#wei wuxian is struggling with the world and lan zhan is struggling with HIS world

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

Wei Wuxian has been staring at his husband for the better half of the evening, eyes fixated on the thin slit of cleavage he's allowed himself to show so as to deal with the heatwave in Gusu.

Lan Wangji has been, in turn, sporting red ears all throughout, though he "accidentally" opened the lapels of his robes ever so slightly upon noticing Wei Wuxian's eyes cast downwards.

If Wei Ying likes it, what can Lan Zhan do but indulge him?

Not to mention, it is quite funny to see Wei Wuxian struggle to talk, or to pick up food with his utensils as his eyes glue to Lan Wangji's chest.

Now, after dinner (in which Wei Wuxian only marginally managed to focus on eating), Lan Wangji relaxes with tea and a lapful of husband, who's still very much staring at Lan Wangji's cleavage like it's the most fascinating thing in the world.

"Wei Ying..."

"Hm? Yeah?"

"...look at me."

"I am."

"Up at me."

Wei Ying struggles with it, as if regretful to let go of the sight, but finally meets his husband's eyes. "Yeah?"

"It is not polite to stare."

"As if you don't stare at my ass all the time!" A playful glare, followed by a smile that's suspiciously bright. "And anyway, I'm trying to assess something."

"Assess?"

"I can't decide if your tits are bigger than mine used to be."

Lan Wangji blinks down at his husband, at first incredulously, then, pondering.

"I doubt that." He responds, the answer incredibly self assured.

"What, you've stared at me so much you can tell?"

"Yes."

"Lan Zhan!"

Wei Wuxian's cheeks dust red, and he takes embarrassment as an excuse to hide in Lan Wangji's chest.

"Are you comfortable there?"

"Very." And Wei Wuxian squeezes at the flesh for emphasis. "I could die here."

Lan Wangji huffs a laugh. "I would prefer it if you didn't."

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #writing attempts

[gentil-minou]

Thinking about how having a golden core means all your senses are at 150% so when Wei Wuxian gives his away he discovers his vision is really bad and everything beyond a meter from him is just a blurry mess.

And he barely has time to adjust, squinting trying to find the inn he was supposed to meet Jiang Cheng at and finding his proprioception is somehow awful now too and he keeps bumping into things and then he runs into Wen Chao completely by accident

And he's thrown into the burial mounds where it's dark and the resentment sits like fog, so even perfect vision wouldn't have helped him. Along with creating demonic cultivation, he also learns how to get around without perfect vision enough so that when he does come back it's impossible for anyone to tell his vision is so bad now

He struggles to get used to not being able to see everything they way he's used to. He can't help but miss looking at every star in the nightsky and watching birds and animals roaming and just sitting at Lotus Pier counting boats and watching the lotus flowers bloom like he used to.

He's still good at shooting arrows at a stationary target but he'll never be able to catch a moving target again. No more shooting kites with the younger disciples ever again.

Thankfully his cultivation gives him almost a sixth sense so he's fine on the battlefield, but it's off it during all the strategy meetings and later on the banquets where everyone blurs the same that really makes it hard. He used to be able to make friends with everyone and now he can barely tell them apart from far away.

He grows to appreciate the Lan white mourning robes because even if he can't make out anyone's face he can still see Lan Zhan, even if he can't find a good reason to stand close to him and he misses all the little facial expression he makes.

When he's resurrected Mo Xuanyu’s core is strong enough for his eyesight to be good again and Wei Wuxian takes in the world the way he never thought he'd be able to again.

He learns to keep an eye out for people who are squinting and look lost, and he makes sure to help them whenever he can.

Sometimes he finds himself staring into the distance, just to marvel that he can.

#i love thinking about how before glasses people just had to live their lives like this and idk i have a lot of thoughts about wwx losing #something hed taken for granted and using that knowlesdge to make life a little better for people later. #anyways this is inspired by me when i had my lasek surgery a couple years back and how every now and then i remember how nad my eyesight wa #and just about wwx because im always thinking about wwx thanks #mdzs #wei wuxian #wei ying #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #mdzs fanfiction #bushy writing

[wangxianficrecs]

From the beyond by apathyinreverie

From the beyond

by apathyinreverie (@apathyinreverie)

T, WIP, Series, 11k, Wangxian

Summary: Lan Zhan does not forgive his sect for their part in Wei Ying's end. Kay's comments: I adore this series and the canon divergence it starts. Highly cultivation sect critical, as much as the cultivation world deserves it for their treatment of the Wen remnants and Wei Wuxian. In this series, Lan Wangji leaves the Lan Sect after he finds A-Yuan, unable to live with the hypocricy the Lan Sect lives. Soon afterwards, Wei Wuxian's spirit appears starts lingering around them. Very soft and hopefuly story, for Songxiao enjoyers as well. Excerpt: It is the whispering that catches his attention, a childhood spent where gossiping was forbidden, still having him struggle sometimes with refraining from enacting the rules he lives by on others. “By the heavens, look at him,” one woman is sighing dreamily. “I did not believe such beauty existed beyond storybooks. Cultivators truly are a different breed, aren’t they?” There are some grumbles in male voices, though no one speaks up to contradict her. Lan Zhan is glad that his chosen hairstyle today is covering his ears. “His husband died recently, the poor dear,” another woman interjects, voice lowered almost reprimandingly at the others for their words. Lan Zhan approves. Even if he is somewhat confused at the words. Because… Husband? “Yes, so young, too. And so beautiful as well,” another confirms. “Such a shame. Left him with their wee son to raise all on his own.” “But he still remained even after his death!” another agrees, voice pitched perfectly to ensure that everyone in the vicinity is straining to listen in, two of the traveling merchants rather intent on the local gossip. “Unwilling to leave his devoted spouse and child!” “It is so very romantic,” yet someone else sighs. “I heard,” some bystander, a man this time, decides to interject, voice lowered in that same tone. “That those cultivation people took offense at his husband’s spirit lingering and tried to banish him away from his family.”

pov lan wangji, canon divergence, rogue cultivator lan wangji, thirteen years of wei wuxian's death, cultivation sect politics, ghost wei wuxian, soft lan wangji/wei wuxian, pre-relationship, developing relationship, hurt/comfort, grief/mourning, song lan/xiao xingchen, songxiao, xiao xingchen lives, song lan lives

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

#WIP #WIP Rec Week #Work in Progress #Wangxian Fic Rec #The Untamed #Wangxian #MDZS #Kay's Rec #February 2024 #from the beyond #apathyinreverie #teen #short fic <15k #pov lan wangji #canon divergence #rogue cultivator lan wangji #thirteen years of wei wuxian's death #cultivation sect politics #ghost wei wuxian #soft lan wangji/wei wuxian #pre-relationship #developing relationship #hurt/comfort #grief/mourning #song lan/xiao xingchen #songxiao #xiao xingchen lives #song lan lives

[rayan12sworld]

💙Breathing Firestorm

By:ladyshadowdrake

Summary:

After years of a mad quest, Wen Ruohan is finally given proof of a powerful creature living among mortals. He is delighted to find that it truly believes itself to be only a boy named “Wei Wuxian.”

While Wen Ruohan tries to unlock Wei Wuxian’s secret, the sects unite against him. If he can achieve his goal before they arrive, even the combined might of the cultivation world would not be enough to humble him.

Meanwhile, Lan Wangji dreams of Wei Wuxian in the Cold Pond Cave, and works tirelessly to rescue him from Wen Ruohan’s clutches.

No one is prepared for what awaits the allied sects in Nightless City at the conclusion of the war, and it very well might mean the end of the world as they know it.

Chapter:21/21

Words:110,773

Status:completed

(Phoenix wei wuxian)

Sect Leader! Your—Senior brother—Hanguang-jun!” he sputtered. “Take a breath,” Lan Xichen interrupted, reaching out to steady the boy and taking an exaggerated breath himself to demonstrate. Worry gnawed at the back of his throat while the disciple swallowed hard and obediently took in a deep breath. “Try again.” “Lan Wangji has entered the Phoenix-Subdue Cave!” the boy blurted out. Without meaning to, Lan Xichen clamped his hand down on the junior’s arm. The boy winced, but he didn’t try to pull away. Lan Xichen hastily released him, took one step back and drew Shuoyue even as he took the first leap into the air.

~~~

“Wangji. You are well?” Lan Xichen asked, his gaze pulling again to the phoenix where he leaned against the back wall with his arms crossed over his chest. Lan Xichen had seen Wei Wuxian in a similar pose many times, and though the phoenix occupied the same body, even just this glance was enough to separate the phoenix and Wei Wuxian totally. Everything about his posture communicated danger, violence just barely contained. Lan Wangji nodded. “Mn.” “Please come outside the wards,” Lan Xichen said. He itched to reach through the wards and drag Lan Wangji out as though he were still four years old and Lan Xichen could pick him up at will. Lan Wangji shook his head. “I will not.” “Wangji,” Lan Xichen pleaded softly. Lan Wangji shook his head again. He looked so much like their father in that moment that Lan Xichen could have sobbed. He remembered a much younger Lan Wangji, barely five and standing at his full height, face serious and voice calm, announcing that he was no longer a child and would not be carried again. There had been no discussion, no room for negotiation or suggestion or reasoning. Lan Xichen wondered if he had known at twelve that he would rarely be allowed to touch his brother after that point, if he would have argued. If he had known this would happen—Lan Wangji just barely seventeen, tall and always serious, putting himself once more firmly outside of Lan Xichen’s reach—would he have tried harder? “Explain your reasoning,” Lan Xichen, who was Lan Wangji’s brother, but also his mentor and teacher and sect leader, said. “It is dangerous for the phoenix to be isolated,” Lan Wangji said. “It is unnecessary for Wei Ying to be isolated. I will remain.”

~~~

“The breath in his lungs is the only thing in all the universe that protects you from me,” the phoenix-Wei Wuxian said. He stepped casually away from Lan Wangji’s prone body and gestured with one hand. His smile was a bright, wicked thing on his face. “Please, do continue.” For a very long time, no one moved or spoke. Finally, Wei Wuxian snorted out a derisive laugh and knelt at Lan Wangji’s side. Lan Xichen was close enough to see the quick sparks flickering and dying in his eyes as he examined the ruin that had been made of Lan Wangji’s skin. The air surrounding him heated again. “You know, Lan Zhan, I could kill every person in this courtyard without breaking our bargain,” he murmured. Lan Wangji forced his eyes open. It was obviously a struggle to focus on Wei Wuxian, and his voice was a broken whisper when he said, “Do not.”

#wangxian #wangxian recommendations #mdzs #mxtx mdzs #wangxian fanfic #ao3 recs #the untamed #mdzs fanfic rec #wen ruohan #wen qionglin #wen qing #lwj x wwx #mdzs lwj #lwj #mdzs wwx #wwx #wangxian fic rec #Breathing Firestorm

[loosingmoreletters]

would you happen to have any recs for gender fuckery fic featuring lwj rather than wwx?

Not as much because I tend to prefer to toss the genderqueer experience at WWX, but I do have some lovely queer LWJ fic recs, be that as a trans, gender swap or just something undefinable.

you can always find me here by ScarlettStorm

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how they got here sometimes.

Okay, like, yes, she knows how they got here (this village, this town, this forest, this city), and she knows how they got here (riding on a horrible donkey she’s decided she can’t bear to part with, Lan Zhan walking beside her leading said donkey by the reins, because of course Wei Wuxian’s donkey likes Lan Zhan more than her. She can’t blame Lil’ Apple! She also likes Lan Zhan more than she likes herself!), but it’s how she got here in the larger metaphysical sense that she doesn’t understand. There were thirteen years where she wasn’t here, after all, and very many places in the past year where she could have ended up not here again, but somehow she’s here, and—miracle of miracles—so is Lan Zhan.

Really, it’s the Lan Zhan part that she still struggles to understand.

Or: The inevitable post-canon get together... But make it extra queer lesbians.

brittle bones by lithali

Wei Wuxian dies in Xuanwu's Cave.

That changes things.

mirror, mirror by hauntedotamatone

Some people take him at his word, believing that they must have heard wrong about the child Jiang Fengmian had taken in all those years ago. They haven’t exactly heard wrong, but he isn’t lying either.

The first time Jiang-shushu had introduced him as the son of Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren, he had thought his face would split from the force of his smile. No one had argued with the sect leader, but Wei Wuxian is not a sect leader, and those of Gusu Lan do not seem to take kindly to any sort of correction. At least, if their esteemed teacher and acting sect leader is anything to go by.

or; Wei Wuxian attempts to sneak into the Cloud Recesses for a very different reason.

The Naming of Small Things by BromeliadDreams

Lan Wangji has known all his life that he is destined for some book-lined office, for publication credits and funding awards, the grown-up versions of school prizes for academic achievement. The prospect has, for the most part, been comforting. But as the academic year wears on, he finds his work increasingly taking a backseat to Wen Qing's plans to unseat, or at least unsettle, their Head of Faculty, and Lan Wangji begins to look beyond the library walls. (Any influence from local chaos gremlin Wei Wuxian will not be acknowledged at this time, thank you very much.)

Or: maybe the real academic networking was all the groupchats we were added to along the way.

A Promise Lives Within You Now by ElvenQueens

When Lan Wangji left the cave of the Xuanwu of slaughter and returned to her sect, she knew that the world as she knew it had come to a breaking point, she just didn't know the changes it would entail. When she left the Xuanwu cave, she and Wei Ying were still girls, but in the face of war and the devastation and destruction it wrought, they had been forced to grow up faster than they should and take on roles earlier than they had planned. If there is one thing these lessons have taught her, it is that sometimes one needs to stop and offer a helping hand.

conspecific sisters we by wildwestwind

Lan Wangji grows up trans in a society which has no words for her experiences.

a heroine that is called devil by SpeedingCheetah

The Yiling Patriarch was a woman, and she bared her teeth to every man to come and beg for her help in the midst of a campaign deigned to fail. Coming to the war with skin exposed and her neck open for any blade to cut, the matriarch asked for one thing for her payment of the war: the blood of an heir written across her chest as a promise.

(or: two cultivators come to face one another under a blood red moon, in the middle of the war of their lifetimes.)

The Amber Hairpin by may10baby

Lan Zhan took a moment to unwrap the delicate paper patterned with clouds. Inside was a silver hairpin, an amber stone nestled in the end, limbs of silver delicately wrapped around it, etched in a floral design. It was beautiful and very expensive for a servant’s son. She looked up at Wei Ying in question, who blushed.

“When I wrote to my parents about jiejie, I mentioned how pretty jiejie’s eyes were, so my parents sent back the amber? Apparently, they were offered it as a gift for helping with a night hunt years ago and the uncle and auntie in the night market offered to make it into a hairpin if I spent the past few weeks helping out at the store and-”

Lan Zhan calmly slipped the hairpin into her hair, before grabbing Wei Ying by the arm and yanking him inside the Jingshi.

fateful shipwreck, suspended time by dottie_dramas (dottie_wan_kenobi)

Once, when Lan Wangji is thirteen years old, he finds himself in his brother’s office.

It’s not a particularly comfortable place for Lan Wangji, but it’s better than most. On this day, it provides what Lan Wangji needs—privacy. Structure. And most importantly, his brother.

“Wangji, you don’t have to ask for a formal meeting just to see me,” Xiongzhang says, both amused and curious as Lan Wangji kneels down in front of him. Holding his brush steady, Lan Xichen smiles kindly. “I am at my didi’s disposal whenever he should have need of me.”

---

3 moments in Lan Wangji's queer journey; coming out, falling in love, and accepting a part of himself

This is for my mother, and this is for me by LuxRoyalty (luxroyalty)

Rules are important, and you should listen to them, but somethings are more important still,” Madam Lan easily said, like it wasn’t blasphemy against the Wall of Discipline that her uncle had been careful to teach her. “I want you to be safe, A-Zhan, above everything else. Do you understand?”

She thought about it, forehead creasing, and eventually shook her head. “No.” she told her, and her mother didn’t scold her like some of her teachers did.

“That’s alright,” her mother softly said, “you can learn. Just you, A-Huan won’t need to understand this, and you can’t tell him, or anyone else.”

“Or I won’t be safe?” she asked, trying to figure out the path of logic.

Madam Lan smiled gently, “close. Sometimes, last measures need to be secret to work the best.”

Lan Zhan is born female. This changes things, but more things stay the same.

flowers from ash by hauntedotamatone

There is the matter of a certain individual.” “That Wei Ying from YunmengJiang.”

A protracted Sunshot campaign spanning six years ends in a victory hardly worth the cost. With the former Five Great Sects whittled down to three, two of which have been devastated, the Jin Sect seeks to hang itself up in the place of the sun.

The first step in their climb to power is to get the woman who killed Wen Ruohan from within his own palace well out of the way. Lan Zhan is not someone who schemes, but she cannot allow Wei Ying to meet such a fate.

That she has loved her since they were fifteen is secondary.

#fanfic recs #mdzs #wangxian #lan wangji #reminds me that i need to post the wwx resurrected but make it gender fic rec list #ask #anon

[admirableadmiranda]

if wei ying had been offered a chance to stay at the cloud recesses, do you think he would have?

liiiike if he'd been with lan zhan as teens, would he have been able to leave the jiang sect or do people think he felt obliged to stay as he felt he owed them?

So I think he might have struggled with the decision for a bit, but he'd always choose to leave in the end for one very important reason and that is because he will follow in his father's footsteps and choose love over duty once he has that.

Wei Wuxian takes his responsibilities in life very seriously, to be sure, and he might if the world requires it, wait for a while. But what he wants is to be with the people he loves most in the world, and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop him choosing that path in the end.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #asks #anon #anon asks #he would always choose to go #it might not be the fastest or most immediate decision #but there is no place in the world he would ever want to be more than at lan wangji's side

[yinyangbuns]

The Love of a Ghost

Ao3 Link Here

It is a strange thing, to have died once. It is a stranger one, to have come back.

Sometimes, Wei Wuxian forgets that he’s not dead. 

Some days he wakes up and can’t draw in his first breath of the day through the surprise that he is awake at all.

It’s not like he remembers the years that he was dead. He doesn’t. Not enough to describe anything of real substance. He remembers drifting, maybe. For the most part he was simply aware of this strange, yawning abyss of… nothingness. A lonely road on a moonless night, eyes struggling to decipher shapes from the suffocating darkness. A pitch black room, the door locked, ears straining to hear the voices of his loved ones. The chilling awareness of having been somewhere so crushingly, claustrophobically full of emptiness, somewhere other.

But he does not remember being dead, not truly.

It’s just that he does remember dying. He wakes up and the memory of such heavy despair, of such sheer helplessness -  it haunts him. Of seeing his own brother leading a charge into his home, leading a charge against the family that had taken him in as one of their own, who had smiled fondly at him and placed food on his plate and scolded him when he passed it on to A-Yuan again, who had shaken their heads and said you matter too. Of the decision to destroy the amulet, to die alongside that family, to kill himself before he could be killed or captured or worse. Of the agony as the corpses fell upon him, the screams he locked tight in his throat, the icy talons of the resentful energy ravaging his body as it rushed through his ragged spiritual veins. The relief as the world faded away, of thinking finally, finally, he could rest - it all runs on repeat through his mind.

What it comes down to is this: Wei Wuxian stands and is confused by the weight of gravity.

His body believes he should be in free-fall and instead the burden of his own weight presses his toes into the grass of whatever campsite he has decided to stay in for the night.

His blood believes it should be dry and stagnant and so it pushes uncomfortably against his veins. 

His voice believes it should be screaming, and so sometimes when he speaks the words come out too loud. Other times it comes out tight and strangled, like it is trying to muffle the would-be sounds of terror or pain or grief that he could never allow anyone to hear.

All he should be able to taste is blood and ash, and yet the flavor of good food and rich wine bursts across his tongue so intensely it makes his cheeks ache.

Sometimes he ducks under doors he can fit under easily. Sometimes he squints to see things that are perfectly clear. Sometimes he has to raise a hand to shield his eyes against the brightness of a sun that he has forgotten, forgets even to breathe because his lungs don't think they should require air.

What it comes down to is that sometimes Wei Wuxian forgets that he’s alive.

But he is nothing if not an actor.

Immediately following his resurrection, it hadn’t been much of a problem. There had always been something that required his attention. Protecting the Lan disciples at Mo Manor, then defeating the statue of the goddess before she could hurt anyone, then confronting Jiang Cheng and getting hauled off to Gusu, then the arm, and all its mystery, then Jin Guangyao, then domestic bliss at Lan Zhan's side in Gusu - Wei Wuxian had been kept so busy that there simply hadn’t been time to sit down and truly feel the gift he’d been unwittingly given. And then he'd left the serenity of Cloud Recesses to travel on his own for a bit, and it had all come crashing down at once.

Death was peaceful, in a way. The sort of rest that Wei Wuxian had longed for, towards the end. It’s not that he wanted to die now that he was alive again (despite his lackluster reaction when he first opened his eyes). Far from it, in fact. He would never subject Lan Zhan to losing him a second time, even if he did wish for such a thing.

It’s just that the rest of him hadn’t quite caught up to the reality of the new life that sang in his veins.

He is not so bold as to think that nobody has noticed that something is off. He is certain, however, that they assume this wrongness has more to do with the tragedy of his life than that of his death.

He walks into Cloud Recesses on feet that hit the ground too heavily. He grips Chenqing in one hand, Suibian sitting heavily in his belt. His fingers are stiff over the smooth lacquer of her wood. The eyes of the cultivators he passes skip right over him. They move like white ghosts in the corners of his vision as he walks steadily onward.

(Are they the ghosts, or is he?)

Distantly he is aware of a younger Lan disciple running off in the direction of the receiving hall. A jade pass swings on the end of Wei Wuxian’s dizi. He wonders at it, at the trust shown in it. It still doesn't feel like something he deserves.

He wants to see Lan Zhan. He wants to look into Lan Zhan’s eyes and say, I want to stay. He wants Lan Zhan to look back at him and say, then stay.

Wei Wuxian is tired of wandering. He is tired of being a ghost, haunting the open plains and lush forests of the world.

He wants to go home.

He keeps walking aimlessly forward. It has been several months since he was last in Cloud Recesses, a promise and a white ribbon binding him even as he wandered further and further away from the fog-cloaked mountains.

The Cloud Recesses have not changed at all. They are comforting in their familiarity.

He walks until something appears to obstruct his path.

A wall of white stands before him. Hands gently cradle his elbows. 

When he looks up, his eyes meet gold. The eye contact is like an electric current through his bones.

Ah, to be seen. Ah, to be touched, to be grounded in this body of his, to be forcefully anchored to this hallowed ground.

His voice is chipper, like an impulse. “Lan Zhan!”

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan does not sound convinced. “You have returned.”

Wei Wuxian nods. He consciously makes his chest move with his breath. In. Out. 

“I have. Even the great Yiling Patriarch tires of traveling after a time!”

Lan Zhan hums. He steps back, hands moving to sit heavy on Wei Wuxian’s shoulders.

In. Out. Lan Zhan’s hands move with the motion of his breath.

There’s a furrow in Lan Zhan’s brow. Wei Wuxian watches it for a long moment. It grows deeper.

“-ei Ying?”

Wei Wuxian snaps back into reality. “Ah, Lan Zhan…”

He steps forward. Lan Zhan’s hands slip easily around his shoulders in an embrace. He lets his head thump lightly on his chest. He heaves a sigh. “I’m tired, Lan Zhan.”

He feels the effect his words have on Lan Zhan. His shoulders tense, just a little. His hands curl into the fabric of Wei Wuxian’s robes. 

“Then Wei Ying should rest.”

Wei Wuxian huffs a laugh, the first genuine one in quite a while. He pulls away just far enough to meet Lan Zhan’s eyes. “Lan Zhan, won’t you take your poor Wei Ying home?”

Lan Zhan scans his face carefully. One of his hands comes up to cradle the side of Wei Wuxian’s head with a tender grace that strikes Wei Wuxian right in his still-beating heart.

“Mn,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

And so they do. Lan Zhan doesn’t let go of him once. As they walk, he tells Wei Wuxian in low tones of the junior’s adventures (or misadventures, rather). He keeps a hand on Wei Wuxian’s arm, his lower back. He interlaces their fingers and steadily ignores the stares of his clansmen.

(And Wei Wuxian, for his part, is content to ignore them as well in favor of enjoying the closeness of the man he considers his soulmate.)

The doors to the Jingshi shine like a beacon of hope. 

They enter, and the world disappears behind her doors. The late afternoon sunlight sets the dust motes in the air alight. The scent of  Lan Zhan’s favored sandalwood incense fills the air. Wei Wuxian breathes it in and feels the burden of weeks fall from his shoulders.

He and Lan Zhan work in companionable silence. Lan Zhan unties the red ribbon from Wei Wuxian’s hair. He runs his finger through the fine, soft strands, massaging away the ache from having it tied up for so long with firm fingers. Wei Wuxian turns when he is finished and returns the gesture. The metal of his guan clinks quietly in his hands as he places them on the table.

When he reaches to remove his forehead ribbon, Lan Zhan leans his head ever so slightly forward.

Lan Zhan removes Wei Wuxian’s robes with the care of something precious. 

The words escape him into the quiet of their easy companionship before he can think to restrain them.

(He doesn’t know that he would have tried at all. Lan Zhan is… different. He doesn’t have to hide, here.)

“Sometimes, Lan Zhan," he says, voice startling in the heavy quiet of the room, "I feel like a ghost.”

Lan Zhan stiffens. His fingers tighten around the fabric in his grasp.

“Wei Ying is here.” He says, and he means here, in the Jingshi. He means here, solid and breathing. His voice shakes almost imperceptibly. 

Wei Wuxian is not blind to the extent to which Lan Zhan grieved for him. Rather, he cannot forget. The proof surrounds him, in the well-tread trail leading to the rabbit’s field, in the easy assurance Sizhui confronts the world with, confident in what he believes is right, in the stories he has heard of Lan Zhan’s night hunts in the years when Wei Wuxian was truly gone, always confronting evil, always fulfilling the promise they made together all those years ago. 

He is sorry to have put that tremble back into the voice of his love.

“I am, Lan Zhan. I’m not leaving.” He reassures. He steps closer to Lan Zhan. With every minute he spends in the balm that is Lan Zhan’s presence, he feels more alive. His chest lifts with more ease to allow his breath entrance. His muscles comply more easily when he raises them. His mouth tilts into a smile almost unconsciously.

“Good.” Lan Zhan says. His voice is almost stubbornly mulish under all that cool elegance. He folds Wei Wuxian’s robes neatly before doing the same to his own. Wei Wuxian watches his fingers work over the fabric. 

“But I’ve been wandering around, you know?” Wei Wuxian says. Lan Zhan pushes him backwards until his knees hit the bed. He goes easily, without a fight. “Everything has changed so much. And… well, I was dead, Lan Zhan. Sometimes…”

Lan Zhan pushes him back against the sheets before climbing in himself. He fluffs the blankets around Wei Wuxian with an almost offended air. “You are alive.”

“How do we define life, if ghosts do not live? Do they not speak? Do they not breathe, in their own way?” Wei Wuxian smiles sardonically, turning on his side to face Lan Zhan more directly. The blankets settle soft and warm around them, like a cocoon sequestering them away from the rest of the world. “Do they not grieve? Do they not rage against injustice, or lash out in fear?”

“How would you define it, then?” Lan Zhan’s voice is low and deep. It winds around Wei Wuxian like steam from a cup of warm tea. Wei Wuxian takes a long moment just to stare into his eyes. He runs a finger across the notched skin of Lan Zhan’s back.

“I think life must be defined by love.”

“Then there is no way that Wei Ying could be anything else.”

Wei Wuxian blinks. When he looks up, Lan Zhan’s eyes are soft and warm. They shine down at him like sunlight in the evening, like a warm glow that sets dust spinning in the air, like home. He never wants to leave.

Wei Wuxian closes his eyes, a smile on his face. He hums agreeably. He is, after everything, after all of the families he has lost, home at last. Warm sandalwood fills his nose. Firm hands encircle his body. He lies there, skin-to-skin with Lan Zhan. He feels, despite everything… alive.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wwx #wei wuxian #lwj #lan wangji #wangxian #gdc #the founder of diabolism #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mxtx #lyly writes #lylys fanfic

[moonwaif]

Lan Zhan transmigrating into a piece of media called Grandmaster of Diabolism + trying to save the antagonist/his blorbo, Yiling Laozu, from his grisly fate. However, he's transmigrated into the worst possible role for this task: Hanguang-Jun/Lan Wangji, a righteous cultivator and one of Wei Wuxian's greatest enemies. Lan Zhan, a repressed nerd who spent most of his prior life studying, working and reading comics/playing video games, struggles to convey his true intentions to Wei Wuxian. It gets even weirder as Lan Zhan interacts more and more with Wei Wuxian, realizing that he's not the cold, arrogant, sinister villain he seemed like in the original work. He's . . . mischievous, and thoughtful, caring, selfless, brilliant like in canon but honestly kind of a dork. Too bad he's not gay, he's exactly Lan Zhan's type.

Anyway, Lan Zhan thinks he can encourage Wei Wuxian to come back to Cloud Recesses; uses his skills to help Wei Wuxian return to the proper path of cultivation, etc. Of course, Wei Wuxian turns him down. Unfortunately, it's only much later that Lan Zhan discovers one of the author's huge plot holes: Wei Wuxian is missing his golden core + cultivating resentful energy isn't even that bad. However, when he finally realizes this, it's much too late.

Not only does Wei Wuxian face the same fate as canon (it could even be worse than canon, maybe Jiang Yanli didn't originally die or something), Lan Wangji is then forced to live in a post-canon world without him, watching as protagonist Jin Guangyao makes his meteoric rise. Fortunately, A-Yuan survives--a positive departure from canon. Lan Zhan doesn't give up.

And then, Mo Xuanyu happens, giving everyone another chance.

Anyway so yeah, transgmiration Wangxian AU, heavily SVSSS inspired.

BONUS: Mianmian is the author. The Mo Xuanyu arc was something she had planned, but never was able to write before transmigrating.

#mdzs #cql #the untamed #wangxian

[eyes-of-mischief]

weekly fic recs | 22

prompt: eating disorder/food problems

fandoms: atla, ghibli, hq, mdzs, mp100, yoi

atla

Tea and Cakes by ghosteyes

Zuko is having trouble pretending he doesn't has a problem with food and through a series of field trips with friends, the gaang starts to pick up on that as well.

howl's moving castle

Hearts and Their Consumption by setepenre_set

Wizard Howl eats hearts. This isn't just a metaphor.

hearteater by howlingmoonrise (TheDarkStoryteller)

It was a joke, at first. A quip thrown this way and that when they call him a rake, a rogue, a ravisher. You just go around stealing hearts, they say, sometimes accusing, sometimes sad, and he can’t stomach any sort of seriousness so he replies with a winking and I eat them, too.

But this is the land of Ingary, where things such as giants and fire demons and seven-league boots exist.

And so, it becomes true.

haikyuu

Forest fire by BryttaniDaffodil (series)

(mature, explicit)

A roadmap of all Atsumu's insecurities, and how they make him hard to love. But he is loved.

Gray is Not a Color I Wear Well by CheekyBrunette

There's a difference between making yourself sick and making yourself throw up.

Food For The Heart by SharkbaitSekki

Enter Oikawa Tooru, the middle-class citizen who has everything he needs, but who does not eat. Enter Iwaizumi Hajime, the homeless young man who barely scrapes enough to eat every single day.

One chance encounter is all they need to start turning things around. That is, if they actually do want to bring change to their comfortable, destructive routines.

The Narcissus Flower by hedonistvenus

(mature)

“Daddy says I’m selfish. Do you think I’m selfish, baby?” Kenma shook his head faster than he ever had before, wide eyes glued to his brand new console. “That’s good,” his mother sighed, brushing aside his hair and kissing him on the forehead. She then leaned in close to whisper to him, “Everything’s okay now. Daddy made me leave for longer than usual this time, but I promise I’m not letting him separate us anymore.”

Kenma grew up quietly, with conditions attached to his love and worth, and quickly had to adapt to life with a pathological narcissist for a mother.

mdzs

the absence of hunger by parsnipit

(mature)

Lan Zhan stops before him, standing stiff and straight. He meets Wei Wuxian’s eyes—glaring! He’s glaring at Wei Wuxian! Wow, he hasn’t done that in a while! “I spoke with Lan Jingyi today.”

“Okay,” Wei Wuxian says, arching his eyebrows. He knows Lan Jingyi can be a handful, but really, he’s not that bad. “I’m sorry?”

“He told me that you have not been eating.”

Wei Wuxian chuckles. This is not the appropriate response.

things you've done by everythingispoetry

(mature)

Lan Zhan did not want to change. He wanted to stay Mother's little boy forever.

(Recovery in an absolutely bizarre yet tameable creature. Lan Zhan sort-of find a way to exist.)

mp100

it comes in waves, or all at once by r0sie_p0sies

(graphic depictions of violence)

Mob does not feel like himself.

(or: the six months after Mob returns from Mogami's world.)

yoi

Flinch by kuragay

Yuuri falls into old, toxic habits concerning food, and he and Viktor struggle to find a way to make it better. Between being good enough or being healthy again, it's hard to make a choice. It never occurred to Yuuri that he could be both.

#weekly fic recs #prompt #eating disorder #food #atla fic recs #hmc fic recs #hq fic recs #mdzs fic recs #mp100 fic recs #yoi fic recs #ghibli fic recs #ghibli

[ailelie]

Fic I Want to Read: Jiang Yanli gets her son's diary

While in the Cloud Recesses, before Wei Wuxian is sent home, Jiang Yanli finds a diary. At first she means to find the owner and return it, but when she drops it, the diary opens up to a page with two drawings on it. One is her and the other is Jin Zixuan and they're labeled as mother and father.

After that she is too curious to not read it.

And it is a journal of a very lonely boy struggling to be a good heir to his sect and missing his parents. Yanli treasures each mention of her brother watching over her son, but wonders where her other brother is.

Then she finds out because he re-enters the narrative and she learns he died and that her son blames him for her death. None of that makes sense to Yanli, though; something must be missing.

Then come the entries after Jin Guangyao's betrayal and her poor, poor boy is furious and grieving and embarrassed and confused. She has come to love this future son of hers and wishes she could have been there for him.

When Jiang Yanli finishes the diary, she doesn't know a lot about the future. She knows the Jin sect will turn the world against Wei Wuxian and she knows about the core transfer. She knows he will practice demonic cultivation and that this will tear a rift between her brothers. She knows that Wei Wuxian will marry a Lan he calls "Lan Zhan" because Jin Ling mocks his shamelessness using that name.

She doesn't know about the war or the Wens, but she does know her future husband has multiple half-siblings and that at least one will be dangerous. She wonders if he is already a danger or if he became one over time.

She knows a little of the Wen remnants because Jin Ling got the story from his uncles and recorded his thoughts about it in the journal, wondering what he'd have done in the situation and hating that he knows yet another terrible thing done by his sect.

Jiang Yanli finishes the diary and decides that she will not allow the future to happen that way again. Her son will have more than a sketch to remember her by.

And she starts by making friends with the other female disciples. As she gathers stories and rumors, she hears more and more about the Wen and realizes some conflict must happen with them and that is what propels the Jin sect into such great power.

She also reaches out to Lan Xichen to discuss their brothers and raises the idea of courtship.

She helps Wei Wuxian realize his feelings.

When she realizes that Wen Qing is one of the Wen remnants her son mentioned, she seeks a friendship there as well. When she notices her brother making eyes at her, she introduces Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing and tries to encourage any feelings she can there. If she cannot prevent all she wishes to prevent, perhaps Jiang Cheng having deeper feelings for Wen Qing will prevent him from turning on Wei Wuxian and maybe they will work together to help the Wen instead.

Jiang Yanli knows she doesn't know enough, but she has to try.

When Jin Zixuan insults her, instead of being frozen in hurt shock, she moves to stop Wei Wuxian from punching him. She knows what her future will be. Her brothers told her son about Jin Zixuan groveling to win her affection after their engagement was broken. So she stops the punch and says instead that she is willing to break the engagement if that is what he wants.

(She doesn't realize that her strength and half-hidden smile as she walks away strikes Jin Zixuan directly to the heart. She doesn't realize he's already started to fall).

Wei Wuxian remains. He and his Lan Zhan grow closer. Wen Qing becomes a reluctant friend who always seems a little annoyed that anyone would want to spend time with her.

When their time at the Cloud Recesses ends, Yanli tells Wen Qing that she can always finds sanctuary for herself and her family at Lotus Pier. She nudges Jiang Cheng until he backs her words.

(Yanli doesn't know about the destruction Lotus Pier could sustain; she doesn't know about the burning of the Cloud Recesses).

And maybe this is enough for Wen Qing to send a message, warning about Wen Xu heading to the Cloud Recesses to destroy it. And with that tiny pebble, changes begin to cascade.

#fic i want to read #jiang yanli #saves the day #with help from a time traveling diary #(the diary ended up in a transfer array and got transferred across time where yanli found it)

[rosethornewrites]

Thursday-Sunday T & G reading

The usual

Finished

Teen:

paint the picture that you want, by PrismaticAvocado

Lan Wangji huffs in amusement on the other side of the bed, and Wei Wuxian peeks over A-Yu to smile at his husband. They certainly make quite the cute little family all cuddled up in bed like this—Wei Wuxian stroking their son’s hair that has mostly fallen from where Lan Wangji had put it up for sleeping earlier and legs intertwined with Lan Wangji who is straightening out A-Yu’s already straight sleeping robe. The only thing missing is their eldest, but Lan Sizhui is probably a little old to be cuddling his parents in bed.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji accidentally acquire another son.

(Written for Wei Wuxian November Mayhem | Prompts used: parent!wwx, artist, painting)

General:

Thank you for another year, by Aki_no_hikari

It is Lan Wangji's birthday. He goes through his day feeling thankful for all he has.

Unfinished

Teen:

The Consequences of Accidental Time Travel, by BurningBlueDiamond (5th in a series)

Future Sizhui, Jingyi, Wei Ying and Lan Zhan went back to their time.

How will the Past and Future character react to the new information provided?

OR

The aftermath of "A Room Full of Dead People".

Yeah, this really doesn't make any sense without reading "A Room Full of Dead People" first.

Lessons relearned, by Iamnotawriter

He thought of all the pain and death that was to come. There was so much that went wrong in the cultivation world in the next few years. The weight of responsibility felt insurmountable.

Lan Qiren had never wanted to be a politician or leader. That role was meant for his brother. He had done his best in the years he had led the sect but he was aware that he was not the best person for the job. His interests had always been the academic pursuits and teaching the next generation. How could he hope to make an impact on the mess of political manoeuvring and aggression that was imminent? He decided he could only focus on the events which impacted his family the most. He could save Cloud Recesses from being burned. He could protect both his nephews from there disastrous relationships. He could protect the books they lost in the war.

Or

Lan Qiren travels back in time and tries to fix the future.

Alternate Headcanons, by nirejseki

Random assortment of MDZS ficlets in response to a request for prompts for alternate headcanons for characters

Shards of Hope, by Dreaming_Days

He had built his life with the coldest calculation. Clawed his way to power with unhesitating ruthlessness. Destroyed anyone who would impede him. Betrayed even the few who had truly cared for him. And, in the end, utterly forsaken, Jin Guangyao died.

Then, 25 years earlier, Meng Yao woke up.

Abyss, by WanderingMongoose

Lotus Pier was an explosion of color, the vendors’ bright banners contrasting with the soft pink and green of the lotus ponds. The purple standard of the Jiang Clan flew from the tops of pavilions, fluttering against the azure sky. Every part of the landscape was saturated with color. The white robes of the Lan Sect were the only negative space, their perfect jade white looking unnatural and leached of life in the midst of Lotus Pier’s bustling docks. Sounds and smells assaulted them from every side, as if the docks themselves were affronted by their colorless silence.

Worried about his little brother's solitary nature and lack of friends, Lan Xichen convinces his uncle to send fifteen year old Lan Wangji and a group of GusuLan disciples to study at Lotus Pier under the pretense of improving intersect relations.

You Double-faced Entendre, by pink-lotus-pods (Waterlogged_fireflies)

"Wei Wuxian! You will be charged-"

“First of all, my name is Yuandao, and second of all, you aren't a judge, but you’re the one who’s got me tied up like a chicken! Let me go, damn it, I need to get back to my chickens and my farm!” Yuandao struggled violently, but the thin, golden ropes were a lot stronger than they looked.

The man in gold on the frankly, tastelessly ostentatious throne spluttered, turning the same colour as the cauliflower that he liked to put in his stews.

“Wow. You were right, he really doesn’t remember.” A man built like a mountain whistled, his face twisted into something that looked like amusement. “Either that, or he’s a world class actor.”

“For the last time, I’m just a farmer!”

-

Or, an amnesiac Wei Wuxian wakes up, gets himself a new family and is immediately roped into a political schism, EXACTLY in that order. He is very unhappy about having his cottagecore life uprooted.

Updates will be once every two weeks. Some tags have been hidden until the chapter will be posted, but there will be additional warnings in the chapter notes should you want to skip a particular scene

General:

Disliking Seperation, by SallySPT

Nearly a year after the events at Guanyin Temple, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian return to the cultivation world to participate in the Cultivation Conference. Many things have changed in the year that they were gone.

Or Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian adopt a child while traveling and the cultivation world doesn’t know how to react.

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #cql #chen qing ling #untamed fanfiction

[mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess]

Down memory lane

"Lan Zhan, do you want to know how I actually died?"

Lan Wangji drops his chopsticks right onto the floor, the question shocking him out of the placid tiredness of a long day travelling.

They've been passing through towns and villages in their seemingly forever honeymoon, but, as the anniversary of the First Siege and Yiling Patriarch's death approaches, whispers, rumors and trashtalk have become louder and increasingly frequent.

People bring up the terrible monster living in the Burial Mounds, make up outlandish stories about imagined crimes, and debate on how he died - though all agree it was gruesome and deserved.

They're in an inn now, at the edge of a picturesque village near the sea coast, enjoying local dishes and wine, in a secluded corner of the establishment's dining area. But though they've deliberately chosen to sit as far away from the crowd as possible, conversation drifts through the air like the aroma of freshly cooked meals and words of insult and curses reach their ears nevertheless.

"Wei Ying..." Lan Wangji speaks, struggling to break througu his stupor, "You do not need to-"

"I know, I just want to." A small smile. "You've asked me before, and I didn't tell you - but we've agreed there are no secrets between us, right?"

"Wei Ying, this is not a secret-"

"I blew myself up."

Silence befalls them both. Lan Wangji finds himself unable to name what he's feeling, a whirlwind of emotion stirring within him. Wei Wuxian does not seem affected, gazing out the window at the starry sky.

His tone had been casual, as if the words he's just said do not hold much weight, as if it is normal, expected, for him to say them.

I blew myself up.

Lan Wangji has always wondered whether Wei Wuxian really died devoured by corpses and resentful energy, he who had so much control over them.

He has always had some doubts, but the thought of his beloved taking his own life hurt too much to ponder. For Lan Wangji too, the hypothesis the rumors presented was easier to swallow than the truth.

"You could have stopped it." He finally says, realization slowly dawning on him like a soft blanket of cold, icy snow.

"I could." Wei Wuxian responds, closing his eyes briefly before turning towards Lan Wangji, "But I had no reason to. There was no more room in the world for me."

"There has always been room in the world for you, Wei Ying." And Lan Wangji reaches across the table to take his husband's hand in his, both to comfort Wei Ying and ground his own spiralling fears.

Wei Wuxian's eyes widen for a moment, shining under the soft candlelight, before a beautiful, warm smile settles on his features. "I know you said not to, but thank you - for making room in the world for me."

There is a slight tremble to Lan Wangji's hand as he caresses Wei Wuxian's knuckles.

--

"...and also thank you for giving me a room literally because I'm broke as hell, I could never afford an inn!"

Laughter is pulled out of Lan Wangji before he can stop it and Wei Wuxian can only wish he's forever able to hear the melodious sound of it.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #writing attempts #ill have yall know there was a bad ending planned for this but ive decided to show mercy #if im in the burial mounds yall dont need to join me too

[grassbreads]

Finished Mo Dao Zu Shi and. !!

It's so interesting thematically how unresolved some things are. It's impossible to really settle things fully in this world. There will always be grudges and struggles for power and gossipy randoms spreading evil rumors, and Wei Wuxian has to accept to a degree that he can't fix every little thing. He can't correct every false word against Jin Guanyao, and he can't know whether some fool will go after the tiger tally someday, and he'll never be able to make his stance in the public view entirely steady, but in the end, it's still okay.

And he and Lan Zhan will never look away from each other ever again.

#it's so good!! #andie reads mdzs #mdzs spoilers

[wangxianficrecs]

💙 Talisman by Witch_Nova221

💙 Talisman

by Witch_Nova221

M, 192k, Wangxian

Summary: Lan Wangji runs Cloud Recesses, a classical theatre that was once his mother's pride and joy but is slowly falling into disrepair with dwindling audiences and profits. With Jinlintai Entertainments holding the majority shares, they force him to host Stygian Tiger, a rock band with a reputation for rowdy behaviour and a lead singer with a past. Little does he know that the band he is so reluctant to host will bring him into contact with the best friend he lost touch with sixteen years before and together they begin the fight to save Cloud Recesses from the developers who want to bulldoze it and build houses on the only home Lan Wangji has ever loved. Kay's comments: Talisman is one of those stories I re-read again and again, it's got a special place in my heart. Nova's love for theater really shines through in this story and the Cloud Recesses theater became alive in this story. It's a modern setting where Lan Wangji lives with his mother, the theater manager, for a while, until she dies. Then, he's sent to live with his uncle and brother and things are fraught. Wei Wuxian, meanwhile, spends most of his childhood in a children's home and Lan Wangji becomes his dearest friend. They get torn apart when Wei Wuxian gets adopted by the Jiangs and years later, they meet again. Now, Wei Wuxian is a famous rockstar and Lan Wangji has taken over as the theater manager, though the Cloud Recesses are struggling. There's lots of heartbreak and angst in this story, but in the end, everything gets resolved beautifully, no matter how dire it seems from time-to-time. Many cast members work in the Cloud Recesses as well and I grew very fond of them in this world and despite the angst, this is a comfort story for me, maybe because of the happy ending that felt so well-earned. Excerpt: 'I'll be with you in a minute,' he called up, 'Technically the bar is closed but I can always put it on the rider.' 'Not the rider as I really should be buying you a drink at the very least as it appears I owe you an apology,' said a soft voice above him, 'You see, I found out today that my best friend has been looking for me for years and hasn't had a response. So could you please reopen the bar so I can buy you a drink, Lan Zhan.' Lan Wangji froze at the sound of the name spoken. The name no one had called him for sixteen long years. He got to his feet, meeting the familiar haunting eyes that had stared at him from the Yiling Laozu's image for weeks. Eyes that had made something inside him twist and now, alive and bright with unshed tears before him, he knew why. His friend had left him a boy but he could still see him in the man standing before him. 'Wei Ying?'

pov lan wangji, modern setting, modern no powers, past wei wuxian/xue yang, past lan xichen/jin guangyao, past lan wangji/others, lan xichen/nie mingjue, nielan, theatre, rock band, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, childhood friends, friends to lovers, implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced drug abuse, implied/referenced rape/non-con, fluff and angst, stalking, minor character death, orphans, reunions, found family, lan family feels, jiang family dynamics, good brother jiang cheng, chronic illness, chronic pain, mutual pining, @witchnova221

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

#Wangxian Fic Rec #The Untamed #wangxian #MDZS #Kay's Rec #Kay's Favorite #Talisman #Witch_Nova221 #Mature #epic length fic > 100k #pov lan wangji #modern setting #modern no powers #past wei wuxian/xue yang #past lan xichen/jin guangyao #past lan wangji/others #lan xichen/nie mingjue #nielan #theatre #rock band #hurt/comfort #angst with a happy ending #childhood friends #friends to lovers #fluff and angst #minor character death #orphans #reunions #found family #lan family feels

[cearo]

“Wei Ying, where are you going?“

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan zhan #i love this scene so much #wei wuxian is struggling with the world and lan zhan is struggling with HIS world #letting wei ying go means letting him cast away everything to fight an unwinnable fight #but stopping wei ying means FIGHTING wei ying #it means forcing wei ying to betray himself #it means standing in the way of the right thing #so he stands aside #he lets him go #and doesn't realize until too late that maybe going with wei ying was a choice he could have made #ANYWAY i made myself sad #but I still love this scene #my art

[jingyismom]

Time for more sex-cursed Lan Wangji!

a messy, self-indulgent spree imported from twt and lightly edited

explicit, wangxian, 9k, canon divergence fix-it

mild dubcon because of the nature of sex curses (but like, they do their best to communicate around it), and cw for brief thoughts of self harm, no other warnings

This curse's origin is mysterious, perhaps politically guided. Someone is trying to throttle Gusu Lan's alliance prospects by removing Lan Wangji's stellar marriageability after Sunshot. It works, after a fashion.

Wei Wuxian is in the Burial Mounds, farming and hardening his heart as the resentment worsens his health, subsisting on memories of Lan Wangji's single visit.

Lan Wangji is at home in Gusu, pining away while they rebuild the Cloud Recesses.

One day, he begins to burn up with unexplained fever.

The healers examine him quickly and thoroughly and determine first that he's been cursed. This is not entirely shocking, but it of course angers the entire sect. Next they test for the curse's nature. It turns out to be a very classic, very coarse type of love curse.

The afflicted will burn up, losing all their sense and senses, and eventually die, if their body's “needs” are not satisfied by the one it craves most.

The healers are disgusted. Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren are outraged. But Lan Wangji becomes very calm at the news.

Before, he felt anxiety. The urgent desperation of a dying man waiting to be told how to live.

Now he is just waiting to die.

For you see, the choice between throwing himself at another human being—no matter who they may be—and meeting death with dignity, is an easy one.

Everyone else privy to this information disagrees. The argument that follows is short, but heated:

"Well, Wangji?" Lan Qiren begins once the initial furor has died down. "How do you wish to...go about this?"

Lan Wangji, over-warm and aching, looks up at him from the examination bed. Gusu Lan funeral rites are ancient and immutable. He does not understand the question.

Lan Qiren purses his lips and glances around. "We must find the person first," he prompts.

Ah. The person responsible. Yes, Lan Wangji does have business with them before he dies. He stands, only swaying slightly. "I am well enough to exact justice. Let us cast the rebound."

Lan Xichen steps forward then, and gently pushes him back to sitting. "It has been cast. However, justice can wait. Your health must come first."

Lan Wangji looks between his uncle, his brother, and the one doctor allowed to be present. Surely they would not be joking at a time like this.

"I do not understand," he says.

The three exchange a look. "Breaking the curse must be our priority," says Lan Xichen.

Lan Wangji is not sure he heard correctly. But it would be cruel to give him unfounded hope. "I was unaware there was another way."

"...There is not," says Lan Xichen, his gentleness unfailing.

Lan Wangji experiences a moment of deep confusion before the horror sets in.

"You cannot mean this," he says through his shock. "Surely you cannot mean to cast aside so many disciplines at the whim of a base villain."

"The disciplines are a guide," Lan Qiren says, hands behind his back, looking into the distance, "to ensure a life well-lived. They are not meant to inspire martyrdom."

Lan Wangji's mouth falls open. He stares at his uncle, mute with betrayal. He has never heard of any such leeway before, not in regards to disciplines of such a serious nature.

"You can understand, can't you?" Lan Xichen says. "That no rule is more important than your life.”

Lan Wangji disagrees vehemently. "I would not buy my life with such behavior."

Lan Qiren huffs in irritation. "We may perform a marriage in haste, if you wish."

Lan Wangji balks at him. That his uncle should speak so flippantly of...such a thing. It is unimaginable. And besides, forcing a marriage on Wei—on anyone in this way is surely only adding insult to heinous injury.

"I refuse," he says.

Lan Xichen exchanges a look with the doctor, and sits beside him. "Perhaps the other person should be allowed part of that choice."

Ridiculous. "There is no such person." Preventing this course of action is worth one lie, Lan Wangji reasons.

"With respect, Hanguang-jun, if that were true, the curse would not have been able to take hold," says the doctor.

The use of his title feels uncomfortably ironic from a woman who helped deliver him at birth. He glares at her. She smiles tiredly in return.

"Wangji," Lan Xichen says. His tone is beginning to grate on Lan Wangji's raw nerves. "You will at least try, won't you?"

Lan Wangji stares at him in disbelief, in anger, in righteous indignation.

"Never," he says.

A hand slaps his shoulder. "Apologies," says the doctor, and the world goes dark.

-----

Lan Wangji wakes to dark wood beams dappled by lacy sunlight, and a faint smell of char in the air. His head is heavy, his limbs full of lead. He swallows around the dry thickness in his throat.

"Water," comes a familiar voice.

With effort, Lan Wangji sits up. His stomach is roiling, his mind fogged from the coma and the curse both. The doctor, crouching beside him in the carriage, offers him a bowl of water.

He takes it, and asks, "What have you done?"

She sighs.

"My duty," she says, "with the help of your brother."

She draws back the curtain at the carriage entrance, revealing a sea of black, twisted trees and gray tumbled walls.

Lan Wangji's blood freezes in his veins. He just barely stops himself from asking how they knew.

"Why," he asks instead, a much safer question.

She considers him. "Your brother said if he was wrong, he would beg forgiveness afterward. But it couldn't hurt to have an expert in resentment and curses look at you anyway."

A stab of sick embarrassment makes Lan Wangji’s stomach clench.

Has he been so obvious? Is he such a lovesick fool that anyone with eyes can see his shame?

The doctor pats his shoulder gruffly and he flinches, expecting more needles.

"Ah he's your brother, he's bound to know things you don't want him to," she says. "Come on. Out you get."

He allows her to tug him out of the carriage and onto solid ground. The air is stifling with resentment, but he is glad to be free of his bonds. Now he can look for his chance to get away.

There are six Lan disciples flanking them. He eyes them warily, wondering what they know. When the doctor pulls him out of earshot, and pitches her voice low, he is satisfied that they have not been fully informed.

"Your family and I agreed to give you a chance first," she says. "You have 24 hours to take care of this yourself. After that, I will personally tell Wei-gongzi of your brother's message. I have been assured he will not jeopardize your well-being if fully-informed."

Lan Wangji gapes at her. He does not know what he expected to happen, but it was not this...this...mercenary attempt at...forcing...

The curse has weakened him such that he cannot fly his sword. He can hardly walk in a straight line, let alone run. He has very little recourse now that everyone in his life has gone absolutely mad. His heart is racing with the adrenaline of upheaval, of fear, of impending death.

He wrenches his arm from her grasp and stalks off of the road, into the brush. She calls after him, but he does not mean to escape. He cannot manage that alone. Instead, he sits. He takes a deep breath. He sinks into meditation.

"Hanguang-jun," she calls. She approaches, hands on her hips. She sighs. "Well, if it's like that, then there's nothing stopping me from telling him right now."

She turns, and Lan Wangji feels a lurch of helplessness, when a new voice rings clear through the fog.

"Tell what to whom?"

Lan Wangji's eyes snap open. Wei Wuxian is standing on the other side of the carriage, the child A-Yuan in his arms, eyeing the Lan delegation with suspicion. Wen Ning is with him, and the Lan disciples shift nervously just looking at him, but Wei Wuxian sets A-Yuan in his arms, and he leaps away up the mountain.

"Might I assume this little party has come for me?" Wei Wuxian goes on, twirling his flute. His eyes are shrewd and cold, similar to the way they had looked when he had first returned during the war.

At the sight of him, at the sound of his voice, the curse...reacts.

A horrid, uncomfortable shiver of need runs through Lan Wangji's body alongside his own simple relief and joy at seeing Wei Wuxian again, looking relatively well. He fights it, keeping still among the weeds, hoping against hope to go unnoticed.

"Yiling Laozu," the doctor greets him with a deep bow. "We have indeed come to humbly beg your aid."

"I see," he says. "And what will you give me in return?"

The doctor hesitates, clearly discomfited by the context Wei Wuxian is currently unaware of. "We may...discuss that. Once we have informed you of the details."

Wei Wuxian hums, considering. Cold. Detached. "And if I am disinclined to—"

He breaks off. The doctor has moved so that she and Lan Wangji are both in Wei Wuxian's line of sight. Lan Wangji closes his eyes rather than see the moment of recognition, rather than feel the weight of Wei Wuxian's eyes on him, like this.

"Lan Zhan?"

Lan Wangji clamps his jaw shut. It is a struggle not simply to crawl to him.

The renewed ice in Wei Wuxian's voice when next he speaks makes Lan Wangji aware of the warmth with which he had said his name. His curls his shaking hands into fists on his knees.

"What have you done to him?"

The doctor sighs. "We have done nothing. He has been cursed, which is why we brought him here. If you—"

"Daifu," Lan Wangji interrupts, his voice thin.

She stops speaking.

Lan Wangji opens his eyes, but does not look at Wei Wuxian, not yet. If he is careful, and uses his remaining strength correctly, he can perhaps...perhaps guide the situation. Toward escape. With Wei Wuxian's help.

He may have to lie to him. He hopes he will be forgiven, all things considered.

Lan Wangji stands slowly, carefully, considering each movement so as not to reveal the state he is in.

"I will speak with him," he says to the doctor.

She eyes him. "24 hours," she says.

He does not acknowledge this. He thinks they both know it will not come to that, though his idea differs greatly from hers. He judges, from the time they have allotted and his own weakness, that he has perhaps a day and a half, total, to wait them out. Doable, if he is careful and intelligent about it.

He can manage.

He walks over to Wei Wuxian, careful to keep two arm's lengths between them. This close is already too close: a fine, constant tremor has made a home in all of his tightly-locked muscles. He feels the moment his fever begins to rise further. The sides of his throat hurt, the interiors of his ears. He wonders if his hearing will go first, or his eyes.

"Allow me to explain," he says to him.

"Of course," Wei Wuxian answers.

He sounds strange. Cold, still. Lan Wangji wants to look at him, and almost slips, but manages to stop himself. He follows him up the hill, past the wards, through the resentment that clings to them both, now. He keeps his careful distance, following behind.

"What happened?" Wei Wuxian asks, as they walk.

"A curse," Lan Wangji says carefully. "Origin unknown. The rebound has been cast. I did not wish to burden you with this, but they are...they will not listen to reason. Wei Ying, if you would but help me, I would deal with this on my own."

"Oh?"

"I...wish to seek justice. They will not allow it. But you understand. If there is another path off the mountain, if you would show me the way past them, I could—"

Wei Wuxian stops dead, and Lan Wangji, with his eyes in the ground, runs into him. 

For a blazing, agonizing moment, he is touching Wei Wuxian, clinging to him, every element in his body sighing and crying out at once in satisfaction, in the torturous need for more.

He tears himself away, stumbling back, almost falling. Wei Wuxian reaches out as if to catch him, but falters.

"Lan Zhan, you can hardly stand," he says, alarmed, "and you want to go and fight someone?"

Lan Wangji draws himself up taller again, trying hard to stop his shaking. He cannot look at him. He cannot look. He is already dying, now, just from not looking. "It is my right."

"...It is..." Wei Wuxian says at length, watching him closely. "And it still will be once you're well again. Your doctors really couldn't tell what type of curse it is?"

Lan Wangji says nothing, trying to think past the way every inch of his skin feels as if it is burning clean off. The pain of it screams through him, worse than anything he has ever felt. Wei Wuxian is still speaking, but it is hard to make sense of it. When Wei Wuxian begins walking again, slowly, it is all he can do to both follow and stay away from him. This, here, now, is worse than death. If it lasts, he certainly will not be sane when the end finally comes. He lets go of any thoughts of a dignified death.

Fortunately, by the time they reach the cool dark of the cave Wei Wuxian calls home, the pain has subsided to a distant roar. Unfortunately, he hoped never to reach this point. He tries his only play again, unable to think of any new tactic.

"Please show me the way off the mountain," he says without preamble.

Wei Wuxian is quiet for a beat. "You really don't want my help that much?"

Lan Wangji is so confused by this question, and then struck by the irony of it, that he almost begins to laugh. A shivery, jittery feeling fills his chest, and he leans against the nearest solid surface. He wishes he were wearing a loose outer layer over his blue travel robes, the better to hide his shaking. He does not know how to respond.

"You haven't so much as looked at me once since you got here," Wei Wuxian goes on, digging through strange pots and objects on a table, "so I get it. But you'll have to forgive me if I disregard your objection to the kind of work I do, when it comes to your life."

"My life, my life," Lan Wangji mocks, accidentally out loud. Why is everyone suddenly so obsessed with his life? He was ready to give it freely in the war, but chance let him keep it. What difference does giving it now in the name of keeping himself clean of shame make? Why will nobody allow him this choice?

"What shame?" Wei Wuxian asks.

Lan Wangji buckles at the realization that he has said all of this out loud. He goes to the floor, to his knees.

"Nothing," he says. "The shame of not having warded off such a simple attack."

"Lan Zhan...you want to die because you didn't defend against a curse you didn't know was coming?"

Lan Wangji lapses into silence. He has said too much already. He does not know how to get out of this. He can only...he can only stay quiet. Refuse to speak or move.

"Lan Zhan...I feel like I'm missing something here. I only want to help.”

Lan Wangji grits his teeth and stares hard at the floor in front of him. He has rarely ever felt so trapped, so utterly helpless. The extended, full-body pain is dulling his mind by the moment. The hems of Wei Wuxian's robes come into view, and it takes everything in him not to fall forward into him, to plead, to beg. His breath is hitching at random intervals now, his heart tripping as it prepares to fail entirely.

There is a soft gust of air, and an odd prickling sensation across his face.

"Now let's see—oh," Wei Wuxian says. "I...oh."

Lan Wangji wilts at his stilted, awkward tone. He knows now, surely. Can see him truly.

"So that's why you want to leave, and why they won't let you. They want me to find another way to break it, to stop you from...ah."

Lan Wangji sorts through the words, trying to comprehend them.

"Sorry," Wei Wuxian goes on. "I...it's unbreakable, otherwise. A very old, airtight spell. You...will Gusu Lan start a war with me if I do just let you go...ah, handle this the old-fashioned way?"

Comprehension dawns. And with it, a way out.

Lan Wangji rushes to agree. "They—" He cuts off. Will they? If they think Wei Wuxian has willingly let him die, rather than...

He takes a breath. Another. Forces his mind past the endless litany of pleas for relief.

"Show me the way " he says, his words breathless and short, "and then tell Lan-daifu what you have done. And why. But give me time to. Get away. And you will be safe."

Wei Wuxian pauses. "How...ah. How far—how much time?"

Lan Wangji tries hard to come up with an answer for that. His progress will be slow. But he need only find a place to hide.

"Half a day," he hazards.

Wei Wuxian seems to vacillate. "Are you sure you can make it on your own?"

Lan Wangji wants to rage. To weep. To curse himself to the heavens for being so depraved toward so endlessly kind a man. His heart hurts, even as his body strains toward him.

This lie may be the worst he will ever tell.

"I will be fine,” he says.

"Alright." Wei Wuxian sounds unconvinced. "I trust you."

Lan Wangji nearly convulses, holding back a sob. How will he ever be forgiven?

He cannot think of it. Only this, only what comes next. Only keeping Wei Wuxian safe from this mess.

"Lan Zhan?"

"Mn," he manages.

"Would you look at me, now? I haven't...used any demonic cultivation on you. It's safe, I promise I won't. I just. Can't we say goodbye properly?"

Lan Wangji has not moved from the floor. He does not move. He should try. A parting gift. Just one look.

But if he is going to leave. If he is going to succeed. He cannot.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says again, frustrated now.

Lan Wangji does not look. He is so close to freedom from the horrible pull, from the way his very veins are trying to tear themselves free to wrap around Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian steps forward, and Lan Wangji's breath leaves him all at once. Suddenly, there are fingers beneath his jaw, kind but firm, tilting his chin up. He has no choice but to look.

(Inspired by this art.)

Wei Wuxian is there. Tall and strong and perfect, tiredness mixed with something bittersweet on his lovely face. Lan Wangji's entire being melts toward him, a deep, sharp tug from inside his bones, a mindless, helpless, straining need that pushes a low, wanting sound from his throat.

Wei Wuxian snatches his hand away and backs up half a step, staring at him.

"Sorry," he says, blank. Confused. "I thought it was...I didn't realize...sorry."

Lan Wangji, now that he has looked, cannot look away. He has overbalanced without Wei Wuxian's support, fallen forward onto his hands, but he cannot stop looking at him. He will look at him, and keep looking; he prays Wei Wuxian is the last thing he sees before he dies.

The most shameful part of this is that none of it is the curse twisting his thoughts. None of this is. All the curse is doing is making the way he always feels impossible to ignore.

"Wei Ying," his voice implores. He does not mean it to.

Wei Wuxian takes another step back and looks down at the bowl of powder in his hand, confused. "I was certain it was that curse," he says to himself. "If I was wrong, then maybe I could break it..."

Lan Wangji tries to scrape his composure back together. He tries. He tries. His fingers scrape on the rough stone floor. He does not reach out for him. That is something.

Wei Wuxian looks at him again, then hastily away. Lan Wangji does not ever want to know what it is he sees.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says, as Lan Wangji shakes, and shakes. "Where...where were you trying to go? I thought you...I thought you were, ah, thinking of a certain someone."

Lan Wangji's arms are weak. They are going to give out. He cannot answer him.

"I'm confused, and I...may have made a mistake," Wei Wuxian goes on, still backing away slowly, "but I just want to help. Can you tell me what was happening before, and what's happening now?"

Lan Wangji shakes his head, and the motion shatters his fragile balance. He falls, and curls tightly around himself in the dirt.

"Lan Zhan!" Wei Wuxian says, suddenly close.

Lan Wangji sees his hand reach out, then pause, and he can't stop himself from taking hold of it, just to be touching him. His body screams for it, and he gasps raggedly at the contact.

Wei Wuxian wrenches his arm free. Lan Wangji wishes he were dead.

"Fuck," Wei Wuxian mutters to himself. "I...I'm sorry. I made this so much worse, I..."

"No," Lan Wangji rasps. He cannot hear Wei Wuxian berate himself thus. His dignity has now died, and he himself will soon follow. This is all that matters. "Not your fault."

Wei Wuxian huffs, crouching beside him. "It is...at least partially my fault, at this point, I'm pretty sure. You wouldn't be...reacting. Like this. If it weren't. Is...can I...do a few more tests? To check what I got wrong, and maybe—"

"You were not wrong."

He does not mean to say it.

His need to reassure has overridden his sense, and his mind is too slow now to piece together what it will mean before it leaves his mouth. The regret once it does is instantaneous. He tries to curl himself yet smaller in the dirt.

Wei Wuxian is silent. Lan Wangji cannot stop making small, pitiful, pained sounds in the back of his throat. Everything hurts. Everything.

"I don't understand," Wei Wuxian says quietly.

Lan Wangji lies shivering on the floor, arms locked around himself to prevent any more untoward behavior. He cannot take it back. He cannot try to explain. There is nothing he could say, regardless.

"Lan Zhan...but you..."

He can hear Wei Wuxian thinking, but it only registers in the far back of his mind. The rest of his consciousness is taken up by pain, and by ruthless restraint.

"You wanted to leave to get away from me," Wei Wuxian says, finally.

Lan Wangji does not answer. He wishes he had his sword. He would use it now to end this.

Wei Wuxian begins to back away again, and Lan Wangji’s body moves without his permission. He grips the skirt of Wei Wuxian’s robes in his fist and drags himself closer, pressing his cheek to Wei Wuxian's knee.

Shameful. Wanton. The small part of himself that is still aware berates the action. But he cannot let go. He cannot move away. The only part of him that is not howling with pain is the side of his face pressed to coarse fabric.

"Lan Zhan, you…," Wei Wuxian is trying to gently pry Lan Wangji's fingers from his hem. "You wanted to leave, remember? You don't want...you don't."

"Want," Lan Wangji croaks, pressing closer. "Wanted to spare you."

"Ah, Lan Zhan...I...I'm still not sure it's that specific curse, it could...there could be other..."

"It is," Lan Wangji says, half-crawling up Wei Wuxian's leg. He wants to stop himself. It is impossible.

"Lan Zhan...you...you shouldn't—"

"Stop me," Lan Wangji pleads, nuzzling against Wei Wuxian's thigh, "Wei Ying, I can't...please. Stop me."

There is a long near-silence filled with harsh breaths, in which Lan Wangji is almost certain he imagines the light touch of fingers brushing his mussed hair back from his forehead. Then Wei Wuxian speaks.

"No," he says. "You'll die, if I do. Lan Zhan. I won't let that happen."

He touches Lan Wangji's face. Lan Wangji whimpers into him.

He knows this will break the fragile repairs they have made to their friendship. He will likely never see him again, at least not on good terms. The thought makes him feel ill. He should protest. Refuse. Flee. He can do exactly none of these things. He reaches for Wei Wuxian's wrist, to hold his hand to his face, but Wei Wuxian flinches away.

"You can't...Lan Zhan. I'm going to help you," he says, "but you have to...you can't...you can't touch me."

Lan Wangji feels another tight clench of shame. He nods against his leg. He understands: he knows any small part of this is too much to ask, let alone bearing his unwelcome, curse-fevered grasping.

"Okay," says Wei Wuxian. He slides his fingers beneath Lan Wangji’s chin again, tipping his face up.

He looks so uncertain. So beautiful in the dim light. Lan Wangji wants to weep with it.

"Lan Zhan, I know it doesn't count for much like this, but you have to tell me. You have to tell me what you need."

Lan Wangji turns his head, pressing his face between Wei Wuxian's thigh and stomach, trying to reach into him, to feel more of him, to stop hurting just enough to think. It does not work.

"You," he breathes, into the scent of earth, and stringent soap, and Wei Wuxian.

A harsh, uneven breath ghosts across his hair, and Wei Wuxian's hands grip his shoulders. He thinks he is about to be pushed away again, but instead Wei Wuxian pulls him up, pulls him close, folds him into his embrace.

Lan Wangji sobs into his shoulder, trying at once to get closer and to hold himself apart, instinct demanding, even now, that he try to conceal his obvious, disgraceful hardness. His muscles quake under the strain of doing both and neither, and Wei Wuxian smooths one hand down his back, pressing him close, pressing them flush. Lan Wangji chokes back a shocked sound.

"Shh," Wei Wuxian soothes. "It's alright."

It is not alright. It is the end of the thing Lan Wangji holds most dear.

But he does not have it in him to argue. He is shifting against him, his overheated body begging for touch, indeed for ravishment. He is mindless with it. The pain is not subsiding but slipping sideways into something more, something different, something necessary.

He is on his knees on hard stone, breathlessly held in the arms of his beloved. He has dreamt this: sweetly, hazily, with and without hope. But never like this. Never sick with remorse, with need, dying and demanding and defiling. His deepest desire twisted into a nightmare.

He whimpers again, his lips finding the soft coolness of Wei Wuxian's throat. Wei Wuxian jerks away again, and Lan Wangji fists his hands tighter at his sides, trying, trying not to overstep again.

"I—sorry," he gasps out. He will never be able to apologize enough. But he will try.

"Don't apologize," says Wei Wuxian. "I—"

He cuts himself off. Lan Wangji does not have enough sense to wonder why. In the same moment, one of his thighs gives under the strain, and he falls against him heavily. They tip over, to the floor, and he reaches out on instinct to brace them both. When he is again conscious of himself, Wei Wuxian is lying on top of him, breathing hard, both of Lan Wangji's wrists pinned to the floor in one hand. Lan Wangji arches against him inadvertently, and turns his face into his own bicep.

"Sorry, I...so sorry," he pants, his hips flexing, searching for friction. "I have...no control...”

"I know," Wei Wuxian says, "I know, I shouldn't have..." he swallows hard. "I'm going to keep you like this. Can I?"

Lan Wangji nods frantically, his eyes shut tight. He does not care. Anything that he can do to make this any less invasive for Wei Wuxian, he will do.

Wei Wuxian pulls away then, his hold still firm on Lan Wangji's wrists. Lan Wangji squeezes his eyes shut and tries to stop moving, to stop searching for touch, to stop making such a disgusting spectacle of himself, but to no avail. What feels like centuries later, he hears the telltale sounds of talisman activation. He is too far gone in his pain to look up, to see what they are. He simply lies there, pinned and writhing, his breath catching in his throat. The sounds it makes are small, pitiful, desperate.

Just like him.

Eventually, Wei Wuxian leans back over him, a considering look in his eye. His hand hovers at Lan Wangjis belt.

"I—should I..."

"Yes," pleads Lan Wangji.

He needs Wei Wuxian's skin on his skin. He does not know how discerning the curse is about what happens now, but it feels as if he will die without it. Wei Wuxian takes what looks like a fortifying breath and unties the belt. Lan Wangji, unable to help, instead hinders the process with his ceaseless movement. But Wei Wuxian manages it with deft hands, and immediately unties each layer of robes in quick succession until Lan Wangji’s chest and stomach are bare.

The cool air of the cave does not soothe his burning. It burns like ice instead. Lan Wangji shivers, an ugly whine escaping him.

"What," Wei Wuxian asks, pausing, "what is it?"

Lan Wangji shakes his head. He will bear it. He will not make demands.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says, "you need to talk to me, I...I don't want to make this even worse, or, or draw it out longer."

Something small and dark crumples in Lan Wangji's chest. He does not want that either. He will need to speak. To ask.

"Hurts," he says, rough and thick.

"Where?"

"...Not...not touching me."

Wei Wuxian makes a distressed noise and lays both his palms flat over Lan Wangji's ribs. Lan Wangji groans, pressing up into them.

"Please," he whispers, helpless. "Please."

"Oh, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian murmurs, something sad like regret. He leans closer and slides one hand down. Lan Wangji shudders under him. "I'm just going to..."

Lan Wangji nods again, holding his breath to stop the whines from escaping the back of his throat.

Wei Wuxian unties Lan Wangji's trousers and slips his hand inside. Clever fingers wrap hesitantly around him, and he bucks up into them with an obscene moan. It is minor relief from the most consuming pain he has ever felt, and it is simultaneously the most intense pleasure he has ever experienced. All of these sensations, coexisting in his fallible human body, feel likely to rip him apart.

"Wei Ying," he moans again, when Wei Wuxian moves his hand.

He gasps for air, his body twisting into it, his whole being searching for Wei Wuxian. He makes another piteous sound, the torment of it all overwhelming. Wei Wuxian leans down against him then, his own robes open, pressing them skin to skin.

Lan Wangji sobs. It is something. It is something. The pain abates somewhat, and he sighs, turning toward him, his mouth brushing Wei Wuxian's hair. He has the wherewithal now to fight the urge to kiss his head properly, his face, anything he can reach. He holds himself still beneath him instead. And Wei Wuxian touches him, and touches him. The incomprehensible pleasure builds, and builds, until Lan Wangji cannot breathe. But it does not break.

Something almost like soft lips brushes his throat.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says into his ear, "this, is this...will this be enough?"

The pleasure is just another kind of pain, now. Lan Wangji shakes his head as sweat rolls off of him, as he tries and fails to get enough air to speak.

Wei Wuxian clears his throat. "What, then?"

Lan Wangji's body knows what it needs. But he does not want to tell.

"Come on, Lan Zhan, after all this? Don't get shy on me now."

He misses the joking tone he is aiming for, but the pure, unmistakable Wei Wuxian-ness of the tease sends a surge of genuine desire through Lan Wangji. He wraps his legs around Wei Wuxian's hips and pulls him down. Wei Wuxian breathes in sharply.

"You just...you want...but only..."

"Please," says Lan Wangji, barely voiced. "In—" he cannot say it. "Please."

"Ah," Wei Wuxian whispers, into his skin. "If—are you sure?"

Lan Wangji whines. He wishes he were not so very sure. He wishes he were not asking Wei Wuxian to do something so intimate, so extreme. He wishes Wei Wuxian had let him die before it ever came to this.

"Alright Lan Zhan, just hold—hold on," he says, and is gone.

Lan Wangji clamps his mouth shut on a scream as the agony slams back into him, worse even than before.

Not soon enough, Wei Wuxian returns to divest him of his boots, socks and trousers. Lan Wangji fights him without meaning to, trying to keep his knees curled up to his chest, trying to minimize the hurt. Wei Wuxian is briskly patient, handling him with aching care he does not deserve.

And then he is upon him, chest and stomach, hips and thighs, smooth and hard and exquisite. Lan Wangji almost forgets the pain in the rush of gratitude, of solace. Their robes trail off them both, gathering dust as they move together in halting fits and starts.

"Don't let me hurt you, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian grits out, a strong hand lifting one of Lan Wangji's thighs by the back of the knee.

It is nonsense. He could not hurt Lan Wangji any more than this. And Lan Wangji could not stop him now if he did.

But the kindness. Even in this. Tears prick at Lan Wangji's eyes. He will miss him. He will miss all of Wei Wuxian with all of himself. He will never stop missing him. He will never move past this regret as long as he lives. How could he? Every breath he draws will be by the grace of Wei Wuxian.

Suddenly there is slick pressure against him, against his most private of places, and he gasps, loud and wretched. Wei Wuxian exhales, uneven and deep, and pushes in, in, in. Slowly. So slowly. Lan Wangji bites down hard on his lip to keep from begging for it. His arms are pinned, as are his hips, Wei Wuxian holding him steady, holding him still. Lan Wangji loses all sense. There is only the weight of Wei Wuxian, the full, stinging press of him, the searing pain, the devastating euphoria of being this close, and yet so very far in every way that counts.

Ages pass before Wei Wuxian is fully seated inside him. By then Lan Wangji's breaths are wet and shallow; scraping, desolate things. He does not know any longer what hurts and what feels good. It is all one and the same. He only knows he needs more, in some primal, wordless way.

He asks with the arch of his back, the squeeze of his thighs. He tries, somehow, to keep quiet, but fails more often than not.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says tightly, "try to relax, I'm going to move. Tell me if it...if it's right."

Lan Wangji manages a loose nod, though he barely understands.

And Wei Wuxian moves. He rolls his hips against him, shifting inside of him, and Lan Wangji groans. Each deep, short thrust pushes air from his lungs, and he lacks the strength to catch it again. It is beyond pleasure. It is ecstatic. To have Wei Wuxian around him, inside him, panting above him. A deep, villainous part of him wants it never to end. The rest of him howls for release.

He is dripping now, steadily, onto his own stomach. He can feel it pooling on his belly, unpleasantly cool. He whimpers between desperate, panting breaths, beyond words.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says, breath shivering across Lan Wangji's collarbone, "I can't...can't keep this up, you feel too—" his breath catches, and he pauses. "I'm going to finish. You need to come."

Dimly, distantly, the idea that Wei Wuxian should derive pleasure from this, no matter how perfunctory, gives Lan Wangji a perverse sort of satisfaction. It snuffs out like a candle at the nebulous thought that perhaps in another world, they could have had this for real.

In this world, the fact remains that this has gone on far too long. But Lan Wangji can do nothing about it. He meets Wei Wuxian's thrusts, leans into the pleasure, tries to gain the momentum to go over the edge. He should be able to. It should be easy. He has been so hard for so long, has been given more now than in his absolute wildest and wettest of dreams, and yet he hovers, scant inches away.

Wei Wuxian loses patience, his head dropping to Lan Wangji's shoulder. He grunts softly and fists Lan Wangji's wet cock, quick and merciless. Lan Wangji cries out, shuddering violently with the extended, expansive stimulation, worked both inside and out, helplessly, utterly unmade by Wei Wuxian's touch.

And still he does not crest. He is sobbing steadily now, ugly and jagged, and Wei Wuxian kisses his shoulder, his throat, his cheek.

"Were we wrong?" He asks, breathless. "Lan Zhan please, tell—show me, I...I can't...you...I can't lose you. Lan Zhan?"

Exhausted, Lan Wangji turns his tearstained face toward him, blindly seeking. Perhaps they were all wrong. Perhaps he will die now, like this. And perhaps it is selfish of him, but having heard those words, he finds his regret to be less than it should be. Everything, everything hurts. But Wei Wuxian will miss him, too. Of course he will. They are zhiji. This, miraculously, will not erase that. It is more than he deserves. Wei Wuxian has always been more than he deserves.

Lan Wangji heaves, and writhes, and cries.

Wei Wuxian kisses him. Soft, gloriously cool lips on his.

An odd, fleeting, hollow feeling.

The dam breaks. The pain goes suddenly quiet. Roaring to fullness in its absence is the killing swell of such a long-delayed climax. It is possible that he calls Wei Wuxian's name. It is impossible to know.

The world, again, goes dark.

-----

Lan Wangji wakes to gray light and distant birdsong. A sharp edge is digging into his shoulder. He shifts, then goes still at the deep ache in his entire body.

He remembers.

"Hanguang-jun should drink this," says a brisk voice to his right.

Wen Qing sits there, watching him. His heart skips a beat and he looks down. But he is fully clothed once more.

Her smile is wry as she holds a cup out to him. Laboriously, he sits up to take it. It is bitter, but familiar. A restorative. He thanks her formally.

She shakes her head. "No need.” She turns to go.

"Wen-guniang," Lan Wangji says. She pauses. "How long has it been gone?"

She turns to stare at him. He knows she knows what he means.

"How? When?"

She looks away. "You'll have to ask him."

The pang of loss he felt upon waking with Wei Wuxian gone speaks for him. "Will he let me?"

 He lies on the slab of rock that serves as Wei Wuxian's bed for too long. It is difficult to tell the passage of time in the Burial Mounds, but it seems slightly brighter than it had...before. He reasons that it could well be the next morning. He wonders if Wei Wuxian slept beside him, then tosses the thought away as gross indulgence. He wonders instead, as he has many times since his last visit, if Wei Wuxian sleeps at all.

First, his excuse to tarry is meditation. He works at it, simultaneously restoring his drained core and healing himself, until the discomfort fades from his every movement to just a specific few.

Once that is done, he has no reason to be idle. But the voice in his head, Wei Wuxian's blisteringly cold one that had called him his proper name all those months ago, keeps him in place. He hears it saying all manner of things in response to seeing him now.

"What more could you possibly want of me?" Wei Wuxian sneers in his mind. And he would be right to do so.

But Lan Wangji does not intend to ask anything of him ever again.

And there is the other thing. The fact that his robes should be uncomfortable, filthy, but they have been cleaned, dried, and arranged back onto his body properly. Comfortably. Almost as if—

He dares not imagine. But at the very least it does not speak of utter contempt.

So he rises. He follows the path Wen Qing told him of. And he does something foolish. He hopes.

After no short while of walking, he comes to a slightly darker, more silent corner of deadened forest. He rounds a bend and sees Wei Wuxian crouched a little ways off, and then hears high, lilting notes as if through water. The energies are strange here, and Wei Wuxian is speaking to with them in their own language.

Lan Wangji approaches until he sees Wei Wuxian go still. He says nothing. Wei Wuxian drops his flute from his lips.

"Are you well?" He asks without rising or turning.

"I am."

Wei Wuxian nods. "Your people are waiting for you."

It is a dismissal. Lan Wangji recognizes this. But he will impose just a little bit longer.

"Your core," he says. Wei Wuxian stands abruptly, still facing away, gripping Chenqing. "Can it be replaced?"

Wei Wuxian whirls to face him, anger and fear warring with the questions on his face.

Lan Wangji has other questions, too. But they do not matter. He is intelligent enough to piece together the cold, empty space where Wei Wuxian's core should be, the tired guilt on Wen Qing's face, and...

"Your scar," he says, dropping his gaze to the scorched earth.

He should not know of it. But he does, now, and he also owes a greater debt than he can ever repay. Wei Wuxian does not respond. How dearly Lan Wangji wants to see his expression. But he will not infringe on any more of his privacy.

The wind howls. He waits.

"You won't tell anybody," Wei Wuxian says uncertainly.

Lan Wangji stiffens. "I will not."

"Nobody told you?"

"Nobody.”

Wei Wuxian pauses, momentarily satisfied.

"You're not going to ask how? Or when?"

Lan Wangji would like to. He would like to know everything of Wei Wuxian, even his sorrow, his pain. But he is not entitled to those things. There is only one point that matters.

"Can it be replaced? Can the procedure be reversed?"

Wei Wuxian sighs. Lan Wangji can tell he does not wish to speak of this.

"So single-minded, Lan Zhan," he scolds, then shakes his head. "The chance of success would be small; the chance of finding a donor, much smaller."

But this is all Lan Wangji hoped to hear. It is enough. He goes to his knees, arms circled in front of his chest.

"Allow me," he says.

"Lan Zhan!" Wei Wuxian darts forward, trying to pull Lan Wangji up from the ground. Eventually he gives up and goes to his knees in front of him, pushing at his arms. "Lan Zhan, stop this," he says, panicked. "Don't be stupid, stop—Lan Zhan, you can't be serious."

"Please allow me," Lan Wangji repeats, eyes downcast.

"Stop this!" Wei Wuxian shouts. "It can't be done, and I wouldn't take it from you anyway!"

Lan Wangji flinches bodily. He had not considered...but yes. Everything in him is sullied. He bends at the waist, bowing further.

"Apologies for the offense," he says, then snaps his mouth shut. His voice is too obviously strained.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Wuxian says, still alarmed.

Lan Wangji needs to leave. He has already overstayed. But he...he has not tried hard enough.

"This debt is too great to repay in one lifetime," he says. "Please inform this one of what he may do to begin."

Wei Wuxian sags, dragging one of Lan Wangji's wrists with him. "Lan Zhan, there is no debt between us."

Lan Wangji only just stops himself from glancing up. He does not understand.

"I owe you my life and more," he says. "You took great pains to save me, even as the situation proved me unworthy of it. I owe—"

"You owe me nothing," Wei Wuxian insists, shaking Lan Wangji's arm. "There were no great pains. Nobody is unworthy. Well...you aren't."

Lan Wangji opens his mouth to protest, but Wei Wuxian speaks over him.

"People have...desires, Lan Zhan. There's nothing unworthy about it."

"But you—"

"Stop," he says. He sounds so, so tired. "If you hadn't been...dying. If we—" He stops. "Just keep my secret," he says, and lets go of his wrist. "And live well."

Lan Wangji closes his eyes. The thought of going back to his home, his life, after this, had not yet occurred to him. It sinks him from his knees to the ground. How can he do this? How can he leave him this way?

"Wei Ying," he pleads. "I must...I must do something. I cannot...I..."

"Why, Lan Zhan?" Wei Wuxian asks, not unkindly. "You have responsibilities. People to protect, just like me. Live well, and count things even between us. Why not?"

Lan Wangji’s chest caves in. He does not make the sound clawing up his throat.

"You...truly, you must know why," he says. "After... you must know. I would not leave you in need. I could not."

"Ah, Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says sadly. He shuffles forward. Lan Wangji startles at the feel of fingertips on his cheek. "You're too good. But all I need is," he huffs, "political asylum for me and 40 friends? It's not your burden."

Suddenly yet slowly, like the first burst of sunrise, an idea reveals itself on the horizon of Lan Wangji’s mind. It is unorthodox. And likely unwelcome. But it is all he has.

"My uncle made a suggestion," he says. "When my affliction became known. It is true that he did not know what it would mean, but I would hold him to it. If it is not...hateful, to you."

"I don't know what you mean," Wei Wuxian says warily.

Lan Wangji steels himself. "You are perceived as the head of a sect. A proper alliance could protect your people, and Gusu Lan is in need of hands for rebuilding. The person who cast this curse upon me has given the perfect excuse, and made themselves scapegoat. If you would...I would not ask anything of you, if you agreed. It would be a marriage in name only, as you wish it."

Wei Wuxian's silence turns to spluttering. "M—Lan Zh—marriage?? What—how—"

"If the idea is odious, I will not mention it again. But as I said. My uncle suggested it. And under the circumstances, he cannot refuse."

"Your—he—Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan, look at me. Look at me, please."

Lan Wangji looks at him. His eyes are wide. Disbelieving. Concerned.

"Your uncle would qi deviate if you even hinted at such a thing," he says. "Gusu Lan is in a precarious enough position, you don't need...I have nothing to offer in return." He pats his lower stomach, empty of spiritual energy, emphatically. “Nothing. Don't be ridiculous."

"It is not ridiculous," Lan Wangji argues, certain now that he is right. "You can offer more protection for us, and we can offer legitimacy. The person who cast this curse can be seen to have forced our hands. Has—has forced our hands."

He stops himself. He should not push this. Wei Wuxian is looking at him as if he does not know him.

"You don't want to marry me, Lan Zhan."

This gives Lan Wangji pause. It is a confusing objection, to say the least. He stares, trying to comprehend. He clears his throat. Takes a breath.

"If you are under the impression..." he stops. Drops his eyes once more. "...that the...impetus of the curse. Is the whole of the way I—”

"Demonic cultivation," Wei Wuxian interrupts. "It would be unhealthy. For you. And your elders! They wouldn't let me, not if I were...attached to your sect. To you.”

A fair concern, and one Lan Wangji has been turning over in his own mind as well. "Is this your only objection?"

Wei Wuxian casts about. "Ah..."

Lan Wangji takes one last plunge. "The elders can be reasoned with, compromises can be made. I am not concerned for my health: being near you could never be harmful to me." He hears himself, then, and amends, "Though you need not. Be near me. That is not a condition."

"You would defend this?" Wei Wuxian asks, bemused.

"Defend what?"

"My cultivation path. You..."

Lan Wangji resists a sigh. "I understand the reason, now. And I believe...if you did not object. We could work toward making it safe, without stripping you of what your hard work has created."

"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says. He reaches out, then stops.

Lan Wangji stares at his hand, hovering between them. His heart is beating so hard he can feel it in his eyes, in his tongue.

"Wei Ying."

"You would let me, though?"

His tone is gently mocking. His head is cocked to the side, the edge of a smile playing across his lips. It knocks the breath from Lan Wangji's chest.

"Let you?" He asks, dazed.

"Be near you."

Lan Wangji's heart stops. It is a moment before he can respond.

"I would. Always."

Wei Wuxian takes his hand, and sighs. "You don't owe me this," he says again.

"I do," Lan Wangji counters, off-kilter. "I owe you. And I want to. I would want to, even if—"

He loosens his tight grip on Wei Wuxian's hand. He is saying too much, taking too much, being too much. He settles himself. Finds the words that matter.

"It would be a thing happily given, with no strings attached, should you wish it."

Wei Wuxian laughs strangely. "Lan Zhan, you really..." He shakes his head. "I'd marry you in an instant, you know," says.

Lan Wangji's neck hurts from the speed with which he looks up at him. Hope, warm and liquid, blooms through his limbs.

"But I can't make this decision on my own," Wei Wuxian goes on. "It's not just my life. We have to talk it over with everyone."

"Yes," Lan Wangji says, surprised, and eager now that he sees the possibility of success. Of doing something of use.

"Alright," says Wei Wuxian, a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth. "I can't promise...but it...it could work."

"It will," Lan Wangji says, certain that the strength of his conviction alone will carry them through if need be.

He feels strange and dreamlike, confused but heartened by the turn in this conversation. That Wei Wuxian can stand the sight of him, let alone wish to ally with him personally, seems too wonderful to be true. Another Wei Wuxian hallmark.

"But Lan Zhan, no more talk of strings," Wei Wuxian says.

Lan Wangji sobers and nods. It is unseemly. Of course their understanding must be a tacit one, now.

But his hand is suddenly in both of Wei Wuxian's.

"You need to stop feeling guilty," Wei Wuxian says, looking down at it. "If I were your husband...if I were. We could try all that again, but without the impending doom. We could try it again any way we like, any time—all the time—and we'd—"

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji interrupts, strangled. His heart is in his throat. He cannot comprehend what he is hearing. His ears, his face, are on fire.

Wei Wuxian smiles down at their hands, one part shy, one part mischief. "I think we could get really good at it, if we had the chance, don't you?"

Lan Wangji stares at him. "You..."

"Mn," says Wei Wuxian, meeting his eyes.

He shines so bright, even without any core to speak of. He takes Lan Wangji's breath away.

"I take it back," Wei Wuxian says, his voice suddenly urgent. "I like strings. Mine is that if this happens, I want to be your real husband. In name, in practice, in bed, and in your heart. Because you would be, in mine."

Lan Wangji's voice sticks in his throat. He feels...he feels unreal. He does not know what to do, to say. Perhaps they never broke the curse at all and he has simply gone mad. But Wei Wuxian's fingers stroking his palm, the root-knotted dirt beneath his shins, are real. He sways, unbalanced.

Wei Wuxian reaches out. Catches him. Folds him into his arms for a second time. Lan Wangji's breath shudders out of him.

He is on his knees, breathlessly held in the arms of his beloved. He has dreamt this many ways. But never has it been so real, so full of hope. He wraps his arms around Wei Wuxian in turn, buries his face in his shoulder.

Wei Wuxian huffs. "Jiang Cheng is going to be so angry."

Lan Wangji comes back down to earth. It is true he had not thought of this. He makes to pull away. "How should—"

Wei Wuxian clutches him tighter. "I don't care," he says, "I don't care, we can manage him." He pauses, then speaks more softly. "Maybe...I could see shijie's wedding after all. Or—no. It's too soon, I—"

"Yes," says Lan Wangji. "You will. We will go together."

Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath, and lets it out into Lan Wangji's hair.

"Together," he says.

It takes several serious, and at times uncomfortable, discussions, but in the end, Gusu Lan’s Second Jade is indeed thoroughly removed from the marriage pool of the great sects. The curse caster is found and punished. And everybody else lives happily ever after.

The end.

-----

(Thank you for coming on this wildly self-indulgent journey, I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to read some actually nicely-polished, fleshed-out fics by me—including another sex-cursed LWJ—check out my AO3.)

#my fic #mdzsnet #the untamed fanfic #theuntameddaily #bottom lan wangji #that tag just...has to go there bc i know people actually find things through it #on tumblr??? you ask #yes my friends evidently #anyway here's...this #angst that morphs suddenly into the MOST indulgent of fix-its #does it have a consistent tone??? is it Good??? who knows. unimportant #is it not enough to simply tweet 9 thousand words in 3 days and then yeet it at your tumblr followers too #this isn't FOR a literary award....it's for melodrmatic wangxian Feels and nothing else #i hope you enjoy it!!!! <3