#WWX will keep up his friendliness as a way to hold LWJ at a distance. LWJ can only try to help so many times.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Maybe we never had a chance.

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[mcgrillzdumpinc]

some nhs and lwj childhood friends HCs because WHY NOT

lwj is just. not fucking doing it at first. like, excuse me? big brother? you put me in the library pavilion with a gremlin. he brought painting supplies!!!!! into the library pavilion!!!!!!!! and when i told him to put his stuff away, he asked if i wanted to paint with him! who even does that!

lwj does, eventually, agree to try painting with nhs, if only because nhs is a gremlin who always gets his way and also won’t stop sighing loudly while lan zhan, who has not yet learned how to tune someone out, tries and fails to read

lwj actually really likes it. nhs shows him how to paint a few animals, careful not to invade his personal space, and soon enough lwj, ever the little prodigy, has painted the entirety of his warren of rabbits and wants more

after a few more visits, lwj starts getting interested in landscapes and paints a waterfall for nhs, which he proudly presents to nhs at his next visit to qinghe. in terms of actual artistic skill, the painting was very obviously made by a 10 year old, but nhs still has it displayed proudly in his room some 20 years later. lwj demands he take it down every time he comes to visit. wwx thinks it’s adorable and has tried, on more than one occasion, to buy it off nhs

what really cements their friendship, though, is a mutual love for poetry. lwj has always been a fan, to the point where lxc had to nearly turn the gusu collection of poetry upside down to find the most “kid-friendly” (read: easily understood) poetry for lwj’s bedtime stories. nhs didn’t get into poetry until around 13, but once he did, it became very common for him and lwj to sign off letters to each other with a stanza from some super obscure poem in a “well do you know THIS ONE?” type of challenge

lwj even tries his hand at love poems when he’s hardcore pining and then mourning wwx. nhs is his hardest (and only) critic. after wwx is revived and the whole jgy situation is handled, nhs will randomly quote one of lwj’s poems in public just to embarrass his friend. it’s the only time you’ll ever see the veritable hanguang-jun choke on his tea.

gusu lan days are cute as hell, too. nhs continually fails so he can go back and see his friend more. lwj objects on principle, but he’s not-so-secretly glad to see nhs so often.

lwj is legit kinda jealous of wwx and jc when nhs gets close to them, because nhs, being 15 and nhs, starts spending more time with this new and fun brother duo than with his old friend

Cue wwx getting lwj drunk and when nhs and jc check into make sure wwx hasn’t gotten killed, lwj shoots off the bed and drunkenly stumbles over to nhs to full-on cling.

lwj, doing his best drunken glare: “my friend, you don’t get to touch”

nhs: “i didn’t know you were the possessive type, i’m gonna have to revise my marriage plans”

lwj: “ew, no”

incidentally, this is also the night that yunmeng bros discover that nhs, despite being a weak cultivator, is still a nie as he easily lifts lwj over his shoulder and takes him to bed

the years between nmj’s death and nhs’s revenge are really painful for our two friends. the more nhs unravels of jgy’s plans, the more suspicious he becomes of lxc, because what if lxc was actually a willing participant and not unknowingly complicit? lwj visits while nhs is in the height of his paranoia, and the result is a very painful break-up when nhs denies lwj every attempt to sooth and assist nhs in his time of mourning.

by the time nhs’s paranoia dies down and he confirms that lxc is just, you know, way too trusting, the damage has been done and it’ll be much, much safer for lwj if he’s kept at a distance.

on the surface they’re still childhood friends, because nhs doesn’t want anyone getting suspicious, but their friendship is much more like a friendly acquaintanceship, because nhs keeps pushing lwj away whenever he tries to get close again

at this point lwj has started accepting that maybe he’s just not able to hold onto the best things in his life, so he leaves the situation as is, because at least he’s still exchanging letters with nhs and continuously losing against him in games of go. he can accept a facsimile of warmth.

lwj suspects something isn’t right, though, because he doesn’t recognize nhs when he plays sect leader. he knows nhs is lazy and prefers the “good-for-nothing” public perception, but the headshaker is new and frustrating

his suspicions aren’t confirmed, though, until one days nhs is so caught up in his plans that lwj, for the first time ever, wins against him in go

but then dafan mountain happens and wwx is back in life, and then everything goes by so fast that lwj doesn’t have time to sit down and really think about what might be really going on with nhs.

and then there’s guanyin temple. and when all the puzzle pieces slide into place, lwj thinks “ah, that’s where you were.” he’s sad, and he’s angry, but most of all he’s happy, because he finally sees his gremlin friend again after so long

and when he confronts nhs about everything he did in the name of revenge, all he really has to say is “thank you”, because he knows wwx’s revival was as much for nhs’s benefit as it was for lwj, because his friend couldn’t bear to see lwj so lonely