#shaking studio lan by the shoulders

[sgdlr-asdfghjkl]

Studio LAN back at it again 💀

You're telling me we'll someday maybe get to see bone-tired Cheng Xiaoshi take a bath like it's a cigarette break? Maybe existing wasn't a mistake if I get to see it 🤔

[bloody-bee-tea]

Mall

First part          Previous part

The only warning Jiang Cheng gets before Wei Wuxian drapes himself over his back is Lan Wangji’s low “Careful” right before Wei Wuxian’s shriek.

It gives Jiang Cheng enough time to brace himself, but the impact still punches the breath out of him.

“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian yells as if Jiang Cheng could have ignored his entrance and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, even though Wei Wuxian doesn’t care.

“What?” he bites out when Wei Wuxian doesn’t immediately start talking, and he closes his book.

He won’t get any more studying done with Wei Wuxian hanging off him like that, and he still struggles enough with this concept that he needs his full attention for the tasks they were assigned.

“It’s almost your birthday!” Wei Wuxian excitedly says, finally releasing Jiang Cheng and moving around the table to sit in front of him, almost vibrating out of his skin in excitement.

“It is?” Jiang Cheng mutters and realises with a start that Wei Wuxian is right.

It’s almost November.

Jiang Cheng nods gratefully at Lan Wangji when he sits down next to Wei Wuxian and puts a calming hand to his shoulder, because it means for just a moment Wei Wuxian is distracted enough that Jiang Cheng gets a moment to think.

He didn’t realize that time was passing by so quickly and that it was already time for his birthday.

Not that it means anything, because his birthday has never been anything special.

“What are you going to do?” Wei Wuxian asks him, when he manages to tear his eyes away from Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng looks down at the book in front of him.

“Nothing,” he says with a shrug. “Shouldn’t you worry about your birthday first?” he then asks before Wei Wuxian can pester him for more answers and that at least gets Wei Wuxian talking.

He’s planning a huge Halloween party—like every year—except that this time he’s planning to drag Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen into it, since he wants to do it at their place.

Jiang Cheng nods along with Wei Wuxian’s plans, because he didn’t really expect anything else.

Of course Wei Wuxian would just do as he normally does, and of course Lan Wangji is smitten enough with him that he doesn’t tell him off. Jiang Cheng is just surprised that Lan Xichen seemingly agreed to this, but then again the guy loves his brother and he would never do anything that would make Lan Wangji unhappy. And denying Wei Wuxian a huge ass part would make Wei Wuxian very unhappy, which would make Lan Wangji unhappy.

Jiang Cheng distantly wonders if Wei Wuxian realized that yet but then he thinks that if he had, he would be shamelessly exploiting it anyway.

“And it’ll be so epic,” Wei Wuxian finishes his rant and Jiang Cheng tunes back in, hoping that it at least looks like he was listening the whole time.

“Once we sobered up, we’ll get started on your birthday planning,” Wei Wuxian says with a huge smile and Jiang Cheng just barely suppresses a shiver.

“That’s not—” Jiang Cheng starts but he doesn’t even know what he wants to say. “I don’t—” 

Images of dinner with his parents flash through his mind and Jiang Cheng goes cold all over, remembering it. 

“See you,” he finally presses out as he quickly gathers his things, trying his damn hardest to keep his breath slow and even, but it’s not working so well, going by the wide-eyed look Wei Wuxian throws him, and even Lan Wangji seems worried.

Jiang Cheng is pretty sure that they are calling him back as he runs away from them, but he can’t really hear what they are saying over the rushing in his ears.

He didn’t realize that it was already that time of year. He tries to not think about his birthday too often and now that’s biting him in the ass, because it’s hitting him unprepared.

Jiang Cheng isn’t really paying attention as to where he’s running to but he comes to an abrupt stop when he realizes he’s on his way to Lan Qiren’s house.

Home, a very treacherous part of him thinks and Jiang Cheng tries to push that thought away.

Jiang Cheng has his own room there, has a key and his presence in the house is undeniable, but it still feels dangerous to think of it as his home. If he does, he admits that he’s attached and then it can slip through his fingers again.

But the house is the only thing that comes to mind when he thinks of the concept of home and Jiang Cheng isn’t even surprised to find that he never thinks of his parent’s house like that.

Jiang Cheng briefly thinks about going somewhere else like the fitness studio, or maybe even the library, but then he remembers Lan Xichen’s words and he knows he can’t do that.

If Lan Xichen catches him there, he’ll be disappointed and Jiang Cheng could never take that, but especially not today.

In the end Jiang Cheng keeps going where he was originally headed, and he lets out a relieved breath when he realizes that Lan Qiren isn’t at home yet.

It gives Jiang Cheng time to put himself together.

Sadly, it also gives him time to think about his birthday again.

Lan Qiren hasn’t said anything about his birthday yet, and Jiang Cheng knows what that means. He’s not doing good enough.

His grades are not the best, especially not lately, and of course Lan Qiren knows about that. Of course Jiang Cheng doesn’t deserve any kind of reward.

And he doesn’t even dare to think about asking Lan Qiren if he can have his siblings over on the weekend because he’s already imposing enough on Lan Qiren and he couldn’t possibly ask for more.

He can’t ask Wei Wuxian if they can do it at his place, cause he’s already having a huge party and it would be too much to ask Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji to host his party—as small as it may be—as well. Jiang Cheng doesn’t want to ask Jiang Yanli either, because he doubts Jin Zixuan would be happy about that and that really doesn’t leave him with any options.

And really, what does it matter anyway? He’s not sleeping in the streets and he should be thankful for that. Instead he is thinking about asking for more than he should and Jiang Cheng wonders if it will ever stop. If he will ever learn not to be too greedy, too demanding and instead learn his place.

Jiang Cheng mostly has his mind made up when he opens the door and steps into the house and it makes him feel better.

He’s not going to ask for anything. He doesn’t expect Lan Qiren to do anything special for him on that day—his parents never did, after all, and he’s not sure his grades warrant anything anyway—and he can survive one year without the usual sibling evening for his birthday.

It will be fine.

~*~*~

Jiang Cheng manages to put the thought of his birthday out of his mind for the most part, but of course there’s still this lingering nagging in his brain, insisting that maybe he just needs to talk to Lan Qiren for once, and that he’ll be surprised by what comes out.

But Jiang Cheng knows that’s stupid—has learned it for years and years, to never hope for anything—and so he keeps quiet. He doesn’t think Wei Wuxian or Lan Wangji said anything to Lan Qiren either; they have been more attentive ever since that last episode and would never force anything like this and Jiang Cheng is thankful for it.

Especially since the first tests are coming up and Jiang Cheng has to study hard for those; he doesn’t have time to worry over other things.

“I’m back,” Jiang Cheng calls out when he comes through the front door one day, and he frowns when he sees another pair of shoes in the hallway.

He wasn’t aware they were expecting anyone, but of course Lan Qiren can have guests over whenever he wants.

“Welcome home,” Lan Xichen calls out, clearly from the kitchen, and Jiang Cheng relaxes.

He doesn’t think anything of it, because Lan Xichen is over a lot lately, especially to help with cooking and teaching Jiang Cheng, but when he comes into view and sees Lan Qiren seated at the table and Lan Xichen deliberately disinterested in the kitchen Jiang Cheng tenses.

“What—did I do something wrong?” Jiang Cheng lowly asks, frozen in the doorway but he’s relieved to see that Lan Qiren immediately shakes his head.

“Of course not, Wanyin,” he reassures him, but he points at the chair opposite of him and Jiang Cheng reluctantly sits down.

He can’t remember doing anything wrong, but he probably just missed something.

He always does.

“Is this about my grades?” he carefully asks, because they did have a test today, and he wouldn’t be surprised if his was graded first, just so Lan Qiren can know how he’s doing.

“Should it be?” Lan Qiren asks with a frown, and Jiang Cheng barely has the chance to worry before Lan Xichen comes in.

“Uncle,” he says, clearly reminding Lan Qiren that this is not about that and Lan Qiren nods at him.

“No, it’s not,” Lan Qiren says to Jiang Cheng then, though he continues to be serious.

Much more serious than Jiang Cheng would like.

“Your birthday is coming up, right?” Lan Xichen asks, clearly in an attempt to diffuse the tension, but Jiang Cheng only tenses more at his words.

“Yes,” he curtly says and then falls silent, waiting for Lan Qiren to tell him where this is going.

He doesn’t want to say anything wrong after all.

“Do you have any plans? Any wishes?” Lan Qiren asks when it becomes clear that Jiang Cheng will not be the one to break the silence and Jiang Cheng ducks his head.

“I don’t—how are my grades?” Jiang Cheng wants to know and ducks his head again when Lan Qiren simply blinks at him.

“What does one have to do with the other?” Lan Qiren demands to know, making Jiang Cheng shrink back, but like always, Lan Xichen is there to intervene.

“Wanyin, if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to,” he says and puts his hand on Jiang Cheng’s arm. “But if you want to, we’re here to listen.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Jiang Cheng asks to gain some time to bring his thoughts into order and Lan Xichen gives him a sheepish smile.

“We suspected that this might not be an easy topic for you since you never spoke about it before,” he admits. “And it seems that my presence helps sometimes.”

Jiang Cheng nods, because they are not wrong about either of those things, but he still stays silent because he doesn’t even know where to start.

“Why would your grades relate to your birthday?” Lan Qiren eventually gently prompts and Jiang Cheng takes a deep breath.

He keeps his eyes on the table, unable to meet Lan Qiren’s or Lan Xichen’s gaze as he talks about this.

Jiang Cheng would really rather not talk about this at all, but Lan Qiren has shown him in the past that he’s not like Jiang Cheng’s parents, so maybe this won’t be too bad and Jiang Cheng clings to that thought as he starts to talk.

“It’s just that—usually—I mean—“ he stutters out and finds that he’s not as calm as he thought he is about this.

The panic is right there, lodged in his throat and stomach and Jiang Cheng wants to shake with it, but Lan Xichen still has his hand on Jiang Cheng’s arm and he squeezes lightly.

“Take your time,” he tells him, and Jiang Cheng nods, but it still takes him a few minutes to get his breathing back under control.

“What I get for my birthday is dependent on the grades I have,” Jiang Cheng finally whispers, and he flinches when both Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren jerk at his words.

“What do you mean by that?” Lan Qiren asks him, clearly needing more of an explanation than this and Jiang Cheng grimaces.

“If my grades are not good, I’m not allowed to ask for anything,” Jiang Cheng mutters and decides not to tell them that in the eyes of his mother, his grades could never be good enough, no matter what he did.

“I don’t know how my grades are right now, so I’m not sure what I’m allowed to ask for,” Jiang Cheng finally finishes weakly, though he knows that his grades are hardly good enough to warrant any kind of reward, no matter how small it might be.

“You’re allowed to ask for anything,” Lan Qiren tells him, but Jiang Cheng shakes his head.

He knows he is not.

“I don’t--I’m not even sure I passed the test today, there’s nothing I could—” Jiang Cheng trails off, his breath speeding up again.

He never admitted to his failings before, never dared too, but now it simply slipped out and the panic is gripping him hard. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I promise to do better, I’ll study more,” Jiang Cheng tries, but deep down he wonders how long Lan Qiren will allow him to fuck up like this.

They all know he’s too stupid for that particular subject and it can only be a matter of time before Lan Qiren—and Lan Xichen as well—get fed up with his empty promises.

“Breathe, Wanyin,” Lan Xichen gently reminds him, and Jiang Cheng itches to obey him, but it still takes him a while before his breath comes easy again.

“I didn’t do anything to earn a celebration of my birth yet,” Jiang Cheng finally mutters when he feels stable again and he fears he did something wrong again when absolute silence settles over the kitchen.

Jiang Cheng isn’t even sure if Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen are still breathing, but he’s too scared to check.

“That hateful woman,” Lan Qiren eventually chokes out and he sounds as mad as Jiang Cheng has ever heard him.

It only makes him lower his head even further and he brings his shoulders up, because if he already made Lan Qiren this angry then Jiang Cheng doesn’t want to do anything else to anger him further.

“I’m sorry,” Jiang Cheng whispers, desperately wishing that he just never came home, that they never brought this horrible topic up, but regrets never got him anywhere. It’s already done after all.

 “I am not angry with you,” Lan Qiren says and suddenly it’s him at Jiang Cheng’s side and no longer Lan Xichen.

“But you sound—” Jiang Cheng whispers, because Lan Qiren sounded so angry and Jiang Cheng knows that never means anything good.

“I’m not angry with you,” Lan Qiren sighs again. “I am angry with your parents.”

“Oh,” Jiang Cheng says, because that he didn’t expect. “I mean, they always were there for dinner on my birthday, so it’s not so bad,” he tries to explain, but Lan Qiren shakes his head.

“It is that bad,” he simply states. “Here in this house we celebrate your birthday. What would you like?” he asks and Jiang Cheng can only blink at him.

“But I didn’t—” he cuts himself off before he can say ‘earn it yet’ because with how this afternoon is going, he doesn’t think Lan Qiren would be too happy about it.

“What would you like?” Lan Qiren repeats softly and Jiang Cheng turns questioning eyes on Lan Xichen, hoping that he can help him.

“It’s your birthday, Wanyin,” Lan Xichen says with a small smile, even though it does look a little bit sad. “Of course you will get presents.”

Jiang Cheng worries his lower lip, because never before did he have to articulate a wish to a guardian or parent before and he doesn’t know what to ask for.

Oh, he does know what he wants to ask for, but he’s still not sure this won’t come back to bite him in the ass, so he figures it’s best to play it safe for now.

“Jiang Wanyin, you’re the best son anyone could wish for and you deserve to get something you really want on your birthday,” Lan Qiren suddenly speaks up and Jiang Cheng jerks with his words, before his eyes dart over to Lan Xichen again.

He’s worried he’ll take this the wrong way, that he will be mad with Jiang Cheng for taking that praise away from him, but Lan Xichen only smiles at him.

“He’s right, Wanyin,” Lan Xichen says with a shrug. “Don’t look that startled, I know what you think, and it’s different. Wangji and I are his nephews.”

“That’s not true, Xichen,” Lan Qiren says and now he’s reaching out for Lan Xichen. “I have raised you since you were five and Wangji since he was two. I don’t see you as my nephews, I see you as my sons. And all three of you make me very, very proud.”

“Oh,” Lan Xichen breathes out and his surprise makes Lan Qiren’s words a little easier to bear for Jiang Cheng. He isn’t used to parents giving praise out that easily. Usually it’s a competition and praise is a limited goods. “I didn’t actually know that,” Lan Xichen mutters eventually and Lan Qiren sighs.

“And that’s on me,” Lan Qiren immediately says. “I should have made that clear sooner. I’m sorry.”

Jiang Cheng’s head is spinning with Lan Qiren’s words; not only did he admit to making a mistake but he also apologized for it—which adults never do, in Jiang Cheng’s experience—but he also praised Jiang Cheng in the same breath as Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen, who are objectively the better students.

Arguably even the better humans, but Jiang Cheng tries to push that thought far away.

“Thank you for saying it now,” Lan Xichen says and now he’s practically beaming at Lan Qiren, who all of a sudden seems very uncomfortable with the situation.

“Nonsense,” he grumbles and tugs on his beard a few times, before he turns his attention back on Jiang Cheng. “Now to get back to what you want for your birthday,” he says and Jiang Cheng thinks that maybe it’s time to just accept that Lan Qiren really means this.

That this year Jiang Cheng is allowed to wish for something.

“I—there’s this program,” Jiang Cheng starts hesitantly but when Lan Qiren nods encouragingly at him, he continues. “A computer program for architects,” Jiang Cheng finishes in a whisper and Lan Qiren’s eyes light up.

“Architecture? You’re interested in that?”

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng admits and looks down at his hands. “I usually only doodle a few sketches—of course, only when I’m done with my studies and homework—but it would be nice to plan something in a program for once.”

“I never doubt that you’re working very hard and finishing all of your duties before you relax,” Lan Qiren reassures him. “So you would want the program?”

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng whispers but this time it’s Lan Xichen who starts talking.

“But can your laptop handle it? I have seen it and it’s verging on the older side, isn’t it? Will the program still run on there?”

Well, the one Jiang Cheng very desperately wants will not, but they don’t have to know that. Jiang Cheng can probably safe up for a new laptop in less than a year if he’s smart about it.

“Yes,” he says, but it seems like Lan Qiren looks right through him, because he throws him a look.

It makes Jiang Cheng shrink back on instinct but then he huffs out a laugh.

At least Lan Qiren notices when Jiang Cheng is lying to him.

“I mean—the more simple ones will,” he amends his previous statement and Lan Qiren nods as if it’s decided.

“Wangji and me will get the program then,” Lan Xichen says, more to Lan Qiren than to Jiang Cheng and Jiang Cheng frowns.

“And I will get the new laptop,” Lan Qiren says and Jiang Cheng stares at him.

“That would be way too much! You shouldn’t do that!”

“It’s your birthday, of course we should. Actually, I’m not quite as versed in these things, and I’m not sure what kind of requirements the laptop would need, so why don’t you go with Xichen to the mall and see if you can find something that would fit your needs?”

“I’ll make sure he picks something that’s not outdated in a year,” Lan Xichen says with a teasing smile and Jiang Cheng blushes.

“You really don’t have to do that. Just the one program would be enough.”

“Nonsense,” Lan Qiren immediately says. “You will get something good for your birthday.”

“Alright,” Jiang Cheng whispers, unbearably happy with how this whole talk turned out and he has to fight the urge to hug Lan Qiren, his eyes burning with emotions.

He’s not one for too much physical contact, Jiang Cheng has noticed that before, and so Jiang Cheng sits on his hands.

“One hug won’t kill him,” Lan Xichen whispers as he leans over the table, absolutely loud enough for Lan Qiren to hear and Jiang Cheng flushes again.

“It won’t,” Lan Qiren agrees and even moves his chair a bit back in invitation.

And Jiang Cheng really can’t pass something like that up, so he gets up and immediately darts in for a hug.

Despite not liking them, Lan Qiren is very good at them, and Jiang Cheng would never complain if they lasted a bit longer, but he doesn’t want to overdo it, so he pulls away after a short while.

“Thank you,” he whispers and Lan Qiren awkwardly pats his shoulder.

“You are very welcome, Wanyin. Now tell me how you want to celebrate.”

“What?”

“I’m guessing you want your siblings to come over? And maybe Wangji and Xichen? I heard you’re friends with Huaisang, too? Invite him as well, if you want to.”

“For—lunch?” Jiang Cheng hesitantly asks but Lan Qiren frowns.

“Don’t youths usually do dinner and a movie or something?” he asks and Lan Xichen snorts out a laugh.

“Or something,” he says with a nod and Jiang Cheng’s own mouth twitches as well but he bites it back.

“The curfew,” Jiang Cheng starts and then ends with a shrug.

He really doesn’t want to impose this on Lan Qiren as well, but Lan Qiren shakes his head.

“Your birthday is on a Friday, right? I don’t see why you couldn’t stay up a little bit longer on your birthday.”

“We can do it at our place, uncle,” Lan Xichen offers, even though Jiang Cheng didn’t even ask him and Lan Xichen smiles at him.

“Wanyin could sleep over, and you wouldn’t have to worry about him or stay up for far longer than you normally do.”

It’s a reasonable suggestion, but Jiang Cheng never wanted to ask Lan Xichen about this in the first place, not with how Wei Wuxian will have his party at their place as well, but when both Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen look expectantly at him, he can’t refuse them.

“Sounds good,” he chokes out and immediately Lan Xichen’s smile is back.

“Perfect! Just let me know what you’d like for dinner and snacks and I’ll get everything ready.”

“No,” Jiang Cheng interjects, because he will not allow Lan Xichen do to everything. “I can cook and go shopping as well. It’s my party; I should at least help, right?”

“That’s very nice of you to offer,” Lan Qiren says and nods at Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen. “You can do it at your place, but let him help.”

“Alright,” Lan Xichen easily agrees and it does make Jiang Cheng feel a little bit better.

“Thank you,” he whispers to both of them and his eyes start to burn when both Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen put a hand to his shoulders.

“Always,” Lan Xichen immediately says and Lan Qiren nods.

“That’s what family is like,” he softly tells him and Jiang Cheng nods, not trusting his voice to hold out at all.

Lan Qiren said something like that before, and all of his actions are very in line with it as well, and Jiang Cheng might just start trusting that he is safe here, with them.

It would be so very nice to not be proven wrong this time.

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

[stiltonbasket]

Nielan fathers day prompt! Sorry if its late, but how about finding out they're going to be parents on Fathers Day? (mpreg, adoption, surrogacy, your choice).

anon: the first fathers' day after jingyi is born, modern lxc and nmj both set up a present for each other "from Jingyi." It's very cute. Baby Jingyi magnanimously chews on his foot and accepts giving two presents and meals.

this is for the art thief au, so lxc is trans here!

(ao3 link)

----

What should I give Xichen for Father’s day?

Nie Mingjue has been puzzling over gift ideas for the past two weeks, with no luck whatsoever. Jingyi is still too small to make them gifts, so he and Xichen use the occasion to exchange presents with each other and label them with their little boy’s name; Xichen probably picked out his gifts already, since he knows Nie Mingjue’s tastes like the back of his hand, but Mingjue keeps flipping through mail-order catalogues and crossing off their entire inventory as he goes.

“I have present,” Jingyi insists, as Nie Mingjue carries him down yet another aisle of their local department store. “A-Die, look!”

Mingjue looks. A-Yi is holding a six-pack of orange bath sponges, since Xichen mentioned that they needed some more earlier that morning.

“That’s not a Father’s Day gift, A-Bao,” Mingjue chides, kissing Jingyi’s forehead. “Last year, I gave your Ba a brooch with his initials on it, remember? It has to be pretty.”

Jingyi wrinkles his tiny nose. “Starfish?”

“Mm, the starfish brooch.” Lan Xichen has an impressive collection of jewelry, with most of it coming from gifts Nie Mingjue gave him over the course of their fifteen years together; and nearly all of the pieces are sea-themed to go with his husband’s wardrobe and his clear, moon-white skin.

Perhaps he could buy pearls, this time?

“A-Yi,” he says slowly, “what do you think about going to the discount shop across town?”

A-Yi is happy enough to go wherever his father goes, so Nie Mingjue drives to the discount store--full of discarded, overstocked, and secondhand merchandise from all over the city--and digs through the bins of jewelry until he finds an antique bracelet, strung with pearls carved into the shapes of starfish and clam shells. Jingyi nearly loses his little mind at the sight of it, and he squeals at the top of his lungs while Mingjue pays for the bracelet and bundles him back to the car.

“I know them,” he declares, when Mingjue gives him the bracelet to play with on the way home. “Diedie, it’s a clam!”

Mingjue glances up at his son’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “Can you count how many clams there are?”

Jingyi flings himself headlong into the task, counting twelve starfish and eleven clams, and then he peruses the Learning Reader books Xichen keeps in the back seat until Mingjue carries him into the house.

His husband runs to meet them at the door, and it is this, not the driveway or their well-worn doorstep, that means Nie Mingjue has finally come home.

______

To Nie Mingjue, stepping into his woodworking studio feels like stepping into another world.

It isn't that the studio looks very different from the rest of the house--in fact, Nie Mingjue had a tiny nursery built into the north corner, since he set the studio up with A-Yi’s needs in mind--but Mingjue feels different here, more sure of himself, and aware of his own thoughts and hopes as he scarcely is anywhere else. He had only to enter, and he was changed: his hands steadier, his heartbeat slower, and his mind somewhere distant and immediate all at once. It is here that he pays homage to his heart, his muse, and the dearest friend he has ever had, or ever will. It is here that he pours pieces of his love for his husband into everything he touches, and everything he makes, and emerges with pieces of polished art like testaments to the husband he vowed his life to. 

“That isn’t a metaphor,” Nie Mingjue said once, when Huaisang asked what he meant. Mingjue has carved everything from furniture to lamps into shapes reminiscent of his husband’s lips, perfected the stems of wooden sunflowers to match the sweet arch of Lan Xichen’s neck, and burnished every last one of his creations until they shone like sunlight falling on the apples of his husband’s cheeks. He etches A-Huan’s expressions into the faces of statues intended for the foyers of upscale hotels, and into a thousand quarter and sixth-scale figures commissioned by model collectors, since he rarely has any excuse to sculpt his husband directly. But today he does, so he sits down at his bench and gets to work with a block of oak and his favorite gouge and chisel.

He will love this, Nie Mingjue thinks, as two bowed heads and a pair of smiles take shape under his hands. This is the most beautiful thing I have ever made.

He glances over his shoulder at Jingyi, fast asleep in the glass-walled nursery with his feet up in the air, and turns back to the sculpture with his heart quivering in his chest.

______

The sculpture takes about a fortnight to complete, almost exactly the span of time between the day Nie Mingjue begins working on it and the holiday it was intended for. Nie Mingjue wakes up early on Father’s day, leaving Xichen asleep behind him, and bundles A-Yi out of bed and down into the studio. They wrap the sculpture up together in Jingyi’s favorite gift wrap, and then Nie Mingjue carries him to the kitchen just in time to catch his husband as he comes stumbling down the stairs.

“Good morning, love” Lan Xichen sighs, burrowing into Nie Mingjue’s arms. “What should we have for breakfast?”

“Eggs?”

For some reason, Lan Xichen shakes his head.

“Noodles, then?”

This suggestion is met by a drowsy nod, so Mingjue goes to the fridge to dig out  a few ingredients while Lan Xichen hops onto one of the bar stools with Jingyi in his lap. He chops the scallions and garlic for plain noodle soup around their son’s little body, leaving Mingjue to boil noodles in one pot and stock with soy sauce and sugar in another until three blue bowls of yang chun mian are steaming on the counter.

“Smells yummy,” Jingyi yawns, while Xichen spoons fresh green onions into his soup bowl. “Baba, feed A-Yi?”

“He’s forgotten about the presents,” Lan Xichen mouths, as Nie Mingjue tries not to snicker. They eat quickly, slurping down the noodle soup with cups of soy milk on the side, and then Jingyi scrambles to the other side of the room before running back with Mingjue’s wrapped box in his arms.

“Father’s Day gift!” he squeaks, wriggling like a happy worm as Xichen laughs and tries to remove the gift wrap without tearing it; because Jingyi never lets either of them cover gifts with anything but Pingu penguin-printed paper, and he cries if anyone rips it up in front of him.

Mingjue used the weakest tape he could find, so that Xichen could extract the box with the paper left mostly whole. He hands the paper to Jingyi, watching as his husband’s slender fingers close around the base of the sculpture, and then--

“Oh!” Lan Xichen gasps, pulling it all the way out into the light. “A-Jue, I--”

The sculpture depicts him and Jingyi at the beach near their house--in fact, at the same beach where Mingjue and Xichen first met. Mingjue was sitting on a sandy rock, catching his breath after running around behind a hyperactive Nie Huaisang all day, and then he looked out over the foggy water and saw what looked like a water spirit drifting out of the darkness in a rowboat.

He sculpted Xichen seated on that very rock, with his long hair tangling in an invisible gale, and a little heap of shells (the pearls from the old bracelet he found at the discount store) piled up in his lap. Jingyi is standing on the ground at his feet with a wave of seafoam brushing his ankles; and in his hands is a small pearly starfish, offered up to his baba as Lan Huan leans forward to cup A-Yi’s cheek in his palm. Both father and son are smiling, with heart-breaking happiness in A-Huan’s eyes, and sheer pleasure at finding the starfish in Jingyi’s.

Nie Mingjue looks up at his own flesh-and-blood husband, tearing his eyes away from the wooden figure, and finds Lan Xichen sitting there, frozen, with tears rolling down his face as he traces the tiny ridges and dimples of stone and sand and water.

“It’s beautiful,” he chokes, rounding the corner of the table to throw his arms around Nie Mingjue’s shoulders. “It’s the most precious thing you’ve ever made, sweetheart.”

“The most precious thing I helped make is over there,” Nie Mingjue teases, tilting his head at A-Yi. “But I think this one comes pretty close.”

Xichen opens his mouth, and then closes it again; but Jingyi interrupts before he can say anything else, impatient to present his diedie’s gift from his baba.

“Now this one!” he shouts, diving into Xichen’s pocket for a small present in a wooden box, labeled with Jingyi’s name just like Nie Mingjue’s gift was. He all but shoves it into Mingjue’s hands, leaping up and down on the spot while he snaps the lid open--and then he screeches with delight as Nie Mingjue goes crashing to the floor, staring at the contents of the tiny box until his eyes blur over.

He had expected some kind of memento or trinket, like he usually gives to Xichen. But the box was so light, impossibly light--and it holds a pair of hand-knitted baby socks, set neatly on top of a black and white photograph with his husband’s name printed in the upper left corner.

Nie Mingjue has already been a father, already accompanied his husband through the endless doctors’ visits and checkups that came before Jingyi was born. He saved all of Jingyi’s ultrasound pictures, even the ones where A-Yi looked like a chubby white bean on the sonogram, and he stared at every photograph for so long that reading them comes as second nature to him.

"A-Huan,” he says, after a long pause. “Please tell me I’m not dreaming this.”

“You’re not,” Lan Xichen laughs, wiping Mingjue’s face. “I had my first doctor’s visit last week when you and A-Sang took Jingyi to the park. And the clinic ran a few blood tests just in case, so I already know it’s going to be a girl.”

“And you’re okay? Both of you?”

“Very okay, darling. I haven’t even had any morning sickness yet, and the baby’s perfectly healthy.”

Nie Mingjue only cries harder, at that; but Xichen is crying too, clasped in his arms while A-Yi climbs all over them, so perhaps it doesn’t really matter.

All in all, this is the sweetest father’s day he has ever had.

[antebunny]

Parent Trap AU 5

It’s a Parent Trap AU, plus on-the-run hacker!wwx and celebrity!lwj. Full series here.

-

At first, Lan Wangji finds writing songs to be extremely challenging.

He’s all but quit his job, and his son is gone. He’s alone in the house he once shared with his family, while his brother tries to keep quiet about pitying him and supporting him, and his uncle demands to know why he has no interest in searching for his son. He’s the one that files the kidnapping report, in the end. Not that it does much; they’re already searching for Wei Ying, since he escaped from prison.

All Lan Wangji really does, during this time, is cry by his piano, and sing.

The melodies come naturally to him. He’s been writing melodies for years, and these songs are no different. He has a thousand things to say, so some are angry, so fast he thinks he might tear his fingers on the guitar strings, some are soft with only piano accompaniment. All too soon he has dozens of recordings of phrases that can be put together into full-length songs. The only one he doesn’t record is the one he wrote for guqin, years ago.

But the lyrics, the lyrics he struggles with for ages. Not Lan Wangji finds himself at a loss for what to say. He doesn’t speak much, it’s true, but when he does he always finds precisely what he wants to say. Rather, Lan Wangji finds he has too much to say.

One Friday afternoon, he sits down on his couch and plays the same ten-minute ballad on his guitar, trying again and again to find a way to shorten it without feeling like he’s ripping a part of his already shattered heart out of his chest. While suppressing the urge to write more verses. He knows he can’t leave them all in; it’s too repetitive. He wants these songs to be good, though he doesn’t really plan on marketing them. A large part of him thinks it’ll always be like this. Just him and his instruments, alone in the living room, mourning over a love long lost, making himself cry over his own lyrics.

Still, Lan Wangji is a perfectionist at heart. He has to do something about the ten-minute ballad. It’s longer than two songs put together.

What if I made them two separate songs?

The thought comes to Lan Wangji suddenly, and he sets down his guitar to pick up the notebook containing the lyrics. This could work. He becomes convinced of this the longer he looks at the lyrics. He’ll never run out of things to say about Wei Ying, but if he separated each of those things into one song–that could work.

He chooses a different melody, edits the lyrics to fit it, picks out a theme, an aspect of Wei Ying to sing about, and suddenly he has a whole discography, and not a single published song.

Lan Wangji goes to his brother.

“Are you sure about this?” Lan Xichen asks, his brows pulled together in a small, worried dip.

“Mn.”

They stare at each other without speaking, because Lan Xichen knows that every concern he might think of, Lan Wangji has already over thought.

“Even if he hears them?”

Lan Wangji will never be famous enough that Wei Ying, wherever in the world he might be, will hear his songs. But if he does, then all the better. “Mn.”

Lan Xichen sighs. “I just don’t want to see you hurt anymore.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t think that’s possible. “Hm.”

Lan Xichen sighs again. “Okay,” he says. “If that’s what you want. I’m sure A-Yao knows someone. I’ll ask.”

It’s a while before he finds someone who’ll actually produce his music, but he’s happy with the person he ends up with. Luo Qingyang emails him back almost immediately after she listens to his demo.

I need you down here yesterday, she says. This is getting produced right now.

His first song, When We Were Young, is released as a single less than a year after the scandal that took Wei Ying from his life, under the stage name “Hanguang-jun.” He’s not sure it fits, but he wants to.

And suddenly, it looks like Lan Wangji might actually be that famous.

Of course, it’s still years in the future, so Lan Wangji carries on like he’s not. His second single, At First Glance, does even better than When We Were Young, and his manager starts bothering him about a music video. Apparently it’s expected of him, but Lan Wangji rejects all of the ideas that the directors Luo Qingyang finds for him come up with. They end up renting a house for a week and filming there, then going to a studio with lights and a piano. Lan Wangji dresses up for that and plays his heart out, and that’s it, that’s the music video.

His third single, Under Moonlight, is somehow more popular than his previous two combined. He has fans now, or maybe it’s just that he’s only now realizing it. He’s not quite sure what to do with that. The video this time takes place on the very bridge the song talks about. He doesn’t do much, since he rejected the idea of hiring actors to play the “counterpart,” so he’s confused as to why it continues gaining views on YouTube. Apparently he looks young. He’s not sure if this is insulting or not, but the internet would probably be shocked to learn he has a five-year-old son.

Lan Sizhui is too young to listen to music by himself, so Lan Wangji hopes that somewhere, there’s a radio playing one of the new hit songs by Hanguang-jun, and a father-son duo walking past.

Luo Qingyang bullies him into exactly one interview before his first album is released. On it, he accidentally confirms that all the songs on the album are about one person, and panics after that, not wishing to reveal anything about Wei Ying or even Lan Wangji’s own name on camera.

Apparently the mystery helps? Lan Wangji understands fame less and less the closer he comes to it. He thought if he just wrote good songs, enough people would listen to him that Wei Ying would hear it. Wei Ying is spotted in Thailand, and Lan Wangji ends up naming his first album Oceans Apart.

It sells, and it sells, and still, Wei Ying and their son are nowhere to be found.

-

Wei Wuxian is lying on a roof the night of his wedding anniversary.

Purple, white, and red fireworks explode in the black sky above him. There’s some celebration going on in the city, and Wei Wuxian takes advantage of it to pretend it’s in celebration of his anniversary.

Not that there’s much to celebrate. He doesn’t think it’s typical to celebrate the anniversary of a marriage which no longer exists, but their marriage didn’t end in the typical way either.

And he still loves Lan Zhan. Loves him so much that the sight of rabbits brings him to tears. So much that he feels like a traitor whenever someone so much as smiles in his direction, so much that he can’t imagine himself flirting with someone. So much that he cries on the roof when the fireworks light up the sky.

“Papa?”

Wei Wuxian looks to the right, and there’s Wei Sizhui, who is sometimes the only thing keeping Wei Wuxian going on his darkest nights. He’s nestled up with Wei Wuxian’s arm around him, small face peering earnestly at him from the dark. “What?”

“Why are you crying?”

Wei Wuxian raises one hand instinctively to rub the tears away. He’d forgotten about that. He’s thrown himself fully into caring for his son, making sure that he has clothes and good food to eat, which is hard when they never stay in a place for long and Wei Wuxian is paranoid of anyone who stares at them too long. Sometimes he wonders if he’s really doing any good, keeping Wei Sizhui away from his other father and uncles and aunts, from a happy childhood with friends and a school. And every time, he blinks back to the moment he woke up in the prison having narrowly avoided being murdered, and knows that Wei Sizhui is still safer with him than he’d be if he was still there, within the Jins reach.

“Nothing,” Wei Wuxian says. “It’s nothing.”

Wei Sizhui frowns. “But Papa is sad,” he declares.

Wei Wuxian presses the back of his hand over his eyes. Fireworks crack so loudly it muffles his shaky inhale. Tears stream down his cheeks and around his ears. Red lights flash across his eyelids.

-

White lights flash through the stage, focusing on the solitary grand piano, and Lan Wangji, in his white suit, seated on the piano bench. A hush falls across the massive crowd. He adjusts his microphone slightly, and places his fingers gently atop the keys. The cameras zoom in on him.

And Lan Wangji sings.

-

“I’m just remembering,” Wei Wuxian whispers. “Someone I used to know.”

“Is it Dad?” Wei Sizhui asks timidly.

Wei Wuxian inhales shakily again, then wraps his arm back around his son. “Yeah,” he admits. “It’s your other father.”

He hasn’t looked back since he ran away. Countless times, he’s thought about Googling the Jiangs in an internet cafe, just to check on how they’re doing. They have social media profiles, so he could. He could. But even the slightest hint of connection could ruin what Wei Wuxian has managed to salvage. The Jiangs would fight for him. Would drag their names in the mud for him, and he can’t let them do that to themselves, so he cuts all ties and doesn’t look back.

Wei Wuxian hasn’t dared to search Lan Wangji since he ran away.

-

“Hello,” Lan Wangji sings, and the crowd cheers.“It’s me. I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet, to go over everything. They say that time’s supposed to heal you, but I ain’t done much healing.”

Before he knows it, there’s tears streaming down his face. They drip onto his nice white suit, but the music doesn’t pause.

-

Hello from the other side

“Will we ever see him again?” Wei Sizhui asks plaintively.

I must have called a thousand times

Wei Wuxian tries to shake his head, his shoulders pressed against the dusty brick roof. “I don’t know, baby,” he says.

To tell you I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done

“But why not?” Wei Sizhui pushes. It’s far from the first time he’s asked, but each day it gets harder and harder to answer.

Hello from the outside

“Because he’s very, very far away,” Wei Wuxian replies this time, and tries not to think of Lan Zhan as he last saw him, sleeping peacefully in their bed the night Wei Wuxian broke in and took Wei Sizhui with him. “Oceans away.”

At least I can say that I tried

Eventually, the fireworks stop, and Wei Sizhui falls asleep, head resting in the crook of Wei Wuxian’s arm. Wei Wuxian raises one hand to the midnight sky, pretends he can reach through the vast expanse to wherever his family is. “Happy anniversary, Lan Zhan,” he whispers. “I miss you.”

To tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart

Eventually, the song ends, and the cheers deafen the stadium. The lights go out long after Lan Wangji has gotten up from his seat and stepped away from the microphone. The tears on his face are invisible until the cameras focus in on him walking.

“Happy anniversary, Wei Ying,” he whispers, before he picks up the microphone to thank the crowd. “I love you.”

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

The Sculptor

Chapter 5 - The Proposition

[Masterpost] [AO3]

-/-

“Wangji!” Wei Wuxian greets when Lan Wangji walks into the studio on an overcast Friday morning a few weeks into their arrangement. He’s taken to dropping Lan Wangji’s surname lately and though the man hasn’t returned the familiarity with him, he also hasn’t protested Wei Wuxian’s doing it so he doesn’t see a reason to stop. “I have a surprise for you!”

Lan Wangji, who Wei Wuxian now knows isn’t at all fond of surprises, turns an unimpressed glance on him over his shoulder as he shrugs out of his jacket at the door. It’s humid today, the heat and the oncoming storm that’s darkening the sky a sticky, oppressive weight in the air, but Lan Wangji is as put together as ever. No sweat stains under that suit jacket, not a hair out of place or frizzy with the extra moisture in the air. Wei Wuxian wishes he could say the same, but he’s already accepted by now that Lan Wangji is just incredible, and to compare himself to the other man is pointless. He’s peerless.

“What is it?” Lan Wangji finally asks when Wei Wuxian makes it clear that he’s not going to elaborate without prompting.

Actually, he won’t elaborate with prompting either. “I’m not telling you, that defeats the purpose of a surprise! Just come in and sit down, you’ll see.”

Wei Wuxian smiles in encouragement as Lan Wangji crosses the space warily, rolling his sleeves up with the expected mechanical precision as he settles in tentatively on the edge of his usual seat - and Wei Wuxian smiles wider to see surprise and then quiet pleasure register in Lan Wangji’s eyes. That’s where he keeps all his expressions, Wei Wuxian has learned. His eyes tell him everything he ever wants to know even if the rest of Lan Wangji’s face is still.

“Ta-da!! A proper sofa!” He’d covered the borrowed couch in the same canvas, draping fabrics, and pillows that had softened the bench so the swap wouldn’t be immediately obvious, but there’s no ignoring it once Lan Wangji can feel the difference between sitting on a slab of hardwood and sinking into a plush antique divan from Nie Huaisang’s stash of set-dressing furniture.

He’s pretty sure this particular sofa has been used multiple times as a fainting couch in Nie Huaisang’s dramas, his poor heroines languishing on it for entire monologues sometimes or even longer, so he’s hoping it’s comfortable enough for Lan Wangji to pose on for him. Of course he’d been far too polite to complain even once about the bench, but Wei Wuxian is happy to see that he already looks more comfortable than he has yet so far.

“I felt so bad for your poor back sitting on that bench! Sorry it took me so long to get this in here but my friend Nie Huaisang down at the performing arts center was still using it for a show until closing night on Wednesday.”

“Mn, no need to apologize. Thank you for the trouble.”

“No no, no trouble at all,” Wei Wuxian is quick to reassure with a smile that he quickly drops into a stern glare with a wagging finger to match. “But now that you can really get comfortable I expect to see you loosening up even more!”

“I will do my best.” Lan Wangji’s reply is entirely honest and earnest because he’s just Like That, so Wei Wuxian drops his stern act and shakes his head, smiling fondly.

“Aiyah, you always do, you always do. You’ve already improved so much since we started, you’re like a whole new man!”

“Mn. Did you speak with the client as you had hoped?” Lan Wangji asks as he slips his shoes off and lies down in his usual preferred pose, laid out devastatingly sort of on his side with one knee bent and his arm under his head, hair fanned out on the cushion behind him.

“I did, called him last night just before dinner time so he’d be under pressure to give me an answer,” Wei Wuxian laughs, pleased with his own cunning. Lan Wangji smiles at him, just the barest softening of his mouth and around his eyes.

“Did he?”

“Well to start off he said he wants it to be dramatic, as if that isn’t already a given! Not only because of the subject matter but it’s like he’s never even seen me before - I’m always dramatic!”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji looks at him out of the corner of his eye in the way that means he’s teasing and Wei Wuxian laughs as he chucks a balled up piece of paper in his general direction. 

“I meant my work is always dramatic, Wangji, don’t slight my character!”

“I would never.”

“Uh-huh.” Wei Wuxian snorts and focuses on getting set up to paint - he’s moved on from just sketching Lan Wangji to painting him in a variety of mediums, experimenting now with adjusting things as he goes to make sure he understands Lan Wangji’s figure and bearing enough to play around with composing his likeness in a more three-dimensional space.

“Did he have more direction than ‘dramatic’?” Lan Wangji prompts when Wei Wuxian is finished setting up his palette and has turned back to the sketch he finished yesterday in preparation.

“Oh! Yes, well, I told him that wasn’t exactly helpful because the entire story is dramatic, so we managed to get it narrowed down to two options from there. I told him then that which one we go with kind of depends on the space the piece will actually be in - no one wants to cram a seven-foot wide, reclining piece in a skinny little display alcove more suited to an upright figure, you know? So he said he’d take some measurements and get back to me.”

“Progress,” Lan Wangji says; his tone is dry enough to startle Wei Wuxian into loud laughter.

“Hey, it’s better than nothing! And with half the commission already paid I’ll drag my feet happily along while I wait for him to make a decision. Not my fault if the piece takes forever when he can’t seem to decide on what he wants to start with.”

“Mn.”

They settle then as Wei Wuxian starts working on the painting, muttering to himself every so often now that he knows Lan Wangji might be a quiet sort of person, but one who doesn’t mind listening to him if he feels the need to think out loud. He doesn’t usually work with oils when he paints, finicky and expensive things that they are, but something about Lan Wangji makes him want to use the very best of the best to capture him, so oils it is for today no matter how frustrating they get. 

“Wen Qing tells me others also work in this studio,” Lan Wangji says after a while, his voice low and relaxed.

“Wen Qing is correct,” Wei Wuxian replies, distracted. He sticks the brush in his hand between his teeth and snags the one from behind his ear to switch colors, and when he continues his voice is a little muffled around the handle in his mouth. “Two painters, real modern guys. They’re on the other side of the wall, though, this space’s all mine.”

“Modern?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how much you keep up with the art scene but there’s a lot of really interesting work happening right now, and those two want to ride the wave. Abstract stuff, all emotion! They light up before they start painting most of the time.” Lan Wangji frowns at him slightly in confusion when Wei Wuxian glances at him around the canvas and he bares his teeth in a wide grin, paintbrush still caught between them. “Weed, Wangji. Marijuana. They get high and paint whatever they feel in the moment.”

“Ah.”

He doesn’t bother to add that they’re both transsexuals who took him under their wing when he got to town and clocked him immediately as Family - somehow he doesn’t feel like buttoned-up classic lit Professor Lan Wangji is aware enough of the queer scene to be cool with that, no matter how sweent and kind he is.

“How is Wen Qing?” he asks after he’s switched back to lighter colors and can take the brush back out of his mouth. For his own sanity he doesn’t ask after Lan Wangji’s wife too often, but it’s the polite thing to do so he makes himself ask every once in a while.

“Well.” Thankfully Lan Wangji’s answers are usually brief and perfunctory, though it’s still clear that he’s fond of her. “We are hosting her brother and their young cousin this weekend.”

“Oh? That sounds like fun.”

“Mn. A-Yuan is three.”

“Yeah?” Wei Wuxian grins widely, thinking of fussy, gorgeous, put-together perfect Lan Wangji with a toddler sitting on his knees, prim and proper. “Three’s a cute age.”

Xianxian is three, he hears a much younger version of himself pouting to Jiang Yanli, her indulgent smile warm and safe in his memories. It pangs through him as thoughts of his former family always do, but he brushes the old, worn-out pain aside easily enough.

“You going to take him anywhere fun?” he asks to distract himself from the ghosts of his old life.

“He is in need of new clothing. I will take him shopping tomorrow.”

Every so often, Wei Wuxian catches himself wondering exactly what Lan Wangji’s relationship is actually like. He knows how most people’s marriages are (or seem to be) - and it usually makes him shudder just to think about. But something about the way Lan Wangji talks about his own marriage makes Wei Wuxian..curious. He can’t exactly imagine any of the other men he knows who are happily married taking a child out shopping for clothes, especially a child who isn’t their own. But Lan Wangji says it so easily, as if of course he’ll be the one to go with the boy, that Wei Wuxian only thinks to question it after a few long moments. Lan Wangji, for all his awkwardness in some respects, is confident enough to pull off lots of things that just wouldn’t work on others - his long hair that he wears down and free despite his ever-present (and charmingly old-fashioned) suits, for an easy example.

“I’m sure he’ll be excited to spend quality time with his Uncle Wangji.”

“Mn.”

They settle into their brand of quiet again after that, Lan Wangji watching him paint and Wei Wuxian muttering to himself (or to the paint to try to get it to cooperate) as he works steadily. His days with Lan Wangji are smooth and easy, so much more calming than any of his previous experiences with hiring a model, and though they still have just over two months to go, he finds himself dreading the end of the summer. Lan Wangji is a nice presence to be around, and Wei Wuxian has quickly started to consider the man one of his friends though he isn’t sure the sentiment is returned. It’s alright if it isn’t - Wei Wuxian has always been able to collect friends and casual acquaintances as easily as anything else, but he doesn’t expect anyone to give him affection back so easily.

“Listen, about next week-” Wei Wuxian starts when they’ve finished for the day and Lan Wangji is shrugging into his jacket again. He stiffens immediately in response to the nerves hovering under the surface of Wei Wuxian’s voice, so he tries to smile at Lan Wangji in a way that’s reassuring and not telegraphing a ‘please don’t kill me’ sort of energy. “Nothing bad! I just..I was thinking maybe it’s time we try getting you comfortable with getting undressed.”

Lan Wangji’s ears instantly turn bright red and his gaze is sharper on Wei Wuxian’s face as he studies him. This close it’s a little overwhelming in the best way possible, so Wei Wuxian meets his assessing stare head-on. “How do you propose to start?”

“Well, like I said before, it’ll be a process,” he says, referring to a conversation they’d had the week prior where Lan Wangji had tentatively broached the subject again, clearly nervous about the prospect. “I’m obviously not going to expect you to stand in the middle of the studio and get naked all at once-” Lan Wangji visibly blanches- “Right. Yeah. So - you’re already comfortable enough to take off your shoes, which is a good start. I’m thinking…barefoot and your shirt off? You can keep the undershirt on for now. Thoughts?”

Lan Wangji, bless him, truly considers the proposition, his expression thoughtful and serious as Wei Wuxian waits for his answer.

Finally, “It is a good start. Slow, as Wei Wuxian promised.”

“Wei Ying.” He doesn’t know why he says it. He doesn’t know why he blurts it out in a rush, but he absolutely knows why his cheeks immediately heat up. Lan Wangji looks at him curiously but without judgment - he’s good at that, not judging. It’s so nice of him. He’s so nice. “My ah…my family, when I was a kid? They were pretty traditional. My brother and I both got courtesy names and it’s..I use it professionally, mostly, but uh..My birth name is Wei Ying. If you want to use it. We might as well get less formal with each other, right? Considering what you’re here to do.”

Lan Wangji studies him closely for long, tense moments before something in his eyes and his posture relaxes infinitesimally and he nods, just once. “Wei Ying. My family is also traditional. Wangji is my courtesy name.” Wei Wuxian lights up at that, delighted for the tidbit about Lan Wangji’s personal life, small though it is. Especially when he adds, “My birth name is Zhan.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian tries immediately and finds that he likes it very much - it’s sharp around the edges in his accent, but softer in the middle. Just like Lan Zhan! Wei Wuxian thinks to himself with glee for the silly comparison. “I like it!”

“Mn. I will see you Monday morning, Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji promises, and then he turns to go. The storm that’s been brewing all day hasn’t broken yet, and so Wei Wuxian stands in the doorway to the studio in the premature evening gloom and hopes that Lan Wangji makes it home before the clouds make good on their threat of a torrential downpour.

[bxcketbarnes]

Lover of Mine

if you know who posted this gif can some send it to me so I can credit them?? I can't find the post 😭

Pairing: Ashton Irwin x Reader

Words: 1300+

Author's Note: I got such an angsty vibe from this gif that I wrote this up! It's heartbreaking but it has a happy ending, of course. I hope y'all enjoy xox

"God! Why are you being such an asshole!?" You yell at Ash while pacing in his living room as he stays seated on the couch, watching you.

"You just let some random guy flirt with you tonight?! How the fuck am I just supposed to stay calm?!" He yells back while throwing his hands into the air.

You look at him with wide eyes, not believing the words that came from his mouth. "Because you're supposed to trust me, Ash! Did you ever think that I can handle it? That I can dismiss a guy flirting with me because I'm in love with you?!" You exclaim and let out a scoff. Tears pool in your eyes as you run a hand through your hair. "Ashton… I don't know how much of the fighting I can handle. It's been nonstop with you."

Ashton looks up at you, his heart beating wildly in his chest and he pushes himself off the couch. "Baby, hold on," he starts and walks over to you. "I-I'm sorry. It's been a rough week at the studio and then shit was happening with my ex… I took my anger out on you. I'm sorry. Please."

He begs and starts to reach for you when you move away from him. "I'm sorry, but I need a break," you whisper to him and his heart rips in two. "I love you, I really do."

"Then don't leave," Ashton mumbles and feels a tear slide down his cheek.

"I have to. I'm hurting, Ash. I've cried myself to sleep so many times this week and I can't take it anymore," you inform him, squeezing his forearm.

"Will… will you come back?" He whispers, his voice cracking slightly and you look up at him through your lashes.

"Maybe," you mumble while shrugging your shoulders. You sigh and lean on your toes, pressing a delicate kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I love you."

"I love you, too. So much," Ash mutters and closes his eyes as you move away from him. You hold in the sobs as you grab a few of your things before heading out the door, looking back at him one last time. You swallow thickly and walk out the front door, softly closing it behind you.

Ashton stands in the middle of his living room, running his hands through his black hair as sobs leave his lips. "God damnit!" He yells and tosses one of the pillows across the room, letting out a deep sigh.

-

It's been about two weeks since you broke it off with Ashton and neither of you has been doing well since. The boys were currently streaming with Amazon Music on twitch and Ash has been trying to stay focused, but his mind seems to be elsewhere.

You watched the stream while biting your nails, not really looking at anyone but Ashton. Your best friend comes into the room, her eyes glancing back and forth between you and the tv. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Bri asks and you dart your eyes towards hers.

"I just… miss him," you mumble and fiddle with your fingers. She sighs and plops down beside you. "I know it's my fault I left him in the first place, but I was hurting. He was hurting me. I regret not working things out."

The brunette rubs your back as tears stream down your cheeks. You notice Ashton's hazel eyes aren't as bright as they used to be. Ashton plays with a pen that sits on his desk, his eyes looking over the chat as Calum tells the story of how they met Andy.

Where's Y/N?!

How come Y/N hasn't checked up on Ash? She usually does.

Tell Y/N to come on screen!

Ashton reads all the comments talking about his ex-girlfriend. Is she even an ex? Are the two of you still together? His Adam's Apple bobs in his throat before rubbing his chin.

"I'll be right back, guys," Ashton mutters into his microphone and your heart drops at the cracks in his voice.

The boys eye him, a concerned expression on each of their faces as Ashton gets up from his chair and walks away. He steps into the bathroom and shuts the door before breaking down. The black-haired man takes deep breaths while leaning his hands against the sink.

"I think you should go over there and talk to him," Bri comments as you wait for Ash to come back. It's been about seven minutes since he walked off camera and you'd be lying if you said you weren't worried. "He obviously regrets what happened as well. You two need to make up."

You nod your head in agreement, your heart pounding against your chest as you stand up from her couch. "You're right," you whisper and Bri scoffs, shaking her head.

"Of course I'm right. I'm always right," she mentions and you let out a tiny laugh.

You grab your car keys off of the table before heading out her door. You take a few deep breaths while walking to your car, feeling the nervousness catching up to you.

Ashton comes back out after about fifteen minutes and slowly sits down in his chair. The boys halt the conversation they were having upon seeing the drummer come back into view. Ash gives them a sad smile while pushing some hair out of his face.

"Sorry about that. I-" he pauses and clears his throat before continuing, "I saw a couple of comments about Y/N and kinda had a breakdown."

Calum gives his brother a sympathetic smile, his heart hurting for the man over the loss of his girl. "It's alright, man. It's only been two weeks. You're allowed to be hurt," he exclaims and Ashton nods his head slowly.

"So, for you all that don't know… Y/N and I are-" he starts but gets cut off by rapid knocks on his front door. Ash furrows his eyebrows together, wondering who could be standing outside his door. "Be right back."

You can do this. You can do this. You can do this. You think to yourself over and over as you wait for Ashton to answer his door. You run your fingers through your hair, letting out a huff of breath as you start to think this isn't a great idea. Just as you were about to turn around and head back to Bri's, the front door creaks open.

Your breath hitches in your throat as Ashton stands in front of you, a confused look on his face. "Y/N…?" He trails off and the tears are already pooling in your eyes. You lunge forward, wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

Ashton stumbles a bit, his arms immediately wrapping themselves around your waist. He closes his eyes and inhales your scent, missing having you in his arms. "I'm so sorry. We're both hurting because of me and I regret what I did so much," you mumble into his neck as you were gripping his shirt.

"It's okay, baby, it's okay. I don't blame you," he whispers and places a soft kiss to your shoulder.

You flutter your eyes shut as your fingers card through his dark hair. "Can you forgive me?" You ask him and he pulls away from you, a gentle smile on his lips. "Will you still take me back?"

Ashton strokes your cheek with his thumb. "Of course I will. I've been a mess without you," he breathes out and you let out a sigh of relief, resting your forehead against his.

"I love you," you whisper and Ash lifts your chin up to press a kiss to your lips.

"I love you too. Now, c'mon," he smiles and motions for you to come inside. You nod your head, intertwining your fingers with his as you follow the black-haired man inside.

-

Taglist: @everyscarisahealingplace​ @galcalirwin​ @myloverboyash​ @sexgodashton​ @h0tsos​ @mysticalhood​ @gigglyirwin​ @maluminspace​ @frontmanash​ @philthepegacorn​ @talkfastromance4​ @itsasadfishworld​ @tea4sykes​ @thebookamongmen​ @bloodmoonashton​ @creator-appreciator​ @g-l-pierce​ @abb-lan-5sos​

[curiosity-killed]

evidence of a lost past part 5

chronologically after 1 & 2 and a bit before 4

fun fact of the day: Hua Cheng’s dancing to Lover’s Tears as performed by the Shanghai Conservatory Symphony bc it’s one of my favorite lazy improv songs

story tag

By the time seven comes around, Xie Lian’s legs are trembling with fatigue and his hair’s plastered to his forehead and nape. Winding lazily out of a renversé, he drops his arms and exhales. He feels...worn, gently pummeled like a sock in a washer or a stone along the riverbank. It’s been a while since he used his body like this—even these last few weeks of borrowing Hua Cheng’s studio have been more about relearning how to move at all, retracing the lines of the technique he’s let fall by the wayside.

Now, for the first time in a long time, he feels like he’s properly danced. The feeling buoys up in his chest, bright and a little heady. It still feels funny to break the rules he grew up with, to blend classical lines and break up languid adagio flows to hit the ground, but the way it leaves his body feeling exhausted and satisfied makes it hard to resist.

He takes a few minutes to stretch properly, working down from his neck to his feet and closing off with a short round of abs before he shrugs his sweatshirt back on, picks up his shoes by their heels, and goes to find Hua Cheng.

He’s lured up the stairs by the arching strains of strings and the low rumble of piano underneath. Wandering to the upper studio, he finds himself swaying absently to the three-four time as if the music itself is drawing him into a waltz. He hums softly along and turns the corner off the stairs to find the studio door propped open. Here, the music swells so loudly he can nearly feel it buffeting his body like ocean waves. He comes to a halt at the door.

Hua Cheng is alone inside, a single lean figure in the half-light of the studios. Only two of the four rows of fluorescent lights are on, and they form dim lines like walls of silk strings through which Hua Cheng weaves as precisely and deftly as if he were the shuttle, the hand shaping the cloth.

The choreography is some Xie Lian has seen before—today, even. On Hua Cheng, though, it is a wholly different creature than when He Xuan performed the same steps. He Xuan is a capable dancer, with strong technique, but it’s abruptly clear that he’s a younger dancer with less experience than Hua Cheng. Where He Xuan maintained the extended balances with a tight jaw and stiff shoulders and dropped from them gratefully, Hua Cheng suspends on the ball of his foot, drawing it out and slowing his extension till it seems he’s pushing the music, curving the song’s fermatas and languid sweeps.

In time with the trills and high ornamentation, he flicks through hand gestures in rapid succession while his legs sweep rond de jambs into a light leap off his left hand. The motion rolls him back up to the start, into the sequence that begins the entire pas de deux: a heavy step to the side, the sway of loose arms carrying him into a spin.

At this point in the piece, the dancer never looks to the downstage left corner, like it’s bad luck or a persistent blind spot. When He Xuan danced it this afternoon, the choreography had seemed awkward, the missing corner too self-conscious. Watching Hua Cheng now, though, Xie Lian’s heart aches. Hua Cheng pours himself into the movement, every reach a desperate plea, every sharp twist furious rejection. Standing in this absent corner, where Shi Qingxuan is to enter, Xie Lian suddenly understands why Hua Cheng has been so insistent about the facing. He bites the inside of his lip at the familiar welling of grief that laps at the insides of his ribcage.

Hua Cheng presses into a suspension with his leg nearly to his ear before dropping into a double turn as rushed and frantic as a hurricane. He stops sharply, finally facing the corner as his leg stretches back in an exquisite arabesque, his arms reaching forward as if begging an indifferent god. His gaze sweeps up and then catches on Xie Lian. Freezing, his eye goes wide, and he stumbles forward half a step, falling out of the final pose.

“Ah, I’m sorry, San Lang,” Xie Lian says, suddenly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Hua Cheng shakes his head even as he rubs the back of his neck. Wiping his hand on his thigh, he gives a small shrug.

“Gege is always welcome,” he says, a little breathless. “I was just surprised.”

His hair’s coming loose from the ponytail, hanging in hanks around his face. With his t-shirt and bright eye, he looks softer than usual, and Xie Lian is briefly possessed by the inexplicable urge to hug him.

“Ah, it looks very beautiful, San Lang,” he says instead before pausing. He drags his bottom lip between his teeth before adding, “I think I see why you were dissatisfied in rehearsal.”

“Oh?”

Raising an eyebrow, Hua Cheng tilts his head to the side in open curiosity, and Xie Lian flusters. He’s still not used to such sincere consideration, to having his words listened to with such care. He scratches his cheek.

“Mn,” he says. “It’s just—you choreographed it with a more experienced dancer in mind, didn’t you?”

Hua Cheng blinks at him once, and Xie Lian mentally goes over his words before flushing. His hands fly up, trying to wave off the offense, and he nearly clocks himself in the face with his shoe.

“No, no, I don’t mean it like that! He Xuan is definitely experienced, too, and plenty capable,” he says in a rush. “Of course he’s a very skilled dancer—all of them—”

A laugh escapes Hua Cheng, and he crosses the space between them with two easy strides. Catching Xie Lian’s hand, he smiles at him. Although there’s amusement in his look, it doesn’t feel like he’s laughing at Xie Lian. It just feels—fond. Warm.

“Gege, it’s alright,” he says. “If you say it’s so, then He Xuan must really just be a useless upstart.”

The teasing edge to his tone is enough to cut through Xie Lian’s fluster, but he groans and buries his face in his free hand at the shameless teasing.

“San Lang,” he mumbles.

Hua Cheng laughs, bright and irresistible, and gives Xie Lian’s hand a gentle squeeze before letting go.

“Anyway, gege’s right,” he says, stepping back slightly and tugging the elastic out of his hair. “I didn’t choreograph it with He Xuan in mind.”

His hair falls to his shoulders, a little rumpled and wavy from being up, and briefly hides his face. As he drags his fingers back through the crown to retie it, Xie Lian cants his head and considers him. He Xuan is the most experienced of Hua Cheng’s dancers, along with Shi Qingxuan. Lan Chang is older, of course, but from what she’s said, she only dances for fun and to teach now. It would take months for her to build back the strength and stamina needed to perform.

“Why don’t you do it?” he asks.

Hua Cheng startles, looking up in surprise. Tightening the elastic, he dips his head a moment before shoving his ponytail over his shoulder to hang in a long line down his back.

“Ah, it’s silly. You’ll laugh,” he says.

“Noo,” Xie Lian insists, grinning. “I promise I won’t laugh at you.”

Looking at him a moment, Hua Cheng narrows his eye, but his lips press together like he’s suppressing a smile. He looks briefly skyward and takes a breath, losing his fight with the smile. Parting his lips, he draws breath to speak before pausing and letting it out in a quiet exhale as he settles his hands on his hips.

“Well. It’s a pas de deux,” he says, like that’s the end of it.

Xie Lian pauses, pressing his lips together and tilting his head. When no more is forthcoming, he can’t help the snigger that escapes him, and Hua Cheng shoots him a betrayed look.

“You said you wouldn’t laugh,” he chides, but there’s no heat behind it.

“I’m not, I’m not!” Xie Lian says, holding up his hands. “It’s just—you really dislike dancing with someone else so much?”

It’s not that Xie Lian would blame him, exactly: as skilled as his company dancers are, Hua Cheng is exceptional. Even with Lan Chang in the peak of her career or He Xuan at his finest moments, the pairing would still be unequal.

“Not exactly,” Hua Cheng hedges. He presses the toes of his left foot into the floor, arching the foot into an absentminded stretch. “It’s just—the one I thought of when I was choreographing isn’t an option. So to dance it with anyone else—they really can’t compare at all.”

Oh. Xie Lian swallows, startled by the sincerity of the explanation. That really isn’t anything to laugh about. He hesitates, chewing at his bottom lip and sneaking a glance up at Hua Cheng. This person Hua Cheng thought of—if Xie Lian ever knew them, they’ve been lost to time. The knowledge weighs like a stone anchor deep in the pit of his chest, but he tries to swallow it down. He’s being presumptuous, really. He shouldn’t make so many assumptions.

“Ah, then maybe we could figure out how to make it work for He Xuan and Qingxuan together,” he offers, tentative.

Hua Cheng’s expression softens, the hesitance fading into a gentle and welcoming warmth. Nodding his head decisively, he smiles.

“Gege has the best ideas,” he praises. “Where should we start?”

Setting his shoes and bag down by the wall, Xie Lian draws in a breath and steps more fully into the room. It’s not for him, to be lit up on the stage with hundreds of eyes glued to every articulation of his hands and feet—but maybe he can still help Hua Cheng, if only by being a second set of eyes.

“Ah, the a la seconde turn that turns into a tilt?” he suggests. “The floor sequence after that seemed to give He Xuan some trouble.”

Hua Cheng nods and rolls his shoulders once before moving back into the center of the space. Starting a few steps ahead, he glides through the movements as naturally and confidently as if they were the only way his body knows to move, as if fit to his long limbs by the finest of tailors. Xie Lian offers advice and suggestions where he thinks they might better shape the choreography to He Xuan’s own movement, but it seems a quiet kind of betrayal.

Watching Hua Cheng dance, Xie Lian doesn’t want to see the piece altered or made for another. He wants to see it like this, like it was meant to be, with Hua Cheng alone in the thin light and the corner empty, open, waiting.

[tangledinmdzs]

colored canvas - junior quartet hcs

a requested continuation to this reaction where you find out that the juniors have sneaked a peak at your drawings~

Lan Sizhui ∞༺♥༻✧

“you weren’t supposed to seee that” you whine out 

Sizhui barely has time to put the picture back to where it belongs when he hears you bounding up behind him,

you lean over his shoulder and sigh close to his ear before taking the small paper into your hands over his shoulder

Sizhui turns around with you

there’s a bit of guilt on his face

but well, 

when you’re pouting up at him like that, he can’t really help but feel anything other than love

“i’m sorry, it just...happened to be there”

“you liar, i kept it in my folder, how’d you know where to look,” you tell him and Sizhui laughs awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck

“okay, i was looking for it, but only because you hide your talent from me all the time,”

you shake your head at him and stick out your tongue though there’s a light blush on your cheeks at his words

Lan Jingyi ∞༺♥༻✧

Jingyi now, has been unnaturally curious about your work

before, when he would have catch you doodling or sketching quietly, he wouldn’t really notice what you were doing

yet now,

whenever you pull out your pencil and open your book

Jingyi just goes super still

and very obviously tries to look at what you’re doing

it’s cute

but it’s also slightly infuriating

because you love drawing people for the candid aspect of it

not because they knew they were being drawn

so now you draw around him a lot less

actually just draw him, personally, a lot less

because he always acts so weird around you now

like just now, when he was sipping his coffee next to you on the shop by the window

and the sunlight was hitting the edge of his hair and face just right

and you pulled out your sketchbook to draw him

you’ve barely done a rough sketch before you look up the second time and meet his eyes

and you sigh

“do you get bothered whenever i try to draw you?” you ask

Jingyi nearly spits out his drink at your response, though you think the reaction is a bit overdone

“no, not- not at all” Jingyi says, bluffs

“then why do you always look at me whenever i draw you? you didn’t used to do that...” you reply

and Jingyi purses his lips about to say something when he hears you mumble,

“this is why i don’t let you see my sketches,” 

“you knew that i saw?” Jingyi asks quickly and you roll your eyes at him

“of course, you’re the worst liar ever,” you comment and go back to sketching out something else on your book

and Jingyi splutters, but well he can’t deny the truth

Jin Ling ∞༺♥༻✧

Jin Ling has gotten better at sneaking peaks, after the first time

since it’s been a good three months since he’d realized that he’s your muse

and also a good two months since he started, sneaking glances around in your very private sketch book

you haven’t realized that he did

and he honestly thought that he would be able to get away with it forever

that is, when you’re studying together

and he had thought that you went to the bathroom

and had picked up the book to look

and now is caught red handed

your reaction mildly scares him

because

you take it as a serious violation of your privacy (which it is)

even though Jin Ling’s seen you draw plenty of times

“i’ve seen you draw plenty of time, what’s wrong with now?” he’d try to rebuff but you glare at him

you tuck your beloved sketchbook into your arms and make leave

Jin Ling’s frightened;

did he anger you

“y/n-” Jin Ling tries

“this is different,” you tell him, though you hide most of your face away from his sight

so he can’t see the bright bright red of embarrassment that’s high on your cheekbones

which he’ll probably mistake as like anger or something because Jin Ling can’t read emotions really well

ahh, you’d probably still be able to hide the crush that you had on him at this rate.

Jin Ling tries to talk to you again, but you’ve already run away

Ouyang Zizhen ∞༺♥༻✧

you tend to like to draw in solitude

just you and the canvas

since you had your own studio

that was usually the case most of the time

almost all of the time, because if you knew that someone was watching you draw it would always be harder for you to draw

and you don’t really expect anyone to be there when you’re working on your craft

because whenever your hands find the brush and your eyes begin to match colors

it’s like the rest of the world fades away into the white canvas that you’re painting on top of

so if Zizhen hadn’t uttered the deepest of ‘woah’s, 

you probably wouldn’t have even realized that he’d come into the studio

“Zizhen,” you say, once you’ve turned around at the random sound of his voice

he’d walk towards you slowly, eyes really taking in the scenic picture that you’re painting of a garden

he looks... intrigued,

“i didn’t hear you come in,” you tell him, fixing up some of your brushes

“i’ve been here,” he tells you, honestly and you whip your head over to him

“been here? the whole time?” you ask, surprised

Zizhen hums, leans close to the painting (and you) to get a closer look

“you’re truly, an artist” he compliments you

and you’ve never ever had anyone call you that

even though you were quite established in the arts field

but it never really meant much what anyone else said

it meant the world from Zizhen

[tiptoe39]

the time i kissed you

Reposting this because the LJ-cut didn’t work the first time.The prompt was “give me an AU and I’ll give you the first kiss for that AU,” wangxian, childhood friends, by @notenoughgatorade.

Disclaimer: feel free to think of this in america if i say a thing that wouldn’t happen in china, it’s a little kissy ficlet, chill out. props to @hils79 for the bunny!

2nd disclaimer: the LJ-cut doesn’t seem to be working for me so I apologize for the long post!

“Lan Zhan, do you remember the time I kissed you?”

Lan Zhan stops. Of course he remembers. He didn’t think Wei Ying remembered.

It’s their last night as college students. Tomorrow, they graduate, and it’s a whole new world. For tonight, they sit on the roof and drink. Well, Wei Ying drinks. Lan Zhan sits, and looks at Wei Ying, and yearns.

They’ve been talking about childhood memories. Playing in the back hills of Cloud Recesses in the snow. Trying, and failing, to smoke cigarettes when they were thirteen. Their field trip to the zoo as fifth graders, when Jin Zixuan threw up on the way back. And now … this.

He plays dumb. “You kissed me?”

“Oh, of course you don’t remember it!” Wei Ying laughs. “We were tiny. In first grade, we had, I guess it was a playdate? Our uncles took us to a park. There was a dog off its leash and I ran screaming. Don’t look at me like that, Lan Zhan, the dog was huge and I was six. Anyway, you got all angry and chased it off, and I was so happy and for some reason I had in my head that kissing someone was the best way to thank them, so I just popped one on your mouth.”

Lan Zhan puts a finger to his lips, remembering. The taste of it. The way Wei Ying had looked at him with those big, tear-filled eyes. The resolution that formed in his heart, with the certainty of childhood and more: I will always protect him.

And he has. Whenever Wei Ying has needed him, he has been there. He hid with Wei Ying in the forest the night Wei Ying ran away from home. In high school, he eased Wei Ying’s broken heart when the first girl he liked didn’t like him back. He lent him notes for tests, walked him home when he missed the last bus, helped him write his college admissions essay. Even came to this school, to be close to him. Just in case Wei Ying needed him.

Tomorrow all that might disappear. Wei Ying’s determined to move to the big city, make his living as an artist. Lan Zhan has obligations back at home. He’s invited Wei Ying to come back and live there; there’s plenty of room for him, even studio space, but Wei Ying is resolute. No, he wants to be where all the action is. He wants it more than he wants Lan Zhan and that’s just the way it is. The way it’s always been.

“The dog wasn’t that big,” Lan Zhan says.

“So you do remember!” Wei Ying turns to him with wide, sparkling eyes. “I was six,” he adds peevishly, “all dogs were big.”

“I was six too,” Lan Zhan reminds him. Wei Ying grumbles.

“Anyway! I think that’s the day we became best friends, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

Wei Ying is flushed with the alcohol, and boldly, he scoots closer to Lan Zhan on the rooftop. “I should give you another kiss,” he says.

Lan Zhan’s heartbeat quickens. “Why?”

“As a thank-you!” Wei Ying. “You’ve been my best friend for so long, and I couldn’t have gotten here without you. Come here, Lan Zhan.” He slings an arm around him and presses his lips into an exaggerated pucker. “Let me lay one on you.”

Lan Zhan dodges. “Stop it,” he says. “You’re drunk.”

“So what? I’m always drunk. Doesn’t make me love you any less. Come on now, Lan Zhan, kiss me back. You should say thank-you to me, too!”

“For what?” Lan Zhan has to dodge another attack, as Wei Ying darts in to try to catch his mouth.

“For all the fun you’ve had with me all these years! Admit it, without me you’d be locked up studying all day and night. I got you in trouble for the first time, and it was the best thing to ever happen to you. Come on, thank me.”

Lan Zhan holds him at arm’s length. The warmth of him seeps into his hands, goes rushing up through his arms, makes his heart swell uncomfortably. “I’m not kissing you to say thank-you,” he insists.

“Then sit still and let me thank yo–oohh!” Lan Zhan dodges a final time, and loses his grip on Wei Ying, who goes sprawling across the roof tiles. He scrambles to get his bearings and grabs Lan Zhan’s shirt; Lan Zhan gasps as he loses his balance and falls over Wei Ying. He grabs the nearest thing he can find, which is Wei Ying’s waist, and just manages to keep from smashing their heads together.

So now here they are, Wei Ying lying on the roof on his back, with Lan Zhan over him, a breath away. Wei Ying won’t stop laughing. “Now you should definitely kiss me,” he says. “This is too good, this is like you see in the movies. You fell on top of me, now you have to kiss me. That’s the rule.”  

Lan Zhan fights for reason. “What rule?”

Wei Ying loops his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck. “The rule I just made up,” he says. “The rule that says if we lie like this, we have to–” Suddenly he cranes upward, trying to reach Lan Zhan’s lips. Lan Zhan pulls away, but Wei Ying still has him in a loose grip, and he can’t sit up or get away.

“Stop it.” Lan Zhan scowls down at him. His temperature is rising and his patience is fraying.

“Why? Is it that you don’t want to kiss me?” Wei Ying is still laughing. “Lan Zhan, don’t tell me it’s that you don’t want to kiss me. I promise my alcohol breath isn’t that bad. I’m only tipsy! Come on, pucker up.”

“No.”

“You’re being difficult!” Wei Ying yanks with both hands, pulls Lan Zhan’s head close. “Why can’t you just say thank-you like we did when we were six?”

“If I kiss you,” Lan Zhan warns, “it won’t be a thank-you.”

Wei Ying blinks, for once out of words. His lips go slack and his hands let go of their grip. If Lan Zhan moves now, he could get free, go back inside, get some distance and some sanity back.

He could. It’d be the wisest thing to do.

Instead, he kisses him.

His mouth comes down on Wei Ying’s with the suppressed passion of years and years spent wanting. It’s the last night of college and Lan Zhan might never see him again and he needs this now, to take one thing for himself, after years of giving and giving. He kisses Wei Ying greedily, grazing his teeth over Wei Ying’s lips, licking them apart.

Even with everything, all the pent-up frustration, if Wei Ying resisted for even a moment, Lan Zhan knows he would scramble back, apologize, and leave him alone. But Wei Ying isn’t pushing him away. No, Wei Ying is kissing back, one hand tangled in Lan Zhan’s hair, the other on his shoulder, pulling him closer. Wei Ying’s tongue licks at his, and he moans, Wei Ying moans, and the sound sends a red flare of heat down through Lan Zhan’s whole body.

He’s kissing back like he wants this. Like he’s wanted this since before. But Lan Zhan can’t be that lucky, can he?

He stops, pulls up, looks down at Wei Ying. His mouth is pink from kisses and bites, his eyes steady.

“You could have told me, Lan Zhan,” he says, running a hand through Lan Zhan’s hair. “You could have told me years ago.”

Lan Zhan shakes his head. “I couldn’t.”

“So shy.” Wei Ying tsks gently. His smile is small, understated for a man who often grins big as a planet, but it’s there. “Do you know how much time we’ve wasted? We should have been doing this in high school.”

“I–” Lan Zhan can’t get hold of his thoughts. “Then you–”

“Lan Wangji, you obtuse idiot,” Wei Ying says, “I’ve been in love with you since middle school.”

Lan Zhan can only stare.

“All through high school, your name over and over on the margins of my notes,” Wei Ying goes on. “Daydreaming about dancing with you at prom. So afraid you’d run off to another college without me. Wet dreams, Lan Zhan, the wet dreams!” He laughs, that wide smile back where it belongs.

“Then why didn’t you–?”

“Me? You were Lan Zhan! You were the straight-A student who had too much studying to do! I was lucky to get you out of your house for an hour! Everyone knew I was dragging you down. How could I demand any more of you than you already gave me? I knew I didn’t deserve you.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says. They’re the only words he can get out out.

Wei Ying’s eyes shine as he looks up. “My beautiful Lan Zhan,” he murmurs. He trails a finger along the line of Lan Zhan’s jaw. “Please accept this kiss as a thank-you for everything you’ve done for me all my life.” He leans up, pecks Lan Zhan on the mouth once, and lies back down.

Lan Zhan’s eyes brim with tears. “And this kiss is my thank you to Wei Ying.” He gives Wei Ying an answering peck. They smile at each other in the moonlit night.

“And this kiss,” Wei Ying says, “and every other kiss from now on, is because I love you.”

He pulls Lan Zhan down again.

[bettydice]

I didn’t expect you to be lonely (too)

Xicheng, Modern AU, JC&WWX reconciliation, E-Rated

Chapter 1

When Jiang Cheng opens the window in the morning, crisp, cold air hits his face. The leaves on the tree in the courtyard of the apartment complex are turning colours.

When did that happen? When did summer end?

It’s a new semester, a new season, and Wei Wuxian still hasn’t returned. Hasn’t called, hasn’t messaged. Jiang Cheng had thought… had hoped…

He should’ve known better.

The wind picks up and raises goosebumps on his skin. A leaf, dark red, is torn from a branch and flutters through the air.

He used to like autumn.

Jiang Yanli was spring, Wei Wuxian was summer, Jiang Cheng was autumn. Winter was them together, because it was cold and they had to stick close.

Jiang Cheng scoffs and closes the window. There’s no use in remembering or hoping. He has work to do anyway.

He makes himself an unsatisfying breakfast that consists of instant coffee and - oh, there isn’t really anything else. Of course the fridge is fucking empty.

He goes jogging, but he’s hungry and it’s cold and he hates jogging.

He takes a shower, but the water is either too hot or too cold.

When he sits down at his desk and opens his writing program, it doesn’t fucking work. Because of course not.

Error #234871FUCKYOUJIANGCHENG

“I don’t even know what that means, I’m not a fucking COMPUTER SCIENTIST!”

Like some people. Some people, who betrayed and abandoned him and moved in with some random-ass people to look after a random-ass child for no good reason and left him all alone. Now he has no one to share his meals with, so there’s no point in making sure his fridge is full, and no one who also hates jogging, so they can suffer together, and no one to fucking help him with fucking computer issues and this is all fucking bullshit.

Jiang Cheng slams his laptop shut.

Fuck you, Wei Wuxian. This is all your fault.

Another headache creeps up his temples. He’s already completely done with this day. At 9:37 AM. Fuck. He has a fucking essay to write about some bullshit topic he doesn’t care about, but how is he supposed to do that when his laptop hates him as much as everyone else does and his head feels as though it’s splitting apart?

His phone rings, and the sound feels like someone is applying a power drill to his brain. And of course it’s not on his desk but far away on the counter. Because nothing in his life can ever be easy or convenient, oh no. He stretches his arm and then his whole upper body to try to grab it from the counter without having to get up from his desk and then there’s a TWINGE and oh no, that’s not good. His shoulder feels as though it’s on fire and… yep, he can’t fucking move his head.

FUCK. FUCKING FUCK SHIT BALLS CRAP FUCK SHIT. FUUUUUUUUCK.

And his phone keeps ringing.

Everyone ignores him for DAYS but NOW when he’s literally DYING and can’t reach his phone, they want to talk to him.

He gets up, ignores the pain shooting down his right arm, carefully shuffles towards the counter, and answers the phone with his left hand.

“WHAT?”

“A-Cheng?”

It’s his sister. Jiang Cheng’s stress levels automatically lower by about 13% as soon as he hears her voice.

“Jiejie, hey. Sorry, I just…” He switches his phone to the other hand and then gets a painful reminder that this side is fucked. “Fuck, ow.”

“A-Cheng? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing! I just... pulled a muscle or something.” He sits down again and bites his lip to suppress a wail of agony. “Why did you call, Jiejie?”

He can basically hear Jiang Yanli’s gentle, slightly concerned, smile through the phone. “Ah, then I’m calling just at the right time. You’ve been struggling with tension for a while now and as you know, your birthday is coming up and -”

“Don’t remind me. That’s still over a month away. And I’m not struggling!”

“- and I have the perfect gift for you. You don’t have to wait until November to do it either. And I think it would be so good for you, A-Cheng, especially now with your pulled muscle.”

“And what exactly is ‘it’?”

“Do you remember Lan Xichen? He’s a friend of Nie Mingjue, and his uncle is Lan Qiren. I think we met him a few times during one of those large business-people dinners we used to get invited to, when father…”

Was still alive.

“I don’t remember anyone I met there, because I was bored out of my mind.” Because Wei Wuxian wasn’t invited to those. And because they were fucking boring. “What does this have to do with my mysterious birthday present anyway?”

“Ah, well, it turns out he works as a physical therapist and I guess you could call him a sort of life coach. Massages, yoga, meditation, physical therapy. He has his own little studio in his apartment, so it’s very private and intimate, and he spends a lot of time with every client, it’s not just a twenty minute massage and then you’re done.”

His sister speaks with rare urgency and Jiang Cheng feels a little bewildered by having this just thrown at him. “So, you want me to-”

“I met him recently, such a lovely man, and asked him whether he had time to take on another client, and he does! So I booked you ten sessions and the first one is Thursday, 5 p.m. We were going to meet that afternoon, so I know you have time, and we can just reschedule our meeting!”

“Jiejie! Ten sessions… I don’t… I’m not a massage person! I don’t want some stranger touching me!” This is all really very sudden, so of course his first instinct is to say no.

His sister, of course, is used to that, and expected it. So she laughs softly and continues convincing him. “Ah, but he’s not a stranger, he’s Nie Mingjue’s best friend and as I said, I met him recently - he’s very kind and sweet and he doesn’t just do massages. I’m sure he’ll be willing to listen to what you’re comfortable with and figure out what’s best for you. A-Cheng, why don’t you just go to the first meeting and see what happens, hm? It’s my present for you.”

As if he could ever actually say no to his sister. Nobody can.

“Alright, alright. But if it’s not my thing, you’ll use the rest of the sessions, okay? I could watch A-Ling while you go get pampered a little.” His sister deserves this much more than he does anyway. Not that she would agree with that.

“Just go and meet with Lan Xichen first, before deciding that it’s not for you.” She’s using her stern voice, oh no.

“I will! I’m just saying!”

“Alright. Let me know how it goes then.”

“I will.”

“Did you have breakfast?”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

“Good. Remember to drink tea or water, too, not just coffee.”

“Yes, Jiejie.”

“And-”

“I’ll call you after I’ve met with Lan Xichen,” Jiang Cheng interrupts, before she can shower him with even more care. “And thank you. I… could probably use some… relaxation.”

“Great! I’ll text you the address in a bit.”

They chat a bit more about A-Ling and what shenanigans he gets up to now that he can walk, and when Jiang Cheng ends the call a while later, his mood has significantly improved.

His phone makes a noise again. He looks at the screen, expecting a text from his sister with Lan Xichen’s address, but... Fuck. He unlocks the screen and stares at his daily Wei Wuxian selfie. Today he’s wearing a bathrobe so fluffy, it seems to swallow him, and he’s making… duck lips. Jiang Cheng’s mood plummets to the ground.

Why can’t he delete this stupid alarm or app or whatever his brother has infested his phone with? Why doesn’t he just change his fucking number, get a new phone? Why does Wei Wuxian keep up this nonsense, even though he’s obviously not interested in being in contact with Jiang Cheng anymore? Why torment him with these little glimpses into a life that he lives without his brother? The selfies don’t arrive at a set time every day and it’s a new one every time, so it’s pretty safe to say, Wei Wuxian takes them and sends them himself every day. They used to arrive between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., but recently he sometimes gets them as early as 9 a.m. On one shocking occasion it was 6:45 a.m., though Wei Wuxian did look very sleepy. Since when does Wei Wuxian get up that early?

He also seems to be spending a lot of time at a place that is not the flat he moved into with the Wens. Not that Jiang Cheng spends a lot of time analyzing the background of the pictures. Because he does not care what Wei Wuxian gets up to. Wei Wuxian does not care about him anymore either, beyond annoying him like this.

Jiang Cheng shakes his head to make his brain stop thinking about useless things. Immediately, pain shoots down his arm, burns in his neck.

Fuck.

Maybe he should just go back to bed. Clearly getting up was a mistake.

Thursday

Lan Xichen lives on the outskirts of the city. Not quite the suburbs, but in one of those areas where rich people enjoy having a garden, or at least a balcony, and less busy streets, while the city centre is still only a few subway stops away. The kind of area where his own family once lived.

Jiang Cheng checks the house number again and rushes towards the building, wrapping his jacket closer around him. It is colder now, he’s known this and yet didn’t take that into account when getting dressed.

He enters the building, takes the elevator to the 2nd floor, finds the right door and rings the doorbell.

He doesn’t have to wait long until Lan Xichen opens him.

Oh.

“A-Sang… who… who is that next to your brother?”

“Huh? Aaah, that’s Lan Xichen. Da-ge’s best friend. Why do you ask?”

“No reason!”

“Oooooh, I see.”

“Shut up!”

“Well, now I finally know your type, Cheng-Cheng. You’re into impossibly beautiful people who you’re too scared to talk to.”

“I said shut up! I just asked who it was!”

“First Wen Qing, now Xichen-ge… But don’t worry, he’s super nice. Now, his brother on the other hand… So hot, but-“

“I’m leaving!”

Fuck.

“Hello! You must be Jiang Wanyin.”

Lan Xichen smiles at him and yep, yep, Huaisang was right, impossibly beautiful. Fuck.

Oh shit, he still hasn’t said anything.

“Ah yes, that’s me. Hello. Nice to meet you.” Jiang Cheng couldn’t be more awkward if he tried. Except he can, because then he bows, way too low.

Lan Xichen seems to be too polite to laugh at him, but his eyes sparkle as though he wants to, while he invites Jiang Cheng inside.

The apartment is large and bright and… full of plants. Lan Xichen leads him into the living room, where a pot of tea and two mugs are waiting for them on the coffee table. Jiang Cheng sits down on a very comfortable chair, next to a large houseplant with beautiful green and red leaves. All in all, the surroundings help him feel way more relaxed than what would be appropriate for the situation. The situation being: Sitting across from the man Jiang Cheng has seen maybe three times, back when he was 17, from afar, and whom he used to spend quite some time thinking about what it would be like to kiss him. More than three times. The same man who is supposed to give him a massage.

“Is tea alright? Would you prefer something else?”

“Tea is lovely, thank you.” Jiang Cheng hurries to take a sip and hopefully smiles instead of grimacing.

Lan Xichen picks up a notebook and a pen, rests it on his legs, then takes a deep breath. Despite his gentle smile, and the soothing smell of jasmine tea, and the literal urban jungle he’s sitting in, Jiang Cheng thinks he can pick up a hint of nervousness from Lan Xichen. But no, he must be imagining it.

Lan Xichen opens his notebook and looks at Jiang Cheng. “So, your sister already told me that you’ve been dealing with a little tension and stress. If you’re comfortable with it, I would like to ask you a few questions and make myself an overview of where you hold your tension and how it affects you, so we can think about how to best help you.”

Jiang Cheng only smiles and nods.

“This is only a preliminary meeting, so I already know how to best proceed, once we start our sessions.”

Lan Xichen asks him a few questions about his daily schedule (repetitive), whether he does any exercise (yes, well, sort of, sometimes), is he sleeping well (eeh), does he often have headaches (yes), and so on. Jiang Cheng answers as best as he can, and even though Lan Xichen shows no judgment at all, it is mortifying for him. His life is a mess and clearly he’s responsible for all of it. Why doesn’t he do more exercise? If he has headaches all the time, he should be doing something about that!

“Mhm, have you ever tried Yoga before?”

“No.”

“Can you touch your toes?”

“I don’t know? Why would I need to touch my toes?!” Jiang Cheng regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth but Lan Xichen only looks amused.

“Excellent question.” Lan Xichen puts the notepad he’s been using back down on the table and stands up. “Would it be okay if I touch your neck and shoulders to have a closer look at your tension?”

“Yes, yes. That’s alright. Sure.” Jiang Cheng puts down the mug and rests his hands on his knees, trying to project that he’s totally casual and relaxed and that he never spent even a minute wondering how those hands might feel on his skin. Why do these things happen to him? Why can’t he even nurse a schoolboy crush for a few months and then forget about it without suffering consequences???

Lan Xichen’s hands are warm, but not too warm. Perfect temperature for being touched, really. His fingers are long and smooth and it feels really good, the way they’re digging into his muscles and-

“Fuck!”

“Sorry. Looks like I found a sore spot.” Lan Xichen strokes his fingers in a soothing apology over the spot and that’s almost worse, because it feels really good.

“I, uhm, apologise for the… rude language.”

“Oh, haha, I’ve heard worse from clients. No need to hold back, I’m of the opinion that it can be beneficial to find release.”

“Right.” This is like one of Jiang Cheng’s dreams that starts out beautiful and turns into a horrible nightmare halfway through. Will he make it through this without horribly embarrassing himself even further and/or offending Lan Xichen in the process?

“You’re really... “ Lan Xichen runs his hands up Jiang Cheng’s neck and slightly presses his thumbs into a spot between his ear and his jaw. Jiang Cheng groans. “You’re very tense. In a lot of places. Do you grind your teeth at night? Or clench them?”

“Maybe?”

Lan Xichen rests his hands on Jiang Cheng’s shoulders for a second, then sits down opposite of him again. Jiang Cheng immediately misses the warmth of his hands, which is ridiculous and he needs to get a grip.

“Alright, well, I think for the beginning we will be focusing on relaxing and loosening your muscles. So, massage, thermotherapy, some gentle stretches. I’ll also help you find things you can do at home to destress and relieve tension. Does that sound good?”

“Uhm, yes. It does.” Jiang Cheng kind of tuned out after Lan Xichen said ‘massage’, because… He has this dreadful feeling his schoolboy crush never went away and instead just laid dormant until right now. Which is so fucking inconvenient, of course it’s happening to Jiang Cheng. “Thank you, Lan-ge… uhm… Lan Xichen.”

How should he address him? Apparently, he’s sort of a family friend (Where and why did Jiejie even meet him? Why didn’t he ask?) but now he’s also taking care of Jiang Cheng in a professional, sort of medical sense...

Lan Xichen is, of course, not oblivious to his discomfort, but smiles and pours him some more tea. “Whatever you feel comfortable with. Laoshi is fine, too.”

Lan Xichen then goes through a few formalities with him. He informs him he’s being paid per session, not by the hour, so they’ll never have to hurry. They exchange phone numbers, in case someone needs to reschedule or Lan Xichen wants to send him some exercises or something. Jiang Cheng only smiles and nods and agrees. When Lan Xichen proposes they have the first session tomorrow afternoon, Jiang Cheng smiles and nods, too.

After, Lan Xichen escorts him to the door, wishes him a lovely evening, says he’s looking forward to their sessions and Jiang Cheng should remember to wear something comfortable. When he smiles again, Jiang Cheng almost walks into the door.

As soon as Jiang Cheng arrives home, he calls his sister.

“A-Cheng! How was it?”

“Uhm, fine, but that’s not why-”

“He’s very handsome, isn’t he?”

“I… what? Why… why would you bring that up?” Jiang Cheng gives his phone a side-eye, even though his sister can’t see it.

“Well, it’s impossible to not notice. And he has such a lovely personality, too.” Jiang Yanli says this as casually as though she’s talking about the weather.

“Yes… I guess.” While both of those things are true, it’s unlike his sister to bring it up. Or at least, to bring it up so quickly and directly. “Jiejie, how do you know Lan Xichen again? Where did you meet?”

“Oh… he came over for tea recently.”

“And why did he do that?”

“Because I invited him.”

Well, his sister clearly is keeping something from him, something connected to his old-new crush and physical therapist and Jiang Cheng hates not being in the know when other people are clearly keeping secrets from him.

“How did you meet him? Why did you invite him? Why do you not want to tell me?”

“A-Cheng…”

Oh, of course. “Wei Wuxian.”

Jiang Yanli sighs audibly, probably frowning in the way she always does when they skirt around the topic of him and Wei Wuxian not talking. “Yes. Lan Xichen is-”

“I don’t want to know!” Of course this has something to do with Wei Wuxian. Because he can’t have anything in his life without Wei Wuxian. Are they… they’re not dating or anything, right? That would just be… actually that would be fucking typical.

“Jiang Cheng!”

“I didn’t do anything!” Is his sister… getting cross with him???

“I just… he misses you.”

“Yeah? I don’t see any evidence of that!” His headache is back with a vengeance.

“Because you’re not looking. Because you’ve convinced yourself he doesn’t!” It’s rare for Jiang Yanli to raise her voice, and compared to Jiang Cheng, she still sounds gentle. But he can hear her frustration, hear how tiring this is for her, and… He sometimes forgets he and Wei Wuxian aren’t the only people who are involved in this. Who suffer.

“Then why doesn’t he call me? He obviously still has my number!”

“Why don’t you call him?”

Because he doesn’t want to call someone who doesn’t want him. Because he doesn’t want Wei Wuxian to come back because he feels pity or obligation. Because he’s scared Wei Wuxian would still not come back.

“He’s the one who left.”

“It’s been over a year. Can’t you… I’m so tired of holding louder than normal conversations with my husband in the kitchen while one of you is in the living room, so you know the other is okay without actually asking for it.”

“A-jie, I’m sorry. I didn’t know… I… It’s just… “ Great, now Jiang Cheng feels mad at Wei Wuxian, guilty for upsetting his sister, who should never be upset, and sad… because he misses his stupid brother, doesn’t he.

“I can’t force either of you to make the first step, but… you’re both suffering. A-Cheng, I just want you both to be happy.” Now she just sounds resigned. Fuck.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll… I’ll think about it. I promise.” If only because his sister deserves better than this - being stuck in the middle between them.

“Thank you. I love you, A-Cheng.”

“… Love you, too.”

“Now, tell me about your meeting today. Did you already get a massage?”

Right. Lan Xichen. “Jiejie… is Wei Wuxian dating Lan Xichen?”

Jiang Yanli laughs. “No. No, no. He’s dating his brother. Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worrying! Just… wanted to know how you met.”

“He’s very handsome, isn’t he?”

“Stop asking that! That’s not why I… you know what, I have to go. I have… university… stuff. Talk to you later!”

“Bye!”

He can hear his sister still laughing when he ends the call. Mortifying. Why did he have to ask?

Wei Wuxian is dating Lan Xichen’s brother… That’s… Why is the world so fucking tiny? He couldn’t have picked anyone else?

Not that it matters. It’s not like Jiang Cheng was ever gonna do anything about… Lan Xichen is attractive and nice and lovely, which is simply a fact. Like his sister said, it’s impossible to not notice. Doesn’t have to mean anything. Jiang Cheng will only concentrate on… being less tense and maybe having fewer headaches.

And maybe… thinking… about… contacting Wei Wuxian…

“He misses you.”

Jiang Cheng is not convinced.

But…

[immacaria]

Xichengclipse - Day 5 - Archery

Okay, Jiang Cheng didn't expect to actually pass his birthday working, imagine without anyone from his family to celebrate it with him. It wasn't like that time were his students made a surprise to him. No, in that time he had just arrived in the building when one of them (one of the ones who actually cared for him) smiled and wished him a happy birthday right after giving him a small package, Jiang Cheng couldn't help but feel his eyes water a little. The said student was scared the shit out of her skin when she saw the professor's reaction, but hugged without fear of being shouted at. 

"Thank you." Jiang Cheng smiled, sniffing a little. "It was very kind of you."

"Hey, it was a pleasure Mr. Jiang. It's not like you don't deserve it." The girl smiled, adjusting her backpack on her shoulder. "You are, like, one of the only ones who seems to care." She breathed deep before opening her arms another time. "Can I ask for another hug?”

"Whenever you need it, Ms. White." He smiled as she hugged him one more time before running down the aisle as the sign went off. "That kid, I swear..." Jiang Cheng smiled, opening the door to his class. "What the actual hell?" He almost yelled, holding the door. 

"Happy Birthday!" All of his class yelled, holding balloons, presents and a lot of things that exploded in millions pieces of shiny paper. "We love you!"

"What the hell?" He backed up as incoherent noises leaved the mouths of that little fuckers as his mouth fell a little open. "Shut up!"

"But we love you!" One of them screamed exploding one of that hellish things.

"Stop it!" Jiang Cheng screamed back as a kid came running and hugged him, murmuring that he loved him and was proud of him. "What the hell?"

"Why didn't you said that today was your birthday?" Another girl cried, hugging him too.  "We would made something bigger."

"How the hell did you discovered it?" He asked, hugging them back instinctively. 

"We asked in the secretary!" One of them smiled, holding a cake with a "Happy Birthday" candle. 

"You could have asked me!" He cried as more students came to hug him. He even heard a loud "Fuck you!" as someone ran and hugged him from behind. Holy hell, if it was on his home, none of his students would make something like that. Sincerely, he didn't deserve that kids, they were too much. "I love you all so much!" He sniffed pulling the teens behind him for the front as he tried to reach for them all. They cried a little more and he could swear that more of that hellish things were exploded, already making the mess messier. But he loved that kids too much! 

 After that, he didn't gave any class that day, simply wanting to hear what they did in the weekend or how their day was going until the moment. He even let Ms. White blabber around about her sister's new project, something to do with shoes, paint and Studios Ghibli. Truly, it was one of his best birthdays since always, but it was a year ago and he was stuck in home, preparing class for the very next day. 

  "May the gods help me..." Jiang Cheng groaned, getting up for another cup of coffee. "At the least it won't take long anymore." He sighed, resting his eyes for a moment. "Just some more minutes..." He whispered, finding it harder and harder to open his eyes once again. "Already, let's go." He opened them, finding strength on the gods know what.

 And finally, finally, he finished all of his work. He simply let his body relax on the chair, just breathing deep and letting his mind turn off for a moment. Even though he didn’t celebrate his anniversary with his family (or, the gods forbidden, his students again), Yanli and Wei Wuxian had in fact send him ‘good wishes’ messages and even made a videocall with him. Most of his students from that day send messages, videos of the entire family thanking Jiang Cheng for being who he was, some called him or made a videocall, but the best of everything was when Ms. White and some of of her closest friends arrived there with cake, balloons, soda and that hellish things that explode in million pieces. But that was early and, now, he just wanted to lay down and sleep for three days. 

  However, the universe wanted to make him suffer and rang his alarm just four hours later, warning that he still had a lot of stupid and screaming teens to teach. Gods, why did he choose that career? Why not just become a businessman like his father and brother? Why? Why? Why? He knew why, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it yet. Maybe the reason had something to do with making the new adults less scarred in their early life, maybe he didn’t want people to suffer like he did, maybe he just wanted to help people like once he needed help. 

  Still, it didn’t have nothing to do with archery!

“Why do I have to go, anyway?” He looked to the sea of adolescents staring at him, expectantly. “It’s Ms. Irving’s idea to go to archery, I have nothing to do with that!”

  “But she’s old! And doesn’t know how to shoot an arrow!” One of the boys next to him groaned. “Besides, she can’t take care of almost sixty students. Please, Mr. Jiang, please!” He pleaded, grabbing his arm. Oh, Gods! Why me?, Jiang Cheng groaned before nodding. 

  “Okay, let’s go!” He sighed, turning around. “Let’s go, people. I have class to give later.” He began to walk as all of the students started to scream and howl with full force. “Shut up before I break your legs!” He screamed over the noise, leading them out of the building. Whose idea was letting sixty teens play around with bows and arrows for a class? It could be just Ms. Irving’s idea to let that happen, that old and crazy woman who didn’t knew a fucking thing about her student’s safety. 

“Mr. Jiang! What a pleasure!” An old and small woman with big glasses and short colorful hair smiled to him. “I didn’t believe that this sweethearts would convince you to come with us.” Ms. Irving said, clapping her hands together. “Let’s go, cute beans. Let’s go before he changes his mind.” She joked, getting on the bus. Jiang Cheng sighed following her as the youngers hopped in, smiling like mad mans. 

  “Uhm, Ms. Irving…” Jiang Cheng called, touching her shoulder lightly. 

  “Call me Adalind, sweet.” She corrected, patting his hand. “What is it?”

  “Why did you ask them to call me?” Jiang Cheng whispered, looking down at his feet. “I mean, I have nothing to do with your History class, Adalind. I teach Literature.”

“Cheng, can I call you Cheng?” She asked, receiving only an affirmative nod back. “Cheng, yesterday was your birthday. This is your present, from us to you.” She smiled once more, before adding. “They said that you commented that one of the things you most missed being able to do was doing archery, so here we go.” Adaling nudged at his side before turning to speak to the driver. Really? They remembered this? Awesome!, he turned to smile at the teens talking loudly with each other. Maybe they aren’t so bad after all, he thought scrolling through his phone. 

___________________________________________________________________

There they were, at the archery camp, and Mr. Johnson managed to almost shot Ms. White feet twice already. Sincerely, even if they were awesome, Jiang Cheng didn’t deserve this. Not even close. Why me?, he thought by the millionth time of the day. Why it has to be me to take care of this children?, he groaned, looking over to Ms. Irving, who were sitting and enjoying the sun. Lucky woman., he sighed, turning to the others teens who were accompanied by some instructors. At least they are okay., he yawned, seeing the only two who had a history with archery staring at him.  

“What?” He adjusted his sunglasses on his face, scowling at them. 

  “Why there is a man staring at you?” The boy asked, looking over his shoulder as the girl pulled the bow from his hands. 

  “We’re going to discover pretty soon.” She said as Jiang Cheng turned around, seeing a man in a white suit along with four children looking at them. That couldn’t be him, he said he was going to be in French this week., he narrowed his eyes trying to decide if it was in fact his husband and his ducklings. Fuck!, he thought, spinning around to stop his students.

  “Amelia, wait!” He called out, as she let the arrow go. “Shit!” He looked over to Huan, who pulled Lan Yuan next to him as the arrow stopped were the boy’s feet were. “I know him! It’s my husband!” Jiang Cheng turned to her, pulling the bow from her hands. “And you can’t shoot arrows at people like that!” He warned, turning to look at Lan Huan who was laughing out loud. What the hell is he laughing about?, he thought, furrowing his eyebrows at the approaching man. 

  "You are married, sir?" Mr. Johnson asked, mouth feeling open with surprise. "Actually married? Fucking Christ!"

  "A-Cheng!" Lan Huan smiled to him, Lan Jingyi in his arms while Jin Ling, Lan Yuan and Ouyang Zizhen were around him, the arrow in Yuan's hands. "Hello!" He smiled to the teens behind him.

  "Willow, Mr. Jiang is married!" Amelia screamed to a redhead. "And he have four boys! Four!" She raised four fingers, shaking them vigorously. "Look!" She pointed at them as sixty kids turned to look too, eyes wide. 

  "Oh, fucking shit!" Jiang Cheng groaned, hiding his face on Huan's shoulders. "Go back to your bows, kids! Now!" 

  "You are married?!" Willow screamed, pushing her instructor aside. "And you have kids? Four above it all?" She yelled, waving her arms around. "Why would you betray me like that?" She cried, hugging herself.

  "Excuse me?!" Jiang Cheng looked back at her as Amelia said:

  "Excuse you?" And the only thing Huan seemed like doing was laugh and make things even worse. 

  "I'm married to Lan Huan for almost four years now! And just one of this kids are mine!" He groaned as Lan Huan put Lan Jingyi down. "Hello, pumpkin." He smiled to his son, who came hug him. 

  "Yes, sweets, I'm his idiot, forever." Lan Huan smiled, sickeningly sweet, as lifting the hand with the wedding ring. "So, no more love letters, okay, Willow dear?" He added, making the teens laugh. 

  "Huan, they are kids." The professor snapped, hitting his husband on the shoulder. "Besides, it isn't forever. It's 'until death separate us'. Plus, you are not a total idiot, you have your moments of idiocy."

  "A-Cheng is so innocent. Bold of you to assume death can save you from this relantioship." The Lan smiled as the other huffed at him.  "C'mon, A-Yi, let Baba work now, okay? Go play with A-Ling, A-Yuan and A-Zhen, okay?" He pushed the kid away lightly, amused. He turned to his husband, startling himself when, out of nowhere, sixty kids were surrounding him. “Uhm? A-Cheng?”  

 “How can you be sure that you are, in fact, Cheng’s husband?” A old lady said, growling at him as Jiang Cheng only shrugged, unimpressed. 

 “He doesn’t even wear a wedding ring!” Amelia said, pointing another arrow at him.  

 “Guys! You are being irrational!” Another girl said, pulling Amelia’s wrist. “Lia, please! Mr. Jiang said that this, uhm, man is his husband and that they have a kid together!”

   “This Lan Huan can be blackmailing Mr. Jiang…” She added slowly. 

  “Jiujiu, you promised!” Jin Ling screamed, coming running to his uncle. “Down, down!” He pulled him down, shoving a hand into his shirt. “Here!” He pulled a silver string with a gold wedding ring adorned with little details in white, light-blue and purple. Just like Lan Huan’s. “Jiujiu always forgot to put it back when he took a bath, so he put it on a string!” The boy looked proud of finding the silver string. “It was my idea.”  

 “Okay, okay. I’m working, you can’t be here. How did you knew I was here?” Jiang Cheng asked, lifting Jin Ling up before giving him to his husband. “And I have kids to defrost now too.” 

 “I followed your phone.” Lan Huan answered as Willow whined and whispered: 

 “You really betrayed me, Mr. Jiang!” 

  “He was never yours, bitch!” Amelia screamed at the redhead, realizing the arrow, which missed Lan Huan’s feet by millimeters. “Someone take this fucking thing from me…” She whispered, a little terrified.  

 “Go home, now. I will deal with you later.” He turned to the other three kids who were running around. “You three, come here, please!” He called, kneeling in front of them. “Give me a kiss and take Lan Huan away, I can’t deal with him right now.” The Jiang explained, kissing their heads.  

 “Yes, sir!” Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen said as Lan Yuan just nodded, running to pull the older man away.  

 “A kiss to A-Ling too.” Jin Ling said, extending his arms to his Jiujiu. 

 “And A-Huan too.” Lan Huan smiled as Jiang Cheng gave a kiss at the kid’s head.

  “You don’t deserve it.” He glared at him, turning around. “Already, infants, back to your classes.” He scowled, crossing his arms as Lan Huan whined behind him, the kids pulling him away. If Jiang Cheng fought a grin, only him (and Ms. Irving knew).

________________________________________________________________ 

 “So, you actually never told them you were married in this almost three years you were teaching?” Lan Huan asked, petting Jiang Cheng’s hair.   

“Never occurred to me that they need to know that I had a husband and a family.” Jiang Cheng scowled, closing his eyes at the small chuckle his husband give. “Weren’t you supposed to be in French this week?”  

“A-Zhan resolved it for me. We have four whole months before I have to travel again.” He answered, giving small smooches at the younger’s head.   

“I don’t know if I can endure you for all this time…” He joked.  

 “A-Cheng!” Huan said, covering the other with his own body. “Don’t make me suffer like that.” He smiled, nipping at his husband’s neck.  

 “A-A-Huan, the kids…” Jiang Cheng whined, his hands darting to the other’s shoulders. 

 “Are sleeping, my heart.” He looked to the younger’s flushed face, eyes dark with lust. “My heart, my light, my Cheng, mine, mine, mine.” Lan Huan whispered, his mouth kissing Jiang Cheng’s chest. “So beautiful to me, so kind to me…” He grinned at the little moans and whimpers coming from the man below. “Let me show you your birthday present, my love.” Lan Huan muttered, before capturing the other’s lips, swallowing his moans. Whether or not, Jiang Cheng given in to Lan Huan’s desire only them knew.

________________________________________________________________ 

So, in this AU, Jiang Cheng is living in another country with Lan Xichen and Lan Jingyi. As it is a modern AU, I used only they birth names in this fic. Jiang Cheng have a good relantionship with his family but still prefer to live where he’s now (he loves his students too much, shh don’t tell anyone). This is for the @xichengclipse

[superhumankrp]

Welcome to NEOCITY, [ Lan Kai ]!

Make sure to follow the admin’s twitter page within the next 48 hours to become a full-fledged citizen in Neocity. Make sure your twitter account follows all the guidelines stated in the rules.

[ Ability: Life Vision. ]

ABILITY DESCRIPTION: Kai can see the lifespan of other people, whether by perceiving the remaining lifespan and the date of their death. He can gather this information by the touch of their hand. He is able to know the information; however, he cannot change anything about it. The life vision is sudden once the touch occurs.

LIMITATIONS: In order to see a person’s lifespan, Kai must touch their hand with deep concentration. He is not able to know his own lifespan due to this regulation with his ability. Kai is also unable to determine how a person passes; he can only determine when the person will pass. He cannot help another person prevent their passing, nor can he give much information of their death. He only knows when.

SIDE-EFFECTS: The ability itself is troublesome as Kai despises knowing when those around him will pass. He often does not want to know the person’s lifespan as it brings pain and horror to his mind. This ability brings about depression. After determining a person’s lifespan, it is rumored that he loses a second of his own. This is why he avoids ever touching someone’s hands. After the act as well, he has a slight bloody nose—nothing too concerning. As stated, as well, the vision is sudden. He can get a bit lightheaded following the act of the ability.

How he arrived at Neocity: {TW: DEATH/SUICIDE}

The sound of a pencil tapping against the surface of a desk echoes throughout the silent classroom. Students steal glances all about, wondering who was disturbing the concentration of the setting. A student whispers for the person to stop, but the sound continues. Irritation lingered throughout until the teacher spoke up.

“Kai,” the name was spoken, and there is a glare in her expression. The teacher was not fond that the young student of the name did not listen to them. “Kai, stop tapping your pencil. Everyone is trying to focus on their assignment.” But, the sound continued. The targeted student was not listening.

But that’s when the pencil dropped. Suddenly, the young fourteen year old was running out of the classroom, rushing out with a panicked expression. Never before has he ran this fast. He felt out of breath already, but he kept running. What no one saw, though, was that his heart was beating so fast, and tears cascaded along his flushed cheeks. He was crying. He was feeling guilty. He felt as if the world was suffocating him.

He banged on the door of his home, but no one answered. He twisted the door knob, and he was surprised to find the door open. Brows furrowed, and he panicked even more. That’s when he started to call his out for his mother. She did not answer, though. He yelled again and again and again.

He stops.

There she was, in bed, and she was pale. He began to yell again, running toward her and shaking her shoulders. He yelled for her, screamed, and he was crying even more. But, there was no point. She was gone. She was dead.

He waited in the waiting room that night. Police officers checked in with him, but he did not talk much. He was still traumatized. Eventually, his older sister arrived. She was much older than she, having married years ago and settled down with her own child. She ran toward him, crouching down before him and reaching to hold him. Kai backed away so quickly. He yelled, “No! Don’t touch me!” And the older sister was confused, wondering why he reacted so poorly. She reasoned, though, that it must be from the trauma experienced that day. He begins to cry again, and all she could do was sit beside him in silence.

Ever since that day, he’s avoided people. He never lets a person touch him in fear that he’ll learn that he’ll realize they will leave him all too soon. He still tremors from the memory when he learned of his mother’s passing. He saw the time, he saw the date, he saw that she only had two days left. He did not believe it at first, but it was true. At that exact time, she took her own life away.

He grew up very cautious of everything. His sister always worried about Kai, wondering if he’ll ever recover from the terror. But, he kept to himself. She wanted him to play sports, but he refused. His hobbies were lonely. He painted, he wrote stories, he went out to take pictures. That was his best hobby.

His pictures were even discovered. Published on a blog and on social media, the young boy was asked by an agency to consider working with them. He did not take the job right away. But, when he realized that college was not the best fit for him and that he was tired of his sister nagging him twenty-four-seven, he decided to finally accept the offer.

The job is what encouraged him to move out as well. He was making enough money from work and his own freelance work that he was able to afford his own place. He moved to a place where he felt more people would understand him. They would not judge him for everything.

It’s been two years now. Does he feel better? No. He still cries from the cursed ability. He worries each time someone accidentally touches his hand. He worries when he shakes a person’s hand for business. Each time, he is reminded of the horror. He can see when life ends.

Other Information:

Faceclaim: Dong Sicheng (winwin) from nct / wayv

Full name: Lan Kai

Nicknames (if any):

Age: 22

Sexuality: bisexual

Residence: Monstera Studio Apartments

Occupation: Photographer for Esteem Modeling Agency

Personality: Kai is a kind person who is cursed with the attribute of caring too much. He worries all too much about people, and this is troublesome as he often fears becoming close to people. Because of his fear of becoming too close to others, he is reserved. He does not share much about himself as he fears great friendships and relationships. Others may perceive this as rudeness, believing Kai may think he’s better than the rest, but that is not the case. He simply fears becoming close to someone and then suddenly losing them. He is a cautious person too, always careful with what he does. If a person gets to know him, though, he is gentle and kind. He can be a great friend.

[stiltonbasket]

can we have some nielan for the art thief au? author's choice :D

(this is more lxc-focused but there's still a dash of sweet nielan! (≧◡≦) ♡ click here for AO3 link)

__

Twenty years ago.

The last time we celebrated Muqin’s birthday with her, it was twenty years ago.

Upon later reflection, perhaps the realization ought not to have affected Lan Xichen as it did. But twenty years is long enough to be called a long time by any measure of reckoning; and Lan Xichen is thirty now, an orphan for fully twice the span that he had either of his parents, and sometimes it feels as if he no longer remembers how it was to call for A-Niang, and Fuqin instead of Shufu, or not have to explain to new acquaintances that his parents have been dead for nearly two decades.

What did he and Wangji do on Mother’s last birthday? Lan Xichen remembers their father making a cake—a flourless one, because Mother wanted to try a new recipe she found at the library—and Wangji lay down on his stomach in the living room and labored over a card for her all morning, squeaking in dismay when Mother pretended to peer over his shoulders to see what he was doing, and then he wrapped it up in silky tissue paper and presented it to her with such delight on his solemn little face that Muqin refused to let go of him for the next twenty minutes.

Xichen was in the kitchen helping their father with the cake, he thinks. Fuqin handed him three little bottles of food coloring and told him to color the frosting, which Lan Xichen did with breathless care to ensure that the frosting turned out their mother’s favorite shade of buttery yellow.

None of them knew then that it was the last birthday they would celebrate together as a family. Mother died only two months later, quietly in her bed at Fuqin’s side, and a heart attack carried their father off six months after that.

Mother’s birthday has always been something of a private holiday within the family. When she was alive their father organized quiet celebrations for her, and Lan Xichen always spent time with Wangji that day after she passed on. But today his brother has been caught up with grading at the university where he works, so Lan Xichen is celebrating the bittersweet anniversary alone.

“You would have been fifty-six today, Mother,” he says, as he burns incense at the family memorial altar and puts a pair of red-bean buns on a platter in front of her photograph: one for her and one for Father, who loved mother’s sweet baozi so much that Shufu used to tease him about it at family dinners. “Shufu and Wangji are doing well, and so am I. And Jingyi is big enough to fit into that sweater A-Jue made from the yarn you were saving—do you remember when you took me and A-Zhan to help you pick it out?”

His mother’s smiling face looks down at him from her wedding picture, as silent and tender as she always is. Muqin is resplendent in the old qipao dress she wore that day, the only luxury she really had for her hasty wedding; Lan Xichen can almost feel its smooth embroidered flowers and pankou under his fingertips, since she often took the dress out to look at it and show it to her two sons. It was eventually put away in storage along with the rest of her belongings, but Lan Xichen found the qipao while he was preparing for his own wedding some fifteen years later, and he brought it to the house he moved into with his husband just after their son was born.

Prodded by some strange urgency, Lan Xichen makes his way to the bedroom and rifles through his closet, pulling out the long silk sleeve where the qipao dress has lain undisturbed for the past eighteen months. The dress, when he removes it from the sleeve, is mostly unchanged: only creased at the spots where it was folded, and a little dusty-smelling from being in the closet.

He shakes it out, breathing in the familiar scent of his mother’s perfume clinging to the collar, and then he walks over to the full-length mirror by the bed and holds the qipao up in front of him.

For a moment, it almost looks as if—

Lan Xichen stares at his reflection, bewildered.

“Oh,” he gasps, holding one of the bedposts in a vice grip. “Oh.”

_____

When Lan Xichen was in his teens, Shufu hired a family friend to teach him how to do makeup: mainly how to make his face more angular, and deepen the shadows around his nose and eyebrows, and render his eyes just a little narrower than they truly were with highlighting powder. But it was an art like any other, so Liang-popo showed him how to do different kinds of makeup, too: how to make his cheeks look rounder, and his chin smaller, and call more attention to his lips and eyes than natural light did on its own. Lan Xichen never expected to use that half of what Liang-popo taught him, but he still remembers the basics: and his own face, still smooth and unlined by the sun thanks to the skincare regimens Nie Huaisang keeps coaxing him into, accepts the blush-toned powders and creams like paper soaking up ink.

Moisturizer, primer. Foundation, and concealing cream under his eyes. He took off his glasses and replaced them with contacts earlier, and tied back his long hair while he smoothed on a pale red lip tint; and now, with most of his makeup finished, he paints a small, dark mole high on his forehead—one that his mother had, but neither he nor Wangji inherited—and mists his face with setting spray.

He yanks his hair elastic out with shaking fingers, groping in the vanity drawer for bobby pins before putting his hair up into a loose chignon, and then he finally lifts his eyes and looks into the mirror again.

If he were not sitting, Lan Xichen thinks dizzily, he would have fainted dead away.

With shaking fingers, he removes his pants and shirt (one of A-Jue’s thicker pajama tops, since the weather was chilly last night) and divests himself of his binder, tossing it onto the bed with the rest of his clothes before he unbuttons the qipao and pulls it on. The dress fits like a second skin despite being several inches too short, but the side slits are so high that it hardly matters, and the collar encloses Lan Xichen’s pale throat exactly like it did his mother’s in her wedding photograph: just lax enough that he can’t really feel it, but smooth enough not to bother him either way.

Lan Xichen pads back towards the mirror, his bare feet dragging over the carpet as he goes, and then he looks up and meets his mother’s eyes for the first time in twenty years.

The resemblance, so far as it goes, is astounding. Mother was shorter, but she seemed quite tall to the ten-year-old son she left behind; and she had the same eyes and brows and nose and even the same cheekbones, with slightly fuller lips which were never thinned by parenthood as Lan Xichen’s lips have been. But then again, Wen Mingyan was a schoolteacher and not a harried lawyer who doubled as a museum thief by night, and her children were not so accomplished at getting into trouble as Lan Xichen’s own tiny son is.

At the thought of his baby, Lan Xichen hurries into the next room where A-Yi is fast asleep in his crib, with his thumb in his mouth and his pudgy little legs sticking straight up in the air. He rolls into Lan Xichen’s arms without waking, like a ball rolling into a comfortable hollow in the ground, and nestles happily under his chin on the short trip back to the bedroom.

Lan Xichen pulls a chair up in front of the mirror and sits down with Jingyi yawning in his lap, gazing at what could have been a window opening onto the past: his mother, young and strong and still with the bridal blush on her cheeks, cradling a fluffy-haired toddler that could have been the Lan Xichen of twenty-eight years ago.

He presses his lips to A-Yi’s chubby nose; and in the mirror his mother, seemingly overwhelmed by some kind of great feeling, kisses him.

Lan Xichen’s lips quiver. “Muqin—”

Suddenly, a door bangs on the ground floor, and Lan Xichen jolts back to full awareness just in time to hear his husband and brother talking in the kitchen. Mingjue seems to have returned with armfuls of grocery bags, which crinkle so loudly that A-Yi blinks awake and starts to fuss, tugging at a lock of hair that slipped out of Xichen’s loose updo.

“A-Huan?” Mingjue calls, followed by the swift thuds of his feet and Wangji’s coming up the stairs. “A-Huan, is A-Yi…”

And then both of them screech to a halt on the landing, gawking through the open door at Lan Xichen’s soft hair and make-up and the red bridal qipao. For a moment, Lan Xichen wonders what the picture looks like—he hasn’t worn a dress since before Wangji was born, and he’s certainly never worn make-up like this, so for all he knows it might look like some strange woman broke into the house to kidnap baby A-Yi.

But then Mingjue lets out a quiet breath and comes over to kiss him, brushing aside the tangled curls A-Yi pulled down, and wraps him up in a tight hug that smells of soap and sawdust from Mingjue’s woodworking studio.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he breathes, pressing his cheek to Lan Xichen’s. “I stopped to pick up dinner and fetch Wangji from the university after I left work.”

“It’s fine,” Lan Xichen murmurs back, as Jingyi stares at the large buttons on Mingjue’s sleeve before testing his tiny white teeth on them. “I got some egg porridge ready, earlier. Do you want to eat a little before we get dinner started?”

Nie Mingjue opens his mouth, probably to declare that hot vegetable congee with pidan would be delicious after being outside in the cold; but he never manages to say so, because Wangji makes a choked noise from the hallway before taking a shaky step forward.

“Xiongzhang,” he says hoarsely. “You look, you look just like—”

Mingjue takes A-Yi into his arms, and Lan Xichen reaches out towards his brother. When Wangji staggers into his embrace, all Lan Xichen can think of is that their mother never had the chance to see A-Zhan grow up so well, or know what a name he would make for himself, or even how his face would grow into a perfect meld of hers and Fuqin’s after his baby fat melted away.

She would have had to wait many years to know that last, Lan Xichen smiles to himself. A-Zhan’s cheeks were as round as A-Yi’s until after he started college.

“Ge.”

Lan Xichen pats Wangji’s shoulder. “Mm, A-Zhan?”

Wangji hugs him impossibly tighter.

“Thank you.”

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

The Sculptor

Chapter 3 - Of Wives and Men

[Masterpost] [AO3]

-/-

Lan Wangji, to Wei Wuxian’s immense surprise, actually comes back. He isn’t sure why he’s so shocked considering they’ve only known each other a day and Lan Wangji is already clearly a very steady and reliable sort of person, but still. He spent all last night thinking about the way Lan Wangji had gotten so flustered just thinking about undressing for him at some amorphous point in the future and he’d thought for sure that he wouldn’t see the man again, even in passing.

“You’re back!” is the incredibly smooth and not-at-all-rude exclamation that slips out of his mouth when Lan Wangji lets himself into the studio at 9:30am on the dot Wednesday morning, as promised, and Lan Wangji stops in the middle of removing his hat to blink at him.

“Should I not be?”

“No no no, that’s not what I meant!” Wei Wuxian laughs to force the butterflies to quit rattling around in his stomach. “I just - ah never mind, you’re here and I’m happy about it. Get comfortable, Lan Wangji, we’ve got another long day of sketching ahead of us!”

Lan Wangji looks at him dubiously for another moment before he continues taking off all the outer layers that make him look so buttoned up and Wei Wuxian watches rather shamelessly when he shrugs out of his suit jacket - dove gray today - and pulls his long, jet-dark hair free of his collar with a graceful swish of it across his shoulders to fall down his back. He’s forgone the waistcoat and suspenders today and his shirt seems like it’s a slightly looser fit, Wei Wuxian thinks as he watches him roll the sleeves up just as neatly as he’d done the day before.

“How do you feel about laying down for a bit today?” he asks when Lan Wangji is more comfortably underdressed and heading for the bench again. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, I’m still just working on getting a sense of you more than the commission, but just keep it in mind okay?”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji settles in on the bench again, though thankfully not in such a rigid posture as he’d started out with yesterday. Wei Wuxian had sketched him quite a few times like that, sometimes focusing on details - like the mostly-hidden contours of his muscles or the way his hair falls so perfectly behind his shoulders - and sometimes on him as a whole, all the lovely perfect lines of him creating such an elegant figure. But he’d like a little more movement today. More visual interest.

(More reasons to look.)

Wei Wuxian quickly falls into the familiar, business-like pattern of sketching though, Lan Wangji’s beauty not quite enough to distract him completely once he gets into his flow, eyes flickering between his model sitting so still he might as well be a statue already and the loose sketches of him coming alive under Wei Wuxian’s hands. They don’t talk as he works, and Wei Wuxian finds he doesn’t mind. The silence is companionable at least as far as he can tell, and he already knows Lan Wangji is a man of few words even when they’re having a conversation. He amuses himself for a little while thinking of how Lan Wangji’s lectures must be - does he sit at the front of the room and stare his poor students down with those hawk eyes of his? Does he drone on in a monotone that would put even the only slightly-drowsy to sleep? Does he come alive with passion for his subject, gesturing with his beautiful hands as he translates the great classics?

Wei Wuxian gets lost in thought as he sketches Lan Wangji’s hand poised just in front of his face, the tip of his index finger pressed soft as a whisper against the plush curve of his bottom lip, the rest of his fingers curled in relaxed and loose towards his palm. He’s still sitting upright but he’s leaning ever so slightly, elbow propped up on the arm of the bench and hand posed so temptingly, so delicately in front of his mouth…

When Wei Wuxian shakes himself out of the almost-trance he typically falls into when he draws he’s startled to find that he’s filled two entire pages of nothing but Lan Wangji’s hand and his mouth, his other features occasionally making it into the sketches but the focus always right there, centered on that damned featherlight touch against his lip.

“Lunch?” Wei Wuxian offers after a delicate clearing of his throat and he suddenly finds his throat is dry. He ignores the way Lan Wangji judges him with those incredible eyebrows of his when he takes a swig of water from a nearby jar covered in dried paint - it’s one of his painting jars, yes, but it’s not paint water yet so he’s not going to be persnickety about it.

“Mn,” Lan Wangji hums after a beat. “My wife prepared enough food for both of us, if you would like.”

Wei Wuxian very firmly, very absolutely, very strongly does not let his heart break on the word ‘wife’. In this day and age, in this quaint suburban town, what handsome man wouldn’t have a wife? Well, Wei Wuxian doesn’t but that’s because he doesn’t want one, for what he feels are painfully obvious reasons (as do many other people in town, it’s a whole Thing. He tries not to think about it). But of course someone as stunning and put-together as Lan Wangji has a wife. God. Wei Wuxian’s luck is somehow both incredible and the worst in the world, and both sides of that coin somehow dealt him Lan Wangji.

“That sounds great,” he says with a smile to mask his disappointment. He tucks the morning’s sketches into his ‘in progress’ folder and sets the easel up with a fresh sheet for after their break before he washes his hands clean of graphite dust. Once they’re ready he follows Lan Wangji outside to head for the park a couple blocks over, a cloth-wrapped lunchbox dangling from Lan Wangji’s hand between them.

“So - your wife, huh?” Wei Wuxian can’t resist asking, like poking at a sore tooth with the tip of his tongue.

“Mn. She is a professor as well.”

“No kidding? That’s great,” Wei Wuxian says, and he really means it! He’s all for that, it’s the part where she’s Lan Wangji’s wife that gets a little…sticky. He reminds himself that he’s only known the man for less than 24 hours and he’s being ridiculous, which is a lot easier to keep in mind when he’s facing forward, watching cars pass them by and people going about their normal lives. It’s a lot harder to remember when he glances at Lan Wangji beside him and realizes he’s still as stoically handsome as ever.

“I was told to impress upon you very firmly that this is not an everyday occurrence,” Lan Wangji intones once they’ve picked a bench near the pond and he’s balanced the parcel in his lap to begin carefully unpicking the knot he’d hooked his fingers under to carry it. “She was preparing meals to deliver to her brother and had enough left over to pack this for us.”

“Well that’s still nice of her anyway,” Wei Wuxian says with a laugh that’s only slightly jittery. He sits on his hands to keep them from doing something weird, like shaking as he watches Lan Wangji unwrap the layered wooden container with those careful, elegant hands of his (he bets they never shake, not even when Lan Wangji is flustered). “Tell her I appreciate the trouble, I’d hate for her to think I’m some ungrateful heathen. Is she as polite and put-together as you?”

Lan Wangji looks at him out of the corner of his eye and Wei Wuxian could swear he looks amused. “I have it on good authority that she is…intimidating.”

“So that’s a yes, then,” Wei Wuxian laughs. “Ah, it sounds like you’re a good match! Unfortunately for you, I’m not so easily intimidated by you stuffy academic types.”

Lan Wangji glances at him again curiously, but the expression is gone before Wei Wuxian can ask him what he said to cause it. He tugs one of his hands out from under his thigh to accept the shallow dish of rice and sauteed vegetables Lan Wangji passes to him - and then has to tug the other one free too to juggle his half of the meal as well as the chopsticks Lan Wangji hands him next.

“I do not wish to intimidate you,” Lan Wangji reassures him before he settles in with his own food to eat in peaceable silence.

It’s pretty plain fare, as far as Wei Wuxian is concerned - but it’s homemade, which is always a bonus, and clearly well-made even if a bit bland. Plus, of course, he’s never one to turn his nose up at free food. And it was nice of Lan Wangji’s wife to make enough for him to have as well. Not that he’s in any hurry to meet the woman, but if he does he’ll make sure to be extra nice.

He can behave normally about this. Just because it’s the 70’s and they live in a (relatively) free-thinking area doesn’t mean that any man willing to walk into another man’s studio to pose naked for him is there for what Wei Wuxian would like him to be there for - in a very non-professional way. He can manage his own expectations just fine.

They finish eating and Wei Wuxian stands up to stretch his arms above his head first and then behind his back while Lan Wangji gets the empty container all squared away again for the walk back to the studio.

“Want to lay down for me now?” Wei Wuxian asks as he putters over behind the easel again, ruffling his hair up into a sloppy ponytail to get it out of his way. Lan Wangji pauses where he’s returning the lunch box to his satchel beside the door, but after a moment he nods with his typical, “Mn.” that Wei Wuxian is already becoming inordinately fond of.

Lan Wangji returns to the bench and rearranges the pillows to his liking before he lays down carefully - flat on his back, fingers linked on his chest, and looking for all the world like a princess waiting for her knight in shining armor to come kiss her awake.

“You sure that’s comfortable enough to hold for a while?” he can’t resist checking, amused. Lan Wangji turns his head enough to give him the same raised eyebrow as the previous day.

“It is how I sleep. I will be fine.”

Wei Wuxian raises his hands in surrender but can’t stop the smile that creeps across his lips. Lan Wangji is, he is very quickly realizing, a supremely fussy sort of person. Wei Wuxian likes it more than he probably should.

“Alright, alright. You lie however you’d like, sleeping beauty, and I’ll just do my sketching.”

Lan Wangji frowns at him in confusion but doesn’t ask him to clarify, instead just turning his gaze back up to the ceiling and going nice and still for him.

Wei Wuxian loses himself in sketching again easily enough, and he thinks as he does so that married or not, Lan Wangji is nice to have around for both aesthetic and entertainment value at least. He won’t hate looking at a pretty face for three months even if that face is off-limits. Most men are, Lan Wangji isn’t really so different from any of Wei Wuxian’s other fleeting crushes. He can practically hear Nie Huaisang chastising him for getting attracted to anyone he finds outside of the usual crowd at the gay bar out on the edge of town - at least there he knows the men are interested, and safe to crush on for a few hours, so why bother getting his heart broken outside of it?

He’ll keep this professional, and at the end of the summer he’ll send Lan Wangji on his way with a perfectly polite ‘thank you for your time’. He can do that. Definitely.

[bloody-bee-tea]

Pastel - Untamed Spring Fest 2020 Day 7

kazidawn on AO3 commented, that they were wondering how it would go if Lan Xichen were the one to be brought in to an already established Mingcheng, so what can I say. Here we go.

“Hey, Jiang Cheng, can you bring this plate to Xichen-ge? He forgets to eat otherwise,” Wei Wuxian says and pushes a food-filled plate into Jiang Cheng’s hand.

“Why don’t you bring it to him?” Jiang Cheng complains, just for the sake of it, but he takes the plate and doesn’t even wait for Wei Wuxian’s no doubt stupid answer to march off to Lan Xichen’s art studio.

He hasn’t seen Lan Xichen all day, despite the fact that Jiang Cheng came over early in the morning to get that group project with Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji done, and it makes Jiang Cheng definitely more grumpy than normally.

Jiang Cheng knocks once at the door to Lan Xichen’s studio and then he just barges in there, impatient to finally see Lan Xichen for the first time that day.

The first thing he notices is that Lan Xichen has paint all over his face and Jiang Cheng itches go over and wipe it off. The second thing he notices is the wide-eyed stare on Lan Xichen’s face and how he tries to hide what he’s been drawing from Jiang Cheng.

“Jiang Cheng,” he breathes out and itches a little bit more in front of the easel.

Naturally, it draws Jiang Cheng’s gaze to it, and the first thing he notices it that it’s entirely in pastel. It gives the whole painting a very soft tone and it’s only belatedly that Jiang Cheng realizes that it’s a picture of him and Nie Mingjue.

“Xichen,” he breathes out, because maybe all their flirting did pay off already, but Lan Xichen only lets out an embarrassed laugh.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he says and almost smacks himself in the face with his brush. “I’ve just been trying different styles lately. I meant to give this to you, of course, but it’s not completely done yet,” Lan Xichen rambles and Jiang Cheng very helpfully doesn’t point out that he can see at least three other paintings with Nie Mingjue and himself as the subjects.

“Can I take it home today?” Jiang Cheng instead asks and wonders how Nie Mingjue will react to that.

If anything, maybe it finally gives them the push to outright tell Lan Xichen that they would love to have them in their relationship.

“Uh, sure,” Lan Xichen says with a worried glance at the painting and then smiles at Jiang Cheng. “Of course.”

Jiang Cheng wishes he could take a picture, because it’s not often that Lan Xichen blushes like this and Nie Mingjue will be mad that he missed it.

“Perfect,” Jiang Cheng says, and then belatedly remembers the food in his hands. “Oh, I brought you dinner. That’s why I just barged in,” he explains and lifts the plate as proof.

“I see,” Lan Xichen says, as he shuffles his feet and then points at a nearby table. “Put it down there? I’m all—,” he holds his paint covered hands out for Jiang Cheng who nods.

“Of course,” Jiang Cheng says, because he doesn’t actually know Lan Xichen to be without at least one paint stain and puts the plate down. “Thank you so much, Xichen,” he then beams at him and quickly leaves the studio again, already taking his phone out.

Got a surprise for you when I come home, Jiang Cheng quickly types out and then puts the phone back without waiting for a reply.

Nie Mingjue will just want to know what it is, because he’s the least patient man Jiang Cheng knows, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t want to ruin the surprise.

~*~*~

“I’m back,” Jiang Cheng yells into the apartment when he finally makes it home, and Nie Mingjue appears in the doorway barely a second later.

“You’re a goddamn tease,” is what he greets Jiang Cheng with, but he also walks closer to pull him into a welcome home kiss. “What’s the surprise?” he then immediately asks and Jiang Cheng holds up the wrapped up painting.

“Lan Xichen drew something.”

“For us?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng shakes his head.

“More about ‘he drew us’,” Jiang Cheng replies and carefully unwraps the painting, before he displays it for Nie Mingjue.

“Well, shit,” Nie Mingjue mutters under his breath and carefully takes the painting out of Jiang Cheng’s hand.

Which is a good thing, because Jiang Cheng throws his hands up in a truly helpless gesture.

“What else are we supposed to do?” he asks Nie Mingjue, who is still staring at the picture.

“I saw at least three other paintings with us in his studio. We all but came out and told him we love him. How much bolder can we get? Why won’t he just take the hints?” Jiang Cheng wants to know and starts to pace up and down their living room.

“Clearly he wants the same.”

“I told you he is in love with us,” Nie Mingjue reminds him and Jiang Cheng whirls around to him.

“Then why the fuck won’t he just accept that we love him, too?” he asks and Nie Mingjue sighs.

“Come here?” he then asks and holds out a hand for Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng works his jaw a few times, but Nie Mingjue continues to wait patiently for him, and in the end Jiang Cheng marches over there.

He puts his hand in Nie Mingjue’s still waiting one, and Nie Mingjue pulls him close, until Jiang Cheng can rest his forehead on his collarbone.

“Why won’t he just accept that we love him?” Jiang Cheng mumbles and Nie Mingjue presses a kiss to his hair as he slings his arm around him.

“Because he’s afraid that he’s going to ruin what we have, that he misunderstands and causes a rift between us.”

Jiang Cheng lets out a deep sigh and melts against Nie Mingjue, because he knows that, they have talked about this in length, but it still never gets easier.

“What are we going to do?” Jiang Cheng whispers and wraps his arms around Nie Mingjue’s middle as he peers up at him.

“I might have an idea,” Nie Mingjue says, and Jiang Cheng leans up to press a kiss to his jaw.

It’s right there, after all.

“What’s the idea?” he then asks, drags his lips over Nie Mingjue’s skin and he can feel him shudder in his grip.

“Huaisang is pretty good at imitating art styles,” Nie Mingjue says with another look to the painting. “I can probably get him to paint Lan Xichen into this as well, and we can give him that. Maybe that will make him understand.”

“Huh,” Jiang Cheng says and puts his ear over Nie Mingjue’s heart when he turns to look at the painting as well. “Might not be a bad idea,” he agrees and Nie Mingjue squeezes him.

“I do have my moments,” he says and Jiang Cheng peers up at him.

“You’re always brilliant, now shut up and cuddle me no the couch, I didn’t get to see you all day,” he complains and Nie Mingjue huffs out a breath.

“Who left at the crack of dawn?”

“Just because of the Lans and their crazy sleeping schedule,” Jiang Cheng grumbles. “You should have seen Wei Wuxian, he was like a zombie.”

The image makes Nie Mingjue snort, but he also steers Jiang Cheng over to the couch, so he counts it as a win.

It’s not long before they are both situated on the couch, Jiang Cheng draped over Nie Mingjue, who strokes a hand up and down his back.

“You think Huaisang will do it?” Jiang Cheng sleepily asks after a while and Nie Mingjue hums.

“He’s just as tired of all this pining as we are,” Nie Mingjue agrees and Jiang Cheng lets out a sigh.

“Good, then.”

~*~*~

Jiang Cheng can’t deny that he’s nervous. There is still the slightest chance that this will go wrong, that this will ruin the friendship they have with Lan Xichen, and just the mere thought of that makes Jiang Cheng’s stomach turn.

“It will be fine,” Nie Mingjue mutters, and pulls Jiang Cheng into his side, giving him a lingering kiss to his temple. “It will be fine,” he says again and he sounds like he believes it, too, so Jiang Cheng relaxes against him.

“Ready?” Nie Mingjue asks him and Jiang Cheng nods before he rings the doorbell.

They know it’s just Lan Xichen at home, because they planned it that way, and it doesn’t take long for him to open the door.

“Mingjue? Wanyin? Did we make plans?” Lan Xichen asks, but he’s stepping aside to let them in.

“No, we didn’t,” Jiang Cheng says and then elbows Nie Mingjue into the side.

“We’re here to give something to you,” Nie Mingjue says and holds up the painting they brought along.

Nie Huaisang really did an amazing job with it, and it’s almost like Lan Xichen has been in it all along.

“Okay?” Lan Xichen questioningly says but he takes the painting when Nie Mingjue hands it to him.

Jiang Cheng steps close to Nie Mingjue again when Lan Xichen starts to unwrap it, and Nie Mingjue’s hand on his hip is clenching, so Jiang Cheng knows he’s just as nervous as he is, despite his words.

Finally, the painting is unwrapped and Lan Xichen stares at it for a really long time, before he drags his eyes back to Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue.

“What is this?” he whispers, and Jiang Cheng can see his hands faintly shaking.

“This is what we want,” Nie Mingjue says determinedly and Jiang Cheng nods.

“This is what we see,” he adds and Lan Xichen ducks his head at that.

“Really?” he asks and his voice is shaking.

“Really, Xichen, will you please just finally allow us to have it?” Nie Mingjue says and effectively brings Lan Xichen’s eyes back to them.

“I know you’ve been flirting,” he starts and Jiang Cheng nods again, encouraging him. “But I thought you didn’t mean it seriously. For something more than the sake of flirting.”

“Xichen,” Jiang Cheng sighs out and moves away from Nie Mingjue to hug Lan Xichen. “We want you in our relationship. We want you with us,” he states, clearly as anything and he hides his smile in Lan Xichen’s shoulder when Nie Mingjue joins them.

“Because we love you,” Nie Mingjue tells Lan Xichen, who finally allows himself to fall into the hug Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng offer him.

“Okay,” he agrees and then, with a laugh, says it again. “Okay, alright.”

“Thank the gods,” Jiang Cheng says with a sigh and drags his lips over Lan Xichen’s cheek.

Nie Mingjue does the same on the other side, and this time when Lan Xichen blushes, Jiang Cheng can finally feel it with his lips.

(Even though Lan Xichen draws many more paintings of them, all three, together, that very first one is the one that hangs in their bedroom.)

[bxcketbarnes]

people wanted part two, here we go... 👀

I was a bit disappointed to see Ashton not wearing the outfit when he met me after filming the music video. He smiles down at me and greets me before leaning down to press a loving kiss to my lips. "You weren't too bored, were you?" Ash asks and I giggle, shaking my head no.

"Do, uhm…" I trail off and fiddle with his shirt, "did you keep the outfit?" I ask quietly and Ashton smirks, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

"I did, lovely. You wanna head home?" He growls and I bite my lip, nodding my head. His motions his head towards the door, silently telling me to go. My heart pounds in my chest as I begin to head towards the door of the studio.

A gasp leaves my lips as a smacking sound bounces off the walls. The sting on my ass has me rubbing my hand on the left cheek, glancing over my shoulder to see the smirk on Ashton's face.

"I'm gonna have so much fun ruining that beautiful pussy of yours," he tells me and a moan escapes my lips.

My pussy clenches at the words that came from his lips, getting so turned on that I can feel myself dripping. Fuck, my panties are gonna be so soaked. The two of us leave the studio and get into Ashton's car before he drives us to his place.

Luckily it didn't take us long to get to his house, the LA traffic actually bearable for once. I had squirmed almost the entire car ride since Ashton placed his hand on my inner thigh, his thumb rubbing the soft skin.

Ashton brought me to his room as soon as we got into the house. "Sit on the bed," he demands and I nod, doing as he says. My eyes watch him as he grabs the bag he has with him into the bathroom before closing the door. I chew on my bottom lip and decide to strip some of my clothes off.

I lean back on the mattress, only dressed in a lacy pair of bra and panties. The bathroom door opens and Ashton emerges in his outfit from the video, a groan leaving my lips. "Fuck, look at you, baby girl," he groans and walks over to me.

His fingers graze over my flaming skin, shivering a bit as his hazel eyes take me in. "I'm all yours, daddy," I whisper and he smirks, nodding his head.

"Yeah, you are. All mine to play with. To destroy, huh?" Ash asks and I nod my head, gulping. "How about you get on your knees for daddy."

I push myself off the bed, getting on my knees immediately as I look up at him through my lashes. My hands run up his legs, taking in how incredible the leopard pants look on him. Ashton unbuttons his jeans, pushing them down just enough to free his cock.

My mouth waters at the sight of him, taking his large member into my hand. I pump him slowly, hearing him groan above you. "God, you're so big and thick," I groan before licking up the underside of his cock.

"Fuck, baby," Ash moans and combs his fingers through my hair before gripping onto it.

My stomach flutters at the small praise, seeing his head tilt back. My tongue drags around his tip before taking him into my mouth. Ashton thrusts his hips, making me take him deeper as I lay my hands on his thighs.

"C'mon, beautiful. Take me all the way. I know you can," he mutters and looks down at me, continuing to push my head towards his pelvis. I take a deep breath through my nose and opens my throat more, feeling his tip hitting the back of it. "Fuck, that's it."

My nose is pressed against his pelvis as I look up at him, tearing up a bit as it gets harder to breathe. Ashton moans and pulls out his phone, pointing it down at me before taking a picture. He lets go and I pull myself off of him, taking in deep breaths as a bit of drool and precum fall from my lips.

"You taste so good, daddy," I moan while licking around my lips, cleaning myself up a bit.

Ashton smirks and grabs a hold of my chin. "Yeah? How about you let daddy taste you now."

-

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