup was nowhere to be seen.

He could take out their second set, but he had already put food in this one. It would be silly to mess more dishes just for things to be “perfect.” Sighing, Wei Wuxian took out just a cup from the other set and placed it.

Lan Wangji didn’t comment on it when they sat together to eat, serving each other with the ease of ever-growing familiarity. His husband did smile, as if having a private joke, at the black teacup among the rest of the white dishes.

Ah.

Wei Wuxian hid his own smile as he drank from the cup itself. The parallel was pretty funny, now that he thought of it.

+1) A Home The early fall evening held the hint of coming chill, a crispness that was refreshing after the summer. Wei Wuxian breathed in deeply as he tended to the lotuses he and Lan Wangji had coaxed into growing among the rest of the garden.

The Cloud Recesses were quiet around him but for Lan Wangji’s playing, which wrapped out from the open Jingshi door. But Wei Wuxian remembered the sound of his little Lan students’ soft laughter, the sounds that were always coming from the communal kitchen during the day, and the sound of practice swords striking or music being perfected. The Cloud Recesses were rarely as quiet as their rules would imply.

Wei Wuxian leaned back on his heels to turn his gaze down toward the buildings that the Jingshi was set apart from. What filled him was contentment. He didn’t feel trapped, as his teen self would have pictured. He was older now, had been through a lot more and sometimes the quiet was nice. Soothing. Other times, it was fun to try and figure out how to flex those Lan rules. Kept his mind sharp!

Wei Wuxian was apprehensive to think of this as home. He had lost too many homes before. But as the years passed and he found himself with a place he would always be welcome... where kids laughed, where he got to be with his husband, where he got to see their son and nephew often, where Wen Ning has his own little space within walking distance... It was becoming harder and harder to resist the truth.

He’d found another home. Maybe this time, he’d get to keep it.

#wangxian #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #lan wangji #wen qing #jiang sibs #lan yuan #nhs also appears!#my fic #a answers #i hope you enjoy :D #okay this was a great break from nanowrimo #should i have taken a break? who knows!#a talks #i have stared at so many words these last weeks i hope i didn't miss horrible spelling issues

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ink-splotch · 4 years

Note

Wangxian + 45 (gift)

Five Times Wei Wuxian Was Hungry + Once When He Was Not

It was Wei Ying’s favorite spot to scrounge. The morning’s cook cut the vegetables carelessly-- there was always a good few mouthfuls to gnaw off the cabbage and radish ends, the onions and peppers. He remembered having roasted potatoes before, with his mother and father, but it was hard lighting fires. And as soon as things started smelling good, other people came, or dogs.

Raw potatoes though-- they were barely sweet, crisp, and grainy. He chewed them more for entertainment than because they filled him up. He’d gotten a good instinct for which mouthfuls went the longest ways. Some things stuck to the ribs.

Wei Ying curled up in a different hollow each night, a different rooftop or alley or meadow or tree, and ran his fingers over the curved ridges of his ribs. He counted them and thought of his mother teaching him arithmetic, moving little twigs and stones into place beside a fire.

“Dinner was delicious.”

Wei Wuxian managed not to flail off the roof. “Jiang Cheng, you’re so mean.” Past his brother’s ugly face, the moon was setting low over the wide, still ponds of Lotus Pier.

“Well, dumbass, don’t piss off mom next time.” Jiang Cheng scooted slowly down the roof tiles. One day, they would have this down to an art, play light-footed games of tag at midnight. One day, they would huddle on these same tiles and watch their parents bleed out, holding hands. Wei Wuxian dropped down onto the wooden pathway, reaching up a hand to help, which Jiang Cheng ignored. “I tried to sneak you out some bao, but First Uncle caught me.”

“So you do love me!” Wei Wuxian grinned at him, all of twelve and gangly with it.

Jiang Cheng shoved him. “If you starve to a skeleton, who will be around for me to beat at swords?”

“Who will be around to beat you, you mean--”

“Both of you!”

At the hiss, Wei Wuxian latched onto Jiang Cheng’s startled flail of his arm. The ponds past them were still, painted with moonlight and pockmarked with lotus.

Jiang Yanli waved at them from the open door of her room. “Come on, in here. You both tiptoe like elephants.”

“It’s Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian explain, slipping into the room behind her. “I mean, he ate too much at dinner and now he’s going to bust through the floor into the lake.”

“Sit down, sit down,” Jiang Yanli said. “I’ve been waiting for hours, listening for you.”

“I was going to head down to town,” Wei Wuxian said.

“No need for that,” she said. She lifted the lid off a clay pot on her desk. Light pork flavor wafted up and Wei Wuxian’s stomach grumbled. He poked at it, betrayed.

“Have as much as you want,” Jiang Yanli said, reaching for the ladle. Her voice was soft, but it was always soft, even when they weren’t sitting in the dim light listening for creaks in the hallway.

“What about me?” Jiang Cheng demanded.

“You, too, A-Cheng,” she said. “If we run out, we’ll make a brave expedition to the kitchens to acquire more mission materiel.”

Her eyes sparkled even in the low lights. Wei Wuxian liked this so much better, the slyness in her eyes as she teased her brother, than the way she sat quiet in the daylight, peeling lotus seeds with shaking fingers, while her mother rose up like a bonfire.

There was a creak from the hallway. Wei Wuxian would have counted it for a mouse in the night, but Jiang Yanli’s head shot up. “That’s mother, coming to check up on me. Quick, both of you, out the window. Sorry, I-- quickly, now.”

That night, Wei Wuxian lay in bed with a still empty stomach-- an old feeling, a familiar one. He’d last til morning, easy, he knew that.

But this was unfamiliar, even now: his palms still felt the ghost of heat, of a warm bowl cradled in them, smuggled through the darkness and meant for him.

“Ai, Lan Zhan, you didn’t think to pack anything to eat? So thoughtless. Even those Qishan bao would be acceptable. I mean, I know I told Nie Huaisang they tasted burnt, but that was mostly lies. And if we’re stuck here much longer, I’d even eat that terrible bitter Gusu soup!”

Lan Zhan’s head was tipped back against the rough stone of the cave, eyes closed. Firelight played softly over the ridge of his jaw, the column of his neck. He didn’t respond to Wei Wuxian, not even to the bit about the soup.

Wei Wuxian sprawled where he could, trying to find a comfortable bit of ground while keeping an eye on Lan Zhan. “I ate every bowl I was given, when I was there,” he told Lan Zhan. “So I know what I’m talking about. Your clan doesn’t know how to eat. One day, I’ll take you to Lotus Pier, and you’ll see.”

At first the noise distracted him from the emptiness-- from the hunger, yes, but also from the quiet lack where his golden core once had been. It felt silent inside of him, that void under his belly, the way he hadn’t felt silent in years.

Spirits called for vengeance, for justice and fury, for freedom and power. Beneath the black cloud of that rage, there were quieter voices too-- asking for rest, for remembrance, for respite.

Beneath it all, though, he still had a body, however empty. He found water dripping down the cliff face. He dug up roots and caught rats. He lit fires to roast them. He figured that everything that could scare him already knew how to find him.

He remembered how it felt to wither, day by day. He watched his body shrink and hollow, familiar.

The spirits called for vengeance and he agreed. The spirits cried for justice and he promised it. His body begged for sustenance and he told it to wait. There were more important things.

Lil Apple reached out his neck, trying to snap his big ugly teeth at some greener grass growing off the path. “Ah, yeah, you hungry, you spoiled beast?” Wei Wuxian said, trying to tug him forward. “I gave you my last bit of melon this morning.”

Wei Wuxian managed to drag the donkey a few strides further before he gave up, sagging against a tree while Lil Apple waded out into greener pastures. He brayed again and Wei Wuxian hoped it was joy, but suspected it was something a little more vengeful.

“You’re lucky you can eat grass,” he called after him.

They’d left a town with a water spirit problem five days ago--well, a town that had previously had a water spirit problem. They’d given him a bag of apples, a stack of flatbread, and a big meal before he’d left. He rolled the memory over his tongue-- creamy eggplant and salted fish, spicy enough even to satisfy him.

It was days ago now, and that old familiar ache was curling under his heart. But there’d be a village around any corner now, a farm with a blight, or a merchant caravan looking for some peace of mind.

Even if there wasn’t, he could go far longer than this without a shake to his legs or to his smile. He had.

Even if the land was barren for miles, at the end of it he’d wash up in Caiyi town in time for loquat season. He’d climb the mountain by foot, palming the jade pass in his sleeve, and there would be a hot meal waiting for him when he arrived.

But for now, the crickets were calling from the grass. Heat beat down from a wide, clear sky and Wei Wuxian closed his eyes.

His body whispered for sustenance and he told it wait, wait, but this time it was a promise cradled warm and soft in his palms.

“You’re not busy, are you?” Wen Ning said.

Wei Wuxian glanced up from gnawing on the end of his calligraphy brush. It wasn’t an old bad habit of his, but he thought it might have been one of Mo Xuanyu’s. Also, the first time Lan Qiren had caught him doing it, he’d gone red in the face, so Wei Wuxian had rather leaned into it.

“We don’t want to bother you,” Wen Ning went on, bobbing his head. “I know you’re doing important work…”

“If I haven’t figured out how to balance this talisman yet-- and I haven’t,” Wei Wuxian said, wrinkling his nose at the crumbled papers beside him, “then it’s not going to happen tonight.” He leaned back, elbows on the wood floor of the inn. “What’s going on, Wen Ning? You and Sizhui get into trouble in the market?”

“No, we had some good luck.” Wen Ning stepped finally through the door. “If you could come down to the…”

“Did you find something on the case?” Wei Wuxian leapt to his feet.

“No, no,” Wen Ning said, following him down the stairs. One of the inn staff caught one look at Wen Ning and threw himself backward into an open room. “We just, I mean, I hope it’s not overstepping.”

Down on the ground floor of the inn, Lan Sizhui looked up and smiled to see them. He rose from the table where he’d been laying out four bowls. “Wei-qianbei."

"What's this, now?" Wei Wuxian said, glancing over the table.

“Wen Ning has been telling me stories of when I was little,” Lan Sizhui said, settling his hands gently on the lid of the pot. He did most things gently, that kid, and it didn’t come from Lan Zhan, who was deliberate in every movement but rarely soft in the public eye, or Lan Qiren. It certainly didn’t come from Wei Wuxian.

Wen Ning settled down opposite Lan Sizhui at Lan Sizhui’s encouraging nod, and Wei Wuxian realized-- it was his uncles. It was the way Lan Xichen had used to move quiet and kind through a crowded room. It was the way Wen Ning was so careful with his strength.

“He told me about a day when he carried a little bowl of soup miles home from Yiling, so I could try it. It was cold by the time he got there, of course, but… I don’t remember it really.” Lan Sizhui pulled the lid from the pot, the rich scent rising up. “But helping Madam Wang in the kitchen, the smell-- I think I do remember, a little.”

“We found lotus root in the market,” Wen Ning said. “And pork ribs, and the landlady here has a cousin from Lotus Pier. We thought…”

Wei Wuxian dropped down into a seat at the table, heavy and silent. He closed a hand over Wen Ning’s wrist, softly.

“Have as much as you want,” Lan Sizhui said, reaching for the ladle. His voice was soft.

When Lan Zhan got back to the inn, he found them still there, leaning over empty bowls and laughing about radishes.

He paused in the doorway to take in the sight-- Wei Ying with his head thrown back; Wen Ning waving his hands while he talked, like he'd forgotten to shrink himself down; Lan Sizhui soaking it in like he had years of family to catch up on.

Lan Zhan crossed the room to join them, Wei Ying spotting him when he got close. He was smiling already, but he smiled wider. "Ai, Lan Zhan, you're here! Sit down, sit down. We even saved you some soup."

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tanoraqui · 3 years

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grooooan I’ve been very writer’s block-y recently; pls enjoy this 2am-written peek at like...3 chapters forward in Iron, Blood and Grave Dirt. See, I DO have a plan for this fic!

This is a story about soup.

(Let’s pretend that this is what Wei Sizhui has been thinking, for the last several days. It’s probably close enough.)

Soup is, by rough definition, individual solid food items mixed together in a liquid base, and somehow cooked. There’s a lot of disagreements about the nuances, but we can all agree on a common-sense definition of soup, right?

(Wrong, but the internet hasn’t been invented yet in the year Fantasy!Ambiguously-Ancient China, so, yes. Yes we can.)

By a certain measure of metaphor, a family is - no, start the other way around. By a certain measure of symbolism, soup is family. That is, in Wei Sizhui’s experience, soup - good soup, really really good soup with pork ribs and lotus roots - is something his uncle makes when Jin Ling is sick, or that one time he broke his arm falling off the docks, or usually just on Aunt Yanli’s birthday, for which Jin Ling is always in Lotus Pier, no matter how much bickering has to be done with LanlingJIn first. The Good Soup has never been made for Wei Sizhui, but in fairness, he’s never gotten sick, because - he’s been praised - his golden core developed so exceptionally early. (This, like many things in Wei Sizhui’s life, is something the will be addressed later. For the first time, later is coming very soon.)

Wei Sizhui has never felt much of the loss, because he did have the honor of staying int he kitchen and helping his uncle make the Soup. Very much his uncle, not his sect leader - it wasn’t Sect Leader Jiang who swore so profusely while fiddling with the heat on the stove, nor who showed Wei Sizhui - Wei Yuan, the first time - how to hold a knife to shave a lotus root, or cut the meat without losing any of the rich juice. It might’ve been Sandu Shengshou, just a little, but it was mostly just Wei Sizhui’s shushu. And then they’d bring the soup to wherever Jin Ling was pouting in bed, and then they’d eat it. If it was Aunt Yanli’s birthday, they might eat out on the pier instead, or by the Clarity Bell Pavilion.

Because family, in turn, was like soup. You took some solid, individual things, that maybe weren’t even that good on their own, or they were bitter or twisted or cut to pieces, and you put them in a pot and warmed them up and they became...good. Sometimes it was very fine, all sorts of healthy herbs or richest meats at a grand banquet, but sometimes it was just...

A soup could be a single gnarled, curmudgeonly lotus root and a too-spicy chili pepper mixed together in a smooth, sweet lotus-flavored broth. You could add some expensive oil of peony and a little curmudgeonly peony root, and a necromantically charged potato, and...

Well, maybe not all at once. But once the peony oil burned off and the lotus broth all ran out, spilled over bloody soil, you could still hold it together with a watery broth, and maybe a few dashes of tall white leeks.

Another variant of the metaphor: dozens, hundreds of souls slain by a single beast accumulating in a single blade shoved into the monster’s side, dark iron already charged with resentful energy from its wielder’s hand. There for centuries, to stew - to soup? - in the broth of their collective resentful energy, individualities fading, melting, into one not-quiet-consciousness that burns (like hot soup!) with rage, resentment, and the need for the control so sorely lost with death. Or imagine it on an even grander scale: hundreds, thousands of lives lost is grand and terrible battle, left to rot on a n empty hill - turning it into close to a mountain, with thier volume. More and more corpses added over the centuries, discarded and forgotten, solid corpses and individual vengeful souls bleeding together into something even grander and more terrible than the first fires that bore them...

And sometimes (to switch tracks with all the grace of a drumseller’s cart hitting a rut), when a very angry sword of death and a very, very vengeful mountain of even more death love each other very much, or at least are brought into proximity by a...shall we say “donor”? By a willing donor of the raw stuff of life...(blood! I mean blood! Get your mind out of the gutter!)

...Anyway. These are things Wei Sizhui could, hypothetically, be thinking, as he lies on the bare stone of the cave at the top, the center, of the Burial Mounds, and feels like he could probably sink into the hard stone if he wished. Maybe even if he didn’t wish. It feels like an embrace, around the deity-binding ropes tying his hands and feet together, and he can’t quite resist the urge to press into it. Not as a blanket, though, or bed - the sense of it is vast and cold and as dark and deep as...nothing he’s ever felt before, but it makes him think of the bottom of a lake. Maybe the bottom of an ocean? But if the ocean was electrifying. He feels better than he did in Yi City. More awake. More aware. Fluttering on the surface are hundreds of little corpses, which aren’t part of it, and within it are thousands of drips and drags of others - corpses but also ghosts, ghouls, petty yaos. Really a ton of crows. Which all very much are part of it, like individual waves in the water. And, of course, there are the intruders, all the bright golden cores around him - so many trembling with fear or the effort of inedia or simple weakness, ready to be snapped up...and another, on the outskirts -

“Sizhui?” One of the little- Jin Ling. Jin Ling pokes him in the shoulder, once and then again, hard. “Wei Yuan, you’re being weird again.”

“Oh- sorry.” Wei Sizhui sits up (forces himself to sit up). Lan Jingyi, too, is looking at him with worry, not remotely concealed behind Lan quietude.

“Sorry,” he repeats. “I’m just...” He lowers his voice, so no one else will hear but the three of them. “Hanguang-jun is coming, and- my father, and Wen Ning.”

The epithet still feels strange on his tongue, but it’s undeniable, especially in this place.

“Really?” says Lan Jingyi, and sits back in relief that’s a little too loud. “Oh, thank goodness. We’re saved!”

“You’re sure?” Jin Ling asks, more anxious. “You can really tell, with your...” He gestures vaguely at all of Wei Sizhui.

Wei Sizhui shouldn’t be able to. They’re far too far away, much farther than he can usually sense dead things, much less living things - even living things as spiritually powerful as Hanguang-jun, or as as demonically powerful as the Yiling Patriarch. Or dead things as demonically powerful as the Ghost General. But his palms rest flat on the stone floor and the currents of the dark ocean carry him outwards, beckon him to stay and fill him with such strength that he idly wonders if he could break the deity-binding ropes. But...

“I’m sure,” he says. “We’ll be out of here soon.”

#mdzs #the untamed #lan sizhui #my fic #ficlet

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sands-wenning · 13 days

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Thanks to everyone who participated in Wen Ning's birthday event! ❤️ the AO3 collection will remain open

And if you want to add a late art, just tag @sands-wenning and we'll RP

See you next year 💕

#hbdwenning #sandswenning #happywenningday #wen ning #modaozushi #wenning #wen ning birthday week 2024 #wen qionglin #mdzs

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watch-grok-brainrot · 3 years

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ajsksk hey! i'm so sorry for not taking time earlier but i've got a little bit of time rn. christmas is a very busy time for my family since my brother's birthday follows right after the christmas days on the 28th!! and then my birthday is on the fifth january and y'know we cook a lot of food and bake a lot.

i can't for the life of me remember if i sent an ask already, but yeah the emojis where wwx. i thought going with a skull would be too obvious so i went with something that could've been wen ning too, except for the paint. which is kind of a reference to the fact that in a lot of modern aus wwx is an artist and that in canon he drew lwj!!

some questions: do you prefer spicy, sour or sweet food? i'm not a fan of spicy things since i have a low tolerance (in contrast to my siblings and my father), i actually quite like eating sour things because i think it's really enjoyable. you could see me biting happily into a lemon just so i can taste the sourness. i like sweet things too!!

did you have any wishes for christmas? and if yes, did you get it? i got a new game called ghost of tsushima, it's set in ancient japan and is about the samurai jin sakai and his journey of freeing his homeland from the mongols. which kind of results in him going against the samurai codex so that he can protect his people. that's how he earns the title "the ghost" (while yeah his uncle insists that jin would never go against his teachings and the samurai codex, which... he kind of does but also doesn't?? it's hard because he is the last real samurai in tsushima and they're at war). anyways, sorry for ranting!!

do you have any tattoos or would you like to get any? if the latter, what would it be? if not, why wouldn't you want any?

i hope you have a fun day 💞 - ❄🐇

i like all food? there’s a sichuan flavor profile called “fish fragrance” and it’s garlic, ginger, green onions, sugar, and vinegar mixed with sichuan spicy bean paste. So can i just say yes? look. fish fragrant eggplant is one of my top favorite vegetarian dishes. OMG so gooooood. so is fish fragrant pork... which sounds weird but is DELCIOUS... mmmmm... i like eating sour things too. definitely guilty of giving myself chemical burns from warheads as a kid... did anyone else do that? lol.

uh... wishes for xmas? i was hoping for something but it was really expensive and i didn’t actually ask for it. i didn’t get it but i don’t mind. i did get tea though! and teas i don’t usually drink or buy for myself!! so i’m excited! :D japanese teas are not something i end up exploring often... i still don’t know if one of the teas i got is an oolong or a black tea though... it’s labeled oolong black ginger or something like that. looks like a black tea... but maybe a roasted oolong? ope. the ginger smells are AMAZING in that tea and overpower other notes... so i’ll have to brew it and guess. i’m so excited to try it! I also got a yuzu sencha that might have matcha mixed in... so i’ll have to find my good filter for it... and a hojicha. mmmmm. tea!

i don’t have any tattoos. I am unlikely to get any. it’s mostly because i don’t want to permanently put something on my body. i only have my ear lobes pierced. I’m fairly conservative/reserved... except for the streak of color i have in my hair... but i can always grow that out... i say this but i’ve had a streak of color in my hair since 2006... so eh? lol. other people want tattoos? by all means. I'll admire the pretty and have things to talk to people about. i love so many of my friends’ tattoos! one of my friend has what he calls a nerd barcode. he has a D&D dragon ampersand, a cow-like wolf from wheel of time, and something else that i can’t remember. those are all things HE WILL TALK ABOUT so having it on his arm is pretty neat. He also has a biohaz symbol on his chest. something about a game he used to play. idk. another one of my friends does a lot of amtgard and has chainmail/armor patterns on his upper arm. really neat looking. if i got one, it would probably be something octopus related or an inside joke with my husband... but like i said, i don’t really want a tattoo.

#mdzsnetcc #snowbunny asked haoppo answered #sorry i am so slow #one big midwest ope #but seriously if you like sour eat warheads but uh... be gentle #i can't believe i didn't think about how they were chemical burns as a child #but then again what twelve year old thinks about that?#you can rant about video games all you want friend #you've seen how long i go on about tea #your eyes probably glaze over when i talk about tea #lol #Anonymous

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madtomedgar · 4 years

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Request for office snack habits of untamed characters please 🥕🍿🍪

ok ok ok

So I know I had a snack meme like. years ago. But I’m not going to go through my archive to find it.

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are constantly stealing each others snacks, and in an arms race about this. They keep buying spicier and spicier snacks, or making their snacks insanely spicy if they don’t come that way, to keep the other from eating. It doesn’t work. Consequently, they are the only ones who steal each other’s snacks.

Wen Qing keeps very healthy snacks like carrots and roasted chickpeas and stuff, and cliff bars. No one steals from her. She thinks it’s because they are all afraid of her. No, it is because her snacks suck.

Yanli has an entire drawer and it’s filled with that good trader joe’s shit. You know what I’m talking about. And she will give it out to anyone, freely, because she is an angel.

Nie Huaisang is the snack thief in chief. He is a stealth snack thief. Never gets caught. Has a whole system. Knows exactly how many cookies have to be left in the bag to get away unnoticed, and how many have to have been eaten already for same. The annoying thing is, he also begs snacks most piteously off of everyone constantly and it works.

Wen Ning doesn’t steal snacks because Wen Ning doesn’t have to. He also doesn’t have his own stash. However, everyone just gives him theirs because he’s so sweet.

Lan Wangji doesn’t condone snacking.

Lan Xichen is a shameless snack thief. His skills are not anywhere near as good as Nie Huaisangs, and his thieving has been discovered on more than one occasion. However, he never gets caught, because even when he tried to own up to it, nobody believed him.

Jin Guangyao is impossible to steal from, because he always knows *exactly* how many of something there was, even if it’s like. An open bag of chips and someone only takes one. He can tell. He will share if you ask, but he has a secret special stash of The Good Snacks which is decidedly NOT for sharing, though he has been known to very, very occasionally give Lan Xichen something from there if he’s having a particularly bad day. He is also Incredibly Particular about labeling your shit in the fridge, not leaving your shit in the fridge forever, and not eating other people’s things in the fridge.

Jin Zixun: Steals snacks, but is bad at it. Opens unopend things. Takes the last of things and puts the empty package back. Takes the second last of things!

Jin Zixuan: doesn’t steal snacks, but always gets blamed when someone’s snacks are stolen because on the very, very rare occasion Nie Huaisang makes a mistake, he leaves any and all evidence on Jin Zixuan’s desk.

Nie Mingjue: very easy to steal from, but only has boring shit like power bars and trail mix. Sometimes he has the kind with the m&ms in it though.

Xiao Xingchen: constantly giving all his snacks away, so never has any for himself when he needs them :(

Song Lan: Constantly and exasperatedly buying snacks for Xiao Xingchen when he inevitably runs out again

A-Qing: doesn’t bother trying to be stealthy about stealing snacks, because she will just pull the “wait... this isn’t my desk?” schtick and somehow everyone still falls for it.

Xue Yang: If you try to keep sweet snacks or candy, he will find it and he will eat it and he WILL leave the wrappers in the most inconvenient place possible. Has a massive candy stash, and if you even think about trying to steal from him, he can and he will destroy everything you love. RIP Zixuan’s $600 leather jacket. Hope the reese’s was worth it. Is an absolute animal about property rights. If something is out and is unlabled? He eats it. If something is labled but unattended? He eats it. He will eat half your sandwich and then put it back. He will eat the fruit out of your yogurt cup and then put it back. Nothing is sacred. He once ate all of the pepperoni off of Nie Mingjue’s pizza, and then put the pizza back. He once ate the filling out of Jin Guangyao’s sandwich and then put the bread back. If there’s a theft that is just brazen and nonsensical, it’s very obvious who did it. Everyone is so ready for his internship to be over. Except, somehow, Xiao Xingchen.

#untamed stuff #long post

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