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#i love aus where lan xichen catches a break
phoenixkaptain · 1 year
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I love Wei Wuxian amd Lan Wangji and the Juniors and Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang and-
But! My favourite character in Mo Dao Zu Shi is Lan Xichen!!
He is burdened! Burdened with knowledge!! The knowledge specifically of how to read his brother!!!
No, but Lan Xichen is the one who figures of Lan Wangji’s crush on Wei Wuxian first (before Lan Wangji himself even figures it out). Lan Xichen basically goes “omg my baby brother is feeling love i will support him no matter what!”
The worst decision he ever made
Lan Xichen is just existing. He is just vibing. He is just trying not to die because terrible things happen every five minutes. He is polite to everyone at all times. We only ever see him get upset one time! And it’s the time where he thinks Wei Wuxian is fucking with his brother, and it is quickly ended once he realizes that no, Wei Wuxian just is that oblivious.
I absolutely love just about every scene with Lan Xichen in it. Just, please give him a break. Let him rest. Let him cry on the table for a few decades. He’s so supportive of his brother and the way he gently hints to him, like, “It looked like you wanted Wei-gongzi to come” or “If you want loquats, we can buy some.” This man is gently nudging his brother into figuring out that he’s in love and it is amazing.
(And I will never, as long as I live, get over Lan Wangji supporting Lan Xichen through his grief, because Lan Xichen did the same for him. And Lan Wangji doesn’t rush him or say he’ll get over anything quickly because he understands watching someone you love die and so he just promises to be there whenever Lan Xichen needs him and it makes me cry because these brothers are so!!!!!)
On a lighter note, I really like the audio extra where Lan Xichen drinks. Because MXTX said that he ends every sentence with three exclamation marks when he’s drunk, and this extra really encapsulates that. And he loses Liebing while it’s in his hand, then immediately jumps (back) onto the roof to play a cheerful diddy, I love this man. And the way he’s like “Wangji wants to hear flute??? Then we need to let him hear flute!!! Let’s go find that Wei-guy, he flutes!!!” Lan Xichen, you are literally holding a flute. But no, of course, he telepathically knows that Lan Wangji wants to hear a sideways flute, obviously.
I love Lan Xichen, he is the best character, everyone he loves dies but he still tries to keep on keeping on and I’ve never wished so hard to be able to give a fictional character a hug. I just want to pat-pat his head and tell him everything will be okay, he is so sad.
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wangxianficfinder · 1 month
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Fic Finder
Apr 27th
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1. For a ficfinder: I lost an NSFW oneshot and cannot find it no matter what I search.
So it was set during Cloud Recesses era and Wangxian had gotten together at some point before the fic, and the fic itself is about wx being caught having sex in the library by SMS, except he's being a gross voyeur and getting off on that without wx's permission.
They catch him in the act and when sms tries to say that they'll end up punished when he says what happened, LWJ went and said something like "Even if I'm punished, you'll be punished worse cuz I'm clan and you're just an outer desciple."
And that's about all I remember 😅 Thanks in advance!
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2. For fic finder: I am looking for a canon-era fic where WWX is a mermaid-type creature. He is injured and taken to Cloud Recesses to heal and everyone there is very respectful of him (he is a godly creature, maybe?). However he is kidnapped and he is tortured so that he will cry pearls. I can’t remember if this is the whole fic or if that kidnapping scene is just one chapter in a larger story. Sound familiar to anyone? Thank you!
FOUND? melt away (in your arms) by saccharinings (M, 32k, WangXian, Siren WWX, Prince LWJ, Fluff, Inspired by Legend of the Blue Sea (TV), The Little Mermaid Fusion, Mermaid WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, Amnesia, with a twist ;), Hopeful Ending)
FOUND?🔒Secrets of Yunmeng's Lotus Lakes by Cy_an_Blue (G, 73k, WangXian, One-Sided SuXian, Omega WWX, Mermaid WWX, Cultivator LWJ, teenage WWX, teenage LWJ, No War AU, Non-Traditional A/B/O Dynamics Falling In Love, Getting Together, Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Awkwardness, Injury Recovery, accidental injury, Accidental Stabbing, Cultivation Accidents, Near Death Experiences, waterborne abyss, Kidnapping, Non-Explicit Torture, Mentions of major injury, Fluff, Attempted Sexual Assault, Courtship, Courting Rituals)
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3. Hello, I am looking for a fic in AO3 that I have read this past few months but I'm having a hard time finding it again. It was about before Jin Ling's One Month Celebration, where Wei Wuxian died and the Wen Remnants were devastated and don't know how to explain this to the rest. During this, from what I remember reading this Jiang Yanli and the others are planning on reconciling with Wei Wuxian and Lan Wanji asked his brother for encouragement in confessing to Wei Wuxian and permission in marrying him - also asking Lan Xichen for a forehead ribbon. But they don't know it is already too late since Wei Wuxian is already dead. I will appreciate the help in finding this Fic. Thank you. @mythiquefonceephenix
FOUND? To Offer a Heart by WhiteCrane (M, 111k, wangxian, major character death, Sad WWX, Hurt WWX, YLLZ WWX, soft wangxian, Cinnamon Roll WN, WWX Whump, WQ is a good sister, WN is a good brother, everybody loves wwx, yunmeng siblings, Triggers, Suicidal Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst with a Happy Ending, Taking care of WWX, Give WWX a break, Canon Divergence, Disturbing Themes, Changing Perspectives, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Grief/Mourning, Temporary Character Death, Getting Together, Redemption, Sibling Bonding, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Brother-Sister Relationships, Parent-Child Relationship, Sad and Sweet, Tragedy, BAMF WWX, BAMF JC, BAMF JYL, BAMF WQ, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Everyone Needs A Hug, WIP)
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4. Hello!
I’m looking for a modern au fic where Wei Ying comes back as Mo Xuanyu and is married to Lan Zhan. I think Lan Zhan had married Mo Xuanyu to help him get away from his family but they didn’t actually have a relationship so Wei Ying comes in and tries to pretend that he knows what’s going on and pretends to be Mo Xuanyu but Lan Zhan immediately knows something is up. I think I remember a scene where Lan Xichen was against the marriage but sees how happy Wei Ying is making Lan Zhan and is okay with it? I think Lan Zhan might have been a professor in it and Wei Ying started taking classes at the university or maybe he started some other kind of hobby thing, I just remember him trying to find ways to fill his time. This has been bothering me that I can’t find it, I’ve been searching all the tags and my own bookmarks, any help is appreciated! @sepaea
FOUND? Write It on My Neck by diamondbruise (E, 23k, WangXian, A/B/O Dynamics, Transmigration, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, Fake Marriage, Falling In Love, Jealousy, Happy Ending, Anal Sex, Spanking, usual wangxian cnc elements, Misunderstandings
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5. Hey, I need some help with finding a fic, if possible. All I remember is that Wei YIng time travels back in time and find himself at the Discussion Conference. Before he can do anything, he ascends as a god and can't leave heaven. However, after receiving the prays of friends and family, he escapes heaven and lands back on earth before jumping into Lan Zhan's arms. I also think it was a one-shot. Thank you!
FOUND?🔒Mixed Blessings by mondengel (Not Rated, 1k, WangXian, god AU, Humor)
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6. I really need help finding a fic I read on AO3 years ago, so I'll try listing the important things i remember! Basically, Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze survive, but Cangse gets very injured in her legs after the attack and is unable to walk after that. Wei Ying is haunted by some ghost, and later on it's revealed that to be the future Wei Wuxian. Meng Yao's mother lives, and she becomes a teacher in the Jiang Sect. XY and XXC are both Baoshan Sanren's disciples and they leave the mountain. @subaro
FOUND? Building a home by R95irth (T, 586k, WCZ/CS, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time Travel Fix-it, Angst with a happy ending, Family fluff)
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7. Hey I'm looking for a fic where wei wuxian gets badly injured I think when wen ning is brought back and like he's paralysed and then eventually dies. So song lan takes a letter to Jin lings one month celebration and everyone realizes how bad they messed up. I remember that a-yuan was crying a lot and calling Lan Wangji father? Anyway wei wuxian dies and the cultivation world over the next 13 years collects pieces of his soul to put it back together and summon him? Thank you for the help @mybestfriendisacinnamonroll
FOUND? I'm pretty sure this is the deleted "When I'm Gone" by qiankun_pouch. The archive link was . I could only find this Google Drive link. / I think 7 may have been deleted. Iirc it involved wwx dying by his own hand and maybe destroying the seal too?
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8. can you help me find a fic? i remember only a specific part; it was a conversation between what i think was a maybe rogue, disciple era wwx and possibly lqr about demons, and how the correct response wasn't to kill them on sight because some people turned into demons when they didn't want to, so it was best to get a feel for the situation before making a judgement, and how wwx was both surprised and also comforted by that response
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9. For a FicFinder: there's a modern AU where WWX gets a text from Wen Qing while he's at dinner with the Jiang family. She's having a family emergency; WWX and his friends and siblings all go across the country to help her re-build her family house. It's short and soft and ends with them building a dock over the local lake. It's NOT the one where WWX is trans and thinks LWJ is dating JYL. (That one's great, just not the story I've lost.) @songscloset
FOUND! the ship sways but the heart is steady by taizi (T, 9k, JC & WWX, WangXian, Modern AU, Established Relationship, Families of Choice, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Past Child Abuse, Protective JC, Soft WangXian)
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10. Hello!! First time doing this but I'm looking for a fic that I think is JC centric with JC and JL fluff. There was this specific scene where JC found a way to walk/run on water, same with JL, and JC managed to find a way to allow Fairy to join as well. I know wangxian was in it but I don't remember any pairings or other scenes. Hope you guys are well! ^^ @fng095
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11. hi there! I’m looking for a modern au! fic where lz and wy are best friends and were gonna go out to do something but it was storming outside. then they start getting intimate and losing each other’s firsts. oh! and lxc is also in the house. thank you!!!
FOUND? blue matter by verseau (E, 5k, WangXian, PWP, Tickling, Loss of Virginity, Bottom WWX)
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12. Hello, I am new here! But I have been trying to find this one fic, that I read a while back and am not sure if it was deleted or not. I think it was a time travel fix-it of sorts. All I remember is that WangXian got together either before or during the war with the Wens and after a battle or on their way to a battle, they are passive through a burnt down village where WWX senses or hears the call of a Fierce Corpse and calls to it. It is severely burnt, like chard black, burnt and it is carrying a bundle. It turns out to be LSZ as a baby. WWX realized that the corpse, a'Yuan's birth mother, was so worried for him that even after her horrific death her Fierce Corpse protected her son.
WWX promises her that he and LWJ would raise him and keep him safe, allowing her to pass on. As they leave WWX says that LSZ feels like he is theirs, and LWJ agrees that he is now theirs. I think it was a WIP or that it got completed not long after I read it originally, but for the life of me, I cannot recall the name or anything outside of this scene. I think it wasn't very nice to JWY/JC, but I could be very wrong about this...
Please help me? Thank you! I also wouldn't mind some nice time travel fix-it fics or even just WangXian getting their sht together much sooner recommendations if you find them. @rhygserene
FOUND? And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 139k, WangXian, XiChengQing, Time Travel, Fix-It, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Healing, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, BAMF WWX, BAMF JC, BAMF LWJ, BAMF JYL, Getting Together)
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13. Hi! I'm looking for a fic that I read long ago. From what I can remember is that the lan found out that yzy has been abusing wwx and he was sent to cloud recesses so that he can recover. The scene that stuck in my head is that when wwx is taking a walk with lqr, wwx saw a fox and its kits and like a little child, wwx pulled on lqr sleeve for attention. That's all I could remember. I hope you can help me to find it. Thank you in advance! @mayuchi96
FOUND!🔒 The Second Hand Unwinds by trulywicked (E, 56k, WangXian, JYL/JZX, WIP, Time Travel Fix-It, Not JC Friendly, Not Yunmeng Jiang Sect Friendly, Not Jiāng Family Friendly, Not YZY Friendly, Time Travelling LWJ, Protective LWJ, Fluff, Minor Angst, Minor Character Death, JGS is his own warning, Wooing, LWJ is romantic af, Inventor WWX, Genius WWX, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Protective Gusu Lan Sect, Supportive LXC, Good Uncle LQR, WWX Protection Squad) it's locked to the archive so you have to be logged in to read, the scene with WWX tugging on LQR's sleeve happens in chapter 3
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14. Hello! So some years ago I've read a fic that made me experience some bad shit, so I promptly forgot about it, but now my friends are asking to drop the link and I can't find it anymore :( It was post-canon, WWX dies, so LWJ goes mad and massacres almost everyone in CR, then goes to Jingshi and stays there hugging the body (also kills his uncle when he comes there) There's time travel involved, and LWJ helps his past self, teaches him all he knows about WY, after that sorta dies? Pls help! @j-aime-vodker
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15. I'm looking for a modern with magic kind of fic. LWJ is slightly estranged from his fam because he's really into reconstructing the song of clarity (long lost) through a research study with a bunch of students who can't cultivate too well. A-yuan and WWX move into his apt bldg, and LWJ teaches A-yuan how to play qin. WWX plays xiao. LXC is sect leader. It was really touching, I remember a specific scene with LWJ giving A-yuan his childhood qin. Any leads?
FOUND? Hear a song this deeply by so_shhy (T, 87k, WangXian, Modern Cultivation, Kind of academia AU, Music, Kid Fic, Canon-Typical Violence, Action/Adventure, canon-typical JGY behaviour, Original Character(s), Slow Burn, Fluff and Angst, we love us some tragic backstory, Happy Ending, for wangxian at least, [slaps fic] this baby can fit so much plot in it)
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16. Looking for an untamed story.
Wei Wuxian is a YouTuber that bakes and the first chapter is him putting a cupcake in a locker at a train station for a viewer. Lan Zhan is a musician amd is hold a concert with a meal. Wen Chao is meant to be running the Kitchen but Wei Wuxian helps out but doesn’t want Lan Zhan to know die to a misunderstanding in the past.
They get together and create a cooking/baking area plus music room @nikkiwhitecraft
FOUND! i swim in hollow lakes carved from memories by spookykingdomstarlight (T, 154k, WangXian, LXC/JGY, Modern, Coffee Shops & Cafés, Music, Baking, Social Media, Misunderstandings, Consequences of Fake Dating Schemes, Flashbacks, Vlogger WWX, Professional Musician LWJ, Angst with a Happy Ending, Mistakes, Pining, Matchmaking, Romance, Illnesses, Slow Burn, POV Multiple, Second Chances)
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17. Hello! For the fic finder: I've been trying to rediscover a fic where lwj finds out wwx is engaged in sex work during burial mounds era to get by. I specifically recall that it's a chance encounter between the two of them. they run into one another in an inn in yiling, I believe right as wwx is finishing up with a client. he proceeds to bait lwj by asking if he'd like a round. I'm starting to suspect it may have been deleted, but thank you for any help!
FOUND? I Can't Contain These Demons' Hands by flipfloppandas (M, 5k, WangXian, WWX/Other(s), WWX/WC, Rape/Non-Con, Prostitution, Oral Sex, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, non-graphic/implied pedophilia, those tags do not apply to wangxian, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence, at least at the end, Angst with a Happy Ending)
FOUND? Tender by Deastar (E, 20k, WangXian, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Sex Work, (not between the main characters), love in the time of income inequality, Canon Divergence, Hopeful Ending, Gūsū Lán Forehead Ribbon)
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18. Hi I was hoping you could help me find a wangxian fic. All I remember of it - lan wangji is receiving his 33 lashes when wei Wuxian comes to save him ( he didn't die or came back to life can't remember), but due to lan wangji being hurt. Wei wuxian destroys the cultivation world, I also remember Yanli being alive and I think Zixuan. It was on ao3. Sorry if that's not enough info, please could you help
FOUND? the fire and the forest by androids_fighting93 (T, 15k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Not Everyone Dies AU, Resentful Energy, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, WWX Lives, Suicidal Ideation) is similar to the request but doesn't match exactly (WWX arrives after the whipping is finished and doesn't destroy the cultivation world)
FOUND? An arrow to the heart by IsilmeLasgalen (T, 47k, WangXian, SongXiao, XuanLi, ZhuiYi, LQY/NMJ, XiSang, A-qing/OYZZ, BSSR/LY, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, YLLZ WWX, WWX Lives, BAMF JYL, Protective WWX, Good Parents LWJ and WWX, Married WangXian Have Children, JGS "falls" down the stairs, Bad Parents JFM and YZY, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, JYL Lives, JZX Lives, Protective WN, Implied/Referenced Abuse, POV Multiple, Post-Sunshot Campaign, Cultivation Sect Politics)
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19. Hi! looking for a fic i read awhile ago amd got lost in my history but it was about LWJ And WWX getting married but Jin Guangshan didnt believe their marriage was real so he had jin disciples go to the jingshi on their wedding night to see if they actually do anything so WWX and LWJ proceed to have really loud sex just to spite him @yesibest
FOUND? debt of a knife by iliacquer (E, 13k, WangXian, Fantasy AU, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Warlord!LWJ, Forced Marriage, faked dubcon, safe sane consensual noncon kink, gendered language for horny purposes, Mercenary!WWX, Exhibitionism, Voyeurism, But Only a Little Bit, Pain Kink, Consensual Non-Consent)
FOUND?🔒 Set Me Free by jiejieaini (E, 15k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, frankencanon, Fake Marriage, Marriage Proposal, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Bottoming, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts, Illnesses, Chronic Pain, Parenthood, Weddings, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Golden Core Reveal, Angst with a Happy Ending) there's a scene similar to what was described near the end
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20. Thanks for all the hard work you do!!
I'm looking for a fic that has wei wuxian and jin zixuan summoned being summoned and they work together.
FOUND? The Tales of Despereaux by stiltonbasket (T, 51k, WIP, wangxian, canon divergence, WWX summoned by QS, additional warnings in author's note when applicable) If rosethornewrites is right and WWX is summoned by Qin Su then it could also be the chapters 1-23 in "The Tales of Despereaux" by stiltonbasket.
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pbaintthetb · 9 months
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I wish you would write a fic where JGY gets into more Back to the Future Shenanigans! I remember your first BttF fic and it was a lot of fun :D
Maybe LQR can take the role of Doc Brown in this au xD
Heh, in the original draft LQR was indeed going to be Doc Brown, anyway ask and you shall recieve!
If i get the energy to clean this up a bit I might actually post it on my ao3 as a continuation of the original one shot ('A necessary evil') but for now have at, hope it' satisfactory
(also the last little section is the end once JGY is back in the future but I liked it and wanted to add it on)
Jin Guangyao wanders around the streets of the seedier districts for a while until he catches a guy getting a little friendlier with a woman than the woman appears to want. A handy garotte takes quick work of that problem, and Jin Guangyao decides to reward himself with the shitstain’s coin purse.
He tells the woman not to mention it as she stares blankly ahead. He sighs, she keeps staring blankly and Jin Guangyao sighs again. 
The wall is cold against his back as he slumps down against it, closer but not within easy touching distance of the woman, and he waits. Turning up at Gusu in the dead of night probably wouldn’t make a good impression anyway. It’s fine, he’s got nothing better to do.
With sun breaking the clouds so do words the woman’s lips.
Jin Guangyao cuts her off with a harsh “don’t mention it.” before proceeding on his way. He’s not got a sword to fly on anymore, which means he needs alternate transport to Gusu. But Guangyao has money now- and he’s done more with less.
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[LQR-title] Guangyao utters smoothly, politely, “May I have a word?” Lan Qiren turns, and Jin Guangyao can get a better look at him. There’s not even the slightest hint of grey in his beard, his face is largely free of wrinkles. This is a Lan Qiren in his prime and the thought of it makes Jin Guangyao straighten up even further. He hadn’t thought that possible.
“Is there some problem with submitting your requests through the usual channels?” Lan Qiren asks, eyes just as unforgiving as they’ve always been. A stickler for rules and regulations, a man after Jin Guangyao’s own heart, and a damn problem right now.
But also the only way home, Xichen’s uncle, and a man who Jin Guangyao generally respects because he has been generally respected in return. So, not a problem that can be dealt with in some of the easier ways. Although, Jin Guangyao has probably done enough of that since coming here and now he’s managed to unbirth himself.
Ooops.
“My name is Jin Guangyao, and I’m from the future.” It feels wrong to lay out his cards so openly and completely. It feels wrong to expose himself for the world’s scrutiny to see (and he hasn’t even got into his deeper secrets). It feels wrong not to cage and half-speak and to twist. But Lan Qiren won’t appreciate any of that. And Jin Guangyao needs his help, which means if this doesn’t come out now it will come out later and Lan Qiren would be disappointed by his lies.
Lan Qiren raises one imperious quivering eyebrow at him, and Guangyao lets himself believe- just for a moment- that he might get back home, back to Xichen-ge and his home, and even Qin Su. A woman he can’t bear to look at due to sickness and guilt but also still loves with a sort of platonic simplicity borne from true respect.
“And I suppose you’re somebody very important in this future who shall handsomely reward me in some- thirty years? Or is that too soon?”
Jin Guangyao gapes. Then remembers it’s unbecoming and puts you on the back foot.
“Well, I suppose I am yes- and I can- and it’s only twenty-odd years, actually.” He coughs and rightens himself, “But I really do need your help Lan-[title], you’re the only one who can help me.”
Jin Guangyao’s plea is met with the loudest snort he’s ever heard Lan Qiren make, a louder snort than he frankly thought the man was possible of making, and the quick flurry of robes of a man making an escape.”
“I can prove it!” he begs, and Jin Guangyao hates begging. Hates men who make him beg and always, always, makes them pay for it. But he likes Lan Qiren, more or less, but he’s making him beg.
“Oh really now?” Lan Qiren’s words are short and sharp, and he doesn’t hesitate or alter his quick gait in the slightest. Jin Guangyao estimates they have mere minutes until reaching the gates to Gusu and Jin Guangyao is barred out.
“You’ve got the wrong generational name for somebody important in the Jin sect in twenty years time, sonny- if you’re going to impersonate a great sect you should learn how their customs work a little better.”
He can’t help it, Jin Guangyao feels his ears burn. The insult of a name is as fresh as it ever was, and now it’s not only declaring to the world that he isn’t a real son, now it’s barring him from ever being able to get home. His temper and his pride and his common sense are all battling, but maybe he picked up more from Nie Mingjue in his brief time by the man’s side because all that comes out of his mouth is spitting venom.
“I’m a bastard,” he growls out, “Is that what you wanted to hear? And my pathetic excuse of father is going to think he’s so funny one day when he finally acknowledges me for the blood I shed for him and gives me that joke of a name. It’s an insult, and everybody knows it and I don’t need you, [Qiren-title] to tell me too.”
He could kick himself, he’s definitely blown it now. Nobody wants to help a bastard, not even righteous noble Lan- not unless they know them. Xichen hadn’t found out Jin Guangyao was a bastard for a while into their friendship and-
Lan Qiren stops in his march towards Gusu and turns around once again, peering intensely at Jin Guangyao’s face, his eyes.
“Let me entertain this idea for a moment,” Lan Qiren starts slowly, “Have you got even the faintest shred of evidence that could support the notion that you truly are from twenty-years time?”
Jin Guangyao blinks, Jin Guangyao breathes, Jin Guangyao buckles down.
“In twenty-eight years time you finish building your magnum opus, evidently a time machine but you didn’t tell us that at the time. According to your nephew, you got the idea from watching ants march-” (Jin Guangyao really hadn’t gotten that at the time though he thinks he’s starting to get it better) “-and the way they appeared to seamlessly weave themselves in and out of a singular line. He thinks you were lying.”
Jin Guangyao looks at Lan Qiren’s face to assess how he’s taking this information, but it’s studiously blank. The Lan and their ability to shut off their emotions.
Well, Jin Guangyao is just going to have to dig harder.
“I think you probably actually wanted to explore the possibility of diverging timelines, perhaps to see if there was one where your brother didn’t lock himself into seclusion.”
Lan Qiren goes blanker still, so Jin Guangyao knows he’s getting somewhere.
“However the machine didn’t work like that- not unless you wanted to create those timelines yourself, so you gave it off to Xichen to dispose of- who gave it to me to dispose of because he had to deal with-” how to best describe the problem better known as Nie Huaisang’s tears? “-an unrelated delicate issue. I didn’t know what the machine was- and there was an incident, leading me to be standing in front of you here today. Sir.”
Lan Qiren’s assessing gaze has gotten no easier to bear, but Jin Guangyao is well adjusted to bearing heavy burdens in all forms. He keeps his posture taught and face respectful.
“Well, you certainly know how to talk like the son of a Sect Leader, Jin Guangyao.” Lan Qiren’s lips purse. “If I take you into the Cloud Recesses you’re going to have to go by a different name, I hesitate to allow lies, but in this case it may actually be for the best.”
If Jin Guangyao were any less guarded he’d grin. As it is he inclines his head in gratitude.
“You can call me Qin Xichen,” he allows, the name he’d given his mother rolling out easily.
Lan Qiren doesn’t visibly react to the name and Jin Guangyao isn’t sure how he feels about that.
“And we’re going to have to change your clothes, otherwise we can probably pass you off as a visiting rogue cultivator in need of some assistance easily enough.”
That’s when Jin Guangyao feels his whole body go faint again, that feeling outside the brothel, and collapses forward onto the ground.
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“So there might be something else I forgot to mention,” he admits, when he wakes up in a comfortable bed in a small room. He doesn’t recognise it- which would be odd because he’s been all over the Cloud Recesses- until he remembers he hasn’t been there before it burnt down.
So, maybe not that surprising.
“Really?” Lan Qiren asks, quite acerbically really and Jin Guangyao wasn’t aware that the man who raised Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji was capable of producing this much subtly buried snark. But today is a day full of surprises.
“I-” Jin Guangyao coughs, Lan Qiren keeps glaring at him, well, he may as well admit it. “I may have interrupted the- the uh-” he coughs again, this is hard, “I may have unintentionally prevented my parents from engaging in coitus.”
Lan Qiren keeps staring at him with his dark eyes; Guangyao shrinks back.
“I interrupted them when they were about to have sex, because I wanted to talk to my mother.”
Lan Qiren is still staring.
“They were going to bang and I stopped it! Ok?! What about this is so difficult to understand? Are you just trying to shame me [title]?”
Lan Qiren has gone red now, and the other man is coughing so Guangyao feels a little better.
“I understood you the first time, young master,” Jin Guangyao preens- he can’t help it. He preens. “I don’t understand why this means you don’t exist, surely your parents engaged in- surely there wasn’t only the one opportunity, I mean.”
Ah. He sees the problem, and he doesn’t. He wets his lips.
“I recall mentioning that I was a bastard.” Jin Guangyao does not trail off, he does not look away. He refuses to be shamed for what he is, he refuses. Lan Qiren called him a young master, Lan Qiren treated him with respect and that cannot be taken.
(And if a smaller part remembers that Lan Qiren has always been perfectly respectful to him, before his inheritance, before his acknowledgement, always approved of his and Xichen’s friendship then…)
“Oh, I see.” Lan Qiren rubs his beard and Jin Guangyao doesn’t burn under the accusation. “Well, far from it to be me to suggest having an affair-” the older man spits out the word, “But as you are currently alive in front of me, to forbid you from arranging such circumstances, would be an evil I couldn’t condone. A necessary evil, if you will.”
A necessary evil, Lan Qiren couldn’t be more correct. His poor mother having to be in the presence of his father.
But Jin Guangyao does not want to die. He’s done too much, made too many hard choices to lose it all here. To lose it all like this.
“I supp-” whatever Lan Qiren supposed was cut off by the sound of the door creaking open and a small bundle of white rushing in.
“Uncle!” the small bundle exclaimed. Jin Guangyao watched, amused despite himself, as the ever distinguished Lan Qiren was attacked at the legs by a small child.
Said small child looks up at him.
“Who’re you?”
“Qin Xichen,” politeness has the words rolling out of his mouth.
The boy squints at him.
“Nobody’s allowed in Uncle’s room.” There’s no question there but the suspicion in his tone marks it as one all the same. Jin Guangyao isn’t sure what to say, but Lan Qiren is shepherding the kid out.
“And that includes you, Lan Huan- where have your minders gone?”
Lan Huan. Lan Huan. Jin Guangyao watches the boy and reminds himself why there is no room to fail on getting his parents to… interact.
***
“You know I looked through all the brothels in the [name] area for prostitutes with the surname of Qin.” Lan Qiren’s statement is simple.
Meng Yao can’t look at him.
He stands in his mother’s tomb. Lan Qiren clasps his shoulder.
“You have too much shame.”
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tangledinmdzs · 3 years
Note
Your talent for writing is a blessing! It makes my day a bit better reading your content. if your not busy (please take a break if you are) is it ok to request how LXC, JC, WWX and LWJ react to their s/o who is very stoic and cold smile for the first time? Like they never see them smile in canon au? Advance Thank You
hi!
thank you so much for your sweetness 
this such a cute and familiar concept. i’ve feel like i’ve written something similar before for song lan...; if i find that post again i’ll share it here, hehe.
please enjoy this concept with some more characters!
to you~
*:..。o○  ○o。..:*
Lan Xichen
it is not coldness, as much as it is pure seriousness
you didn’t really ever smile 
you were very work oriented, straight forward and focused
so smiling, laughing, stronger (happier) emotions were mostly pushed to the side
not when there was so much work to be done, as the leader and protector that you were 
but in the instance that Lan Xichen catches a smile on your face
that being, when you are giving him a tour of your one of the outer villages of your sect
and a child comes running up to you,
the smile that you give the toddler is absolutely radiant,
so loving, caring
and it isn’t hard to see why the children of your sect love you so much 
watching your serene profile as you pick the young boy up, nudge his cheek as he laughs at you
Lan Xichen knows that you will be a great leader,
and he’s in awe, a little love struck, by the warmth of happiness, spread on your face 
Jiang Cheng
honestly, Jiang Cheng would have just thought that you didn’t know how to smile
your presence at sect leader meetings was similar to the frost on the branches in winter
cold, biting, freezing
you were quiet, serious and rarely ever laughed
which is why the expression that you wear now makes him quite winded
this soft, laid back expression on your face, as you sit with him on one of the higher floors of the shops,
overlooking the riverside port of his town
it is the first time that you have ever accepted an invitation to dine with him, 
working with you, he understood that you rarely ever made time for anything that wasn’t business
he doesn’t know why you’d agree to meet him tonight,
but he’s grateful that you did
“thank you,” he hears you tell him, as you lift the cup of liquor to your lips and down it 
when you put it down, a bit heavy handedly 
he watches this small smile grace your face, a mixture of intoxication and melancholy as you stare at the cup in your hands
Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what to think of your expression
doesn’t think he can ever forget it
Wei Wuxian
Wei Wuxian has never seen you smile
and he didn’t think that he would ever get to 
your natural disposition was quite cold, closed off ever since he met you 
now that he’s known you for a few months,
it is still much the same
though instead of coldness, he understands the serious look you wear is more out of shyness than anything
he’s getting to know your emotions little by little
remembering your squeezed eye and light shout when you’re surprised, or scared
knows the smirk that you sometimes don when he does something stupid 
but still yet to see a full smile 
“c’mon, smile for me, won’t you? it’ll probably help the birds sing,” Wei Wuxian teases you, now that he’s so easily walked over past the line of acquaintance and into friend
and you hate to admit it, but you think of him as a friend too
and it’s after the probably hundredth time that he teases you on your walk that you finally
stop, turn over to him and give him this full blown forced smile, 
and you look like a kid, a five year old
it gets a loud laugh out of Wei Wuxian, one that colors your ears and cheeks red as you quickly stop ahead of him on the dirt path
your face is so bright, so cute even with such a forced smile
and as Wei Wuxian follows your lead,
he gets even more curious, of how bright a real smile would look on you
Lan Wangji
honestly seeing a smile from the Hanguang-Jun himself, was also a feat in and of itself
but where Lan Wangji just usually didn’t smile 
you, yourself, didn’t like to smile
and it was the oddest idea that Lan Wangji had ever come across, ever since you had told him about it,
“people won’t take me seriously if i smile,” you had said, when the topic comes along after a long night of scroll reading and advisement and boring work
and that had been the end of that
you don’t smile, at all, ever really and keep that little bit of yourself secret
until a few months down the line of your friendship with Lan Wangji
when he finally sees you smile, 
he is quite taken back
because you look so happy, carefree from your normal seriousness,
it throws Wangji for a small loop
and he thinks maybe the real reason why you don’t smile
is because any one who saw it would be so easily distracted, smitten
Lan Wangji knows he himself is, 
from the first look 
“why are you looking at me like that?” you ask him, looking away from the bunny you’re bouncing in your arms for a moment
Lan Wangji simply stares,
doesn’t quite respond
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wangxianficrecs · 3 years
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Follower Recs
~*~
Hello Mojo, hope you're doing well and that you had a good break! I wanted to signal boost the MDZS May Diaspora event collection on AO3, and point out my favorite fic from there: 归心似箭 | Longing to Go Home by dragongirlG! It's both tender and bittersweet and it features such mature writing. The author got some hate for it when it initially got posted so I wanted to counter that and give it some love instead! [Who would do such a thing?!  @dragongirlg-fics I’m sorry that happened to you, and here, have *so many hugs!* I’ll try to do a thing just for the diaspora event, but meanwhile, I’ll just treat this as a follower rec.]
归心似箭 | Longing to Go Home
by dragongirlG (M, 8k, wangxian)
Summary:  The destruction of the Yin Tiger Seal does not kill Wei Wuxian; it ages him instead. He takes shelter in a cave expecting to die, but instead he lives, slowly learning to embrace life with each new day.
Thirteen years later, a young man with a Lan forehead ribbon stumbles into the cave. His name is Lan Sizhui.
~*~
Hi Momjo!!! I recently read the most *adorable* fic, and I loved it so much that it dragged me out of seclusion (read: social anxiety cave) to rec it. It's called 'Covered in Bees' by ScarlettStorm in which the Cloud Recesses is an apiary, and Wei Wuxian has suddenly found himself host to a swarm of bees. ~ @akyra-talanoa
Covered in Bees
by ScarlettStorm (T, 8k, wangxian)
Summary: “Cloud Reccesses Apiary,” says a toneless, deep masculine voice, with zero question in it. Wei Ying doesn’t care, because whoever possesses that voice is probably going to come save him from bees like a fucking hero while wearing like, a suit of armor. That’s what you wear to catch bees, right?
“I have like, so many bees outside my front door right now,” he says, mouth running out ahead of him before he can even begin to think about reining it in. “It’s like a sandstorm of bees out there. There are so many bees. I got out of my car and there were just bees and I don’t want these bees. Do you want these bees? Please tell me you will come get these bees. I can’t leave my house and I have enough food for maybe a week but then I’m gonna have to learn how to cook dry beans and no one wants that, especially not me.” Wei Ying runs out of air, takes a breath, and belatedly adds, “My name is Wei Ying. Hi.”
Or: The beekeeping AU that no one asked for.
~*~
Hi, you are a bless to this fandom. Your blog feels like a library, so thoroughly arranged and always within hand reach. [Thank you, wow!]  Recently, I was going through Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn is a Wēn tag and came across a fanfic, it has 3 chapters till now and is so intriguing that i thought to recommend it to you. I don't know if I can recommend or if you have already checked the story, The legendary Phoenix and his Dragon by Devipriya. I am in love with this story. I hope you will enjoy it too, do check it out
The legendary Phoenix and his Dragon
by Devipriya (T, 7k, wangxian)
Summary:  Wen Wuxian, the essence of who he is, he is a naughty child, a prankster, an enchanting dizi player, a graceful dancer, an irresistible lover, a truly valiant warrior, a ruthless vanquisher of his foes, a man who left a broken heart in every home, an astute statesman and kingmaker, a thorough gentleman, a righteous individual of the highest order, and the most colorful incarnation.
He has been seen, perceived, understood and experienced in many different ways by different people. Different people saw different facets of who he is. For some, he is God. For some, he is a crook. For some, he is a lover. For some, he is a fighter. He is so many things.
But the phoenix, seen from the eyes of time was just a playful man. A man who plays with his awareness, with his imagination, with his memory, with his life, with his death. An individual who does not just dance with somebody. He dances with life. He dances with his enemy, He dances with the one he loves, He dances even at the moment of his death.
To taste an essence of who is Wen Wuxian, be with me in the journey of exploration, NO! playful exploration of life of a playful man.
~*~
Hi! Thanks for running this blog, it's helped me find so many fics. For your next follower recs post, I wanted to rec "This love like a flood, a fire, a fear" by natcat5. Its summary is vague (which I suspect is why it isn't better known) but it is a beautiful retelling of canon from LWJ's POV with slight canon divergence. I love the author's characterization of him and the prose is gorgeous. It is easily my favorite fic in the entire fandom, and I don't say that lightly. ~ @nyanja14
This love like a flood, a fire, a fear
by natcat5 (M, 57k, wangxian, lan wangji & lan xichen)
Summary:  “I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch everything go wrong.”   - Lemony Snicket
~*~
i came to this ask to rec this baseball one called "Waiting for Spring" by thievinghippo on ao3. It somehow made me care about baseball soooo 'nough said ~ @scifikimmi
Waiting for Spring
by thievinghippo (E, 131, wangxian)
Summary:  “It is a well-known fact across the major leagues that one does not smack Lan Wangji’s ass.”
Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes. Everyone smacks everyone’s ass in baseball. It’s how the game is played. Lan Wangji does not get to be exempt from this most sacred of baseball traditions.
Wei Wuxian will make sure of that.
Or, a Major League Baseball AU
~*~
hi mojo! i wanted to rec Something Good by boxoftheskyking (a loose sound of music/canon divergence au) and also MDZS: The Golden Engine by iffervescent (immortal wangxian modern au where they gotta solve a mystery and save china, featuring jiang cheng/lan xichen)
Something Good
by boxoftheskyking (T, 43k, wangxian)
Summary:  "That Wei Wuxian, you know he used to be such a promising cultivator. Head Disciple of the Jiang Clan, can you believe it? You see, juniors, the punishment for traveling the path of demonic cultivation. No golden core, not so much as a whisper of spiritual power."
As a punishment for real and imagined crimes, Wei Wuxian is sentenced to work at Cloud Recesses as the lowest of servants. When a surprising reassignment lands him with eleven children to care for, everything changes again.
A Sound of Music AU
MDZS: The Golden Engine
by iffervescent (E, 82k, wangxian, xicheng)
Summary:  In the modern era, immortals Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian return to Gusu. New evil and old friends + new friends and old evils.
~*~
Hi Mojo! First of all let me just tell you that you are amazing and this blog is like a gift from the gods! Bless you and your endless patience and hard work. [Oh, thank you so much!]  I know that you have just accepted follower recs and I have missed miserably but I still wanted to write and bring attention to a writer by the pseudo Xiao_Hua on ao3, I think they are quite good and I just recently found the account with so much content. If you do have the time to check them out, I'd rec catfish, my fox or the red ribbon.
The Red Ribbon
by Xiao_Hua (M, 21k, wangxian, TGCF crossover)
Summary:  Wei WuXian died but not before saving HanGuang-Jun and A-Yuan, leaving so much more behind than just his ribbon.
My Fox
by Xiao_Hua (E, 13k, wangxian)
Summary:  Once he headed to YiLing that all changed for him. His priorities have been mingled with and ordered in complete disarray even without him noticing as he was left heavily influenced by a creature.
Or one where Lan WangJi is a dragon-spirit and he finds his mate in the form of a fox.
Catfish
by Xiao_Hua (E, 15k, wangxian)
Summary:  Wei WuXian has a common sense that believes it has a nine-to-five job while Lan WangJi finds that incredibly hot.
Or one where two catfish realise that neither of them truly catfished.
~*~
Hi Mojo i'm recommending this amazing fic it is called song of joys and regrets. it's a time travel AU it's amazing. And your Blog is a Godsend Thank you! [Aw, you’re so sweet!]  ~ @highgoddess
Song of Joy and Regrets
by HelloKitten (not rated, 59k, wangxian, WIP)
Summary:  The Archery competition at Qishan this year has hit a snag. As the Sects face the wrongs perpetrated by their future selves, Wei Wuxian finds himself adopted by half of the cultivation world who are determined to save him from himself.
Baby Wangxian suffers. Adult Wangxian's job here is done.
"I'm starting to see a pattern to all his plans..." "Do they all involve him being bait?" "Yes" came deadpanned responses.
~*~
Here’s a 2021 Reverse Big Bang entry, in time for Father’s Day; [Oops, my bad, sorry!]  Under a Blanket of Black Wings, by ChaoticAndrogynous (#31398395); LWJ, recuperating from the 33 lashes, tells A-Yuan a series of fairytales about a heroic monster and the brave little boy he befriended. Vampire! WWX (in the framing story as well as the story-within-the-story); happy ending.
Under a Blanket of Black Wings
by ChaoticAndrogynous (T, 19k, wangxian)
Summary:  Lan Wangji tells A-Yuan a bedtime story about a beautiful monster and the brave little boy who was his friend. Thirteen years later, the monster returns.
~*~
Hello Mojo! Have you read ‘Key Differences’ by Pupeez4eva? Its a MDZS!WWX meets CQL!WWX and its really good! [It’s on my list!]
Key Differences
by pupeez4eva (T, 6k, wangxian)
Summary:  “I don’t understand,” Wei Wuxian said, while his alternate self continued to stare at him with almost a look of hurt in his eyes. There was longing in there too, which Wei Wuxian would have easily recognised if he paid enough attention. “How could you not get together, after everything. What even went on in the Guanyin Temple if you didn’t confess?”
“The Guanyin Temple,” Wei Ying repeated incredulously. “You’re asking me if I confessed at — honestly, a lot went on that day. It was a life and death situation. There was no confessing.”
Wei Wuxian stared at him, appalled.
(Wherein Wei Wuxian ends up meeting an alternate version of himself who, much to his horror, never married Lan Wangji. Obviously he has to do something to fix this).
~*~
Hey Mojo i would recommend this fanfic if you already haven’t, it’s called “ take me back to a time “ by DizziDreams. It’s sooooo good
take me back to a time
by DizziDreams (T, 144k, wangxian, 3zun)
Summary:  Wei Ying has a lot on his plate right now.
It’s finals week -- which isn’t so bad. He’s never had to study much to do well in classes. But that just means that things are that much more tense with Jiang Cheng, who, as far as Wei Ying can tell, only takes study breaks long enough to glare at Wei Ying where he sits on the couch playing video games.
It’s not studies that have Wei Ying stressed out. It’s everything else. It’s the recruitment for the research trial he’s coordinating. It’s jiejie and her impending marriage to His Royal Douchebag Jin Zixuan. It’s the volunteer work at the palliative care facility. It’s Wen Ning’s worsening condition. It’s Wen Qing working herself thin to care for her brother and Wen Yuan. It’s the way Wen Yuan never seems to have enough food.
So, yeah. There’s enough on Wei Ying’s plate already, meaning it’s not entirely welcome when he comes home and finds a man standing in his bedroom. A man in extravagant white robes, a ribbon tied around his forehead, long hair gathered into a topknot, fist clutching a sword at his side, who asks him, “Where am I?”
~*~
Idk if this has already been rec’d (I’ve been off the grid for a while now), but there’s this absolutely incredible fic called Restitution by an anon on ao3 people should definitely check out!
this one?
on restitution
by Anonymous (M, 78k, wangxian, jin ling & wei wuxian, lan sizhui & wei wuxian, WIP)
Summary:  When Wei Wuxian regains consciousness, he is in a bed. A real, proper bed, not the slab he called a bed in his cave in the Burial Mounds.
Jiang Cheng is glowering above him.
Wei Wuxian doesn't die during the siege of the Burial Mounds. Rather, he is captured in secret and confined at Lotus Pier. Things change accordingly.
~*~
Hi momjo! I feel like every time I come to your blog there's twenty more new and amazing fics for me to read. Thank you for everything you do for this fandom!  [Thank you, sweetie!  And yes, I think there ARE 20 new fics every day out there in the fandom.  It’s amazing!] Today I come bearing my own rec to you. I've recently read this and it's IMO one of the best fics out there. It's called Lapsteel by carriecmoney and it's a modern stormchaser AU featuring country songs and coming home. ~ @manaika-chan​
Lapsteel
by carriecmoney (T, 42k, wangxian)
Summary:  Now and then, I think about you now and then...
It's been thirteen years since Wei Ying ran for the prairies, leaving behind a family in shambles and a secret on the Pacific wind. What happens when the storm he swirled catches up to him?
Modern AU with country music star Lan Zhan, stormchaser Wei Ying, and shared crossroads.
~*~
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moodymodaozushi · 2 years
Text
MDZS Fanfic Recs! #8
December 2021
Look I know I’m late, but at least I’m posting it!
To have and to hold by Moominmammashandbag [Completed]
Madam Yu comes to Cloud Recesses. Lan Xichen is woken to be told worrying news. Lan WangJi does not break someone's arm. It was dislocated.
ANGST is the name of the game. Heavily based in Untamed canon! (nothing wrong with that just a warning for those that don’t prefer that). I love Madam Jin, and somehow I now ship Yanli/Mingjue? Poor Xichen never catches a break but when does he ever.
Spotted by xueyutanhva (fvyao) [Completed]
First day on campus and Wei Wuxian finds himself on the university's "Pretty Faces of Gusu U" twitter account. Coincidentally, he finds his (undeniably) pretty dorm mate, Lan Wangji, there as well. Will Pretty Face #2 Wei Wuxian ever tell Pretty Face #1 Lan Wangji what he thinks of him?
Modern AU! Social Media AU! College AU! It’s cute! A nice piece of easy reading in the middle of all the angst of the MDZS fandom, we love to see our boys suffer but they deserve nice things sometimes!
Letters to My Partner in Crime by pupeez4eva [Completed]
Jin Zixuan is hoping that his engagement to Jiang Yanli will be cancelled after his fight with Wei Wuxian. Instead, much to his frustration, he finds himself being forced to exchange regular letters with her.
He is expecting little from this correspondence. The last thing he expects is to be dragged into a matchmaking scheme to pair Wei Wuxian up with Lan Wangji of all people.
A very cute little fluff piece based around Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan! Written mostly in letter form it’s a very easy and lovely read!
Temptation’s Galore (breaking restraint) by JustADreamForUs [Completed]
Lan Jingyi is in love with Sect Leader Jiang and desperately trying to find a way to attract the man's attention.
Jiang Wanyin is mystified by a certain Gusu Lan Disciple and struggling to keep his desires as well as his fears in check.
Wei Wuxian is happy to give guidance where it's needed most with the help of his loving husband Lan Wangji.
Lan Sizhui and Jin Rulan just want to survive this and get together.
It's an exhausting two days.
Obligatory Chengyi Fic! I just like this pairing ok? And if I’ve read almost everything in that relationship tag on ao3 then what of it? This one gets...a little spicy if you know what I mean!
Begotten by ecorie [Completed]
“He’s mine.” He echoed what had once been teasingly said in jest, and added, “This is my son.”
Against all odds and without a choice, Lan Zhan brings A-Yuan back to Cloud Recesses. Xichen keeps his brother’s secrets, and shields the child when Lan Zhan could not.
This one is more on the Lan Xichen-centric side of things and is amazingly written. Focuses on the time during Wei Wuxian’s absence and how that went for Lan Zhan and raising Sizhui.
All of my recs can be found in my bookmarks on AO3!
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stiltonbasket · 3 years
Note
Nielan fathers day prompt! Sorry if its late, but how about finding out they're going to be parents on Fathers Day? (mpreg, adoption, surrogacy, your choice).
anon: the first fathers' day after jingyi is born, modern lxc and nmj both set up a present for each other "from Jingyi." It's very cute. Baby Jingyi magnanimously chews on his foot and accepts giving two presents and meals.
this is for the art thief au, so lxc is trans here!
(ao3 link)
----
What should I give Xichen for Father’s day?
Nie Mingjue has been puzzling over gift ideas for the past two weeks, with no luck whatsoever. Jingyi is still too small to make them gifts, so he and Xichen use the occasion to exchange presents with each other and label them with their little boy’s name; Xichen probably picked out his gifts already, since he knows Nie Mingjue’s tastes like the back of his hand, but Mingjue keeps flipping through mail-order catalogues and crossing off their entire inventory as he goes.
“I have present,” Jingyi insists, as Nie Mingjue carries him down yet another aisle of their local department store. “A-Die, look!”
Mingjue looks. A-Yi is holding a six-pack of orange bath sponges, since Xichen mentioned that they needed some more earlier that morning.
“That’s not a Father’s Day gift, A-Bao,” Mingjue chides, kissing Jingyi’s forehead. “Last year, I gave your Ba a brooch with his initials on it, remember? It has to be pretty.”
Jingyi wrinkles his tiny nose. “Starfish?”
“Mm, the starfish brooch.” Lan Xichen has an impressive collection of jewelry, with most of it coming from gifts Nie Mingjue gave him over the course of their fifteen years together; and nearly all of the pieces are sea-themed to go with his husband’s wardrobe and his clear, moon-white skin.
Perhaps he could buy pearls, this time?
“A-Yi,” he says slowly, “what do you think about going to the discount shop across town?”
A-Yi is happy enough to go wherever his father goes, so Nie Mingjue drives to the discount store--full of discarded, overstocked, and secondhand merchandise from all over the city--and digs through the bins of jewelry until he finds an antique bracelet, strung with pearls carved into the shapes of starfish and clam shells. Jingyi nearly loses his little mind at the sight of it, and he squeals at the top of his lungs while Mingjue pays for the bracelet and bundles him back to the car.
“I know them,” he declares, when Mingjue gives him the bracelet to play with on the way home. “Diedie, it’s a clam!”
Mingjue glances up at his son’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “Can you count how many clams there are?”
Jingyi flings himself headlong into the task, counting twelve starfish and eleven clams, and then he peruses the Learning Reader books Xichen keeps in the back seat until Mingjue carries him into the house.
His husband runs to meet them at the door, and it is this, not the driveway or their well-worn doorstep, that means Nie Mingjue has finally come home.
______
To Nie Mingjue, stepping into his woodworking studio feels like stepping into another world.
It isn't that the studio looks very different from the rest of the house--in fact, Nie Mingjue had a tiny nursery built into the north corner, since he set the studio up with A-Yi’s needs in mind--but Mingjue feels different here, more sure of himself, and aware of his own thoughts and hopes as he scarcely is anywhere else. He had only to enter, and he was changed: his hands steadier, his heartbeat slower, and his mind somewhere distant and immediate all at once. It is here that he pays homage to his heart, his muse, and the dearest friend he has ever had, or ever will. It is here that he pours pieces of his love for his husband into everything he touches, and everything he makes, and emerges with pieces of polished art like testaments to the husband he vowed his life to. 
“That isn’t a metaphor,” Nie Mingjue said once, when Huaisang asked what he meant. Mingjue has carved everything from furniture to lamps into shapes reminiscent of his husband’s lips, perfected the stems of wooden sunflowers to match the sweet arch of Lan Xichen’s neck, and burnished every last one of his creations until they shone like sunlight falling on the apples of his husband’s cheeks. He etches A-Huan’s expressions into the faces of statues intended for the foyers of upscale hotels, and into a thousand quarter and sixth-scale figures commissioned by model collectors, since he rarely has any excuse to sculpt his husband directly. But today he does, so he sits down at his bench and gets to work with a block of oak and his favorite gouge and chisel.
He will love this, Nie Mingjue thinks, as two bowed heads and a pair of smiles take shape under his hands. This is the most beautiful thing I have ever made.
He glances over his shoulder at Jingyi, fast asleep in the glass-walled nursery with his feet up in the air, and turns back to the sculpture with his heart quivering in his chest.
______
The sculpture takes about a fortnight to complete, almost exactly the span of time between the day Nie Mingjue begins working on it and the holiday it was intended for. Nie Mingjue wakes up early on Father’s day, leaving Xichen asleep behind him, and bundles A-Yi out of bed and down into the studio. They wrap the sculpture up together in Jingyi’s favorite gift wrap, and then Nie Mingjue carries him to the kitchen just in time to catch his husband as he comes stumbling down the stairs.
“Good morning, love” Lan Xichen sighs, burrowing into Nie Mingjue’s arms. “What should we have for breakfast?”
“Eggs?”
For some reason, Lan Xichen shakes his head.
“Noodles, then?”
This suggestion is met by a drowsy nod, so Mingjue goes to the fridge to dig out  a few ingredients while Lan Xichen hops onto one of the bar stools with Jingyi in his lap. He chops the scallions and garlic for plain noodle soup around their son’s little body, leaving Mingjue to boil noodles in one pot and stock with soy sauce and sugar in another until three blue bowls of yang chun mian are steaming on the counter.
“Smells yummy,” Jingyi yawns, while Xichen spoons fresh green onions into his soup bowl. “Baba, feed A-Yi?”
“He’s forgotten about the presents,” Lan Xichen mouths, as Nie Mingjue tries not to snicker. They eat quickly, slurping down the noodle soup with cups of soy milk on the side, and then Jingyi scrambles to the other side of the room before running back with Mingjue’s wrapped box in his arms.
“Father’s Day gift!” he squeaks, wriggling like a happy worm as Xichen laughs and tries to remove the gift wrap without tearing it; because Jingyi never lets either of them cover gifts with anything but Pingu penguin-printed paper, and he cries if anyone rips it up in front of him.
Mingjue used the weakest tape he could find, so that Xichen could extract the box with the paper left mostly whole. He hands the paper to Jingyi, watching as his husband’s slender fingers close around the base of the sculpture, and then--
“Oh!” Lan Xichen gasps, pulling it all the way out into the light. “A-Jue, I--”
The sculpture depicts him and Jingyi at the beach near their house--in fact, at the same beach where Mingjue and Xichen first met. Mingjue was sitting on a sandy rock, catching his breath after running around behind a hyperactive Nie Huaisang all day, and then he looked out over the foggy water and saw what looked like a water spirit drifting out of the darkness in a rowboat.
He sculpted Xichen seated on that very rock, with his long hair tangling in an invisible gale, and a little heap of shells (the pearls from the old bracelet he found at the discount store) piled up in his lap. Jingyi is standing on the ground at his feet with a wave of seafoam brushing his ankles; and in his hands is a small pearly starfish, offered up to his baba as Lan Huan leans forward to cup A-Yi’s cheek in his palm. Both father and son are smiling, with heart-breaking happiness in A-Huan’s eyes, and sheer pleasure at finding the starfish in Jingyi’s.
Nie Mingjue looks up at his own flesh-and-blood husband, tearing his eyes away from the wooden figure, and finds Lan Xichen sitting there, frozen, with tears rolling down his face as he traces the tiny ridges and dimples of stone and sand and water.
“It’s beautiful,” he chokes, rounding the corner of the table to throw his arms around Nie Mingjue’s shoulders. “It’s the most precious thing you’ve ever made, sweetheart.”
“The most precious thing I helped make is over there,” Nie Mingjue teases, tilting his head at A-Yi. “But I think this one comes pretty close.”
Xichen opens his mouth, and then closes it again; but Jingyi interrupts before he can say anything else, impatient to present his diedie’s gift from his baba.
“Now this one!” he shouts, diving into Xichen’s pocket for a small present in a wooden box, labeled with Jingyi’s name just like Nie Mingjue’s gift was. He all but shoves it into Mingjue’s hands, leaping up and down on the spot while he snaps the lid open--and then he screeches with delight as Nie Mingjue goes crashing to the floor, staring at the contents of the tiny box until his eyes blur over.
He had expected some kind of memento or trinket, like he usually gives to Xichen. But the box was so light, impossibly light--and it holds a pair of hand-knitted baby socks, set neatly on top of a black and white photograph with his husband’s name printed in the upper left corner.
Nie Mingjue has already been a father, already accompanied his husband through the endless doctors’ visits and checkups that came before Jingyi was born. He saved all of Jingyi’s ultrasound pictures, even the ones where A-Yi looked like a chubby white bean on the sonogram, and he stared at every photograph for so long that reading them comes as second nature to him.
"A-Huan,” he says, after a long pause. “Please tell me I’m not dreaming this.”
“You’re not,” Lan Xichen laughs, wiping Mingjue’s face. “I had my first doctor’s visit last week when you and A-Sang took Jingyi to the park. And the clinic ran a few blood tests just in case, so I already know it’s going to be a girl.”
“And you’re okay? Both of you?”
“Very okay, darling. I haven’t even had any morning sickness yet, and the baby’s perfectly healthy.”
Nie Mingjue only cries harder, at that; but Xichen is crying too, clasped in his arms while A-Yi climbs all over them, so perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
All in all, this is the sweetest father’s day he has ever had.
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eleanorfenyxwrites · 3 years
Text
Hi y'all!
So I realized today that it's been about three months since I started cross-posting my stuff to ao3 (those of y'all who were here for After Each Midnight while it was still a wip will know that I've been writing for longer than that but anyway). With the latest fic I just posted, I now have 30 works published to ao3 within those three months! Which is wild to me!
Since that averages out to ten fics a month and I like round numbers, I decided to celebrate by listing my 10 favorite fics...of my own lol. Narcissistic? Maybe! But it's fun anyway!
This is a really long post as each rec includes a summary, an excerpt (or a few), and some personal notes/anecdotes about the writing process or what inspired me to write the fic, etc. so I'm putting it all under the break. If this doesn't sound like your cup of tea then of course please just skip over this one, but for anyone who wants to revisit some of my older works with me, or if you're curious about which fics I personally like the most, or if you want to talk about your favorite fics of mine in the replies or anything, then that's cool too! I just wanted to find a way to mark this down because it feels like something of an achievement ^_^
Thank you!
1. After Each Midnight Begins A New Day, (54,401 words, Rated E) Ship(s): 3zun, Wangxian Summary: When Lan Xichen wakes up the morning after the fifth anniversary of his life crumbling to rubble around him in Guanyin Temple, he's shocked to find both Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao in his bed, both whole and alive and...married to him?! (A time travel fix-it in which the time traveling and fixing of things has already been done by Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, and Lan Xichen accidentally gets dragged along for the happily ever after.) Excerpt(s):
1. “Poor da-ge,” [Meng Yao] teases again, this time with a bit of an edge, and Lan Xichen cracks one eye open just enough to see him stripping first out of his shoes and socks, then his third layer of robes, then his second, until he’s dressed much as he had been the prior evening - in nothing but a black under-robe so sheer that it actually almost looks gray. It clings to all the petite, lithe curves of him and the sight makes Lan Xichen’s mouth practically water. “What if I want my turn with you now? What if I’m jealous that er-ge got to have you all to himself for hours , while your poor A-Yao had to go have a drink with Xian-didi just to pass the time.” “Oh gods you’re a beast too,” Nie Mingjue groans as Meng Yao slips on top of him gracefully to lean down and pepper kisses up and down his neck and shoulder. “Get off of me, foul creature. Go tempt our husband, I’m temporarily immune to your wiles.” “You’re never immune to my wiles, da-ge, and er-ge is meditating oh so diligently. He’s certainly not smiling and watching us through his lashes as if we’re not well aware of his tricks and what he likes to watch.” - 2. “It took years of practice, you with your painting and I with my answering, but when you were a teenager I finally decided on the best advice I could think to give you: Do not seek for every answer in this life all at once, Xichen,” he instructs with a smile as he returns to painting. “Let them come to you gently and in their season, and trust that all will be as it should in the end.” Lan Xichen takes another breath and returns to his painting with a slightly trembling hand - a trembling that ends up creating a lovely branch on the tree he is painting that, when he turns his head to look, is modeled almost exactly after the one growing in the garden behind the Gentian House, just beyond the window. “I don’t remember ever seeing this tree,” he whispers and Qingheng-Jun hums across from him in clear understanding. “And yet it flows from your brush all the same. Now we can all know that you have nothing to fear, your memories will also come to you in their season. Until then, allow yourself to rest, and remember that you have the support of your family whenever you need it.” “Yes, father,” he replies with a whisper and a tremulous smile, feeling lighter than he has in days. - 3. “I will go into seclusion.” The statement is a stone dropped into the gently rippling water of a spring-fed pool. The stone is jagged and pitted with all that the world has done to chip away at it, to make it rough and painful to the touch. It is sharp in his hands, heavy with all the hurts he still carries in his chest, all the grief he has no more room to hold. He feels lighter with it out of his grasp, the words settling into the ensuing silence with some bittersweet relief.
Notes: I know I've said it before but it bears repeating: this entire fic exists solely because of the smut scene in chapter 1. I thought of the smut first, and then the lead-in to it, and I intentionally left the end of chapter 1 ambiguous - it could have ended right there as an angsty one-shot with Lan Xichen believing that it was all a hallucination, and there's nothing really in the text to say that it's not because Lan Xichen is a very unreliable narrator in this fic. But then I wanted to write the backstory for the smut if, in fact, it wasn't a hallucination - and everything kind of...butterfly-effected out from there to become what it is now, along with all the extras in the series that's now roughly 120k long altogether and still not finished. Oops. Oh and also: this fic that started the ball rolling only exists because for some reason the servers for Omegle went down for months where I live, and prior to that I used to spend hours rp'ing. Without that creative outlet, I filled the vacuum with writing fic instead and now here we are. So if you're grateful for my fics then thank Omegle for sucking for a few months lol --//-- 2. Loving, Loud, Wild, and Theirs (7386 words, Rated T) Ship(s): Xuanli & Gen (kidfic), 3zun (briefly) - an extra for AEM Summary: A brief look at how in this kinder world, Jin Zixuan managed to find and legitimize his three siblings as well as a snapshot of the chaos of love and fun that is his family with his siblings, his beloved wife, and their seven children. Excerpt:
He had listened to [Madam Qin] and her handmaid, and he had believed them, and he had been unsurprised to find himself thinking quite uncharitably of his father following his promise to Madam Qin that he would do everything in his power to make it right, as much as he could. [Jin Zixuan and Meng Yao] return to Jinlintai the day after the next, once their business is concluded. He’s relieved when nothing needs his immediate attention as it means he’s free to retreat into his and Jiang Yanli’s quarters so he can tell her everything that’s weighing on his mind. “No more surprise siblings from now on,” he sighs into the comfort of Jiang Yanli's chest when he’s finished outlining what has happened and his plans to prepare a new suite of rooms in the family wing of the tower. For Qin Su. His sister. Jiang Yanli just laughs her tinkling laugh and kisses him, her hands gentle as she combs his hair back from his face with her fingertips. “You’ve got more siblings now than any of the rest of us,” she teases with a mischievous smile down at him that is a bit too reminiscent of, weirdly, both Wei Wuxian and Mo Xuanyu for comfort. “Two brothers, a sister, and of course we must keep Mianmian in her spot on the list. If you would like to count brothers-in-law as well you’ve also got A-Xian, A-Cheng, Huaisang, Wangji, Xichen, and Mingjue...” He groans and hides his face properly in the soft silk of her robes even as she laughs again over his head.
Notes: This fic is actually a request fill for someone and I had some trouble ending it because there's a lot more I want to write with this wild family, though I did eventually find what felt like a good place to cut it off with 3zun arriving in Jinlintai for the visit they leave for at the end of AEM. There is something of a follow-up floating around my wips that - if it ever gets written - is a direct sequel to AEM that continues where this extra leaves off, with 3zun getting to spend time with their hoard of niblings in Jinlintai. No promises about if/when that will get written though. --//-- 3. Performance Art (8106 words, Rated M) Ships: 3zun, Wangxian (briefly) Summary: A Modern AU inspired by the 'Hysterical Literature' performance art project. Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue, and Meng Yao take turns doing their best to read aloud from chosen written works as they're filmed. The twist is that they're trying to do so as they're being pleasured with a vibrator controlled by one of their partners off-camera, each of their turns ending when the partner being filmed/played with has an orgasm. Excerpt(s):
1. “Engage people with what they expect; it is..- it…it is what they are able to discern and.. ngh.. confirms their projections. It settles.. ah settles them into predictable-“ He cuts off suddenly to set the book down flat and slap one hand down sharply on the tabletop. Meng Yao simply clicks another button and Nie Mingjue groans as his newly unoccupied hand twitches back to rest on the edge of the table closer to himself, as if about to drop down beneath it. Lan Xichen and Meng Yao both shift forward in their seats but Nie Mingjue catches himself before they have to intervene, returning his hand to the middle of the table and forcing a deep breath into his lungs so he can continue. “-Predictable patterns of..of response, occupying their minds while you w-wait for the ex- extra-“ he huffs out a sharp breath and curls his hand into a fist as he tilts forward and forces out the rest of the sentence in a rush. “Extraordinary moment — that whichtheycannotanticipate. FUCK!” - 2. It’s a few hours of quiet, peaceful work later when Lan Wangji shifts his weight in the way that means he wants Wei Wuxian’s actual attention and not his ‘ I’m sculpting so I’m periodically looking at you ’ sort of attention which he is, of course, quick to grant. He pauses in his muttering half to himself and half to Lan Wangji to say, “Hm? What’s up Zhanzhan?” “From Xiongzhang,” he says by way of explanation, holding his phone out for Wei Wuxian to squint at the screen. It takes him a moment to understand what he’s looking at, his eyes needing a second to adjust to the small black and white video that’s playing after having spent hours looking between Lan Zhan and the clay form taking shape under his hands. “What is this?” he asks as he leans in closer and squints a little harder. He blinks and his eyes go wide in the next moment as he realizes what’s happening on the screen as the woman’s tension climaxes ( literally ) - and then it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to figure out just why he’d been asked to create an eerily similar setup in his own studio the previous afternoon for three men he might as well consider his sort-of brothers at this point. His next exhale is a wheeze as his ears go hot and Lan Wangji is instantly shrugging into a robe to stand from his lounging position and approach, concern written all over his features. “Wei Ying?”
Notes: I don't really have too much to say about this one except that it brought me so much joy and laughter to write and it honestly kind of surprises me that it's one of my less popular fics - it's nothing but a fun, sexy time! But I'm also terrible at guessing trends/what people will want to see so that might be on me haha. Oh! Also - a minor thing but something I'm very mildly proud of: the narrator voice is dependent on who's behind the camera! I wanted a way to make the person filming feel just as involved as the other two and I thought that was a fun way to do it since within the narrative it's technically going to be their perspective used for the video they're recording. Just to give y'all a little insight into my decision-making when it comes to my writing style for this one. --//-- 4. Anything For My Nie-Zongzhu (6411 words, Rated E) Ship: NieYao - pre-canon (just barely) Summary: Meng Yao is Nie Mingjue's trusted right hand, intelligent and valued by his Sect Leader, at least, who has learned lately to appreciate him a hell of a lot in private too - and for much more personal matters than the minutiae of running the Nie Sect. Seeing as Nie Mingjue trusts him so much, he finds it in himself to ask for something new - for Meng Yao to top him. [Technically an extra for AEM but can be read as a standalone] Excerpt:
“Am I to play into this boorish act you’re putting on tonight?” he teases instead as he steps closer until he’s near enough to feel the way the steam from the bath has turned the air sticky and humid. Nie Mingjue finally looks up at him and Meng Yao is internally crowing with triumph as he watches the lines of tension around his eyes and mouth fall away, his expression smoothing into quiet contentment. He did that. His presence alone is enough to help Nie Mingjue relax. It feels nearly as good as the day the man had angrily defended him to his own disciples and promoted him on the spot. “It’s not an act, I’m plenty boorish,” Nie Mingjue gruffs, returning his gaze to the letter, but this close Meng Yao can actually watch his eyes do nothing but try to glare a hole through the center of the page. “Of course you are, Zongzhu,” Meng Yao allows, his tone openly humoring - as is the smile tightening the corners of his mouth. “Therefore I can only suppose that you would prefer it if I returned to my walk and left you to continue your...correspondence in peace.”
Notes: Once again not really many notes on this one! I just love NieYao, I think their dynamic during Meng Yao's Nie Sect days has so much potential and I love exploring it every so often. --//--
5. Bite The Hands That Feed (1590 words, Rated E) Ship: XiYao Summary: After being forced out of the Nie Sect, Meng Yao has to come to grips with the hunger that's been chasing him his whole life, and he finds temporary satisfaction over and over in Lan Xichen, who is always so generous with his time and his body and is willing to help him feel less empty even just for a night. Excerpt:
He would never bite the hands that feed him, that stuff him full enough to make him believe for a moment that he’s no longer starving. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t inflict pains. He bites and he scratches and he plants himself in the bloody furrows until flowering moans reward his violent care, until pleasure bursts sun-warmed and sweet between them, berries ripe for the picking. He stains his mouth red with them, his fingers purple with the bruises he paints so delicately on his devotee’s body. If Meng Yao is being clawed to a slow torturous death from within, then it stands to reason that his other half will be ripped to shreds from without. He keeps his nails sharp and his teeth bared to tear into his flesh and drink sweetly of the vintage he offers - sweat, spend, blood, saliva when their mouths meet for crushing kisses. All of it is his to consume. He puts his mouth to the feast of Lan Xichen’s body and eats until the hunger pangs are satiated, drinks until he feels dizzy with it.
Notes: So I wrote this one when I was getting a little tired of the straight narration style of all my other fics and I wanted to try my hand at something looser, a little more prose-like but also a little darker than my usual fluff. I'm not sure how successful I was - this is actually one of my absolute least popular fics, number-wise! - but it's one of my favorites anyway. --//-- 6. A Figure, A Mouth (2788 words, Rated M) Ship: Wenzhou Summary: A quiet, intimate evening spent in the comfort of the Four Seasons Mountain Manor sometime between their arrival/fixing up of the place and the confrontation with Ye Baiyi. Excerpt:
After a while of warming each other up Wen Kexing urges him back up to push the bed under the window just as he’d said he would. Zhou Zishu takes the opportunity to blow out the candles before he rejoins Wen Kexing in their bed, the sudden darkness leaving them free to admire each other clothed in nothing but broad swathes of cool, sweet blue light bisected by deep black lattices of shadow from the trees out in the yard, the shadows from the contours of the wall and decorations around the window blocking and revealing them in turns. Lao Wen is, of course, as beautiful like this as he has been in every way Zhou Zishu has ever seen him, and he takes the time to savor it, to indulge in the decadence that Wen Kexing presents for each of his remaining senses. He’s a feast for the eyes, all hard muscle and skin glistening with glittering diamonds of sweat along his shoulders and the soft curve of his cheek. He’s a symphony for the ears, breathless desire and tender calls of his name that Zhou Zishu never lets go unanswered when they’re like this. By now Wen Kexing is an expert at drawing pleasure from him in every unlikely way there is to make sure that the effects of the nails don’t keep him from reaching his peak at least once, occasionally more in spite of his fading sense of touch.
Notes: Wenzhou makes me so soft and emotional, y'all. The next one on the list is also a Wenzhou fic and I just can't seem to stop writing them in fluffy/smutty situations because it's what they deserve. I really don't have anything more interesting to say about this fic, I just love them haha. --//-- 7. Tease Him Just Enough (2537 words, Rated M) Ship: Wenzhou Summary: A possible outcome if the conversation post-face reveal in episode 6 had gone differently - i.e. if Zhou Zishu had called Wen Kexing out on all his flirting and challenged him to do something about it - and then he does. Excerpt:
They don’t need words to communicate that at least right here in this particular moment there’s no one else they would rather have in their arms, pressed up against their bodies, no one else’s tongue who would find a new home in each other’s mouths or any other body their hands would rather explore. Wen Kexing has already known that they’re fated, but for the first time it feels like they’re agreeing to be so. Even if it’s just for a night. (Not that he thinks it will be just one night for them, but getting Zhou Xu to agree to anything remotely of the kind is like trying to drag a stray back-alley cat into a bath so he’ll take what he can get.)
Notes: My first fic for Word of Honor! The whole time I was watching the show (read: obsessively binge-watching) I was like 'Okay I like this show a lot but it's not nearly as compelling as The Untamed, idk if I'll be motivated to write anything for it'. Then I got to the end and I was like NEVERMIND YES I AM. I played myself. --//-- 8. You Need Tending (12,108 words, Rated T) Ship(s): Lan Wangji & Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji & Lan Xichen, Lan Qiren & The Jades & Wei Wuxian (this is a kidfic so nothing romantic!) Summary: Wei Wuxian is alone and homeless on the streets of Yunmeng, unaware of the presence of his parents' old friend so nearby. Lan Wangji is a child grieving for the loss of his mother in silence, overwhelmed by the world his uncle keeps dragging him out into. It takes their paths crossing more than once for Lan Qiren to realize just who Wei Wuxian is and that he needs their help, but he gets there eventually. Excerpt:
He watches on as the man comes to a stop next to the boys and squats down to check over the one who had been lost and suddenly he remembers lying on the ground and looking up at a stern-faced man with gentle hands and a ribbon across his forehead. The man who had given him medicine and bandages after a small boy had defended him from dogs, and an older boy had talked to him so kindly and helped him to sit up off the dirt. Wei Ying gasps as the memory hits and he scrambles back down off the roof, landing on the packed dirt of the space between the buildings with an oof, excitement bubbling in his chest. Along with the memory comes a name and it flies from his lips as he scrambles up off the ground to push his way into the crowd again. “Master Lan!” he shouts, his tiny voice lost in the din of the market. He tries to shove closer but the little family is already walking away, their backs to him as he strains against the flow of people much bigger and stronger than him. “Master Lan!” he tries again, desperation lending extra strength and emotion to his cry. Wei Ying stops struggling as he watches the two boys in white walk away, the pair of them flanking Master Lan in his sky blue robes as they move through the market, radiating serenity in the midst of the chaos. His vision blurs and he scrubs his forearm against his eyes angrily to dry them, trying to keep the three of them in his sight for as long as he can just in case they turn around and spot him. Just in case they remember him and maybe want to tell him to come with them.
Notes: Baby Wei Ying T-T He just hits me right in the heart, and so does baby Lan Zhan! And baby Lan Xichen. All the babies. This fic was actually completely inspired by an utterly adorable fanart of Lan Xichen giving a grumpy baby A-Zhan a piggyback ride! I'd been wanting to write a kidfic type fix-it for a while and that art was the spark I needed to come up with something workable. (Edit: here’s my reblog of the art I’m talking about!) --//--
9. Familial Circumstances (5393 words, Rated G)
Ship(s): Lan Qiren & Original Characters, Lan Qiren & Jin Zixuan, Lan Qiren & Qin Su, Lan Qiren & Mo Xuanyu - An extra for AEM
Summary: Another kidfic extra for the horde of children in Jinlintai, this time as seen through the lens of their beloved Great Uncle Lan. It's a simple relationship-study-type look at how all the children love their Great Uncle and how much he loves and treasures them in return.
Excerpt:
An unusual stillness accompanies [Jin Ruhai's] playing. Jin Lu stops fidgeting with her fingers, the twins slip into the perfect stillness of those who are utterly aware of themselves at all times - a trait [Lan Qiren has] noticed in every skilled fighter he’s ever come across - and even Jin Ye relaxes, slumping further and further backwards until she’s slouched down against his stomach, legs dangling over his crossed shins.
The piece isn’t a terribly long one, nor as complex as the next score Lan Qiren intends to teach the boy, but Jin Ruhai’s mastery of it is impressive. Again, Lan Qiren is forcefully reminded of Lan Wangji, always most at peace when behind his instrument to play with and/or for the people he loves.
There’s silence in the room until the last note fades with a shiver into the air and Jin Ruhai pulls his hands back from the instrument. The stillness lasts for one more moment before it’s interrupted by Jin Lu sneezing suddenly and her siblings laugh as the quiet breaks.
“I had to hold that in the whole time !!” Jin Lu laughs as she rubs her sleeve under her nose, one eye screwed shut as she giggles. “I didn’t want to mess up A-Zhuang’s song, it’s so pretty!”
Notes: I'm definitely biased because they're all my oc's except for Jin Ling, but I genuinely love all of the Jin children in the AEM AU. If anyone is ever interested in knowing more about their individual personalities and the like please don't hesitate to ask me, I've actually put quite a bit of thought into all 6 of the kids I created wholecloth and I have a lot of feelings about Jin Ling getting the chaotic siblings and loving parents he was robbed of.
--//--
10. Opportunities To Practice (5710 words, Rated M) (*WIP)
Ship: Xuanli - An extra for AEM
Summary: Jin Zixuan is nervous for his..marital activities with Jiang Yanli - after all, who could he possibly ask for advice? His father? No thank you. Thankfully Jiang Yanli is sweet and patient and knows her husband well - he just needs a bit of time and he'll get it figured out.
Excerpt:
She shivers with an interesting combination of want and intense vulnerability as she stands there, feeling bare in spite of her remaining layer. It’s of a material so sheer as to be practically nonexistent, nothing more than a delicate veil of a red so pale it’s nearly pink that sits on her body like a second skin. Until it falls gently away at the knee to flutter around her ankles, it clings to every curve, every contour, and as she watches Jin Zixuan doesn’t even bother to hang the robe he had just removed on the screen. He lets it drop into a soft pool around her bare feet, his gaze roaming her newly exposed figure - she would perhaps feel strange about it did he not look so devoted , so in awe of seeing her practically naked in front of him.
Yanli gasps softly as he suddenly drops to his knees at her feet and oh - that’s heady. Her body, which she hasn’t really thought of too much in the past beyond the occasional irritation that it’s weaker than she would prefer, has put the man she loves on his knees. He’s looking up at her now, his eyes wide and his hands reverent as he raises them to rest on her thighs, thumbs caressing her too-warm skin through the barely-there robe that bunches up softly under the pressure of his grip.
“You’re right,” he finally breathes, sounding slightly strained. “I’d like this to stay on. If that’s - are you alright?”
“I am,” she reassures.
Notes: This last fic is technically a wip, the only one in the list! However! - it's going to be a collection of one-shots centered around Xuanli and their sexual exploits that lead to their seven children, and possibly also the ones that are just for fun (horny Yanli rights forever). It's not currently high on my list of priorities or anything and the one chapter that's up so far can stand on its own so it's a wip but it's not? I just love Xuanli so much and I want to explore their relationship in my happy fix-it AU whenever the mood strikes, and whenever that happens this is where those one-shots will go.
--//--
And that's it! My personal top 10 favorite fics of my own as of right now. I thought about doing my top 10 according to statistics like hit counts or kudos, but I genuinely love some of these unpopular fics and I wanted to give them some love and attention even if it's just for me. I know there's a lot here to sift through but if any of y'all enjoyed the list or any of the specific fics on it let me know! I liked taking this little pause to take a look at what I've actually been producing these last few months.
Thanks for reading!
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bettydice · 3 years
Video
Xicheng, Modern AU, JC&WWX reconciliation, E-Rated [Read on AO3]
CHAPTER 9
Saturday
The sun doesn’t show itself today. Heavy clouds block the view, and a strong wind is blowing. At least it’s not raining and this way, there aren’t many other people around. Lan Xichen doesn’t seem bothered by the weather at all. He seems excited to be here, happily shows Jiang Cheng all his favourite spots. Sometimes he’ll say things like “This blooms in May and has the most gorgeous blossoms, we have to come back then!”. As though there’s no question they’ll still be doing things like this together then.
Everything goes well until they sit down in Lan Xichen’s favourite favourite spot: a bench hidden behind the swaying branches of a willow, overlooking a little pond.
They’re sitting close together, shoulders and legs touching, holding hands, seeking each other’s warmth as protection against the wind. In truth, it’s not very windy in this spot, the trees around them creating a buffer, but Jiang Cheng sees no reason to not be as close to Lan Xichen as possible.
They’ve been sitting there in peaceful quiet for a few minutes, Jiang Cheng mentally going through whether he really has everything he needs for dinner later, when he looks from the pond to Lan Xichen’s face. He looks… he looks sad. There’s a tension to his jaw and a crease between his eyebrows that would look more at home on Jiang Cheng’s face.
Should he ask him? Should he start talking about something random to distract him? That’s what Wei Wuxian would do, but Jiang Cheng is not good at talking nonsense. His sister would simply radiate an aura that let Jiang Cheng know he could talk to her and that everything would be okay. Lan Xichen also seems to have that ability. But Jiang Cheng is...himself.e doesn’t have any intrinsic soothing abilities. He can only try to imitate other people.
He squeezes Lan Xichen’s hand to get his attention, and sees how Lan Xichen quickly masks his sad expression with his usual gentle smile before he turns his head to look at Jiang Cheng. That’s… that’s not what Jiang Cheng wanted.
“Are you okay?” The words feel clunky on his tongue, like he’s using these words for the first time. Which is not the case! He’s not that much of a lost cause.
Lan Xichen’s eyes widen just the tiniest bit, then deepens his smile and Jiang Cheng is sure he’s about to say that everything is fine. But instead Lan Xichen hesitates and… he drops the smile and sighs. “I was just reminded… The last time I was here, it was still spring. That tree was still in bloom.” He points at a tree across the pond. The wind is attacking it, leaves desperately trying to hold on to the branches and losing the fight. “It reminded me how stuck I’ve been… still am, really. Just drifting from day to day. I tried to recall what I did this summer and nothing memorable stood out to me.”
His first instinct is to disagree, though it’s not like Jiang Cheng can’t painfully relate to that feeling. “Well, you’re busy with your job and your bunnies and plants. And… time is bullshit anyway.”
Lan Xichen chuckles but quickly turns solemn again. “It hasn’t been long though since I started working again… you’re only my third client after my… let’s call it break.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t know that. He didn’t know things had been so bad for Lan Xichen that he couldn’t work. At least he thinks that’s what he’s saying. He squeezes Lan Xichen’s hand again, not sure what to say.
“I’m not saying this because… The fact that I’m working again shows that the past year hasn’t been in vain. I just… the world didn’t wait while I tried to heal.”
Jiang Cheng has nothing helpful to say, even though he can painfully relate to this feeling. Feeling stuck in one place while the world keeps turning, while other people seem to be able to forget and move on. He hopes his quiet support is enough for Lan Xichen.
They both look at the tree for a long moment. One of the struggling leaves gets torn off, but then gracefully loops through the air until it gently comes to rest on the water surface.
Lan Xichen turns to look at Jiang Cheng and smiles, without sadness. “But I think today will be memorable.You are.”
What the fuck? How can he just say that so casually? Jiang Cheng feels his face grow hot, while Lan Xichen just looks at him.
In lieu of an appropriate spoken response that doesn’t only consist of incoherent garbled noises, Jiang Cheng uses Wei Wuxian’s tried and trusted ‘Hey look, over there!’ tactic: “Hey, I saw online that there’s a lovely café close to the entrance. Let’s go there and treat ourselves to something nice. It’s your birthdate after all.” Ugh, fuck Nie Huaisang and his stupid word creations. “Your birthday date.. Not date. Whatever. Only if you want to, of course?”
Lan Xichen’s mouth twitches with amusement, but doesn’t call Jiang Cheng on his bullshit. “That sounds lovely. You’re right, it is my birthdate.”
Jiang Cheng snorts a laugh, then gets to his feet, pulling Lan Xichen up with him.
The café is indeed very nice and thankfully pretty empty. Lan Xichen orders a chocolatey drink that could rival one of Jin Zixuan’s sugar-coffee-monstrosities and a piece of cake topped with colourful sparkles.
“I’m going to regret this later,” he cheerfully announces before tucking in.
Jiang Cheng keeps a close watch on his face while eating his own brownie and black coffee, not wanting to risk missing a shift in his mood like last time. Even though Lan Xichen stays cheerful the entire time, Jiang Cheng keeps watching him anyway, because he can’t look anywhere else.
As it turns out, it was a very good idea for them to go to that café, as dinner… takes a while. Jiang Cheng may have severely underestimated how long it would take to prepare all the different side dishes he wants to make and may have severely overestimated how much food is a good amount for two people to make. Oh well, it’s always good to have leftovers. To his relief everything tastes really good. Though maybe not too surprising, since he got most recipes from his sister.
After dinner, they sit down on the couch, both a little tired after eating so much food. Jiang Cheng is busy mulling over how to best initiate, well… cuddling, when Lan Xichen turns to face him, smiles, and kisses him.
Jiang Cheng takes this opportunity to put his arms around Lan Xichen’s shoulders and pull him closer, all while enthusiastically kissing him back.
“Mhm.” Lan Xichen huffs a laugh against his lips, then pulls back a little. “I’ve wanted to do that since… the whole day, basically.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Well, we were in public. And then you were intensely focused on preparing dinner. I thought it was better to just quietly chop the things you threw on my cutting board.”
Lan Xichen is only teasing him, Jiang Cheng is pretty sure about that, though he can’t help but feel a little embarrassed. He instantly squashes that feeling though, because: “We’re not in public now.”
“No, we’re not.” Lan Xichen lifts his hand to Jiang Cheng’s face, his thumb caresses his cheekbone, then he slowly slides his hand down until it’s resting on Jiang Cheng’s neck. “So…?”
Jiang Cheng either nods or shakes his head, he doesn’t know, he only knows Lan Xichen kisses him again, draws him close, hand secure in his neck.
They haven’t done this before. Kissed so deeply, unrestricted by location or time. The intensity is overwhelming and it’d be so easy for him to overthink this. Are his kisses gentle enough? Passionately enough? Hands - where? What’s his dick doing? But this kiss is too nice to have it ruined by such things. So he focuses fully on the kissing, opens for Lan Xichen after he teases his lower lip with his tongue and just allows himself to get lost in it.
Lan Xichen’s hand keeps wandering lower and lower, until it’s resting on Jiang Cheng’s hip, fingers touching the waistband of his jeans through his sweater. He wants to feel his hand directly on his skin, but is not sure if that’s where this is going, if Lan Xichen would want that too.
After a while, Lan Xichen ends the kiss so they can catch their breath. He smiles down at him, which is when Jiang Cheng notices he’s somehow lying on his back now.
Lan Xichen’s face is flushed, his hair in disarray (because of Jiang Cheng’s hands! Another thing he only just now realises), his eyes dark, his lips red… Jiang Cheng reaches for him to pull him into another kiss, but Lan Xichen doesn’t let himself be pulled just yet.
“Is this okay?”
Jiang Cheng follows his gaze down to where - oh - Lan Xichen’s hand rests on his waist, under his sweater. “Oh... yeah. Yeah.” Then, in a move not supported by any brain cells, he pulls off his sweater and the t-shirt underneath. Lan Xichen looks stunned, of course he is, because Jiang Cheng skipped straight to undressing for no reason. Maybe it’s because he’s so used to undressing in Lan Xichen’s presence, maybe because he knows how it feels to have Lan Xichen’s hands on his body and he wants them there, wants to-
Lan Xichen kisses him again, his lips as hot as his hands, fingertips pressing into Jiang Cheng’s back.
Jiang Cheng is having an out of body, no, out of mind experience. He’s very much inhabiting his body, feeling everything. How his skin is hot everywhere their bodies touch, Lan Xichen’s mouth on his jaw, his neck, the familiar slide of Lan Xichen’s long fingers, now touching him in a way he’s very decidedly never done during his massages. He’s never gripped his hip to pull him closer, has never sighed against his mouth.
In the few moments he has access to his brain, he desperately uses it to make sure he’s kissing Lan Xichen just as intently, that his touch is just as gentle, that he somehow remembers to breathe during all this… There’s no room for anything else.
He gets lost in it completely, until eventually Lan Xichen breaks the kiss again.
“Maybe we should… I should probably go home…” It sounds like a question, so Jiang Cheng answers.
“You don’t have to.” He feels even hotter after he says this, probably flushing. It’s not like it’d come as a surprise to Lan Xichen that Jiang Cheng is aroused, not the way they’re pressed together, the way Lan Xichen now drags his heavy gaze from Jiang Cheng’s face down his body and back up again. He’ll be able to see that Jiang Cheng wants him to, would let him… that he wants everything. Lan Xichen holds his gaze, his hand tightens on Jiang Cheng’s hips as if he wants to keep him right here, underneath him. As if Jiang Cheng would want to go anywhere else right now…
Then Lan Xichen’s face softens, he loosens his grip and he closes his eyes, laughing quietly. Oh. So not today. “I… I want to. But…”
“No, don’t worry! That’s okay. I was just… it’s too-”
“I want to,” Lan Xichen says emphatically, looking directly at him. “But it was a long day. A lovely day, but…” He falters, his eyes now looking at Jiang Cheng’s cheek instead of his eyes. A few seconds pass, Lan Xichen’s brow furrowing as he’s looking for the right words. “I’m actually quite exhausted - a good exhaustion! But I had to feel a lot today. … If that makes sense at all?”
Jiang Cheng takes Lan Xichen’s face between his hands and presses a soft kiss to his lips. “Of course.”
Lan Xichen sighs relieved, then sits up and tries to straighten his hair, a hint of embarrassment tugging at the corners of his mouth. He does look a little tired, now that the haze of lust has dissipated between them, and Jiang Cheng can see more clearly. Jiang Cheng feels the exhaustion, too, as though he’ll fall asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.
“What time is it?” Jiang Cheng asks while following Lan Xichen into a sitting position, then lifts his arm, because he’s wearing a goddamn watch so he can answer his own fucking question. “9 p.m.? What the fuck… how long did we…”
Lan Xichen only hums, clearly amused, and bends forward, so he can hand Jiang Cheng his sweater and t-shirt from where he’d carelessly thrown it on the floor. While Jiang Cheng struggles to put them back on, having to first untangle the shirt from the sweater before deciding to just not bother with the t-shirt, Lan Xichen yawns extensively, and for some reason, with his sweater only halfway on, Jiang Cheng opens his mouth to say: “You could spend the night here.”
Lan Xichen just cocks his head at him, slightly raises his eyebrows. Saying ‘Didn’t I just decline your horny offer’ without actually saying so.
“No, I meant - “ Jiang Cheng manages to jam his arm in the other sleeve and is now mostly dressed again. “I meant, you could sleep here. So you don’t have to go home first. Like, on the couch - it’s not actually that comfortable though, so I should take the couch… But you probably want to sleep in your own bed, sorry.”
“Actually, I think that sounds lovely,” Lan Xichen says, then looks surprised at his own words. Jiang Cheng is surprised, too. “Would it not be a bother?”
“For me? Not at all!” Jiang Cheng thinks his brain has never fully come back online after their kisses. Words leave his mouth and he doesn’t know where they came from. He keeps spewing them out, unable to stop. “But… you don’t have any… like pyjamas or a toothbrush - do I have a spare toothbrush? I think there was a buy two get one free sale recently?”
Why isn’t Lan Xichen interrupting him to say ‘You’re right, I’ll go home immediately so you can stop embarrassing yourself.’ Instead he just looks at him, eyes crinkling with amusement.
“Uh, but breakfast. Well, there’s definitely enough food in my fridge now after dinner. Do I have - no, I have extra bedding, of course I do.” Okay, it’d be neat if he could stop talking now. Jiang Cheng grabs a pillow and presses it against his stomach, the next best thing to screaming into it. He focuses really hard and tries to find a sentence that can function as some kind of end point. “But... you... probably? Have to… take care of your bunnies anyway?”
Lan Xichen is still only looking, head slightly cocked, but now his lips are twitching as though he’s trying hard not to laugh. A few seconds later, he does laugh, and hot shame courses through Jiang Cheng. He really made it obvious he doesn’t have a lot of experience with asking people to stay over. (Usually it just happened naturally after sexual activities of one kind or the other. He’s never asked anyone to stay because he… Why did he ask? Because he doesn’t want Lan Xichen to leave just yet?)
Lan Xichen notices how Jiang Cheng’s expression changes to regret; he stops laughing and takes Jiang Cheng’s hand. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… It was just fascinating to see you voice the kind of thoughts I was probably about to have in a few minutes myself. Now I don’t have to, so, thank you.”
What? “You’re welcome?”
“And the bunnies will be fine. Wangji visited them tonight anyway.”
“Okay. So…” Jiang Cheng seems to have used up all his words before. It’s probably better that way.
“So, I wouldn’t mind staying over.” Lan Xichen smiles at him warmly, fondly. He stands up and tugs on Jiang Cheng’s hand. Jiang Cheng follows him up easily.
“Oh. Okay. That’s great! Cool.”
“Do you want to check whether you have a spare toothbrush?” There’s that twinkle in Lan Xichen’s eyes that always takes Jiang Cheng by surprise, but that he loves to see. It reminds Jiang Cheng it’s okay to just be in Lan Xichen’s presence, and it restarts his brain. He huffs a laugh, his shoulders relaxing, and goes to look for that toothbrush.
As it turns out, Jiang Cheng did have a spare toothbrush, as well as the lounge clothes Lan Xichen lent him after Cloud peed on him and Jiang Cheng kept forgetting to return. He also had a second set of bedding, though nobody ends up sleeping on the couch. Jiang Cheng isn’t entirely sure how that happened, he just knows that it’s shortly after midnight, Lan Xichen is lying next to him, sleeping next to him, and Jiang Cheng is scared to move in case it wakes him up.
He has barely moved since they turned off the light almost two hours ago. Usually, he turns and twists a lot before he falls asleep, because his tense shoulders make it difficult to find a comfortable position. The position he is in now is definitely not comfortable, in fact, his right shoulder might be cramping up a little. It’s been two hours, Lan Xichen is probably deep asleep by now - it’d be okay to adjust his position a little, right? He’ll be careful, he won’t wake him.
Jiang Cheng slowly rolls over on his left side, quietly slides his hand under his pillow and pulls one leg towards him. He glances towards Lan Xichen, to make sure he didn’t wake him, only to lose five years of his life, as Lan Xichen is returning his look, eyes wide open.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” Jiang Cheng whispers, he tries to, anyway. His voice still feels too loud. It always does.
“Of course not,” Lan Xichen replies with perfect talking-in-the-middle-of-the-night volume. “You haven’t made a sound since we laid down.”
“Can’t sleep?” This time, Jiang Cheng’s voice comes closer to Lan Xichen’s softness.
Lan Xichen’s face is only barely visible in the darkness, but because Jiang Cheng knows it so well, his mind can fill the shadows with memories of the day. He can see his eyes, though, reflecting the moonlight that sneaks through the curtains.
“Mhm.” Lan Xichen adjusts his position, face inching a little closer to Jiang Cheng. “It’s been a while since I shared a bed with someone.”
“Me too. I’m scared to move in case I disturb you.” These things are easier to admit in the dark.
“Mhm.”
Lan Xichen sounds so sleepy; Jiang Cheng regrets asking him to stay. If he hadn’t, Lan Xichen would be soundly asleep in his own bed right now. “I’ll go sleep on the couch then, I should have done that from the start, sorry.”
As soon as he says that, Lan Xichen throws his arm across Jiang Cheng’s body. “No, stay.”
“Oh, okay. Are you sure?”
Lan Xichen throws his leg over Jiang Cheng’s legs, too, then pulls him closer until Jiang Cheng can feel his breath on his face. “Very sure.”
“Okay.” Jiang Cheng moves his right arm a little, so his hand lies between their chests and isn’t in danger of brushing against Lan Xichen’s crotch anymore. “Yeah, okay.”
“This way we don’t have to worry about accidentally touching the other,” Lan Xichen says, his smile hard to make out in the darkness, but nevertheless beautiful. He moves back his leg, but before Jiang Cheng can miss the touch, he slides it between Jiang Cheng’s legs. “Are you comfortable?”
“Yes.” Jiang Cheng is surprised to find that to be actually true. Knowing that the warmth he feels is not his blanket, but coming from Lan Xichen, the reassuring weight of his arm... He splays his fingers, so his little finger brushes against Lan Xichen’s chest.
Lan Xichen hums, content, and for a while they just lie like this, quietly. Until Jiang Cheng feels the urge to talk again. It must be a leftover from the year he shared a room with Wei Wuxian until they moved to a bigger house. Wei Wuxian always started chatting as soon as they turned off the light.
“Technically, there is a second bedroom here. I just never go in there.”
Lan Xichen strokes his hand across Jiang Cheng’s back, to signal that he’s listening.
“It’s Wei Wuxian’s room. Well, it was supposed to be. And now...” Now it’s just there, reminding him every day of how he fucked things up.
“You’re not using it?” Lan Xichen asks gently. It’s not a reproach, he simply wants to know.
Jiang Cheng shakes his head, then says ‘No’ out loud, in case Lan Xichen couldn’t see it.
“Because you’re waiting for him to come back?”
“I... No. Yes. Maybe? I generally avoid thinking about it. You’ve seen what happens when I think about it.”
“Mhm.” Lan Xichen keeps stroking his back. He’s not moving his arm, just lightly moves his hand back and forth. “If it was empty, what would you use the room for?”
Jiang Cheng takes a moment to think about it, since he’s never done that before. “I don’t know. I guess… an office? But I don’t want to waste a whole room for my shitty degree. Maybe… I could turn it into a proper guest room, for when Jin Ling gets older. Maybe he could stay over sometimes.”
“That sounds nice. You could still put your desk in there, it helps to have your work space separate from your living space.”
“Yeah… That makes sense, I suppose.” The thought of changing it from Wei Wuxian’s Room to something else doesn’t fill him with the dread he expected, surprisingly. He does know, somewhere deep in his heart, that even if they reconcile, Wei Wuxian won’t move in here. Shouldn’t. They were horrible roommates, if he considers it honestly. There’s no reason to hold on to this old bitterness, no reason to still let it poison his mood. “I should do that.”
“I’ll help you. I like redecorating.”
Lan Xichen says it so matter of fact, Jiang Cheng can’t help himself - he has to kiss him. He closes the last remaining distance between them and gives him a short, sweet kiss. He doesn’t move back after, just stays there, as close as possible.
“I wanted to thank you for inviting me to your home,” Lan Xichen whispers against his lips.
Jiang Cheng isn’t sure this is something he should be thanked for. Compared to Lan Xichen’s flat, his is unremarkable. “Uh, thank you for coming over.”
“It means a lot that you shared your space with me.”
It’s weird being this close. He can only see blurry shapes instead of Lan Xichen’s face. But his voice is so clear, even though he’s whispering. He can feel it when he talks, the movement of his lips, his chest under his fingers. Jiang Cheng has never experienced this kind of intimacy. It’s exciting but he’s also a little scared what kind of secret this atmosphere might drag out of him. “Well, it’s only fair, since I’ve spent so much time at your place already.”
“Still… I was… “Lan Xichen hesitates. He slowly cards his fingers through Jiang Cheng’s hair while mulling over his words. “It means a lot.”
Somehow, Jiang Cheng understands. Lan Xichen’s words shape the form of an old wound. Or maybe a scar, by now. He presses another kiss to his lips, though misses by a little and only catches the corner of his mouth. “Even though I don’t have any plants?”
“You’re right, we need to change that.”Lan Xichen laughs quietly and pokes Jiang Cheng’s foot with his big toe. “I like it here. Even without plants.”
“Not much to like. Yours is much nicer,” Jiang Cheng mumbles.
“You live here,” Lan Xichen replies, as though that’s answer enough. Maybe it is. It’s not an answer Jiang Cheng can deal with right now, so he just makes a noise in between a hum and a scoff.
They fall quiet again, and Jiang Cheng closes his eyes after a while. He thinks he could finally fall asleep like this, lulled by the soothing rhythm of Lan Xichen stroking his hair.
“I like your hair like this.”
It takes Jiang Cheng a second to realise that he should reply, that he’s still awake. “Mhm?”
“You usually tie it back.” Lan Xichen lets one strand of hair run between his fingers, then tucks it behind Jiang Cheng’s ear.
“I should cut it short again. Been months. A year.” Jiang Cheng wonders if it’s possible to fall asleep while talking. He’s surprised by every word that manages to squeeze through his tired lips.
“I like it.”
“You like a lot of things. My flat, my hair, my face…”
“It’s true. I do.” Lan Xichen is smiling, Jiang Cheng can hear it.
“Me too. Like yours. You.”
“Mhm, that’s good.”
Jiang Cheng falls asleep then, but Lan Xichen’s presence follows him into his dreams. He sleeps very well.
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Text
Stonehearst Asylum (2014 movie) AU!
Dr. Lan Wangji arrives at the Yiling asylum to take his new position. Upon his arrival, he is greeted by the head of the asylum Dr. Xiao Xingchen and is amazed to learn of Dr. Xiao's groundbreaking new method of treatment: allowing his patients to roam freely around the asylum and pursuing their own interests. Lan Wangji is especially intrigued by one patient, Wei Wuxian, the ward of Lord Jiang Fengmian and fiance of Jiang Wanyin, who has been sent to the asylum to treat his hysteria.
Cue Wangxian love story.
One night Lan Wangji discovers some people locked away in the asylum's basement. They are Dr. Wen Ruohan, the real head of the asylum, and his staff, who were locked up by their patients, including Dr. Xiao. And Lan Wangji realises the truth: the inmates run the asylum.
He rushes to tell Wei Wuxian the truth and urges him to run away with him. But Wei Wuxian already knows. In fact, he was one of the patients who helped Dr. Xiao rebel against Dr. Wen and his staff. Dr. Wen had been cruel and treated his patients inhumanely, subjecting them to torture and experiments. Now that Dr. Xiao is in charge, all the patients can finally live freely.
Dr. Xiao and his assistant Xue Yang find out that Lan Wangji now knows the truth. They lock him up and plan to electrocute him to death. Wei Wuxian breaks into the room to try to free him but fails. As he is dragged away by the other patients, Lan Wangji reveals that the true reason he came to Yiling was because of Wei Wuxian. He first saw Wei Wuxian during a medical conference in Gusu where he was brought by his adopted father and fiance to seek treatment, and Lan Wangji fell in love with him then, although they never spoke.
Lan Wangji asks Dr. Xiao to take out the picture of Wei Wuxian which he has in his pocket so that he can say goodbye. When Dr. Xiao takes the picture, he realises that it is a picture of a man named Song Lan. Lan Wangji has lied. It is a picture which he stole from Dr. Xiao's belongings. The picture triggers Dr. Xiao's psychotic break: Song Lan was Dr. Xiao's best friend who was accidentally killed by him. Song Lan's death was the reason for Dr. Xiao's insanity. After seeing the picture, Dr. Xiao becomes catatonic.
Before Lan Wangji can escape, Xue Yang returns to the room. He sees Dr. Xiao and decides that he will have to electrocute Lan Wangji on his own. Just as he is about to hit the switch, Wei Wuxian appears. Xue Yang and Wei Wuxian fight while the other asylum patients watch and cheer. In the fight, a fire is started. Xue Yang falls and is burnt to death. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian help Xiao Xingchen out of the asylum.
Wangxian kiss with the asylum buildings burning in the background. Lan Wangji whispers into Wei Wuxian's ear, I have one final secret...
Timeskip.
After the fire, the asylum buildings have been repaired and improvements have been made. The new head of the asylum is Dr. Wen Qing (Dr. Wen Ruohan died in the fire). Dr. Wen Qing is very skilled and takes good care of her patients, including the former "Dr." Xiao Xingchen.
Jiang Wanyin and an unnamed man arrive at the asylum together. Jiang Wanyin is here to take Wei Wuxian home, he says. The Jiang have decided that it is time for Wei Wuxian to leave the asylum and return to Lotus Pier. Dr. Wen explains that Wei Wuxian was already discharged by Dr. Lan a month ago.
But that is impossible, the unnamed man interrupts. Because he, is Dr. Lan, Dr. Lan Xichen. He has come to the asylum to find his brother, and his patient, Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji is a pathological liar who ran away from his family in Gusu, and his older brother has finally tracked him down to the Yiling asylum. Alas, he is no longer here...
Cut away
In a small cottage in an unknown village, lives a young and happy couple, Dr. "Xiao" and his husband. Their neighbours will say that they are a lovely couple, always polite and helpful.
Dr. Xiao is quiet and calm, with golden eyes that can catch your heart with one gaze. His husband is loud, and laughs a lot, his silver eyes and ever present grin have become a constant around the village.
The doctor and his husband are both so young but it is already so clear that they love each other very much. The older people smile indulgently at them and the younger sigh in envy. Oh, to have a love as pure and strong as theirs. Truly a happy ever after if anyone ever saw one.
The end.
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besanii · 4 years
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shattered mirrors 50
WangXian ; 1368 words
[follows part 05]
He watches from the parapets as the soldiers assemble in the courtyard below, the foot soldiers arranging themselves into neat formations and the cavalry gently nudging their horses in line. There are wagons laden with supplies—food, water, weapons for use on the road—although the majority had been sent ahead in batches to replenish the supplies on the front lines. Overhead, the blue clouds of Gusu Lan curl across white silk banners fluttering in the breeze, the same shade of blue as the soldier’s robes beneath their polished lamellar armour.
It is easy to spot Lan Wangji and Lan Guoyan amongst the crowd: they are the only ones with helmets decorated with plumes of Gusu Lan blue, and their polished armour gleams silver in the sunlight.
“Wei-gongzi.”
He turns and bows with his fingers clasped before him.
“Taizi-dianxia,” he says in greeting.
“You may rise,” Lan Xichen says, waving him to his feet with a smile. He is alone, his personal attendants standing further away and just out of earshot, their heads bowed to offer them privacy. “I am surprised to see you here, and not down there with Wangji and Guoyan.”
In the courtyard below, Lan Guoyan is shouting orders at the men and gesturing towards the wagons while Lan Wangji frowns beside him, his attention focused on the map in his hands. Wei Wuxian shakes his head.
“I thought it would be best if I let them work undisturbed,” he says. “I fear I would only hinder their task and delay their departure.”
“Would that not be a good thing?” Lan Xichen asks, a twinkle in his eye.
Wei Wuxian ducks his head, his cheeks heating.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Taizi-dianxia,” he says carefully.
Lan Xichen laughs softly, no more than a quiet exhale accompanied by the faintest of smiles and a shake of his head; he walks over to the edge of the parapet, his hands tucked behind his back as he surveys the preparations.
“Jing-junwang withdrew his petition for your hand this morning,” he says, voice deceptively light. When Wei Wuxian does not reply, he continues: “I must admit, Wei-gongzi, I was surprised to receive his petition in the first place.”
“Jing-junwang has shown me great favour,” Wei Wuxian replies without raising his head. “I am unworthy of his affections.”
“I’m sure that isn’t the case,” Lan Xichen tells him magnanimously. He turns away from the parapet finally and looks at Wei Wuxian with a critical eye. “Forgive me, Wei-gongzi, but I had always been under the impression you and Wangji…or was I mistaken?”
Wei Wuxian takes a step back and bows low at the waist.
“Taizi-dianxia,” he says. “Wei Wuxian asks for your forgiveness.”
Lan Xichen looks surprised. “Whatever for, Wei-gongzi?”
Wei Wuxian straights, but keeps his head bowed, his cheeks flushed. This far above the ground, the noise from the soldier’s preparations down below is little more than a constant buzz punctuated by the occasional horse’s whinny or the clash of metal, but it is familiar enough to soothe Wei Wuxian’s nerves as he formulates his reply to Lan Xichen with care.
“Wei Wuxian has been fortunate to receive Er-dianxia’s affections,” he says. “For that, I am eternally thankful.”
“But you do not share the sentiment?” Lan Xichen asks, keeping his voice level. Wei Wuxian shakes his head quickly to disabuse him of the notion.
“Please do not misunderstand, Taizi-dianxia,” he says. “I am unworthy of such high regard from Er-dianxia. But…I hope to be.”
The last words are spoken softly, hesitantly, and he dares not raise his eyes from where they are fixed on the ground at Lan Xichen’s feet. He has not had many personal dealings with the Crown Prince during his time in Gusu; the Crown Prince no longer lives within the Palace now that he is of age and married, and Wei Wuxian had been preoccupied with lessons,but he knows enough—not just from Lan Wangji’s deep-seated respect and love for his brother, but also what he overhears from ministers and servants alike—to know that he is just and fair, and unfailingly kind. Such men are rare, and he would very much prefer to win his favour than cause offence. Gusu is a powerful ally, after all, and he is here to strengthen that alliance.
There is also the fact that he is Lan Wangji’s brother. If nothing else, Wei Wuxian would like to win his approval for Lan Wangji’s sake.
“Wei-gongzi,” Lan Xichen says now. “Please raise your head.”
His eyes—a darker shade of hazel than Lan Wangji’s, more of a light brown than a honey-gold—are kind when Wei Wuxian lifts his head to meet his gaze. A small, knowing smile plays at the corner of his lips.
“I am glad to hear that, Wei-gongzi,” he tells him. “Although it is customary for men of power to take multiple concubines—especially those of us in the Imperial Family, in order to secure the lineage—neither my brother nor myself, or even our Fuhuang, is very much inclined towards the practice.”
He takes a step towards Wei Wuxian, the light in his eyes turning serious, more meaningful. In that moment, Wei Wuxian glimpses the statesman, the future Emperor, behind the brother: the self-assurance, the confidence, and the commanding presence in the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his chin, and the sharpness of his gaze.
“Wei-gongzi, you’ll find my brother can be quite single-minded in his devotion,” he says seriously. “Once he has set his heart and his mind on something—or someone—it is there to stay, for better or for worse. There will be troubling times ahead for all of us and the future is uncertain, but I sincerely hope my brother’s affections are not misplaced.”
Do not break my brother’s heart.
As if Wei Wuxian would even entertain the idea.
“Taizi-dianxia, please be assured,” he says, sinking into a formal bow as expected of a courtier to his future Emperor. “I would sooner cut off my own head than betray Er-dianxia and your faith in me.”
This seems to mollify Lan Xichen’s concerns; the severity of his expression clears into something lighter, friendlier, and the smile returns to his lips. He nods his head slowly and motions for Wei Wuxian to rise.
“I am glad, Wei-gongzi,” he says, and turns back to the view over the parapet. “And I am sure Wangji will also be thrilled to hear it. Have you spoken to him?”
“Ah…we’ve come to an understanding of sorts, Taizi-dianxia,” Wei Wuxian replies, scratching the bridge of his nose with an awkward chuckle. “With the current state of affairs, we agreed it would be best to wait until after everything has settled before we make anything official. We both have our duties, and they must come first. But afterwards…” he trails off with a wistful sigh. “I guess we’ll see.”
Lan Xichen hums thoughtfully.
“And you will be returning to Yunmeng in Wangji’s absence.”
“Yes, Taizi-dianxia,” Wei Wuxian replies with a short bow. “I will be leaving later today, once the troops have departed and I have settled my affairs here.”
“Very well then.” Lan Xichen walks towards him in measured steps until they are shoulder-to-shoulder. “Safe travels, Wei-gongzi. I look forward to seeing more of you after the war.”
He leaves as Wei Wuxian turns and bows low in farewell. When he is alone again, he leans over the parapets, his folded arms resting on the stone walls. Down below, Lan Wangji looks up amid the crowd of people surrounding him and catches his eye; Wei Wuxian smiles and waves.
Yunping attacked. Heavy casualties. Return immediately.
Lan Wangji gives him the slightest of nods in return, but there is a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth, and turns back to his work. Wei Wuxian allows his smile to fade.
Everything will be alright, he thinks, echoing Lan Wangji’s words from last night as his heart sinks. The war will be over soon.
--
Notes:
Fuhuang (父皇) - Imperial Father, used by children of the Emperor when talking to/referring to their father.
--
ANNOUNCEMENT
Due to Tumblr messing with the way things show up in tags, there are some changes I’ll be making in hopes of circumventing those issues until I work out how best to do this.
Tracked tag: originally was “shattered mirrors au”, now I’ll also be tagging posts with:
shattered mirrors fic - for fic updates
shattered mirrors verse - for non-update, verse-related posts
The existing tag will still be used just in case, but from what I can see nothing is showing up in it regardless of whether or not I’ve removed the links, so I’m being extra cautious.
Master Post is available on the sidebar of my blog. 
You can also copy the following and append it to the end of my tumblr homepage: shattered-mirrors-master-post
Ko-Fi link is available on the sidebar of my blog.
If you want to look me up directly, my username is besanii
This information is also pinned at the top of my blog for reference.
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wangxianficfinder · 6 months
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In the mood for...
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1. ITMF a fic where the Lans or the neis or the cultivation world in general find out about the abuse wwx takes at jiang sect and the other sects trying to help him @zerokogane
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2. Have you all seen maze runner? Yeah. I want a wangxian maze runner version/fusion/setting/same plot or something!!
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3. A) ITMF fics where, in a wedding Wei Ying catches the flowers/bouquet brides throw?
Itmf fics where B) wwx is like a mystery unsolved to anyone and everyone
C) wwx is a magician. Like those cool tricky people uk. Could be real / fake magic. @constellationdks
3B)
Old Foreshadows by protos_metazu_ison (M, 15k, WangXian, YLLZ WWX, BAMF WWX, War, Universe Alteration, Sunshot Campaign) not sure i'm understanding the request, but maybe one of these?
🔒 never been away so long by sundiscus (G, <1k, wangxian, Modern, Pre-Relationship, First Meetings, Ambiguous/Open Ending, (but a happy ending in the endnotes!), Ghosts)
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4. Hello, thank you, my favorite fic comes from your recs. Any fic recs for lan xichen x jiang yanli. No modern era please @dramaqueenrolf
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5. hii, for the next imtf can I ask for a fic where lwj and wwx break up and r mopey about it? a modern au maybe, like there's no promised goodbye here
thank you!! @mercurygirlwt28
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6. Hello! I have a read fics where the characters cultivate to immortality and the story picks up with their lives in modern era. I like the combo of traditional clothes, cultures, and canon personalities in the modern setting. Are there more fics like this? (I cannot remember the names of the two I have read in the past. In one I think WWX loses his memory and regains it upon backpacking to modern Cloud Recesses? In the other WWX time travels to modern and meets LWJ who has lived all those years.)
ridiculous future bullshit by sami (M, 61k, wangxian, WQ/JC/LXC, LSZ & WWX, LSZ/Other(s), LSZ & his family, JYL/OMC, Future Fic, movies, the rewriting of history if the past was different the future is different, But still ridiculous, Humor, the evolution of fashion, immortals through history, LWJ visits other cultures and judges them, Modern, best boy LSZ, Pride Parades, Cats, the legend of WQ, Academia, Border Crossings, biosecurity, oz quarantine is SERIOUS BUSINESS, Kinda cultivated to immortality, Paperwork, Family, Parents and Children, Uncles and nephews, the mortifying ordeal of your family seeing how you really live, Social Media, Chaos Gremlin WWX, Slight Hostage Situations, University, outsider pov, WWX vs Local Culture, actions have consequences, Pets, Movie Stars, Fluff) though it’s a sequel to And Time Is But A Paper Moon so some people are immortal in RFB who died in canon.
Thanks for giving me an excuse to dig up one of my favorite tropes from my bookmarks!! The Future is Ours to Keep series by makebelieveanything & nerdzeword (T, 25k, wangxian, JC & WWX, JC & YZY, JYL/LQY/WQ, post-canon, modern, immortality, reincarnation, healthy family relationships, epistolary, groupchats, fluff) Some beloved cast is immortal in modern times, some reincarnated
Ever Thine, Ever Mine, Ever Ours. by JaenysBloodcourt (T, 3k, WangXian, Immortal LWJ and WWX, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Well it could be a Bittersweet Ending, Love Confessions) Wangxian are immortal, but have pined for a thousand years, and (spoiler!!!) they do get together but mind the bittersweet ending!!!!!!
dark and glimmering by Sanguis (T, 5k, wangxian, post-canon, modern, technology malfunction, established relationship, married couple, immortality) Beautiful and wangxian-centric, not so much about the modern world. But the world is around
Wandering Souls, Wild Ghosts by belleweather (E, 49k, wangxian, post-canon, victorian au, case fic, rentboys, smut, married wangxian, immortality, canon-typical violence, period-typical sexism & racism & homophobia, voyeurism, families of choice) Victorian England with immortal!wangxian’s adventures!
Traditions Series by Witch_Nova221 (G, 7k, WangXian, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Tree, Christmas Presents, Modern with Magic, modern day cultivators, Cloud Recesses, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Married Life, family traditions, wangxian family feels, Romance, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, immortal cultivators)
A Tale of Two Immortals by esk95 (M, 31k, WIP, WangXian, XiCheng, XuanLi, Post-Canon, Like waaaaay Post-Canon Modern AU, but cultivation still exists, Immortality, Reincarnation, Pretty much everyone is a reincarnation except Wangxian, Secret Identities, Modern with Magic, Immortal!Wangxian) A beloved wip: Immortal wangxian try to solve a mystery, poor Sizhui just wants to be a cultivator and have support of his parents who don’t know anything about cultivation (lol), a lot of reincarnated folk around
MDZS: The Golden Engine by iffervescent (E, 82k, WangXian, XiCheng, Explicit Sexual Content, Immortals) The summary says it all: “In the modern era, immortals Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian return to Gusu. New evil and old friends + new friends and old evils.”
All Old Things are New Again Series by The Feels Whale (miscellea) (M, 59k, WIP, WangXian, XuanLi, ChengQing, Reincarnation, Modern AU, canon still happened, extreme post canon, Sugar Daddy, Kink Negotiation, gentle dom!LWJ, canonical levels of consent play, Modern Cultivators, Epilogues, yunmeng bros reconciliation, rabbit acquisition) has some immortal lwj and lxc with reincarnation wwx,and it's amazing.
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7. ITMF fics which have wwx's ghosts. Remember ghost brides? And that ghoul child? They don't have to have a major part or something, just the fuc having wwx talking and being friends with ghosts.
It can also have the ghosts taking care of wwx. Loving him and all uk
when the sun goes out by travelingneuritis (E, 176k, WangXian, Modern Cultivation, tech cultivation, Necromancy, Angst with a Happy Ending, insecurity around adoption, Dad!WWX, dad!lwj, Grief/Mourning, Mistaken Identity, Mood Whiplash, Body Swap, sex tears!, Falling In Love, Consensual Somnophilia, apocalypse (localized), Smut, unrealistic sexual stamina, Flashbacks, Time Skips, Illustrations) if you're okay with OC ghosts I highly recommend When the Sun Goes Out by travelingneuritis, it's one of my favorite fics and wwx's relationship with his ghost army (Kaichuang in particular) is one of the reasons why
Ad Oblivione by Baph, HikariNoHimeWriter (M, 70k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, POV Multiple, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Identity Reveal, Golden Core Reveal, Cultivation World Critical, Not JC Friendly, Abusive YZY, Angst with a Happy Ending) WWX has a ghost companion who helps him & acts as a mother figure towards him
let the sun go down on your anger; let it burn you to sleep by enbysaurus_rex (Not rated, 86k, wangxian, WQ & WWX, graphic depictions of violence, chronic illness, narcolepsy, chronic pain, YLLZ WWX, oblivious WWX, sleeping beauty elements, body horror, WIP) has pretty much every one of Wei Wuxian's ghosts playing a part and teaming up with his family to help take care of him in their own way
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8. hii, for the itmf
are there any fics w the trope "someone who believes they're hard to love and someone who loves then like it's breathing?
I hope ure having a nice day!!
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9. Any fics where yu ziyuan treats wwx like a son or nephew??
And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 139k, WangXian, XiChengQing, Time Travel, Fix-It, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Healing, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, BAMF WWX, BAMF JC, BAMF LWJ, BAMF JYL, Getting Together)
Sail Away Sweet Sister by sami (M, 73k, WangXian, YZY/CSSR/MDM Lan, MingLi, Time Travel, EXTREME Canon Divergence, Wide Focus Narrative, Some People Live/Not Everyone Dies, Most Named/Canon Characters Live, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Families of Choice, Parenthood, this work contains a major tonal shift, Fluff, Angst, Underage Sex, not particularly explicit, but not at all ambiguous, PTSD, Only a tiny bit, Unforeseeable consequences, The butterfly effect, Slightly Dark JYL, Asexual Characters, but that’s not really the focus, Canon-Typical Violence) Also most of sami's time travel fics. this one for sure, probably a few others in the Same Moon series
Across the street to another life by danegen (M, 99k, WangXian, Modern AU, unleashed au, Family Fluff, Set in America, Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse, Addiction, Crime, Amnesia, Ableist Language, another fridged mother, POV Alternating, past wwx/ofc, past wwx/omc, Medium parent YZY, A-Yuan is wwx’s biological son, Musicians, Happy Ending) it's mostly late in the fic but "across the street to another life" REALLY earns that "medium parent yu ziyuan" tag. Far from perfect but really steps up when it matters.
Hope series by RoseThorne (T, 57k, wangxian, WWX & YZY, WWX & JFM, WWX & JYL, YZY/JFM, JC & WWX, LQR & WWX, LXC & JYL, Madam Jin & YZY, LQR & JFM, LXC & LWJ, Transmigration, Time Travel Fix-It, Illnesses, Family, Scars, Memory Loss, Angst, Crying, Music, Nosebleed, Fear, Recovery, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, Flirting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Good Parent YZY, Referenced Sexual Slavery, Blood and Gore, Monsters, Sexual Tension, betrothal, Arranged Marriage, Grief, Adoption, POV Third Person, POV Alternating, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Good Parent LQR, Clairvoyance, Butterfly Effect, Kid Fic, Epistolary, Food, Secrets, Resentful Energy, Cultivation Sect Politics, Character Death)
The Best Gift by Lan_Wangjoe (E, 45k, WangXian, Modern AU, Mistaken Identity, Miscommunication Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Family Fluff, Family Dynamics, Falling In Love, Idiots in Love, Dorks in Love, Nice LQR, Meet the Family, Nerdiness, Science Boyfriends, Science Experiments, Fake Science, Science Husbands, Geeks, Work Contains Fan(s) or Fandom(s), Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Fans & Fandom AU, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Adopted Children, Marriage of Convenience, Secret Marriage, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Stupidity, Himbo LXC, Lan Himbos, Lán Family Feels, Everyone Is Alive, Everyone Thinks They're Together, Good Parents JFM and YZY, Genius WWX, Geniuses)
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10. Does anybody have anything where it’s just Immortal(one of them could be reincarnated and recultivated immortality) Wangxian being happy through the ages or in modern society? (Preferably modern Cultivation society) @omgnectarina
The Future is Ours to Keep series by makebelieveanything & nerdzeword (T, 25k, wangxian, JC & WWX, JC & YZY, JYL/LQY/WQ, post-canon, modern, immortality, reincarnation, healthy family relationships, epistolary, groupchats, fluff) (link in #6) Some beloved cast is immortal in modern times, some reincarnated
Ever Thine, Ever Mine, Ever Ours. by JaenysBloodcourt (T, 3k, WangXian, Immortal LWJ and WWX, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Well it could be a Bittersweet Ending, Love Confessions) (link in #6) Wangxian are immortal, but have pined for a thousand years, and (spoiler!!!) they do get together but mind the bittersweet ending!!!!!!
dark and glimmering by Sanguis (T, 5k, wangxian, post-canon, modern, technology malfunction, established relationship, married couple, immortality) (link in #6) Beautiful and wangxian-centric, not so much about the modern world. But the world is around
Wandering Souls, Wild Ghosts by belleweather (E, 49k, wangxian, post-canon, victorian au, case fic, rentboys, smut, married wangxian, immortality, canon-typical violence, period-typical sexism & racism & homophobia, voyeurism, families of choice) (link in #6) Victorian England with immortal!wangxian’s adventures!
Traditions Series by Witch_Nova221 (G, 7k, WangXian, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Tree, Christmas Presents, Modern with Magic, modern day cultivators, Cloud Recesses, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Married Life, family traditions, wangxian family feels, Romance, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, immortal cultivators) (link in #6)
A Tale of Two Immortals by esk95 (M, 31k, WIP, WangXian, XiCheng, XuanLi, Post-Canon, Like waaaaay Post-Canon Modern AU, but cultivation still exists, Immortality, Reincarnation, Pretty much everyone is a reincarnation except Wangxian, Secret Identities, Modern with Magic, Immortal!Wangxian) (link in #6) A beloved wip: Immortal wangxian try to solve a mystery, poor Sizhui just wants to be a cultivator and have support of his parents who don’t know anything about cultivation (lol), a lot of reincarnated folk around
MDZS: The Golden Engine by iffervescent (E, 82k, WangXian, XiCheng, Explicit Sexual Content, Immortals) (link in #6) The summary says it all: “In the modern era, immortals Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian return to Gusu. New evil and old friends + new friends and old evils.”
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11. Itmf pregnant wwx doesn’t realize he is pregnant at first. Broody, hormonal, instinctive, etc., can be foxxian but doesn’t have to be. Bonus points if LWJ has it figured out. Any era is fine.
I didn't know I was pregnant! by Haunted_Cheese (G, 1k, WangXian, A/B/O Dynamics, Modern AU, Mpreg, Unplanned Pregnancy, Childbirth, Omega WWX, Alpha LWJ, Pregnant WWX)
🔒Little fall of rain by luckymoonly (M, 10k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, WWX didn't know he was pregnant, Mpreg, Mention of Birth, Family Feels, Nielan himbo rights, soft LQR, Misunderstandings, jealous lwj, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Smut, Breastfeeding, Thirsty Granny Wen, JGS being his usual self)
🔒Surprise Baby! by trulywicked (M, 10k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Modern Cultivation, Mpreg, Unplanned Pregnancy, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Didn't know he was pregnant, birthing scene, Little bit of blood, A/B/O Dynamics, Inspired by Twitter, Established Relationship, Fluff)
Blood, Google, and Love by Prairie_Grass (E, 4k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, they were roommates, A/B/O Dynamics, Getting Together, Mpreg, semi graphic giving birth, Alpha LWJ, Omega wwx, Intersex Omegas, (or you could head-canon WWX as trans if you wanted), Fluff and Angst, the run-on sentences are on-purpose because WWX and LWJ are both:, neurodiverse characters, slightly traumatic birth)
Impermanence, Transience, Permanence by Best Bepsy (BepsyGray) (E, 39k, wangxian, canon divergence, unplanned pregnancy, mpreg, gore, sunshot campaign, assumed miscarriage, medical procedures, childbirth, golden core reveal) And the case of 'didn't know I was STILL pregnant'
Does Wei Ying have Covid? by Webawee (G, 2k, WangXian, Modern AU, A/B/O Dynamics, Mpreg, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, Established Relationship, Pregnancy, Morning Sickness) there's a hillarious fic called does wei ying have covid? its exactly as it sounds our oblivious baby wwx thinks he has covid when lwj thinks wwx is scared to be pregnant/ anxious and wq is wq its great
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12. (Previous part added to FF)
if you could also recommend fics where lwj rejects wwx at first then feels so guilty about it after seeing/hearing about wwx suffering due to his rejection (just any au with this trope)?? i am a sucker for angst with a happy ending.
we are blessed in this community for all the work that you do, thank you so much! 🙇🏻‍♀️ @emkaii
When the Words Stop Coming by mrcformoso (T, 7k, WangXian, Canon Compliant, POV WWX, POV LWJ, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Pre-Sunshot Campaign, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Canonical Character Death, Love Confessions, Rejection, LWJ is a Panicked Gay, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Trauma, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sad with a Happy Ending) Basically where WWX confesses, lwj keeps rejecting him, and canon still happens.
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13. Itmf NMJ is everyone’s big brother (also the best brother nmj).
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14. Hey, hope you're well. ITMF Wèi WuXian appreciation fics. (ex- stunted, starving, juvenility, hua xianle) @tinyfoxpeach
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15. Hello! I wonder if there are works, where Wei Ying died from strangulation in the field by the hands of Jiang Cheng? Thank you!
Lay my body down by tawaen (M, 48k, WWX & WQ, WWX & WN, wangxian, WWX & JYL, canon divergence, time travel, rogue cultivator WWX, no golden core transfer, not cultivation world friendly, not JC friendly, OCs) Might not be what the requester wants? WWX dies in the siege of the Burial Mounds & part of his spirit gets flung through time & latches onto the moment where he is strangled & his heart stopped & goes 'it's free real estate', resulting in a time travel AU where WWX choses to nope the fuck out of the cultivation world. He does die in that moment, but if the requester wants an angsty MCD fic, this ain't it / has Wei Ying die of strangulation but a fragment of his soul returns to that moment and he lives again.
False Catharsis by mondengel (Not Rated, 792, Horror, Angst) WWX dies. It's only 700 words but it hits hard.
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16. Hello~! ITMF hanahaki disease fics, preferably canon setting? In hanahaki trope someone who has unrequited love will grow flowers in their chest until the roots and branches kill them. Basically a curse to wither away in sadness and die unless your love is requited.
Regret Blossoms by piecrust (G, 7k, wangxian, Hanahaki Disease)
This Lantern Shines For You by apollonie (M, 10k, wangxian, Hanahaki Disease, Angst with a Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Pining WWX, WWX Needs a Hug, LWJ is a Disaster Gay)
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17. Idk if you'll answer this but do u know any fics where lwj travels back in time to his younger selfs body and gets to change how he was like with wwx? (Bonus points if it was just a dream) thanks!!! 💗
A Narrow Bridge by FrameofMind, Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle) (E, 700k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, Getting Together, First Time, Pining while fucking, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Angst with a Happy Ending, CQL Verse, almost everybody lives/almost nobody dies, epistolary-ish, canon-ish side pairings, radishes) LWJ goes back & changes his decision at Qiongqi Path
🔒 The Second Hand Unwinds by trulywicked (E, 25k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, Time Travel Fix-It, not JC friendly, not Yúnmèng Jiāng Sect friendly, not Jiāng Family friendly, not YZY friendly, Time Travelling LWJ, Protective LWJ, Fluff, Minor Angst, Minor Character Death, JGS is his own warning, Wooing, LWJ is romantic af, Inventor WWX, Genius WWX, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Protective Gūsū Lán Sect, Supportive LXC, Good Uncle LQR, WIP) LWJ goes back to CRSA
A Matter of Time series by mrcformoso (E, 70 k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, POV LWJ, POV JC, Dark LWJ, Manipulation, Grooming, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Consensual Underage Sex, Except problematic please read warning in first chapter, Blood and Violence, Insane LWJ, Manic LWJ, Conditioning, WWX is a Lán, Minor Character Death, Confused JC, Golden Core Reveal, Good Friend NHS, WWX Isn’t Adopted by the Jiāngs, Abusive Jiāng Family, Jiāng Family Bashing, Jiāng Family Critical, POV NHS, Dark NHS, Anal Sex, Marathon Sex, Dual Cultivation, Qīnghéng-jūn Lives, LWJ Has a Big Dick, WWX Self-Lubricates, Plot Twists, Porn With Plot, Scheming NHS, Manipulative NHS, BAMF LWJ, BAMF WWX) Features dark!LWJ. Mind the tags
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If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***
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guqin-and-flute · 4 years
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Holding Me Holding You [Ch. 2]
[Beep beep, are you ready for some 3zun Raise Jingyi AU angst? So. This will be at least a few chapters more, going up through Xichen deciding to keep A-Fu, writing to the rest of 3zun, probably even them meeting A-Fu so...no idea how long that will take. This is significantly more angsty than And A-Fu Makes 4, so just be ~*aware*~]
[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Ao3]
Sleep proves to be nothing more than wishful thinking.
He’s startled from a doze by the unknown child coughing, then Lan Fu squirming under his chin, groggily beginning to rouse at the disturbance. Lan Xichen simply takes to walking a slow circuit in the early morning chill of the room, feeling half sunken behind his own eyes as he strokes their backs, letting the rhythm of his own steps suffice as a focus for an imperfect meditation. 
His core feels like a bowl scraped empty. His body is stiff, his head dull and full as an old silver teapot covered in patina. Every place his skin had torn or split or blistered in the Battle is pulsing with aching tendrils of pain in time with his heart, healed or not. 
It’s alright. There is a space to be made between his mind and his body’s pain--there always has been. The children are quiet and Wangji is breathing. That is all that is necessary in this moment. 
The doctor finds him still circling slowly sometime past 5 am, when everyone else is beginning to wake again. The haggard bruising of his eyes tells Xichen that he has also not found sleep for the past 2 nights either--not since the bodies and the wounded had begun to pour into the Cloud Recesses. His quiet examination of Wangji is long and troubling and Lan Xichen must tuck his terrified heart back from his face at the news that he is healing slowly. Very slowly. Xichen leaves him and Wangji’s mystery child in the doctor’s care with the instruction that they are to be kept together.
He doesn’t know exactly who this boy is or what his brother had been thinking--
No. No, that’s not entirely true. He knows what--(who)--Wangji had been thinking about. The only thing. And so he can guess who this boy is. Or at least what he is to Wangji. Xichen will not take anything more from him than he can help. He can give him this. He can do this much for him, pitiably small as it is. 
(He had done this. He had let this happen. He had done this to his brother.)
(And Wangji had fought against them.)
The hurt between Xichen and Wangji, what they had done to each other, all those choices they had each made in these past few frantic, blood soaked days is as messy and tangled as anything. But through those knots shines a certainty of what he knows will come--what has always come. What will always come. He loves Wangji and he will do what he must in order to to keep him safe. 
Xichen does not know if he himself is a strong enough tether for his brother to want to stay alive, right now. 
That’s alright. It can’t be helped. 
He takes Lan Fu to the Hanshi to nestle on his unused bed as he changes his own rumpled clothes and performs his daily ablutions mechanically. Then steps out into this new day, misty and cold, inextricably woven into the last by dismally weighty tendrils of dread and lack of sleep. As he does, he is aware, distantly, that it is odd to carry around a child that is not his own while he attends his duties. However, nothing about today is anchored in the same reality that existed before Wei Wuxian’s rampage. The Cloud Recesses smells of blood and death, and every once in a while, low, muted wails break the compulsory quiet that usually reigns. He is sending groups to attempt a cleansing of the Nightless City--to lay to rest any Clan members lingering beyond death and bring them home; writing orders for more medical supplies; compiling lists of the dead. There are even more than last night. 
Besides the unreality of it all and the fact that no one even bothers to look askance at the strange sight of the childless young Clan Leader toting a sleeping child, Lan Fu is quiet when he wakes. He blinks around in a daze, absorbing his surroundings with a dull sort of disbelief, but he maintains his silence. Even when a passing outer disciple, a mother with her own toddler helps Xichen to fashion a sort of sling around his back that allows the boy to peep up over his shoulder, he simply stares with glassy eyes, fists like little burrs in Xichen’s hair. 
The only noise he had made was when the mother had offered to take him with her, so Xichen wouldn’t have to bother. Xichen hadn’t even moved to take her suggestion and Lan Fu had hidden, burying his face in his shoulder, making distressing whimper-moaning sounds, voice still hoarse. It had made Xichen’s stomach lurch sickeningly--the wounded noises, the knowledge that the boy understood, to a point, what was going on, but not enough to know what was going on. Xichen had smiled and politely thanked her, but declined. The company of his solid warmth on his back was soothing, anyway. If Xichen was wanted, why add another suffering voice to the despair that lay so palpably over everything? If he could be a comfort to at least one person, why would he not give them this? It was alright.
He makes sure to give him little snacks over his shoulder from time to time between meals, little biscuits and carrots, heedless of the crumbs that sneak their way down his collar and into his hair. It even reminds him to eat. Eventually. For efficacies sake if nothing else. 
The day remains grey. Wangji and the child remain unconscious. Lan Fu remains silent; through meals, through fumbled changing of underclothes, through meetings and letters and endless walking. Xichen’s head and neck slowly suffuses with a deeper, persistent ache, like slowly rotting wood. Like the dull crush of being far below the surface of the ocean. 
He does his best to attend to the wounding he has somehow allowed to befall his already weakened Clan. He knows it’s not enough. 
When darkness comes some hours or eternity later, he finds that Lan Fu has fallen asleep in the sling already, little head lolling around over the lip of it, mouth open. It seems needlessly cruel to subject him to waking up with a stranger in a strange place and so he takes him back to the Hanshi. You, too, are a stranger, he reminds himself as he carefully unties the bundle from his shoulders, rolling them to assuage the ache carrying it without rest has settled into the already abused muscles. 
A stranger stranger, then. He brushes a little flyaway wisp back from where it sticks to the child’s eyelashes and stares at his sleep-slack face. Alone in this world and he doesn’t even know. Of course, he would be taken care of, he would not be abandoned by his Clan. But it isn’t quite the same. Xichen knows this. Knows the hole parents leave in one’s life, like an organ cut out, a tooth improperly removed. Aching, always. “I’m sorry, little one,” he whispers, thumb stroking over his soft cheek. 
Lan Fu sucks in a deep breath, but doesn’t wake.
Xichen slides his bed so it is tucked into the corner of his room, one side flush with the wall and settles the boy in a little well of wadded up blankets nearest to it before wearily sinking in on his other side as a buffer to the edge. Sleep pulls him under with insistent little hands at the edges of his consciousness, but the hyperawareness of the small presence next to him keeps him from completely submerging. Every toss and turn has him surfacing groggily to re-remember. Thin, fractured visions have him surfacing in a muzzy panic--awful things where he loses the child in the folds of the blankets. Or out the window. Or finds him crushed into some sort of horrible jam across the wall. Or--
A quickly cresting wail shatters the night, wordless and lost and immediate, right in his ear. Xichen’s head is pounding like someone is hammering nails into a coffin, and he sways upright in the blackness, gathers Lan Fu up, mumbles tumbling from him blearily. “Shh, shh. ‘S wrong? Lan Fu, shh, shhh….”
“Niaaang!” 
Xichen’s stomach drops abruptly at this shattered sob, sick ice creeping through his blood. The room’s darkness is slowly eaten away by the light of the moon through the window screens and Lan Fu’s tears shine silver as he wrenches himself away from Xichen’s chest, face contorted. “Niang? Wanna niang!” Insistent. Pleading. Desperate.
“Listen--” he whispers, voice cracked, dragged deep by exhaustion, the lingering burn of resentful energy and smoke in his lungs, but this seems to panic the child further and he lets out a scream.
Swiftly, Xichen spells the talisman for silence, sends it to the corners of the room, encapsulating this grief as the boy squirms and rolls and flails, kicking his feet as he tries to worm his way off the bed. Xichen catches the back of his shirt and lowers him down to the floor so that he doesn’t hit his head, but this assistance is met with even louder shrieking and furious jackknifing of his whole body. 
“Niang!! Niang!!! Niaaang!!”
Is it rage or fear? Sorrow? They nest so closely together, it’s almost impossible to tell. 
“I’m sorry--”
Every time he speaks, Lan Fu gets louder.
Every time he tries to lay a hand on him, the edge of his wailing becomes more hysterical and ragged and so Xichen must sit, letting him writhe on the floor in grief and helpless pleading. Wanting his mother. Begging.
I cannot be the one that you want. I cannot be the person who can help you.
He swears he can smell blood, but there is nothing on his face, nothing on the child, he checked, despite his ferocious fighting. The tension in Xichen’s jaw is strung up through his temples and down his neck like some sort of awful instrument, ready for his misery to be plucked like a guqin string. 
In the end, he lights a lantern far from dangerously swiping limbs and sits on the edge of the bed next to him, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, simply whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” low enough that it doesn’t drive his wailing higher.
There is no sense of time when the world is just cascading screams. Xichen knows this, has learned it again and again in the War and this last Battle and now in the room with this child that he cannot help even a little bit. It could have been half an hour, it could have been the entire night. All he knows is that, eventually, Lan Fu’s throat becomes unable to sustain his screams and he lays panting and whimpering, shaking all over as he stares up at him with huge wet eyes. “Niang,” he croaks. “P’ease.”
At this tired, despairing plea, as though he is somehow willfully keeping her from him, Xichen’s eyes and face grow hot, his nose prickling dangerously and he kneels down beside the child. Your mother died fighting. She died in pain. She was so brave. She can’t come back. He can’t say any of these things. Carefully, he puts a hand out and rests it on Lan Fu’s stomach, heaving with shuddering breaths. “Little love,” he whispers. “I would bring her if I could.”
“Wanna.”
“I know.”
“Wanna,” he insists, face crumpling anew, but only with exhausted tears. No more fight left.
“I’m sorry. I’m here.” Xichen holds out his hands; an offering, a question, and Lan Fu rolls over onto his face, away, and sobs quietly into his rug.
You are not the one they want.
All at once, a winter morning invades his memory. The first snow, fluffy and white and charming. It coated the world like frosting, dotted against the dark trees like little floating stars. Bundling winter cloaks on the bench next to him, gathering of stories and scrolls--carefully hand lettered calligraphy, the painting of a waterbird in the cold pond, a memory he wanted to share. Little sweets he had saved. Waiting by the window, fresh air stinging his nostrils and nibbling his fingertips, watching for A-Zhan’s telltale form trotting back from his class so they could leave together. A-Zhan never ran, but he always hurried on visiting days. Xichen had grinned to himself--had been A-Huan at the time, had helped brush the snow from his shoulders and hair, warming his chilly pink cheeks with his palms.
There had come a heavy hand on his shoulder. The grim line of his Uncle’s mouth. His smile falling away. The excitement and wonder with it. The warmth of being held and known. Words could make holes in you, he found. Could make the snow just snow and the cold just cold.
A-Zhan had been confused but kept silent and nodded at the explanation, because that’s what he did. That’s how he was good.  
A-Huan hadn’t been confused. Had been the one to put the cloaks away. Had been the one to lead A-Zhan to his room with numb hands and sit on the bed and woodenly try to explain words like ‘never’ to someone who had only been alive for a few years.
A-Zhan had wanted to go, was frustrated at the time wasting. He never liked change. Liked his schedule, liked the rhythm. He wanted to go see their mother already. A-Huan didn’t know how to make him understand that they were never going to be able to again.
He still doesn’t.
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baoshan-sanren · 4 years
Text
A Series Of Unfortunate Events: Floor Mats are a Thing
a part of the Nielan Arranged Marriage AU that exists mainly because the bed-breaking anon did not actually get to see any beds being broken
also, because a little smut never hurt anyone (except for me because I’m terrible at writing it and yet I keep trying)
and also because @acutebird-fics made this art I have not stopped thinking about for a single moment in over a week
They do not break the wedding bed like that.
Even the insinuation is preposterous. Their wedding bed is obnoxiously large and extremely sturdy, and Lan XiChen cannot possibly imagine the type of intimate activity that would... result in such damage.
Except that this is mostly a lie, because he is capable of imagining a lot of things, and does so on daily basis.
MingJue, of course, is to blame for this. Lan XiChen distinctly remembers a time in his life when his head was free of inappropriate thoughts. When he could easily focus on a book without remembering MingJue’s fingers on his cheek. When he could move through his sword forms without the relentless burning in his thighs reminding him of their activities from the night before. When he could listen to MingJue speak in a crowded hall without imagining the man’s hot breath panting into his ear, words whispered into his hair, teeth sinking into his neck.
MingJue has no shame whatsoever. He has no reservations about vocalizing every inappropriate thought that crosses his mind. All of them are likely to make XiChen hard in moments; most of them make him want to die from mortification. His husband is a terrible, awful person. XiChen loves him so much that it physically hurts him. It is a constant source of pain in his chest, sweet and overwhelming.
But they did not break the wedding bed like that, and to be fair, although most incidents of such nature are MingJue’s fault, this one is solely on XiChen.
He had spent the day behind a desk, dealing with one tedious issue after another. Springtime is always a busy time, whether one is trying to run a Sect, or a small family farm. The previous year, XiChen had still been in the process of learning how to run the Unclean Realm, and A-Sang had readily taken on any burden that XiChen could not handle.
This spring, A-Sang is at Cloud Recesses, attempting to pass for the fourth time. XiChen may have spent months preparing A-Sang to achieve this goal, but he still very much regrets sending him away. Never more so than on days like these, when small insignificant matters pile up so high that he cannot see over his desk, and when every person in the Unclean Realm seems determined to seek him out.
Needless to say, by that evening, he is stiff, bad-humored, and restless. His mind is still preoccupied, and he cannot seem to settle down or relax. Afterwards, it will occur to him that their... intimate activities would have probably worked just as well to unwind him. Except that only a small part of him is interested in a physical activity; the greater part of him just wants to fight something until he is exhausted.
Despite the fact that sparring in the bedroom is MingJue’s idea, XiChen is the responsible adult in the room, and as such, should be the voice of reason. It is a nonsensical suggestion, and XiChen should firmly decline.
He does not.
BaXia versus the wedding bed score: 1 for BaXia, 0 for the wedding bed.
--
It takes two days for the new bed to be built. In the meantime, they discover that the bed in XiChen’s Cloud Recesses room is a torture device in disguise. XiChen would never disparage A-Sang’s abilities, and he knows that the bed had been chosen with utmost care. But it is a bed clearly built for one person. A person who sleeps on their back, with their arms crossed.  
The first night, they fall into it in a tangle of limbs, neither one considering the fact that this is not their large, abnormally sturdy wedding bed. By the time they realize that perhaps some adjustment and caution is necessary, two of the curtains have been torn down, and XiChen has bruised both his knees. But caution has not yet made an appearance in their lovemaking, MingJue is listing all the ways in which he intends to employ his tongue, and XiChen is absolutely devoid of any coherent thought process whatsoever.
In addition to all this, MingJue wears entirely too many layers. XiChen hates all of them. He is not alone in this, as MingJue is quite resentful of XiChen’s layers as well, and more than one silk robe has had to find its way back to the seamstress hall. The fact that MingJue can never wait for XiChen to be fully undressed, before his mouth has latched on to any exposed flesh, is entirely to blame for what occurs next. XiChen pulls on one end of his robe, MingJue tears at the other, both balancing precariously on the side of the bed, and the material decides that this is simply too much abuse to bear.
The robe rips, MingJue’s knee slides, and XiChen, feeling himself tilt forward, attempts to grab the wooden post. He misses spectacularly.
Three full days pass before MingJue can see out of his blackened left eye.
--
The next incident is in no way related to any bed, or any activity involving XiChen. He is utterly blameless. He is as innocent as a newborn lamb. Whatever issues MingJue seems to have with the seamstresses can in no way be blamed on XiChen, as he treats all twelve of these women with the proper amount of reverence and respect, and is adored by them in turn.
MingJue’s relationship with these same women is somewhat more... complicated. XiChen understands that there had been an event, prior to his arrival in the Unclean Realm, involving silver brocade and MeiLing. He does not know the details, but he does notice that MingJue always seems to dress himself with care, as if expecting his newly sown robes to attack him at any moment.
XiChen finds this overabundance of caution both endearing and silly. The seamstresses are lovely women, infinitely accommodating, patient, and good-natured. He cannot imagine them holding on to some small slight for over a year. They are servants, not assassins waiting to strike when MingJue finally drops his guard. XiChen spends some days convincing MingJue to give up this nonsensical fear of retribution, and is majorly successful, although he still catches MingJue eyeing his clothes with suspicion on more than once occasion.
By the time the spring robes arrive to replace the heavy winter clothes, MingJue has relaxed completely, and does not hesitate to shrug into a new, lightweight coat. When less than three hours later, he develops a rash on his neck that looks as if he had been mauled by a wild beast, XiChen is the only person shocked by this development.
--
The new bed looks as large and sturdy as the first. It is put in place midday, and XiChen does not spend the rest of the daylight hours thinking about the nightfall, his husband, the bed, or anything including all three of those things together. He retires for the night as soon as the sun is down because he is tired. Being a Sect Leader’s husband is exhausting work, and XiChen only wants to sleep in a bed where he does not have to worry about elbowing his husband in his sleep.
As it happens, MingJue also retires early, because he is tired as well.
To be clear, XiChen does intend to just sleep. He does not have any ulterior motive. Still, two hours later find him slick with sweat, thighs burning, toes curled into the the fresh sheets. By now, MingJue is bearing the brunt of his weight, fingers digging into XiChen’s hips, holding him in place at just the right angle, where XiChen can do nothing but whimper. It is a position he still cannot picture in the daylight hours without burning with shame. Sprawled across MingJue, his back pressed to the man’s chest, legs quivering on either side of him, every thrust excruciating, impossibly deep, hitting every pleasure point along his spine. One of his arms is wrapped around MingJue’s neck, fingers buried deep in his hair. Although he feels closer to him this way, he will often hide his face in the curve of MingJue’s neck when the sight of his own body, flushed with pleasure, is too much to bear.
MingJue is merciless like this. The sheer strength of him is astounding. He has held XiChen’s body in the same position for hours, the rhythm of his hips never faltering, never stuttering, each thrust precise and ruthless. XiChen never wants him to stop. XiChen thinks if he does not stop, the pleasure will surely kill him. He has been on the razor’s edge for hours, centuries, and the sounds leaving his mouth no longer resemble human speech in any way. MingJue is a terrible, cruel creature, determined to make him suffer. XiChen loves him. XiChen loves him so much.
There is a creak, a rumble, and the bed collapses.
--
MeiLing is silent for a long time, which is very much unlike her.
XiChen has been married to MingJue for over a year now, but MeiLing’s request that he meet her for tea had still caught him by surprise. He had been made aware, early on, that she does not bother with courtesy. She does not have pointless conversations, does not perform aimless visits, and is unlikely to give out compliments for a job well done. XiChen has not spoken more than ten words to the woman since his wedding day, and has always understood that her absence from the Unclean Realm is a sign of approval, rather than neglect.
As long as XiChen performs his duties well, MeiLing will find something more interesting to occupy her time.
The fact that she is here now, sitting across from him, fills him with anxiety. He had done something wrong, or he had failed to do something, but no matter how much he searches his memory, nothing stands out.
“There are rumors,” she says abruptly, and XiChen is taken off guard again.
Rumors? What rumors?
Immediately he thinks of A-Sang at Cloud Recesses, and his anxiety increases. Has he gotten himself in trouble somehow? Has he said something he should not have?
That seems very unlikely. A-Sang would be more apt to start an inappropriate rumor than be the focus of one. There is no gossip in the world so damaging that A-Sang cannot turn it to his advantage with very little effort. This cannot be about him.
MeiLing is watching him carefully, as if waiting for something, but XiChen cannot guess what that something could be.
“What rumors are these, nainai?” XiChen asks finally, no longer able to bear the silence.
“Two broken beds in less than a month.” 
XiChen feels his face heat, and fumbles the tea, nearly spilling the hot liquid on his freshly mended robe. 
“Ah,” he says, “This.”
She hums over her cup, still watching him, but he has suddenly found his own teacup extremely interesting, and intends to focus on nothing else for some time.
“There is also the black eye,” she goes on, “and something about a mauling.”
XiChen squeezes his eyes shut.
He would like to be back in Wen RuoHan’s torture cell now please. Or perhaps on the receiving end of Wen RuoHan’s whip. Anywhere else in the world, bearing any type of torture, would be a blessing in comparison.
“I am very pleased,” she says.
Lan XiChen would like to die now. He would very much like to-- what?
“I must admit, I was skeptical in the beginning. Do not take this the wrong way dear, but you do appear to be very delicate on some matters.”
Delicate. She-- what? What is happening?
“I am glad to see A-Jue has made a good match. Although perhaps, in the future, you may consider spreading some mats on the floor instead. Bedmakers can be notorious gossips.”
XiChen realizes that his mouth is open, and closes it. His face is burning. Even his eyes feel hot.
He should be saying something. Anything.
“Ah,” he says.
That clearly does not fall into the category of speech, and he tries again.
“Ah-- thank you. For this advice. I will-- keep it in mind.”
“Good,” she says, “I believe that was uncomfortable for both of us, so let us speak of something else. Tell me about A-Sang. How are his studies progressing?”
--
It takes him three days to even consider the idea without feeling embarrassed, and another three to have a number of mats delivered to their chamber without wanting to die from shame.
--
They are nowhere near where they started; somehow, MingJue has squirmed half-way across the bedroom floor, and now, he can go no further, cornered between the wall and the bed frame. XiChen has one of his thighs trapped firmly against his waist, rock hard and slippery with sweat, feeling each tremor of the muscle under his grip. XiChen’s other hand is occupied, three fingers buried deep in a slick, tight space, angled to hit the small bundle of nerves on every pass.
MingJue is beautiful like this. Although XiChen is not so bold to speak words of praise the same way MingJue often does, he hums his approval each time MingJue’s hips jerk off the mat in search of friction, his stomach muscles quivering from the effort. His eyes are glazed and unfocused, eyelashes heavy and damp, lips bruised from the earlier kisses. Most of the time, XiChen cannot stop him from voicing every thought that crosses his mind, but now, nothing that leaves MingJue’s mouth resembles words. For the first time, despite numerous ways they have made love, he feels vulnerable under XiChen’s touch, mindless with lust, trembling and fragile. He does not beg as XiChen would. Each time his fluttering eyelashes lift, his clouded gaze is on XiChen only, as if nothing else in the world matters.
XiChen had wanted to know how long it would take, for MingJue to come like this, with no other friction than the one his fingers provide. But now, a fierce protectiveness floods his throat, savage and hot, threatening to obliterate anything else. There is a small pool of slick already collected on MingJue’s stomach, and his flesh sears a path across XiChen’s lips, before he can capture the length in his mouth. To XiChen, he has always tasted like salt and steel, the savor of a battle won. This time, he scarcely has a chance to taste it before MingJue cries out, muscles contracting around XiChen’s fingers, flooding his mouth with release.
MeiLing was right.
The mats are a very good idea.
236 notes · View notes
rosethornewrites · 3 years
Text
Saturday T & G reading
I caught up on so much of my subscribed backlog. Like, a shocking amount.
Finished
Teen:
The Red Ribbon, by NoMore_17 (8 chapters)
"Forgive me if I'm not enough.", he thinks.
Sitting in the centre of the space, Mo XuanYu opens his eyes to the knife.
"Well," he thinks, "it's time."
Or:
What if Mo XuanYu sacrifices his soul out of love instead of revenge?
(Don't) Fear the Dead, by Nika_Raven_Celeste (2nd in a series, 3 chapters)
Thrown into burial mound, delirious and sick, Wei Ying cried for someone to take care of him.
In another world, no one answered his pleas. Forcing him to take Demonic Cultivation, harden his heart, and abandon his morality for sake of survival.
Here, his pleas was answered.
By unexpected saviors.
Reaching you., by Elasarchives
Lan Wangji found about Wei Ying’s death.
Auntie knows best, by h0peless_oblivion
Yu Ziyuan doesn’t quite believe that it’s a coincidence that her nephew spends most of his nights at his best friend/coworker Lan Wangji’s place and comes home smelling of alpha…
She’s sure it’s also a coincidence that her nephew’s well-trained athletic build seems to be developing some softness here and there. Hm.
He seemed to have put a little weight on recently. Especially around his-- Oh.
“Wei Ying, stand up,” she ordered, needing to put her suspicions to rest.
-----
Modern cultivation au! in which Madam Yu figures something out about her nephew before he does… (then she gets him his husband🥰)
A Genie In the Emperor's Smile Jar, by Director_XuanWu
Stupid thing I made while on the road for 2 hours at 6 am.
General:
our hands holding water, by DizziDreams
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are night hunting when things go ... a little wrong.
Lan Wangji finds himself transported back to his five-year-old self, back in his mother's gentian house.
Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian finds himself caring for the most powerful cultivator of their age -- with the mind of a five-year-old.
no one lights a candle to remember, by asravine
“Didi,” Wei Wuxian says softly. His thumb on Jiang Cheng’s cheek is calloused and warm and burns of affection. Jiang Cheng barely stops himself from leaning in. “Didi, don’t cry because of me.”
I have thirteen years of mourning to catch up to, Jiang Cheng thinks, but doesn’t say. As always, the chasm between them is an incredible divide, and Wei Wuxian is the only one leaning his hand out into the darkness.
(or: Jiang Cheng and his memories of his older brother, before and after the fall)
No, Wei Wuxian, You Cannot Divorce A Man You Haven't Married Yet!, by stiltonbasket (2 chapters)
"Have you heard? The second young mistress of Yunmeng Jiang broke her troth with Hanguang-jun and ran off to the Burial Mounds with Wen Qionglin!"
"Ah, poor Lan-er-gongzi. Breaking her sister's engagement wasn't enough for Wei-guniang, she had to betray her own intended!"
___
In which Wei Wuxian ditches the cultivation world, Lan Wangji goes grocery shopping, Lan Sizhui narrates his parents' love story, and Nie Huaisang is the only one who knows what's really going on. Prompt fic!
sweet lotus petals, unfolding in the sun, by stiltonbasket (11 chapters)
In Wei Wuxian's defense, no one told him not to drink from the cold spring.
"In my defense," Lan Xichen groans, "I didn't think you would."
"We should put up a sign," Wei Wuxian says brightly. "'Consumption of these waters may result in a case of unexpected radish.' Lan Zhan can build it, and I'll do the calligraphy."
(Or, the one where Wangxian have a baby, and the lost love of a lifetime finds her way back home.)
Always, by kimboo_york
"There were rumors, of course there were. Some were more...more creative than others. As far as he was concerned, though, it mattered little if his son was a found changeling or his illegitimate offspring. A-Yuan was his son, and that was that."
The mystery of missing goats and children leading sects, by WitchAuntie
Many things can happen in three days. Get transformed into a six-year-old, uncover a conspiracy from some lesser clans, help resolve a huge mystery about who has been kidnapping Yunmeng’s goats, and then prove oneself to the Lan Elders and get their way.
Lan Sizhui is very tired, and she wants to sleep for at least another moon cycle, thank you very much.
A Good Match, by oleanderedits (11 chapters)
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's personalities clashed from day one, becoming a heated rivalry. Each striving to out-do the other and stretch the rules of GusuLan as far as they could without breaking them in their unspoken - but obvious - battles. Things start to go awry when Wei Wuxian ups the game and starts one of the most spiteful and hate-filled courtships the world of Cultivation has borne witness to.
But surely they won't take it too far! Surely they'll stop before it gets to the point of absolute embarrassment!
(of course they don't)
With This Here Worrisome Heart, by JungleJelly
When Wei Wuxian raises his wide eyes to try and catch his brother’s, they are scrunched tightly shut. He lurches away, vaguely horrified for a reason he can’t pinpoint.
“Jiang Cheng…?”
There is no response, but Jiang Cheng turns away from Wei Wuxian and folds onto his side.
What is happening here? This is unprecedented, and Wei Wuxian has no idea what to do.
Finding Comfort in Pain, by Anonymous (4th in a series)
Lan Zhan found comfort in pain.
Stuck in mind, by 999loveyourself (4 chapters)
Where the next generation schemes to give their elders and themselves a happy ending.
(In honour of the scenarios not leaving my mind, but not coherent enough to weave them into a long work of fan fiction.)
Lingering Warmth, by StoriesOnlyScarsCanTell (7th in a series)
When Wei Wuxian was young, he had a trick to scare the people who wanted to hurt him.
Unfinished
Teen: 
Love Song In Reverse, by timetoboldlygo
Wei Wuxian gasps back into life without a single memory left. His friends, his siblings, his home — all lost to the fog in his head, nothing more than a mystery slipping through his fingers. What else was there to do but carry himself around in bits and parts, trying to become whole, a letter waiting to be written? He is – he is Mo Xuanyu, isn’t he? In this body, with these people. This family. He has to be Mo Xuanyu, he didn’t know anything else, even if the name sounded wrong. That was all he had.
Well, that and Hanguang-jun.
Lan Wangji, for his part, has had his taste of love and lost it. In all his grieving and searching, he didn’t expect to find another.
-
Wei Wuxian gets resurrected, loses his memories, and falls in love.
the taming of wild rivers, by colorfullysarah
The words roll off Yanli’s back, harmless and unable to affect her as she reaches out towards a-Cheng and gently grabs one of his hands. He immediately stops crying. Yanli’s own tears only fall faster down her cheeks as she smiles. “Hello, didi,” she whispers. “I’m so happy to see you.”
Li Xiamei finally arrives, apologies filling the air, but her father waves them away. Yanli has never been a disobedient child before this moment, all can be forgiven, after all it is good that she is excited to meet her younger brother.
“I promise to protect you,” she continues, ignoring the adults in the room. A-Cheng blinks at her and even though she knows he’s too young to smile at her yet, she can see his joy in his eyes. Now all she needs to do is find a-Xian and bring him home as well. After that, the real work will begin.
Or, Jiang Yanli dies at Nightless City and goes back to start from the beginning.
Callous, by Jengabears
"Jiang cheng! How could you stab me for real?!"
"Stop whining! You deserved it!! You broke my arm!"
Wei Wuxian is swaying but Jiang Cheng refuses to look fully at him, too angry about the arm. He hears a soft "Jiang Ch..." behind him as he begins to descend the mountain. Then a soft sound like falling.
The disciple in front of him points behind him and says "Sect leader he..." but Jiang Cheng dismisses him angrily.
"Ignore his theatrics! He just wants the attention. He's no longer my problem! Let's go!" and refuses to allow himself to look back at the brother who had abandoned him.
and so it goes, by doyeorem (pomellogranate)
"While a person is dead in one particular moment, they are still alive and well in all of the other moments of their life, because all of time exists at once."
-
In which Hanguang-jun is at Qiongqi Path, and instead of Jin Zixuan's death, he witnesses Wei Ying throw himself in the way of a punch from the Ghost General, and three swords - one of which is Bichen.
The Burial Mounds is enraged and offended, and many suffer for it.
A place of Gold, by ThisIsWhereTheMagicHappens
A few days after Wei Wuxian has parted from Lan Wangji on a forest path, he gets surrounded by Jin officials in an Inn, who formally ask him to return to Jinlintai to fill in the position of Sect Leader, as is his right and duty.
Wei Wuxian thinks it is an artful prank. Until it is not.
Hippocampus, by firstdeadloser
Wei Ying wakes up after being in a coma for two years, but has forgotten everything about being married to Lan Zhan and raising Lan Yuan together. Now, he must let go of his old life and do his best to regain his memory in order to be the best father he can be, and the best husband he can be.
[ Wei Ying wakes up in 2021 after being in a coma since 2019, but believes he’s still a single college student in the year of 2015 ]
A Jealous Flower Tries To Break The Sun's Silver Moon, by Preludian_Staves
Believing his mother when she said that no good son of a servant owed everything to the Jiang Sect, Jiang Wanyin tries to guilt Wei Wuxian into giving him his Golden Core after finding Wen Qing's Golden Core theory.
Or
Wei Wuxian learns how to rediscover his place in the Cultivation World during the Sunshot Campaign and after the War. Possibly with help along the way.
General:
to miss you is to tear apart my soul, by puddingcatbeans
"I'm here," Lan Wangji says. Lan Wangji does not lie.
"Aiyah, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says. His soul is weary but he feels, finally, that he's found his way home. "I know."
[a collection of tender feelings disguised as wangxian ficlets]
Only you know my name, by Mydla
“Wei Ying. This name shall now be forgotten by everyone, both in the mortal realm and the heavenly realm. You shall remain imprisoned until someone calls you. Use this time wisely and reform yourself. Now, let the verdict be done.”
To Repeat, Repay, and Repair, by adrian_kres
Wei Wuxian has died again and his family grieves. Lan Sizhui, now married and with children of his own, grieves the loss of both fathers, as Lan Wangji has entered seclusion. But somehow, he unknowingly sends himself back to the time he spent in the Burial Mounds at three years old. Will his family take his confused, nonsensical warnings seriously? Are they doomed to repeat the same fate?
Told from alternating points of view.
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ibijau · 4 years
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Hi I hope you are well! in Worse engagement AU, does NHS ever find out about LXC getting longer-lasting incense, or LQR intentionally failing him his first year in Cloud Recesses? Poor NHS just can't catch a break, and I love the angst
Worst engagement AU
He does! And I may or may not have pushed myself to write nhs failing his year just because of how badly I wanted to write this, ahah.
Set soon after they get married :D
warning for... I guess he’s having a panic attack of sorts?
Unpacking is a terrible chore, worse in some ways than the packing that preceded it, but at least Nie Huaisang gets some help from his...
His face heats up. It's going to take a while to get used to the fact that they're married. It's only been a few days, and half the time it doesn't feel real. Which is the entire reason why Lan Xichen insisted that Nie Huaisang unpacked his things so they could put everything in its proper place and turn the Hanshi into something that's home for both of them. Even more than Nie Huaisang, it's obvious that Lan Xichen can't believe he gets to have this. It shows in the way he looks at Nie Huaisang when he enters the room where he's working, always half surprised to see him there. It shows also in the way he clings to him at night, as if Nie Huaisang might disappear otherwise, or run away, or do whatever other insane thing Lan Xichen might be imagining.
“What are those?” Lan Xichen asks, having opened a chest and found it full of various papers.
Nie Huaisang abandons the books he was trying to organise and comes to sit next to his husband, a little closer than necessary perhaps, but he knows Lan Xichen will appreciate it.
“This... Ah, it's a bit of everything,” Nie Huaisang admits. “Things I’ve done for fun these last few years. Most of it is bad poetry. Some of it about you, actually.”
“Did you?”
“I got very creative with insults at one point. I made Jin... I made someone read them, he found them very funny. Jiang Cheng saw them too, but he made a fuss about me being rude.”
Lan Xichen's smile freezes into that very annoying, very polite expression he has when he's unhappy about something. They usually avoid talking about Jin Zixuan, really, but Nie Huaisang was so taken by nostalgia for a moment that he half forgot. Besides, the poems really were funny.
Still, Nie Huaisang takes pity on Lan Xichen, and quickly digs into the chest to find something that will let him change the conversation. There's some half finished paintings, some calligraphy attempts, even notes from his time as a student and...
“Oh, right, I kept that,” he mutters, grabbing a neat little stack of paper. “That's probably good for a laugh.”
“Poems?”
“Even worse,” Nie Huaisang chuckles. “It's that exam I failed, my first year in the Cloud Recesses. I really thought I'd done great, you know? Well, maybe not great, but decently at least. Heavens, sometimes kids are so stupid they can't even see how stupid they are.”
Lan Xichen tenses next to him, and rather than to laugh along, throws him a concerned look.
“You kept that? Why?”
Nie Huaisang shrugs, grinning, and looks over the failed test. It always just felt like an important reminder that he’d never manage to play by the rules of others. A good chunk of the paper is unreadable because Lan Qiren had crossed over those wrong answers, but suddenly Nie Huaisang feels curious to see if he'd figure out how he got it so wrong.
“May I see?” Lan Xichen asks, his tone almost too careful, as if he fears he might offend.
“Sure, why not,” Nie Huaisang replies, handing him the papers and turning his attention back to the chest. “You know, I think I have a few portraits of you somewhere in there. Let me just find them, I think one at least is pretty good.”
While Lan Xichen deciphers the physical incarnation of all of his failures, Nie Huaisang continues digging into the chest. He does find a few portraits, but not the one he wants. These are doodles of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, and this he must get rid of discreetly because it's Jin Zixuan, smiling, so Lan Xichen won't like it, and this... well that's a painting of Lan Xichen alright, but he doesn't know how his husband might feel about, ah, imaginative depicting of what Nie Huaisang had once thought their married life might become. Besides, aside from the faces, everything was copied from one of his artful books, so it hardly counts as his own work. And this...
“Huaisang, are you sure this is the test you took back then?” Lan Xichen asks in a strange voice.
“It's not something I'd forget, is it?” Nie Huaisang replies with more bitterness than intended.
He half regrets it when he looks at Lan Xichen. Nie Huaisang almost can't figure what sort of an expression is on his husband's face except that it's an intense, rarely seen one.
Then it hits him.
Lan Xichen is furious.
“If you're having second thoughts because you're realising that I'm really an idiot after all...” Nie Huaisang starts, an old, half forgotten rage and terror already welling in his guts.
“Huaisang, I wouldn't have passed that test.”
Nie Huaisang stares. It's all he can do, when nothing makes sense. 
"And I'm not saying I would have failed it when I was the age you were," Lan Xichen continues, blind to Nie Huaisang’s growing panic, his hands clenched on the papers, nearly tearing them apart. "As I am today I would probably not pass this test. The questions are made to look simple and to have easy answers, but they are actually on complicated subjects that only a scholar would know.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Nie Huaisang mumbles, fear still curling in his chest, though a little less tight now. Lan Xichen is angry, but not at him.
Possibly for him. 
But it makes no sense, none of this makes sense, because if his exam was really this hard and tricky, then…
“Uncle set you up for failure,” Lan Xichen states, almost a hiss.
Nie Huaisang stares.
This is. This is important. This changes. It just. It changes everything. It should make him angry, and it should make him happy. It should make him feel something, but instead he’s just numb.
It changes everything.
It changes too much.
Nie Huaisang doesn’t even know how to start unpacking everything this discovery means. It’s too much, it’s all at once, it’s the very basis of everything he’s done and felt those last few years being shaken on its foundations so badly that it threatens to crumble.
He can’t breathe.
He can’t think, he can’t breathe, because it’s too much, it’s too much, it’s too much, it’s…
He feels hands on his and that grounds him. One of the hands move to his face, wiping tears he hadn’t realised started flowing down his cheeks, just as he doesn’t know when he closed his eyes. He opens them when a gentle, worried voice calls his name.
“Huaisang,” Lan Xichen whispers. “Huaisang, I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t know.”
Nie Huaisang nods, trying to remember how to breathe. He doesn’t doubt that Lan Xichen didn’t know. Neither of them wanted to be forced to spend time together at that time, Lan Xichen wouldn’t have played along if he’d known, not even for his uncle. 
But this is still…
“I didn’t fail,” Nie Huaisang manages to gasp. “I didn’t fail.”
“You didn’t.”
“I’m not stupid.”
He hears Lan Xichen make a noise almost like a wounded animal, feels himself being pulled into a tight hug that he doesn’t, cannot resist.
It’s not.
It’s not that he actually thinks he’s stupid. Nie Huaisang has learned, has accepted, that he’s quite smart, in his own way. He’s good at reading people, and at becoming friends with them, and he knows about literature and poetry and art and, and he’s nearly as good as Jiang Cheng for mixing patterns, and he understands animals and how to tame them. Nie Huaisang is clever, and he’s forced everyone who matters to see how clever he can be, but he knows what some people still say.
Even now, there are some who think that Lan Xichen should be pitied for their marriage. He’s heard them say that Nie Mingjue should have released his sworn brother from that ridiculous engagement, now that there are no Wens left to justify the need for an alliance. That a man as brilliant and respected as the mighty Zewu-Jun deserves a better spouse than that kid who somehow managed to fail when studying in the Cloud Recesses, something nearly unheard of.
But he’s not stupid.
He didn’t fail.
“You’re the smartest person I know,” Lan Xichen whispers against the top of his head, fierce and sincere in a way that Nie Huaisang doesn’t know how to handle. This, also, is too much, but in a way that hurts less. “I will go talk to Uncle. He owes you an apology.”
It’s almost funny. The idea that Lan Qiren might have to say sorry to Nie Huaisang… 
Not so long ago, he would have said that it was impossible. He would have suspected that Lan Xichen would never dare confront his uncle, least of all on Nie Huaisang’s behalf. But now, if Lan Xichen says he will obtain an apology for him, his husband believes that he’ll really fight tooth and nail to get it. He’ll probably still fail, because that’s Lan Qiren and he isn’t one to admit mistakes, least of all when he can argue that things turned out fine for Nie Huaisang, but it doesn’t matter. The apology doesn’t matter. What does matter is knowing Lan Xichen is on his side, and the fact that he didn’t actually fail.
“Don’t go now,” Nie Huaisang demands, pressing himself closer to his husband. “I want… stay with me for now? I don’t care, I really don’t care, just stay with me.”
“Anything you want, my love. I wouldn’t have gone until you felt better, don’t worry.”
Nie Huaisang sighs, and closes his eyes again. He’s breathing easier now, the worst of the shock has passed. Later he’ll feel angry, he suspects. Furious even.
Later.
For now he is at relative peace, in his husband’s arms, loved and protected and seen, the way he always wanted to be, even back when he was a child too shy to dare want anything.
The rest doesn’t matter not really, not when he’s proven his worth in spite of what others say, but…
He didn’t fail, and an old wound he didn’t know he still carried stops itching.
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