#And when it was about where is Jiang sleeping and both were like sure lets shack up

[ginsoakedgirl80]

[bloody-bee-tea]

Gift for me

1) I am not back into Mingcheng, I'm very sorry to disappoint on that. This fic has been ready to go for a year now, and I am kind of happy to finally get it off my desktop XD

2) Happy New Year, may it be filled with love and softness and laughter and happiness for us all

Part 1 (Happy Birthday) Part 2 (Selfish Gift)

It’s the third birthday Nie Mingjue spends with Jiang Cheng right by his side and by now he stopped expecting anything. Jiang Cheng blew him out of the water when he actually cared more about his birthday than about any New Year’s celebration and then a year later he did it again when he asked Nie Mingjue to move in together.

This year—well this year, it’s Nie Mingjue who has a surprise for Jiang Cheng.

He had wanted to give it to him in bed, when they were both still sleep-warm and relaxed but of course Jiang Cheng doesn’t stick to any kind of plan at all and isn’t in bed when Nie Mingjue wakes up.

“A-Cheng,” Nie Mingjue groans out, his hands grasping at already cold sheets and his mood already turning for the worse.

“I’m right here, my heart,” Jiang Cheng says with a smile as he sticks his head into the bedroom but he’s not where he’s supposed to be, which is warm and lazy in Nie Mingjue’s arms.

“What are you doing?” Nie Mingjue demands to know, mustering his best glare even though he knows it’s not much, this soon after waking up.

“We’re getting guests in about half an hour,” Jiang Cheng informs him and Nie Mingjue lets his head drop back with a groan.

“What? No. Why? What happened to spending my birthday in bed together?” he demands to know because this wasn’t the plan.

“But we woke up together all year,” Jiang Cheng gives back and at that Nie Mingjue throws him an outraged look.

“You think waking up together every other day gets you out of waking up together on my birthday?” Nie Mingjue is honestly lost for words how Jiang Cheng could arrive at such a horrendously wrong conclusion but he softens a bit when Jiang Cheng laughs at him.

It is still one of Nie Mingjue’s most cherished sounds.

“Not really,” he admits as he comes closer to sit on Nie Mingjue’s side of the bed. “But you know that Huaisang and Xuanyu are leaving for their holiday early tomorrow morning so we decided to have your birthday celebration a little bit earlier.”

“I preferred it when we celebrated my birthday a week late,” Nie Mingjue grumbles even as he pulls Jiang Cheng in for a kiss.

“Liar,” Jiang Cheng whispers back and kisses Nie Mingjue again. “Happy birthday, my soul.”

“Good morning, my heart,” he gives back, still a bit unhappy with how this day is going but he guesses he has to make the best of it now. “Will we have dinner alone, then?” he asks because so far Jiang Cheng at least made sure to always spend one meal a day with Nie Mingjue alone.

“Yes. I will kick everyone out after cake, don’t worry. We’ll do dinner and a movie on the couch, with all the cuddles you could want.”

It feels a little bit like a consolation prize with how cold the bed was when Nie Mingjue woke up but he will take whatever he can get.

“Fine,” he finally heaves out because what else can he really say and Jiang Cheng laughs at him.

“Don’t even pretend to be a grump, I know you too well,” he teases him and flicks his forehead for good measure too.

“You’ll still have to make it up to me,” Nie Mingjue decides as he gets out of bed and Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow at him in question.

“And how would I do that?” he wants to know and Nie Mingjue gives him a devilish grin as he leans down to give him a much more heated kiss.

“You’ll simply have to wake up in my arms for at least a month straight,” he then tells him and leaves Jiang Cheng right there on the bedside as he walks off to the bathroom to get himself ready for their guests.

And to wrap up his gift in a different way, now that his original plan has been ruined.

Nie Mingjue laughs out loud when he hears Jiang Cheng splutter behind him and he has to admit that this birthday is still good, simply because Jiang Cheng is right there with him.

~*~*~

The day itself is busy. Nie Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu come over for brunch but leave early in the afternoon because they still have some packing to do. Nie Mingjue’s friends arrive shortly before Nie Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu leave but true to his word, Jiang Cheng throws them all out an hour after cake.

Nie Mingjue watches it with a smile but he lets him do it because it is what was promised and Nie Mingjue is now actually looking forward to a relaxing evening with Jiang Cheng.

He loves his family and friends but these celebrations are always a bit too much for him, especially if they are this stretched out.

“Tired?” Jiang Cheng predictably asks when he comes back from kicking the last lingering friend out and finds Nie Mingjue on the couch, his head tilted back and his eyes closed.

“Yes,” Nie Mingjue easily says because admitting to these things is always easy with Jiang Cheng.

“Too much?” Jiang Cheng asks next and stands behind the couch, so he can scratch lightly at Nie Mingjue’s scalp.

“Mh, no, just right,” Nie Mingjue admits. “An hour longer though—” he trails off, trusting Jiang Cheng to understand what he means and when Jiang Cheng laughs, he knows he did.

“And you would have started to murder people, I get it,” he chuckles out and then leans over to press a kiss to Nie Mingjue’s forehead. “But no murder on your birthday. Only relaxing stuff for us now.”

“Are you going to cook?” Nie Mingjue asks, and he reaches up to grab Jiang Cheng by the forearms.

Suddenly the idea that Jiang Cheng will cook in the kitchen and Nie Mingjue is left with nothing to do but watch him seems like the worst idea ever.

“Nope,” Jiang Cheng cheerfully tells him and simply flips over the back of the couch when it becomes apparent that Nie Mingjue is not going to let him go. “I thought we order in today.”

“Good thinking,” Nie Mingjue hums out, leaning over to steal a kiss and then wrangles Jiang Cheng around until he’s arranged to his liking, mainly in Nie Mingjue’s arms and with no way to run off again.

“Clingy much?” Jiang Cheng teases him but Nie Mingjue only hums because Jiang Cheng is fooling no one. He went boneless the moment Nie Mingjue pulled him into his arms and so Nie Mingjue simply presses a kiss to his head.

They doze off like that on the couch for a while, and Nie Mingjue has to admit that this is still good; it’s not waking up with Jiang Cheng in bed levels of good, but it comes close, simply because they get to share this soft moment together.

And even though it has been a year Nie Mingjue hasn’t quite forgotten what happened on his last birthday, so when Jiang Cheng’s stomach grumbles and basically wakes them up, Nie Mingjue laughs.

“You’re so rude,” Jiang Cheng grumbles, pawing at him to try and get away, but Nie Mingjue is not going to let him.

“And you’re so starved,” he teases right back, leaning in for a kiss when Jiang Cheng pouts at him.

“I’ll truly be starved by the time dinner comes around,” he complains and Nie Mingjue shrugs.

“Get some more cake then?” he tells him even though he has no intention of letting Jiang Cheng out of his arms any time soon.

“First let’s order something,” Jiang Cheng decides, fishing for his phone.

He makes quick work of their order and doesn’t even bother to ask what Nie Mingjue would like; they both have their favourites at several different delivery places and Nie Mingjue is content to simply be surprised by dinner tonight.

“Now let go of me, I’ll starve for real,” Jiang Cheng then says as he puts the phone away and he tries to struggle out of Nie Mingjue’s arms whose intentions haven’t changed.

“Nope, you’ll have to live off my love for you for a while,” Nie Mingjue tells him with a laugh that only gets deeper when Jiang Cheng flops around like a fish.

“You’re ridiculous,” Nie Mingjue says when Jiang Cheng finally exhausted himself and Jiang Cheng blinks up at him.

“You love me,” he says and Nie Mingjue will probably never stop marvelling at the fact that Jiang Cheng doesn’t doubt this at all.

It makes Nie Mingjue very proud to know that he loves Jiang Cheng well enough that none of Jiang Cheng’s insecurities can ruin this.

“That I do,” Nie Mingjue immediately says and drops a kiss to Jiang Cheng’s nose.

They get lost in trading kisses until it rings at their door and even the sweet promise of food is almost not enough to lure Jiang Cheng away from Nie Mingjue.

“Weren’t you starving?” he finally asks when Jiang Cheng makes no move to open the door and that finally prompts Jiang Cheng to get up.

“I was living off your love,” he throws over his shoulder even as he goes to retrieve their food and Nie Mingjue takes that little window of opportunity to dart into the bedroom to get his gift.

The gift giving part of the day is already over, but Nie Mingjue didn’t want to do this with everyone else around; this is just for him and Jiang Cheng, at least for today.

He makes a detour through the kitchen to bring supplies to the living-room and when he comes back Jiang Cheng is already unloading their food on the table.

“Do you know what you want to watch?” Jiang Cheng asks him as he works, not sparing a glance for Nie Mingjue.

“Yep,” Nie Mingjue says, even though a movie is very far from his mind right now and when Jiang Cheng expectantly turns around to him, he slips the gift onto Jiang Cheng’s plate.

He’s of course not fast enough to escape Jiang Cheng’s notice, so he immediately turns around to look at what Nie Mingjue just did.

“What the hell is this?” Jiang Cheng demands to know, crossing his arms in front of his chest and Nie Mingjue sits down on the couch, pretending that his heart isn’t about to beat out of his chest.

“What does it look like?” he innocently gives back and Jiang Cheng narrows his eyes at him.

“Like a goddamn present.”

“Then that’s probably what it is,” Nie Mingjue teasingly says and doesn’t shrink back under Jiang Cheng’s glare.

“It’s your birthday. Why the hell am I getting a gift?”

“It is, technically, a gift for me,” Nie Mingjue says and now the glare melts off Jiang Cheng’s face to turn into a confused frown.

“But I’m the one who’s supposed to open it?”

“Yes.”

“Mh,” Jiang Cheng hums out and gingerly picks the wrapped gift up.

He tries to shake it to see if it rattles and he seems surprised when it does.

“Am I going to break it?”

“I don’t know. Are you?” Nie Mingjue laughs out when Jiang Cheng continues to poke at it instead of opening it up but finally he rips the wrapping paper apart.

He is met with a cardboard box Nie Mingjue found lying around in their bedroom this morning and it clearly does nothing to solve his confusion.

“What the hell is this?” he breathes out again, working on getting the box open and Nie Mingjue leans forward in anticipation.

It seems as if Jiang Cheng’s impatience finally won out because he rips the box open the last bit and then he immediately freezes.

And Nie Mingjue slides off the couch, onto one knee.

“My heart,” he starts as he reaches into the box to get the little black box out and it seems as just that is enough to make Jiang Cheng cry.

“Yes,” he gets out, his voice all choked up and Nie Mingjue laughs.

“I didn’t even say anything yet, don’t be so impatient,” he chides him but he catches Jiang Cheng’s hand in his to press a kiss to his fingers.

“My heart,” he repeats. “Will you give me the greatest birthday gift of them all and marry me?” he then asks and flicks the box open to reveal a ring.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jiang Cheng chants out, tearing his gaze away from the ring and cupping Nie Mingjue’s face in his hands. “I will marry you, my soul,” he whispers and when he leans in to kiss Nie Mingjue the tears spill over.

“Best birthday ever,” Nie Mingjue mumbles when they part and he takes that opportunity to slide the ring on Jiang Cheng’s finger.

“Best birthday ever,” Jiang Cheng agrees, marvelling at the ring now on his hand and Nie Mingjue isn’t sure if he’s ever seen him smiling so much.

But to be fair, he isn’t sure if he’s ever smiled so much in his life before either.

“I love you,” Jiang Cheng tells him, intertwining their fingers and Nie Mingjue feels as if he’s going to melt with all the love he has for this man.

“I love you,” he gives back even though that should be pretty much obvious by now and then he pulls Jiang Cheng in for a kiss.

Their food is—yet again—cold by the time they manage to part enough to remember it but Nie Mingjue thinks if this is the tradition they are going to set for his birthday then he’s not going to mind that much.

Not if being incandescently happy comes right along with that.

[sectleaderjiang]

“  i’m here to raid your fridge cause my date went really bad and all i’ve had is lukewarm water and breadsticks.  ” -peonyleader

Send a prompt for emotionally stunted idiots for my muse to respond to

The evening thus far had been far quieter than Jiang Cheng was used to. He’d finished most of his paperwork before the sun had set and enjoyed a plentiful meal that Jiang Yanli had made for the family before turning in early with her husband, just as sure as Jiang Cheng was that it would be a quiet night. Jin Ling had to return to Lanling for some kind of business that he’d seemed particularly pouty about, but he’d refused to explain when pressed. He wasn’t expected back at Lotus Pier until the next day at the earliest.

Halfway across his lap, greedily taking the space as soon as Jiang Cheng had sat down to mindlessly read something other than letters from other sects, was Nana, a beagle that was far too spoiled compared to the rest of the spiritual dogs. She lifted her head very suddenly, ears perked up to listen, before hopping up and racing towards the front door. Her reaction wasn’t to warn of danger, but rather to warn Jiang Cheng of the storm of upset nephew that had just burst through the door, attempting a scowl that always came across more like a childish pout.

After looking up from his book, Jiang Cheng glanced back at the pages as Jin Ling stormed down the hall and towards the kitchens in the family house. ❝ I thought you weren’t going to be back until tomorrow, ❞ he said, pretending to read the words in front of him.

Even from how far away he was, Jiang Cheng could still hear Jin Ling’s hiss of anger. If he hadn’t been concerned before, then Jiang Cheng certainly was now by that response. He put his book down without bothering to mark the page and headed towards the kitchen, where Jin Ling was slamming cupboards open with enough force to wake up his parents from where they were sleeping. At his feet, both Fairy and Nana were sniffing and whining in concern. Obviously something had happened, but it wasn’t because Jin Ling was injured. The dogs would have alerted if he was.

Standing in the doorway, Jiang Cheng leaned against it and crossed his arms as he watched Jin Ling attempt to pace around the dogs at his feet, grabbing a bowl and whatever else he seemed able to get his hands on. A packet of noodles, leftover pork, some sauces, sugar - oh. ❝ Sit down, ❞ Jiang Cheng ordered, nudging the dogs away with his feet as he took the bowl from Jin Ling’s hands. When he finally looked up, he revealed the redness in his eyes with unshed tears at the corners, which Jiang Cheng frowned deeply at. ❝ Sit down, ❞ he repeated with more emphasis, and was nice enough to not scold Jin Ling for the scoff he let out as he headed towards the table.

It was easy to fall into routine, having made this particular recipe more times than he could count. As the noodles cooked, Jiang Cheng reheated the leftover pork and made the sauce, adding both to the drained noodles and letting it set for a minute. He portioned out a generous serving and slid it across the table along with a pair of chopsticks, sitting down himself after everything was finished. Jin Ling still looked upset, glaring down at the bowl in front of him as he shoveled noodles into his mouth like he was pissed off he had to eat. Jiang Cheng let him stew in the silence for a bit, watching his nephew’s body language for anything that might give away just why he was upset, but in the end he couldn’t figure it out past it had something to do with why he’d had to go to Lanling.

❝ Slow down before you choke yourself, ❞ he said, satisfied when Jin Ling actually seemed to listen and chew his food before swallowing. 

@peonyleader

[killerandhealerqueen]

Hiii are you maybe still taking prompts? Wanted to know if you could write something about SCI hahah

Was thinking about BYT and ZY getting into a car accident of some sort. BYT gets away lightly but ZY is more injured. Bonus if they were arguing before it happens heh

Hello anon! My ask box is always open for prompts! And I haven't done an S.C.I. prompt in a hot minute so I'm down! Also owww...I've never done a prompt like this so we shall see what happens! (It'll be a happy ending, of course but oh my god, is it going to hurt)

‘It’s all my fault’.  That’s all Bai Yutong could keep repeating in his head over and over as he sat outside in the waiting room of the hospital, a steri-strip taped just above his eyebrow while bruises and other scrapes adorned his arms and hands.  He then placed his head in his hands and let out a heavy sigh; God, it was all his fault. 

~*~*~*~*~*~

It had been a rather normal day in the S.C.I. department, what with Wang Shao and Zhao Fu bickering over Wang Shao’s snacks, Bai Chi doing his best to stop their bickering, and Ma Han and Jiang Ling side-eying them from their desks.  Meanwhile, Bai Yutong and Zhan Yao were in Bai Yutong’s office, Bai Yutong working on paperwork while Zhan Yao sat across from him grading papers from his class that he taught at the local university.  As they were working, the door to the office opened and Bai Chi popped his head in.

         “Bai Sir, Dr. Zhan.  Sorry to disturb you, but we got a case” he stated.  Both Bai Yutong and Zhan Yao looked up at him before they nodded and put down their pens, pushing themselves to their feet before they headed out of the office and into the bullpen to listen to the case they had received. 

~*~*~*~*~*~

After getting briefed on the case, which was a case where an entire family was murdered, the youngest being only six weeks old, Bai Yutong, Zhan Yao, and the other headed out of the office, Bai Yutong and Zhan Yao getting into Bai Yutong’s car before they sped off towards the scene. 

~*~*~*~*~*~

As they headed towards the scene, Bai Yutong looked over at Zhan Yao.

         “Are you going to be able to handle this case?” he asked.  Zhan Yao frowned.

         “Why wouldn’t I be?” he replied.  Bai Yutong huffed.

         “Because I know how you get when we get cases that involve children” he explained.  Zhan Yao rolled his eyes.

         “I’ll be fine.  I’ll take breaks if I have to” he assured, only for Bai Yutong to frown.

         “Are you sure?  You could always sit this one out” he offered.  Zhan Yao huffed.

         “If I sat out every single case that involved children, I might as well quit my job” he snapped, making Bai Yutong give him a look.

         “Cat—” he started.

         “No, Bai Yutong!” Zhan Yao shouted, causing Bai Yutong to look at him in shock as he huffed.

         “When I became a cop, I knew I was going to see some horrific things.  I knew that.  If I thought I couldn’t handle it, I would have stayed an academic” he spat.  Bai Yutong was quiet before he huffed softly.

         “You should have stayed an academic” he murmured, making Zhan Yao look over at him with wide eyes.

         “What did you say?!” he exclaimed.  Bai Yutong tsked.

         “You heard me” he replied.  Zhan Yao growled.

         “No, no, say it again.  Say it to my face.  What did you say?” he demanded.  Bai Yutong huffed.

         “I said you should have stayed an academic!  You shouldn’t have gone to the academy!  You should have just moved to America like your dad wanted!  You would have been safer there!” he exclaimed.  Zhan Yao’s eyes widened before he shook his head.

         “Don’t treat me like some fragile piece of glass, Bai Yutong!” he shouted.  Bai Yutong huffed.

         “But you are!  You can’t shoot a gun, you’re susceptible to hypnotism, your stamina is absolutely shit, you can’t fucking remember to eat or sleep 95% of the god damn time unless I remind you…the only thing that’s going for you is your high intelligence!” he snapped.  At his words, Zhan Yao looked at him with wide eyes as if he had been slapped before he shook himself out of it and scoffed.

         “Well if it hadn’t been for my intelligence, half of our cases wouldn’t have gotten solved!  Without me, S.C.I. is NOTHING!” he roared, making Bai Yutong bark out a laugh as they began to speed through an intersection.

         “Oh give me a break.  We can do just fine without you” he assured.  Zhan Yao scoffed.

         “You wouldn’t last a day without me” he sneered.

         “That’s a lie” Bai Yutong retorted, making Zhan Yao raise an eyebrow.

         “Is it?” he asked.  However, before Bai Yutong could answer, a truck suddenly slammed into Zhan Yao’s side, causing both Zhan Yao and Bai Yutong to cry out as the car skidded across the pavement before it suddenly flipped and rolled a few times before it came to a stop on its hood, leaving Zhan Yao and Bai Yutong suspended.  As they hung there, thankfully still strapped to their seats, Bai Yutong let out a soft groan and slowly opened his eyes before he looked over to see Zhan Yao limp in his seat, his hair matted to his head as blood dripped down his face.

         “C-Cat?” he called out.  When Zhan Yao didn’t answer, Bai Yutong frowned before he reached out and took his hand, giving it a week squeeze.

         “Zhan Yao” he called again.  However, Zhan Yao still didn’t respond, causing Bai Yutong’s heart to drop to his stomach.

         “Zhan Yao.  Zhan Yao, please” he pleaded, but Zhan Yao didn’t answer.

         ‘Shit…I need to get us out of here’ Bai Yutong thought to himself before he released Zhan Yao’s hand and turned off the car before he unbuckled himself, making sure to protect himself with his arms on the way down so that he didn’t get any glass on his face (and boy was he grateful that he decided to wear his white leather jacket that day).  Once he was safely out of his seat, he looked over at Zhan Yao and reached out, carefully placing two fingers to his pulse point.  Thankfully, he could feel a pulse, but it was weak, causing him to take a shuddering breath.

         “Hang on, Cat.  I’ll get you out of here” he promised before he pulled his hand away and turned his attention to his car window, slowly beginning to crawl out feet first.  As he crawled out of the car, he hissed every now and then as the glass pierced his hands but he could worry about himself later; right now he had to get Zhan Yao out.  Once he was safely out of the car, he ran around to Zhan Yao’s side of the car and crawled inside, carefully placing himself directly under Zhan Yao before he reached up and cupped the back of his neck, making sure to support it before he unbuckled his belt, Zhan Yao all but dropping like dead weight onto him.  Once he was safely out of his seat, Bai Yutong carefully shimmied himself out of the car, still holding Zhan Yao protectively, just as fire and rescue arrived on scene, a few firefighters running over to them.

         “Sir!  Sir, are you alright?” one firefighter asked.  Bai Yutong glanced up at them before he nodded. 

         “I’m fine” he assured before he motioned to Zhan Yao.

         “But my partner…my partner’s hurt.  He’s bleeding” he stated.  The firefighters nodded before one of them knelt before him and held out his arms.

         “I’ll take him, sir” he stated.  Bai Yutong looked at him, then down at Zhan Yao, who was still limp in his arms, before he carefully handed Zhan Yao off to him, the firefighter taking Zhan Yao in his arms before he rushed over to the EMTs, who had taken the gurney out of the ambulance.  While they were working on Zhan Yao, the other firefighter who had run over to Bai Yutong held out his hand.

         “Sir, you need to get looked at as well” he stated, only for Bai Yutong to shake his head.

         “No, I’m fine—” he started when the firefighter gave him a look.

         “Sir, you were just in a terrible car accident, we need to take you to the hospital to make sure nothing is broken and that you don’t have a concussion or have internal bleeding” he explained.  Bai Yutong was quiet before he sighed and reached out, allowing the firefighter to help him to his feet and guide him over to the ambulance before he carefully climbed inside and sat on the bench beside the gurney Zhan Yao was strapped to.  Once they were both inside, the firefighters closed the door and as soon as the doors were closed, the ambulance took off, speeding towards the hospital while the firefighters and the police officers remained behind to process the scene. 

~*~*~*~*~*~

As they sped towards the hospital, Bai Yutong watched as the EMTs worked on Zhan Yao, making sure that his heartrate was steady and that he was still breathing while also checking to see if anything else was broken.  While they were checking him out, Bai Yutong slowly reached out and took Zhan Yao’s hand, giving it a gentle yet firm squeeze.

         ‘You’re gonna be fine, Cat.  You’re gonna be fine’ he assured, even though it sounded more like he was reassuring himself more than anything.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Once they arrived at the hospital, Zhan Yao was quickly taken out of the ambulance and rushed to the ER while Bai Yutong slowly exited the ambulance and followed behind, almost in a daze, until a nurse walked over to him and gently grasped his arm.

         “Sir, let’s get you checked out as well” she suggested.  Bai Yutong glanced over at her before he nodded weakly and allowed her to guide him over to a room to get checked out, all the while keeping his eyes on the hallway that Zhan Yao had been rushed down.

~*~*~*~*~*~

After he had been checked out and deemed “okay” (as in nothing was broken or bleeding and he was conscious), Bai Yutong headed to the waiting room and all but plopped down into one of the chairs, letting out a shuddering breath as he placed his head in his hands.  It was all his fault.  It was all his fucking fault.  He shouldn’t have fucking said anything about the case or about how Zhan Yao should have sat it out or about how Zhan Yao should have stayed an academic and gone to America…He shouldn’t have fucking said anything.  Because the last words he said to Zhan Yao before they were hit…was that they would be just fine without him.  Which was a god damn fucking lie.  It was a god damn lie.  Bai Yutong was not fine without him…and he never would be.  Because they were a pair.  They were each other’s other half.  They were soulmates.  There was no Bai Yutong without Zhan Yao.  Where one went, the other followed.  And to think that he had the audacity to say that he didn’t need Zhan Yao and that he would be fine without him?  God should have struck him dead.  He should have been the one who got t-boned, not Zhan Yao.  Zhan Yao didn’t deserve that, but he definitely did.  As he sat there, wallowing in self-hatred, Gongsun, who sometimes took shifts at the hospital, walked over and stood before him.

         “Bai Sir” he called out, making Bai Yutong look up at him with wide eyes before he shot to his feet.

         “Gongsun” he breathed before he took a deep breath.

         “How is he?” he asked.  Gongsun sighed.

         “He’s currently unconscious” he answered.  Bai Yutong frowned.

         “And his injuries?” he asked. 

         “He sustained a head wound and a broken arm on impact, along with some lacerations to the face from the glass as it entered the car when the other vehicle crashed into you” Gongsun replied.  Bai Yutong was quiet before he took a shuddering breath.

         “But is he…okay?  Will he…live?” he whispered.  Gongsun sighed.

         “He’s currently in critical condition, so I can’t answer that right now.  But have a little faith, Bai Sir.  Dr. Zhan is strong” he assured.  Bai Yutong nodded weakly before he looked at him.

         “Can I see him?” he requested.  Gongsun shook his head.

         “Not at this time.  If his condition improves and he regains consciousness, then we can allow you to see him” he stated.  Bai Yutong nodded again before he turned and walked back over to his seat, making Gongsun frown.

         “Bai Sir…you should go home.  Get some rest” he suggested, only for Bai Yutong to shake his head.

         “I’m not leaving” he declared.  Gongsun made a face before he sighed heavily and turned, heading down the hallway; he knew better than to try and talk reason into Bai Yutong when Zhan Yao was involved.  After he left, Bai Yutong continued to sit in the waiting room, just as the other members of S.C.I. came running over to him.

         “Bai Sir!” they exclaimed, making Bai Yutong glance at them as they surrounded him.

         “We heard what happened!  Are you and Dr. Zhan okay?” Zhao Fu asked.  Bai Yutong sighed.

         “I’m fine…Zhan Yao’s unconscious and in critical condition” he answered, making everyone gasp before Ma Han looked at him.

         “What do you want us to do?” she asked.  Bai Yutong was quiet for a moment before he slowly lifted his head and looked at them.

         “Figure out who’s in charge of this case and take it from them.  Then figure out who hit us.  They weren’t at the scene, so that makes it a hit and run” he declared.  The S.C.I. members nodded and turned to leave when Bai Chi paused and looked at him.

         “Sir…shouldn’t you go home?” he asked.  Bai Yutong shot him a glare.

         “Shouldn’t you be out trying to figure out who hit us?” he hissed.  Bai Chi flinched before he nodded.

         “Yes sir” he replied before he and the others rushed off, Bai Yutong sighing heavily before he placed his head back in his hands.  He wasn’t leaving.

~*~*~*~*~*~

A little while later, Bao Sir came to visit and the minute he saw Bai Yutong sitting there with his head in his hands, he sighed softly before he quietly walked over and sat beside him.  Neither man said anything for a while before Bao Sir cleared his throat.

         “Take as much time as you need” he instructed, making Bai Yutong lift his head out of his hands and look at him before he dipped his head.

         “Thank you, sir” he thanked.  Bao Sir nodded before he pushed himself to his feet and walked away, not even bothering to suggest that Bai Yutong go home and leave Zhan Yao because he knew that Bai Yutong wouldn’t.  When it came to Zhan Yao…all other priorities were thrown straight out the window.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Over the next couple of days, Bai Yutong practically lived at the hospital, refusing to move from his seat in the waiting room until one day, his older sister Bai Qingtang walked over to him and grabbed him by the arm.

         “Get up” she ordered, only for Bai Yutong to shake his head.

         “I’m not leaving” he replied, making Bai Qingtang tsk.

         “Yes, you are” she declared before she released his arm and snapped her fingers, Da Ding and Xiao Ding quickly walking over before they all but yanked Bai Yutong out of his seat, much to his annoyance.

         “Jie, let go of me.  I’m not leaving Zhan Yao” he snapped, just as Bai Qingtang gave him a look.

         “Yes, you are.  There’s no point of you just sitting here waiting for something to happen.  You need to take care of yourself too, baby brother.  Because it’s not fair that only one of you is trying to get better.  Remember, when Zhan Yao recovers and gets out of the hospital…you need to be there for him.  And you can’t do that if you end up in the hospital yourself.  Got it?” she demanded.  Bai Yutong looked at her before he nodded.

         “Yes jie” he murmured.  Bai Qingtang nodded.

         “Good” she agreed before she turned and began walking through the hallways of the hospital, Bai Yutong, Xiao Ding, and Da Ding following behind her.

         “But…what about Zhan Yao—” Bai Yutong started.

         “Don’t worry, Yutong, I’ve instructed Gongsun to call me the minute Xiao Yao’s condition improves” Bai Qingtang assured, causing Bai Yutong to frown.

         “Why you?” he demanded.  Bai Qingtang glanced over at him and smirked.

         “Because I still have a car” she replied.  Bai Yutong narrowed his eyes.

         “Not funny, jie” he snapped.  Bai Qingtang smiled sadly.

         “Sorry, too soon” she apologized, Bai Yutong humming in reply as they continued out of the hospital.

~*~*~*~*~*~

After finally going home and showering and getting a good night’s rest, Bai Yutong decided that he was just going to…stay home.  Bao Sir had said it was fine anyways and to take as much time as he needed so…he was going to take that time and just sort of…spiral.  Which, you know, wasn’t exactly healthy but he knew that if he went to work, the others would just give him sad looks of pity when they thought he wasn’t looking or he would want to talk to Zhan Yao about something only to go into his office and find it empty, reminding him that he wasn’t in his office but in the hospital.  And Bai Yutong didn’t need any reminders…his brain already reminded him enough with the nightmares every night.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Then one night, after another nightmare tore him out of his sleep with a loud gasp, Bai Yutong let out a low groan and flopped back onto his bed, throwing an arm over his eyes.

         ‘Stupid brain’ he grumbled before he let out a heavy sigh.  He wasn’t much of a prayer, as he and Zhan Yao both believed in science and didn’t believe in the supernatural, but…if there was something or someone out there…who could make or help Zhan Yao get better…then a simple…pleading prayer couldn’t hurt…right?

         “If you’re…out there…and you’re listening…please…please let Zhan Yao wake up.  Please.  I can’t…lose him” he whispered.

~*~*~*~*~*~

A few days later, after he had prayed his pleading prayer, Bai Yutong was sitting on his couch, watching TV when there was a loud knock on his door, making him look over at it before he pushed himself to his feet and walked over to it, opening it to find Bai Qingtang standing outside.

         “Jie?” he greeted.  Bai Qingtang looked at him.

         “He’s awake” she replied.  At the news, Bai Yutong’s eyes widened and before Bai Qingtang could say anymore, he turned and rushed to his bedroom, quickly changing out of his pajamas and into a clean outfit before he rushed back over to her and motioned her away from the door.

         “What are we waiting for, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” he exclaimed.

~*~*~*~*~*~

When they arrived at the hospital, Bai Yutong all but ran to Zhan Yao’s room, bursting through the door before he rushed over to Zhan Yao’s bed, Zhan Yao looking at him sleepily.

         “Mouse” he murmured.

         “Cat” Bai Yutong breathed, staring at him in awe before he walked around to the other side of the bed and reached out, gently taking his right hand in his, as his left arm was in a cast.

         “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry, Cat.  It’s my fault” he apologized.  Zhan Yao frowned.

         “What is?” he asked.  Bai Yutong sighed.

         “The accident.  You getting hurt.  It’s my fault” he answered.  Zhan Yao shook his head weakly.

         “You didn’t know that the car was going to crash into us like that.  How could you predict that?” he asked.  Bai Yutong huffed.

         “I was the one who was driving, I should have seen it” he grumbled.  Zhan Yao shook his head again.

         “Even if you had seen it in time, it would have been too late.  It’s not your fault, Yutong” he assured.  Bai Yutong was quiet before he let out a shuddering breath.

         “I’m the one who should be lying here, not you” he whispered.  At that statement, Zhan Yao’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to argue when Bai Yutong looked at him.

         “You were right, you know.  When you told me that we wouldn’t last a day without you.  You were right.  We wouldn’t last a day.  I wouldn’t last a day…hell, maybe not even an hour” he stated before he took a deep breath.

         “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry for saying all of those horrible things and for saying that I don’t need you…because I do.  I do need you, Zhan Yao.  I need you and want you by my side, always.  I don’t want you to go anywhere.  You’re my other half, Zhan Yao.  And I can’t lose you” he confessed.  At his confession, Zhan Yao’s eyes widened again before tears began to pool in them and he let out a shuddering breath. 

         “I can’t lose you either” he whispered before he looked at him and laughed weakly.

         “I heard you, you know.  In the car.  After we rolled and came to a stop.  I heard you…calling me.  I felt your hand squeezing mine.  I wanted to reply, to squeeze your hand back but…I couldn’t.  It was dark.  And I…I was scared.  I was scared I wasn’t going to wake up…or see you again” he admitted, causing Bai Yutong to smile tearily before he gave his hand a squeeze.

         “But you’re here now.  And I’m not going anywhere” he promised.  Zhan Yao frowned.

         “But what about work?  Or the person who hit us?” he asked.  Bai Yutong shook his head.

         “Don’t worry about work or about the hit and run, the team can take care of it and themselves.  Right now, you need to focus on getting better” he stated before he smiled.

         “And Bao Sir said to take as much time as I needed before I came back so there’s no rush” he added.  Zhan Yao shook his head in disbelief.

         “You’re doing all this for me?” he whispered.  Bai Yutong gave him a fond look.

         “I’d do anything for you, Zhan Yao” he replied.  Zhan Yao was quiet before he nodded, Bai Yutong smiling in reply before he gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

         “Get some rest.  I’ll be right here when you wake up” he assured.  Zhan Yao nodded again before he shut his eyes and began breathing deeply, soon slipping off to sleep.  As he slept, Bai Yutong watched his chest rise and fall for a while, just taking him all in, before he quietly sat down in the chair beside his bed and gave his hand another squeeze.

         ‘I’m not going anywhere, Cat.  Not now…not ever’.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: WWX is one of JGS's bastard sons, raised by his mother and her husband - until they die when he's young. Then he gets taken into the Jin sect instead of the Jiang.

Right Hand Man - ao3

It was a bad day.

All the days were a little bad, but this one was especially bad.

“He’s Cangse Sanren’s child,” Jin Zixuan’s father said, tapping his fan against his palm so that he would look more like a scholar. Secretly, shamefully, Jin Zixuan thought that it didn’t really work – he just looked like one of those scoundrels that tried to pay for their meals with calligraphy instead of pennies. “Taking him in will show our strength.”

“You dare bring one of your bastard children here,” Jin Zixuan’s mother said, “and I will drown A-Xuan myself rather than let him suffer through the shame of it.”

Jin Zixuan shivered. No matter how many times he heard his mother say that in her cold and vicious voice, he never got used to it. She’d explained to him that it was the only thing that might work on his father – the fear of losing face like that, of shaming his ancestors, of cutting off his legitimate line – and she was his mother so of course Jin Zixuan believed her, but sometimes when she said it like that he thought she might really go ahead and do it.

“It’s the immortal mountain,” his father argued, ignoring the threat. “The perceived connection is only to our benefit…and anyway, he wouldn’t be legitimized or anything. Legally, his father is that Wei Changze – I could even bring the boy in as a servant if that pleased you more!”

“Nothing you say or do will ever please me,” she said, and that’s when she started throwing things and he started shouting and Jin Zixuan waited until they weren’t paying any attention to him before slipping out.

They’d make a decision one way or another.

It didn’t have anything to do with him.

-

Wei Wuxian was nominally brought in as a guest disciple, but everyone knew he was really a servant.

Jin Zixuan’s mother made sure everyone knew.

Despite this, Wei Wuxian smiled at everyone, seeming as carefree as a butterfly. It didn’t seem to bother him when he wasn’t allowed to wear sparks amidst snow, or even the usual gold of the guest disciples – Jin Zixuan’s mother said that it was better that he wear plain colors, like white or black, to represent his father and mother and show the world that he hadn’t forgotten his filial piety. It didn’t seem to bother him that he had to room with the other servants, or that he wasn’t invited to dinner at the same time as the rest of them, or that he got less training time –

Whatever it was, it didn’t bother him.

It bothered Jin Zixuan, though.

He started having the old nightmares again – the ones where his mother belatedly found out that he’d been swapped in the cradle for another bastard child of Jin Guangshan, and started treating him just the way she treated all the rest of them while praising some other boy up to the heavens – and his temperament, never considered especially good, got worse due to lack of sleep.

“Go talk to him,” Mianmian suggested. “Maybe if you see he’s reallynot bothered by it…”

“It doesn’t matter if he’s not bothered,” Jin Zixuan muttered. “It’s that I would be bothered if I were him.”

She didn’t understand, of course. Most people didn’t.

They couldn’t understand why Jin Zixuan was so bothered by the knowledge that his parents’ love was conditional on his bloodline and legitimacy – after all, he was the beneficiary of that bias, wasn’t he? What did it matter to him if they were cold to others?

Jin Zixuan didn’t know how to explain that the problem was in knowing that their love was conditional.

It didn’t help that Wei Wuxian was excelling despite all his disadvantages – all their teachers praised him in private, or else when they thought that no one surnamed Jin was listening. All of his mother’s dark speculations about what his father would do if ever there was a bastard child brought back that turned out to be even more talented than he was rang in Jin Zixuan’s ears, and he couldn’t help but look at Wei Wuxian, and wonder if this was it, this was the moment, if he was finally going to be replaced…but no, that would never happen. He was the one with the right blood.

It didn’t matter if he wasn’t actually the best.

Nothing he did in life mattered, really. Nothing had ever mattered since the day he’d been born from the right womb.

“He’s actually really nice,” Mianmian said, and Jin Zixuan looked up, wondering what she was talking about, only to blanch when he realized that she was talking to Wei Wuxian. “Just shy, that’s all –”

“Mianmian!” Jin Zixuan hissed, rushing over, horrified. “He can’t be here! If my mother finds out –”

“Is that what you’re afraid of?” Wei Wuxian asked, his face brightening. “I thought you just didn’t like me!”

“I don’t know you,” Jin Zixuan said. “How could I dislike you? But really, my mother –”

“We can be friends!” Wei Wuxian declared, and Jin Zixuan was rendered immediately mute. What exactly could he say to that?

He wanted to be friends, too.

-

His mother found out, because she always found out, and when she did, she threatened to feed Wei Wuxian to the dogs.

It turned out that Wei Wuxian was scared of dogs, something Jin Zixuan’s mother had figured out pretty quickly. That wasn’t a surprise – she knew best how to find people’s weaknesses, and also how to use them. Looking at Wei Wuxian’s sickly pale face, it was clear to Jin Zixuan that this wasn’t the first time dogs had appeared in one of his mother’s punishment, although this was clearly more severe than in the past.

“It was my idea,” he lied, acting on impulse. “Mother, I want him to be my personal servant.”

“Ridiculous,” she scoffed.

“Why is it ridiculous?” he asked. “Wouldn’t the contrast between us only be magnified that way?”

She pursed her lips, but that wasn’t a ‘no’.

Seeing a possible waver, Jin Zixuan decided to trade away one of the very few point on which he and his mother had long disagree.

“He’s charming,” he said. “He can help me woo the Jiang sect girl.”

His mother knew him well enough to know that he was trying to manipulate her, but he also knew that she liked it when he did that. Men were supposed to be upright, straightforward, and virtuous, and yet she liked to see him being subtle and sly – it reminded her of herself. It made her feel like he was more her blood than his father’s, even though in actuality those traits could very well be his father’s, too.

Unfortunately, sneakiness wasn’t really in Jin Zixuan’s nature. Comparing his straightforward and even a little stupid self to his clever and cunning parents, he didn’t know who he took after – it was part of the reason he had so many nightmares about being some cuckoo’s child left in the Jin sect’s nest.

“Fine,” his mother said at last. “He gets one shot.”

Later, when she’d swept off, an empress with her retinue, Mianmian looked at Jin Zixuan with wide eyes. “But Jin-gongzi,” she said. “You don’t wantto marry the Jiang sect girl.”

“I’ve never met her,” Jin Zixuan hedged, which was also true but a little vaguer. He didn’t want to marry a girl he’d never met, one who was several years his elder and who had been described to him only as ‘nice’ and ‘average at best’, just because her mother was his mother’s old friend. He didn’t want his marriage to be yet another thing he had to do because he was someone’s child, rather than his own man.

He wasn’t going to get a choice, though, no matter what he did, just as always. Might as well use it for something good.

Wei Wuxian crashed into him a moment later, clutching him so tightly that it hurt.

“I’ll pay you back,” he promised, his voice tight. “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll be your best friend ever!”

“That’s good enough,” Jin Zixuan said, his face suddenly hot. “There doesn’t need to be anything more.”

-

Wei Wuxian really was very charming when they went to visit the Lotus Pier, far more charming than Jin Zixuan ever was or would be, and his future bride seemed positively enchanted by him, which was probably a bad thing.

Jin Zixuan felt he should probably do something about it, but he didn’t know what, so he just snuck off and went to go dip his feet into the river, something he almost never got the chance to go while at home.

“I’m sorry,” the Jiang sect heir, Jiang Cheng, said, sitting gingerly next to him.

Jin Zixuan looked at him sidelong, a little surprised. He’d thought that Jiang Cheng hated him. “What for?”

“My sister. Your half-brother.” Jiang Cheng looked uncomfortable. “I can’t even imagine growing up with someone who’d flirt with the person I was engaged to.”

Jin Zixuan thought it over, then shook his head. “I don’t think he likes her like that. Or her him, either,” he said, since it seemed like Jiang Cheng had misunderstood both Wei Wuxian and his own sister. “Wei Wuxian’s just – like that,” he added. “Always. Everyone loves him unless they’re specifically told not to.”

“That’s worse.” Jiang Cheng wrinkled his nose. “He’s the ‘other person’s child’ here, you know. My father really liked his parents – he’s always talking about him. My mother says he wishes he were his son, instead of your father’s.”

“Now that sounds awful.” Probably better for Wei Wuxian, though. Jiang Fengmian would probably treat him like a real son, not the way Jin Guangshan did, like a pawn or a liability or a bastard brought in just for his possible connections – but it would probably be much worse for Jiang Cheng, who’d have to live with that happening right in front of him. It seemed mean to wish for such a thing. “He’s actually pretty nice? We’re friends. I asked him to help me make friends with your sister…I’m not really good at making friends, when it’s just me.”

He hadn’t expected them to hit it off that well, though. At least to Jin Zixuan’s eyes, they’d clearly all but adopted each other as brother and sister the moment they laid eyes on each other…which in his opinion was actually a little bit worse, since he felt like he himself was still painfully trying to figure out what being a sibling was like, and maybe failing at it.

And in all honesty, he felt a little resentful at Wei Wuxian for being picked, too – or was it a little bereft? No one ever picked him just because they wanted to; it was all because of who he was.

Who his parents were.

“I can be your friend, too, if you like,” Jiang Cheng said. He was scowling into the distance. “A better one.”

“Uh,” Jin Zixuan said, startled. “Don’t you – not like me?”

“We’re friends now,” Jiang Cheng scowled at him. “Deal with it!”

-

Jin Zixuan liked Wei Wuxian a lot, and he liked Jiang Cheng, too, and Nie Huaisang, who he’d just met, fit in with the two of them as if they were three peas in a pod, so he guessed he must like him, too – but if those three endlessly chattering idiots didn’t shut up and let him study he was going to throw himself off some cliff in Gusu and be done with it.

“You really don’t mind me sitting here?” he asked Lan Wangji, who nodded.

Nodded and did not respond verbally – blissful silence!

Still, Jin Zixuan lingered a bit by the door to the peaceful little pavilion he’d found and thought to claim for himself as a secret study place – necessary on account of the fact that Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Nie Huaisang spent all their free time together making trouble instead of studying, because Wei Wuxian just did that to people, winning them over despite themselves and then leading them into mischief – only to learn that it belonged to Lan Wangji. It was filled with gentians, which were more Jiang Cheng’s color than Jin Zixuan’s, but Jin Zixuan had seen enough peonies for a lifetime and needed the concealment besides.

It was very kind of Lan Wangji to let him stay, but he still felt he ought to apologize.

And not just for the intrusion.

Wei Wuxian’s ignominious departure from Lan Qiren’s classroom had made it much more peaceful, but that had come at a cost to Lan Wangji’s own education and opportunity to make friends with others – and while Jin Zixuan liked Wei Wuxian a great deal, he wasn’t sure how Lan Wangji felt about being stuck having to monitor him all day.

And now Lan Wangji was being nice to Jin Zixuan, letting him disturb his privacy like this without complaint, and even agreeing to let him stay so that he’d have somewhere quiet to study…he really ought to say something. Maybe apologize for Wei Wuxian, if that was appropriate. It probably was: he was responsible for him, in his own way. The only problem was that he wasn’t sure how to start the conversation –

“Do you like Wei Wuxian?” he blurted out, then felt his face go bright red. He hadn’t meant to ask it that way! After all, who didn’t know how much Lan Wangji disliked Wei Wuxian? He was always glaring at him and saying he was speaking nonsense and telling him to get lost and –

Lan Wangji nodded.

Jin Zixuan blinked. He did? But then why –

“Oh,” he said, suddenly realizing. “You’re socially awkward, too!”

Lan Wangji frowned at him, and Jin Zixuan waved his hands.

“No, no, I don’t mean that as an insult,” he said hastily, trying to cover for his blunder. “It’s like me! I always say the wrong thing, so most of the time I try not to say anything – of course people always get the wrong idea anyway, thinking I’m being quiet because I’m looking down at them…Wei Wuxian’s getting better at understanding people, but he’s still not very good at it, either. I bet he has no idea! If you like him, you should say as much.”

Lan Wangji shook his head.

“…I could say it for you, if you want?”

Even more urgent head-shaking.

Honestly, if Lan Wangji were a woman, Jin Zixuan would’ve thought that he had a crush.

As it was, he was probably just like Jin Zixuan: naturally awkward, and shy about it, too.

“It’s all right,” he said encouragingly. “Next time they throw a party, you can come and sit with me; we can have tea and pretend not to know them. It’s what I always do.”

Lan Wangji stared at him for a long moment, and then finally nodded very slowly.

“I appreciate the offer,” he said, voice neutral. “Thank you.”

-

When the time came and the Wen sect pushed things too far, naturally Jin Zixuan stood up for Mianmian.

Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Wangji all did, too.

Naturally, this made Jin Zixuan feel like complete crap on their account – Mianmian was his friend, his sect, and naturally he had a responsibility towards her; the rest of them were just helping because they were good people, and good friends. But at this point they’d done it, and Wen Chao was angry at them all over it, and there was nothing to be done about it.

And then there was the Xuanwu of Slaughter, and they were all trapped inside with it.

Sometimes, he really hated the Wen sect. Often, even.

“Jiang Cheng, you and Jin Zixuan lead the way out,” Wei Wuxian instructed. “No, don’t protest! You’re heirs of Great Sects; everyone will follow you and listen to you, and that’s critical – you’ll need to evade the Wen sect’s efforts to recapture you. That means cohesion, and cohesion means hierarchy. I’ll stay behind to distract the Xuanwu…”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Jiang Cheng exclaimed.

Jin Zixuan nudged him. “Wei Wuxian’s usually right about this sort of thing,” he reminded him. It was a good thing they’d gotten over that period in their lives when Jiang Cheng thought Wei Wuxian was an evil thief who wanted to take away his older sister and Jin Zixuan’s rightful spouse, when they’d fought all the time while Jin Zixuan desperately tried to get between them. He still had no idea what magic alchemy had happened that had suddenly made them best friends – he suspected Mianmian, or maybe Jiang Yanli – but he was deeply grateful for it. “And we can’t risk the majority. Preserve human life above all else, remember? Teacher Lan’s lessons were very clear.”

“I will remain with Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said, to no one’s surprise. They’d been more or less inseparable after Jin Zixuan had recruited Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang to help them get along better after Wei Wuxian’s temporary exile to the Library Pavilion had ended. It helped that Lan Qiren had pulled Wei Wuxian aside for personal lessons to help him catch up with the rest of them, and that those had somehow metamorphosed into afternoon sessions about inventing new types of musical cultivation techniques in which Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian were the most enthusiastic, and only, students.

Best of all, it had given the rest of them a chance to finally actually do their work.

Well, not Nie Huaisang, but that was only to be expected.

“But your leg –” Wei Wuxian started, and Jin Zixuan nudged him.

“He’ll only be more worried if you don’t let him stay back and join you,” he said reasonably. “Anyway, it’s good for you to have an incentive not to detour into some big flashy heroic bullshit.”

“Awww, but Jin Zixuan, I like big flashy heroic bullshit!”

Jin Zixuan was, by this point, almost entirely convinced that Wei Wuxian actually was the biological child of Wei Changze, and that his father had lied, both about the man’s supposed infertility and possibly about having slept with Cangse Sanren at all. From Jiang Cheng’s stories, inherited from his father, it seemed that Wei Changze was also the sort of person who went in for big flashy heroic bullshit and reckless humor, the sort that would win him a disciple of an immortal mountain as a bride; it certainly seemed more likely than him sharing blood with Jin Zixuan or his father or even Jin Zixun, all of whom tended towards arrogance, but whose flash was all in their clothing.

Not that it mattered at this late date, of course. They were brothers now – as Nie Huaisang would put it, there were no takebacks allowed.

“No bullshit, you hear me?” Jin Zixuan repeated, looking pointedly at Wei Wuxian. “Not allowed. Take care of yourself, okay? Don’t make me have to tell Mistress Jiang that I lost her favorite idiot friend.”

“You tell her?” Jiang Cheng grumbled. “I’ll have to tell her. All right, let’s go.”

-

Jiang Yanli was not impressed with the fact that they’d left Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji alone in a cave with a giant murderous turtle.

She still made them soup and gave them bandages to wrap up their bloody feet, though.

(Jin Zixuan was never going to make a good impression on her, no matter what Jiang Cheng said.)

-

“Wen Chao has demanded recompense for the mess at the Nightless City,” Jin Zixuan’s mother said, reading a letter. Her lips curled up in a strange little smile. “He said Wei Wuxian’s right hand would do.”

“Mother,” Jin Zixuan exclaimed, leaping to his feet with his eyes wide. He’d only been home a week from the indoctrination camp, and Wei Wuxian was still lying in bed most of the time, pretending he wasn’t exhausted; Wen Chao must have sent the letter almost immediately after he’d realized they’d escaped. “You can’t be serious!”

“Why not?” she asked. “It’s just what the little bastard deserves, always trying to outshine you.”

Jin Zixuan shook his head, frantically trying to think of a way out of this, because he knew his mother wouldn’t so much as hesitate to order such an atrocity. She’d never forgiven Wei Wuxian for the possibility of being a threat to Jin Zixuan’s position, however remote the chance, and she’d tried very hard to convince Jin Zixuan of it, too – it was the only thing they didn’t agree on, the only thing Jin Zixuan didn’t yield to her on, and he hated every moment of it.

But not as much as his mother hated it.

It was the only thing she couldn’t control in his life, and she hatedit, and hated Wei Wuxian for it, too.

(She couldn’t hate Jin Zixuan. She couldn’t, because he had the right blood, because he was her son, because he was the heir of Lanling Jin and the source of all her power. But sometimes, when the light was dim and she glanced over too quickly and thought she saw his father when she looked at him, he thought that she wanted to.)

“You can’t be serious,” Jin Zixuan said a second time, keeping calm by sheer willpower. No one but him would dare to object if his mother made a move, especially in his father’s absence…and even if his father was there, Jin Zixuan wasn’t sure his father cared enough about Wei Wuxian to endure another fight with his fearsome wife. “Mother, he’s my servant – my responsibility. Whatever he does is my responsibility, whether to my credit or to my deficit. That’s how that works. They may be asking for Wei Wuxian’s hand, but who’s to say, when they come to claim it, that they won’t seek mine instead?”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“It’s the Wen sect,” Jin Zixuan reminded her. “What don’t they dare?”

She pursed her lips, thinking it over, and for a moment he thought he’d won. “Perhaps,” she allowed, and before he could even breath a sight of relief continued, “But no matter. They’ve set the price, and we can pay it, so why not? We can cut off his hand and send it to them as a peace offering in advance. After all, they’re important allies of ours, and he’s just a bastard.”

“But –”

“No, A-Xuan. No more arguing; I’ve decided.” Her smile broadened. “We’ll do it now.”

Jin Zixuan couldn’t fight with his mother. He’d never had the courage – he was as spineless as his father.

Almost as spineless.

“Yes, Mother,” he said, and drew his sword.

“A-Xuan..?”

“My servant, my responsibility,” he reminded her, and he knew that she’d misunderstood, that she thought that he was going to go take care of the grim task himself. He knew, because for a brief moment in time she looked happy – not true joy, but the only way she ever looked happy for as long as he could remember, like she’d won one over on someone and gotten her way despite everyone’s efforts. He hated to disappoint her. “I have my honor to think of, too.”

-

Jin Zixuan sent Wei Wuxian to the Lotus Pier, bearing words of warning. His father’s spies had reported that the Wen sect would probably target them first, using Jiang Cheng’s interference in the Xuanwu cave as an excuse – there wasn’t any point going after the Lan sect a second time, and the Jin sect were longstanding allies of Wen Ruohan, with Jin Guangshan being a coward at heart; if Wen Ruohan could keep him out of the inevitable war for a little longer by playing nice, he would.

Word came back not long after that they’d been right: the Lotus Pier had been destroyed.

It also said that Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli were missing – missing, but not dead. It didn’t say anything about their parents, and that was suspicious, too.

Maybe sending Wei Wuxian had helped after all.

“We should reach out to the Nie sect,” Jin Zixuan told his father. “With our money and their strength, we can resist the Wen sect long enough for the smaller sects to catch up.”

“The Wen sect is all-powerful,” his father objected. “What’s even the point of resisting? We’d be better off reaching out to them to see if we can reach a peaceful agreement.”

“We’ve already seen what agreement they want to reach,” Jin Zixuan said, and his father’s gaze dropped guiltily to his waist. Jin Zixuan didn’t bother looking down himself. He didn’t do that much, these days. “Am I your heir or am I not? You promised me that I’d inherit a sect, not slavery. Reach out to the Nie sect.”

Jin Zixuan should not talk that way to his father. He had always been a filial son, and a spineless one; his father’s son, and nothing else. The only thing he had going for him was the right blood – and even that wasn't that sure a bet, these days. He knew his father was already thinking about Jin Zixun in a way that suggested that all those rumors about his ‘cousin’ having a different father than the one everyone said he had might have some merit.

It seemed, though, that when pushed to it, he was also his mother’s son.

He hoped she choked on the knowledge.

“Reach out to the Nie sect,” he said again. “With all the cultivation world uniting, the Wen sect’s fall is inevitable. If we don’t act now, we’ll be seen as cowards, hanging back and waiting to see how things fall out to eke out the best advantage – if we act, we’ll be seen as heroes.”

“But what if you’re wrong, and the Wen sect does win?”

“Then we’ll tell Sect Leader Wen that we’re perfectly positioned to negotiate the other sects’ terms of surrender, and use that to win anyway,” Jin Zixuan said, less because he thought that was an acceptable course of action and more because he knew it would be what his father would do anyway. “Call the Nie sect.”

-

“I’m going to kill you,” Jiang Cheng hissed, wild-eyed, and Jin Zixuan blinked at him, taken aback.

“Is it because I wasn’t able to do more to help with the Lotus Pier?” he asked, feeling helpless. “I really did try to convince my father to send more people, but I barely even got him not to block my sending Wei Wuxian –”

“Not because of that!”

Jin Zixuan took a step back. “Uh, then –”

“You cut off your own hand you maniac!”

“The situation –” Jin Zixuan started backing up. “It was necessary – Wei Wuxian, help!”

“No, he’s right,” Wei Wuxian said, arms crossed. His eyes were teary, but they’d been that way since he’d left Jinlin Tower – ever since the Wen sect’s letter. “You’re a maniac, and Jiang Cheng’s going to kill you, and you’re going to deserve it.”

Lan Wangji, standing beside him, nodded.

“It’s not that bad, really.” Jin Zixuan tried to explain. “My mother and father would never have accepted anything else – threats to me are the only thing that work on them, and even that’s stopped working after all these years. Only a real injury would have an impact. If they hadn’t been so shocked, they would’ve just continued to ignore what the Wen sect was doing, or offered them an olive branch, and then then the Wen sect would’ve used that as an opportunity to come and divide up everyone else. We’d lose precious time to regroup, and the Wen sect would only get stronger and stronger –”

“You. Cut. Off. Your. Hand!”

“The Wen sect demanded the hand of the person who started the rebellion in the Xuanwu cave,” Jin Zixuan said quietly. “That was me, not Wei Wuxian. Why should he pay my debts?”

Everyone still seemed very upset, but maybe a little less murderous. Definitely a lot more teary-eyed.

“Couldn’t you have at least picked your other hand?” Wei Wuxian mumbled. “Your right hand – that’s your sword arm.”

Jin Zixuan shrugged. “They demanded the right hand,” he said. “Anyway, it’s fine, I’ve been using my left, and it’s been going smoothly enough…you know, I think I might actually be left-handed? I never knew; everyone always made me use my right.”

“Does it hurt?” Lan Wangji asked suddenly, and Jin Zixuan hesitated, not sure how to respond to that.

Unfortunately, everyone else took that in the worst way possible, and insisted on taking care of him, no matter how much he tried to explain that it didn’t hurt, not really, not anymore; it was just the strangest feeling of absence. Like something that had always been there wasn’t there anymore.

A bit like his mother. She wasn’t talking to him anymore.

He was a terrible son, and would probably end up spending eternity in some afterlife hell being tortured for failing to properly honor his parents.

He’d already resigned himself.

“How are your parts of the war going?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “Chifeng-zun says it’s going well, but you know how he is; it’s all business with him, you never hear any stories. Did Wei Wuxian really knock out old Sect Leader Jiang when he refused to leave the Lotus Pier? Tell me he didn’t.”

“He did,” Jiang Cheng said, and he looked amused about it – maybe he’d be in the next boiling pot over in the afterlife of unfilial descendants. “He was a little frantic, you see, on account of not wanting to fail you by letting them die. After all, you had just cut off your own hand for him…”

“Are you ever going to let that drop?”

“Sure. As soon as you have two hands again.”

“…so, never.”

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said patiently. “Never. Never ever, if that makes it clearer for you.”

-

Jin Zixuan’s new hand was made of steel and wire, under the gilding, and functioned using some of the innovative new talismans that Wei Wuxian had invented. He couldn’t help but hope that they weren’t part of the subset that constituted demonic cultivation because people were being really weird about that.

“It’s like people wanted for me to just die in the Burial Mounds,” Wei Wuxian complained. He was dressed in black and grey and red, which he’d apparently adopted as his new sect colors – Jin Zixuan had only managed to send him out of Lanling the first time by officially ejecting him from the Jin sect, a decision his father had initially endorsed but now, he suspected, was regretting.

It was a lot easier to throw out a servant than it was to invite back the founder of demonic cultivation, especially now that he was a war hero and a sect leader.

“You didn’t have to be in the Burial Mounds to begin with,” Jin Zixuan reminded him, to no avail. “I know I said I needed an army because my father wasn’t supplying us properly, but I didn’t mean ‘invent an entirely new cultivation technique and raise an army of the dead’. You know that, right?”

Wei Wuxian shrugged it off, because of course he did.

“You know, they’re calling me the Yiling Patriarch?” he said, and grinned. “It’s because the Burial Mounds are in Yiling, and because I’m founding my own sect. Or whatever. Like I wouldn’t be supporting you, anyway.”

“It has to be your own sect because otherwise you might be forced to share your secret techniques,” Jin Zixuan explained, not for the first time. “Rogue cultivators don’t have the same protections that sects do, even small sects. It doesn’t matter if you’re the only person in it. Or, well, you and Lan Wangji, I guess.”

“I still can’t believe he’s willing to leave the Lan sect to join me,” Wei Wuxian sighed happily. “He’s such a good friend.”

Jin Zixuan wasn’t sure about the strength of his new hand, which was the only reason he didn’t try to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. “You’re a bad influence, you know,” he said instead of trying to explain to Wei Wuxian that people didn’t generally leave their natal sects for the sake of a ‘good friend’. “I nearly hit a girl the other day.”

“You did? You? What’d she do?”

“She gave me soup and implied that she’d made it,” Jin Zixuan said. “Except it tasted exactly the same as the soup Mistress Jiang is always making for you – I’ve had it recently enough to know. Sure enough, I push the issue a bit and it turns out it was Mistress Jiang’s. The girl was just trying to claim credit as an excuse to get close to me.”

He sighed. He’d been so angry about it. They were at war! People were dying, losing their homes, losing everything, and this stupid girl could only think about how to plot and scheme to try to get to a prized position as the future Madame Jin. Had his mother done the same, when it’d been his father…?

“You’ve had shijie’s soup recently?” Wei Wuxian asked. His expression looked slightly odd. “Shijie made you soup?”

“Yeah, I think she’s been dropping off whatever’s left over at my tent when she’s done,” Jin Zixuan said, shaking his head. Jiang Yanli was so nice, really truly genuinely nice. He’d never met anyone like her. “Could you thank her for me? I appreciate the thoughtfulness – it’s filling enough that I don’t need to go to the mess, which means there’s more left over for everyone else.”

“…sure,” Wei Wuxian said. “I’ll tell her. Or, and here’s a thought – why don’t you tell her yourself?”

“Why would I? You’re the one she likes,” Jin Zixuan said, puzzled. “I mean, you’re her adopted little brother, aren’t you? She’s practically your second soulmate, after Lan Wangji.”

“I’m really busy,” Wei Wuxian announced, despite having been lazing around complaining that they didn’t have any encounters with the Wen sect lined up for a whole week only a few moments before. “I couldn’t possibly take the time out of my schedule to go talk to her – you see, I’ve had an idea, which is going to keep me very busy…in fact, I’m not even going to be here at all! I need to go to the Lan sect encampment to consult with Teacher Lan.”

Discovering that Lan Qiren had a mad scientist streak when it came to musical cultivation had been extremely disquieting, Jin Zixuan reflected. The world might’ve been better off if Lan Qiren had never had a chance to actually get friendly with Wei Wuxian – Wei Wuxian provided the terrible ideas, Lan Qiren scolded him about them and then helped him smooth the kinks out of them anyway.

Teacher for a day, father for a lifetime…

“All right,” Jin Zixuan said, though he still didn’t exactly understand what had just happened. “I’ll go talk to her, I guess.”

-

“I just wanted to make sure you know you’re not obligated to make me soup or anything,” Jin Zixuan said, not sure where this conversation had gone off the rails.

Probably around the time that Jiang Yanli had started smiling at him, because he always turned into an idiot whenever that happened. She was so very nice, not just average at all no matter what anyone said, and blissfully down-to-earth – she wouldn’t be wasting her time and everyone else’s thinking about how to politically advance herself despite there being a war on. She spent all her time learning field medicine and helping cook meals for the mess and –

And he’d better stop thinking because he was turning red again.

“I enjoy making soup for you,” Jiang Yanli said peaceably. “Especially since I know you enjoy it, too.”

“I do! It’s just, I don’t know, you already do so much, with the medics and organizing and everything…It’s – uh – I – listen, I know our parents – you don’t have to pay attention to that. I only have one hand, I’m not – don’t feel obligated, not because of that. And don’t let Wei Wuxian make you think making soup is the only thing you’re good for, no matter how much he likes it, okay? You do so much more than just that!”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, covering her smile with her hand. “You’re very sweet, you know.”

Jin Zixuan made an incoherent sound.

He would need to do something in return, he thought, a little frantic; he really didn’t know how to deal with a sincere compliment from someone he actually liked. Maybe poetry? Girls were said to like poetry. He couldn’t write poetry worth a damn, but he could pay someone –

She kissed him on the cheek.

All thought abruptly departed.

“Don’t worry, it’s not inappropriate – after all, we’re already engaged,” Jiang Yanli said cheerfully. “Which I’m very good with, so don’t worry about that. Good luck in your next battle, Jin-gongzi.”

At some point she must have left, because she wasn’t there anymore, and Jin Zixuan was still opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.

Mianmian peeked in, then snickered. “Oh no,” she said. “She broke him. Everyone! Come look! She totally broke him!”

-

“Did you actually cut off your hand to save a servant?” Jin Guangyao asked.

“It was a bit more complicated than that,” Jin Zixuan said, uncomfortable, then added, “Welcome to the family.”

Jin Guangyao smiled.

For some reason, Jin Zixuan felt a shiver run up his spine. He didn’t think he liked this new brother of his, and he felt bad about it – he’d welcomed Wei Wuxian whole-heartedly, hadn’t he? Was it really that different when it actually was someone of his own blood?

He didn’t like that thought.

“I hope we can be friends,” he said, willing it to be true, and Jin Guangyao murmured something agreeable in return.

Jin Zixuan wished he liked him.

“My mother is going to hate you,” he said, because he knew that she would. “If she does, let me know, and I’ll try to stop her…not just her. If anyone treats you wrong, just tell me. I’ll stand up for you.”

Jin Guangyao smiled again.

“You’re so kind,” he said, and for some reason Jin Zixuan had the feeling that he didn’t mean it at all.

-

Jin Zixuan had been engaged since before he was born, and it still somehow came as a surprise to find himself married. Not just the event, either – these days he woke up with his wife in his arms and was forced to just stare at her lying there in the soft morning light and wonder how he got so lucky.

He was married.

To a very nice girl, who actually seemed to like him a great deal – she’d made that clear enough when she’d had a chance. Very clear, in fact, which was why there was also a very slight curve in her belly that meant that soon enough he wouldn’t just be married, but a father.

“You’d tell me if I was dreaming, right?” he asked Wei Wuxian, who was visiting again. He did that a lot, but in fairness he didn’t really have a settled place to live – everyone knew the supposed ‘sect’ he’d founded was little more than a sham. He’d been technically kicked out of the Jin sect and refused all offers to rejoin, and it seemed he wasn’t quite ready to scandalize the entire cultivation world by marrying into the Lan sect no matter what Lan Xichen had been hinting. Sometimes he and Lan Wangji spent time at the Lotus Pier with Jiang Cheng, or the Unclean Realm with Nie Huaisang under Nie Mingjue’s long-suffering gaze…everyone called Wei Wuxian the Yiling Patriarch, on account of him ‘founding’ his sect there – or rather, summoning up extra resentful energy from the Burial Mounds for the purposes of obtaining an army while minimizing the number of disturbed graves – but he wasn’t, not really. He didn’t live there or anything.

Who would want to live there?

“I would,” Wei Wuxian agreed, but he didn’t follow it up with teasing or anything the way he usually did.

He just looked very uncharacteristically perturbed.

“What is it?” Jin Zixuan asked. “Can I help?”

“No heroic bullshit,” Wei Wuxian said at once, which meant that there was a possibility of heroic bullshit. Given Wei Wuxian’s personality, that also meant that it was heroic bullshit that would be bad for the Jin sect, which he still felt bad about on account of them raising him and all…in all honesty, it might be a good thing in the long run that Jin Zixuan’s father and mother had been so awful to Wei Wuxian as a kid, and that he’d known it. If they’d been good to him, he never would have been willing to leave. “But, uh, remember Wen Ning?”

Jin Zixuan blinked. Wei Wuxian had told him some stories: a junior disciple of the Wen sect, from a branch family – Dafan Wen – who’d helped Wei Wuxian out a few times when he’d been smuggling the Jiang clan to freedom.

More than a few times: he’d been Wei Wuxian’s first disciple in matters of resentful energy, which Wei Wuxian had apparently been thinking of since forever and started playing around with more or less the moment he was no longer officially tied to a sect, and had been a valuable contact during the early period of the war before events had changed and he’d been lost.

“Yes,” he said. “What about him?”

He hadn’t thought of Wen Ning in ages, beyond abstractly hoping he was doing well. It might be hard, with a surname as he had, but surely there was somewhere in the cultivation world for those surnamed Wen – Wei Wuxian had argued fiercely in favor of leniency for the remaining Wen cultivators, and the Lan sect had backed him, thanks to Lan Wangji. The rest of them had been exhausted, Nie Mingjue, Lan Xichen, Jiang Cheng and his parents, even Jin Zixuan…his father had ended up volunteering their sect to help with resettlement of the refugees, which had been a pleasant surprise.

Sure, Jin Zixuan knew his father well enough to know that he was only doing it for the clout and possible advantage it would give him, but he was pretty sure the Wen civilians didn’t especially care why they were going to get a reprieve from death and a new place to live, only that they did.

“I’ll get there,” Wei Wuxian said. “It’s a bit complicated…you know how Jin Zixun’s in charge of resettlement?”

Jin Zixuan nodded, puzzled. “What about it?”

-

“You can’t do that!” one of the guards shouted at Wei Wuxian. “We’re disciples of the Jin sect –”

“Is that so,” Jin Zixuan said, and they all turned to look at him, each one of them blanching in utter horror. “And why didn’t I know that my Jin sect had such people as you?”

“Where’s Wen Ning?” Wen Qing asked Wei Wuxian, looking desperate. “I don’t see him…Where is he?!”

“That monster?” one of the guards blurted out.

“My brother is not a monster!”

“He’s been hiding in the woods,” one of the Wen civilians volunteered. “He’s been raiding the camp, rescuing people who are being abused –”

“Our response was reasonable in light of his aggression,” the guard argued. “He used demonic cultivation – he’s a monster! We had no choice –”

“We’re going to need to question them,” Jin Zixuan said to Lan Wangji, who was looking faintly murderous in his usual righteous sort of way. “To find out who’s their backing – Jin Zixun wouldn’t have dared something like this, not on his own. Can you bind them for me?”

-

It was his father.

Of course.

-

“A-Yao, what do you want?” Jin Zixuan asked, and Jin Guangyao stopped in his tracks, staring at him in confusion – as well he should, since he’d only come into Jin Zixuan’s study in order to say good morning on his way to breakfast. “No, sorry, that’s not what I meant. I meant, you know, in life.”

Jin Guangayo blinked at him.

Probably not the best question to spring on someone before breakfast, Jin Zixuan reflected.

“It’s about the trouble that my – that our father got into,” Jin Zixuan explained. “The other cultivation sects are furious to no end that he took advantage of their trust in order to do such a disgraceful thing…I’ve ordered Zixun to be confined for now, and I suspect he’ll have to be banished to some country house for a few years. And as you know, my father will be retiring soon and handing over the position of sect leader to me…”

Neither of them especially wanted that to happen, his father as loathe to give up power as Jin Zixuan was to take it. But what other solution was there after such a scandal?

The Lan sect, ever concerned with morality, had been horrified when they’d found out what had happened; the Jiang sect, despite their close relationship to the Jin sect, had immediately denounced it, and Jiang Yanli, who was Wei Wuxian’s friend, was the very first to speak. The Nie sect, never a firm ally for the Jin sect, was growling about righteousness, and if Nie Mingjue was sincere about that being his only concern – and having worked with the man, Jin Zixuan believed he was – then there were plenty of others in the Nie sect that had their eyes on the greater influence and power that would accrue to their sect if Jin Zixuan’s father were allowed to bring his sect down with him.

Handing over power was the only way to make sure their Jin sect remained strong.

“He won’t be alone, at least,” Jin Zixuan sighed. “I won him that much.”

Jiang Fengmian had agreed to step down from his position as sect leader as well, making it seem as though Jin Guangshan’s retirement were voluntary, part of a joint agreement of the older generation handing over power to the newer. Everyone would know in their hearts that that wasn’t the case, but it would be far less shameful than the alternative – saving a little bit of his father’s face.

“You did well,” Jin Guangyao said, listening with a neutral expression. “In uncovering everything, and revealing it.”

“I would’ve brought you in to help, but I couldn’t,” Jin Zixuan explained. “I know he asked you to help in finding demonic cultivators to join the Jin sect, and…”

He hesitated.

“He implicated me?” Jin Guangyao asked.

He had. Their father was shameless: he’d even sought to move all blame to Jin Guangyao’s back, whether as the actual mastermind or, when that was rejected, as the inciter of the scheme. Nonsense, of course.

Anyway, it didn’t matter. Even if Jin Guangyao had suggested it, it would have been his father’s responsibility to refuse.

“No one believes it,” Jin Zixuan said, which was only partially a lie. “Even Chifeng-zun laughed in his face and said you wouldn’t be nearly that stupid.”

Jin Guangyao looked – oddly pleased by that, if Jin Zixuan had to guess.

“Still, it’s awkward,” he said, rubbing his head. “People talk, and our subsidiary sects have never been as quiet as some others…you don’t have to tell me right now what you’re planning, or what you want in the long term. But maybe – uh – you have two sworn brothers. Is there any chance…”

“I could go visit them for a while?”

Jin Zixuan smiled helplessly. “I wish it weren’t necessary. And if you did know what you wanted, I could take it into account when planning the future…”

“No, no,” Jin Guangyao said. “Visiting my sworn brothers will be – fine.” He looked thoughtful. “You said Chifeng-zun didn’t think I was involved?”

“Zewu-jun was also vociferous in your defense,” Jin Zixuan said, trying to elide the fact that it wasn’t so much that Nie Mingjue didn’t think Jin Guangyao was capable of such atrocities, but rather that he declared, and loudly, that if Jin Guangyao had intended to do something horrific like that, he’d have handled it better. Judging by Jin Guangyao’s amused expression, he might have guessed anyway. “I appreciate your understanding.”

Jin Guangyao smiled.

Jin Zixuan thought he might even mean it, this time.

-

“I’m an uncle!” Wei Wuxian crowed, holding Jin Ling in his arms. “I’m an uncle, I’m an uncle!”

“Big deal,” Jiang Cheng grumbled, which would be more convincing if he wasn’t beaming foolishly. “So am I. Hand him over...hey, A-Ling! It's me, your jiujiu!”

“Can I be an honorary uncle?” Nie Huaisang asked – Jin Zixuan had no idea when he’d even arrived, or why he was here, or anything, really, but that was probably because he hadn’t really slept on account of over-excitement. “I mean, my brother’s sworn brothers with Jin-xiong’s brother, so it works, right?”

“That’s ridiculous –” Jiang Cheng started.

“No, I love it!” Wei Wuxian immediately declared. “That means Lan Zhan’s his uncle, too!”

“Wei Wuxian…!”

“Don’t worry,” Jin Zixuan said, hugging Jiang Cheng out of sheer excitement. “You’re his only jiujiu, right? Everyone else is related through me, so they have to share.”

Jiang Cheng seemed pleased by that, and Wei Wuxian laughed.

Nie Huaisang was calculating on his fingers. “You know,” he said thoughtfully. “This might be the most well-connected baby in the entire cultivation world? The only thing we’re missing is the Wen sect…Jiang-xiong, how about you marry Wen Qing? Then we’d have them all!”

“That is not how I’m determining my marriage!” Jiang Cheng yelped, but notably didn’t reject the idea.

Jin Zixuan looked at Jiang Yanli, who looked back at him, and they both started laughing.

There was more noise after that, and eventually Jin Ling woke up and started crying, making everyone start fussing like a bunch of old hens surrounding a long-suffering Jiang Yanli who’d already grown accustomed to it in a way the rest of them hadn’t.

It suddenly occurred to Jin Zixuan that everyone who was here was here because they wanted to be. Not because of his name or his wealth, not because he was Sect Leader Jin, not because of the circumstances of his birth, but just because they liked him – because they wanted to celebrate with him, and to cherish his child, to share his joy.

It was a good day.

All the days were a little good, but this one was especially good.

[liathebookwyrm]

Jin Zixuan and his...uh...lovely brothers in law

Imagine if you will, Jin Zixuan, new father and therefore completely sleep-deprived, deciding it is a good idea to personally deliver his wife's invitation to Wei Wuxian for Jin Ling's one month celebration. The political implications of the Jin heir visiting the Wen remnants, no matter the reason, sail riiiiiight over his head. Someone might have stopped him but he kinda wondered off without telling anyone (baby brain is a marvel, let me tell you) and by the time people realised he was missing, he was already at the Burial Mounds and having a slight crisis. Mainly because where are all the cultivators his father has been swearing up, down and sideways are lurking in Yilling. But also there's a nice old lady who, upon learning who he is and why he's here, insists he sits down, pinches his cheek and starts worrying over whether he and his wife get enough sleep, what with this being their first baby and all. Also he may have saw Lan Wangji burying a toddler in a nearby radish patch, but that much clearly be a hallucination.

And that is how Wei Wuxian manages to arrive at his nephew's celebration with A-Yuan, Wen Ning, Lan Wangji and Jin Zixuan in tow. (Jin Zixun is a moron but he will not try to start trouble in from if both his cousin and Lan Wangji...) JIang Yanli takes one look at the toddler and wonders where they got another kid. When it is explained that this is actually her nephew (and Jiang Cheng already knew about him and didn't tell her)....oh boy!

"A-Xian, you had a child and didn't tell me?! Wait, who's the mother?"

Jiang Yanli doesn't even blink at that, she simply turns to Lan Wangji and very politely asks why she wasn't invited to their wedding, seeing as clearly (A-Yuan is currently clinging to his Rich-gege) he is the other parent in question and she knows he wouldn't be playing with her little brother's heart like that. In the background one might observe Jiang Cheng, the Jins and Lan Xichen all choking on air for entirely different reasons. Jiang Cheng is not certain whether he should be more outraged at the implication that these two disasters found a way to physically create a child together (look, he knows it's impossible but if anyone could figure it out!) or that Lan Wangji did not ask HIS permission to marry HIS brother before any potential baby making happened. Lan Xichen might be joining Jiang Yanli on the "I'm not angry, I'm disappointed you didn't tell me" elder sibling camp as soon as he gets over his shock.

Frankly, Wei Wuxian is just confused at this line of questioning.

"Well, OF COURSE Lan Zhan is the father? Who else would I have a child with?" Whether the implication registers or not is debatable.

Wen Ning, who deep down is a little shit and no one will tell me otherwise, leans back against a wall, accepts a couple of nuts from Nie Huaissang and starts a serious, if quiet, discussion with him on appropriate wedding gifts when the couple in question already has a child and whether they can be combined with gifts for the child in question.

Someone has the brilliant idea to make a snide comment about certain people's respectability. Lan Wangji decides that now might be a good time to mention that they have been technically married since they were sixteen. Second round of choking commences. Nie Huaissang marches up to certain people to collect money.

A-Yuan is not quite sure what is happening but suddenly a lot of people are being very nice to him and telling him to call them uncle (his favourite uncle is still Wen Ning though. He lets him ride on his shoulders!) and the really pretty lady is giving him more of that tasty soup and introducing him to his baby cousin who's even smaller than him and ok maybe they can't play together yet but she said they will when A-Ling is older so he's happy to wait.

Wei Wuxian would be melting to a puddle from the Cute , only he's having his own crisis because apparently he's married and "really Lan Zhan, this is the sort of thing you tell someone! How was I supposed to know?"

Lan Xichen is just smug because of course he knew about the teenage wedding, and of course he's just been saving the gifts he bought back then for when his little brother was ready to announce it. He will be entering the "favourite uncle" competition with an unfair advantage.

It is at this point Nie Mingjue walks in, sees Lan Xichen holding A-Yuan (whose dads are having a long overdue discussion in a corner), short-circuits and walks right back out. Lan Xichen runs after him, still holding A-Yuan because he just must introduce them!

No one tell Jiang Cheng there will be a favourite uncle competition, which he could have had a head start in if his first meeting with A-Yuan hadn't gone quite as it went... Nie Mingjue ends up temporarily winning anyway, simply because A-Yuan can't get over how tall he is or how big Baxia is, plus his braids are fun to play with. That, and a lifetime growing up with Nie Huaissang has left him extremely bad at resisting puppy eyes.

Jin Zixun, lest we forget his unfortunately continuing existence, tries to bring up the whole "The Yilling Patriarch totally cursed me" thing in the middle of all this. A-Yuan (still perched on Nie Mingjue's arms, fight him) hears it, frowns and informs him that what he said is mean and he should apologise. He may be imitating Lan Wangji's tone. Wei Wuxian goes from ready to jump at somebody's throat to absurdly proud because clearly this is an indication of his excellent parenting so quickly he gets whiplash. Everyone else is trying (with varying degrees of success) to hold in their laughter.

Jiang Cheng is the one to point out that whether eloping with your potentially dead ancestor's blessing is legally binding or not, there should really be a public ceremony, and the all the relevant negotiations between the couple's families must and will be done. For which they require Lan Qiren's presence. There's a pause, then everyone starts insisting they've got it all in-hand, no need to get him involved, we'll just tell him when it's done, he'll be so proud of us for arranging everything without help.

Lan Wangji tries to point out that, since they're already married, there's no need for discussions at all. Wen Ning (honestly, who's side is he on?) insists that granny Wen has been low-key planning their wedding since Lan Wangji's first visit and he wouldn't want to deprive her of that now would he? Do not imagine the clash of titans that would be Granny Wen and Lan Qiren trying to outmanoeuvre each other over organisational control of the wedding...

As always co-authored with/enabled by @sswangxian

[spockandawe]

Okay, I think I found what I really wanted to root out with Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu and the physicality of their book relationship.

Because I will argue for days that Wen Kexing is terribly touch-starved, especially at the beginning of the book. For eight years, as the Valley Master, he’s only allowed Gu Xiang within a meter of him. They have a fairly casual relationship, but they straddle an awkward line between family and master/servant, and as the Ghost Valley Master? Everyone in Ghost Valley, including Gu Xiang, is at least a little frightened of him. He’s affection-starved as much as he is touch-starved, and having one person who cares more than she’s frightened isn’t really enough to overcome that degree of isolation. When a servant woman is combing his hair and accidentally hits a snag, she begs for her life, and his first reaction is to ask if someone forced her to wait on him. He’s been the Valley Master since he was a very young adult, and he’s been in Ghost Valley since he was a child.

And it’s so interesting to me that a lot of cnovels really emphasize that when the leads are in a relationship, it’s their first relationship, and they never wanted anyone else, but Wen Kexing (and jing beiyuan in lord seventh, which is an interesting parallel) really directly subvert that. Gu Xiang almost immediately remarks that Wen Kexing spends plenty of nights with male courtesans, and partway through the book, Wen Kexing uses a handkerchief from a famous courtesan to treat Zhou Zishu’s injury. He left the valley and entered the human world, and immediately threw himself into the arms of other men.

And Zhou Zishu, I would say, is also touch starved and affection starved, but is coping differently from Wen Kexing. No matter how strained and/or political his relationships with the Emperor and the government are, and even though he took charge of the Four Seasons Manor at... fifteen, iirc, he did have at least one close, affectionate (for a zhou zishu value of affectionate), trusting relationship, with Liang Jiuxiao. And where Wen Kexing starts the book with a comfortable relationship with Gu Xiang, Zhou Zishu starts the book knowing that his shidi is dead, and in Lord Seventh, we see the ways that he failed and/or “failed” Liang Jiuxiao, with Jiang Xue, and with staying at his post during the final battle instead of rushing off and trying to find his shidi, and it working out... not well. And I think it’s fascinating that unlike Wen Kexing, when he leaves Tian Chuang to reenter the human world, he’s content to be almost completely solitary, and focuses his attention on seeing the sights and drinking good wine.

A really interesting parallel to me is in the Ye Baiyi extra, where he mentions that it’s only human nature to crave food and sex, and he’s too old to care about sex, so food it is. Because that’s not a thought he ever shares with the other characters, but it’s very interesting to me that in the novel, in that first burst of enjoying their freedom, Wen Kexing is so focused on physical intimacy, first with courtesans, and then with Zhou Zishu, while Zhou Zishu is much more focused on physical pleasure must less dependent on other humans, like sightseeing and wine.

But once Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu are in action together, and once Wen Kexing definitively gets invested in Zhou Zishu, the physical progression of the relationship is really interesting to me. Wen Kexing gets very handsy and very forward, very quickly. Zhou Zishu tends to either endure or push him away, depending on the situation, but compared to something like, say, svsss, there’s much less ‘but i’m not gay though’ and much more generalized irritation until he (much more slowly) gets invested in return. 

And I probably would have brushed it away except for that one scene where they were about to do it, and get interrupted by the Scorpion King. First, this line, which makes it absolutely clear that as much as Zhou Zishu had given up on living a long, normal human life, Wen Kexing was in exactly the same position. Now, seeing Zhou Zishu potentially get a new lease on life, he’s forced to reckon with the idea that it might be possible for him to live on in the same way, which casts a whole new light on how casually he slept around with courtesans and propositioned Zhou Zishu earlier in the story, versus where he stands now.

They were both lone wolves who had been caught in hunters’ traps, struggling with all of their strength to free themselves to no avail, and thus, were willing to gnaw their own legs off without mercy.

[Wen Kexing] hadn’t been able to help following him, from watching him. Then a revelation had dawned— He’d realized, for the first time, that if Zhou Zishu could live like this, was it also a possible for him to live like this?

And then when Wen Kexing starts to catch a fresh round of feelings, Zhou Zishu’s response says volumes about his prior reactions whenever Wen Kexing got forward with him.

“A-Xu, sleep with me once. This way, we’ll keep each other in our hearts. You won’t die so easily then, and neither will I. What do you think?”

He said it jokingly, yet Zhou Zishu did not reply, only looked at him oddly. A while later, he finally asked, “Are you truly sincere about this?”

Wen Kexing laughed, his body tilting towards Zhou Zishu. He spoke, nearly against Zhou Zishu’s lips, “Can’t you tell if I’m sincere or not?”

Stunned, Zhou Zishu paused, then said in a low voice, “I… truly can’t tell. I haven’t experienced many instances of sincerity over the course of my life, and can’t identify it. Are you?”

Wen Kexing's fingers drifted up his shoulder, and tugged his hair loose. Dark hair cascaded down, making the tough man before his eyes look a few degrees more fragile in an instant. He dropped his cheeky grin, and in a soft voice, filled with momentous certainty, said, "I am."

Wen Kexing is most starved for touch, while Zhou Zishu is most starved for sincerity. Zhou Zishu was up to his neck in court politics in Lord Seventh, where a major focus of the story is about how sure, the Crown Prince may be deeply in love, but he’s the future Emperor, and ultimately, his feelings land way down the priority list. Up until this point in the story, with Wen Kexing waxing eloquent about how pretty Zhou Zishu must be, and calling it ‘mariticide’ when Zhou Zishu hits him, and being like ‘no no let’s hear the man out’ when the Scorpion King wants them to put on a sexy show for him, Zhou Zishu hasn’t been able to tell whether  Wen Kexing means it. 

I love me a story where the leads are terrible communicators and it causes them much Suffering, but this is a really tasty variant that I don’t feel like I see that often. Their hungers are so similar, but just disjoint enough that they can’t understand each other’s reservations. For a soulmates story like this, it’s just the right kind of tension to make the relationship work extra well for me. They’re in sync about this, as they are about so many things, with just enough of an offset that they’re both left ever so slightly uncertain, and it isn’t until they trust each other enough to ask a question as plain as ‘are you truly sincere about this?’ that they’re finally able to close the gap and reach that understanding with each other. 

[admirableadmiranda]

Hello!

I wanted your opinion on something. According to the novel, I can't see anywhere that confirms that LWJ burnt paper money for WWX. I find it a bit odd he didn't if that's the case.

Am I missing something? Was there an underlying reason why he didn't do this for WWX? He literally did so many other things to honour and remember WWX, I just found it a bit odd. Probably overthinking things as usual!

Well anon, there’s nothing that confirms that Lan Wangji burnt paper money for Wei Wuxian, but also there is some indication that he is not telling Wei Wuxian all of the truth about the things he did when he was grieving him. Wei Wuxian never actually does get a straight answer to his question. Whether or not he did is actually up for debate and will likely never be answered.

In answer to your other question, it’s rather a complex answer. Part of it is likely that Lan Wangji is a very private person who doesn’t like it when others dig into his affairs. All of his mourning for Wei Wuxian would therefore be done privately where others couldn’t see it. My research suggested that most times when paper money is burned is at festival times.

Part of it is probably because he was pretty much the only person willing to let Wei Wuxian be content in death. He doesn’t chase his spirit, he doesn’t curse his name, he doesn’t come up with schemes to summon him back from the living world. Wei Wuxian might have appreciated the paper money or he might have been angry that people were interrupting him.

Part of it is probably that Lan Wangji finds more value in moving forwards while holding the past in his heart. Buying Emperor’s Smile and hiding it under his floorboards is about as far as it seems to go and it’s still not like he has a lot of it. Wei Wuxian suggests about eight bottles of it, so it’s not even one for every year he was dead. While I don’t doubt that there were times he missed Wei Wuxian greatly and the grief was deeper, it seems to not regularly drag him down. Burning paper money seems to be more of a ritual for those grieving a fresh loss. By the time Wei Wuxian comes back to life, it has been thirteen years.

Part of it is that Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian were young even by our standards when Wei Wuxian died and I’m sure that Lan Wangji wild rather fix his gaze forwards on making a world where the events that led to Wei Wuxian’s death can’t occur again. He is changing his sect little by little, working with the juniors and teaching them to be open-minded, righteous and fair. He may not dwell much on Wei Wuxian in that he has a lot to occupy his time and while he definitely still mourned for him and still loves him just as deeply, he has moved forwards in his life and may not need the rituals to keep himself grounded in this world. Wei Wuxian is gone, but A-Yuan is still here, the child that he gave his life to protect. That alone would be a fulfilling journey and something that would make Wei Wuxian happy.

It’s difficult to remember both in the grounded world of Modaozushi and the relative lack of interest that most people in universe have in cultivating to immortality, but we do get indications that it is possible. Baoshan-Sanren is believed to have attained it. At fifty, Wen Ruohan looked barely twenty. Lan Wangji is probably no different. His cultivation is powerful enough that he fights through two zombie sieges, Jiang Cheng, an adventure in Yunping, a very terrible and then fantastic night in the Guanyin Temple and then deflowers Wei Wuxian on the side of the road with no sleep in more that two days. He clearly has reached a level beyond most cultivators at least. Barring fatal injury or severe illness, he could live for hundreds of years even assuming he doesn’t reach immortality. He will have a long time to see the world change and nudge it with his hand. In addition this is a world in which reincarnation could be possible. He may not be seeking out a world with a reincarnated Wei Wuxian, but still laying the foundations of a world that would accept him as he was. Perhaps later on down the line when memory began to fade and all he had left was ritual to hold those close, he might have burned money then.

We shall never know.

It should also be noted that the burned paper money goes to a bank in the afterlife. Wei Wuxian did not actually move on to the afterlife, he was a wandering ghost out in the world. It is entirely possible that Lan Wangji burned an emperor’s fortune for him and because Wei Wuxian had not passed onto the afterlife it was not available to him. Whatever the answer may be, it seems that it didn’t matter enough to Wei Wuxian for him to get it or MXTX to tell us on screen.

Is it overthinking things? Maybe a little, but it is fun to puzzle out the whats and whys of such things. There is an answer, Wei Wuxian nearly pulls it out of him in Drunkji 2, but it simply does not actually matter enough to the story that we see it. It’s just an interesting detail.

[oddishblossom]

If no one’s sent it in for the ask game yet, Wei WuXian 👀

Hey!!! Thanks for giving me the perfect excuse to ramble about my favorite necromancer boy 🥰

Favorite thing about them: Can I say everything? He’s just such a great character! I love his sense of humor, how kind he is, and how smart he is! He can be a bit of a flirty airhead, but that’s what makes him so charming! Did I mention the cool glowey red eyes? He can turn from sweet to dangerous when he needs to. Oh, but he has such a big heart, perhaps a little too big for his body. I both admire him for his strength and just wanna wrap a blanket around him ❤️❤️❤️

Least favorite thing about them: Oh, dear. He’s too giving 🥺💔. I wish he knew that it doesn't always have to be him to be the one to sacrifice and that he could learn to share his burdens. I know it’s incredibly hard for him to do something like that because it’s never been in his nature to let go. He has to be strong. Has to be brave. Has to be always smiling. Always the one to take the blame, always the defender, always going to extremes to fix things. I know this is a product of his upbringing and his surroundings. He was a teenager suddenly thrown into war after the death of nearly his entire clan. I don’t know if there was another way around this, I’m not sure if speculating would be of much use. What I do know, is that at the end of his first life, after everything wwx did, after learning about how he died, I kept thinking to myself: “It’s too much. No one should have to give so much.”

Favorite line: “But from now on, what you say to me, what you do for me, I’ll remember it all—I won’t forget a single thing! I really like you, Lan Zhan. I love you, I want you, I fancy you, I whatever you. I want to night-hunt with you for the rest of my life.” Basically his entire speech from Chapter 100 ❤️

BROTP: Okay. I know there’s a lot of people I could choose who would fit this role better, like Wen Ning or Wen Qing, my beloved. But if I’m being honest! If I'm being truthful! My answer would be Jiang Cheng (Plz don’t throw a pitchfork at me 🥲). And I get it. Maybe these two brothers are destined to just go their separate ways. Maybe there isn’t a timeline where these two can ever be happy around each other. But idc. I just can’t let go of the idea that the love is still there, buried, smothered, quiet, but there. I know that some things can’t be forgotten and things may never be how they once were; there were many flaws in their relationship, so I wouldn’t want them to go back to being the same. But I choose to believe that with time, even if it’s at a very slow pace, wwx and jc can reach a new state of being. Where they can learn how to just talk to each other again. About the small things. About the memories that aren’t painful. About Jin Ling. And maybe then, and only then, would they begin to heal and close the gap, one tiny step at a time.

OTP: Y'all know who it is! I don’t have more to say about them because the book has already given me all that I wanted! They’re the heart of the story and my favorite ship ❤️

NOTP: Any ship that is not Wangxian. I’m not really a big multi-shipper. I find a ship I like best, latch onto it, and then crinkle my nose at the idea of them being shipped with someone else lol.

Random Headcanon: I think he has a music brain and would easily be able to pick up a new instrument! I could also easily see him writing and singing songs :)

Unpopular Opinion: I guess it’s the same as the BROTP section. I know my wish for him to reconnect with his brother again is an opinion that uh is divisive in the fandom 😅

Song I associate with them: Liar by The Arcadian Wild, Everything I Wanted by Denis Kalytovskyi, Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush, Atlas:Two by Sleeping At Last, and of course, HOLD IT AGAINST ME BY BRITNEY SPEARS

Favorite picture of them: Oooh, no contest. The Yiling Laozu from the Untamed Mobile Game 🥰

Character Ask Game

[ibijau]

27 for chengxian! (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤

(Losing their memory only to have it come back after a much awaited true love’s kiss.)

Y'all really like that prompt lol I think I have at least one more ask for that one somewhere?

“And he’s been like this the whole time?” Jiang Cheng asked, repressing a shiver of disgust.

“Yes, zongzhu.”

“He didn’t even make a single inappropriate joke?”

“Not so much as a smile, zongzhu. And he said he was sorry for the inconvenience.”

Jiang Cheng gave Wei Wuxian another long look. He would have suspected a joke, but that style of humour would have more been Nie Huaisang’s thing. Wei Wuxian usually went for pranks instead of comedy. Besides, several Jiang disciples had been there when Wei Wuxian had taken in hand the cursed box, and they’d all testified to feeling a powerful discharge of Yin energy. Not only that, but the owner of the box had apparently warned them beforehand of the risk, and explained as well how to cure the curse.

True love’s kiss, of all things.

Normally, when it came to Wei Wuxian, that would have been quite an easy cure to organise. If anything, it was preventing him from indulging in those true love’s kisses that proved a challenge.

So of course this whole mess had to happen when, for once, Jiang Cheng had managed to get his shixiong to come without that damn icicle he called a husband. A favour he had only obtained because Lan Wangji was away on a Night Hunt in a place where resentment toward the feared Yiling patriarch remained too great for Wei Wuxian to go with him. It would take a few days until Lan Wangji could be warned of this incident and returned to administer his cure.

Until then, Jiang Cheng was stuck with this stranger who didn’t look like his shixiong, and didn’t even act like him either.

“At least it’s an improvement over his normal personality,” his first disciple scoffed. “Let’s all enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Am I really that bad?” Wei Wuxian asked with open concern. “If it is inconvenient for others when I am myself, perhaps I’d better stay like this.”

Jiang Cheng huffed. Lan Wangji would never have allowed that, he knew. Someone in that marriage needed to have a personality, and it wasn’t going to be the second jade of Gusu Lan. Although perhaps if they were both equally boring, then perhaps there would be a divorce, and Jiang Cheng could get his shixiong back.

A most tempting plan, except for the fact that this man before him just wasn’t Wei Wuxian, and thus wasn’t worth keeping around.

“Send for Lan Wangji,” Jiang Cheng reluctantly ordered. “And you, come with me,” he added toward Wei Wuxian. “I’m not letting you sleep at some inn when you’re in that state. I’ll have your room prepared, you’re staying where I can see you until you’re better.”

The man who wasn’t Wei Wuxian meekly followed him without a single objection, nor any attempt at teasing. Jiang Cheng found it almost sickening, which surprised him. He’d spent most of his life wishing Wei Wuxian would learn to act more appropriately and to show proper deference to those around him. By all accounts, this should have pleased Jiang Cheng to finally behold a version of his shixiong that knew his place.

He refused to dwell on that, mostly because it never did him good to think too long about that insufferable shixiong of his. Instead, Jiang Cheng congratulated himself on his decision to have had a room prepared for Wei Wuxian the instant he’d heard Lan Wangji wasn’t with him. If he wasn’t going to have shameless intercourse during the whole night, there was no need to banish Wei Wuxian to an inn. Of course Jiang Cheng hadn’t been sure how to offer that bedroom to the other man without being accused of being friendly, so at least one positive side to that curse had been to remove the need for an explanation.

-

After a few days together, Jiang Cheng had determined that being stuck with that unnatural version of Wei Wuxian was the worst torture he’d ever endured, even counting being struck by discipline whips and having his golden core torn from him.

Now that he’d had time to observe the amnesiac man during the afternoon and at dinner, Jiang Cheng had realised that contrary to his first impression, something of Wei Wuxian remained through the loss of memory. It was only small things, a manner of movement, the way he held his glass of tea, or the gesture with which he sprinkled additional spices over his dinner without even tasting it. A hundred ghosts of who Wei Wuxian was, lingering in a man who had too much politeness and not enough humour.

It was striking also to realise just how little Wei Wuxian looked like himself in his current body. Usually it wasn’t noticeable because his personality made up for the difference, but at the moment he truly looked like nothing but a complete stranger wearing a disguise.

Jiang Cheng hated it.

And Wei Wuxian, apparently, noticed it.

“If you tell me more about what I’m normally like, I can try to act more like it,” he said in a forlorn voice on the fourth afternoon, while watching Jiang Cheng take care of his correspondence.

Jiang Cheng only grunted.

“Though from what everyone says, aren’t I more pleasant to have around like this?”

Another grunt. Others were idiots for not appreciating Wei Wuxian as he naturally behaved, while Jiang Cheng was equally stupid for missing it.

“Just tell me what to do,” Wei Wuxian insisted, and Jiang Cheng hated that those were words he’d always wished to hear but now felt so wrong. “Should I smile? Should I be…” he hesitated. “Should I be obnoxious?” he asked in a trembling voice, just pathetic enough that in a roundabout way, it did sound like something Wei Wuxian might say if he were joking.

Jiang Cheng, exhausted and on edge, almost laughed.

Sadly Wei Wuxian noticed, and took it as encouragement.

“I think I can do that,” he claimed, coming to sit closer until he was nearly on Jiang Cheng’s lap.

That, too, felt a little too much like the real Wei Wuxian, though normally he kept that sort of behaviour for Lan Wangji.

Well perhaps that damn icicle liked being climbed over, but Jiang Cheng did not. Not at all, not one bit, that scenario had never once appeared in his dreams, when his mind thought it could betray his good sense. So Jiang Cheng tried to push away Wei Wuxian, who quickly threw his arms around Jiang Cheng’s neck to make it harder.

“Isn’t this the sort of things I’d do?” Wei Wuxian pleaded, pressing himself harder against Jiang Cheng the more his shidi tried to get rid of him, until he was all but straddling him. “I’ve heard people say I’m flirty.”

“Yes, toward your husband!”

“Well, I don’t know him. But I know you. You’ve been kind to me those few days, even when it was obvious that you don’t like seeing me like this. You shout a lot, but I think you’re a very good person at heart.”

“I’ve tried to kill you in the past,” Jiang Cheng blurted, though he gave up on trying to push Wei Wuxian away. “More than once.”

“From what I’ve heard, you’re hardly the only one.”

Two thoughts crossed Jiang Cheng’s mind.

The first was that he might have to borrow some ideas and forbid gossip in the Lotus Pier, if Wei Wuxian had heard so much in so little time.

The second was that he probably ought to hate a little more the way Wei Wuxian was straddling him, and how close he was. Close enough that if someone were to come in, they’d get the wrong idea and think they were about to…

Jiang Cheng’s eyes flickered to Wei Wuxian’s lips. He wondered, and then mentally slapped himself for wondering.

“The cure is a true love’s kiss, isn’t it?” Wei Wuxian asked in a whisper.

“Your damn true love is going to arrive tonight or tomorrow,” Jiang Cheng retorted in a voice that failed to be anything but pleading. “Wait for him instead of playing games.”

“If I wait for him, I’ll never be sure about you,” came the answer, before Wei Wuxian pressed their lips together.

Jiang Cheng, at first, merely allowed it to happen, unsure what to do with his hands, with his mouth even. Wei Wuxian appeared to understand and, without breaking the kiss, placed Jiang Cheng’s hands on his hips while also moving his lips in a gentle manner, as if trying to show him what to do.

When they parted, Wei Wuxian’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes shining with emotion. Then, slowly, his lips parted into the most obnoxious grin in the world, one that Jiang Cheng hadn’t seen once in those last few days.

“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian laughed, his voice just as annoying as ever. “Jiang Cheng, who knew!”

“Shut up! Get off my lap now that you’re cured!”

Wei Wuxian laughed again, sounding like a demented wolf, and Jiang Cheng hated how much he had missed that.

“Jiang Cheng, don’t pretend, I know you care, you can’t hide it anymore!”

“Who’d care for an asshole like you!” Jiang Cheng exploded, trying again to push away the other man, only for Wei Wuxian to laugh and press another quick kiss to his lips.

“Look at you, all embarrassed! Jiang Cheng, you’re an idiot, you know.”

“I’ll murder you!”

“Been there, done that,” Wei Wuxian retorted with another kiss. “Now listen. The cure was true love’s kiss, not ‘somewhat unrequited long lasting crush kiss’, alright?”

Jiang Cheng stopped fighting instantly, thus giving Wei Wuxian the chance to kiss him again, a little longer this time. Without any input from his brain, Jiang Cheng’s hands found their way to the other man’s hips, this time pulling him closer.

“What about your Hanguang-Jun then?” Jiang Cheng breathlessly asked when they parted. “Does that mean he’s…”

“I’m a very spoiled man,” Wei Wuxian said. “I can have two true loves, to make up for the fact that they’re both absolute bitches.”

The idea of sharing Wei Wuxian, now that Jiang Cheng knew he could have him, was particularly unpleasant. The only thing that would make it bearable, Jiang Cheng decided, was the certainty that Lan Wangji would be appalled that they had anything in common.

Happy with this petty thought, Jiang Cheng kissed Wei Wuxian again.

[guqin-and-flute]

nieyao or 3zun + prompt 64 with cat!baxia

64. “I think your cat wants to kill me.” [This got way away from me WHOOPS]

“So. This date is going fantastically. Do I make top 10?”

Meng Yao huffed a short, polite laugh through his nose at Mingjue’s rueful question. “Being nursed back to health by a handsome man is certainly adding back points lost in the cat attack,” he replied, and some of the frustrated dread bled from the ball in Mingjue’s chest. “I really could do this myself, you know,” he added.  

Mingjue sighed. “Yeah, well, since it was my cat attack, I feel like I need to make reparations. I’ve also taken First Aid more times than I can count and cat scratches can get really nasty.” 

If this were a one of the sappy romcoms Huaisang loved so much, standing at the sink together as he tended to the 2 gashes scoring down Meng Yao’s forearm with several antiseptic soaked cotton balls had the potential to be romantic. Except Mingjue had never liked those movies and he just felt like a fucking asshole who owned an unruly animal.

He had met Meng Yao at the grocery store. Mingjue had looked up from his phone at the sound of a sharp voice--a middle aged business man was snapping at a young man in front of him in line; "Fucking Christ, you're going to hold up everyone."

"You can go ahead of me if you'd like--"

"There's a whole line of people here! We all have places to go!"

The man being yelled at--(the very attractive man with round, dark eyes, he noted)--had grimaced placatingly, as the cashier was saying, "We can hold his groceries while he goes out, sir, you won't have to wait."

A the business man threw his hands into the air in disgust, Mingjue had slid his phone into his back pocket and interrupted in his 'is this guy bothering you' voice; "What's the problem?"

3 pairs of eyes had darted to him immediately and gone wide. The very good looking man had tensed completely, eyes darting to the door in a way that looked involuntary--and well, Mingjue had been struck by the completely overwhelming urge to tuck him back behind him and make this asshole between them shit his pants in fear. And anyone else that made him look that scared, for that matter. "I'm sorry," the scared, attractive, adorable, fragile-looking, harassed young man had said a tight smile, "I forgot my wallet in my car, we can just--"

"Here," Mingjue slid out his credit card handed it--pointedly--over Mr. Business-Asshole's head to the cashier. "I'll cover it. You know what," he had added, fixing the quickly wilting dickhead with his best 'I-can-bench-press-you-and-then-feed-you-your-own-esophagus-no-problem' stare, "Why don't you get the nice lady behind me, too. Once this guy is done running for the biggest jackass award. I'll wait."

And, you know, weirdly enough, Mr. Asshole had actually left the line, red faced and without his shitty little protein shakes. As the cashier bit back a grin and rung up the card, the harassed young man--who was even prettier up close, holy hell, it made his lower back sweat--had tried to insist that it wasn't necessary, that really, he had the money, he could just go get it, he appreciated it but didn't need Mingjue to put himself out. Mingjue had just shrugged and held out his hand. "It's the principle of the thing. Nie Mingjue."

The man had opened his mouth, looked down at his hand; then, he had smiled and holy goddamn fucking shitballs he had dimples. Shaking it firmly in a hand that was soft and cool and slim, he had said, "Then...thank you. Meng Yao. I'll have to pay you back. Do you have a cash app?"

"Don't bother."

"I insist."

"You can buy me dinner sometime, then," Mingjue's mouth had decided to say without permission, but luckily he agreed with the idea and so had been quite pleased to see Meng Yao's ears go pink.

"...That sounds fair," he replied, finally, those lovely dimples returning.

The cashier had cleared their throat, brightly. "Do you by chance have our loyalty card?"

They agreed on a first date in a public restaurant where they could verify that the other wasn’t some sort of serial killer. It had even been a nice one that Meng Yao had insisted on where they had also shared a bottle of wine and interesting conversation. Meng Yao was exceedingly smart and easy to talk to--the perfect conversational partner with a knack for solving many of the problems that Mingjue hadn't even realized he complained about. In return, he had made his attraction quite clear and Meng Yao had ducked his head.

"I'll have you know that I don't go home with anyone on the first date," he had said carefully, eyes on his fingertip as he ran it around the rim of his wineglass. "It's a personal rule of mine. I wouldn't want you to get the wrong impression."

"That's fine with me," Mingjue shrugged. "If you're up for it, I'll wait for as many dates outlasts your rule, 'cause I grill a mean steak."

Those dimples came back and he had sat back in his chair, voice light as he asked, "Oh? Won't you get bored?"

Mingjue had snorted and finished off his glass. "Just because I'd like to sleep with you doesn't mean I don't also want to get to know you, you know."

Mingjue was just getting to know the guy, so he couldn't be sure, but that answer seemed to please him.

The night of the cat disaster was the 4th on their run of dates--Mingjue had shooed Huaisang over to Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng’s house for the night and invited Meng Yao over via text for dinner and a movie and also the option of sex, if he wanted. 

Apparently, the bluntness had made Meng Yao laugh. Mingjue had texted back that he preferred honesty in all things and could handle a ‘no, thanks’ with plenty maturity. Meng Yao had replied, ‘I’m sure you can,’ which, he had very keenly noticed, was not a ‘no, thanks.’

Dinner had gone great--homemade meals always seemed to impress--and they had been preparing to split a chocolate lava cake in front of a shitty action movie they had both agreed on with the understanding that neither of them minded missing anything if they decided fooling around was more interesting.

But now, there was blood everywhere--on the dishes in the sink, on the towel they had hastily staunched it with, on the countertop and the mood was ruined because his giant, grumpy ass cat had decided to savage his date as they were cleaning up the table. Baxia had sniffed his leg suspiciously when he first came in, flinching away as he knelt down to offer his fingers. Then, she had fixed him with a glare, hissed, and turned around and stalked away, fluffy gray tail held high--which, for her, was practically a warm welcome. She had her boys--Huaisang and Mingjue--and hated pretty much everyone else (except for Wei Wuxian's older sister Jiang Yanli when she had dropped him off to hang out with Huaisang when his license got suspended. Which had happened a few times, now).

Everything had been fine with her while they ate--she had even spent it under the table, rubbing up against Mingjue's legs, staring up at Meng Yao without making so much as a peep. It was when they had risen that disaster struck. She had hopped up onto Meng Yao's chair and decided to take personal offense to his existence with absolutely no warning at all when he passed by with his hands full of silverware.

Now, Meng Yao’s long fingers curled into a fist as the cotton passed over a particularly deep part of the slice, though his face remained calm, so Mingjue winced for him. "Sorry. I swear, she's never done this before, I don't know what the hell her problem is."

Meng Yao shook his head, smile pressed and polite as he said, "Really, it's fine." He shifted on his feet to lean his hip against the cupboards and, immediately, Mingjue seized his elbows. 

“Are you dizzy?”

The other man had stiffened at the sudden movement, staring up at him. Then, he blinked and smiled, shaking his head. “No, I'm alright.”

Mingjue eyed him suspiciously. “You’re sure?”

He laughed. “I’m not going into shock, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve had much worse, trust me. I’m not going to pass out.”

Mingjue remained unconvinced. Instead of arguing further, he simply lifted him by the waist to sit on the island across from the sink for lack of a chair. Meng Yao let out the beginning of a squeak, hands automatically flashing up to bunch in the front of his shirt for balance. He blinked down at Mingjue, then the ground, then back at him, eyes wide and nostrils flared. Mingjue couldn't tell if it was annoyance, horniness, or a combination of both--and that was all well and good except that he was still bleeding and he knew from experience what a bitch blood was to get out of clothing. So he just pulled Meng Yao's arm out again and went back to work, asking, "So what was the 'much worse'?"

"Pardon?"

"You said you knew you're not going to pass out because you've had 'much worse'. What's the story there?"

"Ah. No story. I broke my arm. Compound fracture. I stayed awake the whole time, so a cat scratch is fairly minor, in comparison."

Mingjue hissed in through his teeth reflexively in sympathy and scanned him. Either he healed fantastically or the scar was higher up on his arms, under the soft cream sweater sleeves that were rolled up to his elbows--luckily, they had been rolled up before the attack and had escaped blood thus far. "Fuck. How'd that happen?"

"Fell down some stairs."

Mingjue raised an eyebrow at the stark explanation. "Well, maybe you shouldn't fall down stairs. Ever thought of that?"

Meng Yao smiled thinly down at him, dark eyes glinting in the fluorescent lights. "Mm. I'll have to keep that in mind." The dimples he searched for avidly were there, faintly, and Mingjue found himself wanting to nibble on them.

They hadn't done much else besides a kiss goodnight in the shadows near the entrance to the parking garages of their dates, because Mingjue was being good and keeping his hands above the belt. And he should probably figure out whether or not this date was going to have the eject button pressed, first. There was blood everywhere, still.

"Why all the First Aid classes?" Meng Yao asked suddenly, keeping his arm extended out even as Mingjue released him to rummage for the antibacterial spray. "Was it because your demon cat kept attacking people?"

Mingjue barked out a laugh and sprayed down his arm--Meng Yao didn't flinch. "At first, it was for lifeguarding, every summer since I was 16 until I graduated college. Now, I take refresher courses because I run a martial arts studio and shit can get real real fast, especially with newbies who try to fuck around." Tearing open the packet of sterilized gauze with his teeth so he could still hold his arm, he situated it and held it with a gentle thumb. "Tape or gauze wrap?"

Meng Yao shrugged. "I have no preference. Surprise me."

Gauze wrap it was. It would hurt less than pulling tape off his arm later. Meng Yao watched him finish up quietly, ankles linked, posture straight and proper even sitting on a kitchen counter. On impulse, Mingjue lifted his now bandaged arm and kissed the skin of his wrist, just below where the gauze stopped and got a slight shiver for his trouble. He looked up at him, then, an angle he was not used to but was definitely enjoying. "This has been a piss poor date. I really am sorry."

"The dinner was lovely before it ended in bloodshed, I promise," Meng Yao assured him, smiling. Then, it grew a little sly and he leaned in, slowly, stretching his arms out over Mingjue's shoulders to link behind his neck. "Although, you could always kiss it better."

Well, there was no possible way to misinterpret that particular invitation and he heartily took it, snugging Meng Yao up against him with hands on his hips and devouring him just as indulgently as he would the forgotten lava cake cooling on the stove top. He hummed in appreciation as Meng Yao's arms wrapped tighter, his thighs squeezing around his hips as he kissed back with just as much enthusiasm. He tasted like the dry wine they had finished the meal with.

All at once, though, Meng Yao froze, hands stilling in his hair. Before Mingjue had time to be confused, he whispered against his mouth, "I think your cat wants to kill me," eyes fixed on something over Mingjue's shoulder.

Mingjue craned his neck around to find Baxia perched on the counter next to the sink, tail swishing, gaze locked with Meng Yao, ears flicked out to the sides. She let out a low, quiet growl.

"Oh, for fucks sake," Mingjue growled back. "That's it. You're going in Huaisang's room for the night."

[disastermages]

[read it on ao3]

“Shijie, how do I make soup?” Wei Wuxian wrestles the phone between his shoulder and his ear while he tries and fails to dig through Lan Zhan’s pots and pans quietly. He needs a stock pot, Wei Wuxian knows that much, and carrots and celery and onions. That’s how Jiang Yanli starts most of her soups, he’s seen her cook and pretended to help her enough times to know that.

On the other end, Wei Wuxian hears Jiang Yanli hum laugh softly, “A-Xian, if you’re hungry, you can just come over, I’ll even send you home with leftovers.” It makes Wei Wuxian smile, but he shakes his head, even though his sister can’t see him.

“It’s not for me, Shijie, Lan Zhan is sick, and I want to make something to help him feel better.” Lan Zhan still hadn’t even admitted to being sick by the time Wei Wuxian had convinced him to lay back down. Lan Zhan had been too tired and too uncertain on his feet to argue, not that he could have stopped Wei Wuxian from putting him to bed.

They were supposed to go out for dinner, but Wei Wuxian had canceled that reservation while he sat beside Lan Zhan, running his fingers through sweat-dampened hair.

“Oh! Well that is different, now isn’t it?” Jiang Yanli’s voice only sounds more amused now, and distantly, Wei Wuxian hears clattering on her side of the phone call, “Do you have chicken broth?”

“Lan Zhan has some vegetable broth from Xichen-ge.” There’d been uncertainty on Lan Zhan’s face the first time he’d told Wei Wuxian that Lan Xichen had taken up cooking, but he was getting better at it.

“That will work just fine, A-Xian.”

Slowly, Jiang Yanli walks her younger brother through the process of making a simple soup, her voice gentle and encouraging, even as she reminds Wei Wuxian not to let the onions and garlic scorch in the pan, because it will make the soup bitter.

“My XianXian is growing up.” Jiang Yanli sounds as if she’s speaking to herself, but it makes Wei Wuxian pause, mushrooms in his hands hovering above the stock pot he’d had to climb half way into Lan Zhan’s cabinets for.

“XianXian is three, he can’t even make soup by himself, he needs his Shijie to hold his hand.” Only when he can laugh at himself does Wei Wuxian finally drop the mushrooms into the soup. Carrots and potatoes roll to the top while the stock boils.

He expects Jiang Yanli to play along with him just like she always does, he waits for her to insist that he’s only a year old, but instead she pauses, though not unkindly. “A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli sounds more serious than Wei Wuxian has heard her in a very long time, “you’re making soup for Lan Wangji because you care for him, right? You’re going to want to add some rosemary now, there’s no need to cut it, just make sure you pull out the sprig after the soup has simmered.”

Wei Wuxian dutifully adds the rosemary, the smell of it spreading through his chest and widening like warmth, “Of course I care for him! He’s my… He’s my Lan Zhan.” They hadn’t named whatever it was that they’re doing, but it’s true enough, isn’t it? Lan Zhan is Wei Wuxian’s Lan Zhan. “Do I need to add anything else?”

“You can add some tofu if you like. When you found out he was sick, did you have to think about it, or did you just go right into taking care of him?”

Reluctantly, Wei Wuxian steps away from the stove long enough to look inside Lan Zhan’s fridge for the tofu, jars and bottles clinking in both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli’s ears while Wei Wuxian pulls the tofu out of a stack with one hand. The soup is still on the stove, unscorched and free of ruin when Wei Wuxian comes back to it.

“I just did it, I guess, I wanted to.” He hadn’t been able to find Lan Zhan’s thermometer and Lan Zhan couldn’t stay awake long enough to tell him where it was, so in the end, Wei Wuxian had kissed Lan Zhan’s forehead and found him to be burning with fever. He’d taken off his leather jacket and set to work trying to take care of Lan Zhan after that.

“You’ll need to cut the tofu, but don’t make it too small.” There’s the light, metallic tapping of Jiang Yanli’s tasting spoon against her stockpot, still spotless, but far more used than Lan Zhan’s. Wei Wuxian nods again and picks up the knife he’d pulled out of Lan Zhan’s kitchen drawers, his sister had told him to find one that felt right in his hand. Wei Wuxian cannot see Jiang Yanli, but he knows that she’s thinking hard about something, her nose wrinkling slightly and her mouth pulling into that small, thoughtful frown.

“A-Xian, do you know that I’m proud of you?” The chunks of tofu land in the pot with wet plops, but Jiang Yanli doesn’t give her brother the chance to ask her what she’s proud of, “I know you don’t like cooking, and you say that you don’t know how to care for someone who’s sick, but you’re trying very hard for Lan Wangji. You could have called Lan Xichen, and he would have come running over to take care of him, but you’ve done it without a second thought. You are growing up, and you’re growing up well.”

“Shijie,” Wei Wuxian starts, but he can’t finish, something big is blocking his throat and making his eyes sting, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“You’ll need to let the soup simmer for a while before you can serve it, keep it stirred, and in the meantime, you should do the dishes and clean up any messes you made while you were cooking.” Jiang Yanli’s own voice sounds wobbly and emotional, now, but it doesn’t mask the pride shining like the sun through storm clouds. “You should serve it to Lan Wangji with some crackers, or maybe toast, it’ll settle his stomach a little.”

Finally, Wei Wuxian can speak, a smile spreading slowly across his face, “Should I call you and ask you how to make toast?”

Jiang Yanli laughs at the joke and sets the lid onto her own pot, “Xianxian could blacken the toast completely, and I think Lan Wangji might still eat it, but only because you made it for him.”

They only talk for a while longer before they both hang up and Wei Wuxian starts to clean up his messes, chasing after thin, wispy onion skins with the broom and wiping down spills that have long since hardened while he was too busy to clean them. He looks in on Lan Zhan, still sleeping, and digs through the cabinets again to find the tea Lan Zhan only drinks on special occasions.

There’s nothing left for Wei Wuxian to do after the tea is brewed and steeped, so he sets about gathering up a tray, taking care to slice the toast into crustless triangles, just the way he’d seen Jiang Yanli do for him and Jiang Cheng when they were younger. With his hands full, Wei Wuxian is grateful that he’d left Lan Zhan’s door open just a crack, though he still kicks it closed as gently as he can.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian calls, setting the tray down on the empty side of the bed, his side of the bed, to lean over Lan Zhan and shake him gently, “it’s time to wake up, Lan Zhan.” He knows he shouldn’t, but he still fixes a kiss to Lan Zhan’s temple, and then his cheek. Lan Zhan wakes up slowly, his eyes still heavy and his skin somehow paler, even as he stares up at Wei Wuxian.

“Wei Ying.” The roughness of Lan Zhan’s voice digs itself right into Wei Wuxian’s heart, and for one moment his smile falters.

“I made you something special, Lan Zhan, it’s going to help you feel better.” Wei Wuxian pulls the tray into his own lap, but Lan Zhan looks at it doubtfully, though he still makes the effort to try and smell it.

“Wei Ying made this?” He asks, and Wei Wuxian beams. He hadn’t burned anything or added too much spice, the broth hadn’t even turned red.

“I called Shijie for help, but I did all the work by myself, I even cleaned the kitchen after I was done.” The statement is half meant to brag, and half meant to settle any worries Lan Zhan might have about a mess left behind in the kitchen.The way his eyes widened minutely hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Lan Zhan takes the spoonfuls carefully as Wei Wuxian offers them to him, bleary eyes still glancing up at Wei Wuxian, disbelief mixed with something else that Wei Wuxian can’t name, but it fills him with hope.

“Wei Ying should not have gone to so much trouble, I cannot taste it.” Lan Zhan admits once the bowl is finished, his hand drifting towards Wei Wuxian’s knee. There’s guilt building up on Lan Zhan’s face like storm clouds, dark and heavy, before Wei Wuxian covers Lan Zhan’s hand with his own, thumb swiping back and forth in a quiet attempt at comfort.

“I wanted to do it, Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian says softly, lifting Lan Zhan’s hand up and kissing it quick, “You know you can’t stop me or change my mind when I decide that I want to do something.” Wei Wuxian couldn’t stop Lan Zhan when he decided he truly wanted to do something either, but Wei Wuxian doesn’t bring that up now, not as he sets his other hand onto Lan Zhan’s back to guide him to lay on his shoulder.

Lan Zhan’s arms wrap around Wei Wuxian’s neck easily, the movements comfortable and automatic.

“Wei Ying will get sick like this.” Lan Zhan insists, his voice stubborn and childish, even as he makes no attempt to pull away, if anything, his arms tighten.

“If I do, will Lan Er-gege take care of me?”

“Yes.” Lan Zhan’s answer is automatic and unquestioning. Wei Wuxian buries his face in Lan Zhan’s hair for it, breathing in the scent buried underneath sweat and sick. “Will Wei Ying make more soup later?”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t stop himself from laughing before he gives Lan Zhan another kiss, this time pressed to his jaw. “You don’t know how much soup I made, Lan Zhan, I can warm it up for you as many times as you want.” He’d made too much, really, but Jiang Yanli had said that was normal.

“I want to be able to taste your cooking.” Lan Zhan insists, and Wei Wuxian kisses him again, on his forehead and on both of his cheeks.

“You will, Lan Zhan, you won’t be sick forever.” It was only a cold, or maybe a flu, but Lan Zhan will get better, Wei Wuxian will make sure of that.

Wei Wuxian knows that he should get up and he should wash the dishes that they’d used, but when he tries, Lan Zhan only holds onto him tighter and refuses to look at Wei Wuxian for a long moment. “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

“I will, Lan Zhan, I will.”

Wei Wuxian would stay as long as Lan Zhan would have him.

He would take care of him as long as he was allowed to.

[bloody-bee-tea]

Have a fluffy thought for distraction: discussion conference at Cloud Recesses, sect leader Jiang has not returned to the talks after a break and no one can find him. Hours later someone goes to feed the bunnies and finds him in the meadow, covered in bunnies. Maybe he's asleep, maybe he's awake, either way he can't move because that would disturb the bunnies and you don't disturb animals that picked you as their seat :3 he lives in the meadow now.

A field of rabbits

Well it certainly distracted me into writing XD <3

When everyone files back into the conference room and Jiang Wanyin is nowhere to be seen, Nie Mingjue doesn’t immediately panic. 

This is the Cloud Recesses after all, and it’s highly unlikely that he got attacked or ran into some trouble here. After Wen Xu managed to burn the Cloud Recesses, they made sure that it’s one of the most fortified places right after the Unclean Realm and possibly Lotus Pier.

Jiang Wanyin might be a magnet for trouble, and he might look for fights more than anyone else Nie Mingjue knows except himelf, but the chances that he found either here are slim to none.

It’s much more likely that there was an emergency with his Sect that he has to deal with before he can come back to the conference. 

It happened before and it will happen again; after all, they are all Sect Leaders here and there are always issues the second in command can’t deal with on their own.

Nie Mingjue has the utmost understanding for that.

But when Lan Qiren steps into the room and frowns, before worry visibly clouds over his face that’s the moment unease makes itself known in Nie Mingjue’s belly.

If Jiang Wanyin had to deal with something else, then he would have notified Lan Qiren, there’s no doubt about that.

Jiang Wanyin has the utmost respect for Lan Qiren and he would never be late or miss a meeting intentionally, not without telling Lan Qiren or informing him otherwise.

But it doesn’t seem like Lan Qiren knows what happened to Jiang Wanyin either, and that’s cause to worry.

People are already starting to whisper about his absence and Nie Mingjue clenches his fist.

Jiang Wanyin has been leading his Sect for over three years now; bringing it back from the brink and restoring it to much of its former glory and still people are talking about him as if he’s a helpless teenager who doesn’t deserve their respect or fear.

Nie Mingjue hates it with every fibre of his being, because Jiang Wanyin has stepped up for his Sect in a way not many would have been able to and it itches him to snap at all of them.

It’s only Lan Qiren who catches his gaze that stops him.

“Sect Leader Jiang has been delayed by an important issue. He is requesting for Sect Leader Nie’s assistance, so if you would, please,” Lan Qiren says with a meaningful glance towards Nie Mingjue and Nie Mingjue nods his understanding.

Lan Qiren has no goddamn clue where Jiang Wanyin is and he wants him to look for him.

Nie Mingjue will more than gladly do that.

There is no real danger here that could have befallen Jiang Wanyin, but Nie Mingjue still worries.

He has never seen anyone with eye rings that deep or black, especially since Jiang Wanyin is otherwise almost deathly pale and the concern that he might have just dropped dead is a real one.

Jiang Wanyin is pushing himself far too hard.

Nie Mingjue asks every disciple he sees if they have seen Jiang Wanyin but he only gets vague answers in return.

It seems like Jiang Wanyin vanished like a shadow.

Nie Mingjue feels frustration rise in him when he makes his way through the entire Cloud Recesses with no sign of Jiang Wanyin.

“You think the rabbits will be mad that we didn’t feed them?” Nie Mingjue hears a disciple say suddenly and he frowns. 

“I think better the rabbits than Sect Leader Jiang,” another voice replies and before Nie Mingjue can inquire about what they mean, they are gone.

But he finally has a lead and so he follows the path that leads to the meadow with the rabbits.

He used to come here a lot with Lan Xichen when they were both younger and less burdened but ever since the Sunshot Campaign neither of them have the time for this anymore.

His feet still remember the path well though, and it’s not long before the first rabbits come into view.

The rabbits and a figure clad in purple.

Nie Mingjue breathes a little bit easier just for having found Jiang Wanyin but then it registers in his mind that Jiang Wanyin is splayed out on the ground, not moving or talking, and the worry comes back with a vengeance.

Nie Mingjue stealthily makes his way over to Jiang Wanyin, but as soon as he gets closer he realizes that Jiang Wanyin is breathing easily and deeply and he seems more relaxed than Nie Mingjue has ever seen him.

He just fell asleep then. That’s good.

Nie Mingjue has to bite back a smile when one of the startled rabbits makes its way back onto Jiang Wanyin’s stomach, where it promptly falls back asleep.

Nie Mingjue is unsure if the rabbits climbed on Jiang Wanyin and prevented him from leaving, causing him to fall asleep, or if Jiang Wanyin fell asleep and the rabbits claimed him as their bed, but it doesn’t really matter.

What matters is that Jiang Wanyin finally got some rest.

Nie Mingjue carefully sits down next to him, but of course Jiang Wanyin startles awake. It seems like the war and the stress are still too close.

“Relax,” Nie Mingjue lowly says, taking care not to startle the rabbits any more than Jiang Wanyin’s violent waking up did and Nie Mingjue watches fondly as the same rabbit as before makes its bed on Jiang Wanyin’s stomach yet again.

It seems to be a particularly good spot for sleeping.

“What are you doing here?” Jiang Wanyin asks him and his voice is rough enough to suggest that he at least slept for most of their break.

That’s good.

“Looking for you,” Nie Mingjue lowly gives back and puts a hand to Jiang Wanyin’s shoulder when he tries to get up. “Relax,” he says again and Jiang Wanyin does sink back into the grass, but there’s tension in his face now.

“The break is over,” he whispers, sounding horrified and Nie Mingjue nods.

“It is, but don’t worry. Lan Qiren has your back.”

“What did he say?” Jiang Wanyin asks as if he fears the answer.

“That there has been an important issue. You asked for my help, if you’re wondering,” Nie Mingjue says easily and then lays down on the grass as well. “And I like what you’re doing so I’ll join you.”

“Sect Leader Nie—” Jiang Wanyin starts but Nie Mingjue doesn’t let him speak.

“Mingjue. Nie Mingjue if you must,” he corrects him and then closes his eyes as the first curious rabbits start to explore him.

“I’m sorry,” Jiang Wanyin whispers after a long moment and Nie Mingjue blinks over to him.

“What for?”

“Missing the conference. Making you miss it, too. You can go back if you want to, and I’ll follow soon.”

Nie Mingjue eyes first the rabbit on his own stomach and then the numerous ones on Jiang Wanyin and raises an eyebrow at him.

“I don’t think either of us will. You don’t move if an animal has chosen you as their sleeping spot. It’s just not done. Believe me, I know. Huaisang has many birds who like to sit on me and you’re simply not allowed to disturb them. It’s an unwritten law,” Nie Mingjue tells him and reaches out for another rabbit to add it to the ones already on Jiang Wanyin.

“And would you look at that, another one chose you. You can leave even less now.”

Jiang Wanyin is staring at him with wide eyes and Nie Mingjue is absolutely unprepared to see tears well up in them.

It seems like Jiang Wanyin wasn’t prepared for that either if the panic in his eyes is any indication and Nie Mingjue does the only thing he can think of.

He plops a rabbit onto Jiang Wanyin’s face.

The rabbit doesn’t struggle like Nie Mingjue expected it to and instead stays on his face for long, long moments, and Jiang Wanyin doesn’t make a move to dislodge it either.

“I’m sorry,” Jiang Cheng finally croaks out again and Nie Mingjue sighs, before he crosses his arms behind his head.

“There is no need to be. You’re pushing yourself too hard. Lan Qiren and I worry. It’s good for you to take some time off and where better to do it than here. Lan Qiren will inform us if there’s anything important, but you should know how these things go by now. Sect Leader Yao will think he’s the most important man in the room until Jin Guangshan reminds him that he is in fact the most important man in the room and by then it will be evening. It’s not like we’re going to miss much.”

“True,” Jiang Wanyin says with a snort, which finally makes the rabbit move off his face.

There are no more tears in his eyes, but Jiang Wanyin seems bone-deep exhausted.

“Rest some more. I’ll make sure no one disturbs us,” Nie Mingjue lowly says and Jiang Wanyin closes his eyes with a sigh.

“I shouldn’t be this weak,” he mutters under his breath and Nie Mingjue rolls his eyes.

“You’re human,” he gives back. “And your body has needs. Sleep is one of them.”

“I don’t have time to sleep,” Jiang Wanyin whispers but he closes his eyes.

“You do now. So make the best of it,” Nie Mingjue advises him and he’s pretty sure Jiang Wanyin falls asleep before he even finishes talking.

Nie Mingjue stares at him for a moment longer—he didn’t quite realize that Jiang Wanyin was so tired that he would basically drift off in the middle of a conversation—but it’s not really a surprise, not with how exhausted he looks.

He watches Jiang Wanyin for a while, looking for any kind of movement, but he seems to be deep into sleep already and so Nie Mingjue turns his head back to look at the sky.

He’ll have to talk to Lan Qiren so they can figure out how to efficiently help Jiang Wanyin lessen the burden of leadership.

Jiang Wanyin is one of the good ones and it would be a shame to lose him to stress and sleep-deprivation this soon.

Nie Mingjue will make sure that he leads a healthier lifestyle than Lan Qiren and Nie Mingjue did back when they took over their respective Sects.

And the first step for that is to let Jiang Wanyin sleep in a field of rabbits. It seems like a good start.

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

[stiltonbasket]

(Is this where you submit prompts? I really dont know ^^💧) Prompt for the renouncement au: I don’t know why i love when gossip is involved, so maybe something about people’s opinions on wangxian’s marriage and how it slowly changes to a better perspective to the point that anyone who doubts their feelings for each other gets immediately shut down. And you could add some juniors shenanigans to make wangxian have that good of a reputation because i miss them </3. Thank you for your time and effort! (And sorry if this is not the place for the prompts, i will submit it again if you say so ^^’ )

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

Lan Siyong considers himself one of the more moderate elders among the Lan sect. 

He has been close friends with Lan Qiren from childhood, and he saw Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji grow up into the fine, upstanding men they are today. When the two of them were boys, he even had fond thoughts of attending their weddings, and watching them take on the most sacred of duties with glad, willing hearts. 

Learning that Xichen would never wed had been a disappointment, but Lan Siyong rallied again when Lan Qiren confided the reason why the boy rejected marriage—chastity in an upstanding cultivator was to be lauded, especially in an age where Jin Guangshan had once demanded such high respect, and there could still be children born to Lan Huan if he decided to cultivate them. And of course, Wangji was there, and Lan Siyong knew from the first that he would be the kind of youth to fall in love deeply, at first sight, and remain passionately devoted to his mingding zhiren until he drew his last breath. 

But then Lan Siyong had Wangji’s own sword turned upon him at the Burial Mounds, because the one that his many-times distant nephew loved so dearly was none other than Wei Wuxian. 

“Qiren,” he says hoarsely, when the lotus-scented wedding invitations arrive from Lotus Pier. “You cannot let this happen—an unrighteous cultivator, one who spurned orthodoxy without remorse and led Wangji down such a dangerous path—”

“What has been done has been done,” Lan Qiren replies. “We have sent the bridewealth, and the marriage was contracted between Xichen and Jiang-zongzhu. All their terms have been agreed upon, and the date set.”

And then, after a brief pause: “He makes Wangji happy.”

Lan Siyong nearly cries. He does not attend the wedding, for fear of shaming Wangji with the open despair that appears on his face whenever he sees Wei Wuxian, and sends the newlywed couple the most expensive gift he can afford in an effort to do something useful. 

Wei Wuxian is the one who writes him a letter in thanks. Lan Siyong almost has a qi deviation.

__

“You know,” one of the other elders mutters after the second wedding ceremony: namely, the ceremony held in the Cloud Recesses, since Jiang-zongzhu demanded that his brother should be married at Lotus Pier first. “Wei Wuxian refused to have a blessing for children spoken at the an chuang ceremony.”

“Gossip is forbidden,” Lan Haiyang says tranquilly. He stopped caring about practically everything after his son’s wife gave birth to the whirlwind that calls himself Lan Jingyi, so Lan Siyong has long since given up relying on him to fix any kind of sect turmoil. “And they already have two children. I have not seen a finer Lan disciple than Lan Sizhui in all my days.”

Lan Siyong is forced to concede this last. Wangji has two good children, even if the Yiling Patriarch is perhaps the most unsuitable person alive to raise them with him, and a couple’s choice to expand their family is up to them, and no others.

“He should at least have let the blessing be spoken, though.”

Lan Siyong does not disagree with this. Traditions are traditions, and surely even Wei Wuxian should know to respect them once in a while. 

__

“It’s worse than I thought,” Lan Siyong murmurs, on a summer afternoon about six weeks after Wangji’s wedding. He passed Haiyang’s grandson and his friends on his way to the refectory that morning, and heard them discussing how heartbroken Wangji had looked upon hearing that Wei Wuxian did not return his love. “I ought not to have eavesdropped, but—poor Wangji!”

“Poor Wangji what?” Lan Haiyang asks, as if their little Lan Zhan being in trouble was all in another day’s work to him. “What’s happened to him now?”

“Wei Wuxian disavows Wangji’s love at every opportunity,” he replies dismally, going over to the refreshment table to drown his woes in chestnut cake and tea. “I fear for him, Haiyang. To love for so long, and to wed his beloved, and have children with him, and still…”

Lan Haiyang snorts into his tea. 

“What do you mean by that?” demands Lan Siyong, more than a little offended. “Wangji is in distress! We must do something!”

His friend does not reply. Honestly, it’s as if no one remembers what Wangji suffered for Wei Wuxian’s sake. Lan Siyong even tries raising the issue with Lan Qiren, and then with Xichen, but all he gets in return for his pains is a tray of fresh-baked red bean buns from the hanshi and another cryptic comment about Wangji’s supposed happiness from Qiren. 

Yet again, he is forced to leave his worries for another day, and try his best to follow rule three thousand, one hundred and sixty-two: that the affairs of a married couple should not be discussed by outsiders, even if they happen to be close, concerned family. 

Lan Siyong thinks his hair might be turning white by now.

__

And then, in early winter, Lan Siyong is roused from his bed one night and told that Wei Wuxian has gone missing. He joins the search party that Wangji leads, and follows him to a dark house in the woods with the Ghost General leading the way—and then he watches as Wangji kills at least a dozen men in an effort to reach his husband, whom they find unconscious in a cave beneath the house with corpse bites dotting every visible inch of his skin.

Lan Siyong nearly weeps as he hears Wangji’s desperate whispers to his beloved on the way back to Gusu, and watches him hold Wei Wuxian close while refusing help from anyone who offers.

Let him live, Lan Siyong prays silently, when Wei Wuxian is carried into the infirmary with Wangji at his side. Please, for Wangji’s sake, let Wei-gongzi live. 

__

“Qiren?”

A few days after the news about Wangji’s soon-to-be-born daughter is made public (public being a subjective word, since ceremony preceding the birth of a third child is unnecessary, and Wei Wuxian had said that he would rather wait until the baby arrives to make a formal announcement) Lan Siyong discovers Lan Qiren in one of the common rooms, sitting at a writing desk with his head buried in his hands. It’s a strange thing to see his friend do, since Lan Qiren has not looked so distressed since those three dark years after Wangji’s sentencing, and he hardly even looks up when Lan Siyong lays a hand on his shoulder. 

“It was just four weeks ago that Wei Ying was kidnapped and confined in that dungeon,” Lan Qiren says blankly, after he registers Lan Siyong’s presence and turns around to greet him. “If he—oh, heavens—”

Two weeks later, Lan Siyong requests a week’s leave from teaching to attend the trials of Wei Wuxian’s kidnappers, who are being held under Nie-zongzhu’s jurisdiction in the Unclean Realm. He has always believed himself to be a gentle man, but when the only sentences dealt are life imprisonment and execution, Lan Siyong’s heart is strangely devoid of any pity. All he can think of are the corpse bites he saw on Wei Wuxian’s face and throat, and a baby girl who nearly perished with her father before she had the chance to take her first breath. 

On his way back to the Cloud Recesses, he purchases a bolt of thick cream-colored silk with fine sky-blue embroidery and brings it to Wangji as a gift after the next monthly sect meeting.

“Xinhua-jun will need wider-cut robes before long,” he says, when his nephew gives him a curious glance before bowing low in thanks. “Zewu-jun has told us all that he and the child are in good health, and that the little one is growing well. All of our good wishes go with them both, and we pray that you should not hesitate to rely on us in the months to come if it should be needed.”

Wangji’s eyes go soft. “Thank you, San-shushu. It is much appreciated.”

__

Lan Siyong gets his first chance to hold Wei Shuilan at the baby’s full-moon ceremony, while Wangji and Wei Wuxian are running back and forth through the banquet hall to greet the arriving guests, and seize the first trusted elder they can reach to watch little A-Lan for a moment. At first, Lan Siyong merely stands by her cradle to keep an eye on her, but then she seems to sense her parents’ absence, so he picks her up and jogs her up and down to keep her from crying; and then he begins to hum softly beside her tiny ear, soothing the baby back to sleep by the time Wei Wuxian returns. 

“My good Lan-bao,” Wei Wuxian croons, cradling the child to his chest before rearranging her crumpled swaddling clothes. “Such a good baobei, to take your nap even with so much going on! Just like your A-Die, thank goodness, and not like your A-Niang.”

Curious, Lan Siyong clears his throat. “What do you mean, Wei-gongzi?”

Wei Wuxian laughs. “I never sleep properly at night, but Lan Zhan always falls asleep at hai shi, even if he isn’t in bed yet,” he says, with his voice so full of love for the newborn child in his arms and the husband who gave her to him that Lan Siyong feels strangely humbled. “A-Lan’s just like him that way.”

At that moment, Wangji appears with a plate of cut fruit and lotus cake before presenting it to Wei Wuxian. “Here, Wei Ying. Give A-Lan to me, and eat your lunch.”

“Lunch?” Wei Wuxian asks, confused. “But we’re having the banquet in just an hour.”

“You have been having your luncheon at this time for the past six months,” Wangji says stubbornly. “I will not have you going hungry even for a minute, xingan.”

“Lan Zhan, sweetheart…”

Thank heaven they found each other again, Lan Siyong thinks, slipping away to find Lan Qiren with a rising lump of tears in his throat. I do not think anyone else could have ever made Wangji so happy.

[killerandhealerqueen]

It's 3am.

Keying knocks on your door the nth time of the week. She can't sleep and wants help. Yuelou is stressed about case and high on caffeine. Yuzhi is trying to stop him from drinking so much and to go to bed. Yuelou just found out he's been drinking decaf. Yuzhi wants him to sleep amd stop waling the neighbors.

Your reaction?

It’s 3 am.  Why the fuck was there someone knocking at my fucking door at 3 am?!

(Don’t question why I’m still awake at 3 am, my sleep schedule is horrible)

I then groaned before I walked over to the door and opened it to see my neighbor’s sister, Keying, looking up at me with wide eyes

“Jiejie…”

“Keying?!  Jesus Christ, it’s like 3 am, why are you still up?!”

“I can’t sleep…”

I sighed heavily before I took a step back and motioned inside

“Come on, it’s cool out and I don’t want you getting sick”

Keying then stepped inside and I shut the door before I guided her over to the couch and sat down, patting the cushion beside me

She then hopped up on the couch as I yawned

“Alright, what are you doing here at 3 am?”

I then sighed heavily

“If your brother fucking finds out that you’re not in bed and at my place…I’m fucking dead”

Keying huffed

“It’s gege…he’s not sleeping”

I raised an eyebrow

“Jiang Yuelou or Chen Yuzhi?”

“Yuelou gege.  He’s been really stressed lately and so he’s been drinking a lot of coffee…”

“He hasn’t crashed yet?”

Keying shook her head

“No…and gege’s worried that he’s not getting enough sleep”

I yawned again

“I see…what exactly do you want me to do about it?”

Keying shook her head

“I don’t know…can’t you talk to him?”

“Hah?  I’m just the death scene investigator, your brother’s his husband.  Why can’t he talk to him?  Or stab him with one of his acupuncture needles or some shit?”

Keying shook her head again

“He’s tried.  He won’t listen”

I groaned softly before I sighed

“Alright, I’ll figure something out”

I then stood to my feet

“Come on, you need to get back home before I wake up to Jiang Yuelou fucking beating down my door”

Keying giggled but took my hand as we headed back to her house

She then slipped inside and waved goodbye before she shut the door and I yawned, running a hand through my hair

“She wants me to talk to Jiang Yuelou?  Oi…”

The next morning, when I stepped into the police department, I headed to Jiang Yuelou’s office and immediately confiscated all of his coffee, replacing it all with non-caffeinated tea

“Is he going to kill me for this?  Sure.  But do I want Keying showing up at my door at 3 am again?  No”

I then headed down to the morgue to start work

A little while later, Jiang Yuelou stepped into my office, an annoyed look on his face

“Sun Tian Li…”

I looked up at him and smiled

“Commissioner Jiang.  You look chipper this morning”

“Ha…where’s my coffee?”

I tilted my head at him

“Coffee?  You won’t find any of that here, I only drink tea”

Jiang Yuelou nodded

“Why do you think I came to find you?  All of the coffee in my office has been replaced with non-caffeinated tea!”

“Okay, first of all, I drink caffeinated tea, and second of all, I’m doing this because Keying fucking asked me to”

Jiang Yuelou frowned

“Why?”

I sighed

“Because she showed up at my door at 3 am because she couldn’t sleep, saying that you weren’t sleeping because of how caffeinated you were and it’s stressing both her and Chen Yuzhi out”

Jiang Yuelou frowned

“But the case—”

“Look, Jiang Yuelou, I’m the last person to talk but you need to fucking sleep.  You’re the fucking police commissioner for god’s sake.  You have subordinates who can take on difficult tasks if it’s stressing you out too much…you don’t have to shoulder every single thing by yourself anymore”

I then sighed heavily and pointed to him

“Fucking go to Chen Yuzhi, ask him to give you acupuncture, get some fucking sleep.  Let the caffeine run out of your system because let me tell you, the crash that’s going to hit you once the adrenalin runs out is gonna fucking suck”

Jiang Yuelou stared at me for a moment, causing me to sigh again

“Fucking go!  And apologize to Chen Yuzhi while you’re at it for stressing him out with your stress.  And Keying too.  Apologize to both”

Jiang Yuelou hummed

“Alright…I’ll go.  Thanks”

He then turned and headed out of the morgue as I let out a yawn

“Fuck, now I’m tired again…god I need to fix my sleep schedule”

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spite in Misery - ao3

(rather silly AU of Delight in Misery, only even more petty and passive aggressive, and also slightly more JC/LWJ)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What do you want?” Jiang Cheng asked.

“Sanctuary,” Lan Wangji said, prim and proper as he always was, the perfect untouchable iceberg as always, except maybe for the small child he was holding. “For me and my son.”

“Wait, you fuck?”

Wait, that wasn’t the right question.

“Why do you need sanctuary here?” Jiang Cheng asked, utterly bemused. “There isn’t a single place in the cultivation world you wouldn’t be welcomed –”

Except here.

“– and anyway, your brother, his sworn brothers, and your sect would demolish anyone who even thought about hurting you. Who in the world could you need sanctuary from?”

“My brother,” Lan Wangji said. “His sworn brothers, and my sect.”

Jiang Cheng stared at him.

Lan Wangji stared right back at him.

And then he collapsed.

“No,” Jiang Cheng said to the unconscious or possibly dead body currently lying across the threshold of the Lotus Pier and the small feverish-looking child in barely better state splayed out beside it. “I refuse to take responsibility for this!”

-

“You will not say anything about the room I have chosen to house you in,” Jiang Cheng said. “You will not complain about the food, the amenities, or make any requests whatsoever. Do you hear me?”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji said.

Jiang Cheng ought to have expected as much.

“And don’t think this means I’m going to like you or anything,” Jiang Cheng added self-righteously.

“I despise you with every drop of blood in my body,” Lan Wangji said.

“…so noted,” Jiang Cheng said.

After a moment, he added, “I don’t care!” and stormed out.

After yet another moment, he came right back into the room where he’d put Lan Wangji – it was just a convenient room, not specifically Wei Wuxian’s room, and if putting Lan Wangji in there meant he could delay having to clean out all the personal possessions left in there and actually repurpose it, that was his business and no one else’s – and said, “Why do you hate me, exactly?”

“Do you care?” Lan Wangji asked. He was examining the small cot Jiang Cheng had set up to put the still-unconscious and therefore nameless child on.

“Obviously,” Jiang Cheng said. “Or I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji said.

Jiang Cheng waited a few moments, moments that grew longer and longer, and finally he realized – “You’re not planning on telling me?”

“I despise you,” Lan Wangji reminded him.

“Oh, you – you…!” Jiang Cheng ground his teeth together. “I’m the one giving you sanctuary, remember?”

“I came to you because you were the only one powerful enough to accomplish the task and spiteful enough to do it. I did not come here to owe you any favors.”

“Well, you’re going to owe me one anyway,” Jiang Cheng said, scowling at him. “You – you – ugh. Forget it!”

He stormed back out.

And then he realized he hadn’t actually brought the medicine that he’d intended to bring to Lan Wangji, so he had to go in and drop it off, but then he was finally able to storm away properly.

-

“I was under the belief we had agreed it would be best for us to see each other as little as possible,” Lan Wangji said, his voice even icier than usual – which was saying something.

“That’s right,” Jiang Cheng agreed, eying him warily. “I’m only here personally to drop off your medicine because it means fewer people know that you’re here.”

He’d thought that he would need to bring in a doctor for Lan Wangji’s injuries, but it turned out to be whip marks from a discipline whip and Jiang Cheng – well. Jiang Cheng knew everything there was to know about injuries like that.

Sure, he’d had to take A-Yuan to a doctor, he didn’t know shit about pediatric illnesses, but that was fine, it didn’t give the whole game away. Jiang Cheng was able to pass him off as some random sad orphan he’d taken pity on, which wasn’t far from what he suspected to be the truth.

“In that case,” and Lan Wangji’s voice was even colder, which how, “why do you live next door?”

“This was the only room available,” Jiang Cheng lied.

Lan Wangji glared death at him.

“Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m giving you sanctuary, aren’t I?” Jiang Cheng scowled. “Anyway, I told you that you weren’t allowed to complain about the room.”

Lan Wangji did not appear impressed.

“How’d you know I was next door, anyway?”

“You have nightmares.”

…right.

“I’ll invest in better soundproofing, then,” Jiang Cheng said haughtily. He wasn’t ashamed of having nightmares. After the life he’d lived, it was only to be expected.

“I don’t want to be around you at all,” Lan Wangji clarified.

“Too bad.”

“I don’t want you spending time with A-Yuan.”

Oh, so that was the real issue here. Well, in that case, the answer was still – “Too bad.”

“He’s my son.”

“He’s in my house,” Jiang Cheng said. “In my sect, in my lands, in my part of the cultivation world, which is the only reason you came here rather than literally anywhere else, remember? Because I’m a territorial bastard with a paranoid streak that won’t let anyone come look for you in here without hovering over their backs like a shadow, making it impossible for them to actually find you – sound familiar?”

Lan Wangji’s face twitched. “I did not say that.”

“You thought it,” Jiang Cheng said, and Lan Wangji’s silence proved he was right. “Anyway, I don’t care if you don’t like me spending time with A-Yuan. He’s one of the only people who can make Jin Ling laugh.”

“He wants to be his big brother,” Lan Wangji said. He sounded like he had swallowed glass.

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng said, not understanding. “Good for him?”

Brothers didn’t have to be biological, he thought, and that old pain tore through his heart the way it always did when he thought about Wei Wuxian.

“Worthless,” Lan Wangji said, glaring at him, and Jiang Cheng almost agreed with that assessment of himself – thoughts of Wei Wuxian usually had that effect – except of course it was Lan Wangji saying it, so naturally he had to disagree.

It was oddly reaffirming, actually. He might beat himself up as being worthless, useless and pathetic, a broken shell of a man who couldn’t keep a single member of his family alive, who had nothing and lived for nothing and existed purely for the sake of his sect and Jin Ling –

But the second Lan Wangji said that he was worthless, Lan Wangji who was wrong about everything, Jiang Cheng was immediately convinced that he was the best thing that had ever been invented.

Wait, was this how Wei Wuxian used to feel all the time?

No wonder he was always tormenting Lan Wangji.

-

“I brought you some books on physical rehabilitation,” Jiang Cheng announced. “No, don’t thank me - the sooner you’re better, the sooner you can leave.”

“It will not be too soon,” Lan Wangji said.

Personally, Jiang Cheng didn’t think Lan Wangji was going to be leaving for at least another year, maybe a few more years, not with that many strikes of the discipline whip to heal and his disordered qi to straighten out, but it was nice for both of them to see a destination at the end of the road in which they didn’t have to see each other all the time. Either way, he agreed, so he wasn’t going to ruin the rare moment of complete harmony by being persnickety.

“You should knock before entering,” Lan Wangji added, prissy as always.

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. He probably should have, yes, but he always had the ‘it’s my house’ thing to fall back on. This was the Lotus Pier where the rules of the Lan sect didn’t apply, and as far as he was concerned, that was reason enough to ignore etiquette. Anyway, Lan Wangji was here alone and healing just the way he’d been doing the past few months, what exactly was he going to be doing that Jiang Cheng might walk in on –

“Oh,” Jiang Cheng said when Lan Wangji attempted, with dignity, to extract his hands from inside his clothing, which was unfortunately not something he could do subtly. “Were you trying to jerk off?”

Lan Wangji looked mutinous.

“…were you failing to jerk off?”

Lan Wangji now looked like he wanted to rip Jiang Cheng limb from limb, even though it ought to have been clear enough that Jiang Cheng would only think to ask the question because he’d had a similar issue for a while there. The time after his family had died had been brutal, and he couldn’t even use getting off as a shortcut to fall asleep because every time he tried he couldn’t keep it up; it’d been awful. He’d been terrified that he’d broken his own dick somehow, which led to worries that he wouldn’t be able to have kids in the future and thereby fail his parents and ancestors in a brand new and yet unexplored way, which led to even more panic and even less sleeping. It hadn’t been until someone (he suspected Nie Mingjue, bizarrely enough) shoved a medical treatise about trauma reactions under his door that he’d realized it was a fairly normal aftereffect and managed to calm down a little.

Nie Mingjue had also given him so much work to do that Jiang Cheng hadn’t had time to even think about that sort of thing until nearly half a year later, at which point everything was working again and he’d completely forgotten it was even an issue until halfway into the afterglow.

Good man, that Nie Mingjue.

“If it’s a symptom, you need to tell me these things,” Jiang Cheng said, taking far too much wretched enjoyment out of the whole thing. He’d give Lan Wangji the trauma book, of course – he still had it – but he had to get his wins in where he could against the perfect iceberg, cheap shots or no. “As your current attending doctor, I’m responsible for your care –”

“It is unwanted but necessary. It is simply something that I must endure,” Lan Wangji said grimly, and Jiang Cheng raised his eyebrows.

The book had covered that, too, although that hadn’t been his problem, personally.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “You keep getting hard, is that it? And then retraumatizing yourself when you try to jerk off, which means you can’t satisfy the need, which means you can’t solve the getting hard all the time problem, which in turn affects your cultivation and so your healing…yeah, I see the issue. You should probably get someone else to do it for you if you get really desperate.”

“I see no one but you,” Lan Wangji said through gritted teeth.

A problem, Jiang Cheng admitted.

Still mostly Lan Wangji’s problem, though.

“Well,” he said with the smarmiest smirk he could manage, “as your attending doctor –”

Lan Wanjgji threw a book at his head.

-

“What are you planning on doing once you’re better?” Jiang Cheng wondered.

“Why are you talking to me?” Lan Wangji replied.

“Oh come on,” Jiang Cheng said. “How can you say such a thing after taking advantage of me? I let you into my home –”

“You will not be able to rely upon that fact forever.”

“I will be able to rely on that fact for eternity,” Jiang Cheng disagreed. “I let you into my home, I hid you away from the world – which isn’t actually as easy as I make it look, just so you know! Your brother is practically scouring the earth –”

Lan Wangji looked like he’d bitten into something extremely sour.

“I’m sorry, did you think he was not going to do that? And recruit his sworn brothers to help him?” Jiang Cheng asked. “I thought the whole point of this was – well –”

“It was.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I do not enjoy hearing of it.”

“Listen, if you’re going to decide to torture someone by turning your back on them and disappearing without a word, you should at least have the guts to own it.”

“You speak from experience, I take it.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Did you somehow forget everything that happened back then with Wei Wuxian?”

“…you were the one who turned your back on Wei Ying.”

Jiang Cheng laughed disbelievingly. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he jeered. “Because I was so well-known for my backbone when it came to Wei Wuxian. I definitely was the one to come up with the idea to throw him out of my sect and cut ties, yeah, definitely, that’s completely what happened. I mean, obviously, I always got my way when dealing with him, every time, that’s how it always was between us. He had nothing to do with it.”

Lan Wangji was glaring at him. “Not then,” he said, each word cutting like a sword. “The Nightless City.”

“You mean the time he arrogantly and completely without warning started a fight that got my sister killed and then murdered three thousand people, including some of the very few family members and friends I had left?”

Lan Wangji was silent.

“You do mean that time,” Jiang Cheng said, marveling. “Are you insane? Even if I wanted to, if I took his side then, I’d have had no claim later on to grab him as a prisoner before anyone else did. The Jin would have executed him for sure! And slowly!”

“The Burial Mounds –”

“He imploded in front of my face!” Jiang Cheng shouted. “I had to see – when he – he died! He was – he did – you don’t even know – no, you know what, I’m not talking about this. Not with you of all people; you hated him.”

Lan Wangji’s hands were fists. “I did not.”

“No? You did a good job of acting like you did,” Jiang Cheng sneered. “Always talking about how you wanted to drag him back to Gusu just because it would make you feel better –”

“Better than leaving him.”

“I did what he wanted! And yes, fine, maybe that was my mistake. Maybe I should’ve ignored what he wanted, maybe I should’ve dragged him back to the Lotus Pier and locked him in a little room for the rest of his life the way everyone knows your dad did to your mom – ”

Lan Wangji flinched.

In fairness, Jiang Cheng was exaggerating about everyone knowing. He only knew about it because he’d heard his mother spit it out at his father during one of their nastier fights, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to have known about it, either.

“– but stupid me, I thought he’d be happier being free and alone than stuck with someone he clearly didn’t want to be around him anymore! But what do I know? Maybe I should ask you, you selfish bastard. You’re the one in his position this time, you’re the one who’s doing the turning away – I bet you don’t even know what it’s like to be the one that’s not wanted.”

Lan Wangji stared down at his hands as Jiang Cheng jumped up to his feet, Zidian crackling to life in his hand despite himself, persisting even though he tried to suppress it.

“I’m going to go hunt down some demonic cultivators,” he said, trying in vain to keep his temper even a little bit and knowing it was a lost cause. “And then I’m going to bring them back here and make them scream somewhere you can hear it. You can chew on that with some glass for all I care!”

-

“You handled that last one well,” Lan Wangji said. It sounded like someone was pulling teeth from his head.

“You’re sick,” Jiang Cheng announced. “I will go get some fever medicine at once. Are you experiencing any other symptoms in addition to hallucinations? Or should I be checking for signs of possession instead?”

Lan Wangji was back to glaring at him.

“I don’t know what drove that sudden spurt of niceness and I don’t care to know,” Jiang Cheng informed him. “I don’t need your approval.”

Lan Wangji ignored him. That was more customary.

Also unfortunate, because Jiang Cheng managed to get less than half a shichen of work done before coming back into Lan Wangji’s room (not Wei Wuxian’s room) and saying, “Okay, what exactly did I do?”

Lan Wangji looked at him sidelong.

“Seriously,” Jiang Cheng said. “What did I do that was so impressive that even you approved of it?”

“The demonic cultivator. The last one.”

Jiang Cheng frowned, thinking about it. “The – stupid one, you mean?”

Lan Wangji stared at him, and then looked at the ceiling, long-suffering. “The one from Yunping.”

“The stupid one,” Jiang Cheng confirmed, and then he was ranting again because he couldn’t seem to stop ranting about it. “I can’t believe the idiot got into demonic cultivation as a way to make money! That’s just – it’s just – if I ever figure out who paid him, I’m going to rearrange their guts with my sword. Lousy rotten opportunistic…!” He coughed, realizing he’d gotten started again when he’d promised Jiang Meimei that he’d stop. It apparently got old after the sixth repetition. “Anyway, what’s so notable about that?”

“You accepted him as an outer disciple of your own sect.”

“Well, yeah. What else was I going to do with him? He’s clearly got some talent for cultivation if he figured out demonic cultivation without dying. It’d be a waste to send him back to be a fisherman or a dockworker or something.”

“You didn’t kill him.”

“I’m not going to kill someone who got into demonic cultivation as a way to raise funds to get medicine for his sick mother,” Jiang Cheng said, rolling his eyes. “The idiot’s on tomb-sweeping duty for the next year to make up for having manipulated corpses the way he did, that’s punishment enough. It’s not at all comparable to the usual sort of amateur demonic cultivator, the ones that summon corpses to torment former lovers or murder business partners or that sort of thing – those are the ones I use as an example to warn everyone else. What’s the big deal?”

Lan Wangji said nothing.

“Fine, keep your secrets. Can you watch Jin Ling today? I have a – uh – important meeting.”

“Another woman that you have no intention of actually marrying?”

“Shut up and mind your own business.”

-

“No, but seriously,” Jiang Cheng said. “What are you going to do once you’re better?”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Lan Wangji said, his voice muffled on account of his face being firmly in his hands. “Go away.”

“Listen, we’re still neighbors, we still need to talk. There’s no point in being suddenly shy about it just because you’re still in the acceptance phase of grief in connection with the whole me helping you with getting off business –”

“Never speak of it.”

Jiang Cheng sniggered. He wouldn’t have pegged the Lan sect as having uncontrolled libidos, much less Lan Wangji, but apparently the situation had gotten truly dire. Anyway, really, getting mockery rights was totally worth an arm work-out and having to put up with Lan Wangji, the latter of which he had to do anyway.

“You really are taking advantage of me now, though! My poor virtue –”

Lan Wangji looked at him through his fingers. “You don’t have any virtue.”

“Really?” Jiang Cheng asked, suddenly curious. “I strike you as someone with a lot of experience –”

“I meant morally.”

“Oh. Hey!”

Lan Wangji rolled his eyes. “Pathetic.”

“Not as pathetic as someone who won’t answer a straight question,” Jiang Cheng said. “What’s your plan for after you’re healed? Are you going back to the Lan sect? Or start traveling as a rogue cultivator?”

“Why do you care?” Lan Wangji asked.

“I can care!”

“But you don’t. Not about my affairs.”

Jiang Cheng had to admit this was correct. “Fine,” he said. “I need a name.”

Lan Wangji frowned at him.

“For A-Yuan,” Jiang Cheng said. “It’s been a year. The kid’s as healthy as he’s ever going to be, and he’s old enough for me to shove him in with the rest of the younger generation now that we’re starting lessons back up – cultivation, swordsmanship, shooting, etiquette, all the usual. But I can’t register him in the class without a surname, and I need to know if that surname’s going to be Lan or if you plan on changing it to something else.”

Lan Wangji was frowning at him.

“I know, I know, you’re in hiding,” Jiang Cheng said. “It’s fine, it won’t give you away even if you do pick ‘Lan’. I can register him as a Yunmeng Lan instead of a Gusu Lan, the surname’s common enough that no one will suspect anything unless you make him start wearing a forehead ribbon, which I don’t think you lot do at this age yet anyway. But if you’re planning on continuing to hide from your family after you get better, you’re going to need to do something about all of that.”

Lan Wangji looked sour.

“Anyway, long story short, that’s it. Your plans, I need to know them.”

Lan Wangji looked even more sour.

“Well? What is it?”

“We will return to the Lan sect,” Lan Wangji said.

“Not that hard, was it,” Jiang Cheng said. “I knew you were just throwing a temper tantrum.”

Lan Wangji rolled his eyes.

After a moment, he said, “What do we do about Jin Ling?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do we do about Jin Ling’?” Jiang Cheng asked suspiciously. “I had to fight half of Lanling Jin for the right to raise him here, we’re not doing anything about Jin Ling – anyway, who’s ‘we’? He’s my nephew!”

“A-Yuan sees him as a little brother.”

This was true.

“They will not want to part.”

…also true.

“Moreover,” and here Lan Wangji looked especially sour, “I believe A-Yuan has taken you as something of a – second parent.”

“Well, that’s nice,” Jiang Cheng said. “He’s a cute kid. Anyway, don’t take it so personally. Kids just do that, they adopt any adult in the vicinity as their own. I mean, certainly Jin Ling thinks of you as…wait. Wait. Are we co-parenting?!”

“Mm. Took you long enough to notice.”

-

It had been a bad day, a bad week, and a bad month, and Jiang Cheng’s temper, never good, was on the verge of imploding, so naturally that was when he completely lost all self-control he might have had and marched over to Lan Wangji’s room to blurt out, “Why do you hate me?”

Lan Wangji’s hands stilled over his guqin.

“I know why I hate you, even putting aside the fact that you’re a jackass with the emotional capacity of a brick,” Jiang Cheng said. “But I really have no idea what I did to you to make you hate me.”

There were so many options, after all. He was a cruel, vicious, and bitter man – he was a terrible parent, unlikable as a friend, barely sufficient as a sect leader, and such a failure at connecting socially with anyone that he’d been blacklisted as a marriage prospect despite being handsome, young, rich, and powerful. There were so many reasons to hate him.

But he didn’t know which one was the one that made Lan Wangji look at him with disdain, even if he thought that perhaps there was slightly less of that these days than there had been before.

“I hate you because you abandoned Wei Ying when he needed you,” Lan Wangji said. “He was your brother, and you left him behind – more than that, you led the charge against him, resulting in his death.”

…that was a good reason.

Jiang Cheng wouldn’t mind being hated for that reason, actually. It was a nice change from all those people who congratulated him for having done the right thing: all those smug sect leaders that comforted him for having raised a white-eyed wolf in the family, the ones that said his actions showed that he had a good backbone and a righteous bearing, the ones that had the gall to send him gifts of congratulation on the anniversary of Wei Wuxian’s death to thank him for his contribution to the cultivation world when all he wanted was to be left alone to mourn…

“That’s fine,” he croaked. “Okay. Yes. That’s – fine.”

“Why do you hate me?” Lan Wangji asked in turn. “You said you knew.”

“Oh, that,” Jiang Cheng said. “Same reason.”

Lan Wangji stared.

Jiang Cheng shrugged. “I mean, I know you were always harsh on him when we were together at your uncle’s lectures, which was completely fair given how much he was always bothering you. But he really did try sincerely to help you when we were all the Wen sect’s camp, and in the cave with the Xuanwu – but after, in the war, when he showed up with his demonic cultivation, you suddenly turned on him even though he was just doing it to help. You kept telling him he had to stop, even though you knew he was doing so much for the war effort, and you wanted to take him back to Gusu to do who-knows-what to him…you even snatched him away during the battle of the Nightless City! I saw you. I was so afraid you were going to kill him, I completely lost my head. I looked for you everywhere – I really don’t know how he was lucky enough to get away from you that time.”

Lan Wangji stared at him.

“And then you didn’t even bother to show up to the siege of the Burial Mounds in person,” Jiang Cheng added, feeling bitter. “After I heard from the Lan sect that he escaped from you, I briefly thought that you’d changed your mind and let him go. I was counting on you to be at the Burial Mounds to support me in claiming him as a Jiang sect prisoner – I had Chifeng-zun signed on, if reluctantly, and with you leading the Lan I could’ve made a decent argument. But then you didn’t show, either you or your brother; instead you sent your uncle, and of course there wasn’t even any point in asking him, was there?”

“…I didn’t know,” Lan Wangji said. His voice sounded strangely hoarse. “I wasn’t informed. It was shortly after…”

He nodded at his own shoulder, meaning the disaster on his back. Jiang Cheng hadn’t asked how it happened – he really wanted to know, as in really, really, really wanted to know, but even he was aware that actually asking would be unbearably rude. Still, he was surprised by the timing of it. How had Lan Wangji managed to end up in the hands of his enemies then? Who had even been left to do it to him?

“Yeah, well,” Jiang Cheng said, shaking his head to try to kick away his curiosity the way he would something clinging to his foot. “You were still a bastard to him when he needed you, so I hate you.”

He frowned.

“Also, you hate me,” he said. “So I hated you back just for that. Though I guess, since your reason for hating me is valid, maybe I should stop hating you back for that?”

He considered it.

“No,” he decided. “You’re too annoying not to hate.”

“The same for you,” Lan Wangji said after an unusual hesitation.

Jiang Cheng nodded and, feeling oddly relieved at not having found a new basis for self-hatred, departs.

-

“So once you’ve reestablished yourself at the Cloud Recesses, we’ll exchange extended visits on a regular basis so the kids can see each other,” Jiang Cheng said, and Lan Wangji nodded. “A minimum of three weeks per season, whether in the Lotus Pier or Cloud Recesses, and preferably double that.”

“Agreed.”

“In the meantime, you’ll work on getting the trade agreement we hammered out through your brother and sect elders as recompense for the time you spent here.”

“Mm.”

“An agreement whose source you will be disclosing very carefully because the Venerated Triad will not hesitate to murder me if they figure out without adequate warning it was me that was housing you for all this time.”

Lan Wangji said nothing and promised nothing.

Bastard.

Still, after nearly three years, Jiang Cheng was pretty used to it.

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng said. “Is there anything I’ve left out?”

“Joint night-hunts.”

“Right, right, we’ll make a point of regularly going on joint night-hunts – wait, why are we doing that? You don’t need me to watch your back now that you’re fully healed.”

Lan Wangji’s gaze wandered.

“Oh,” Jiang Cheng said. “So we can keep having hate-sex on the regular?”

“…mm.”

“Why didn’t you just say so? It’s not like I’m doing anything else – or anyone else. Blacklisted, remember?”

“Unsurprising,” Lan Wangji said, like the bastard he was.

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, whatever. The set-up works, doesn’t it? I’m blacklisted, you’re apparently eternally pining for Wei Wuxian of all people – your taste is the worst – so who’s going to call us out on it? Go on, get out of here already. I’ll see you next month.”

-

“Well,” Jiang Cheng said, looking between the newly resurrected Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, abruptly made of an issue he had hitherto not considered based on Lan Wangji’s screaming body language. “This is. Uh. Awkward?”