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nillegible · 3 years

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It wasn't supposed to hurt him. Ouyang Zizhen had used the talisman before, on his sister and his sister's idiot fiance (Now he was her fiance. Before the talisman, he'd just been a shixiong who absolutely refused to confess his feelings to her). In retrospect perhaps it was unkind. A talisman that was meant to force you to confess what you were hiding from the other person? Jiujiu would have smacked him for even thinking about using it.

Jin Ling would punish himself if it would help, would do anything, to snap the talisman, or to get his stupid uncle to just say his stupid secret, because right now?

Right now, his uncle is choking on his secret, literally forcing it down by strength of will alone while Wei Wuxian flutters around desperately, trying to destroy the talisman and Hanguang Jun plays his guqin. The spiritual energy from the Lan musical technique is so heavy that Jin Ling's skin buzzes with every note, and it's even more concentrated on the three older cultivators, visible threads of it sparking over their skin.

Jiujiu still looks like he is in agony, breaths harsh and ragged, choking, his face screwed up, twisted, awful.

"Jiang Cheng please, please, just spit it out, I don't care what you still blame me for, I don't care just say it," Wei Wuxian begs, but it's no use, his uncle shakes his head no, and Jin Ling covers his own mouth to stifle a sob. He hadn't listened when Jin Ling begged, either.

It's such a simple talisman, so terribly simple a compulsion that it's not meant to be fought or broken. Powered by the strength of the secret and the spiritual energy of the person it was affixed to… Jin Ling hadn't known it was possible to even try.

"Jiang Wanyin," says Hanguang Jun. He has to say it again to get his uncle's attention. "Let me help." His uncle stares blearily for a few moments, then nods again. Abruptly, even the gasping choked off noises break off, and Jin Ling rushes closer, but he's okay. He's still okay, slumping a little and leaning onto Wei Wuxian in exhaustion, but alive.

"Wei Ying," says Hanguang Jun, and apparently that means something to his other uncle, because Wei Wuxian immediately turns his attention back to paper he'd been scribbling on, and continues.

It takes Wei Wuxian a full hour more to break the compulsion, for his uncle to collapse sideways like a broken puppet onto him, and cough up mouthfuls of blood while Wei Wuxian rubs his back. "Thank you, Hanguang Jun," says Jiujiu.

Then he looks up at Jin Ling, who is frozen in place, not sure if he should run or fall to his knees and apologize, and holds out a hand. Jin Ling throws himself forward and hugs his uncle sobbing his apologies. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

“Stupid,” Jiujiu says, voice hoarse, but he doesn’t let go of Jin Ling until he falls unconscious, and Wei Wuxian disentangles him from the half embrace – Jiujiu’s other arm was clutching Wei Wuxian’s robes, tightly – and lifts him into his arms.

“He’ll be okay, right?” asks Jin Ling, a bit pathetically. This was all his fault, after all.

“Jiang Cheng will be fine,” says Wei Wuxian.

When Jin Ling thinks back to this moment, he will realize that Wei Wuxian sounded oddly broken, not just tired.

It turns out that Jin Ling had actually ruined everything. He’d been sure that his uncles cared for one another, he’d watched the weird way they held each other at arm’s length but seemed desperate for more, and only wanted to help them out. Whatever it is they were keeping a secret couldn’t be worth it right? Wei Wuxian was back from the dead. He was, not Jin Ling’s mom or dad or anyone else. Jin Ling had only wanted them to make the most of it.

Instead, all Jin Ling does is show Wei Wuxian that Jiujiu has some giant terrible secret that he would rather tear his lips bloody trying to suppress than admit to, and Wei Wuxian seems to give up. He’s cautious around Jiujiu after that, He’s polite. And that only makes Jiujiu angrier and frostier in turn.

This is not what had happened to Ouyang Zizhen’s sister and her husband! (They’d gotten married in the spring, Jin Ling had even gone to their wedding.)

Perhaps Jin Ling should have considered what would happen if the secret was a bad one.

“Would you tell me?” asks Jin Ling. He’s treading on dangerous ground here. Jiujiu hasn’t punished him for the stunt ( “You’re a Sect Leader now, brat, you pick your own consequences,” he’d said, and Jin Ling had assigned himself a lot more make sure Jiujiu is recovering okay missions, whenever he could make the time) and he doesn’t want to remind him to.

“Of course not,” he snaps, Zidian sparking in hollow threat on his finger. At least he scowls? When Jiujiu isn’t busy being angry, he’s been strangely melancholy, recently. Jin Ling hates that, too.

It’s Hanguang Jun that Jin Ling approaches in the end. Oddly, he’s the one who’s angriest at him, Wei Wuxian had just waved off his apologies and asked him to introduce him to the maker of the talismans, and never mentioned it again.

“I really am sorry,” Jin Ling tells him. “I want to know how to fix it.”

Hanguang Jun is silent for a long time, and Jin Ling braces himself for dismissal, to be told he can’t, that it was his fault in the first place, he should stay away from Hanguang Jun’s husband.

“It is hard to speak when you are afraid,” Hanguang Jun observes. Which, what? Yes, of course. But why now? Jin Ling nods uncertainly. “Why should Jiang Wanyin be afraid of Wei Ying?”

Oh. Huh? “He’s not, he’s never…” Jin Ling trails off, uncertain. He’d grown up secure in the knowledge that Uncle Jiang would protect him from the evil Yiling Patriarch. That he wasn;t afraid of him. Things were apparently far more complicated than that, but Jiujiu had never been afraid of Wei Wuxian. So why wouldn’t he tell the secret. What did he think his secret would do, that hasn’t happened already? They barely even look at each other anymore! Hanguang Jun just keeps his steady gaze on Jin Ling, waiting for an answer. “Um. He was afraid… to hurt him?” asks Jin Ling.

He gets a slight nod in affirmation.

“You’d think Senior Wei would know all the awful things already,” Jin Ling says, quietly. Wei Wuxian’s life kind of sucked.

“Sometimes, it isn’t the terrible things that hurt,” says Hanguang Jun.

Jin Ling peers at him closely. “Does Hanguang Jun know my uncle’s secret?” he asks.

“No,” he says, and explains nothing further. “And Wei Ying does not.” He looks up then, over Jin Ling’s head, towards the door. “Wei Ying does not need to know, if he trusts Jiang Wanyin.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, lightly. “Who would have thought Lan Zhan would be defending Jiang Cheng some day, hm?”

“He’s right, Wei Qianbei,” Jin Ling hurries to say. “Jiujiu cares for you. He says awful things, he’ll say, ‘You’re a stupid brat, who raised you, I should break your legs’ but he doesn’t mean any of it. Except maybe the stupid part.”

Wei Wuxian laughs again, then drops a hand to Jin Ling’s head. “I know, A-Ling,” he says, the name sounding so fond when he says it. “He’s my brother, and that part of him hasn’t changed.”

“He hasn’t changed,” says Jin Ling, fiercely. Jiujiu is the only constant in Jin Ling’s life, he wouldn’t just become something else.

“He has though,” says Wei Wuxian softly. “He’s all grown up, now. The last time I saw him, he was little older than you. And look at him now, keeping secrets from his shixiong.”

“I don’t believe he ever called you that,” says Jin Ling, because his nose is sour and he doesn’t want to cry.

“No, no, you’re right, he didn’t,” says Wei Wuxian, a little more cheerfully.

They put themselves back together slowly. Wei Wuxian makes an effort to reach out again, far more determined this time. With some pointed nudging from Jin Ling, Jiujiu tries his best to meet him half way.

It’s not easy. There is. There is so much between them that Jin Ling will never understand, broken promises and dead family, and debts that can never be repaid.

It shouldn’t be possible, to put all of that aside and start anew. Especially not for Jiujiu, who held his grudges forever, and didn’t quite believe in second chances.

They had once been the twin prides of Yunmeng though.

They don’t care that it shouldn’t be possible.

They do it anyway.

[Inspired by this post because holy shit I love Yunmeng Pride reconciliation fics so incredibly much, but it’s not always about divulging that secret really, is it? I just wanted to write one which is definitely about that secret but also not if that makes any sense. I’m not sure if I succeeded, if I confused you I apologize.]

#jiang cheng #wei wuxian #jin ling #yunmeng shuangjie #yunmeng brothers #yunmeng shuangjie reconciliation

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antebunny · 3 years

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April 30: rebirth

(Also called Bargaining–idea is taken from an old Loki fic with the same time travel premise).

When Jiang Yanli dies, Wei Wuxian goes into denial and just runs from Nightless City. He goes back to the Burial Mounds and feverishly works on a time travel array. Within the month he completes it and prepares to travel back in time, but there’s a catch. He first activates the array and then spends the next several hours going through the ritual, while outside the Siege of the Burial Mounds begins. The Wens know what Wei Wuxian is up to so they understand why he’s not bothering to protect them. He completes the ritual just as Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan burst into the cave. They’re both there, at the front, in order to protect Wei Wuxian, but by the time they arrive it’s too late: the array is fading and Wei Wuxian is already dead. He barely sees them in the entrance when he dies, which leads him to (logical) conclusion that they’re there to kill him.

Here’s the catch: Wei Wuxian gets to go back, rewrite time, and change things. He decides to go back to the day before he got kicked out of the Cloud Recesses. But when time finally arrives at the time he activates the array, everyone gets their memories back. Although a lot of people will remember dying, it’s preferable to actually dying. Then Wei Wuxian has to conduct the ritual again, to ensure that this is the future that stays, and seal the deal with his own life. Basically, in order to change the future Wei Wuxian has to die. And obviously because he's Wei Wuxian, he decides that that’s okay so long as everyone gets to live.

So Wei Wuxian comes back to life with a golden core and cries for a solid minute, scaring tf out of Jiang Cheng, before he gets a grip. Then he proceeds to yell at Jin Zixuan, not get kicked out, and live life like everything’s normal. He enjoys the next six months of peace, and then he gets to work. Once the year is over, he goes on a very long night hunting trip, kills the Xuanwu of Slaughter, and sets up the cave for use. A year later and they’re at the archery competition, where Wei Wuxian still places first, meets Wen Ning again, and doesn’t pull off Lan Zhan’s forehead ribbon.

Then Wen Ruohan is ~mysteriously~ assassinated and the Wens declare war on all the sects in revenge. When the Wens come for Lotus Pier, there’s no personal vendetta, and Wei Wuxian hides in the shadows and drowns all of them. Then he pretends that he got knocked out and was unconscious somewhere hidden from the main battle where Jiang Cheng finds him. They win the war, and Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan are still alive and bickering with each other, the Jiang sect is still strong, etc. etc. Wei Wuxian personally hunts down Wen Zhuliu early in the war, before he can cause any damage. Then he also kills Jin Guangshan, blames it on the Wens (does it make sense? No. does anyone care? No) and Jin Zixuan commits fully to the war. Jin Zixuan learns to appreciate Jiang Yanli during the war, and since they’re already engaged they get married soon afterwards. Jin Guangyao gets taken in as Jin Zixuan’s younger brother, and since Jin Zixuan is a decent person who doesn’t want him to commit crimes but also needs Help, it goes a lot better. Meanwhile Wei Wuxian finds the DafanWen and they move to the Xuanwu cave, which Wei Wuxian has prepared. Also the carcass of the tortoise should scare anyone away.

Wei Wuxian sticks around to see his sister get married, takes Lan Zhan on a tour of Lotus Pier, at the end of which Lan Zhan proposes. Wei Wuxian is confused but figures that Lan Wangji must like this version of him that hasn’t used resentful energy as far as Lan Wangji knows or recused the Wens as far as he knows, or done any of the things that Other Lan Zhan hated him for. The Wens ask him to adopt A-Yuan, which he does after talking about it with Lan Zhan and after they get married. So now Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are married and they have an adopted child. That part was all the fluff and fix-it, cue the angst. The date of Wei Wuxian’s death draws near, and Wei Wuxian starts getting moody and antsy, starts drinking. Yu Ziyuan yells at him, of course, and everyone else worries over him. It is during one of these blackout drunk sessions that Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji that he fully expects Lan Wangji to regret marrying him in the future. Lan Wangji swears up and down that he won’t, and Wei Wuxian kinda critiques himself and calls himself selfish, for marrying Lan Wangji and raising a kid when he knows it’s not going to last.

Basically Wei Wuxian starts getting skittish and disappears for periods of time to the Burial Mounds, where he acquires enough injuries that Lan Wangji suspects that someone is hurting him, which Wei Wuxian vehemently denies, but Lan Wangji is still Onto him. He goes to Jiang Yanli, who says that Wei Wuxian has been acting differently ever since he came back from the Cloud Recesses, seemed to know things that were going to happen before they did, disappears at odd times and incidents that occur when Wei Wuxian is missing, and they get Jiang Cheng, who recalls that one time Wei Wuxian woke up in the middle of the night and just bawled, and after that didn’t lose his temper on Jin Zixuan, pulled back on his most crazy antics.

Still, none of them suspect the exact day, so on that day, Wei Wuxian gets up, tells Lan Wangji he’s going to train the Jiang juniors, and then just…disappears. Night comes and Lan Wangji is already worried, according to the juniors he never showed. Yu Ziyuan accuses him of slacking, but then Lan Wangji barges in crying, holding a note. In it, Wei Wuxian doesn’t tell him about the time travel, but says that Wei Wuxian is going forever, and Lan Wangji will understand why tomorrow. He understands that it’s too much to wish for that Lan Wangji won’t hate him, after how selfish he’s been and what a terrible person he’s been, marrying Lan Wangji and pretending it can last, but he hopes Lan Wangji can still look back and remember him fondly in the future. He apologizes again and tells Lan Wangji again that he didn’t mean to tarnish Lan Wangji’s reputation or saddle him with a child, but A-Yuan is here now and he knows Lan Wangji loves A-Yuan. He leaves a similar cryptic note for Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, apologizing to all of them for things they don’t understand.

Lan Zhan immediately begins searching for him all through the night, and then in the morning everyone blacks out and suddenly has memories of a different past couple of years, for most people starting with Wen Ruohan getting assassinated. People don’t immediately suspect the Yiling Patriarch, because they think he was simply never created in this timeline, and lives as Head Disciple Jiang and Lan Wangji’s husband, but Wei Wuxian’s family know better. They immediately rush to the Burial Mounds, and find it guarded by corpses. Inside the cave, Wei Wuxian begins conducting the ritual, also crying because he really had a happy life this time and he really really doesn’t want to go, but he can’t bear to revert to the original timeline, not when everyone is still alive here, so he continues. Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian find out about the whole yiling patriarch thing and jiang yanli is just like…i don’t care. Jin Guangshan is dead and can’t care, Jin Guangyao doesn’t have a vendetta, Jin Zixuan does what his wife says, and Jiang Yanli is alive so Jiang Cheng has no beef, plus he sees the lengths Wei Wuxian went through to save everyone. He also understands the letter now, then he and Jiang Yanli confront Lan Wangji like…do you no longer love him? Lan Wangji of course reacts poorly to this accusation and denies it. They leave A-Yuan behind and go to the Mounds with the intention of convincing Wei Wuxian that he doesn’t have to run away and they want him back.

They arrive in the cave just as Wei Wuxian is finishing with the ritual. But of course, parallels, Wei Wuxian looks up to see them standing in the entrance of the cave and thinks that they’re there to kill him, but also can see how distressed Lan Wangji looks and attempts to reassure him that he doesn’t have to kill Wei Wuxian! You know, his husband in this timeline! Because Wei Wuxian will do it himself! Wei Wuxian makes them fight some corpses while he rushes to finish the ritual, because they seem keen on stopping him (“i know you disapprove of demonic cultivation but this is the only way to save everyone”). Lan Wangji tackles him away from his ceremonial knife, and Wei Wuxian fights back (still has golden core!) they both fight desperately (“i have to do it myself Lan Zhan, otherwise I would let you do it”) over the knife. Jiang Cheng insists that there must be another solution, bc he doesn’t want Jiang Yanli to die. Then Wen Qing and Wen Ning walk into the cave, and Wen Qing like the genius she is, proposes the Alternate Solution. (What is it? Idk. just a magic solution in which Wei Wuxian doesn’t have to die). Wei Wuxian pauses in the middle of fighting Lan Wangji (“i don’t have to die?” he asks while Lan Wangji is busy shattering the knife and then he and Jiang Cheng pin him down so he can stop trying to kill himself in front of them. “Nope,” says Wen Qing, the only person with brains here). So Wei Wuxian sits on the floor of the cave, tied with deity-binding thread (Wei Wuxian: let me go Lan Wangji: not until you promise to go with wen qing’s version of the ritual Jiang Cheng: unless…do you want to leave? Wei Wuxian: no!) (What’s the solution? Maybe all of them sacrifice something important to them, maybe they just…all use their power to BS their way through a solution? Again, I don’t know).

So Lan Wangji unties Wei Wuxian and they hug and kiss and they all head back to Lotus Pier, where they eat a celebratory dinner, and reunite with A-Yuan, and Wei Wuxian celebrates the fact that he can live this happy life and not owe the world anything/need to go through the ritual.

The End!

#mdzs #the untamed #antebunny's april prompts #spring fest 2021 #fic outline #my writing

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loxare · 3 years

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More inadvisable late night Untamed fic. I have a lab in the morning......

Based on the personality swap AU @valdrift drew

The thing about Zidian was, it didn't require a particularly strong cultivator to wield it. Not anymore. Generations of Yu cultivators had filled it with all the power it needed to be a devastating force even in the hands of a weak cultivator. What Zidian truly required in a wielder was the finesse and strength of will to only every hit what was aimed at, and a proper temper. The former could be taught, but the latter needed a solid foundation, a soul that was inclined towards thunderous indignation as the only warning for lightning strike fury.

And so, when Yu Ziyuan needed to choose one of her children to inherit her deadliest weapon, she chose Jiang Yanli.

Jiang Cheng had the core to be truly devastating with Zidian, and he would have done well with it, but he was a mischievous boy, far too easy going, and wouldn't know a slight against him if it slapped him in the face. He was quick enough to anger if someone insulted his sister, and indeed Ziyuan had had to mediate several disagreements caused by Jiang Cheng verbally or, on one memorable occasion, physically assaulting Jin Zixuan. Never mind that his sister was more than capable of verbally assaulting Jin Zixuan herself. The rest of the time, anger slid off his back like water off of a lotus leaf. Even at the tender age of nine, Ziyuan could see that her son would never have the temperament necessary to wield Zidian properly. Perhaps in short bursts, if needed, but he would never truly master it. Not like Yanli would.

The eldest child of the Jiang sect held a fury in her that can only have come from her mother. And why not? As the eldest child of a great sect, she should have everything. But the archaic rules her father insisted on enforcing prevented her from inheriting her rightful position as sect heir, instead condemning her to a life of power borrowed from her future husband, in a sect that would never appreciate her talents. It had been the best that Yi Ziyuan had been able to secure for her daughter, and it would never be enough. Jiang Cheng would inherit, and he would flourish as sect leader, Ziyuan was proud to say, but the knowledge that she would never stand in that lofty place would always weigh her daughter down. And her daughter raged under the weight.

And so, a mere two weeks after Fengmian brought that whelp of a street child into their home, Ziyuan started training her daughter in the use of Zidian.

And in the hands of Jiang Yanli, the whip roared.

A week after Jiang Yanli's twelfth birthday, her father brought home a dirty pile of rags. Those dirty rags turned out to be a boy, a quiet, shy boy who spent most of his introduction to the Jiang children hiding behind her father's robes. Even after a warm bath and a hesitantly eaten hot meal, there wasn't much of him. He seemed to be trying to make himself smaller and smaller. If he could have sunk into the floor, Jiang Yanli was sure he would have. Jiang Yanli scoffed, and went to bed that night thinking that he would be run out of the sect in a week.

It didn't take nearly that long. Jiang Cheng barged into her room in the middle of the night, bawling his eyes out. It took Jiang Yanli pinching him on the thigh to shock him out of his tears enough to tell her why he was crying. "I was sad about Princess an' Jasmine an' Love an' I yelled at Wei Ying and now he's go-o-o-one!" And with that, he started crying again.

Jiang Yanli would have left it at that. Wei Ying didn't want to be here. That was clear enough. All her other shidis had been nervous when they'd arrived, but twenty minutes with Jiang Cheng had them forget their nervousness and by the end of the day, they had opened up and were running and laughing with the other disciples. Wei Ying had been in Jiang Cheng's presence for an entire evening and he had still kept himself separate and small. If he didn't want to be a Lotus Pier disciple, Jiang Yanli was very ok with letting him run off.

Except.

Her baby brother was crying.

Jiang Yanli was not a comforting person, in general. Too sharp, too quick to anger, incapable of seeing things from other people's perspectives, or at least, incapable of doing so with the ease her brother had. Sometimes an arm wrapped around her brother's shoulders, the one thing she knew worked more than it failed, was enough to stop his tears, but she could tell that in this case, it wouldn't even come close. Which meant she had to remove the source of his tears. So she stood up, dropped her quilt over her brother's head, and said, "Stay here dummy." Then she grabbed a lantern and headed out.

Wei Ying's tracks were easy enough to follow and ended at a hollow under a downed tree's roots. The light of the lantern reflected off Wei Ying's pale face. "What are you doing under there?"

"Ah. Well." It was the first time she had heard his voice. Soft and gentle, like a fall rain. "Jiang Cheng told me to go away."

Wei Ying was too deep for her to reach him. Which meant she needed to convince him to come out. Ugh. "And you listened to him? If you do that he'll get a swelled head. An even more swelled head. A-Cheng says a lot of stuff, and if you listen to everything he says you'll start believing that water ghouls sleep under the docks and lotus pods taste better with the stems still attached."

"Do they?"

"No. A-Die wouldn't let ghouls anywhere near the docks, and lotus pods taste the same whether the stem is long or not."

"Oh." Wei Ying fidgeted. "He told me to go away. That if he saw me again, he'd set his dogs on me."

"Dogs he doesn't even have anymore, thanks to you." Wei Ying flinched at her words, and Jiang Yanli winced. Well she'd already started digging this grave. "So he couldn't set them on you if he wanted to. And since he was just in my room crying about scaring you off, I don't think he wants to."

"Really?"

"Yeah. He was just sad cause his dogs are gone. He didn't mean what he said. Now get out here so we can walk back and he can tell you all of this himself."

There was a shuffle. "I hurt my ankle when I was running. That's why I crawled in here."

Jiang Yanli sighed. "Well come out here so I can carry you back, and then a-Cheng can tell you all of this."

There was another shuffle, and then Wei Ying's face appeared between the roots of the tree. Dirty again, like they hadn't just given him a bath. She gave him the lantern to hold and loaded him onto her back.

In the end, Wei Ying didn't have to wait until they got all the way to Lotus Pier to hear Jiang Cheng's apology, because he had followed them, when Jiang Yanli had expressly told him to wait for her! And he'd hurt his knee falling into a ditch. He gave Wei Ying a blinding smile when he saw him and tried to climb out of the ditch in his excitement and then almost hurt himself worse. Which meant Jiang Yanli had to carry both boys home, which meant she was angry enough to burst when she finally got there. As such, instead of heading to the rooms, she went to the kitchens for some late night cooking. Setting things on fire always calmed her down.

She set Jiang Cheng carefully on a chair, then turned around to put Wei Ying on the one next to it. And she washed the dirt off of her hands, set a basin of water and a spare medical kit on the table between the boys, and turned to do some cooking.

In between dry frying spices, blanching pork ribs, and chopping lotus roots, she listened to the boys talk. It started with a hiss as Jiang Cheng wrapped Wei Ying's swollen ankle. Then, "Does she hate me?"

"A-Jie? No. Why would she hate you?"

"She seems mad..."

Jiang Cheng snorted. "That's just Jie. She's always mad. Even when she's happy, she's a little bit angry."

"Oh." More silence, then, "Want me to clean your cut? I'm pretty good at it."

"Ok!" Jiang Yanli looked over just in time to watch Jiang Cheng happily push the cloth into Wei Ying's hands and prop his leg up on Wei Ying's chair so he would have easy access.

For another few minutes, the only sounds were the boiling of the soup, the quiet, indrawn breaths of Jiang Cheng, and the splash of water as Wei Ying rinsed his cloth. He reached for the bandages, but Jiang Cheng pushed the salve towards him. "This first, then bandages. It'll help it heal faster."

Wei Ying put a little of the salve on his fingers, staring at it wonderingly. Then he applied it just as gently as he had cleaned the wound.

Once the bandage was wrapped and secured, Jiang Cheng pulled his leg down, bending the knee to test it. "Wow, you're really good at that! Where did you learn?"

"Ah. Sometimes dogs would attack me if they thought I had food. I had to clean out my injuries very thoroughly or they got infected."

Jiang Yanli paused in ladling her soup. A-Die hadn't said anything about that when he'd taken Jiang Cheng's dogs away. She put the bowls on a tray and carried it to the table. "Eat."

"Yay! Thanks a-Jie!" Jiang Cheng grabbed a bowl and started slurping like the ill mannered cretin he was. Jiang Yanli hid a fond smile.

Wei Ying hesitated, not picking up his spoon until Jiang Yanli put the soup bowl in front of him as hard as she could without spilling any. "I said eat. What, is my soup not good enough for you?" And then she cursed herself, because Wei Ying was doing that making himself smaller thing again. Desperate, she stared at Jiang Cheng until he got the hint, hating herself for having to lean on him like this.

Jiang Cheng just grinned and wrapped an arm around Wei Ying's shoulders. "Jiejie's angry soup is the best. You just don't know that cause you haven't tried it yet." He nudged the bowl closer in an unsubtle hint. When Wei Ying still didn't eat, he pulled back, using his grip on Weo Ying's shoulder to turn him so they were facing each other. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"I just..." Wei Ying's shoulders curled in even more. "I don't want to get used to it. Every time I thought I would get to stay somewhere, it hurt more when I got kicked out."

Jiang Yanli's grip on her spoon tightened. "What do you mean by that?"

Wei Ying shifted uncomfortably. "Well the lady who ran the book store let me sleep on the floor of the shop for a few days once, and she fed me lots of good food, but then someone broke in and kicked me in the dark, and I screamed, and... turned out there had been a bunch of robberies and she just wanted some extra security. She kicked me out once they'd caught the guy. And the guy at the inn let me stay in exchange for helping clean the place up, but then when the party of nobles had been expecting arrived, he kicked me out too. And others. So I don't know why I'm here, but I don't want to get used to it so it'll hurt less when I have to leave."

"No!" Surprisingly, it wasn't Jiang Cheng who shouted. He was still staring slack jawed at Wei Ying. It was Jiang Yanli who stood, indignation flooding through her. "You aren't getting kicked out!"

"That's right! Weren't you listening to a-Die? He said you were going to live here and be our new brother!" Wei Ying still seemed hesitant, so Jiang Cheng added, "That means you have to stay here forever and eat a-Jie's soup and learn cultivation with me, unless you can't in which case you need to learn how to be my second for when I inherit the sect. Those are the rules. The most important being the stay here forever bit."

"You mean it?" Wei Ying looked up at them, still wary, but hoping.

Jiang Yanli pushed the soup closer to him again. "We mean it. I don't cook for people I don't like. Now eat your soup."

And then, for the first time, Wei Ying smiled, and it lit up the room like sunrise breaking over the lake. "Ok!"

And Jiang Yanli felt a blow to the place in her chest where she hid her love for her brother, a blow like something, or someone, making a home there. And she thought, Oh no, and she thought, Oh we are definitely keeping him, and she thought I will protect him forever.

She looked over at her baby brother - one of her baby brothers, she thought with a thrill of... something - and saw the exact same sentiment on his face.

Jiang Yanli finished eating her soup and then she took her brothers' bowls to the sink for washing in the morning. And then, she took her brothers, new and old, to their room for bed.

#Untamed #Loxie's fics #mdzs #Jiang Yanli #Wei Wuxian #Jiang Cheng #Madame Yu is projecting on why Yanli is angry btw

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taizi · 3 years

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the ship sways but the heart is steady

chapter three: build bridges with these arms

the untamed pairing: jiang cheng & wei ying, lan zhan/wei ying, jiang cheng/wen qing word count: 3794 summary: Wei Ying’s friends are at rock-bottom, and Wei Ying puts his life on hold to help them put theirs back together. To absolutely no one’s surprise except Wei Ying’s, his family goes with him. read on ao3

Jiang Cheng doesn’t remember dropping the phone, but he must have, because Wen Qing is holding it now and talking to A-Li in the sharp, rapid-fire way she speaks when she’s frightened. He doesn’t remember getting off the couch or leaving the room, but he’s pacing back and forth on the veranda, the warm glow of the porch light pushing away encroaching nightfall. And he doesn’t remember Wei Ying coming after him, but his brother is there, watching with wide, anxious eyes, his hands balled into fists in the front of his shirt.

“I don’t fucking believe it,” Jiang Cheng bites out, his heart beating so fast it’s painful. “I can’t believe she didn’t fucking—she didn’t fucking call? She couldn’t let us know that—that our sister—”

“Maybe she meant to,” Wei Ying says hoarsely. “Maybe she—forgot.”

“Our mother never forgot a single thing in her fucking life as long as she could hold it against us.” He’s so angry he feels brittle with it, as though moving too much or too fast would cause his body to break. “A-Li asked her to call us and she didn’t. A-Li wanted us there and we weren’t.”

His baby nephew was coming early, and his sister was having an emergency C-section, and his brother-in-law was pacing a waiting room by himself for hours waiting desperately for good news, and Jiang Cheng was just fucking around in a lake the whole time.

A-Li’s voice was so tired and shaky that Jiang Cheng knew, inherently, how bad it was.

She didn’t say it on the phone, of course she didn’t, but she didn’t need to. All of Jin Ling’s useless uncles have been reading every article about pregnancy and prenatal care that they could get their hands on from the moment A-Li told them she was expecting, and they each, to a man, could probably write a white paper on the risks of preterm labor.

Yanli could have died from complications. It wasn’t unheard of even now, in the twenty-first century. She could have bled too much, could have been gone, and Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have known until it was too late. He wouldn’t have been there to hold her.

Mother was supposed to call. She didn’t.

It’s like the sudden collapsing of some integral foundation. The weight-bearing limit was reached and the floor is crumbling beneath him and this building he’s lived in his whole life that he mistook for mortar and stone is actually some childish construction of paper and wax. This place he thought would withstand storm and fire and erosion is finally falling apart after so many years of careful repairs, so much frantic patchwork.

Mother hurt them over and over and over again, but she was still their mother. Family is just hard, Jiang Cheng had always thought. Family hurts. That’s just the way it is, it just costs you every day, and you’re always discovering how much farther you can push your threshold, how much more you can actually take.

Except... his siblings never hurt him. Never on purpose. He doesn’t look at A-Li or A-Ying and feel anything but fondness and exasperation and loyalty for them. He would do anything for them.

Wen Ning plainly adores his sister, and Wen Qing’s world revolves around her brother. None of their immediate relatives stepped in to help them after the fire, clearly screening their calls, none of them eager to sacrifice their time or money, but Granny has been almost a constant presence in their lives since they got here. She adopted all of them, no relation required.

Wei Ying came to the Jiangs when he was five, an emergency placement with the second family listed on his parents’ will, because his legal godfather was dealing with the death of his brother and sister-in-law, and the subsequent adoption of his young nephews. By the time Lan Qiren could be reached and came dashing to New York, it had been almost a week, and Wei Ying and A-Li and Jiang Cheng were all comfortably attached at the hip.

Rather than uproot his traumatized godson again, so soon after the initial upheaval of his young life, Lan Qiren reached an agreement with mother and father to let Wei Ying stay with them. He paid for all of Wei Ying’s expenses and then some. Jiang Cheng only knows because mother likes to complain about being short-changed when she’s drunk.

And then when his nephews were a little older, and he could step down from his role as director of a ridiculously prestigious music school, Uncle Qiren retired, and relocated his family from Suzhou to New York City. Wei Ying always had a second place to go home to if he needed one. His siblings were always welcome there, too. Uncle Qiren was strict and never let them get away with a goddamn thing, but he keeps all their pictures on his desk.

Family, Jiang Cheng finally realizes at twenty-three years old, isn’t supposed to hurt.

You’re supposed to be loved. You’re not supposed to have to buy it.

Wei Ying is crying in that awful, silent way he cries, as if he’s not sure he’s allowed to make a sound. Jiang Cheng storms over and drags him into a hug that’s probably too tight, and Wei Ying hugs him back just as hard, and for a moment that’s all there is.

Night is creeping in around them, inky and inexorable. They’re suspended in the warm orange porch light like a couple of sailors marooned at sea. Jiang Cheng holds onto his brother, and finally lets go of someone else.

It is silently agreed-upon that Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying need to see their sister. Wei Ying tries to apologize for leaving in the middle of retiling one of the bathrooms and Wen Qing gets properly angry with him for it.

“He’ll finish when he comes back,” Jiang Cheng promises, which ends up sounding more like a promise that they’re going to come back at all.

“The tiles in the bathroom are literally the least of my concerns,” Wen Qing snaps, and that sounds more like she’s saying she doesn’t need a promise, she knows they will.

They barely pack anything, they just sort of move around the house in anxious circles until the airport shuttle shows up, and then they shove on their shoes and grab blindly for bags and jackets.

Goodbyes are made on the veranda. After living together and rebuilding a home together, the embraces come easily. Jiang Cheng doesn’t even have a chance to feel self-conscious about any of it.

“The tickets should be in your email,” Lan Zhan says.

Wei Ying checks his phone and frowns. “You only got two?”

Lan Zhan says, “I will stay here.”

His eyes are dark and unreadable, but Wei Ying must see something in them that Jiang Cheng doesn’t. He drops his bag and shuffles forward and Lan Zhan puts his arms around him. He stands there like some ancient, immovable structure, like a load-bearing wall, like Wei Ying could bring absolutely anything to him and Lan Zhan would help him hold it.

“Give the bunnies a hundred kisses for me while I’m gone,” Wei Ying mumbles against Lan Zhan’s shoulder, muffled and wet in a telling way.

“A hundred kisses,” Lan Zhan agrees solemnly, and presses the first one into Wei Ying’s hair.

A-Yuan, holding Wen Ning’s hand, largely confused and a little troubled by the tense atmosphere, earnestly assures that he’ll take care of the bunnies. Wei Ying ruffles his hair playfully, and then finally seems ready to go.

“Try not to let the place fall apart without me,” Jiang Cheng says to Wen Qing.

“I’ll do my best,” she replies. She doesn’t reach out to him with her hands, but her eyes seem to.

Jiang Cheng can’t get her eyes out of his head.

Yanli is pale and tired and beautiful. She lifts her head as they come into her private hospital room, and then lifts her arms immediately, and Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying both run to her like they’re children again. She’s sobbing, trying to wrap her frail arms around them as hard as she can.

“I missed you so much,” she says. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Jiang Cheng can’t think of how close they came to losing her or he’ll go insane. He just sits on the edge of the bed and holds both of his siblings and doesn’t make fun of Wei Ying for crying as much as Yanli.

Jin Zixuan comes in with a nurse and a bassinet at that point, and there are deep bruises under his eyes and his clothes are as unkempt as Jiang Cheng has ever seen them, but he’s smiling.

The nurse bustles around cheerfully, checking vitals and talking to A-Li about how well the results of some screening or another turned out, but Jiang Cheng can’t focus on anything except the tiny little swaddle of butter-yellow blankets that Jin Zixuan is lifting out of the bassinet.

“A-Ling, this is your Uncle Cheng,” Jin Zixuan says softly, passing the infant into Jiang Cheng’s arms. He doesn’t take his hands away until Jiang Cheng’s apparent panic must have faded, and then he’s suddenly sitting there holding his nephew.

Jin Ling is faintly purple, and his tiny limbs are all curled up like he still hasn’t realized he has room to stretch them out now, and his face is pinched in a moue of absolute distaste for the world in general.

“Oh my god,” Wei Ying says. He leans against Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, smoothing a finger against the soft mop of dark hair on Jin Ling’s head, and the tiny seashell curl of his ear, impossibly gentle. “What a weird-looking baby.”

“Shut up, you asshole,” Jiang Cheng snaps. Now he’s crying, too. “He’s perfect.”

Yanli is beaming at them, leaning into the arm that Jin Zixuan wraps around her shoulders, and asks about California. Wei Ying launches into animated chatter about all their projects and all their progress. Surrounded by them, some jangling, dislocated thing in Jiang Cheng’s chest finally begins to settle.

The day that A-Li and Ling-er are discharged from the hospital, Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng are skulking around the overpriced gift shop on the first floor. Lan Huan is with them, and Jiang Cheng is trying to talk him down from spending eighty dollars on a giant teddy bear, when he sees her.

His mother, making her way through the lobby toward them. Something cold and sharp replaces the warm golden core of him in an instant. He puts a hand on Lan Huan’s shoulder and says, “Keep my brother here.”

Lan Huan blinks. His eyes follow Jiang Cheng’s gaze, and his pleasant expression sours.

“Of course,” he says. “He can help me pick out a bear.”

“Jesus christ, with the bears,” Jiang Cheng mutters, and shoulders past him to get out of the gift shop, cutting his mother off outside the door.

“So you’re finally home,” she says by way of greeting. “Did you enjoy your vacation?”

“We’re not doing this here,” he mutters, hyper-aware of Wei Ying puttering around somewhere not even ten feet away. Turning on his heel, Jiang Cheng leads the way past the gift shop, away from the busy atrium and the receptionist’s desk, trusting his mother’s need to have the last word will compel her to follow.

He stops abruptly in an empty hallway somewhere between the billing and record departments and turns to face her.

“I didn’t come here today to play childish games,” mother says, sounding weary of him, of all things.

And it hurts, how much Jiang Cheng still loves her. How much he still wants to love her. His entire life is a series of attempts to trick her into feeling something for him, feeling anything for him. Trying to win her affection. Attempting the impossible.

“You didn’t call,” he says.

Yu Ziyuan scoffs. “You made it fairly clear that you weren’t interested in anything I had to say to you.”

“A-Li wanted you to call,” Jiang Cheng insists, the temper he inherited cresting inside him like a wave, or a wall of fire. “She could have—do you even care that she could have died? That she was scared? She wanted you to call us. And you just decided not to, to get back at us for disobeying you? I’m twenty-three years old! If I want to go to California to help my friends, I’ll go to fucking California!”

He’s never in his life raised his voice at her like this. A small, childish corner of his heart quails from the stunned anger on her face.

He clenches his fists to keep his hands from shaking.

“You stay the fuck away from us,” Jiang Cheng snarls. “All of us. I mean it. We’re done.”

Family, he thinks, isn’t supposed to hurt.

When he starts to step past her, mother grabs his arm hard enough that her long nails manage to pinch even through the sleeve of his denim jacket.

Knee-jerk, he rips himself away from her. He never forgets to flinch.

His mother stares at him like she’s never seen anything like him before, her hand hovering in the air between them. Jiang Cheng takes a step back, and then another.

He thinks of his sister’s precious life, his nephew’s, used as some sort of bargaining chip.

“We’re done,” he says. It comes out quieter than he meant for it to. It comes out sounding like he really, actually means it.

If something flickers in his mother’s expression, if her hand trembles, if she shifts towards him, he doesn’t see it. He’s already spinning around and heading back the way he came, not quite fast enough to call it fleeing. When Jiang Cheng rounds the corner, he runs headlong into someone who catches him by the shoulder before he can stumble.

Wei Ying’s gray eyes are wide and full of pain. Jiang Cheng doesn’t need to know how much he overheard to know that all that hurt is for Jiang Cheng’s sake, and A-Li’s, with hardly any left over for himself. Wei Ying never had to wonder if Yu Ziyuan loved him—he always knew she didn’t, no matter how much his siblings tried to convince him she did.

Jiang Cheng sinks forward against him, head falling against Wei Ying’s shoulder. He’s still trembling with anger, but now it feels more like grief.

Wei Ying hugs him, cheek pressed to Jiang Cheng’s hair, and after a moment he rocks them both from side-to-side.

“Come on, A-Cheng,” he says gently. “You’ll feel better once you see how much Lan Huan spent on Ling-er’s teddy bear.”

“Oh my god,” Jiang Cheng mutters. He already feels a little bit better.

They end up leaving a week later. A-Li promises to come visit the second the baby is cleared for travel, and kisses Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying both on the cheek. Jin Zixuan waves goodbye at them with Ling-er’s tiny hand.

Flying stand-by gets them home whole hours ahead of schedule, and they land in California at something like two in the morning. Neither of them want to wake up their friends, so they spend a small fortune on an Uber instead.

Predictably, Wei Ying’s eyelids start to droop the second the car pulls onto the highway. Jiang Cheng only nudges him awake when they enter city limits. As they pass the township sign, Jiang Cheng’s heart twists in his chest, like a dog perking up at the sound of a key in the front door. The Uber driver squints in confusion at the GPS screen, so Wei Ying leans up over the middle console to direct him down the proper county road.

They pull up in front of the villa and Jiang Cheng’s whole body sort of sighs in relief.

Wei Ying is beelining towards the front door before Jiang Cheng is even entirely out of the car, juggling bags to dig his keys out of his pocket. He’s got that look on his face of single-minded focus, a look that says he is going to get to his fiance in the next two minutes even if he has to break a window to do it.

“You’re so dumb,” Jiang Cheng says, and shoulders him aside to unlock the door.

“Your face is dumb,” Wei Ying retorts maturely. He kicks off his boots and drops his bags by the door, and then races for the stairs like it’s been thirteen years since he’s seen Lan Zhan instead of like thirteen days. “Night!” he whisper-shouts over his shoulder.

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes and locks the door behind him. He leans against the wall to tug the laces of his sneakers loose and tosses them toward the shoe rack. Shouldering Wei Ying’s bags with his own he deposits all of them inside the big French armoire that functions as an entry-way closet.

Reflexively, he checks in on the rabbits on his way through the living room. They’re fast asleep in their expansive two-story hutch that sprawls half the length of the wall. Muttering derisively about his brother’s taste in men, Jiang Cheng snags a blanket off the back of the sofa and steps through the narrow doorway into the den.

Wen Qing is fast asleep at her desk, face buried in her folded arms. She’s been doing this ever since she resumed her classes.

Shaking his head, Jiang Cheng leans over her laptop to save all her work, then closes it so it’ll have some battery life left in the morning. He drapes the blanket over her slumped shoulders carefully.

“I’m home,” he tells her quietly. She doesn’t wake up, but he didn’t mean for her to.

Wei Ying is greeted the next morning by a screech. A-Yuan flings himself away from the breakfast table to attach himself to Wei Ying’s leg.

“You’re back!”

“I’m back!” Wei Ying says, hauling the kid up into his arms. “And I brought you so many souvenirs from New York!”

There are mouth-shaped bruises on Wei Ying’s neck, because of course there are. Jiang Cheng prays to god for any shred of fucking patience and pointedly doesn’t look at him or Lan Zhan. How fucking dare they be like that right in front of his eggs.

When they’ve eaten, Granny says, “Everyone has a big surprise for you two. They hurried to get it done before you got home. A-Ning, go find your sister. Let’s show them.”

They’re shuffled outside, through the conservatory and down the back steps, and Jiang Cheng sees it a half-second before Wei Ying does. He grins, full and wide, and hears his brother gasp.

“You finished the dock!” Wei Ying yells. “It looks amazing!”

He goes running down the hill with Wen Ning and A-Yuan like a summer storm composed of loud, delighted noises and waving limbs. Lan Zhan follows slowly with Granny hanging onto his arm. Jiang Cheng watches after them, reaching into the corners of his chest for the pain that always comes hand-in-hand with moments of impossible joy like this, but he can’t seem to find it.

“The contractor said he would give us an estimate on a pavilion,” Wen Qing’s voice says from behind him.

Jiang Cheng turns to find her standing on the porch, leaning against the door, her hair still messy from sleep. She’s holding the blanket around her shoulders where he left it. Her eyes are reaching for him.

He’s braver than he was when he left.

“That’s a pretty permanent fixture,” Jiang Cheng says, heart beating wildly. “You sure you’re invested in something like that?”

She sighs in that way that means she’s laughing and comes down the steps to join the rest of her family by the water.

When the pavilion is finished, they have a wedding there.

It’s a small ceremony. The Lans are invited, of course, along with Jin Zixuan’s half-brother and a scattering of close friends, like Mianmian and Nie Huaisang. A-Yuan is the ring-bearer, and when he’s successfully delivered the rings to the grooms, he lifts his arms in a bid to be held.

Laughingly, Wei Ying scoops him up. His hair is loose and his eyes are bright, and Lan Zhan is looking at him the way he’s always looking at him, like he would follow him absolutely anywhere.

Just this once, Jiang Cheng will allow it.

The daylight is fading fast, and the night is going to be perfect and clear. Yanli and Wen Ning are spinning each other around in time to the music, totally out of step with everyone else and laughing brightly. Granny is taking a fussy A-Ling back up to the villa to put him to bed in the nursery that every single one of them spent way too much time and energy on, leaving Jin Zixuan free to nurse a glass of sparkling grape juice and stare judgmentally at his half-brother for flirting with Lan Huan. Jiang Cheng might join him for some judgmental staring, actually.

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are slow-dancing with a giggling A-Yuan held between them. The water rocks gently against the posts, crowded with the lily pads and lotus flowers that Jin Zixuan carefully maintains for A-Li. Wen Qing crosses the dock to Jiang Cheng, and her hand slips easily into his.

And none of it hurts. It isn’t supposed to.

Their house waited empty for a long, long time, but they’re all finally home.

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #yunmeng shuangjie #wangxian #jiang cheng #wei ying #wen qing #lan zhan #jiang yanli #my writing #mdzs fic #the ship sways

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sincerelystranger · 4 years

Text

author: a little wwx pov of my hananaki fic

---

Wei Wuxian flies back to Lotus Pier by himself in the dead of night.

The pain in his chest as his heart breaks to pieces is almost surprisingly painful, but he finds that he can’t even cry. The wind is cold on his face and harsh on his cheeks, but all he can focus on is the heat on his lips – the too real memory of Lan Zhan’s lips on his.

At least he has that.

Wei Wuxian won’t be greedy. That will be enough.

It’s almost embarrassing now to remember how eager he had been to go to Gusu. Lan Xichen had come to Lotus Pier, pale and tired, and asked Wei Wuxian if he could just… try. He had said that Lan Zhan was coughing up flowers and he had whispered Wei Wuxian’s name in his sleep. Lan Xichen had said that he wasn’t sure but… maybe?

And… Wei Wuxian had been so excited. He had been in love with Lan Zhan for so long – had only recently started coughing up flowers himself. Could Lan Zhan really be in love with him as well?

He had wanted to find out.

And… And Lan Zhan was in love with him. He was.

And that was enough.

Because of course Lan Zhan would regret falling in love with Wei Wuxian. Of course. He feels so stupid for having been excited because what else could he have expected? Of course, Lan Zhan regretted him. Of course.

He can’t help but laugh when he coughs and a white columbine falls out of his mouth. He catches it in his hand. Holds it alongside the striped carnation that had fallen from Lan Zhan’s lips as he had looked him.

Of course.

Jiang Cheng is waiting for him when he lands.

“Well?” he asks, his arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed, “Is he in love with you?”

Wei Wuxian laughs and hands Jiang Cheng the striped carnation. “In regret of me, I think,” he says, and he has to rush to his room because the look on Jiang Cheng’s face is too much to bear.

He coughs up marigolds all night, and finds solace in the fact that they are beautiful.

He falls into a fitful sleep and dreams. Dreams of Lan Zhan and flowers and things too good for Wei Wuxian to deserve.

Jiang Cheng is kind to him in the morning.

“Never much liked those Lan brothers anyway,” he huffs, pushing the larger bowl of soup towards Wei Wuxian, “What was Lan Xichen even thinking? Asking you to fly to Cloud Recesses on such short notice.”

“He’s just concerned about his brother,” shijie says. She pats Wei Wuxian on the cheek and smiles. “Our A-Xian is very kind to have gone with him.”

Jiang Cheng snorts and eats a spoonful of soup. “You say kind, I say stupid,” he says, “All he came back with was a broken heart and a stupid flower.”

“It’s not stupid,” Wei Wuxian says, taking a spoonful of soup himself, “It’s from Lan Zhan.”

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes so hard, all Wei Wuxian can see are the whites of his eyes. “Your precious Lan Zhan is in love with someone else,” he says bitingly, “Get over him or you’ll start coughing up flowers too.”

It hits too close to the truth for Wei Wuxian to defend himself.

“Don’t be mean,” shijie defends for him. She pats Wei Wuxian on the head, “It’s his loss if he’s not in love with our A-Xian,” she says, her eyes so kind that Wei Wuxian almost wants to tell her the truth.

Almost.

Wei Wuxian’s life goes back to normal. He laughs and trains and swims and hides the flowers that fall from his lips. He eats soup and bothers shijie and when she brushes a thumb under his eye and asks if he’s sleeping well lately, he smiles big and lies.

“I guess Lan Xichen found whoever Lan Wangji is in love with,” Jiang Cheng says over dinner one night. “It’s strange though. I hear he’s been going to meetings with other eligible young masters and ladies.”

Shijie shoots a worried look at him, but Wei Wuxian is fine – he’s fine – so he smiles back reassuringly.

“Maybe the person he was in love with wasn’t a good match,” Wei Wuxian says breezily. He tells himself it’s fine. It’s fine.

It’s fine.

His chest always feels like this – is always crumbling in on itself – and the tightness in his throat is because he laughed too much during the day.

Wei Wuxian is fine.

Shijie places a hand over his and catches his eye. “Maybe if he’s taking meetings, we could have father ask Grandmaster Lan?”

She means so well. Her heart is so good. Wei Wuxian loves her and loves her and loves her.

Jiang Cheng snorts, “You’re rubbing salt on an open wound, shijie,” he says.

“It’s fine,” Wei Wuxian says – or at least that’s what he means to say. A blue forget-me-not falls out instead.

An eerie silence falls over the table.

Jiang Cheng’s eyes are huge in the candlelight. His hand is frozen in mid-air, a spoon full of soup dangling precariously in his fingers.

“It’s fine,” Wei Wuxian coughs, grabbing the flower off the table and crushing it in his hands. “I’m fine.”

---

Jiang Cheng’s rage is a palpable thing in the room.

“I’m going to Cloud Recesses,” he growls, “and you’re coming with me.”

“No,” Wei Wuxian says, and strangely, now that his secret is out in the open, he feels lighter. “It won’t do us any good, and I don’t want to bother Lan Zhan with this.”

“Bother!?” Jiang Cheng yells, “You think you dying is a bother? I’ll drag that Lan-er to Lotus Pier by his hair if it means keeping you alive.”

“A-Xian, please,” shijie says, holding onto his sleeve desperately, “You went all the way there for Lan-er-gongzi, I’m sure they would… Even if Lan-er-gongzi is taking meetings, I’m sure…”

It’s so stupid and embarrassing, Wei Wuxian still doesn’t want to admit it.

“It was me,” he says finally, “The person Lan Zhan was in love with was me…”

“What do you mean?” Jiang Cheng asks, his voice low and dangerous. He’s so angry it’s touching. Wei Wuxian always knew Jiang Cheng loved him, but he never realized just how much.

“That night, when I went to Cloud Recesses with Xichen-xiong… I kissed Lan Zhan. He got better,” Wei Wuxian explains stiltedly.

“So… why?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs. “I told you,” he says, a wry smile on his lips, “he regretted me. Anyway, it’s a strange disease. Who knows why the kiss didn’t work for me.”

“A-Xian,” shijie whimpers, and Wei Wuxian is devastated to see that she’s crying. “You’ve been sick for that long? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I’m sorry, shijie,” he says, his head down. He feels ashamed for the first time in a while. He never meant to hurt shijie. He grabs her hand and holds it between his, pulls it up to rub it against his cheek. “Don’t cry, shijie. I’ll be fine.”

Jiang Cheng leaves the room, but his anger stays.

---

Almost as if being found out opened a box, Wei Wuxian becomes sicker overnight. Flowers fall out of his mouth almost constantly, and blood trickles out with them. He can barely eat or sleep or do anything at all other than sit in his bed and cough flowers.

Shijie is constantly by his side, wiping his mouth and trying to feed him spoonfuls of soft rice and soup.

“I’ll be fine,” he whispers, smiling at her, “You should get some rest.” She looks so worried – he feels so sorry for having to put her through this. It would have been better if he had been cursed with some disease that would kill him overnight. This slow death is nothing but a burden to everyone around him.

Shijie returns his smile, even as fat tears fall down from her eyes. She pushes his bangs off his sweaty forehead and places her cool hand on his cheek. “My A-Xian,” she says, “how could anyone regret you?”

White Lily-of-the-valleys fall from his lips as he looks at her – his shijie.

He picks them up off of the blanket and does his best to wipe the blood off before handing them to her. “You already love me more than I deserve, shijie,” he says, using the back of his hand to wipe away her tears, “it’s my fault for wanting more.”

Shijie takes the flowers from his hands and throws them to the ground, her face falling into her hands as she sobs. “I will hate flowers, A-Xian,” she wails, “I will hate flowers and I will hate those Lans. I will – I will.”

Wei Wuxian pats her back gently. “Don’t hate them, shijie,” he whispers, “they’re beautiful.”

---

Jiang Cheng brings every healer he can find.

Wei Wuxian meets so many of them he can’t keep count.

Jiang Cheng brings a famous healer from Qinghe – almost kills him when he says that nothing can be done for Wei Wuxian. He brings a witch from Hebei, a supposed immortal from Zhapu, a non-cultivation healer who supposedly brought back a man from the dead, and so many more that Wei Wuxian can’t even remember their faces.

All of them say the same thing. Wei Wuxian cannot be cured unless he is kissed with love in return.

“I’m going to Cloud Recesses,” Jiang Cheng growls, his face dark with anger and worry. His undereyes are dark – he’s wearing himself out trying to find a cure for Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian reaches out and places his hand over Jiang Chengs. It’s all he can do lately. He’s just so tired. “Don’t bother Lan Zhan with this,” he whispers, “This disease is humiliating enough as it is. I don’t want Lan Zhan to come here out of some sort of guilt.”

“Who cares if it’s guilt?” Jiang Cheng cries, and Wei Wuxian thinks his heart breaks when Jiang Cheng’s voice does. “Whatever is needed to cure you of this stupid disease – “

“Anyway, it won’t work,” Wei Wuxian says, and he has to close his eyes because it’s all too much. “He’s not in love with me.”

Lan Zhan’s not in love with him, and even when he was, he regretted it to the point that he would rather die than admit it.

But still…

Wei Wuxian had kissed him. Wei Wuxian had saved his life.

That was enough.

Wei Wuxian coughs and blue forget-me-nots fall from his mouth.

---

Jiang Cheng is gone when Wei Wuxian wakes back up.

Shijie is beside him, a bloody handkerchief in her hands. “Father and Jiang Cheng have gone to Cloud Recesses,” she tells him.

She must read the worry on his face because she sighs. “They will not bother Lan-er-gongzi,” she says, running her cool fingers across his forehead. “They are only going there to ask for some healers. Perhaps they know of something…”

It’s foolish and desperate, Wei Wuxian knows this. Again, he finds himself wishing he would die faster. This slow death was just hurting everyone around him. Tearing them down and tiring them out.

He leans into shijie’s touch.

“I’m sorry for making everyone go to so much trouble,” he whispers, and he tastes blood in his mouth as his throat tears.

Shijie cups his cheek and shakes her head. “My A-Xian,” she says, and her voice breaks, but thankfully she does not cry. “My lovely A-Xian.”

He loves her and he’s sorry that he’s making her go through so much.

If only Wei Wuxian had known that falling in love was so dangerous. He would have still fallen in love with Lan Zhan, of course, but he would have done it more quietly. He would have hidden himself away the moment flowers began falling from his lips. He wouldn’t hurt his shijie like this. He wouldn’t hurt Jiang Cheng like this.

It was too late now, of course.

Of course.

It’s too late for regret.

He opens his mouth to say, “I’m sorry” but blue forget-me-nots fall out instead.

Shijie wipes them off the bedspread before he can grab them and dabs away the blood trickling down his chin.

“When you get better, I’ll introduce you to Mianmian,” shijie says, a wobbly smile on her lips. “You’ll like her, she’s pretty and kind and a great cultivator.”

Wei Wuxian grabs her hand, stops her dabbing, and smiles at her.

She smiles back, even as her lips tremble.

“I hear the young master of the Tingshan He Sect is very agreeable as well,” she says, “You know he asked for you last summer, remember? Maybe you can meet up with him when you get a little better.”

Wei Wuxian smiles and nods, because it’s the only thing he has left to give.

He’ll never meet Mianmian or the young master from Tingshan He.

Wei Wuxian will drown in Lotus Pier, choking on his love for Lan Zhan as it grows too big to be contained in his body.

It’s inevitable.

Lan Zhan is too good and Wei Wuxian is too greedy.

But…

But Wei Wuxian has kissed Lan Zhan, and Lan Zhan had been in love with him.

That’s enough.

Wei Wuxian will die with no regrets because he’s already received more than he could have ever dreamed.

---

It feels inevitable when the door opens and Lan Zhan walks in.

Of course, he would come, Wei Wuxian thinks to himself. Lan Zhan is so good and so good and so good. Of course he would come.

He must have flown here from Cloud Recesses, but he doesn’t have a hair out of place. He’s almost too beautiful to look at outright. Wei Wuxian knows that he told Jiang Cheng that he didn’t want Lan Zhan to come here, but… but he’s glad to see him one last time.

“Wei Wuxian…” Lan Zhan says, and Wei Wuxian loves the way his name sounds out of Lan Zhan lips. He’s so blessed to be able to hear it one last time.

He smiles widely, grateful beyond all sense that Lan Zhan came to see him.

He opens his mouth to say hello, but red chrysanthemums fall out instead.

I love you.

If it were any less true, he would feel embarrassed, but he strangely feels grateful for this disease – it says the things he’s too cowardly to say out loud.

“Why are you… ill?” Lan Zhan asks, moving to take a seat on the foot of Wei Wuxian’s bed.

Wei Wuxian furrows his brows and cocks his head to the side. Doesn’t Lan Zhan understand? He’s had this disease too once, hadn’t he? Maybe he doesn’t know what red chrysanthemums mean.

Shijie dabs at his face before he can open his mouth again. “Has my brother not suffered enough?” she asks softly, and Wei Wuxian tries to catch Lan Zhan’s eyes. Tries to communicate to him that his sister is just grieving. That her words don’t mean to be so harsh. “Have you come here to offer some sort of condolences? Does it please you to see him like this, Lan-er-gongzi?”

Lan Zhan looks devastated by shijie’s words. Wei Wuxian feels terrible for him. No one does a better guilt trip that his shijie – no one.

He grabs her hand and brings it to his cheek. Don’t be so cruel to the love of my life, he tries to communicate. It’s not his fault that he does not love me.

“But we kissed,” Lan Zhan whispers, confusion in his voice.

Wei Wuxian smiles at him because Lan Zhan looks so guilty and he shouldn’t. It’s not his fault. Lan Zhan hasn’t done anything wrong. He shouldn’t look so devastated.

Wei Wuxian pounds his chest, trying to clear the flowers, and tries to speak. His voice comes out in a weak whisper. “It’s a strange disease,” he says, “don’t worry, Lan Zhan. I’ll be fine. Sorry to make you come all this way.”

He wants to say more – wants to say more sorry’s and thank you’s and I love you’s – but purple heliotropes fall out instead.

Eternal devotion.

He guesses that’s close enough.

His sister sobs next to him, dabbing at his face with shaking hands, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and onto the blanket.

“A-Xian,” she whispers, “my A-Xian.”

Lan Zhan looks so uncomfortable.

Wei Wuxian feels so sorry.

He pulls shijie close, hides her face in his chest so that she can have the smallest bit of privacy in the wave of her grief.

Lan Zhan leaves.

Wei Wuxian watches him as he walks out.

Goodbye, my love, he thinks fondly, goodbye.

Sometime after consoling shijie, he falls asleep. He dreams beautiful dreams. Dreams of Lan Zhan happy with someone else – someone he doesn’t regret. Dreams of shijie laughing and flowers growing on her windowsill. Dreams of Jiang Cheng. Dreams of the flowers he likes embroidered on the bottom of his robes.

Wei Wuxian falls asleep and he dreams about becoming a flower.

Dreams of how nice it would be to grow and die and not bother anyone at all.

Goodbye.

#the untamed #mdzs #wangxian #My fic #hanahaki disease #the verse that keeps coming back

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imaginaryelle · 4 years

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I just re-watched THAT scene and a thought hit me: Lan Wangji just stands there watching Wei Wuxian fall from the cliff... Why doesn't he jump onto his sword and swoops down to at least try to save him? Or is he all out of spiritual power? Or does it simply take to long to start and rev the sword? Not saying it's a plothole, I was just wondering...

I mean, I think this is a fair question and I know I’ve seen it discussed elsewhere. I just can’t seem to find the post or remember if any conclusions were reached, so I’m excited to dive into this. As always if anyone has insights or headcanons they want to add on to this, please do.

Because I like pictures, here’s ep 33 Lan Wangji holding his sword and staring in horror as Wei Wuxian falls (what is Jiang Cheng thinking? Who knows.)

Why isn’t Lan Wangji doing anything? He just stands there for long enough that Jiang Cheng backs away and leaves him on the outcropping, all alone.

Poor guy.

Okay, moving on. I think there are at least two ways to approach this, and one is from the production perspective (since this cliff encounter is a thing that only happens in the drama) and the other is from the in-universe perspective (aka, Doyalist vs Watsonian), so I’m going to look at both.

For the production pov, there’s really only one scene (I think) where we see anyone actually riding a sword in the drama, and it’s when they’re confronting the water demon/abyss in Caiyi (ep 5). At that point there’s no prep time, everyone just jumps up and then steps onto their swords (which is actually even more ridiculous to me than the image had already been in the novel because I thought they were at least riding on the scabbard but no! Riding the bare blade like a skateboard. I love it.)

How majestic.

Lan Xichen is the only graceful and cool person here. The only other sword-riding shot in this scene that shows more of a person’s body than their head and shoulders is when Lan Wangji drags three people into the air at once and we get a brief glimpse of Su She’s feet kicking wildly.

So, based on this scene’s execution and the general scarcity of other sword-flying scenes (even with the Nightless City confrontation, Lan Wangji just flies in with his quqin, no sword under his feet), my out-of-universe theory would be a combination of budget and aesthetic at play. If the production can get by on wire work with super extra long jumps that don’t seem to require actually riding the sword, they will. It’s logistically simpler, and it frankly looks better on screen. It’s also a staple of the entire film genre, whereas this sword thing is not, so the crew and effects people would have more experience with it as well. (In-universe I have a lot of questions about Wei Wuxian’s retained ability to do those jumps. Do they not use spiritual energy? Does he still have spiritual energy, just not a golden core? Is he using resentful energy instead? How does this work?)

From a more story-side view on the production, they’re working against the fact that they changed the plot to add Lan Wangji’s presence at Wei Wuxian’s death and they want to capitalize on that relationship, so having Wei Wuxian knock himself over the edge as he destroys the seal (or something where he steps back as Jiang Cheng rushes him or any other number of possibilities) no longer fits with the emotional beats they’re trying to hit. Also they really need Wei Wuxian to die here for the plot to function. Having Lan Wangji mount a sword and swoop down to try and save him again just adds extra complications and delays the desired outcome of WWX = dead and LWJ = distraught. In that sense, it really does start to look like a plot hole, because it feels like they’re ignoring the capabilities of a character in order to get the result they need. I do think they try to address this, but since multiple people have this question and I personally had to watch the scene more than once while actively thinking about it to notice all the relevant details… the efficacy of those efforts is maybe questionable. (Also like.. why does Jiang Cheng wait three days to go look for Wei Wuxian’s remains? Why is anyone waiting at all? Why is anyone surprised they can’t find a corpse when the visual we get implies Wei Wuxian is falling into lava? There are many, many questions that can be asked here and for a lot of them the out-of-universe answer is probably going to resemble “because the plot/original source material demands it” without much helpful in-universe support.)

In-universe (and probably more pertinent to your question), yeah, Lan Wangji could be low on spiritual power (and upon rewatch, I think he genuinely is). He could be physically exhausted as well as injured, too. For someone who carried three people in two hands 2-3 years ago and canonically has only gotten stronger since, he sure is having trouble pulling one person up over the side of a cliff. And that exhaustion really isn’t outside the realm of possibility, no matter how strong and powerful he is. He just traveled pretty far! If the theories that he found A-Yuan before coming to Nightless City are true (since he’s not injured in those flashbacks), he likely spent a ton of spiritual power even before getting into this battle where he first confronted Wei Wuxian and then started fighting pretty much everyone on the field by himself. Then, in a moment of fear-induced distraction, he gets injured! He’s actively bleeding! So yeah. He could definitely just be physically exhausted.

All that blood loss is not a good sign, and it actually speeds up (visually) as he expends this effort. We can see his arm trembling all throughout this scene, and then his grip slips (thus the face). Even after that he slips again, not losing his grip, but losing the strength to hold himself up at all. In the end he’s literally just lying on the rock depending on gravity to keep him in place and putting everything else he has into holding on to Wei Wuxian. He can’t do more than glare in Jiang Cheng’s general direction and tell him to stop.

Bichen is right there. If he had spiritual power left, I think he’d probably be sending his sword out to block Jiang Cheng’s angle of attack. That, or he needs two hands to accomplish such an action (It doesn’t require hand motions later/in the future, but maybe he develops that skill precisely because of these events). So yes. He’s physically exhausted. He’s spiritually exhausted. But I think there’s more going on here, too: He’s also at the end of his rope emotionally, and that’s how he ends up standing there, horrified and unmoving.

He’s had a rough time recently: Everyone hates his best and only friend/love of his life, and he has to listen to them call for his death/judgement at fancy dinner party meetings on and off for over a year. No one will listen to him when he tries to present a different view. Even his own brother is (not unreasonably) much more concerned about Lan Wangji’s personal safety than what his silence on this issue is costing him emotionally, and his uncle is distinctly unsupportive of the friendship from the beginning.

I think Lan Wangji spends a lot of time questioning his upbringing in those months (we see him actually verbally do so when he’s punished after Wei Wuxian’s death, but I think it starts well before that). What is right and wrong? Who decides it, and how? When does justice and holding people responsible for their actions turn over into unjust persecution? What is true, and what is a lie, and how much does that matter when weighed against social/political/spiritual harmony? These are concepts that are buried pretty deeply in the Lan Sect’s teachings but the world is twisting all of them before his eyes, and I have to think that takes a toll on him. Additionally, just as things start looking up (they let him write the letter to invite Wei Wuxian to Jin Ling’s celebration! They listen to him, other people support his idea!), he has to deal with the facts that:

1) His best friend who he’s in love with just killed a bunch of people, including Jin ZiXuan and some of Lan Wangji’s own Sect brothers.

2) Wei Wuxian is clearly losing control of his resentment-based cultivation path, and is thus personally in danger on a spiritual level, and

3) Everyone now wants to kill Wei Wuxian again, possibly even more than they did before, and anyone who supports Wei Wuxian is an enemy of the entire cultivation world.

Later in the series, Lan Wangji says he regrets that he wasn’t at Wei Wuxian’s side at Nightless City. That he didn’t support him, despite what we see of him trying to help Wei Wuxian find Jiang Yanli and then, after she dies, stop him from killing himself. To me, this could very easily imply that Lan Wangji is still trying to walk a tightrope in those scenes, or perhaps trying to be a bridge. He’s deliberately not choosing a distinct side, because he refuses to hate and reject Wei Wuxian, but he’s also refusing to declare open support. He’s acting entirely on his own, in a balancing act between friendship and love vs his family, his entire life’s teachings, and all of his society. Certainly I find that sort of situation exhausting, and I’ve never had to do it for something so high-stakes or large-scale.

Then there’s the actual cliff scene itself, where he’s visibly desperate. How intense does an emotion have to be for Lan Wangji to so clearly show it?

Wei Ying, he says, come back. He knows Wei Wuxian is breaking down. He at the very least guesses that he’s going to do something wild like step off that outcropping, which is why he follows him in the first place. But he has no idea what to do, so he tries the same thing he’s been trying for years: Come with me. Let me help you. This is a bridge, and he’s offering to help Wei Wuxian cross it. But just like every other time he’s tried it since the Sunshot Campaign ended, it doesn’t work.

Note that Lan Wangji actually is flying here, without the sword, so if he doesn’t have any spiritual power when Jiang Cheng shows up, this is probably a last, desperate burst to go with this last, desperate act.

I don’t think he really has a plan here. Not a new one, anyway. This is a still a plea of Let me help you. And, notably, Wei Wuxian doesn’t accept his help.

Not once during this whole scene does Wei Wuxian reach up with his free hand or try to help Lan Wangji help him in any way. He smiles, and he says: Lan Zhan, let me go. Because he doesn’t want a bridge. He doesn’t want to go back. Honestly it’s a pretty explicit and heartbreaking message: Lan Wangji’s offer of help is not enough to make Wei Wuxian want to stay alive. Not right now. He needs more than that. He’s lost too much to believe, right now, that anyone is going to choose him and his side, or that he’s worth that effort. And to be clear, Lan Wangji isn’t even offering that in this situation. Wei Wuxian is one slippery handgrip away from death, and Lan Wangji is still not saying “You, I choose you.” From anything Wei Wuxian can be expected to infer, his offer here is no different than it’s ever been: let me show you the way back to the right path. Let me help you fit back into the world the way you used to. And Wei Wuxian can’t do that; he has no golden core, it’s literally impossible even if the rest of the world would let him try. But at this point he doesn’t want to go back either. He doesn’t even want to try. That world hates him, and willfully misunderstands him, and has taken too many people from him now for it to be worth staying in. He wants to die.

And then Jiang Cheng arrives.

Wei Wuxian’s reaction to his brother’s presence is to smile, say his name, and just–accept his hatred. He closes his eyes and waits for the sword to fall even as Lan Wangji calls for Jiang Cheng to stop. The only time he shows distress between stepping back off the cliff and his actual death is when Jiang Cheng twists his sword and compromises the stability of the outcropping so that Lan Wangji is also in danger.

I think it’s possible that if Jiang Cheng had also reached for him and tried to pull him back up, things might have gone differently. Maybe that would have been enough to alter Wei Wuxian’s thinking. But as it is, when Wei Wuxian falls, he falls with his limbs relaxed and a smile on his face. There’s no flailing and screaming like when he was thrown into the Burial Mounds (in ep 33. There’s some arm-waving in ep 1). And I think that moment of him pushing Lan Wangji back and then letting go, more than anything, is what stops Lan Wangji in his tracks, because Wei Wuxian could have saved himself. He had strength and energy left. Enough to push Lan Wangji up and back and nearly to a standing position. He could have accepted Lan Wangji’s help, easily. But he didn’t, because he wanted to die, despite all the effort and inner turmoil Lan Wangji has gone through on his behalf (most of which Wei Wuxian doesn’t know about but, still).

That’s a pretty serious emotional kick in the head. Lan Wangji cannot ignore, at this point, that even if he did have any physical or spiritual energy left, Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to be saved. And that’s when we get this face (actually from ep 1):

He has nothing left. He has at this point spent over a year, maybe two, trying to save someone who, when it came down to the final moment, didn’t want to be saved. There’s nothing more he can do, in this state of exhaustion and despair, and it wouldn’t matter if he tried.

Personally, I think he looks like he’s about to be sick, and I don’t think it’s just the image of Wei Wuxian falling and dying that’s working on him here. It’s also the knowledge that he fucked up. He didn’t do enough, or more accurately, didn’t do the right things, in order to encourage Wei Wuxian to keep fighting for himself or anyone else (I’m not saying this is a healthy or reasonable thought, I just think it’s a thought he’s having). And I think this realization plays directly into how he treats Wei Wuxian when he comes back sixteen years later. He knows that questioning Wei Wuxian on his path of cultivation doesn’t go where he wants it to, so he doesn’t do it. This time is going to be different. He’ll break rules. He’ll drink alcohol. He doesn’t scold Wei Wuxian for making dumb, selfless decisions like transferring the curse mark from Jin Ling’s leg to his own, he just accepts it and expresses concern over Wei Wuxian’s well being. He stops asking if he can help and starts just doing it: Wei Wuxian can’t walk so he’ll carry him. Wei Wuxian needs someone to speak for him, so Lan Wangji will do that, with his brother and with the whole cultivation world. And then we come to this:

This is exactly the same move. Wei Wuxian will protect Lan Wangji, but not himself.

But.

Lan Wangji is no longer trying to be a bridge. He’s not going to hold out his hand for Wei Wuxian to accept or disregard. He’s crossed over to be on Wei Wuxian’s side. And that’s what makes the difference.

#lakritzwolf #cql meta #the untamed #chen qing ling #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #possibly i got a bit carried away #but this was fun #tw: blood #tw: suicide #in the novel lwj makes that change before wwx dies #and is thwarted by a combination #of wwx's breakdown and his own clan #but the drama cut that scene #so it had to happen after #long post #so long #seriously

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disastermages · 4 years

Text

Part 8 of the au where Xiao Xingchen is the one to raise Wei Wuxian

The fog is thicker than it had been when he’d passed out, Xiao Xingchen notices as he climbs to his feet, turning around in circles as he looks for Song Lan’s dark robes, or Wei Ying’s white training robes through the mist, calling out for the both of them as he walks forward. Why weren’t they answering? They’d been with him only a few moments ago, only Lan Wangji had left.

They wouldn’t have left him alone out here unless they hadn’t had another option. “A-Ying! Song Lan!” Xiao Xingchen calls again, lifting his hands to his mouth to make himself louder. He breathes in deeply and ends up coughing, falling back down onto his knees. The fog wraps around his throat like vicious hands, threatening to choke the life out of him as Xiao Xingchen reaches behind himself and tries to grab for Shuanghua only to realize that his sword isn’t in its sheath.

Rasping on the ground, Xiao Xingchen tries again and again to call the sword into his hand, but he can’t even feel Shuanghua’s vibration in the back of his head anymore. Where’s his sword? His husband and his nephew?

Xiao Xingchen’s hands fly up to his neck in desperation, trying to pull at the invisible hands, his eyes wide as he gasps and chokes, and then a voice calls out to him.

“Uncle Xiao.” Wei Ying’s voice sounds so far away, but when Xiao Xingchen is able to look up, he stops his fight all together.

“A-Ying.” Xiao Xingchen calls, tears welling up as he tries to stand, only to get pulled back down by the fog. “A-Ying, come here, where’s Uncle Song?” Wei Ying takes a step forward, but then he stops, his own eyes widening as a clawed hand wraps around his throat.

The demon from earlier grins at him from where she’d appeared behind his nephew, her claws sinking further into Wei Ying’s neck as Xiao Xingchen tries and fails to climb back to his feet again, the force of the fog determined to keep him down. “Uncle Xiao, what do I do?” Wei Ying whispers, his voice shaking along with the rest of him as Xiao Xingchen fights against whatever it is that’s holding him down.

Coughing, Xiao Xingchen brings a hand up to his own throat again, pulling at the hands wrapped around his throat. “Stay there, stay there, I’m coming.” Xiao Xingchen gasps, managing to crawl forward by a foot before he’s yanked right back, his free hand reaching out for Wei Ying as he sees prickles of blood start to drip from his nephew’s neck.

Wei Ying calls out for him again, sounding four years old and scared again as Xiao Xingchen tries in vain to call Shuanghua into his hand again.

The demon starts to walk his nephew backwards again and Xiao Xingchen screams, even as warmer hands wrap around his shoulders.

“Xingchen, Xingchen, wake up, it’s only a nightmare.” Song Lan says loudly, kneeling on the bed as he tries to shake his husband awake, holding him even when he wakes with a shout, his hands fighting against Song Lan for a long moment before he recognizes him in his half asleep haze.

“Where’s A-Ying?” Xiao Xingchen pants, his eyes still wet as he hauls himself up against Song Lan, his arms wrapping tightly around his husband’s neck, his shoulders still shaking. “Is he hurt?”

“You were still unconscious, I sent him to class.” Song Lan explains, holding Xiao Xingchen tightly against his chest with one hand and using the other to stroke through his sweat dampened hair. “What’s wrong? What were you dreaming about? Shuanghua was shaking like there was an earthquake.” Song Lan speaks with his lips against Xiao Xingchen’s forehead, his own heart slamming against his chest as he pulls back just enough to look at his husband’s face.

Forcing himself to take deep breaths, Xiao Xingchen allows himself to hide in Song Lan’s neck until he’s able to speak more than a few words at a time. “The demon from the forest,” Xiao Xingchen sighs, loosening his arms around Song Lan’s neck by a mere fraction, “she had A-Ying and I couldn’t find you or Shuanghua.”

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t tell his husband about how the fog had tried to choke the life out of him, nor does he tell him about how he’d seen their nephew bleed right in front of him and hadn’t been able to do a thing about it.

A kiss lands against Xiao Xingchen’s forehead, one of Song Lan’s hands coming to rest on his face now as he shakes his head. “She never touched him.” Song Lan says, rearranging the both of them until Xiao Xingchen is pressed between his side and the wall. “She jumped on you and broke your forearm and I finished her off, remember?”

The memory rushes back with Song Lan’s reminder, and the few hands that had clung to Xiao Xingchen from his dream fade away as he nods, finally letting himself fully relax against his husband, blinking slowly and taking in the room around them.

“This isn’t the inn we were staying at.” Xiao Xingchen remarks, the colors in their room looked familiar, but not familiar enough for Xiao Xingchen to place it right away.

“We’re in Cloud Recesses.” Song Lan says, “After the fog lifted the Lan disciples sent up an emergency flare and Grandmaster Lan came flying in like a huffy bluejay, it was his idea to bring you here.” Xiao Xingchen laces their fingers together then, tension continuing to seep out of his shoulders as he becomes vaguely aware of the plaster cast on his nondominant arm, stopping just above his elbow. It was only his forearm, any higher would’ve been a longer healing process, even if he put his core into it.

“Where’s our daughter?” Xiao Xingchen asks, unable to place her in the spacious room they’d been provided, though he could see her bag laying next to the door.

“Probably playing with the younger Lans or following Jiang Wanyin around hoping he’ll teach her new swear words.”

Any chance Xiao Xingchen had at relaxing is gone with that. “We just got her to stop saying the other swear word he taught her the last time we were in Lotus Pier.” An old woman two towns ago had been absolutely scandalized at the word that had come out of their daughter’s mouth. Xiao Xingchen had barely had time to cover her mouth with his hand and haul her against his chest while Song Lan laughed behind him.

It had taken sitting her down and interrogating her to find out where she’d learned it.

“Baba and A-Die told me that wasn’t nice to say.” A-Qing crosses her arms as she looks up at Jiang Cheng, watching as the older boy jumps a foot in the air before turning around to face her.

“That’s because you’re five, five year olds shouldn’t say that.” Jiang Cheng says, looking sure of himself as he crosses his arms over his chest right back at her, looking back at Wei Wuxian who only shakes his head at him. He was never any help when it came to defending Jiang Cheng against his younger sister.

“I’m six!” A-Qing declares, her voice too loud for Cloud Recesses before she remembers the rules Wei Wuxian had told her about on their way over, though she still doesn’t back down.

“Six year olds shouldn’t say it either!” Jiang Cheng fires back, he could still remember the looks Wei Wuxian’s uncles had given him the last time they’d been in Lotus Pier and A-Qing had overheard him talking to Wei Wuxian, she’d let the word slip out at dinner and everyone had stopped what they’d been doing, dishes stopping in the middle of being passed around while Jiang Cheng wished the floor had opened up and swallowed him whole.

He’d contemplated jumping into the lake, but then Wei Wuxian’s Uncle Song had snorted and left the table first, his hand covering his face.

It looks as though A-Qing is sizing him up, her face pulling into a frown as she looks past Jiang Cheng and at Wei Wuxian. “Well, when can I say it?”

“Never.” Would be the answer Wei Wuxian’s Uncle Xiao would prefer, but Jiang Cheng knew the likelihood of A-Qing accepting that would be low, if he had any chance at all of dissuading her.

“Not until you’re fourteen, Qing Sanren.” Nie Huaisang says, stepping in and rescuing Jiang Cheng when he floundered. A-Qing wasn’t a cultivator yet, but the title made it easier to talk her in or out of things, depending on what they needed. Nie Huaisang had made the discovery by pure accident on the flight over, when A-Qing had taken to wriggling in Wei Wuxian’s arms.

She seems to consider it now, though, her eyes falling on Wei Wuxian for confirmation. “Do I really have to wait that long?” She asks and Wei Wuxian walks forward, picking up his younger sister and settling her against his hip before brushing her bangs out of her face.

“Brother Nie is telling you the truth, A-Qing, you still can’t let Uncle Xiao and Uncle Song hear you, though, you’ll get in trouble like last time.” Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes as he watches A-Qing deflate onto her older brother’s shoulder, taking his word at the highest value and pouting when she realizes she won’t be able to swear like she wants to for a few more years.

Jiang Cheng can’t help but frown when he looks at the two of them. “How’s your uncle? It’s been two days.” Jiang Cheng asks quietly, though the whole of Cloud Recesses knew by now that the distant snow and cold frost and the cool moon and gentle breeze had arrived in Gusu after their last nighthunt.

Wen Qing had seemed sure of herself when she’d given Xiao Xingchen a once over in the field after she’d set his arm, she’d told them that he didn’t even have a concussion, but the Lan healers hadn’t seemed to believe her at first.

“All the healers and Wen Qing say he’s doing okay.” Wei Wuxian says, bouncing A-Qing up on his hip, “Uncle Song wouldn’t let me skip class today, but it didn’t look like Uncle Xiao was going to wake up when I left.” They’d all been sure Lan Qiren would’ve been willing to ignore Wei Wuxian’s absence for another day, but as soon as they’d finished breakfast, Song Lan had started nudging Wei Wuxian towards the door, telling him that he would take care of things today.

“A-Die told me Baba would wake up when he was ready.” A-Qing says, her voice sounding sleepier the longer Wei Wuxian holds her. Wei Wuxian would let her fall asleep on him if that’s what she wanted.

A-Qing doesn’t get the chance to nod off for long before they’re found by one of the Lan healers, a spike of panic going through Wei Wuxian before the woman smiles and bows to him. “Young Master Wei and Young Lady Qing are needed at the guest house.”

The rule about running in Cloud Recesses slips Wei Wuxian’s mind just like it had so many times before.

“Are you alright, A-Ying?” Xiao Xingchen asks, stroking his fingers through Wei Ying’s hair slowly. It had been hours since his nephew and his daughter had all but crashed through the door of the guest house, destroying any illusion of peace and tranquility that Cloud Recesses had offered. Xiao Xingchen had been glad for it, it was too quiet here.

Wei Ying was kneeling next to his bed now, his head propped up on his arms as he struggled to fight off sleep, though his eyes were looking heavier by the minute. “You can go back to your room and sleep if you want, I’ll be here in the morning.” It had taken an hour and a not so subtle look over for Xiao Xingchen to finally push down the nightmare from this morning, but something was still chewing at him at the thought of sending Wei Ying back to his own room. Xiao Xingchen would let him go if he wanted to, though.

For a moment, it seems as though Wei Ying isn’t going to answer him, his eyes staring straight ahead at the wall while his fingers play with a loose thread he’d found on Xiao Xingchen’s blankets. “Are you sure you’re alright?” The words come out quickly and softly, soft enough that Xiao Xingchen thinks for a second he hadn’t heard his nephew right, the smile dropping off his face as he stops stroking Wei Ying’s hair, setting his hand on his cheek instead.

“I’m sure.” Xiao Xingchen says, running his thumb underneath Wei Ying’s eye, it was only a small relief to realize that he wasn’t crying. “Why wouldn’t I be?” The healers and Granny Wen’s granddaughter had already told him that he’d be able to leave in the morning if he really wanted to, but he hadn’t gotten around to telling Wei Ying.

“A-Ying?” Xiao Xingchen says, leaning forward to try and see his nephew’s face better in the darkness.

“You didn’t get back up after Uncle Song killed the demon.” Wei Ying finally says, still refusing to look at his uncle. “You always get back up.” There’s undeniable worry in Wei Ying’s voice that squeezes at Xiao Xingchen’s heart, his hand going still on his face.

Wei Ying had seen him hurt before, he’d seen Xiao Xingchen with broken ribs and with bruises and cuts that spanned the length of arms and legs, those came with the territory of being a rogue cultivator, they both knew that, but Xiao Xingchen had almost always been able to get back up on his own. Song Lan had been there when he hadn’t.

“Did it scare you when I didn’t get up?” Xiao Xingchen asks, dropping his voice low to keep A-Qing and Song Lan from waking up, if they did, there’s no way Wei Ying would want to keep talking about this, he’d only go back to smiling and playing around until Xiao Xingchen could get him alone again.

He almost doesn’t notice that Wei Ying had looked over too, his hand following the turn of Wei Ying’s head. Finally, after two quiet, too still moments, Xiao Xingchen feels his nephew nod, his eyes dropping back down to the bed again. “Wen Qing said you would’ve been fine if you hadn’t hit your head, I’m sorry the demon attacked you instead of me.” Wei Ying sounds close to tears as he speaks, but Xiao Xingchen can only shake his head, his smile dropping into a frown.

“A-Ying has nothing to be sorry for.” Xiao Xingchen says decisively. Wei Ying and Lan Wangji both had done everything they’d been told to do, there was nothing for his nephew to be sorry for. “You did everything just right, the demon was already agitated.” Agitation and upset were the only ways to draw demons like that one out of hiding, she was always going to attack at least one of them.

“But your arm got broken because of me!” Wei Ying argues, sitting back on his knees and pulling away from Xiao Xingchen’s hand and Xiao Xingchen wants to pull him back right away.

Instead, Xiao Xingchen shakes his head and swings his legs over the side of the bed, coming to kneel down in front of Wei Ying so he didn’t have to look up at him anymore. “My arm was broken because I was protecting my nephew, A-Ying is not responsible for my arm being broken.” Xiao Xingchen speaks slowly and deliberately, stroking Wei Ying’s hair back from his face as if that would make the words sink in easier.

He couldn’t pinpoint it, no matter how much he tried, Xiao Xingchen couldn’t narrow it down to the minute or even the day where his nephew decided that he would take the blame for blameless things. All he could do now was try and nudge him in another direction.

“But-”

“No buts, A-Ying.” Xiao Xingchen interrupts, his voice stern with both of his hands coming to rest on Wei Ying’s shoulders, the plaster cast only makes it a little awkward. “The blame for this isn’t yours to take.”

Xiao Xingchen expects Wei Ying to be stubborn, he expects him to try and argue more, he’s prepared for it, but finally, the answer comes when Wei Ying nods his head, and Xiao Xingchen pulls his nephew’s head against his shoulder.

“Uncle Xiao?” Wei Ying says after a few moments pass, his voice still quiet, “Can I come with you when you all leave?”

He should ask why, there were only three months left in the year, it wasn’t like his nephew to get so far into something like this only to walk away from it. Xiao Xingchen should tell him to think about it before he decides, but the only thing that comes out is coming from that selfish part of himself.

“Of course you can.”

“Are you planning on giving that to Young Master Wei when he leaves tomorrow?” Lan Xichen asks, turning to look at Lan Wangji as they climb the stairs together. The box in his hands is small and light, the two objects inside of it barely adding to it, it’s the meaning of it that makes the box heavier with every step.

“I plan on giving it to him tonight.” Lan Wangji corrects. They would be rushed if he waited until morning, they might even have an audience if the news of Wei Ying leaving spreads further than the Jiang disciples. It would be better to give Wei Ying his gift after dinner and hope he doesn’t reject it.

The jade pendant inside is nothing special, it was identical to the one hanging at Lan Wangji’s own waist, the comb packed in next to it had been the troublesome part of the gift.

He’d only allowed his brother to help him with the design of it, Lan Wangji had picked the wood it was carved from and the artist responsible for making it all on his own. The combs sold in Caiyi Town hadn’t been good enough, no matter how many times Lan Wangji had looked and stared at each one.

Lan Xichen had only smiled knowingly when Lan Wangji brought up the idea of commissioning a comb for Wei Ying.

He’d laughed when Lan Wangji had come back to the Hanshi two hours later and asked if the idea was too much all at once.

There were flowers carefully carved into the spine of the comb, morning glories spreading their vines across the width and down the sides of it, the simplicity of the design hand shone brightly in the woodworker’s shop.

The comb would have burned a hole in his hand by now, if it weren’t for the box keeping it out of sight. Lan Wangji only had to keep it hidden in his sleeve until after dinner, he could think of something to say by then. He’d already slipped a note asking Wei Ying to meet him in the meadow before class this morning, finding the words now should be easy.

“Young Master Wei certainly has had an influence on you, Wangji.” Lan Xichen tells him before they part, a smile on his face and his arms held behind his back. Lan Wangji pointedly doesn’t ask his brother what he means by it.

The box is hidden away in his sleeve while Lan Wangji waits, first by eating his dinner without tasting it, and then by standing in the field with two rabbits chewing on the hem of his robes, a punishment for refusing to sit with them right away. The weight of it has only gotten heavier, but Lan Wangji dares not take it out, he’d already seen it once, that would be enough until the comb was safe in Wei Ying’s hands.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying’s voice rings out across the field and the rabbits startle, but Lan Wangji can feel his heart in his throat, his fingers curling into his sleeves as Wei Ying comes closer, a smile already stretching across his face.

“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji greets, though the box in his sleeve has gotten heavier again. There are too many things Lan Wangji wants to say, too many words he’d always swallowed down earlier, too many ways for Wei Ying to misunderstand what he was trying to tell him.

He wants to tell Wei Ying that he’ll miss him, but when he opens his mouth, Wei Ying is pulling on his sleeve. “Lan Zhan, can we sit? There’s something I need to tell you.”

Panic freezes in Lan Wangji’s veins but he allows Wei Ying to pull him down, their knees touching as Wei Ying looks away from him, his smile turning shy. Had he guessed why Lan Wangji had asked him to meet him here? Was he going to turn him down and tell him that he never planned on coming back to Cloud Recesses?

“Do you remember the first time you brought me out here, Lan Zhan? When you covered me in rabbits?” Wei Ying asks, as if Lan Wangji could have possibly forgotten the way Wei Ying’s smile had looked.

“It was only three, Wei Ying moved too much for me to add anymore.” Lan Wangji had tried, he’d tried putting one rabbit on each of Wei Ying’s legs, but he’d claimed he couldn’t sit still that long.

“You really do remember everything, don’t you?” Wei Ying laughs, paying no attention to the rabbit pulling at his sleeve. Even Wei Ying wasn’t exempt from their punishment. “The letter that came that day,” Wei Ying continues and then swallows, and Lan Wangji watches his adam’s apple bob up and down, “I asked my uncle what I should do if I like someone, and he told me that I should tell them how I feel, even if they don’t like me back.”

That was what Wei Ying had asked his uncle? Lan Wangji can feel his mouth dry out at the memory of the letter appearing between them, he’d almost confessed right then, but he’d lost his nerve.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, his fingers brushing against Lan Wangji’s tentatively, “I really like you, Lan Zhan, and I couldn’t leave without telling you.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji breathes his name quietly, it feels as though his heart has permanently lodged itself in his throat, forcing Lan Wangji to speak around it whenever Wei Ying so much as looked at him. Lan Wangji is the one to lace their fingers together, his hand greedily holding onto Wei Ying’s for as long as he would allow it.

“Wei Ying’s feelings aren’t unrequited.” Lan Wangji says finally, the box in his sleeve feeling lighter. Lan Wangji has liked Wei Ying for so long, admitting to it now sets butterflies loose in his stomach, heat spreading over his ears. “I like Wei Ying very much.” The words sound too simple now, but Lan Wangji can’t make himself regret them, not when they make Wei Ying’s mouth fall open like that.

Slowly, regretfully, Lan Wangji forces himself to let go of Wei Ying’s hand, reaching into his sleeve and pulling the box out slowly. “I know Wei Ying must wander, but I hope he will visit when he is able.” Lan Wangji allows Wei Ying to take the box from his hands, watching his face carefully as he runs his thumb over the decorative carvings. Lan Wangji hadn’t asked for the additional carvings, but he’s glad for them now, even as his breath stills in his chest watching Wei Ying open the box carefully, as if it were something precious.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers, though he isn’t looking at him as he lowers the box into his lap, tracing over the comb with two delicate fingers. When he finally does look up, Lan Wangji allows himself to wrap his hand around Wei Ying’s wrist, his thumb stroking over his pulse. “I don’t have a gift for you.” Wei Ying says, his voice sounding guilty and Lan Wangji shakes his head.

“Being with Wei Ying is enough.” Feeling brave, Lan Wangji allows himself to press a hand against Wei Ying’s cheek, his thumb sweeping over his bottom lip. Being alone with Wei Ying one last time would have been enough.

A pitiful, choked sound makes its way out of Lan Wangji’s chest when Wei Ying turns and presses a kiss to Lan Wangji’s palm, Wei Ying’s eyes are soft and playful when he looks back at him. “Was that okay, Hanguang-jun?” Wei Ying is teasing him again, Lan Wangji knows that, but he nods earnestly.

“Would you like another?” Wei Ying asks, dragging his fingers down Lan Wangji’s wrist and sending shivers down his spine. Lan Wangji shakes his head this time.

“I would like to give Wei Ying one, if he allows it.” Lan Wangji catches the hand as it starts to dip underneath his sleeve, though he doesn’t pull Wei Ying’s hand closer to him until he gets a wide eyed nod.

Lan Wangji smiles against his palm when he hears the same pitiful, choked noise fall from Wei Ying’s mouth.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says quietly, “could I show you how to send the letters?”

“Mn.” A smile blooms across Wei Ying’s face as Lan Wangji nods, outshining the moon and looking twice as beautiful.

“You won’t have the chance to miss me, you know, I’ll write to you everyday.”

“I will miss you the moment you are out of my sight.”

“Lan Zhan! Saying things like that isn’t fair!”

“Pity.”

#the untamed #mdzs #songxiao #wangxian #xiao xingchen #wei wuxian #song lan #song zichen #a-qing #a qing #as usual the ao3 link and links to the other parts will be in the reblog to my main

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drwcn · 4 years

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I was reading your post about consent for surgery and I had a question. Aren't there cases where if the patient is not of sound mind or unable to make an informed decision, then family can decide for them? That's not to say that WWX was entirely of sound mind at that point (he'd also been through insane trauma & was trying desperately to hold onto the family he had left). But JC was in a much worse state and retrospectively I agree JC would never have agreed to taking anyone else's core, but 1/2

I know I said i wasn’t going to answer asks until I’m done my exams but this one just came in and it’s a topic close and dear to my heart, so I’m going to take a couple of minutes to answer it. Thank you for the ask, but I think this brings up a lot of misconceptions of what is medical consent, capacity, competency, and substitute decision making. This is a very complicated and legally heavy topic. So it will be a long post. I apologize for that.

There are several misconceptions in the ask, and I will be addressing them in this order:

That Jiang Cheng is “not of sound mine” and cannot “make an informed decision”.

The role of family and substitute decision making

“force a life saving measure on a family member”.

Issue 1 : Jiang Cheng is not competent and has no capacity to consent.

There is no doubt that Jiang Cheng has gone through significant trauma, and that he is emotionally fragile, but this does not medically equate him to having no capacity to make surgical decisions and this certainly does not make him legally incompetent. If I may, I will define “informed decision”, “capacity” and “competency”.

The criteria of obtaining informed consent is described below.

Decision maker must:

Be aware of his/her right to withdraw consent at any time

Be free of undue influence, duress or coercion in making the consent decision (aka no one is paying them or holding a gun to their head)

Receive a proper explanation that includes but is not limited to:

diagnosis reached

advised interventions and treatments;

exact nature and anticipated benefits of the proposed examination, assessment, treatment or procedure;

common risks and significant risks;

reasonable alternative treatments available, and the associated common risks and significant risks; and

natural history of the condition and the consequences of forgoing treatment;

All of this must be explained to the patient before a procedure can be undertaken. And the patient must be able to understand what is told, and to appreciate the gravity of their choice. This brings us to the idea of “capacity”.

Capacity is not how emotionally distressed you are, or how traumatized you are. If my partner (the love of my life) and I both got into a horrible car accident, but I sustained minor injuries while he requires significant surgery, you can reasonably assume that I am in deep emotional distress. However, if I were his POA (power of attorney), I would still have the capacity to decide and consent for his surgery on his behalf if he is no longer capable (e.g.: he is unconscious).

Capacity refers to a person’s ability to make a decision that is “task specific”. As in, can he make a decision about this particular thing we’re asking him. It requires the person (Jiang Cheng) to:

Reason and deliberate - can Jiang Cheng make logical sense of the procedure and its consequences.

Hold appropriate values and goals - Jiang Cheng would want to protect his family, avenge his parents and defeat Wen Ruohan.

Appreciate one's circumstances - does Jiang Cheng know that without his surgery he will never get core back? Does he know the risks of the surgery to himself, to his brother, and its chances of success?

Understand information one is given - are Jiang Cheng’s cognitive functions intact to for him to understand and appreciate the information given?

And communicate a choice.

Can Jiang Cheng do all of that? The conclusion of the assessment for capacity ultimately lies with the attending physician. Medical capacity is a result of a physician’s assessment. Capacity wasn’t even a consideration for Jiang Cheng. Wen Qing agreed because Wei Wuxian begged, and probably because she also felt guilty. And that’s not how she should’ve done it.

From what I have seen on the show, Jiang Cheng is capable. I can say with 99% confidence that what happened to him is a gross violation of his bodily autonomy and his rights. No physician would agree to do a surgery the way Wen Qing did. In a way, she was compromised, and she should’ve seen that there was a conflict of interest between herself, Wei Wuxian, and her patient Jiang Cheng. If I were her, I would be mortified that I had done something like this.

On the other hand, competency is a legal status. It doesn’t change with activity and task. A judge needs to decide this and once you’re deemed incompetent, there’s usually no going back. This doesn’t really apply in CQL because...well they don’t have a judicial system. I can explain competency fully in another ask if you’re still interested. One thing I will say is that even “incompetent” individuals can have “capacity” for certain decisions. E.g: my grandmother with dementia while she cannot decide whether she undergoes a knee replacement or not, she can decide that she doesn’t want apple sauce with her morning meal. Again, competency is a global assessment leading to a legal status change, whereas capacity is task specific.

Issue 2: the role of family and substitute decision maker

Substitute decision makers (SDM) are brought in when the patient is deemed lacking capacity to make a certain decision, and as I have explained above, Jiang Cheng does not qualify as lacking capacity. In modern law, the role of SDM is different from country to country, even provinces/states to provinces/states.

For a lot places, pediatric patients are not able to consent for themselves and their parents are usually their SDM. This is not the case where I live. Children, as long as they are assessed by their physician to be capable of making specific decisions, will be able to make decisions in their medical treatment. This assessment is on-going throughout medical care. In many other places, parents are the SDMs. However: please note that good medical practice will still include the children in the discussion of their care as much as is appropriate for their age and ability, and that while they cannot consent, clinicians must try their best to obtain children’s ‘assent’ (aka their agreement and cooperation).

For seniors with dementia, their SDMs are their spouse or in lack that, their children. Without a specific POA - power of attorney, that is the one person the patient has written down as their legal SDM - all SDMs on the same level must come to an agreement before a procedure can be carried out. What do I mean by that? SDMs come in levels. Where I live, at the top level is the spouse. Without a specific designated POA, spouse is always SDM, their decision trumps everyone else’s. Without a spouse, the next on the list is usually children. If there are multiple children, they must all agree on what to do for mom or dad before the doctor can act. If they can’t agree, there’s usually a due process where physicians can petition the court to have a designated third-party SDM appointed. In all cases with SDMs, they should not be acting according to their own values but the values and wishes of the patient to be best of their understanding. If doctors suspect that SDMs are not following the values of their patient, there is also a process where they can petition the court to have the SDMs’ rights removed. It’s a very lengthy process and this doesn’t happen often.

For Jiang Cheng, if for example he never gained consciousness (so he is completely incompetent) and we consider Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian to be at the same SDM level (JC’s siblings), then they should’ve had a discussion with Jiang Cheng’s values and beliefs in mind and come to a conclusion together. Only that decision should be implemented. Of course, this didn’t happen because WWX and his martyr complex made an unilateral decision for himself based on what he thinks is right.

Issue 3: Forcing people to live against their will.

Does this happen? Tragically yes. It does. Should it happen? No. Absolutely no.

The grey areas are when a senior never wrote in legal documentation explicitly that they don’t want life sustaining measure, but that maybe in passing they’ve mentioned to their nurse or physician. When they become incompetent (coma, dementia, delirium, stroke, rapid decline in cognitive function), the children want everything to be done for dad or mom, and refuse to switch to palliative care or to end life support.

In those cases, unfortunately, many institutions will go with the families’ wishes because hospitals don’t want to be sued, and families do sue, even when all the medical team has done is respect the patient’s wishes.

There are many pediatric cases as well where parents cannot cope with their loss and can’t let go. The child could be brain-dead or in persistent vegetative state, and so even though nurses and doctors feel a lot of moral distress at continuously giving aggressive measure that they know it won’t help, they can’t stop. Because if they do, they can get sued. And sometimes it’s not even just a matter of lawsuits. These things can get crazy, media can twist the truth and people can get death threats. Feel free to google these cases.

So yeah, it happens. But it shouldn’t. Just because it happens, doesn’t mean it’s right.

And this doesn’t apply to Jiang Cheng. Because he isn’t brain dead, he isn’t in a coma, he doesn’t have frontal cortex damage, he doesn’t dementia. He is in complete control of all his faculties. So what happened to him was a crime. And if there are other examples where patients were forced into/lied to about medical procedures by their family, those are crimes too.

And yes CQL is a tv show set in fantasy china, so does it all really matter? I guess, if you don’t care that much about the drama, then no, it doesn’t matter. But keep in mind this wasn’t a historical drama, we’re not analyzing a historical figures’s actions with modern ethics. That would be misplaced. This was a fantasy drama, written by a modern girl, living in modern society. And its audiences are people living in the global community, so it should matter how it impacts the viewers who watch it.

From a modern western medical perspective, Jiang Cheng does not owe Wei Wuxian, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning anything. I liked Wen Ning up until he threw the core surgery reveal in Jiang Cheng’s face so cruelly. People cheered him on, but I was very upset.

Jiang Cheng owes these three nothing. Not a damn thing.

#corie replies #the untamed #cql #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #wen qing #wen ning #cql meta #medical consent: a running saga

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satonthelotuspier · 4 years

Text

Xichengclipse Day 4 has arrived, and as promised this is the second part of day 1′s offering.

Lotuses Are Tenacious Plants - Part 2

Having captured the young Jiang heir, Lan Xichen returns with him to the Cloud Recesses, where he has many questions for the young man, but first he will have to earn his trust and convince him he’s in no danger.

Lan Xichen had always known it was possible to project even the strongest emotion without words. His own brother was never the most talkative person; when he did speak it was measured and well thought out, but he could say so much with just a look.

This felt very much like that, as Lan Xichen went about his business as sect leader, except, he hoped, Lan Wangji rarely wanted to kill him, whereas he was entirely sure the figure on the bed, currently bound hand and foot, was likely thinking up many interesting ways to end his life.

He felt those rage-filled, burning eyes follow his every move. If they were to have a “staring at someone hard enough to set them on fire” competition, this feral young man would win hands down.

He judged he had left the other long enough, and rose to his feet.

“Jiang Cheng, you have only to promise me you’ll behave and I’ll untie and stop using the silencing spell on you.” He sank to his haunches next to the bed, so he was more on an eye level with the young necromancer.

“I genuinely don’t mean you any harm, I just want to talk to you, I want you to listen to me.” He could talk now, there was nothing Jiang Cheng could do about it if he did, but he doubted Jiang Cheng would listen to a word he said, he would be too focussed on his rage, his inherent will to survive, to escape, to fight or flight, to listen. That was why he had to have the other’s agreement first.

Time moved by as they stared at each other, it was obvious the other assessed Lan Xichen’s offer, turning over his words, and Lan Xichen pondered the question of how stunted the young man’s understanding of what was happening was; he had been all but disconnected from the world at ten years old, that was half of his lifetime.

Whatever he lacked in greater understanding, however, he more than made up for in animal cunning, as Lan Xichen had discovered first hand.

He waited a little longer, and had almost given up, about to rise to his full height again, when the other gave a single, firm jerk of his head in the positive.

Lan Xichen was relieved; he really didn’t like keeping the other bound and silenced, it was a cliché, but he only did it to protect him. He was wily and sly but he was still a normal human, without cultivation, versus a sect compound full of disciples trained in martial combat.

He reached out to begin unfastening the cords around the other’s ankles first, before moving onto his wrists, releasing the silencing spell at the same time. As he worked it only brought into stark relief how undernourished the other had been growing up. He had already noted how small and slight the other was, barely reaching his shoulder in height and with fine, bird-like bones. Again, he marvelled at the endurance the three youngsters from Yunmeng had shown to survive, alone, in that most unforgiving and dangerous area. Jiang Yanli would have barely been fourteen when they had fled Lotus Pier, the oldest of the three, and they had survived, adjusted, and, if not thrived, at least fared well enough to reach adulthood.

That they had relied on non-traditional cultivational methods was understandable. He would like to know how they had discovered necromancy, or demonic cultivation, if that was what it was, and how it worked.

Jiang Cheng had been able to control spirits with whistles and gestures, Jiang Yanli with claps of her hand. Were the whole family proficient?

He had so many questions, but they would have to wait until Jiang Cheng trusted him more.

Lan Xichen moved away from Jiang Cheng, and retreated to a reasonable distance, hoping to ensure the younger man didn’t feel too threatened.

He sat up on Lan Xichen’s bed, rubbing irritably at his just-freed wrists.

Lan Xichen turned his attention, as a disciple paused at the threshold of the Hanshi, a tray in his hands, “You promised,” Lan Xichen reminded Jiang Cheng of his recent pledge to behave, and rose to take the tray from the disciple’s hands.

He would rather remove all temptation to cause trouble from the other’s vicinity until they were more sure of each other, however.

Lan Xichen moved to the table, and placed the tray down. He gestured to the other to come over, as it contained a nourishing broth prepared for him. He had asked the cooks to discuss with the Lan sect physicians how to avoid hurting the boy’s digestive system, as he suspected they had been surviving on virtually nothing. On his search of the plateau where the cave had been he had found a very small vegetable garden, and not much else.

He sat down himself, and poured tea. He knew Jiang Cheng would probably approach the food slowly, if it all. He wouldn’t trust Lan Xichen. He didn’t know him, except as the man who had invaded his territory, assaulted him, and stolen him away from his family.

“If you hurt them, there won’t be a single place in this world where you can hide from me.” At the sudden sound of Jiang Cheng’s voice, Lan Xichen glanced up, and met those burning eyes.

“They both ran away, I didn’t lay a finger on either of them.” He assured. He should have known that would be the other’s first concern and set his mind at rest immediately. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention it sooner,” he apologised.

The other looked at him, confusion shaping that sharp, still-scratched face.

“I have left them a communication talisman, telling them that I intended to bring you to the Cloud Recesses, however, so hopefully they should make their way here soon.” Although the journey would take them a while, considering they weren’t able to fly on swords, like Lan Xichen had.

There was a growl from the figure on the bed and he suddenly leapt forward, “You won’t use me as bait to trap them,” Jiang Cheng snarled as he attacked.

Lan Xichen met him half way, catching his wrists, trying to hold on tightly enough to keep control of him but not enough to hurt.

“I want to help. Listen to me, you promised, Jiang Cheng. I mean neither you nor your siblings any harm.”

At the reminder that he had agreed to not attack, Jiang Cheng stopped struggling.

“How do I know I can believe you?”

It was a fair question. Lan Xichen’s sect had been built on a foundation of righteousness, of honesty, of reliability, but Jiang Cheng probably hadn’t learned much of other sects by the age the fall of Lotus Pier had occurred.

“You probably weren’t taught about us, Jiang Cheng, but members of the Gusu Lan sect are rigidly truthful.” Jiang Cheng looked at him then, a touch of confusion on his face. The other had a truly open and telling face, but then the siblings would never have had to learn to disguise their emotions.

“You keep speaking my name, like you know me.”

“I know of you, and I put the pieces together when I saw you use Zidian, your mother’s heirloom spiritual weapon, at the Burial Mounds. The whole cultivational world knows of the razing of Lotus Pier. They searched the dead, but found no trace of you, or your sister, or your father’s ward, so some hoped against hope that you were alive and had escaped. No one ever dreamed you were in Yiling, though.”

Jiang Cheng’s sharp gaze burned up into his from between his captured wrists.

He began struggling again then, but it wasn’t the same as before, and Jiang Cheng’s lashes swept down, but not quickly enough to hide the sheen of tears in his eyes. He tugged on his wrists, and Lan Xichen let him go. The other moved across to sit at the table, his back to Lan Xichen, but it wasn’t rudeness, merely a young man who didn’t know how to disguise his emotions desperately trying to hide his grief from a potential enemy.

Lan Xichen did him him the honour of giving him the space he needed.

Eventually, the other turned to the table, and reached for the covered bowl that contained the broth intended for him.

He sniffed at it cautiously, “The Lans are rigidly against poisoning prisoners, too?” there was still that cockiness in his tone, but Lan Xichen could tell he pulled it on like a comforting blanket, something familiar and safe.

“At least three of the three thousand rules.” Lan Xichen agreed with a grin in his voice.

Jiang Cheng shot him a quick glance, but resolutely looked back at the broth.

“Prove it, Lan,” Jiang Cheng dipped the spoon in the broth, and held it out for the other to taste.

Amusement pulled at Lan Xichen’s lips, “My name is Lan Xichen. I should probably have introduced myself sooner, I beg your pardon.”

“Keep begging,” the other said, but without real venom this time. He nodded at the spoon. “If it was poisoned, I could eat that and extract the poison with my golden core, I am a cultivator, Jiang Cheng. But if it makes you feel safer…” he took the spoon from the other and sipped at the broth. “I would have no need to poison you, of course,” he said as he handed the spoon back, “I could have very easily stabbed you at any point since we met.”

“You aren’t a killer.” Jiang Cheng said with confidence, returning the spoon to the bowl and lifting a mouthful to taste. “You opened yourself up so many times at the Burial Mound because you pulled your blows, or turned aside your sword.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

“You still hit hard when you do strike, though,” the tone was accusing, and Jiang Cheng’s hand went up to rest on his tunic over the centre of his chest, where Lan Xichen had struck him a blow in Yiling.

“I tried to temper it. I’m sorry if I hurt you, but in fairness you were attacking me at the time.”

Jiang Cheng shrugged, and took another mouthful of the soup. After three he put the lid back on, and threw a look around the room. He was looking for places he could hoard.

Considering how much more well looked after Jiang Yanli had been than the boys, he suspected the two gave the lions share of the food to her.

“When your jie and shixiong arrive there will be plenty of food for them, please finish what you can, there will be more.”

Jiang Cheng again watched him carefully, as if trying to divine the truth in his words.

He smiled reassuringly, and the other blinked, as if put on the back foot by the reaction. But he did remove the lid and pick up the spoon to eat a little more.

“You wanted me to listen,” Jiang Cheng prompted him as he sipped at his tea.

Lan Xichen nodded.

“Ten years ago, two events sparked an uprising against the Wens. Lotus Pier was razed and Cloud Recesses was burned to the ground, both on the orders of Sect Leader Wen Ruohan. The Jiangs were completely wiped out, although there was some doubt that their children were present when it happened. Although the Lans didn’t fare as badly, the Lan sect leader was badly wounded too, and died weeks later without ever recovering.” Lan Xichen spoke dispassionately, but was surprised at the sudden welling up of grief at the memories. Neither he, nor his brother Wangji, had ever been particularly close to their father, but they had been evacuated from the Cloud Recesses when the Wen’s approach had been discovered. His Shufu had thrust scrolls into his arms, a small black tortoise talisman into his hand, and sent thirteen year old Lan Xichen and eleven year old Lan Wangji out of the barriers and told them to run and hide.

He had come to find them several weeks later; the small Xuanwu talisman had been to enable him to locate them, but by that time it had been too late, their father had already passed, leaving Lan Xichen the de-facto sect leader of a sect without a home.

“The Sunshot Campaign, as the war was eventually named, began in earnest shortly after, and the Wens were overthrown. Justice was meted out.”

“They’re dead?”

Lan Xichen nodded, and, despite the fact he wasn’t a killer, as Jiang Cheng had already pointed out, he felt no guilt over it.

“We’re safe? They aren’t looking for us anymore?” Jiang Cheng sounded so childlike again Lan Xichen had to fight the urge to reach over and pat his head soothingly.

He would likely lose his hand if he did.

“They aren’t looking for you anymore, Jiang Cheng, the last of the Wens died many years ago. You, and your siblings, are safe from them.”

The spoon clattered into the bowl, and he surged to his feet. He looked around like a wild thing, then ran for the door.

Lan Xichen let him go. He didn’t actually think Jiang Cheng would try to run, it was merely that he was overcome, overloaded with information in a world that was new and confusing, that had left him behind as a child. It was no wonder he was overwhelmed.

***

A good while later Lan Xichen left the Hanshi, and went in search of the other.

He found him, eventually, in the top branches of a magnolia tree away in a corner of the private family area. It would be quiet and less populated here, away from the main areas of Cloud Recesses, which was no doubt why Jiang Cheng had found his way there.

He stood at the trunk, looking up, and saw there were tear tracks on the other’s face, and he played with a small, black figurine. It was the Xuanwu statue his Shufu kept on his desk in the classroom.

“I stole it from that room there,” Jiang Cheng saw he looked at the tortoise as he tossed it from hand to hand. He tucked it into the collar of his tunic, then wiped surreptitiously at his face.

“It’s cold on the mountain at this time of year, Jiang Cheng. I brought you a cloak.”

Jiang Cheng scoffed from his exalted height. “I lived in the Burial Mounds, do you think I’m scared of your mountain, Lan Xichen?”

“No, I think probably the only thing that scares you is losing your siblings.”

“You don’t know me, just because you know my name, and my people, man of Gusu,” Jiang Cheng was back to his sharp self, and, oddly, it soothed Lan Xichen’s worry.

“You are correct, I don’t know you, Jiang Cheng. But I do know you’re terrible.”

“Completely horrid,” he agreed unrepentantly, and dropped from the tree, agilely swinging from branch to branch, until he reached the ground.

He snatched the cloak out of Lan Xichen’s hands, and shook it out, holding it up to examine the pattern.

“Pretty,” he crooned, before folding it up carefully, and tucking it under his arm, “A-Jie should have it, it’s so pretty.”

“A-Jie can have a hundred like it when they get here, A-Cheng, this one is for you, to keep you warm.” There was a trace of exasperation in his voice, but Jiang Cheng merely strode off ahead of him, back in the direction of the Hanshi.

It was going to be so difficult to get the other to take care of himself, especially if, every time Lan Xichen gave him something, he tried to hoard it for Jiang Yanli.

He sighed, and followed the other at a distance.

He was entirely sure he saw a flash of red out of the corner of his eye, tracking them step for step, on the walk back.

#Xichengclipse2020 #xicheng #lan xichen #jiang cheng #alternative AU #mo dao zu shi #mo dao zu shi fanfic #mdzs #mdzs fanfic #the untamed #the untamed fanfic #demonic cultivation #necromancy #Shay's stuff

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trensu · 4 years

Text

Episode 33: The One where WWX Needs to Stop Touching Swords of the Un-Sexy Kind

So we start the episode with MAXIMUM PAIN

JC is crying and shaking and clinging to jyl’s dead body and I WANT TO DIE

Plus side, wwx grabbed the guy who stabbed jyl and choked him to death

Now wwx is surrounded by all the stupid idiots that comprise the cultivator world and they’re all hurling insults and accusations at him and MY POOR SUNSHINE BOY IS JUST HAVING A BREAKDOWN

We get a shot of lwj who is fighting tooth and nail against the cultivators but he’s surrounded and can’t get to wwx

Also, just so you all know, LWJ HAS THE BEST FIGHT SCENES. He just stopped two blades at once and knocked the guys down

Oh noooo, wwx pulls out his demon flute and starts playing! Resentful energy starts going even more crazy!

Lwj: wei ying, stop!

EVERYTHING IS AWFUL

AND IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE

Wwx is crying as he’s playing and i’m DYING INSIDE

Oh no! Wwx just spat a bunch of blood

Lwj sees him spit out the blood

AND SUDDENLY THEIR SONG IS PLAYING ON A CELLO, ALL SLOW, AND IT HURTS SO MUCH TO HEAR IT PLAYED THIS WAY

While lwj is distracted by the sight of his soulmate breaking down some ASSHOLE ATTACKS HIM FROM BEHIND AND CUTS HIS ARM

He takes him down and then slides effortlessly into another attack that manages to legit slice some dude’s neck open

OUR BOY IS NOT HOLDING BACK AT ALL, FOLKS

SO FAR LWJ’S MAD FIGHTING SKILLS ARE THE ONLY THING KEEPING ME TOGETHER

Oh no

Wwx just pulled out Plot Device 2 after getting the high ground, and lwj is watching him from below as he does this

Wwx: since you want it so much, come take it with your own ability

And he just chucks it to the crowd

We get to see all the greed and desire for power from all the cultivators here as they start cutting each other down to get their hands on this thing

It disgusts me

Now wwx is laughing BUT IT IS NOT HAPPY LAUGHTER. IT IS DESPERATE GRIEVING LAUGHTER, I HATE IT SO MUCH

AND LWJ IS WATCHING WITH A HELPLESS LOOK ON HIS FACE

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WWX IS AT THE CLIFF

THAT ONE CLIFF WE HATE

I CAN’T DO THIS

OH GOD

Lwj: wei ying, come back

He says this so softly and full of desperation

He’s so scared

But wwx just steps back more, closer to the cliff’s edge and HE’S CRYING AND JUST LETS HIMSELF FALL

LWJ FUCKING LUNGES FOR HIM

OH GOD I CAN’T DO THIS

I CAN’T

Lwj barely manages to grab him in time and he grips him tight in his hand with all his might

Wwx looks so surprised, completely shocked that someone would try to save him at this point

Lwj, on the other hand, has a grim determined look on his face. He caught his soulmate, just barely, but he caught him and he will not let go!!

Wwx: lan zhan

There’s blood streaming down lwj’s hand from the wound on his arm and it’s just pouring over wwx’s hand

Wwx just hangs there limply, making no move to pull himself up towards lwj

Wwx: lan zhan, let me go

NONONONONONONO

Lwj’s grip SLIPS FOR A SECOND THAT GIVES ME A FREAKING HEART ATTACK but he manages to adjust his grip and clutch at him HARDER

He hasn’t said a word! He hasn’t said anything bc he’s focusing everything he has on holding onto wwx

Then we see jc striding into the scene and I’M DYING I’M DYING THIS IS GOING TO HURT SO BAD

Jc gets to lwj’s side and looms over the both of them

Wwx: jiang cheng…

And wwx for a split second looks happy; he’s happy to see his brother bc it’s his brother, the guy who’s been with him since they were children

But jc draws his sword and glares at him

And that joy peters off into pained acceptance bc wwx thinks he deserves this

Nononononononononononono my yunmeng bros don’t do this to me, please no

Lwj: Jiang Wanyin, stop it!

LWJ IS SAYING THIS THROUGH GRITTED TEETH BC HE SAW JC DRAW HIS SWORD

HE SEES HIM AIMING IT THREATENINGLY AT HIS SOULMATE

AND HE DOES NOT HAVE THE STRENGTH OR ABILITY TO BLOCK HIM RIGHT NOW BECAUSE HE CAN’T LET GO OF WWX

Jc takes his sword and tells wwx to go to hell and strikes the stone between lwj and wwx

It’s enough to wobble where lwj is at and wwx SEES this and panics

HE WILL NOT BRING LAN ZHAN DOWN WITH HIM

So he yanks his arm from lwj’s grip and lets himself fall

Lwj: WEI YING

AND WE HEAR LWJ SHOUT HIS SOULMATE’S NAME. IT’S FULL OF DESPAIR BC HIS SOULMATE IS LOST TO HIM NOW

AND HIS FACE IS JUST ALL DEVASTATION AND HEARTBREAK

KILL ME KILL ME IT HURTS TOO MUCH

And then the camera pulls back and lwj looks so small standing on that cliff as jc just walks away

Lwj: wei ying

He says his soulmate’s name one last time in a pained gasp, like he can’t get enough air in his lungs, like breathing hurts, bc EVERYTHING HURTS, HE JUST LOST HIS SOULMATE

And then before, i can spiral into a nervous breakdown from the sheer ENORMITY OF EMOTIONS THIS SHOW JUST SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT...

We get a time skip!

~16 years later~

The scene opens to lwj playing ~their song~ on the guqin

Oh god it sounds so beautiful

It’s played in a way that sounds soothing and peaceful

Probably to keep the audience from finding a cliff and taking a dive…

Also, this is the first time we see lwj with his hair down! Or at least it doesn’t have a fancy hairpiece in it; it’s still tied back a bit tho

It’s a fucking travesty that we don’t get to see his hair like this more often. He looks so freaking soft here…

In fact everything looks so soft here: out of focus shots of wwx and lwj, a breeze gently rustling the curtains…

It really is just what i needed to recover from what happened like, two seconds ago, tho, so kudos to the showrunners

Now we get a quick series of flashbacks to mo xuanyu, the juniors, etc etc

The show’s like hey guys, remember 30 episodes ago we started telling a different story with a whole bunch of other characters??

Yeah, we didn’t think so, let us remind you real quick

AND ~THEIR SONG~ IS PLAYING THE WHOLE TIME

Okay, we’re back at present-day Ancient Fantasy China and wwx just starts regaining consciousness

Of course the first thing he does is tenderly watch lwj play their love song

Wwx: sixteen years...it feels like a dream

IT’S VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU KNOW THAT THE FLUTE PART OF THEIR SONG STARTS UP AS SOON AS WWX STARTS TO SPEAK

Lwj: you’re awake

I AM HAVING FEELINGS

MUCH LESS PAINFUL FEELINGS THAN 5 MINUTES AGO, BUT THERE’S A LOT OF THEM AND IDK WHAT TO DO

Lwj continues to play on his guqin

Wwx: i never thought i could still be alive

Lwj: the day you fell of the cliff, jc insisted on searching for your body but he could only see the bones of the dead

Wwx: what about you? Have you ever tried looking for me?

Of COURSE HE FUCKING DID YOU’RE HIS SOULMATE WHAT DID YOU THINK HE WAS GOING TO DO, OH MY GOD

Lwj: three years later, i went there but there were no bones left

God, they’re both speaking so gently to each other

like they can’t quite believe they’re able to have this conversation, that this reunion is happening at all.

Wwx: why three years later?

Lwj’s hands freeze over the guqin when he asks this

Lwj: these 16 years…

NOTICE HOW LWJ POINTEDLY DOES NOT ANSWER THE QUESTION

Wwx: if i say i don’t know where i was these last 16 years, will you believe me?

Lwj: yes, i believe you

His voice is all soft and full of feeling

Wwx: lan zhan, did you really believe me back then?

HAVE I MENTIONED THAT THEY’RE SPEAKING TO EACH OTHER EVER SO SOFTLY AND TENDERLY AND GENTLE-LIKE?? I AM FULL TO THE BRIM WITH EMOTIONS RN

WWX IS TEARY EYED THE WHOLE TIME, MY HEART MY HEART

Oh, now we cut to a freaking beautiful shot of lwj sitting on a rock with his guqin on his lap, surrounded by trees and a waterfall

HE’S FUCKING GLOWING IN THIS SHOT

And my god the scenery in this show is just so fucking gorgeous

Like, how did they make it so beautiful???

We cut back to wwx and watch as wwx steps out of the Silence Room (aka the jingshi, aka LWJ’S BEDROOM) and starts wandering the Cloud Recesses

And i’m here like ummm? Where’s your mask wwx? YOU’RE WANDERING THE CLOUD RECESSES PRETTY CONFIDENTLY THERE WITHOUT YOUR MASK.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING.

We do get cute little flashbacks as wwx reminisces about the last time he was here tho

It’s bittersweet

Oh, he’s coming up to the library pavilion and ~THEIR SONG~ starts playing again!

WE FLASHBACK TO ANGRY BB!LWJ

LOOK AT HOW PRECIOUS AND LITTLE THEY ARE HERE.

BABIES, THEY’RE ALL BABIES HERE.

Y’KNOW, BEFORE THEY GET HIT WITH ALL THAT WAR AND LOSS AND EMOTIONAL TRAUMA

Now we cut to wwx wandering the back hills of the cloud recesses and there are bunnies!!! HELLO BUNNIES, WE MISSED YOU~!

Wwx picks up one of the bunnies and starts petting them

Wwx: little bunny, do you remember me?

SO CUTE, I DIE.

Wwx: i didn’t know that you were still being kept here after so many years!

He’s holding the bunny so gently and petting them AHHHH

Wwx: didn’t that fuddy duddy say he didn’t like you?

HE SMILES SO SWEETLY AT THE PRECIOUS LITTLE BUNNY

Wwx finishes his time with the bunny and casually makes his way towards the cold spring

HALF NAKED LWJ

WET HALF NAKED LWJ

CHILLING IN THE COLD SPRING BEING TOTALLY GAY

Oh, but when wwx realizes who’s in the cold spring, he gets this pleased little smile on his face!!

That smile slips right off his face tho when he sees that lwj’s back is littered with scars

The music here gets all low and ominous here too.

Wwx’s brows get all furrowed and his mouth drops open in shock

Wwx: whips?

Lwj turns around and sees wwx standing there

he seems pretty surprised to see wwx there, actually, his eyes widen and everything

When he does this HE REVEALS THE WEN BRAND BURNED INTO HIS CHEST RIGHT WHERE WWX HAD IT BURNED INTO HIM IN THE MURDER TURTLE CAVE

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Wwx lets out a little gasp and jerks back in shock when he sees it

At that, lwj immediately flicks his gaze downward and to the side in an obviously nervous gesture

He robes up pretty quickly from here (like REALLY quickly)

Wwx is still staring at him with his eyes all wide but not in a “omg hot naked dude” way; more in a “oh no, what happened?!” sort of way

Side note to mention I LOVE HOW LWJ LOOKS WITH WET HAIR, IDK WHY BUT I DO

Lwj: you’re awake

Wwx: lan zhan, the whips on your back...

Lwj: *looks down and doesn’t answer*

Wwx: you have always been a model among the disciples. What on earth have you done to deserve such a severe punishment?

His brow is all furrowed and he looks almost angry

But his voice is soft and serious and full of concern

And i’m sitting here like, OH BOY, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION WWX

Wwx: lan zhan, answer me

WHAT IF HE DOESN’T ANSWER, WWX? HMMM? WHAT WILL YOU DO THEN?

REMEMBER THAT ONE TIME HE DEMANDED YOU ANSWER HIM AND YOU GOT ALL MEAN AND SNARKY?

BECAUSE I DO

I’M STILL NOT OVER IT, THAT WAS REALLY MEAN OF YOU

Lwj: *pointedly stays silent and keeps his gaze lowered*

And here the some lan disciples interrupt before we can get any answers

They’re here to give us Plot, how dare they

Apparently lqr got himself in trouble; couldn’t control a spirit or smth. What a rookie.

But we don’t care bc he’s wwx’s nemesis lol

Wwx and lwj rush over to the “Underworld Chamber” where lqr is at

Yes, they have a building called the Underworld Chamber bc the lan clan specializes in dramatics i guess

And also, somehow between the cold spring to the underworld chamber, lwj’s hair dries completely and he has it all done up again with his snazzy silver hairpiece??

Which, actually, is freaking hilarious if you think about it

Like, oh, gotta go save my uncle but if he sees me so disheveled he’ll make me write lines for sure...better get myself dolled up before i arrive there

Wwx does his cool magic talisman thing to bust open the doors of the dramatically named chamber and then locks the doors up behind them once he and lwj get in

Lwj looks very worried about his uncle, who is currently swooned into the arms of some rando lan disciple

Lwj immediately takes over the guqin bc he’s the Guqin Master and starts playing Magic Music

and the possessed sword is floating in the middle of the room exuding Bad Vibes™

Wwx whips out his shoddy flute and starts playing the Magic Music too bc it’s DUET TIME, BABY

Lol lqr immediately starts groaning when he hears the flute start up

Wwx’s like oh shit, lqr will recognize me if i play masterfully as i usually do so he switches from playing Magic Music to playing ~Their Song~ but, like, horribly??? It’s terrible terrible flute playing.

(also, like, i know they’re all acting, none of them know how to actually play the instruments their characters play but here i’m like ARE YOU EVEN TRYING?? DO THOSE FINGERINGS BELONG TO ANY ACTUAL NOTES???)

(I know i wasn’t the greatest at playing the flute in high school--okay, i was actually a pretty shitty flutist BUT EVEN I CAN TELL THAT THOSE FINGERINGS ARE BULLSHIT)

(okay i’m done yelling about the flute-playing now)

AND LOL LWJ’S FACE IS LIKE WHAT WHAT WHAT ARE YOU DOING, THAT SOUNDS HORRENDOUS HOW DARE YOU MUTILATE OUR LOVE SONG THAT WAY

Lqr: stop the flute! Get out!!

I’M D Y I N G LOLOLOL

Wwx stops playing and looks at lqr like, yikes

Lqr: no more…

And then he passes out like a drama queen omg

Wwx looks at lwj like “oops, sorry about your uncle??”

But after lqr is very much unconscious he starts playing Magic Music well again

So that all happens and eventually the sword spirit chills out and clatters to the floor

It’s still very obviously exuding Bad Vibes™ and doing this creepy whisper thing so of course wwx is like IMMA GRAB IT

OMG WWX STOP TOUCHING SCREAMING SWORDS

HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING JFC

Yeah so for some reason, wwx thinks it’s a good idea to touch the possessed sword and it starts screaming at him obvs and he starts to shake

Lwj is watching him all worriedly

The screaming seems to overwhelm wwx bc he’s flung back STRAIGHT INTO LWJ’S ARMS

Like, no hesitation. Lwj IMMEDIATELY catches him all tenderly as he falls

We cut back to the silence room with lwj at lqr’s bedside, checking his meridians/spiritual energy/whatever the hell

He’s very focused but all the juniors are cheeping at him like baby birds, it’s adorable

Except one of the juniors starts talking about the possibility of the yiling patriarch possessing someone and lwj opens his eyes and glares at him

HE GLARES SO HARD

AND ALL THE JUNIORS DUCK THEIR HEADS IN SHAME

Lwj dismisses them

Lwj: sizhui, go to bed

Lsz: but dad!!

Lwj: say no more, go

Lsz: yes father

I LOVE DADJI AND LSZ MOMENTS, I HAD TO INCLUDE THIS EXCHANGE

Lsz leaves and bumps into wwx who’s lounging casually outside that building. It’s night time. He’s dressed all in black. Wearing a mask. He looks sketchy af is what i’m saying.

Like, you choose NOW to wear a mask?? WHERE WAS THAT MASK EARLIER???

Wwx: are you okay, random junior that i’m fond of for some unknown reason?

And lsz opens up to him and starts being all Clever and talking Plot Points

Wwx is watching him puzzle this out and he’s so proud and impressed with lsz

Wwx: good analysis, it seems you’ve studied really hard!

More plot talk and then lsz is all why are you wearing a mask again?

Wwx: i’m afraid of being seen by some old friends…

“FRIENDS” LOLOL YEAH OKAY

Cut to a new scene. It’s morning time!

Lwj is staring longingly at wwx

Wwx: you’re not suspecting me are you? I’ve been sleeping for 16 years.

HELLO DENSE!WWX. CAN’T SAY THAT I’VE MISSED YOUR OBLIVIOUSNESS

HE’S OBVIOUSLY USING EVERY OUNCE SELF RESTRAINT TO NOT GRAB YOU AND KISS THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU

Also, is this how he’s coping with being dead and resurrected? Pretending he took an extended nap?? this is a crowley approved coping mechanism, and i too approve of extended naps

Lwj: of course i believe you

Now they’re doing Plot Talk but we’re not gonna go into detail

Instead we’re going to enjoy their general proximity to each other and watch their pretty beautiful gorgeous faces as they bask in each other’s presence and talk smart with their wonderful voices

*dreamy sigh*

WWX IS BEING CLEVER

AND LWJ IS KEEPING UP WITH HIS CLEVERNESS

AND THEY REACH THE SAME CONCLUSION AND SAY IT OUT LOUD SIMULTANEOUSLY

BC THEY’RE GENIUS SOULMATES

(their conclusion has to do with Xue Yang and Plot Device 1 that may have something to do with Plot Device 2?? Only mentioning it vaguely bc it becomes relevant to wangxiantics later. We don’t need to know more than this lol)

Ooh, the end of their Plot Talk wwx says something about how whoever planted the sword ghost is obviously coming after him

Like, he realizes that he’s the target (presumably; i suppose it’s a reasonable assumption for him to make at this point). He stares off into the distance totally accepting of becoming the target again

But lwj gazes at him like OVER MY DEAD BODY IS ANYONE GONNA TAKE YOU AWAY FROM ME AGAIN, I JUST GOT YOU BACK!!

Maybe i’m projecting bc OVER MY DEAD BODY AM I LETTING ANYONE HURT MY PRECIOUS SUNSHINE BOY AGAIN,. COME OUT HERE AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN/WOMAN/NB PERSON

Now they’re back at the Underworld Chamber where the sword ghost (sans sword) is just chillin there and it’s all glowy and blue instead of smoky black.

Blah blah PLOT blah blah Follow the sword ghost blah blah Find sword ghost’s owner blah blah

Oh, and here lwj says they’re going on a trip together for Plot Reasons

Wwx is very excited about it. He hops and LEANS HARD into lwj.

Like, he’s putting weight into it guys, just getting all up close and personal with lwj’s strong sturdy shoulder~!

Wwx: i finally won’t be controlled by the strict rules here!

UM EXCUSE ME???

WHEN HAVE YOU EVER FOLLOWED THEIR RULES, WWX

WHEN

NAME ONE TIME

GO AHEAD, I’LL WAIT.

Lwj steps back slightly and wwx barely catches himself in time, it’s GREAT.

GUYS, OUR BOYS ARE TRAVELING TOGETHER AGAIN

ON A MISSION

TOGETHER!!

SIDE BY SIDE!

TO HUNT DOWN EVIL!

TOGETHER!!

JUST LIKE OLD TIMES BEFORE ALL THE ANGST AND TRAUMA HAPPENED!!!

Look at our boys! Together! In qinghe!! Qinghe brings back so many fond memories!

They go into town to explore

Lol, we meet a mountebank selling portraits of the yiling patriarch that are supposed to ward off evil

Wwx gets distracted by him and stays behind to chat while lwj keeps going

Wwx inspects the portraits and is SUPER DISAPPOINTED AND OFFENDED

THOSE PORTRAITS PHYSICALLY PAIN HIM

Wwx: the yiling patriarch was famous for his good looks! Who are these losers?? If you never saw the actual person, don’t draw randomly!! Stop misleading the younger generation! THEY HAVE TO KNOW HOW PRETTY I AM

Ah, poor wwx. Nobody can capture his beautiful perfect face.

SURPRISE JIN LING!!

ANGRY LITTLE BOY

KNOCKING DOWN THE POOR INNOCENT MOUNTEBANK

He’s all, that guy should be grateful all i did was kick him. I will kill anyone who mentions the yiling patriarch around me!!

Lol he’s such a brat, i love him.

Wwx: *internally* i wonder how his personality turned out this way. Poor temper, strong hostility. He learned all his uncle’s and father’s defects but none of his mother's strengths. If i don’t start working on him now, he’ll definitely suffer in the future…

LOOK AT WWX BEING A CONCERNED UNCLE!! I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

Except he hasn’t had much practice being an uncle so he brings up the time he pinned him to the ground with a talisman

Jin ling gets offended...

Aaaand here comes FAIRY THE WONDER DOG!!

Wwx hears the dog barking and making their way towards him AND FLIPS THE FUCK OUT

HE RUNS AWAY SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS

IT’S HILARIOUS

And we end on that high note.

Talk about emotional whiplash.

How can you make me want to tear my heart out of my own chest at the beginning and 40ish minutes later have me giggling like a loon??

Return to Masterpost

#WangXiantics #wangxian #the untamed #cql

74 notes · View notes

nillegible · 3 years

Note

Aaaah that Daemon story is so interesting!! 😱

Anon, thank you so much!!! Here’s the next part! [Click here to see the first part!]

Yu Ziyuan does not speak of Wei Wuxian again. That uncertain, cold, “That… boy does not have a daemon,” is the last that she says on the matter. It is clear that Fengmian is as lost as she is, and neither one can think of a solution. And neither Cangse Sanren, nor… Changze, her husband’s rogue daemon, seem inclined to return the child to Fengmian for raising.

She spends the last few months of her pregnancy, praying that her child will not be born similarly broken. Yanli has a daemon, there’s no reason to fear that her next child would not, and yet it’s not until, after three exhausting days of labor, Yu Ziyuan sinks back into her bed, and her son, it’s a son, her mother tells her wails in his grandmother’s arms, and a tiny cheep sounds from nearby. Yunye uncoils from her wrist whip-fast, wrapping around the precious little form. “A fledgling,” he says, voice tired yet amused.

“Your son will be delicate when young, but grow to great fame,” the midwife promises, before handing the wrapped form of her son into her hands.

He’s beautiful and safe, and his little daemon is being cradled carefully in Yunye’s coils. Yu Ziyuan finally lays her fears to rest.

The entire Wei family attends Jiang Cheng’s naming day ceremony, and Yu Ziyuan is gracious enough not to resent their presence. She barely even sends quelling glares at the muffled gossip that rises in the wake of their arrival. Jiang Fengmian is attentive to her, and kind. So what if his soul followed that rogue cultivator, and fled responsibility? The man at her side is a dedicated clan leader, and a good husband. She has seen what shame Yu Chen has to endure from her philandering fool of a husband. She is polite and formal, lets them hold Jiang Cheng, while she holds that child, and breathes an inaudible sigh of relief when they return her son to the safety of her arms.

(The naked gratitude in Jiang Fengmian’s eyes for her allowing this, is irritating. It’s such a pity that he’s handsome enough to pull it off.)

The Wei never really visit Lotus Pier as a family again, though Wei Changze does drop by a few scattered times after that. Yu Ziyuan watches the way Jiang Fengmian is drawn towards Wei Changze each time, and pities him. She’s seen men do stupid things for love, but none quite so stupid as Jiang Fengmian.

“Was it worth it?” she asks him, hands skimming over Yunye’s sleek scales as she asks. She needs the touch, to confirm his presence because the very idea of separating, even after years at Jiang Fengmian’s side, is still uncomfortable.

Her fingers still at the longing look he shoots at Yunye. He says, “If Yunye asked to leave. If there was someone whose side he’d rather be at than yours, someone who could not stay, could you live with yourself for keeping him?”

She doesn’t mean to. But perhaps that’s what Jiang Fengmian meant, because Yunye <crawls> away from her, slipping over the woven floor and up to Jiang Fengmian and stops there, head raised magnificently, looking him in the eye. It’s obvious what he wants.

She sees Jiang Fengmian’s hand lift, before he curls it back down at his sides. He breaks his gaze away to meet her eyes. “I can’t. Changze isn’t…”

“Don’t be a coward,” she snaps. Tries to at least, her throat is a little dry so it sounded a little off. Like she was nervous. “By your own admission, shouldn’t you trust Yunye’s choice?” The few seconds where he considers, hand outstretched to Yunye last forever. She’s not sure if she’s afraid because Yunye is hers, and this is so private a thing, or because she’s afraid Jiang Fengmian will reject them, that his love is only for Cangse Sanren of the laughing eyes and wandering heart.

Gently, hesitantly, his fingers brush over Yunye’s head, and it feels like a caress, soft and longing and brushing across her own hair. Her soul. Yunye winds around Jiang Fengmian’s hand once in a loose loop, and settling down.

Embarrassed, Yu Ziyuan stands, ready to lift her wayward daemon off him, and apologize. It feels too intimate, too… too much. She stops, surprised, when she sees that Jiang Fengmian is crying.

“Husband?” she asks.

“I’m sorry,” he says, wiping his eyes, standing as well and returning Yunye to her. Yunye makes his way up her arm and loops around her neck. “And thank you,” he says softly. “That was. That was very kind of you both, I thank you for your trust.”

This charade of composure would be more convincing if he were not still crying. Yu Ziyuan brings his hand, still in her after he returned her daemon, to her lips and presses a soft kiss there. “I am sorry too,” she says. She does not know what Wei Changze was seeking, away from Jiang Fengmian. This feels like love, to her.

Everything is fine for several years.

(Fine, not good. Her disciples are too lazy, some of the other Sect Leaders are growing to be intolerable, but still. Alright. Her little kingdom of Lotus Pier prospers, and when she tires of that there are monsters to destroy in the towns under their protection. Yu Ziyuan is as happy as she can admit to being.)

And then one night Jiang Fengmian takes ill, his skin flushing and burning after he wakes up screaming. Yu Ziyuan, who had been at his side is terrified. Yunye curls desperately around him, trying to comfort.

That night is terrible, his qi spiking uncontrollably, inexplicably, pushing him near to death several times before the Jiang clan’s doctors stabilize him. It still takes him three weeks to recover his strength. An uncertain hush falls over the Sect Leader’s rooms, Jiang Fengmian unresponsive much of the time. His flashes of lucidity barely count as such, so hard is it for him to do more than answer questions as best he can before he loses himself, and stares out again.

Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli do not understand, she hates the frightened, cautious way that they approach their father. The way Yanli smiles and tells him about her lessons while her daemon hides away in her sleeve, betraying her fear.

“When will he be okay?” Jiang Cheng asks, tired of it. “Father promised puppies.” She orders him the puppies, but never answers. The Elderly Jiang doctor had confessed to her, in private, that he was afraid Wei Changze was dead. Yu Ziyuan had people out looking for him, messages sent to any place he’s been at in the past, because that doesn’t. He couldn’t have. People died when their daemons died.

“Sect Leader was separated from his daemon,” she’d pointed out. “It can’t matter.”

The pitying expression on the doctor’s face tells her enough.

The confirmation comes a month later. Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren were dead. The Jiang disciples had found their son thrown out onto the streets to fend for himself.

They bring him back with them, to Lotus Pier. She can’t complain, who else does he have? (What use is a witch, what use is a woman who would leave her own child to suffer like that?)

Yu Ziyuan holds Jiang Cheng close while the child screams in terror at her son’s puppies. She orders them sent away, even though he begs her not to. Yu Ziyuan is too distracted by the way the child shudders at every touch, remembers the way he’d squirmed in her arms when she held him so many years ago.

“Shi Yuan, release him,” she orders of the disciple holding the sobbing child’s arm, trying to console him. He lets go, looking up at her in surprise. The child looks up at her fearfully, too, but now that the puppies are gone, he’s beginning to calm.

Or perhaps it’s something more sinister.

“Yunye…” she says, helplessly.

“I do not know,” he hisses in her ear.

She goes to Jiang Cheng’s room that night. There are empty dishes piled on a table, even though the kitchens had fretted that the Young Master Jiang had refused dinner in his anger. “Jiang Cheng,” she says. “Have you eaten?” Her son nods sullenly. “We can try introducing your puppies to Wei Wuxian one week from now, when he is settled in. If he is still afraid of them, then you have to give them away,” she says.

“Why?” he demands. “I don’t want him here, send him away, and bring back Love and Princess and Jasmine!”

“I cannot,” she says. “Wei Wuxian is the son of your father’s dearest friend. They were closer than brothers. He has to stay.”

Unspoken are the reasons she cannot tell her son. That Wei Wuxian is a daemon’s child, his father’s daemon’s child. And that when she took Wei Wuxian to see him, Jiang Fengmian had woken properly and spoken clearly for the first time in months. Small hands had held his Uncle Fengmian’s, and asked him if he was sick, and colour had bloomed back onto his cheeks.

It wasn’t enough, he wasn’t well. But having a piece of his daemon back at his side had mattered.

Wei Wuxian has to stay.

#daemon au #yu ziyuan #look this AU was supposed to be about half!daemon Wei Wuxian #Do I know how it turned into a YZY/JFM fic?#Do I???#I hope you like it!

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restingdomface · 4 years

Text

So in a fit of brilliance I’ve decided the two posts tagged ‘coffee date au’ are set in the same universe where Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue agree to go on a date (they’re college buddies) but then suddenly they both show up slightly panicked and with a kid each (LXC doesn’t have a mom, and their dad is really agoraphobic since she died, and uncle is teaching a class rn, but NMJ still can’t convince his dad he should get a nanny for the kid and he’s having flashbacks to all the dangerous shit he chewed on as a kid and all the knives A-Sang could get his sticky hands on in their house, he swears he’s babyproofed like ten times now) and now it’s fate. Absolute love at first date and even if they break up they know damn well they’re gonna be sticking together for the sake of giving these kids some ounce of stability in their lives, and it’s actually kinda nice.

Anyways. One day when the kids are like six they meet Meng Yao, currently picking up like two kids from the daycare center (twins, his youngest siblings, now MXY cause he’s not born yet, but he’ll show up later) and they’re calling him brother and he’s fussing over them like a parent and then he looks at LXC and NMJ and they’re all ‘oh no he’s cute’ and invite a very stressed out looking Meng Yao (he has like twice as many classes as any sane person and he’s passing all of them with very high grades but he hasn’t slept in a while) to their weekly cafe date where they go to a nice little cafe off campus and buy a stupid amount of coffee and then spend the day playing with the kids cause LXC and NMJ never got played with as kids either, and MY isn’t really sure how to turn them down (they fukin hawt but also he’s on a scholarship and has basically no money that’s not going to keep the kids fed and clothed and he’s not really willing to spend it on frivolous things like dates) so he reluctantly ends up going, and it’s nice and they’re both basically rich boys who don’t make him pay and the kids make friends.

By the time they meet Jiang Chang and Wei Wuxian, the boys are both 10 and now Meng Yao is juggling two seven year olds and a one year old infant and tbh it’s actually Jin Zixuan who tracks him down when he finds out his father has been apparently dumping his bastard children on his first bastard son and Meng Yao looks TERRIFIED because he’s always been threatened that he’s not allowed to talk to his fathers only legitimate son and that if he does his father will cut off all contact entirely but leave him with the kids. Jin Guangshan has been keeping a tight leash on his finances, paying for his housing and stuff and food for the kids, but even then it’s barely enough and his boyfriends know that any sort of date or fun activity needs to be paid for by them or he can’t go at all because their father is terrible and just wants to abuse a poor kid who just made the mistake of agreeing to give his half siblings a better life.

Anyways. LXC and NMJ aren’t there yet or they likely would have threatened (lol LXC can’t threaten, he might try to deescalate the situation tho) Jin Zixuan, but they’re still not to the cafe yet and Meng Yao was in the middle of giving Mo Xuanyu a bottle and he’s basically stuck there, and he’s tired and the espresso hasn’t kicked in yet and JZX is saying something but MY isn’t paying attention.

Until the cafe doors open and two arguing ten year olds come barreling through, arguing about Pokémon or something and pulling each other’s hair. And JZX just sorta. Sighs.

He turns around to look at the kids with a disapproving frown. ‘A-Cheng, don’t pull A-Ying’s hair. Where did your sister get off to?’

Obviously, their older sister, JZX’s fiancé, was supposed to be keeping an eye on her terrible two, but A-Ying said she found a pretty hair pin in the store down the street and they got bored waiting for her and the shop owner scolded them for touching things, but then A-Cheng said A-Ying was the one touching stuff!! And now they’re arguing and pulling hair again and JZX has to get up and gently lead them both over to the table by the hand, getting them both settled down and asking what they want to drink.

This is so fucking surreal, Meng Yao almost forgets he has a fussy baby in his arms demanding attention until a slobbery little hand smacks him in the face and he goes back to gentle cooing at the little thing while giving him his bottle.

‘Oh! Is that A-Yu? Zi-gege said we were looking for A-Yu today! Can we play with him?’

Meng Yao isn’t sure what to do as the kids devolve from questions into arguing again. The twins are giving them funny looks, and since the boys were lead to the table, have finally abanonded their pretty drawings (they were drawing Yao-gege and also ErGe and DaGe too but they hadn’t gotten around to A-Zhan and A-Sang yet) to come back over to the table with Meng Yao and their new baby brother.

The two terrors stop arguing. A-Ying looks excitable. ‘I’m A-Ying! This is A-Cheng! Who are you?’

The twins look up at Meng Yao nervously, and he smiles at them gently, not knowing what else to do here.

Is Jin Zixuan here to take Xuanyu with him? He really hopes not. He isn’t sure what he and the girls would do to lose their new little brother. Things were tight around the house, just barely getting by with what they had, but Yao couldn’t lose him.

The first little girl, closest to Yao’s hand holding the bottle smiles. ‘I’m A-Ju, and this is my sister, A-Su.’

Su was a confident little one, but she had Yao’s tendency to watch people too critically before attempting to say anything. Ju tended to be more open.

JZX comes back and stands behind the boys after he’s given them a couple sandwiches and milky tea, and just stares at the two girls that he hadn’t realized were with Meng Yao, and his features went from hopeful to dashed quite fast.

The door to the cafe opened up and Meng Yao looked up to see NMJ and LXC coming in with a new woman that he didn’t recognize, but the boys across from him got excited to see immediately, shouting out for their jiejie. Meng Yao just sat back, feeling a little sick, entirely unsure what to do now.

The kids are playing together. A-Zhan is staring at A-Ying in a way that suggests he can’t figure the boy out, and A-Ying won’t stop poking at him like he’s some sort of toy. A-Zhan, for his favor, seems content to let him. A-Sang, as usual, abandoned all of them to draw with the twins.

Admittedly, Meng Yao might have been holding the baby a little bit tight when he finally agreed to go to a private table with JZX, but he hadn’t really calmed down from the request until JZX said NMJ could come with, and it takes a gentle hand putting pressure on his neck until he lets up the tense way he’s holding little Xuanyu at Mingjue’s guidance.

He can’t do this. They can’t do this. He’s had Xuanyu for almost six months now, he’s /bonded/ with the little termite. He’s watched the baby’s first steps, holding onto the couch as he tried to climb up to be with his sisters. He’s cut back on work hours.

Their father suggested he cut back on work all together. That comment had solidified it for Meng Yao in a way that nothing ever did before. Their father wanted him truly captive and reliant on his benevolence.

Zixuan, for his part, looks genuinely sorry. ‘I never came here to worry you. I don’t know what you /think/ I’m here for, but I promise I have only the best intentions, and I don’t want to take Xuanyu away.’

Meng Yao goes even more tense if possible, and his voice is shaking. ‘Don’t... don’t /want/. Do you /intend/?’

Zixuan makes a horrified little noise, shaking his head. ‘No no no, of course not. Not that either I promise.’

Meng Yao nearly sagged in place, tiredly turning the fussing child in his arms so he could gently bounce him, letting Xuanyu hold onto his thumb while Meng Yao forced himself to relax.

Zixuan sounded so desperately sad when he spoke again, and Yao could see tears in his eyes. ‘I’m... I’m so sorry he did this to you. I didn’t even know about the girls till they showed up.’

Meng Yao nodded a little, unsure what to say beyond a shrug. ‘If I had been less young, less naive, maybe I wouldn’t have so eagerly agreed just so he would have a reason to stay in my life. That doesn’t mean I won’t do whatever I have to to keep them.’

Zixuan nodded. ‘Of course, I would never want to do that. Listen, I didn’t know about the girls, or even if you wanted to keep Xuanyu, so I didn’t bring the paperwork with me, but I do know a way to get you out of all of... /this/.’

Meng Yao’s brows furrowed. ‘This?’

Xuanyu nodded slowly. ‘Father still pays for everything for you. Apartment, utilities, bills, all that goes through him. I, as his heir, have access to all those records. It’s supposed to be mother’s job, but she refuses to touch anything that has to do with fathers... illegitimate kids.’

Meng Yao doesn’t think he’s ever met someone who would talk so frankly about all this. It was oddly refreshing. Even NMJ and LXC didn’t want to admit their father had dug him a financial grave and was slowly burying him alive with the kids.

He frowned. ‘I can’t even move in with Mingjue or Xichen because he’s a raging homophobe who thinks I’ll corrupt the kids that he cares so little for he doesn’t even properly give us enough to survive off of.’

Zixuan looked honestly distressed at that. ‘Oh. Fuck that’s worse than I hoped for. I’m so sorry.’

Meng Yao sighed, moving to look out the window. He shrugged. ‘It’s not like I’m /forbidden/ from having a job. It’s just harder with three kids. Mingjue and Xichen have been helping out for years, he just doesn’t know it because he doesn’t realize that banks aren’t the only way to keep track of finances now days.’

Mingjue tolled his eyes, his thumb moving gently against Meng Yao’s neck. ‘It’s like the old man doesn’t even realize PayPal exists.’

Zixuan snorted. ‘He really doesn’t. That takes care of half of what I’m here for. Even if he was giving you enough that you didn’t have to worry about food or bills, I would still be here to give you the access info to an account I set up for you last week. When the papers are signed, the only thing anyone but you will be able to do is put in the money. No one but you can close the account or take anything out.’

Meng Yao looked at him in shock. ‘Why would you do that?’

Zixuan made a stressed out angry noise, nose wrinkling in the same way Yao’s did when he was mad. ‘Because, I’ve seen his finances. What he’s giving you barely counts as pocket change to his bloated rich ass. I could drop a five million on you right now to ask you to move away and never come back and he wouldn’t even /notice/ because that’s how little that amount would be to him. He wouldn’t even realize you four had left until he realized he couldn’t find any of you.’

Meng Yao considered it for a moment. ‘Why /dont/ you do that?’

Zixuan’s expression was pure distaste. ‘Because I don’t have any reason whatsoever to hate any of you. I feel terrible that you made the mistake of being fathers newest whipping dog, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pity you. You’re in a bad position, and I’m here to help you out of it. But I’m also not going to leave you without financial support. You may want to keep the kids, but these weren’t your mistakes to begin with, and father has been punishing you for years for it.’

Mingjue snorted, sitting back with his arms crossed. ‘You really don’t like your dad, do you kid?’

Zixuan shook his head. ‘Not particularly, no. Other than the bank account, I can convince father to give over full custody of the kids to you. No possible way to get any of them back.’

Meng Yao blinked at his half brother, sitting up straighter again, looking at him in shock. ‘How would you do that?’

Zixuan shrugs. ‘He’s not the only manipulative one in the family. I could get him to panic and drop custody entirely.’

And so that’s the story about how Meng Yao had a coffeeshop romance and also ended up with some kids out of it. Later on he and Mingjue and Xichen all move in together in a huge new house with all the kids and they’re. Happy.

#the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the untamed #mdzs #lan xichen #twin jades of lan #nie brothers #nie mingjue #jin zixuan #mo xuanyu #lol yeah one of the girls is su lol fuck ages #coffee date au #lol wwx and jc come over regularly to play now its really cute #theyre always arguing its adorable yanli loves her baby terrors #age change #lol fuck jgs hes terrible and abusive #meng yao

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butterflydm · 4 years

Text

The Untamed Rewatch (ep 9)

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NHS is really cute in this episode, you guys. It’s also a really good episode for the building of the partnership between Wangxian.

I like the tense vibe that we pick up with, having the shadow-bird fly across the moon and only very briefly showing the puppet-people. That's a good editing choice.

Nie Huaisang does come across as relatively sheltered in these scenes with LWJ and WWX. Even though they're all roughly the same age, he comes across as younger. Or more in need of protection, anyway, which is a vibe that he uses to his benefit much later. He's not a fighter. He never becomes one — even when he's at his most desperate, we don't really see him directly using violence against others, instead tricking other people to use violence on his behalf. I don't think it's a moral issue one way or the other; I don't think indirect violence is more morally wrong because it's sneaky or whatnot. It's just an interesting character note. I also think it's interesting that when NHS is panicked, he calls out both WWX and LWJ using the more intimate nickname form — he says Wei-xiong and Lan-xiong. He doesn't usually use that with LWJ, I think? But he does in this scene.

I like the little fire & ice vibe we get with the… are they called 'spells' in cultivation? LWJ pushes them back and it looks cold, then WWX pens them in and the form he makes looks more like fire. LWJ and WWX are all for charging out and poor NHS is just so panicked over the idea. Oh, honey.

So, this next bit is a really big thing that CQL changed from the novel! Wen Qing uses a flute to control the puppets and make them leave (or, wait, since she's blowing in the end, is it a xiao? But it's so much smaller than the one we saw LXC use, so maybe it's another woodwind of some kind? help, I don’t know musical instruments). As I understand it, in the novel, WWX literally invented all of this stuff, while in the drama, he doesn't invent it but does refine it beyond what it has been before. I'll probably have more feelings about that, one way or the other, once I've read the novel. When I was watching through the series the first time, all this felt like it flowed pretty naturally from the plotline that the drama had set up with the Yin Metal. It is one of the things, though, that makes CQL kind of an alternate universe version of MDZS rather than a straight (ha!) adaptation. None of the other practitioners of demonic cultivation in the drama, though, show the same kind of… ah, elemental mastery that we see WWX show. He becomes almost a force of nature in himself, feels almost like an avatar of death, when he's embracing the power. And we don't get that vibe with any of the other characters we see who try to master demonic cultivation. Other people may have dabbled with demonic cultivation in the past, was the vibe the drama gave me, but only WWX mastered it in the end.

The girl doing windmills with her hands while holding the basket kinda cracks me up. Maybe it's partly because her clothes are so bright?

Jiang Cheng comes in to add some levity to the atmosphere. He's actually quite sweet, almost but not quite confessing how worried he was about his brother. He does have a very hard time being emotionally vulnerable, though that's a trial for a lot of characters in the story, but Jiang Cheng covers it up with anger rather than a smile like WWX does. Different coping methods for different personalities. Jiang Cheng gets very indignant when WWX immediately moves to deflect any blame away from LWJ and onto WWX instead.

I really like the scene with WWX, LWJ, Jiang Cheng, NHS, and Wen Qing, because there are several different agendas and levels of knowledge at play, all butting up against each other. WWX and LWJ work very well as a team here, supporting each other's moves while they try to figure out the best plan of action. We know from the previous episode that WWX is already considering himself and LWJ as partners on this trip, and they really do get to act like it here. They're the only two people who are on the same page; everyone else has their individual agendas but WWX and LWJ are working together and with the same knowledge set.

I don't have too much to say about this next bit, but I do love it. I think it looks quite nice, they look very pretty in the fog, and I love seeing WWX and LWJ back to back and there's a bit of cute banter. And both WWX and LWJ get to contribute to the goal.

Oh, is that A-Yuan? The timeline is pretty short in the drama, then!

NHS continues to find WWX's brashness charming while poor Jiang Cheng is just so over it all. Even in the midst of the silliness of the three bros, WWX is thinking of his mission and partnership with LWJ, as he does pretty clearly take advantage of the chicken hunt to give LWJ and himself a chance to question Wen Qing.

Partners! Partnership is one of my favorite ship dynamics — Fraser/RayK (due South), Clois (Superman) — complicated, dynamic partnerships with affection and bantering is one of my great weaknesses in fictional relationships (and for a man who talks as little as LWJ does, he holds his own against WWX). And they have a moment of silent communication at the end of the scene, because they've come to know each other that well already.

The question of how much loyalty you owe to the people who adopted you gets brought up here with Wen Qing and Wen Rouhan, and of course the question always applies to Wei Wuxian in these cases as well. Like WWX, Wen Qing possesses great talents that mean Wen Rouhan give her more latitude than perhaps he would otherwise (in her case, she's an extremely talented doctor) and that the younger of the blood siblings shows jealousy of because of that latitude. Both Wen Qing and WWX act impulsively to do the right thing, even when it goes against the interests of their own adopted family.

They part ways with Wen Qing (and possibly NHS, though we don't see a goodbye scene with him. Maybe he's still chasing that chicken), with another of the layering of the bittersweet almost-romance between Wen Qing and Jiang Cheng.

And it's been a bit of travel, because WWX has changed clothes between scenes. LWJ and Jiang Cheng still look the same, but WWX was definitely in dark blue in the previous scene and now is definitely in black. There's some interesting non-verbal interplay here between LWJ and WWX that poor Jiang Cheng must helplessly watch — WWX drinks some wine, but immediately stops when LWJ walks away from him, grabs LWJ's shoulder ribbon, drops it when LWJ looks at him, then grabs his arm, and then drops that when LWJ looks at him again. Just major push-pull vibes.

Oh, there's Nie Huiasang! He's meeting up with Meng Yao here! We don't get any Meng Yao in this episode but I really do kinda miss him and his dimples.

I love WWX's technique here so much: "Hey, any weird deaths happen around here recently? We are such big fans of strange death!" I mean, it works, so more power to him, tbh.

The scene here with Lan Zhan feeling the effects of the Yin Metal (and, hey, they told Jiang Cheng about it! He's not surprised! So that's nice) and Wei Ying trying to calm him through it is a neat reversal of the dynamic we'll see more often in the future, with Lan Zhan trying to get through to Wei Ying. I like that; parallels and reversals are fun.

The scene of the three of them walking into the Chang home is very eerie and has a good, strong tragic vibe. So, we're getting Xue Yang in this next bit, and Xue Yang dresses in black. It makes me wonder if that's part of the reason they had WWX change clothes — in the previous episode, they wanted us to associate him with the Jiangs, and Jiang Fengmian in particular, but now they want us to be thinking of Xue Yang, maybe?

Hmm.

Next episode: Xue Yang! Xiao Xingchen! Song Lan!

Previous Episode | Index | Next Episode

#mdzs meta #cql rewatch #wangxian #the untamed #the untamed | chen qing ling #mdzs #mo dao zu shi

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razberryyum · 5 years

Video

The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 9, Part 1 of 2

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed)

[covers MDZS chapters 28 and 29…kinda…well, the Yue Yang Chang sect murders was introduced in those chapters, but it is different from how the show presented it]

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰 +🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰+🐰+🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰

(so I decided to come up with a more organized way of scoring on the WangXian meter cuz I was starting to confuse myself: for every scene they’re in together or if they’re even thinking about each other, one 🐰 is automatically given; one scene can earn up to 5 🐰, depending on the intensity of their interaction or thoughts of each other. And I’m gonna separate each individual scene with “+”. I didn’t mean for the grading to be an exact science but I think making it less arbitrary is definitely better…at least for my poor dumb brain)

I have a couple of favorite WangXian scenes from this episode, the one above is the first of them. When Wei Ying defends Lan Zhan from Jiang Cheng, I love how the camera then lingers deliberately on Lan Zhan’s reaction for just a second more; I swear if Lan Zhan was the blushing type, that would’ve been the moment for him to turn red like a tomato. That reassuring smile Wei Ying flashes at him could probably melt all the glaciers in the world and drown our planet, how can any mere human being resist that? That small beam of absolute sunshine had to have made Lan Zhan’s knees go just a little weak and his stomach do a tiny flip flop. It’s moments like this that make me marvel all over again at how perfectly cast Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo are in their roles: XZ with his dazzling megawatt smile and WYB with his beautifully nuanced stoicism are truly Wei Ying and Lan Zhan come to life. Even though I was already attached to their performances by this point, I wasn’t truly able to appreciate just how great and perfect they were as the embodiment of their characters until after I read the novel, and now I’m just in awe all the time as I watch them on screen.

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s little yin metals expedition is really the gift that keeps on giving: despite having to deal with a few (lovable) third wheelers hanging around them, they were still able to further strengthen their bond. I think this is clearly as evident by simple little moments like how often they looked at each other for affirmation. What’s amazing about that is Lan Zhan basically went from refusing to spare Wei Ying a glance even when he was outright clamoring for attention to constantly training his eyes on Wei Ying at every turn. I really can’t get over how effectively Team CQL was able to show the progression in their relationship and Lan Zhan’s feelings towards Wei Ying by just showing these minor differences in the way they interact from before. Watching the change in Lan Zhan is of course the most fascinating aspect of this early part of their relationship because you can track how he’s clearly being overcome by the force of nature that is Wei Ying. I especially enjoy seeing the way he gets perturbed and maybe even jealous by the intimate way Wei Ying interacts with others. Take this moment when Wei Ying is offering protection to Nie Huaisang:

The way Lan Zhan’s eyes focused on the way Wei Ying was holding onto NHS’ arm and that resulting sour look on his face really says it all. And then, shortly after when they left the cave, as Wei Ying was trying to assure NHS, Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing that they were protected in the magical net he created, I actually guffawed when Lan Zhan could be seen just walking off behind him, as if he’d had enough since he just finished watching Wei Ying being rather familiar with Wen Qing.

And then when they were in the forest trying to hunt down Wen Chao’s owl, it’s almost as if Lan Zhan’s disgruntled mood stayed with him since even though they were in close proximity, when Wei Ying started calling out his name, he refused to answer. First time I watched that scene I remember thinking, wtf’s wrong with Lan Zhan, why won’t he just respond to the poor guy who’s obviously worried he lost him in the fog? But now I feel it was a deliberate choice to indicate that Lan Zhan was annoyed at him.

Because Lan Zhan is not the type of person to be open and friendly with everyone, I really do feel now that it probably did bother him a lot that Wei Ying was a complete opposite to him in that sense, and as he watched Wei Ying carelessly be equally and almost selflessly kind to everyone around him, his frustration with that aspect of his personality gradually built up over time, culminating in what he later says to Wei Ying about Mian Mian while they’re in the Xuanwu cave. I can easily imagine Lan Zhan thinking, if he’s like this to everyone, does that make the way he treats me meaningless? It’s a really sobering thought especially from Lan Zhan’s point of view, but it also justifies why he still ran cold from time to time when dealing with Wei Ying because he was probably holding himself in check, constantly reminding himself that he’s just the same as anyone else in Wei Ying’s life, so he shouldn’t get his hopes up. Thinking about how much inner turmoil Lan Zhan put himself through even before Wei Ying’s death as he tried to grapple with his budding feelings for Wei Ying always makes me feel a little weepy because of how much my heart aches for him. It really makes me so grateful that at least he had Big Brother Xichen to talk to, which also makes me love big bro more for being so understanding and encouraging. The alternative would have just been too unbearably sad.

Ugh, and now I just made myself sad for no good reason. Seriously, on a daily basis, I actually get into a near weepy state for WangXian at least once when I think of all the suffering they had to go through before they finally got their happy ending. If MXTX-laozi’s other novels are going to do the same thing to me as MDZS/Untamed has, I probably need to start saving money to seek professional therapy once I’m done reading Heaven Official’s Blessing and Scum Villain (and I’m desperately trying to carve out time to read them soon).

Anyway, back to this episode: I have a soft spot for seeing my OTP standing back to back in a scene since I think it’s a very effective and sweet way to convey their support and solidarity with each other, nothing says “we are in this together” than two people having each others’ backs, so seeing their stance in the forest really warmed my heart.

I also loved that they eventually teamed up to fight against Wen Chao’s forces. It would not be the first time they fight together, but it is one of the few times that Wei Ying gets to do so with his sword. I think the next instance of that happening is the Xuanwu cave before it’s all over and he is only able to use his flute, so I really treasure moments like this now, especially since they have such pretty moves.

Every time Lan Zahn and Wei Ying fight with their swords it looks like they’re dancing. I love how Team CQL always makes sure to choreograph in ballet twirls into their fight sequences, even when it’s not quite necessary, such as this moment back in the cave when the two of them twirled away to get away from the ghost puppets:

A BIT on the dramatic side, but hey, I’m not gonna complain when Lan Zhan and Wei Ying looks so damn good doing their twirls.

WeiQing Watch 2019

I said I was going to keep track of the WeiQing love story that Team CQL was going for way back before MDZS fans thankfully put a kibosh on their plans: here’s one such moment that I think can serve as evidence that they might have been cooking something up between Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing. It’s not just that Wei Ying was holding on to Wen Qing’s wrist for a longer time than necessary—Wei Ying’s a touchy-feely guy, he grabs on to everyone anyway—it’s Wen Qing’s reaction to what he did that gave me pause: she in turn holds on to her wrist in the exact spot where his hand was for a longer time than necessary. I’ve watched enough Chinese dramas to know that that is usually an indication that feelings are being stirred up from physical contact. Wei Ying’s awkwardness at realizing what he was doing was interesting too, it’s as if he suddenly remembered Wen Qing’s a girl. Since I do believe that Team CQL did end up keeping the aspect of Wen Qing’s characterization where she is in love with Wei Ying—there’s no other logical explanation for some of Wen Qing’s reactions to Wei Ying otherwise—I think this moment might have served as the catalyst for the feelings she develops for him. It was already obvious that she was concerned for Wei Ying before this: she not only tipped off Jiang Cheng to his whereabouts but then she also joined in on the rescue herself, despite knowing what consequences she may face. I know her explanation for her generosity was because Wei Ying saved Wen Ning’s life and this was her way of paying back that favor, but it’s really a hollow excuse considering the larger predicament she was essentially putting herself, Wen Ning AND her clan in: she had to know she was endangering all her loved ones’ lives by helping Wei Ying. I know she saved Lan Zhan and Nie Huaisang as well but based on her later actions, I think at the end of the day, her concern really was more for Wei Ying. Much like Lan Zhan, Wen Qing was already starting to fall for Wei Ying, and really, who can blame her?

To be Continued in Part 2...(posted)

#The Untamed #陈情令 #spoilers #WangXian #Untamed Rewatch #Mo Dao Zu Shi #CQL #MDZS #魔道祖师 #Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #Founder of Diabolism #WeiQing #Wei Ying Wei Wuxian #Lan Zhan Lan Wangji #Wen Qing #Nie Huaisang #Lan Xichen

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winterysomnium · 5 years

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Hello! How do you do? All right then! Since it's okay, for the fictional kiss prompt, wangxian (11). I am, as always, weak for Lan Zhan kissing the life out of Wei Ying. It can be modern or canon setting. Teen (what's canon tragedy? Is that burnt food? We don't eat it *cough*) or adult wangxian. Surprise me! (///∇///✿) your replies to the asks has already had my soul ascending, I am so happy beyond words each time, bless you *wipes tears* and Thank you in advance (〃‿〃✿)

Thank you so much for the prompt!! I had so much fun writing it!! ♥ Also I love the asks I love talking about WangXian they are so so good

hope you’ll enjoy the fic!

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Wangxian, modern AU, 11. when one stops the kiss to whisper “I’m sorry, are you sure you-” and they answer by kissing them more

Here’sthe thing: Wei Ying knows something is about to give between them.

Something’s about to snap, something that’ll eitherpull them in or apart and the way Lan Zhan doesn’t avoid him but doesn’t letWei Ying approach him either – which he’s not really trying to do that desperately, if he’s being fair –solidifies Wei Ying’s insides into a block of bitter, wet concrete, dragginghis feet even heavier.

Wei WuXian so so sojust wanted to find a way to get out of the banquet the Lan family is throwingthis year, willing to miss the fun and the amazing wine and the way Lan Zhan wouldget adorably sleepy after nine but would still let Wei Ying drag him around theestate gardens nonetheless all the years before; willing to pretend he was sickor just forgot about the business party completely, you know how bad his memory is, Jiang Cheng, haha – but JiangCheng was having none of it, practically dragging him into their car andsitting him down in their assigned seats, his grip as firm as his glare and thelecture he’s been giving Wei Ying since morning.

As the head designer of the Yunmeng company attendingwas the polite, proper thing for Wei WuXian to do. But as someone who has sleptwith the CEO’s younger brother just two days prior, it was incredibly difficultto just not hide underneath the table or drink himself under it, the firstglass of Emperor’s Smile already a stain on his lips.

It would’ve been fine, had it been anyone but LanZhan.

It would’ve been fine, if Lan Zhan hadn’t been tipsyand pliant, if he hadn’t met Wei Ying with a look so heartbroken afterwards, with something sad and small firmlyclutched inside the confines of his silence, his stare.

It would’ve been fine if Lan Zhan’s mouth wasn’t adisappointed curve and Wei Ying’s world hadn’t spun upside down, his lungsfilling up with regret for oxygen, spilling all over his teeth, sinking intohis blood, saturated, corroding its core.

“Are you still drunk, Lan Zhan?” he’d asked and LanWangJi shook his head breathlessly, tensing when Wei Ying moved and quicklyturning away when Wei WuXian tried to hurriedly put his clothes back on, pickingup all the pieces they’ve scattered around the floor, all the borders they’vecrossed laid out and crumpled and it felt like rewinding time, like they’d beenwoven back into yesterday but still had changed, still had touched, still –

a mess.

Wei WuXian had paused, fingers on the clasp of hisbelt; somehow they’re miles apart, him and Lan Zhan.

They’re – this is – messy. Messed up, Wei WuXian’s heart hitched in his chest.

This was never going to be anything but a mess between them, he’d realized.

(It wasn’t ever meant to be.)

“We shouldn’t let this happen again, Lan Zhan,” he’dsaid.

He shouldn’t let it happen again, motwhen Lan Zhan’s too good for someone like Wei Ying, Lan Zhan who never wouldhave touched him were he not drunk, Lan Zhan whose shoulders had never lookedso defeated –

so Wei Ying ran, and kept running, hasn’t answered anyof Lan Zhan’s messages, hasn’t sent him any back and now he’s left breathlessand tired and if he thinks too much, thinks too long, his eyes sting, the worldblurs and blurs and blurs and now here he is, longingly watching the distantspace of Lan Zhan’s back and afraid to say more than hello, too ashamed to meethis eyes.

Surprisingly, it’s Jin Guang Yao of all people whopulls him aside two hours into the awkward dinner and the stilted, too politeconversations, Lan XiChen in tow – ohGod, does he know? he definitely knows, Wei Ying’s so dead – and the bad, bad feeling in hischest burns deeper, scorches his mouth.

“You truly don’t remember, do you?” Lan Xichen askshim, quietly.

“What do you mean?” Wei Ying asks in return and he’stold about the party three years ago he can’t recall too well – read: at all– because he’d been – well. He’d been fighting to save Wen Ning’s company, simultaneouslyworking on a huge project for the four partnered companies and at the end of itall, he’d been accused of leaking legal documents and campaign ideas to the ‘rivaling’Wen company, drinking down all the bitter words with wine and a cocktail toomany, forgetting about the headache pills he’d taken a few hours back.

He’d been so worn out at the point, so angry, he justwanted to quit, just wanted to stop, to stop being blamed for every employeethat had to have been let go because the campaign hadn’t worked out as hoped,accused of not giving enough, not caringenough – he can’t remember anything from that night after, besides waking upat home the next day.

But apparently, apparently–

he bursts into the dinner hall, the crowded roomsuddenly so much to bear, too much space to search, too many seconds lostbecause he can’t see Lan Zhan anywhere, can’t find him, needs to find him, right this moment, right now.

Because – because:Lan Zhan had confessed to him, that night.

Lan Zhan had confessed to him and Wei Ying doesn’tremember a single word.

He frantically scans through the scenery of shouldersand jewelry and chattering mouths and there’s a hint of him on the balcony:just the briefest of moments where Wei Ying catches a mirage of Lan WangJi’ssuit’s sleeve, his heartbeat too loud in his ears, louder than his thoughts,the words they try to form.

He runs across the room, rushes through thehalfhearted ‘sorry’s and ‘excuse me’s and then the night sky opensabove the crown of his head and Lan Zhan’s there, looking into the depths ofthe garden, not paying attention to any of the guests sharing the stars and thechampagne with him and Wei Ying’s heart burns in his throat, presses againsthis voice until he has to form syllables or he’s going to explode, the beatfast fast fast; he doesn’t pay attention to anyone else, either, anymore.

“Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan, I didn’t mean to ignore you afterwe’ve slept together!” he shouts, so focused on Lan Zhan he doesn’t care whohears, who sees, who watches – whatmatters is Lan Zhan’s bewildered attention on him, finally, finally: they’re looking at each otherat the same time.

There’s so much Wei Ying needs to say but it allscatters when Lan WangJi turns around and Wei Ying’s drawn into him like he’sbeing lead on strings, like someone’s pushing his back.

“I didn’t want it to be just once either! I wanted totalk to you! I wanted to stay! I wanted – I wanted you!” he continues desperately, a step away, hesitant to touch: ifhe touches Lan Zhan’s hand, he’s going to want more, he’s going to want all ofhim, he’s going to –

he’s going to fall in love, all over again.

“Lan Zhan, I – I didn’t know – Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan,I’ve never regretted that it was you! I wantedit to be you. I want it to be you. Noone else but you. Who else but you?” He looks up and smiles, smiles up up up athim and then Lan Zhan exhales, softly, a trembling not concealed within thesound; he reaches over to caress Wei WuXian’s cheek.

(It snaps.)

The something shudders, bursts and it’s Wei Ying’s apprehension and caution and he laughs, laughsas he crashes into Lan Zhan, into his arms and laughs, laughs when Lan Zhanholds him closer, tighter, his whole being still unsure, shaky, in disbelief.

“… Wanted you. Want you. Who else but you,” Lan WangJirepeats, slowly, like he’s relearning the language and Wei Ying reaches up tocup his cheeks, cradle his face between his palms.

(Lan Zhan is crying and Wei WuXian can taste it on hisfingertips first.)

He kisses him, not knowing what else to do, how elseto cope, how else to comfort him and Lan Zhan makes a sound, a cut off hitch,something stolen by Wei Ying’s lips and Wei Ying pulls back, wonders if he’smessed up again, if maybe it wasn’t –

“Lan Zhan – Lan Zhan I’m sorry, was I not supposed to–” he starts then startles when Lan Zhan kisses him, holding Wei Ying so securely, so tenderly, so tightly it engulfs his whole being, thewhole of Wei Ying’s core.

He’s being kissed and kissed and kissed and he kisseshim, too, kisses until the heat of their lips transfers to his insides, untilhe’s a second away from moaning out Lan Zhan’s name, until –

until there’s loud footsteps and a yelp, an abruptstandstill at the entrance of the balcony.

“Wei WuXian! Where did you – oh my god!” Jiang Chengnearly crashes into the half closed glass door, stunned, voice strangled andface red; he pivots on his feet and turns away, just as quick, rushing backinto the thick of the crowd.

Lan Zhan has the dignity to look a little embarrassed,then a little annoyed at being interrupted, as if kissing Wei WuXianunapologetically and publicly is his right rather than an offense and he lickshis lips impatiently, his eyes on Wei Ying’s own mouth again, his lip grazingWei Ying’s and Wei Ying –

Wei Ying just starts laughing, again.

Starts laughing into the press of a kiss and laughsuntil Lan Zhan lifts him onto the railing and settles himself between histhighs, pressing himself against Wei Ying, presses a kiss after a kiss afterkiss, Wei Ying laughs until there’s no air left to spare.

He was wrong.

He was so so wrong about this.

(They weren’t meant to fall apart, at all.)

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(feel free to leave me prompts here )

#wangxian #wei-yue22 #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #lan wangji #the untamed #my writing #anything else to tag?#thank you so much for the prompt!

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