#jiang cheng's plan is the best which is why he is destined to be a great sect leader

[trueishcolours]

[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)

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“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?”

[jiangwanyin]

(simply impossible to settle on 5 characters so here's 6 instead hjksgfjxc) wei wuxian, lan wangji, jiang cheng, xiao xingchen, lan xichen, and xue yang for 9, 11, 17… also a few of my own prompts: be a personal assistant for, go on holiday with?? 💖💕💗💌💘💞💖💗

ashleigh my loveeee thank you i would expect nothing less from you and i adore those prompts!!! 💓💖💕💗💘💖💕 also this probably goes without saying but impeccable character choices i love all six of them very much 😌

9. fake-married to for undercover reasons

oh i feel like wei wuxian would definitely be my best bet here, he'd probably be happy to and good enough at putting on a believable act just for the hell of it, we'd get along well & have a laugh about it, we're both relatively open and shameless so i doubt holding hands or being slightly over the top affectionate to sell the show would be too hard for either of us and a bit of bickering and me rolling my eyes at him would most likely just make it all the more realistic, that is unless lan wangji was anywhere nearby because he'd just make heart eyes at him and completely ignore me and we'd be found out in under a minute

xiao xingchen my beloved<3 we have similar enough ideologies and personalities to get along really smoothly, i feel like he'd be easy to fall into a sort of cozy domestic relationship with, he's a bit insecure but *cracks knuckles* that's something i can work with and he's probably a little less used to or comfortable with bigger public displays of affection but then again i didn't see him complain when xue yang put his hand on his ass after to his knowledge knowing him for approximately one day so we probably wouldn't run into any issues there either and we'd have a great time bonding over being insufferable idealists and having an incurable i can fix him disease!! sounds perfect to me

again, i don't think he's really the type to pretend but lan xichen would be equally ideal for this, he's great company, kind and compassionate and easy to get along with and he's patient and even tempered where i'm.... well, not either of those things so i like to think we're simultaneously similar enough and balance each other out alright to have a very harmonic dynamic going on, i'm not entirely sure how convincingly romantic it'd actually be but it'd work well enough and tbh we'd have a good time just hanging out (and just maybe i'd take trying to find ways to make the brilliant zewu-jun flustered as a challenge to spice things up a little<3)

okay realistically he should be a lot lower on this list because he'd probably just murder me and even if he didn't for whatever reason, i doubt it'd have a happy ending, but i just think xue yang and i would make a very interesting team and could probably manage a divorced couple giving reconciliation an attempt dynamic? meaning he'd try and hate me but i'd just channel my inner xiao xingchen ✨ apart from that i'm picturing a lot of arguing and agressive hand holding and getting unnecessarily competitive about it but it just might work. i think. possibly.

lan wangji. oh i love him but i just don't think we could pull it off, the thing is that i adapt pretty well to others, but if the other person is quiet to begin with, i just stay quiet too but you know, we'd be efficient about it? we'd make up for the lack of chemistry by having a good understanding of the other person and figuring out the situation quickly enough, i think we'd make a good team and the rest of the time would be spent reading in comfortable silence next to each other or something, he'd be too reserved and earnest (and let's be honest, too in love with wei wuxian) to do anything more or really pretend and i'm unfortunately way too similar and simply Not naturally good at being loud and easygoing at all if i'm not getting a certain energy from the other person and lan wangji bless him is just not one of those people

yeah yeah i feel really bad about this too but as much as i adore him, i just think jiang cheng would be objectively terrible at any sort of undercover thing and is far too emotionally constipated to act openly in love and too traumatized to even let me get close to him so it'd probably go atrociously, the only way i could see it being anything other than an utter disaster is barely tolerating each other or talking for two weeks, ending up in a tight spot together and bonding over something slightly mean like other people's incompetence and grudgingly realising that we actually get along alright and would probably both start putting a little more effort into the whole fake marriage thing but i still don't realistically think it'd look like anything more than a tentative friendship?

11. to drag them away from a big fight because they’re injured

xiao xingchen. no explanation here, i just think he deserves it and could do with someone taking care of him for a change<3

lan xichen for similar reasons 😇

wei wuxian, i don't trust him to know his limitations and if wen qing isn't around someone's got to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid and overexert himself

jiang cheng. the only reason he isn't any higher on the list is because i don't think he'd appreciate it much and would probably be way too proud and bitchy about it but honestly i'd rather die than admit weakness so i really can't blame him there

lan wangji, he's the smartest one of the lot and i trust him to know what he's doing so he wouldn't be my priority

xue yang. i love him but i also think he deserves to suffer a little and he's probably the one who started the whole fight so maybe this'll teach him how to deal with the consequences, he could do with that

17. cook dinner for

jiang cheng and wei wuxian, i'm lumping them in together here because they're always a package deal and should not be separated we all saw how that worked out (i'm not crying you're crying) and they're canonically shown to thoroughly enjoy a good home cooked meal, i doubt my dishes could compare to yanli's lotus and rib soup but i think they'd appreciate it regardless

arguably he doesn't deserve it but xue yang because i don't think a great many people ever cooked him dinner and it'd do him good with some obligatory candy to go with the meal afterwards of course<3

i think assuming we're friends, lan wangji would also be rather appreciative in his own quiet way? i'd probably make him something veggie based and considerably less spicy than for the yunmeng siblings and we'd go and feed the rabbits and possibly a tiny a-yuan with the leftover carrots :,)

xiao xingchen for reasons stated above. knowing him he'd probably even join me in the kitchen to lend a hand bless him

it feels unnecessarily rude to leave him till last but lan xichen, obviously it would be lovely to cook for him and hopefully he'd like it too i just don't have quite as strong feelings about this scenario involving him as i evidently do when it comes to some of the others 😳

be a personal assistant for

ooo definitely lan xichen i just know he'd be an amazing boss and would probably be incredibly understanding and helpful and tell me i'm doing a good job every time and we both know i thrive on praise and reassurance, jin guangyao had the right idea there, i think all of us could do with daily affirmations from lan xichen<3 nothing quite like it<3

xiao xingchen because working closely with him sounds very lovely and i wouldn't mind running errands or dealing with correspondence for him because he'd also be appreciative and kind about it

alright i'm not saying it'd be pleasant but jiang cheng because at least he's pretty reliable and organized and i would probably be very keen on trying to impress him but would undoubtedly get myself fired one week in because i'm also incapable of keeping my opinion to myself and do not enjoy being bossed about and make it vv obvious

lan wangji. he'd give clear instructions, have reasonable demands, maybe his expectations are a little high and the work environment a bit dry and i'd have to work hard but it'd probably pay off in the end?

just going by level of friendliness and how easy and enjoyable it'd be he should be higher on the list but i'm simply not flexible and easygoing enough to deal with wei wuxian's schedule and general messiness i'm afraid

xue yang because he'd frankly be quite likely to make me kill people for him and i do have a moral code to live up to so no thanks—

go on holiday with

alright these answers already feel very xichen-centric but i'm just going to have to say lan xichen yet again because i feel like we'd be into similar things and would probably have a great and very chill time sightseeing and relaxing together

similarly predictably xiao xingchen, i stand by him being absolutely lovely company and being able to find enough common interests with him too to have plenty to do that we'd both enjoy very much

lan wangji!! perfect quiet and reliable companion to go to museums and libraries etc with and with trustworthy organization skills no less!! no last minute changes to the plan or lost plane tickets or anything unexpected and we could just avoid crowds together which sounds like bliss, i might enjoy someone a tad bit more talkative which is why he's only in third place, but overall it sounds very peaceful and simultaneously productive, we'd definitely be able to tick everything off our list of things to see and do

alright so i don't think our general pace for doing things or ideal holiday destinations would match perfectly but i like to think i'd get along just fine with jiang cheng too, he'd be a bit annoying and we'd likely get equally agitated about delayed flights or bad customer service and whatnot so i'm not sure how relaxing it'd actually be but we'd probably find a couple of things to do we'd both enjoy and the rest of the time wouldn't mind doing things separately and then reuniting in the hotel and going out for dinner

i'm really sorry about this but wei wuxian, he's way too spontaneous and while we'd definitely have fun just hanging out, he'd be bored out of his mind after five minutes doing the stuff i like doing on holiday and i'm too antisocial and not remotely adventurously enough to enjoy the things he'd probably want to do but i do believe we'd find a suitable compromise, i mean he is married to lan wangji and compared to him i actually am quite sociable i swear

xue yang, i really do enjoy him as a character and with a stretch of my imagination i can definitely imagine situations where we would probably be alright unless he's feeling particularly homicidal but i simply don't think we have anything in common or that there's much of an overlap between what we imagine a good holiday to be like i'm afraid

give me 5 characters to rank in a situation

[curiosity-killed]

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12 | part 13 | part 14 | part 15 | part 16 | part 17 | part 18

Nerves tumble through him, all delighted energy racing in his veins in place of blood. His robes are new, a surprise from Wen Qing, Granny, and two of the aunties. Ink-dark clouds bloom over rich blue silk the color of the first bruising brush of night, a deep red robe rustling underneath. Running his fingertips down along the neat folds, he bites back a shaking smile. He’s going to meet his nephew. He’s going to see shijie and Jiang Cheng and he’s finally going to meet his first baby nephew. If excitement were an animal, his would be a hundred gilded canaries flocking and whirling behind his ribs. He’s inundated, suffused. Joy is such a vibrant rush that it blots out all else. Under the sun-white glow of it, he can think of little else but the excitement of the day. There is no room for his worries: whether the sects will ever let the Wens go in peace to a new home; how Uncle Four and Granny are going to get through the worst days of winter; what it means that the back of his hip keeps going funny lately, like the threads holding it in place are slowly unraveling. Sliding a small wooden box into his robes over his heart, he steps outside. Wen Qing’s waiting, clearly pretending she’s not by studying the lotus pond like it holds some secret message. By her side, Wen Ning holds a-Yuan on his lap, listening seriously as the boy chatters and waves one of his spinning toys through the air. Wen Qing straightens first. “How do I look?” Wei Wuxian asks with a grin.

Pursing her lips, Wen Qing studies him with a sharp eye and her hands on her hips. “Like a nuisance,” she says and reaches over to tug a strand of hair into place. “Hey!” Wei Wuxian yelps, only a little faked. Wen Qing pulls back to fold her hands at her waist. Her expression goes a little soft, the way it sometimes does when she looks over all of them gathered for dinner in the firelight. Wen Ning has stood and come to stand at her shoulder now, and he manages a tremulous smile. He’s worked hard over this year, to get back his emotions. He can’t blush or cry anymore, but he’s gotten the hang of inflection again, and he can pull up these little smiles. In another year or two, perhaps, he’ll be able to grin and laugh once more. “Behave for your sister,” Wen Qing says and holds out a small pouch of silver, “and pick out something nice for your nephew.” He can’t help the way his smile goes soft and a little sappy. Wen Qing looks skyward as if for patience, but before either can say more, there’s an insistent tug on his skirts. “Xian-gege,” a-Yuan says, frowning like a Yunmeng thunderstorm, “why do you have to go to the baby?” His voice is so petulant, so full of little kid frustration with the wide world. Wei Wuxian fights back a laugh. “Ah, a-Yuan, don’t you want to meet my shijie’s baby?” he asks. “He can be your little cousin a-Ling.” “Don’t want a little cousin,” a-Yuan pouts. “Xian-gege promised older brothers and sisters.” He pauses and tilts his head to look up at Wei Wuxian sideways through his lashes, rubbing his nose with one finger. It is a preposterous expression on a four-year-old face, and Wei Wuxian has to bite his lips to keep in his laughter. “Maybe we can sell him with the radishes?” His voice is so hopeful, the question so absurd — Wei Wuxian lets his laughter peal out of him and swoops down to scoop him up in his arms. His back twinges, briefly, but he ignores it. A-Yuan’s eyes brighten as if he thinks he’s getting his way. “A-Yuan, so cruel!” he scolds, delighted. “How could we sell my very first nephew?” “We could trade him,” a-Yuan suggests solemnly, “and plant a big brother instead.” It’s too cute; too much happiness is flooding him all at once, and Wei Wuxian squeezes him close even as he pinches his cheek. “Ai, truly the son of the dread Yiling laozu,” he teases before leaning in to kiss his cheek. “And so cute!” Shaking her head, Wen Qing tries to stifle a smile, but it’s still there in the corners of her mouth as she reaches out and plucks a-Yuan from his arms. He looks briefly disappointed, but he laughs in surprise when Wei Wuxian chucks his chin gently and ruffles his hair. “Go on,” Wen Qing says, nodding toward the path down the mountain. “You don’t want to be late.” Grinning, Wei Wuxian waves an idle goodbye as he starts down the trail with Wen Ning at his side. Granny and Auntie Three tell him to take care when they pass, and Uncle Six wishes them safe travels as he returns from gathering water. Wei Wuxian could nearly skip all the way to Lanling with the way joy bubbles effervescent in his veins, but he settles for spinning Chenqing between his fingers and humming along to a song he half-remembers from childhood. They’ve left with enough time to fly to and from Lanling twice with rest on either end, but then, Wei Wuxian’s not flying anywhere. Suibian sits propped on a shelf in his cave, where it’s lain since they arrived. He cleans the blade as he has to, out of respect to the spirit that still thrums through it and to the bond he once shared with the sword, but otherwise, he pretends he cannot see it lying there. He doesn’t regret it. There is no world in which he could ever wish he’d made another choice, but—

He’d told Wen Qing he understood the consequences. That he knew the risks and the weight of giving up his golden core. He would forever be mediocre, destined to live out a shorter life and to never fulfill the great dreams he’d had in his adolescence. Such broad declarations could not fathom the painful prick of everyday loss. He no longer reaches for spiritual energy that isn’t there, but sometimes he dreams, and he still knows that familiar river-rush song of power at his center. It still feels right, still feels like the song his soul has known since he was twelve and he felt a seed of something strong and glowing deep within him. He wakes bereft, empty-handed, hollowed. It’s not even the dreams he misses most — those grand heroics were always stories, and his home has been in Lotus Pier alongside his duty for most of his remembered life. It’s the little things, the things he had taken for granted: being able to help when someone was ill or injured, being able to soar up on Suibian and see the tumbling world splayed out before him. He will never regret his choice. If anything, he’s been proven right over and over in how Jiang Cheng has led Yunmeng Jiang through the war and into this new reconstruction. Lotus Pier needed its leader, and Jiang Cheng has always been destined for that mantle. So, no, he will never regret his decision. But, sometimes, he grieves. It’s a selfish sorrow, to lie with his hand flat on his chest in the night-quiet and feel the resounding hollowness echo through him. There’s still spiritual energy lingering in him, enough to power a talisman or a weak spell, but it diminishes day by day, eaten away by the resentment hooking claws into his bones. Guilt does its best to drown the grief. He has no right to feel sorrow for a sacrifice willingly made. If he does not regret the decision, what reason is there for hurt? He should just be able to set it aside and move forward, onward. He tries. It works most days. They stop in Yiling to pick up a token with the money Wen Qing sent, and Wei Wuxian eyes the whole supply, running his fingers along the jade, weighing the heft of them in his palm. It’s only adornment, a small trinket to accompany his real gift, but he wants it to be perfect, too. Outside, Wen Ning waits patiently. He’s dressed in his best as well, neat black robes that don’t mark him as any sect but are carefully pleated and tied. Wei Wuxian grins and holds out the tassel for examination. “What do you think?” he asks. “It is very pretty, Master Wei,” Wen Ning affirms. “Is this your gift for young Jin Rulan?” Wei Wuxian scoffs and reaches into the folds of his robe to pull out the lacquered box. As if he would give his nephew something so small as a tassel and say that was sufficient. He passes the box to Wen Ning, who cradles it in his hands like a bird’s egg. Wei Wuxian waits, trying carefully not to preen, as he lifts the lid to examine the gift. “It’s warded,” he blurts out anyway, because he’s never been very good at bottling up excitement. “Low level ghosts and monsters won’t be able to come near him as long as my nephew wears it.” “I can feel it,” Wen Ning says, his hand hovering carefully away from the beads. The bracelet has taken hours of work and planning, the kind of mental challenge that is at once exhilarating and exhausting; he loves the strain of it, the puzzle in how to determine the right characters and imbue it with the proper strength, but it also required more planning and detail work than comes naturally. He can’t count the number of times he checked and re-checked his work to make sure he didn’t miss something tiny and vital. Wen Ning moves to touch the bracelet, and panic flashes through Wei Wuxian as he half-lunges to stop him. “Ah don’t touch it!” he yelps. He manages to reign himself back in as Wen Ning stops short and turns to him with something like alarm. “I’m not sure what it’ll do.” He tries not to wince as he says it; he hadn’t wanted to point it out at all. Despite his placid face, Wen Ning’s shoulders stoop a little, and Wei Wuxian’s heart squeezes painfully. He shouldn’t have to worry about this, shouldn’t have to think about how he’s been made into a monster. It’s not his fault, not something he had any say in, and guilt sours deep in Wei Wuxian’s belly at the way that he still has to carry the burden even when it was forced upon him in the first place. “Come on,” Wei Wuxian says, clapping Wen Ning on the shoulder once the box is stowed once more. He gives a smile of reassurance, apology, and Wen Ning quirks up his lips in his own smile. “Of course, Wei-gongzi,” he says. It’s a long walk to Koi Tower. Wei Wuxian almost wishes they had chosen to split up the trip between two days, but it’s not like they would have been able to afford an inn and a bath if they had. He spends the walk teasing Wen Ning and chattering. Wen Ning’s still a little demure, but he’s gotten better at teasing and understanding when Wei Wuxian is joking over the year. It’s nice in a way few things are anymore; Wen Ning knows, like Wen Qing, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t have to pretend around him. He cradled Wei Wuxian’s head as his sister pulled out the thrumming golden core at his heart, kept his shoulders pinned to the ground as he screamed. He understands in a way shijie or Jiang Cheng or Lan Zhan never can. They have done terrible violence to each other for the sake of their siblings, and they can laugh and talk and tease in the sunlight. It’s the kind of light that falls through cracks in ancient ruins, that illuminates and softens the ragged edges of history. They plan to pause and rest on the far side of Qiongqi Pass, Wen Ning’s enforcement of his sister’s order. “It would make Lady Jiang upset if you overexerted yourself before the celebrations,” Wen Ning says. That is certainly not how Wen Qing phrased it. Wei Wuxian accepts it with only a little complaining, to keep up appearances. It can’t get out that he can be persuaded so easily after all; his reputation would never survive.

[rosethornewrites]

Tuesday & Wednesday T & G reading

The usual

Finished

Tumblr:

Qin Su betrothed to Jin Zixuan, by @stiltonbasket

wwx dies in lwj’s arms, by @drwcn

Marinette and jewelry, by @heartfulselkie

Guan, by @puddingcatbeans

wwx is purified, by @mondengel

Teen:

blushing!, by appledtea

He looks unworldly, beautiful, stunning, brave, strong.

Wei Ying crashes into Lan Zhan with a hug and a kiss to the outer corner of his eye. “Will you tell me?”

Lan Zhan looks at him with tentatively bright eyes. “I want to try she/her today.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

//Wei Ying and Lan Zhan and gender, all while cafe hopping.

softly; with feeling, by diettcherrysoda (4 chapters)

Yu Ziyuan is many things, but angry is only one adjective used for her.

-

Wei Wuxian has a younger sister thanks to Madam Yu's own pride, and somehow that changes everything.

destination: wedding, by Deisderium

Best friends and roommates Lan Zhan and Wei Ying enter a couples' competition. No one said the competitors had to be romantic couples.

Turns out maybe they're a romantic couple anyway.

my dear, let me buy a red-painted boat (and carry you away), by stiltonbasket (5th in a series)

“You said,” she begins, after checking that Xiulan has left the Lanyue Gong, “that you would not object if Yi-fei and Zhuang-fei took lovers, after they were married to you.”

“I did say so. Does the second young mistress Jiang have a lover her parents will not let her wed? If she does, I doubt he will be of sufficient rank for them to meet after Wei Wuxian comes here.”

“Wei Ying has no lover,” Lan Wangji replies, gathering her courage for the truth. “But, if the heavens smile upon us both, she will be mine."

___

Four years after she enters the palace, Imperial Noble Consort Lan prepares to marry again.

under the seams, by northofallmusic (tofsla)

What are you doing? Wei Wuxian wants to ask. Always-proper Hanguang-Jun, what’s all this about? Why did you bring this Mo Xuanyu here?

This is a personal room, isn’t it? No kind of place for a demonic cultivator—an emulator of the Yiling Patriarch—

CQL canon divergence in which Wei Wuxian is brought back into Mo Xuanyu's body per MDZS, the Dafan Mountain reunion is just that little bit messier, and fear drives Lan Wangji to confession.

and until the sun burns out, I will look after you, by untakenbeepun

Lan Zhan gets sick. All Wei Ying wants to do is look after him, if his husband would just let him.

A place of Gold, by ThisIsWhereTheMagicHappens (4 chapters)

A few days after Wei Wuxian has parted from Lan Wangji on a forest path, he gets surrounded by Jin officials in an Inn, who formally ask him to return to Jinlintai to fill in the position of Sect Leader, as is his right and duty.

Wei Wuxian thinks it is an artful prank. Until it is not.

General:

Hotel California, by nirejseki

The thing was, Meng Yao had arrived at the Nie sect just fine. He’d made it and been accepted on the basis of his willingness to put in the hard work to learn cultivation during wartime, he had maneuvered the situation such that he could contribute to the war in a way that would catch notice in a way his martial skills couldn’t, he had even managed to snag a position of influence the way he’d intended…perhaps slightly faster than intended, but knowing how to take advantage of opportunities was also a skill. At any rate, that had all worked just right and according to plan.

He just couldn’t get out.

You Give Me The Love I Never Want To Lose in This Lifetime, by selle_hann (7 chapters)

Lan Zhan meets Wei Ying and then his whole set routine is useless.

--

Or: a wangxian cafe AU that no one asked for

Can you still hear a voice calling “A-Xian?”, by LiveLoveLesbian

A failed spell causes Wei Wuxian to mentally regress in age — now he has no recollection of his life in the Cloud Recesses, or his relationship with Lan Wangji. Featuring: Lan Wangji spoiling Wei Ying, Jiang Cheng having a soft spot, and the juniors being brats.

the sweetest kind of victory, by stiltonbasket (41st in a series)

When Lan Wangji was being fitted for his wedding clothes last spring, he remembers looking at the numbers after they were written down, and hurrying back to the Caiyi seamstress to ask if her apprentices might have mistaken Wei Ying’s measurements. They were far too small for a man Wei Ying’s height, and Lan Wangji was certain that a garment made in that size would not fit him.

The fit was perfect back then: but no longer, because Wei Ying outgrew his wedding robes by their first anniversary, and Lan Wangji couldn't be happier about it.

The Husband List, by Liebing

Lan Zhan finds his roommate Wei Ying’s open letter outlining his requirements for his future husband…

Or

Lan Zhan finds a check list to get himself into Wei Ying’s heart…

Unfinished

Teen:

Whatever it takes, by Moonlit_dewdrops

Jiang Cheng and Wei WuXian are sent back to the past. This time, they can save everyone they love. They can make the right choices. They can learn to trust one another. However, everything comes with a price.

To Repeat, Repay, and Repair, by adrian_kres

Wei Wuxian has died again and his family grieves. Lan Sizhui, now married and with children of his own, grieves the loss of both fathers, as Lan Wangji has entered seclusion. But somehow, he unknowingly sends himself back to the time he spent in the Burial Mounds at three years old. Will his family take his confused, nonsensical warnings seriously? Are they doomed to repeat the same fate?

Told from alternating points of view.

General:

Happy Ending, by pinkychan

After eloping with Lan Zhan, Wei Wuxian is living his best life, because happy is what happens when all your dreams come true... excetp when it doesn't.

OR

Don’t Think About the White Bear [your past life]