#also my reaction to my human au posts flopping i just. i want to share all the ideas i have for it but. yeah :(

[assembleallrats]

don’t mind the depressed boi he’s just vibing

[whetstonefires]

[flashfic for the Venom au concept I sketched out in reaction to this post, only literally none of the content i discussed actually appears in this oneshot on account of wwx is not yet a level 10 friend who can unlock lwj's tragic backstory lmao]

“So why do you have three names?” Wei Wuxian asked in an undertone, edging carefully along the narrow steel rail. It was, he was pretty sure, intended to have lighting installed on it. It would probably hold his weight.

Custom, said the extraordinarily polite and bitchy voice in his head, in a tone that exemplified both traits. Also, none of them is real.

“What, we’re this close already and I don’t get to know your real name?”

It remains undecided.

“Oh, it’s like that then.” If his new best friend didn’t know yet, then obviously he couldn’t share. Maybe he’d get to contribute to the process!

Wei Wuxian reached the end of the railing and judged the next jump. It wasn’t happening. “You’re going to have to take this one.”

Are you sure.

“I’m sure I can’t clear a twenty-foot gap, yes. Please feel free to take control of my arms.”

Lan Zhan waited what Wei Wuxian was coming to think of as the customary second to see if he changed his mind, and then Wei Wuxian’s right arm flew up, went black, and seemed to stretch into a sort of inky cord that spanned the gap, wrapped itself around the far gantry, and tugged.

Because he’d only handed over his arms Wei Wuxian had to kick off from the railing himself, and curve his body into the swing as they swooped through the air, though he was pretty sure Lan Zhan would have reinforced his shoulders against wrenching if he’d just flopped on the line like a fish.

The Lan Zhan string shortened as they swung, so that by the time they got there it took only a simple extremely powerful tug with his possessed coal-black arms to send them flipping onto the top of the steel grating, where Wei Wuxian stuck the landing with proper smooth force absorption well enough that it neither killed his knees nor made a noise. Only the fact that they were, in fact, engaged in escaping from evil mad scientists together kept him from whooping.

“I could get used to this,” he said.

There was an unmistakable sense of recoiling inside him. Mark your words. It had the sound of a cold warning.

“I’m not going to get more possessed by getting a kick out of it, am I?” Wei Wuxian asked, rhetorically, as he went back to creeping forward toward those big outflow vents he’d seen on the way in. “And I can tell I don’t have to worry about you overstaying your welcome!” He didn’t think his body was that bad, he liked being inside it personally, but Lan Zhan probably had his own particular tastes, which was perfectly fair. This was a partnership of convenience, that was all.

“Ah, and obviously I’m not going to try to hold you prisoner like the guys I’m springing you from,” he added, feeling like an idiot. Just because right now Lan Zhan was the one in a position to take advantage of him, if he’d wanted, which he was clearly far too principled a goo monster to do, didn’t mean Lan Zhan wasn’t coming right off the experience of humans trying to exploit him for his abilities!

Of course he’d be uncomfortable with Wei Wuxian being too enthusiastic about him.

Which was why it would be in bad taste to ask if there even was a way for the host to take advantage in this situation, because his curiosity was purely academic but it wouldn’t sound that way! Could Lan Zhan see his thoughts in enough detail to know he was wondering? Hey, Lan Zhan! Can you hear me? Hey!

Do not shout. Yes, I can hear. But I was not listening until you called for me.

Oh. Thanks Lan Zhan.

…he probably could get used to that part of the brain roommate situation, too, but not quite as easily as the cool stunts part. Not that it mattered! Because this was just for now. Lan Zhan had been very clear when this rescue mission kicked off.

They made it to the big vents, which were more than large enough to escape though but had big fanblades installed in them, whirring away. “Hm,” said Wei Wuxian, squinting at them. “Do you want to keep trying to be subtle, or smash our way out and run for it?”

The more of a lead we have against pursuit, the better.

“Okay then, let me apply all my engineering knowhow to shutting those fans down.”

It wasn’t actually very hard—he tracked down the wiring of their power supply, and since he had no tools on him got Lan Zhan to form a black scalpel blade at the end of one fingertip, which he used to carve open the insulation around the cable. Unfortunately, when he asked it turned out Lan Zhan’s body was conductive, although not particularly sensitive to being electrocuted, so he had to get clever about uncoupling and destroying things rather than just dramatically slashing the wires apart.

“Okay, I am picturing the correct wrench-head very clearly,” he said a few minutes later, crouching at the corner of the vent cover and squinting at the bolts. “That’s it, good!” Lan Zhan would probably be offended to be called the world’s best multitool, but Wei Wuxian was considering saying it anyway.

He felt Lan Zhan stiffen in his head.

Ware!

“Found you!” called that terrifying security guy, sounding really delighted about it but also being very stupid, because even without Lan Zhan’s warning he might have given Wei Wuxian time to duck under the spikes of his taser.

Based on previous experience, in approximately one more second the guy would unleash the sound cannon and then follow it up with his handgun. They’d made it through the first encounter with Lan Zhan withdrawn from Wei Wuxian’s nervous system into a sort of puddle in his arms, so the noise wouldn’t incapacitate the both of them, but he couldn’t dodge multiple bullets, especially in the confines of this giant ventilation duct, nor could he parkour them out through the heavy vent cover and down the sheer mountain face outside.

LanZhantakethewheel! Wei Wuxian thought at his absolute maximum brain volume, both to avoid telling security guy what was happening—he was still climbing up through the access hatch but he’d have the sound thing out after he climbed another rung and had his pistol in hand already, and while Wei Wuxian could try to charge away from the exit point to tackle the giggling bastard and take his gun, which had slightly better than a snowball’s chance in hell of working and Lan Zhan could fix anything that didn’t actually kill him so getting shot in like a limb was acceptable, there was probably backup right down the ladder and they needed to get out—and because thought was faster than speech. YesImeanitnotimefordoublecheckGO!

The alien coiled inside him took the invitation by the hilt for the first time, and surged up and out and all around. Even as the black closed over Wei Wuxian’s face, just in time to absorb an incoming bullet, his right arm lashed out in a black cord again and struck Security Guy full across the face, just as he got his hand on the sound cannon strung across his back.

Wei Wuxian had no control over any part of his body, but he got the full haptic feedback of the asshole’s nose breaking as he was thrown backward down the vent, and that was all the time they needed to turn, and shatter the barrier over the ventilation outlet, and leap to freedom.

…did you make me taller? Wei Wuxian asked from deep inside his own brain, as they skittered on obsidian claws down the rockface. He was pretty sure the bar of the vent grille that had been even with their face as Lan Zhan broke it was higher up than the one he’d been level with when he’d stood there a minute ago.

Lan Zhan leapt away from the mountain still forty feet off the ground and snagged a hold on the thick limb of a spreading beech tree. “Extra reach is useful,” he said primly, with Wei Wuxian’s mouth, as though he didn’t have infinitely extensible string-fingers available whenever, as he proceeded to leap away from the creepy underground research bunker from tree to tree like an enormous squirrel forged from pure darkness.

Lan Zhan’s version of his voice was about two octaves deeper and appallingly posh. He wouldn’t have to display a molecule of black goo to get Wei Wuxian examined for possession, just speak to absolutely anyone he knew.

“I won’t, then,” Lan Zhan stated, in that placid decided way devoid of concern or any attempt at reassurance, which had so charmed Wei Wuxian when they first made contact. It sounded even funnier out loud.

And hey! Jailbreak success!