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gusu-emilu · 4 years ago

Text

and you can use my skin to bury secrets in

Ship: Jiang Cheng / Wen Qing

Summary: Jiang Cheng ties himself with Zidian. Wen Qing has some prideful (if conflicted) thoughts about the core transfer.

Rated M, Sunshot Campaign, Bondage, Referenced Canon-Typical Violence, WQ has needles but nothing really happens with them

read on AO3 or on Tumblr below

As Wen Qing slowly unties the layers of fabric, she wonders if Jiang Wanyin's robes are from before the burning of Lotus Pier, or if they are a new acquisition. A new asset for the rising Jiang Clan.

'Rising.' She almost laughs at that thought.

This man, trembling and frightened, is Wen Qing’s greatest act of treason.

The night is quiet. Dense. Wen Qing could disappear into the forest if she wanted to. Should disappear, should flee this supervisory office that is now littered with corpses and corrupted talismans.

She doesn’t know why she is back in front of the gate of the Yiling settlement, where anyone could easily spot her as the only body that isn’t mutilated on the ground. She tells herself it’s to inspect the carnage, to determine if her clansmen really were each killed in a different way, but she doesn’t look at the bodies as she walks down the path to empty buildings. Doesn’t look at anything, really. Her sight is all dizzy moonlight and visions of A-Ning.

He could be anywhere by now. Officers from Qishan seized him from the dungeon a day after Wen Qing was thrown in next to him. He had still been bloody, bruised, delirious when they took him away.

Wen Ruohan plays his hand well. He allowed her enough time with A-Ning to see the price for saving the Jiang siblings from Lotus Pier, and no more. Now their empire is falling, A-Ning will be caught in the crossfire, and she doesn’t even know where he is.

The door of the main office creaks as she pushes it open. The floorboards creak, too, under her feet, unless that’s just the sound of her joints fighting with each other as she wanders toward a place she should not be returning to.

Her hand slips inside her robes and closes around a small hard object in a velvety cloth. It is made of wood. Rich hornbeam wood. It should feel heavier than the paper-light weight of an empty promise.

I can hide you in our shelter outside Yiling, he had said, outside the dungeon where Wen Qing is now standing. Just for the night. I can keep you safe. In the morning, the spies will have news of where your brother is, and then you can go.

So simple it all was for him. Come with him to Lotus Pier, come with him to the shelter, keep this gift in her robes, leave her clan. Words of a man who knew their uselessness, yet still said them.

The words give her no comfort. And yet, they settle inside her with a faint warmth.

Unfortunately, warmth is worth very little in war.

She is inside the dungeon now. Somehow she remembered it being darker than this. There is enough moonlight creeping through the slits of the slightly-opened shudders to reveal the room’s sharp angles and cold corners, a drab wooden table and stool, a flat hard bed. A room of brittleness not even softened by the layer of dried grasses littered across the floor.

She must stand there for a while, because she doesn’t know what happens in the moments between when she lays eyes on the spot where she had found A-Ning curled up and bloodied, and when she hears, “Wen-guniang,” in a low, resonant voice behind her.

Immediately everything becomes crisper. She can see the individual strands of hay on the stone floor, smell the dull musk of the dungeon, hear footsteps come one bit closer.

She turns around.

Jiang Wanyin is standing just inside the dungeon. His arms are at his sides, slightly bent and tenser than should be comfortable, and his fists are not much better—one tightly clutching a sword and one hanging hesitantly under a thin silver snake around his wrist. His shoulders are broad, his chest raised like he’d deflate if his upper body didn’t displace enough air.

Indeed, now he wears the robes of a clan leader, and fills them. But his face still has that same naïve mixture of distress and wonder as when Wen Qing healed a gash in his leg on a boat in Caiyi Town.

“Wen-guniang.” His lips are soft and slightly parted, offensive in how they call after her with concern. “Why did you come back here?”

She has no obligation to answer him, so she doesn’t. She turns back to the dungeon to stare at the spot on the floor where she once held A-Ning.

Quiet footsteps. Jiang Wanyin is right behind her now. She can’t feel his breath, but she can hear its pattern clearly enough that it might as well be touching her. “Come back to the shelter with me,” he says.

“A-Ning would be safer in this dungeon than wherever he is now.” Her voice sounds far away.

Jiang Wanyin is quiet for a while. Then his feet shift, and she catches the sound of another of his too-swollen breaths. “Wen-guniang. Come back with me. You’ll be safer in the camp.”

A scoff rises up her throat. She walks over to the vacant spot on the floor and sits down on the sparse blanket of hay, hugging her knees into her chest with her back against the cold wall. She’s not sure why she is letting Jiang Wanyin watch her do this, but it doesn’t especially matter. She has seen Jiang Wanyin more vulnerable than he will ever see her.

Without needing to look, she can tell that Jiang Wanyin’s brow is furrowed, and his eyes are glistening with worry so abrasively genuine it would grate on her like scales if she let it.

She has felt the gaze of men before. A filthy, unwanted thing it is, like scooping up clear water in her hands only to find mud stuck under her fingernails.

Yet Jiang Wanyin’s gaze is something completely other. When she cups it, it settles in the lines of her palms. It wets her fingertips, waiting for her to seal another wound in his skin. Or perhaps cut a new one.

But she knows what Jiang Wanyin’s limit is. His care for her does not extend to A-Ning or the rest of her family—and with the war, what can she expect?

She does not want his concern. What she really wants is to sit here alone and cry.

It could be easily arranged. One flick of her wrist, a needle in the side of Jiang Wanyin’s neck, and she could cry in peace as he crumples to the floor and sleeps. There are kinder ways to make him leave her alone, but this one is the fastest, so she’s on her feet with a needle between two of her fingers.

She doesn’t throw it.

Instead she strides toward Jiang Wanyin with the needle held up for him to see. Once she is close enough, he catches her wrist.

His eyes are wide. “W-Wen-guniang—”

She pulls away and slips the needle back into her sleeve, leaving his hand hanging. The silver chain of Zidian waves back and forth beneath his wrist.

Neither of them moves.

She supposes she’s testing him as she raises the needle once again. It turns, slowly, like a compass pointing toward his cheek. Every part of his body freezes except for his eyes warily following the sharp tip as it draws closer to his face, until it rests on his cheekbone.

His breath is louder now. Unstable.

A bang hangs just over his cheek, so she presses the length of the metal against his hair and trails the tip along the side of his face, barely grazing his skin, until she has carefully tucked the bang behind his ear.

He swallows. His Adam’s apple looks like it wants to escape his throat.

There is no bang on the other side of his face, so she just touches the needle to the top of his ear and traces along its rim, slow and light enough to torment. When the tip is halfway down his ear, his teeth chatter.

He sucks in a breath and finally meets her eyes. From the eager terror swallowing his expression and the way he’s working to keep his mouth closed, his state of mind is obvious.

Jiang Wanyin would do anything she asked.

How nice it would be, to have control over something. Wen Qing has long known the authority that comes with her position—the orders and paperwork, the entire Qishan medical inventory, the health of Wen Ruohan, the safety of her family—and she has control over exactly none of it.

Her position is all false security when A-Ning is dangled over her head.

But Jiang Wanyin…

He would do anything she asked.

Anything except leave her to cry alone in this dungeon, or save her family.

But that might be enough for now. Too much has been asked of both of them since the Sunshot Campaign began.

One hand still at his ear, she hides the needle in her robes with a flick of two fingers. She strokes the side of her thumb along his cheek. It sends a rush through her.

“Why did you follow me here, Jiang Wanyin?”

“I—you could have been—”

She traces a finger along his jawline, his bone much sturdier than he is before her. “Has it not occurred to you that I can take care of myself?”

His only answer is a pink flush spreading across his cheeks. Wen Qing has seen him in many states of turmoil—his shy glances in the Cloud Recesses, his outburst in Yiling at the sight of her Wen robes, his utter emptiness as he lay in mountain grass waiting for “Baoshan Sanren”—but this is a type of turmoil she has never quite seen.

“Kneel.”

A staggered gasp escapes Jiang Wanyin’s lips.

He blinks at her a few times, then drops to his knees.

* * *

Every one of his muscles is shaking. His breath is caught in his throat—or maybe he has forgotten how to breathe—and he wonders if he might suffocate like this, quivering on his knees and waiting for Wen Qing to move.

He ducks his head, trying to hide the burning in his face, but he knows she can see every inch of him. That makes him burn hotter. He wonders if she can hear his heartbeat, how it fights against his inability to just get some damn oxygen inside himself.

He is a clan leader. She is an enemy. He should be on his feet, not kneeling at hers.

As if Wen Qing can sense this, she takes a step closer and says, “Jiang-zongzhu.”

He thinks he makes a noise. Maybe a grunt. Maybe a squeak. He’d rather not know what it is.

He has responsibilities, Wei Wuxian is still missing, his people are injured—

But it all fades away, lost in the dimness of the room.

He does not feel like a clan leader now.

He realizes that Wen Qing is making some kind of gesture, and with effort he lifts his gaze enough to see her holding the comb in front of herself, casually displaying the gift he gave her as though it is just a doctor’s tool she happens to have.

Surely she must know what that comb means. She must know how much courage it had taken to buy it, how much more it had taken to give it to her, and it stings for her to wave it so easily before him.

She lowers the comb and disappears behind him. Her footsteps are soft and chilling on the stone floor, and they stop closer to him than he expected. The silence that follows is agonizing. He curls his fingers into his robes at his sides, the shuffle of fabric just audible enough to fill the stifling emptiness.

Light pressure at the top of his head. Feathery. Phantomlike.

This should not be enough to break him already—it isn’t, he isn’t—but he shivers and grips his robes tighter.

Thin fingers gently tug at his hair, removing his hairpiece with such precision that even as Jiang Cheng’s mind falls apart into alternating screams of make it stop make it stop and touch me more touch me more, he can sense how methodically her fingers work through his hair.

Once the metal hairpiece is out, he is left plain, unornamented.

He is certainly not a clan leader now.

* * *

The silver hairpiece gleams in her hands. The moonlight seems to be drawn to it, as if it knows that this is the only valuable object in this dungeon. The only thing that isn’t worn and beaten. The blue glow from the window does not even shine on Wen Qing or Jiang Wanyin as much as it illuminates this piece of embellished silver.

She drops it to the floor.

Jiang Wanyin’s shoulders draw up at the harsh clang of metal on stone.

For a brief moment, she considers removing her own hairpiece as well. But instead she runs the comb through Jiang Wanyin’s hair, draws his locks into a bun like raising a curtain. Then she decides she likes his hair better down and takes the bun out. Jiang Wanyin winces at the light tug.

She repeats that several more times, running the comb and her fingers through his soft hair, tying it up and taking it down, sometimes pausing to study the creation she has made, sometimes pulling it apart right away.

It’s comforting, to do and undo him as she pleases. She has felt many bodies under her hands, zipping and unzipping them with finality, leaving a permanent imprint whether the result was successful or not. It’s nice to be able to alter the work of her hands however many times she wants. To have someone so obliging, who lets her be impatient and indecisive with no consequences, who melts a little more with every stroke of her fingers in his hair.

Jiang Wanyin, too, she has remade. It is only right for her to tweak him a bit more until she is satisfied.

Especially since, if the rumors are true, her remaking of Jiang Wanyin has left Wei Wuxian coreless in the Burial Mounds, another corpse thrown onto the heap of resentment.

She tugs the bun out more sharply this time. Jiang Wanyin makes a feeble, pained noise.

In the end, she finishes with the bun tied. When she circles back in front of him, it is clear that it was a good decision, as the sharp lines of his face are both more boyish and more mature with his hair drawn back.

He glances up at her.

A bright streak of violet binds his wrists and wraps around a beam on the ceiling. His arms shoot over his head, his hands tied.

Judging by the look of horror on Jiang Wanyin’s face, he is just as surprised as she is.

* * *

“Is this something it does often?”

Jiang Cheng can’t bear to look at Wen Qing, but he can clearly see the smirk on her face just from the amusement in her voice.

This is, in fact, not something that happens.

Zidian has never acted without him telling her to.

He struggles against the whip cords enough to realize that they are so tight around his wrists that he can barely rock his shoulders.

His face is on fire.

Did he…did he tell Zidian to do this?

“No need to hurry,” Wen Qing says, her voice slick, teasing. “Release yourself for now.”

“I—I—” He stops himself, because he doesn’t know which would be more embarrassing, to admit that he had no control over his own weapon, or to say that he tied himself up with it on purpose. He retracts Zidian with a crack, and his hands fall limp at his sides.

“First,” Wen Qing says slowly, “ask me to remove your robes.”

Jiang Cheng jerks his head up, and immediately he knows it was a mistake to look. He almost shatters under the hawklike sharpness of Wen Qing’s gaze, the steady attentiveness of eyes trained to notice every detail of the body.

He forces his limbs to function enough for him to begin to stand. He immediately regrets that, too, because the best he can manage is to stagger weakly to his feet.

Once he straightens himself up, he is much taller than Wen Qing. Much broader. Funny that even as he towers over her, he feels tiny.

He stands there for a while, trying to will the heat out of his face and slow his breathing.

Ask me to remove your robes, his mind repeats.

Some traitorous part of him claws up his throat, ready to beg for Wen Qing to take off his robes, to take off everything, take off his clan and his name and his body until he is nothing more than a heartbeat in her hands.

Instead, he straightens his spine and sets his jaw.

The corners of Wen Qing’s mouth twitch. She reaches up and strokes Jiang Cheng’s upper lip with the tip of her finger. “Can’t speak?”

His lips quiver. They part slightly, and her finger enters his mouth just the smallest amount.

He pulls away and scowls. “I can speak just fine,” he says, ignoring how much his voice cracks.

“Prove it.”

He does not prove it.

But he does hold his arms out at his sides for Wen Qing to remove his robes, closing his eyes as he waits, as if sealing his vision would stop his dignity from rushing out of him like a river.

* * *

As Wen Qing slowly unties and slides away the layers of fabric, she wonders if these robes are from before the burning of Lotus Pier, or if they are a new acquisition. A new asset for the rising Jiang Clan.

Rising. She almost laughs at that thought.

This man, trembling and frightened, hot skin exposed more each second, is Wen Qing’s greatest act of treason.

By opening and sealing Jiang Wanyin’s meridians on that mountain and hiding that pulse of gold inside him, she has enabled revenge to fall upon Qishan much faster than it would have come on its own.

The Wen Clan struck down the Jiang, only for Wen Qing to recreate its power.

It’s too bad Wen Ruohan will ever know. At last, something she would not object to being thrown in a dungeon and beaten for, a crime she has full ownership of, and it is a secret that will soon die with her and A-Ning and has probably died already with Wei Wuxian.

She blocks out the pain of that thought.

Jiang Wanyin’s robes fall to the floor.

He gasps, and his gaze darts around for a few moments. Then he slowly looks up, as if expecting something he is too afraid to ask for.

“You may tie yourself now,” Wen Qing says.

Jiang Wanyin averts his gaze, hesitating. Then he kneels, and bright violet cords appear around his wrists and lock over the beam on the ceiling once more. He hangs forward with his arms over his head.

This is much better. Jiang Wanyin had been fully clothed during the core transfer, as the operation was purely one of spiritual energy. Now Wen Qing can see the taut muscles under which her treachery lives.

She smiles.

* * *

Coolness rushes through Jiang Cheng’s body. He feels a strange sense of release, as if something heavy inside him has slithered out through his fingertips into the binds of Zidian and left him weightless.

But Wen Qing’s scrutinizing gaze is even more unbearable than before, now that it is upon his bare skin. He fights the urge to squirm, to hide, to rip away Zidian’s restraints and run out the door. At least Wen Qing had the mercy to leave his trousers on.

A growing urge swells in him, and he wants to hear her voice. To feel her hands on him.

Touch me.

Want me.

He musters the courage to meet Wen Qing’s eyes again, and she is smirking. He thinks his entire body shrinks to half its size.

“Are you waiting for me to say something?” she asks.

He bites his lip.

“I have seen many men, Jiang Wanyin.” She paces in a circle around him, each of her footsteps calculated, reverberating through the floorboards and into his nerves, giving him goosebumps. “Are you waiting for me to call you remarkable? To marvel at you?”

She kneels in front of him. She smells like smoke and ash.

Jiang Cheng wants to lean forward, tangle his face in her hair and bury his lips in her neck and rest with his head on her shoulder, but the biting restraint of Zidian holds him back. Perhaps it is better that way. He can do nothing wrong, can make no mistakes, when he is powerless like this.

Security courses through him, sweet and hot.

Wen Qing places her hands on his shoulders. He can’t stop the moan from escaping.

She rubs his arms, which have stopped straining against Zidian and now relax even more as she squeezes and massages his muscles, runs her hands down to his collarbone and digs her thumbs into the sides of his neck. He shudders as one hand slides down his chest and presses into his lower abdomen. With the other hand, she grabs his chin and gently draws it forward.

Jiang Cheng lost control of his breath long ago. Tension he did not even know he held onto is disappearing from his body, pried away by Wen Qing’s hands.

He wants to curl up and crawl away.

He wants more.

“Jiang-zongzhu,” Wen Qing says, her expression intense, unreadable. “I will tell you one thing.”

She presses firmer on his abdomen, above his navel, as if digging inside him.

“You will be a powerful clan leader.”

Heat blazes over Jiang Cheng’s face, to the tips of his ears, down his neck. He closes his eyes, fights the primal urge to flee and hide.

“Don’t make any mistakes."

He shakes his head. “I—I w-won’t…”

“Good.” Her hand lifts from his abdomen and finds its way to his jaw. She cups both sides of his face, her hands steady and slightly calloused.

“I won’t harm your people,” Jiang Cheng murmurs. “I’ll—I’ll protect you.”

Wen Qing sighs. Rubs a thumb over his cheek. Then again, closer to his lips.

Somehow, he dares to open his eyes. “Would—would you—please—”

She tilts her head.

He swallows. Zidian sparks around his wrists, as if she is just as eager. Selfish little thing.

Wen Qing seems to consider it for a few moments. “Close your eyes.”

He does not want to. He wants to see her lean in, see her eyelashes lower—

Wen Qing raises two fingers to each of his eyes and closes them.

“If we are lucky,” she says quietly, “we will never meet again.”

She silences him with her lips before he can reply.

* * *

Thanks for reading! If you liked this fic, you can be a supportive sibling like Jiang Yanli by visiting me on AO3!

#mdzsnet #chengqing #jiang cheng #wen qing #mdzs #cql #the untamed #mdzs fanfiction #cql fanfiction #the untamed fanfiction #mdzs fanfic #the untamed fanfic #cql fanfic #emilu fics #emilu creations

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beanzmtr · 3 years ago

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Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Wúxiàn, enemies to lovers, modern au

...

“Lan Zhan! Ah! Wait!” Wei Wuxian huffs. Lungs protesting after his sprint to catch up to the other man.

“Lan Zhan….aiya…you walk too quickly.” Wei Wuxian says, practically bent over, his hands resting on his knees.

“What is it, Wei Ying?” says Lan Wangji, irritation clear in the minute furrow of his brow.

“Don’t take the job.”

“What?” says Lan Wangji. The irritation from before all but disappears, his ever-placid face now betrayed by the smallest uptick of his eyebrows.

“Has your hearing been impaired in the last few seconds Lan-er-gege?” Wei Wuxian huffs, chuckling. “You're going up to Main Office, because they just called you, right? They’re going to offer you a job at headquarters. More pay. Higher position, better resources, blah blah. But don’t take it.”

Wei Wuxian is expecting Lan Wangji to ask him how he knows. He’s prepared this story in the run over. He is prepared to tell Lan Wangji that he had heard this-and-that down the grapevine because he’s very well informed, don’t you know Lan-er-gege? Everyone wants to talk to me! He doesn't really want Lan Wangji to know the truth.

“Why?” says Lan Wangji. Effectively derailing the next words out of Wei Wuxian’s mouth.

Wei Wuxian is confused. He doesn't understand. Why what?

“Why what?” says Wei Wuxian.

“Why do you not want me to take the job?” inquires Lan Wangji and ahh thinks Wei Wuxian. He should know how to answer this. Lan Wangji shouldn’t take the job because -- because -- he’d be selling out. It’s their work here that’s important! It isn’t about the money. They spent their lives, their careers, working to get to this point where they could design things to improve people’s lives and what they have going here, it works! They work. Them together. Platonically.

Wei Wuxian realizes he’s been quiet for a beat too long when he sees Lan Wangji’s face smooth into the careful neutrality he displays whenever he doesn’t want to express human emotion.

“If that’s all.” says Lan Wangji. He gives a curt nod and begins to turn around. Before Wei Wuxian has time to think about it, his hand has flown out in front of him to latch onto Lan Wangji’s wrist.

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what else to say. He had reasons, he’d worked himself up into an angry fit on the way over. Desperation and betrayal mingling together. But now, all the words have escaped him. Everything except one thought. Don’t go, which he absolutely cannot say.

Lan Wangji’s expression when he looks at him is surprisingly vulnerable. Wei Wuxian cannot understand it. After a moment, it’s gone, and the mask is back in place.

They both speak at the same time.

“Let go.” says Lan Wangji.

“I like you.” says Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian should be doubled over, laughing on the floor because in the years they have worked together; he has never ever seen Lan Wangji gape like a fish. He imagines that he would be in such a state if he wasn’t trying to wrap his head around what the ever-loving-fuck just came out of his mouth.

“Lan Zhan. Look - listen, ah, you’re a pain in the ass. You always have to follow director’s orders - even when you know they’re wrong, you yell at me whenever I leave the coffee pot anywhere but precisely inside the coffee maker, and jesus you could stand to smile when I know you want to, but you can’t just, just, - leave me here wh-…”

Wei Wuxian continues his speech, but the sound is blocked. By Lan Wangji’s mouth. By Lan Wangji kissing him. The kiss is hungry, Wei Wuxian feels pushed back and thrown by it. He hasn't felt this before, like someone wanted to devour him. He feels a strong hand come up to grip his neck and his lips part without his permission and then there is a tongue licking the inside of his mouth. Lan Wangji kissing his mouth with his warm lips that taste like coconut and wild cherries, and holy shit what…

He steps back. His lips leave Lan Wangji’s and he gives a small whimper that came from god-knows-where and he stares and stares and stares.

Lan Wangji has wild eyes and he looks, well, he looks like he just made out with someone. With me.

Wei Wuxian is absolutely silent, breaths heaving, as he watches the other man close his eyes and turn away without another glance.

Wei Wuxian stands there for a long time. He moves eventually, putting one foot in front of the other, maneuvering back to his office. His vision is clouded, blurred at the sides like a shitty snapchat filter. He has ongoing projects he could be doing, but he feels like if he forced his brain to concentrate on anything but moving he might just float away entirely. He pockets the keys to his car but his feet take him to the subway. When he gets off and finally makes it back to his apartment, he flops on the couch in a dead faint.

In the morning, he’s woken up by a buzzing in his hand. The sun has yet to rise and all the lights are off in his living room. In a haze he lifts his head to peer at his phone. The bright backlight blinds him momentarily, but then words come into focus. The sender reads Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian has a second to feel panic before the rest of the message loads. It’s just four words, but he feels his heart start to race regardless. The message reads:

“I didn’t take it.”

#sometimes you need to write abt wangxian getting together at work #modern au #ficlet #wangxian #my writing

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yuziyuanapologist · 4 years ago

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Idea for writing about Wen Ning: so when he was a kid and got his spirit (half??) taken, he must have woken up later, right?? What if you write about him waking up (presumably??) in Wen Qing's arms! OH and then in the burial mounds when he wakes up in Wen Qing's arms AGAIN. anyway that could be neat

anon you are a GENIUS! so i didn’t write this exact thing but its pretty close, ya got my lil brain whirring, so this is 4 times wen ning woke up with his sister by his side (and 1...uh).

1.8k words, gen, wen ning & wen qing. wei wuxian is there too i guess. content warnings for canon character deaths and sadness, we all know what we’re doing here by now. enjoy!

[AO3 link!]

Wen Ning is four years old, and when he wakes up, half his limbs are missing.

No - no, that can’t be right. He has two arms. Two legs. Four fingers and one thumb on his left hand, same again on his right. He’s wearing socks, but he can feel all ten of his toes wiggling.

No, he’s all here. Look, look, his body looks the same as normal.

Jiejie is asleep next to him, positioned as if she’d been kneeling at the side of the bed and fallen asleep when the hour had become too late - she never stays up too late, not like Wen Ning, who makes it a competition with himself of just how long he can keep his eyes open after the lights have gone out.

“Jiejie,” he tries - and - oh, maybe it’s his voice that’s missing? There was barely a sound to be heard just then, was there? He tries again - “J-ie -” he coughs, and the croak that he had been producing gives way to his voice once again. “Jie,” he says, and lifts one of his definitely-there hands to prod at her shoulder.

She stirs with a tremble. “A-Ning,” she gasps, looking at him with wide eyes.

Oh - maybe - maybe his eyes? Nose? Ears? Are they missing?

But he lifts a hand to each of them in turn, and finds them all intact - besides, he can sense just as normal, he can hear her voice and her worried gasps, he can smell the incense burning over on the table, and the herbs infused in the bowl of water now cold beside his bed. He can see his home, his room, everything as it should be in the early dawn light.

Then what is it that he’s missing? Perhaps - his hair? He lifts his hands to feel at the top of his head, to trace the strands down - but they go as far down as they ever have - farther, perhaps?

“Jie,” he can speak - but he doesn’t really remember how. “Jie,” his lower lip trembles and he reaches out helplessly.

Jiejie lets all her breath out in a rush, and scrambles forward, kneeling on the bed and pulling Wen Ning’s weak body up into her arms, squeezing him tight tight tight and making him the safest he’s ever been, always safe when Jiejie is here.

Safe, safe, he’s safe. He’s somehow not whole, but he’s safe.

He wasn’t supposed to come find Jiejie.

Well - he’s never supposed to come find Jiejie, because Zongzhu wants him to be independent, and Er-gongzi wants him to leave her alone because she’s doing important work for the Clan, and it’s all bigger than him and he’s in the way and he’s just a stupid kid with no sense and half a soul who’ll only ever be a weak cultivator, and he’ll only ever cause trouble.

So he was supposed to take the punishment, and stay in his room with sore red hands and not take anything for them, because that’s what happens when he interrupts, but it hurt and there was no one stopping him and -

Jiejie had snapped at him, of course. She always does, at first, and then she softens without showing it, and pretends to be stern when she fixes all his hurts.

And then she said - “A-Ning, have you been sleeping?” and he had looked down and away because Er-gongzi is fifteen and he thinks it’s funny when there are scorpions in Wen Ning’s bedchambers and Wen Ning isn’t allowed to tell anyone and he isn’t allowed to sleep anywhere else either.

And so Jiejie grabbed his hand tight - too tight, but caringly so - and pushes him towards her own bed, and tells him if he doesn’t lie down she’ll send him back to Dafan Mountain, so help her.

Now - he wakes up, blinking finally well-rested eyes, and she sits at the small table in the room, smiling soft relief that she hasn’t yet trained into sternness.

But despite the gentle nature of her expression, one hand rests against the table, tapping a silver needle against the wood - menacing, but not directed at him.

“While you slept,” she says, the softness already fading into malice. “I perfected an old technique that I’ve been working on.”

Tap, tap, tap.

“Er-gongzi won’t dare to disturb your sleep any longer.”

“A-Ning?”

At first - he is convinced that it must be a dream. “Jie,” he murmurs - more to silence the voices in his head than anything. They’ve been ringing for days - screaming, even - noises he can’t describe - some he can, the clunk of metal on metal - the breaking of bones - his own? - and knuckles hitting flesh over and over - blood rushing in his ears - pain - is that a sound, now?

He has been on his own in this cell for a while.

“A-Ning,” she’s more urgent now - breathless and scrambling towards him - oh, oh, it’s real, she’s here. She’s here. “Are you - are you alright?”

“Jie,” he smiles it around all the blood in his mouth. “I didn’t tell them anything.”

She doesn’t reply, her hands moving up to his face - she must be assessing all the damage done, all the blood he knows is still uncleaned. She’s seconds from tears - and pulls him forward, his head down onto her shoulder, holding on tight and stroking her thumb against his hair.

Like this - he relaxes, sighs out all his worry against her tattered robes, and lets himself be held. The comfort she brings is still strong despite the fact that she gives it with a shake to her arms and voice and breath now. Wen Ning turns his head further into her arm, and inhales - exhales - inhales -

“Is - is Wei-gongzi okay?” he has to ask. “And Jiang-gongzi? Did it - did it work?”

She doesn’t reply, but holds. Her thumb still stroking that gentle soothing motion against his hair, and perhaps the sign she is trying to give is for him to stay quiet for fear of who might hear, or for the sake of their peace in not thinking of it, but he has to know.

“Jie -”

“Fine,” she almost snaps it, but her voice is still soft and worn thin. “Both - fine.”

He could believe her. He wants to, and she doesn’t - wouldn’t lie, to him. But then - she - perhaps she doesn’t even - doesn’t even know for certain. At least she’s here. At least she’s here to give him tentative comfort, to pretend that he’ll be all right, that they both will.

“Jie,” he speaks again, through his own doubt. “D-do you regret - it?” He asks, wishing he could stop his voice from shaking. But through cold, through habit, through fear, he cannot.

He finds no surprise in the responding silence.

To wake up feeling as though he is without half his limbs twice in a single lifetime must be improbable.

Ah - no, that is not the whole truth to it -

His body comes into consciousness from the ground up - he’s already standing, wrapped around with heavy cloth, heavier than his body -

No, it is his body that he feels wrapped around him, skin wrapped around his bones like it doesn’t belong there, responding to his commands but as a dog to a master, not as flesh to mind.

Half of his limbs are not missing - nor were they last time - this is something else. Still, he counts.

Two arms, two legs. Four fingers, one thumb on his left hand. The same on his right. He is wearing shoes, but he can feel his toes wi- no, not wiggling, but at least responding. He blinks his eyes once - yes, he has them.

Ears - he can hear - he can hear everything - the holding of breaths, five heartbeats surrounding - and the crickets - and the grass rustling -

“A-Ning!”

Jiejie. She’s she’s - where is she? He can hear her - he needs her - Jiejie -

But the sound falls back to quiet, with the utterance of “Wen-guniang -” A warning. They’re warning her that -

What? What part of him is missing? He tries again - limbs, he knows. Eyes, too, and his hair - he can see his hair in front of his eyes. Then - nose? - yes, he does have it - but it’s - the air that rushes through it - it’s hollow. Unnecessary.

Mouth. Voice. He raises his head, and says the name of the first face he sees..

“Gon- Gong- zi -” he forces out. “Wei-gongzi.”

Wei-gongzi rushes towards him, hesitant as he reaches forward. “Wen Ning,” he says, a hand out to his shoulder, almost excited, almost happy - but not yet.

Then - a voice behind him.

“A-Ning.” It comes out as a breath, relieved and fearful all at once.

He turns slow - can’t seem to force himself to move any faster, try as he might, but he forces the movement of a neck that feels like it’s been frozen in place for - for - well it must be a while - and finally sees her.

“Jie.” He can’t get it to sound like how he wants it too. He can’t put all of the joy into it, not like normal. His body is frozen and stiffened and half missing and stuck, and he just wants to look at his sister because she’s here, she’s here, she’s telling him she’s here.

“It’s me, A-Ning, it’s your Jiejie,” she’s weeping as she strokes his cheek, her breathing heavy and gasping, and she pulls him forward - he can’t force his limbs to catch up, but he’s held.

He’s held, and, despite all that's missing, he’s safe.

He wakes screaming.

It’s the worst pain he’s ever felt - worse than - worse than anything, and it’s never ending, the back of his head being pulled open, the back of his mind slit, and poison pouring directly in through the metal.

But it’s poison that he’s come to need, and the taking of it hurts. The further back it's pulled, the more awareness he has of his body - he’s standing, out in the street -

It hurts -

And it’s raining -

The metal nails are scraping through him, ripping against bone and tearing through his scalp -

There are chains wrapped around his body, less him than the skin that wraps around his bones, and yet at the same level of his control. He is no more or less than he was before, but he is different -

He feels the metal leave his body, the nails pulled out of his skull. The blood still drips, his hair sticky with it, but he is freed from the poison's hand, he is in his own body and his own skin and his own chains -

And he is screaming in pain.

There is a hand on his shoulder, and the scream fades. A gentle hand, comforting, but -

With consciousness comes memory. The worst pain he’s ever felt becomes meaningless.

“Wen Ning,” Wei-gongzi is gentle. “Are you alright?”

Wen Ning wants to tell him what he had told him all those years ago. I feel - like I want to cry, but I can’t.

But - when he had said it back then - Jiejie had been there to hold on to him.

And now -

He is missing half his limbs.

#thank u lovely anon!!!#wen ning #the untamed #the untamed fic #anonymous #ask #fic*#mine #mdzsnet

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disastermages · 4 years ago

Text

y’all asked for part two of the au where xiao xingchen raises wei wuxian

“Take it easy, A-Ying, Shuanghua won’t let you fall off.” Xiao Xingchen says, even as he keeps both of his hands on his nephew. “Just focus on going in circles.” The sword only hangs a few feet off the ground to begin with, just low enough to nix any possible injury as Xiao Xingchen starts moving the three of them slowly.

Shuanghua hums in the back of his head in answer, working to steady the wobblings of Wei Ying’s feet, refusing to even dip underneath his weight. “One must trust their sword before they can begin to fly.” Xiao Xingchen says, navigating a turn as they circle back around to their tent. Wei Ying already understood the basics of talismans and temperature regulation, sword riding had to be next, right?

He’d learned on Cangse’s sword, and if it hadn’t matched his sister’s energy, Xiao Xingchen wasn’t sure what would have, he’d fallen off of it more times than he cared to remember only to be put right back on it. At the time she’d told him she was making sure he could hold on through anything.

They make a few more passes around their little camp before Xiao Xingchen brings them to a stop again. “I’m going to let go now,” Wei Ying looks up at him now, his eyes big in the face of Xiao Xingchen’s smile, “Shuanghua is going to take you around a few more times, let him lead and concentrate on keeping your balance.”

“Uncle Xiao,” Wei Ying starts, but Xiao Xingchen only puts his hand on top of Wei Ying’s head.

“Shuanghua hasn’t ever let me fall off, A-Ying, it won’t let you fall either.” Wei Ying looks scolded for a moment, and Xiao Xingchen still doesn’t take away his hands. If Wei Ying really didn’t want to, he wouldn’t force him, but he hadn’t made any moves to get off either.

“Okay.” Wei Ying says finally, his eyes focused on Shuanghua’s blade while he readjusts the position of his feet, one right behind the other, just like Xiao Xingchen had taught him.

“Okay.” Xiao Xingchen says, taking both of his hands away completely, and stepping back before he directs a jolt of spiritual energy into Shuanghua’s pommel.

He doesn’t need words to tell Shuanghua to take Wei Ying to the treeline, but no further before circling back around, though he still watches them until they disappear around an evergreen only to reemerge from behind a different one a few moments later. There’s an even bigger smile on his face as he turns to start packing up their things, Shuanghua was having fun, and after the first few passes, so was Wei Ying.

His own sword had surprised him. It wasn’t that Shuanghua disliked children, it just simply hadn’t vibrated with interest at the suggestion of playing with them the way Cangse’s had, but it already taken to Wei Ying without a second thought. Xiao Xingchen was grateful for it.

Wei Ying and Shuanghua are already on their way back to the treeline when Xiao Xingchen calls his sword back, beckoning it with his hand and chuckling to himself when he hears Wei Ying’s delighted surprise when the sword begins moving backwards.

“Did you have fun?” Xiao Xingchen asks as he lifts Wei Ying off the sword and holds him up to eye level for a moment. He was heavier than he’d been six months ago, his eyes were brighter, and he was somehow even more energetic than he’d been that night. Good, that was a good thing, even if Xiao Xingchen was exhausted by the end of most days now.

“I didn’t fall off!” Wei Ying says, grinning and watching with rapt attention as Shuanghua sheathes itself across Xiao Xingchen’s back, the humming in his mind fading back into peacefulness. Shuanghua would be a good sword for Wei Ying to learn with, it was steady and firm in it’s position, even when it wasn’t in his hand, but Wei Ying would have to build that kind of relationship with his own sword one day.

This won’t be the first or last time Xiao Xingchen wished he knew what had happened to his sister and brother in law’s bodies and their swords, maybe Wei Ying could have carried one of them, maybe even Cangse’s if Xiao Xingchen commissioned a new grip for it, one that would fit Wei Ying’s hand when he was old enough.

Those thoughts wouldn’t reveal the locations of neither the bodies nor the swords, and Xiao Xingchen knows that. It could even be better that way, he thinks, for Wei Ying to have his own sword to name and bond with, rather than chasing after the bond the sword had had with the parent it belonged to.

Suddenly there are hands on his face and Xiao Xingchen is pulled out of his head. “Uncle Xiao looks sad.” Wei Ying’s eyebrows are knit together when he speaks and Xiao Xingchen shifts him onto one hip to run his thumb between them and smooth out the crease.

“Uncle Xiao isn’t sad, A-Ying,” Xiao Xingchen says, pinching Wei Ying’s cheek just a little, “I’m only thinking about how you won’t want to ride on Shuanghua anymore when you have your own sword in a few years.” It was true enough, there had been a few times where Xiao Xingchen had felt selfish enough to want his nephew to stay as small and sweet as he was now.

Wei Ying was only going to get bigger and older, soon enough Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t even be able to carry him like this anymore. Would he let him call him A-Ying still? Or would he want Xiao Xingchen to call him by his courtesy name?

Before those thoughts can truly take root, Wei Ying speaks again, squirming in Xiao Xingchen’s arms to try and get him to look at him again. “My sword will be friends with Shuanghua!” Wei Ying declares, holding onto the lapel of his uncle’s robes now, tugging just a little bit.

A flood of relief hits Xiao Xingchen then. Of course it would be that easy, Wei Ying made friends everywhere they went, his sword, though currently nonexistent, should be the same, shouldn’t it? “My nephew is smarter than his uncle sometimes.” Xiao Xingchen says, pressing his forehead against Wei Ying’s as he starts walking back towards their tent.

“Can my very wise nephew help me finish packing so we can make it to the next town before sunset?” Xiao Xingchen asks, setting Wei Ying down on the ground and kneeling before him, smiling when Wei Ying nods his head and sets about packing what he can manage. They should have left an hour ago, but he’d needed to teach Wei Ying what he could during their down time.

And perhaps, Xiao Xingchen thinks, it had only been a little selfish of him to let the ride go on longer than truly necessary.

They meet Song Zichen when Wei Ying is six and Xiao Xingchen has been asked to assist on a nighthunt under Baixue Temple’s jurisdiction.

“You don’t leave your nephew somewhere safe while you’re nighthunting?” Song Zichen asks, eyes cast down to the boy walking between the two of them. His temple had offered to watch the child, but Xiao Xingchen had refused and taken Wei Ying’s hand in his.

“The safest place for Wei Ying is with me.” Xiao Xingchen says, squeezing Wei Ying’s hand in his and glancing down at him. Back when Xiao Xingchen had first taken him, he’d tried leaving Wei Ying behind under the care of innkeepers and village aunties, but it never went over well. Either Wei Ying would wait by the door the whole night for his uncle to come back, or he would have nightmares that the same monsters that had taken his parents had come back for Xiao Xingchen too.

Xiao Xingchen couldn’t and wouldn’t fault his nephew for his fears, even if he did promise that he would come back each and every time he’d left him before.

“I hide behind rocks and in caves when the monsters come out.” Wei Ying says, sounding just the smallest bit insulted that it was implied he shouldn’t be here. “I can climb trees too.”

“And then Uncle Xiao has to come get you down when you climb too high.” Xiao Xingchen says fondly, looking over when he hears Song Zichen snort, his own hand covering the smile on his face.

“He’s laughing at me!” Wei Ying says, tugging on his uncle’s hand, though he doesn’t look the slightest bit mad, especially since he’d been trying to get a reaction out of the man since they’d met him. “Song-gege is laughing!”

And what a wonderful laugh it is, Xiao Xingchen finds himself thinking. He should probably scold Wei Ying for the over familiarity, but before the words can even come out, Song Zichen is already turning his attention back to Wei Ying, the smile still on his face.

“Apologies, I was only thinking about the sight of your uncle climbing after you in his nice white robes.” Even in the barely there moonlight, Xiao Xingchen can see Song Zichen’s shoulders shutter just a little and he hopes the color on his face isn’t as obvious as the heat spreading across his cheeks.

“Perhaps Song Zichen will get to see it for himself tonight.” Xiao Xingchen says, though something else entirely burns in his throat as he walks ahead and pulls Wei Ying along with him, only managing to look back once to see if Song Zichen was still following them.

His nephew truly could make friends anywhere they went.

“I didn’t figure you to be the fatherly type, A-Chen.” His grandmaster’s voice says from behind him, and he freezes before he turns slowly towards her. He’d noticed her, of course he’d noticed her, but he’d been ordered not to speak to her if he did when he’d left the mountain.

Baoshan Sanren stands with her arms behind her back, her face strict, but softening when her eyes take in Wei Ying’s face the same way it did when she looked upon her youngest disciples.

“Grandmaster.” Xiao Xingchen greets, bowing at the waist and peeking over to see Wei Ying do the same. Baoshan Sanren inclines her head before she comes closer, her eyes looking between Wei Ying and himself as though she were trying to solve a puzzle. “Wei Ying is Shijie’s son.” Xiao Xingchen explains, resting his hand on the back of Wei Ying’s head.

“Cangse? She’s here as well?” Slowly, Xiao Xingchen shakes his head, hoping that his grandmaster will understand without him having to say it.

There’s a split second where Baoshan Sanren’s eyes widen with understanding and her shoulders fall, but it’s gone as fast as it had come, her gaze entirely focused on Wei Ying now. “She always did so well for herself.” She says finally, blinking something away as she looks at him again.

“Have you found anyone to forge his sword yet, Xingchen?” She asks, coming to kneel down in front of Wei Ying, perhaps to look at him better, but then Xiao Xingchen sees her take something out of her sleeve and offer it to him.

Wei Ying looks back at him to ask permission and Xiao Xingchen nods his head once, his hand dropping down to his nephew’s shoulder.

“Not yet, I’ve just started looking.” He answers honestly, something warm uncurling in his chest when he sees that Wei Ying has only been given a piece of candy.

“You may both visit the mountain in a year’s time, I’ll have something made for him by then.” Baoshan Sanren says, no room for any kind of argument in her words as she rises back to her feet. “My grandchild will have a proper sword.”

Xiao Xingchen’s throat is too tight to speak as he nods, moving to bow again, but when he looks up, Baoshan Sanren is already gone, leaving Wei Ying looking up at him with eyes as big as plates.

“Was that really her? Was that our grandmaster?” At eight years old, Wei Ying should be too old to be pulling at his uncle’s sleeves like he is, but Xiao Xingchen can’t deny him this.

“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen answers finally, when his throat has loosened, “We should tell Uncle Song your sword is taken care of.” He means to ask if Wei Ying has any questions, about the mountain, about Baoshan Sanren, about his sword, but the words stick and Wei Ying is already talking. Xiao Xingchen suspects that if his nephew does have questions, they’ll come in the middle of the night as usual.

#the untamed #mdzs #xiao xingchen #wei wuxian #song zichen #song lan #songxiao #*slaps one of those baby on board stickers onto shuanghua*

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onceinabluehanguangjun · 4 years ago

Text

moon in my window

Summary: for the @mdzsnet Lan Wangji birthday celebration, have some chronically depressed Lan Zhan and how his family (main focus on his husband) helps support him

Word Count: ~4k

Tags: depression, post-canon

ao3

“Ah, Er-gege, you’re too kind.”

Lan Wangji sat on the edge of the bed, a cup of tea in his hand which he held out to Wei Wuxian. He smiled in thanks, but couldn’t hide the wince. Mo Xuanyu’s body was admittedly very good at putting up with Wei Wuxian’s spirit, but it was still much less accustomed to him than Wei Wuxian’s previous body and therefore was much more susceptible to silly things. Like runny noses and never-ending headaches. Apparently Mo Xuanyu didn’t overwork his brain in the same way Wei Wuxian did. Who would’ve guessed?

With the wave of Lan Wangji’s hand, the little bit of light that shined through the paper windows was gone and they were engulfed in darkness. It lessened the pressure on his temples just enough to be thankful even more.

“Is this medicinal?” Wei Wuxian asked softly. Lan Wangji hummed his confirmation. “Ah, we should talk to Wen Ning and see if he remembered the tea Wen Qing would make me whenever I wouldn’t let her stick me with needles. It always worked for whatever was messing with me.”

“I will,” Lan Wangji said softly, voice low and careful as to not make it worse.

Wei Wuxian drank the tea as fast as his body would allow before he put the cup back in Lan Wangji’s hands and tipped forward. His head rested against the soft, expensive fabric that all the Lans wore and it just made him want to pull him into bed and trap him there for hours. Well, most things about him made him want to do that.

“Can Er-gege stay in today? Sleep sounds so nice.”

“I cannot,” Lan Wangji said softly, his arm wrapping around him and his warm hand pressing to his lower back. Wei Wuxian whined quietly, as much as his headache would allow.

“You’re Chief Cultivator, no one can tell you what to do,” Wei Wuxian said. Lan Zhan hummed, holding him carefully and closely.

“Senior Wei is the one who has a class to teach,” he said. Wei Wuxian blinked a few times as his thoughts shifted back into focus. Sometimes it was too easy to forget how good things had become. He had a husband, he had a garden, he got to teach cute little Lans about using their heads instead of just reciting rules.

All of which he loved, but a whine still found its way out into the world as he thought about having to teach when even the shielded sun of the Cloud Recesses hurt him.

“Lan Zhan, who let me have responsibilities?”

Lan Wangji breathed in slowly, head bowing to rest against Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. He sat there for a moment and, truthfully, for a moment he thought he might’ve convinced him to spend all day in bed.

“Er-gege,” Wei Wuxian breathed, sliding his hand beneath his hair to touch the nape of his neck. Lan Wangji seemed to rest a little more weight on Wei Wuxian which was admittedly out of character. He turned his head a bit to look at him, squinting in the darkness to get a better look at his face, headache be damned. He looked fine, if only just laying against Wei Wuxian. “Ah, Lan Zhan, I see. You do want to stay in bed.”

There was a long stretch of silence before a low grunt of agreement. Wei Wuxian smiled and scratched at where his hair met his neck.

“I can’t, you see,” he whispered, pressing a soft kiss to Lan Wangji’s clothed shoulder, “This humble one has a class to teach.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji said. He slowly pulled himself into a sitting position and Wei Wuxian felt warmed at how much he’d been able to wear him down even if they did have to get up.

Still, they sat long enough for Lan Wangji to pass him some spiritual energy to help him power through his headache and then he was pulled to his feet.

“Ready, Wei-qianbei?”

“As ever. Give it a try.”

Wei Wuxian leaned back on his palms as he watched Lan Jingyi focus very hard to activate the talisman he’d invented. Their assignment for the week was to create a new spell or talisman of some sort inspired by the word ‘alarm’. He shouldn’t have been surprised when a piercing noise wailed through the room in one short burst before the talisman disintegrated. Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but laugh at the hoard of Lans all covering their ears with wide, annoyed eyes turned to Jingyi who sat with red cheeks as if that wasn’t what he intended. They all knew it was.

“Perfect! That’ll startle anything,” Wei Wuxian praised, leaning forward to scribble notes for grading later. Jingyi smiled, any embarrassment gone away to make room for pride as he went to sit back beside Sizhui.

It’d taken awhile to get Lan Qiren to let him teach for real. Weeks of having him shadow every single thing Wei Wuxian did around the littlest juniors, constant grunts of disapproval, a whole separate sheet for grading Wei Wuxian that he would bring to his attention over tea every evening. But, honestly, he didn’t mind it too much. After everything, it felt somewhat normal. Besides, he was sure Lan Qiren liked him a bit more by the time he willingly handed over a few classes.

Convincing him of this class specifically, though, was a bit tougher and had to be discussed with all of the Lan Elders in a very formal meeting that required Wei Wuxian to break out his single set of white robes. They’d waited until Lan Wangji was off on a night hunt, getting rid of his unrelentingly protective gaze before bringing Wei Wuxian in to discuss giving the older disciples lessons on creating new things so they’d be better equipped to come up with something if they ever got stuck‒or at least that’s how he sold it. The minimum age they’d agreed on was the group that were done with all other sit-down classes and tended to be the main ones going on night hunts which was fair enough. It meant he got to spend more time with Lan Sizhui and he’d never complain about that.

“Alright, who’s next?”

Before anyone could even respond, the doors to the lanshi burst open. Lan Wangji stood in the doorway, tall and regal and intimidating and every bit Hanguang-Jun. Wei Wuxian felt his heart flutter childishly in his chest as if that wasn’t his husband. Husband. Ah, wasn’t that incredible?

The juniors’ eyes followed Lan Wangji as he basically glided down the walkway. Wei Wuxian smiled as he came near despite the rigid set to his features. He knew he had some important‒which typically translated to annoying‒business today.

“Have you come to learn on your break, Hanguang-Jun?” Wei Wuxian teased. Somehow, though, the crease between his eyebrows deepened and worry pricked at Wei Wuxian. Was he angry with him for some reason?

Lan Wangji walked up to the teacher’s platform and to the side of his desk before kneeling on the ground. Wei Wuxian’s eyes widened as Lan Wangji bowed his head into his lap before adjusting himself. And there he was, the great Hanguang-Jun, laying on the floor with his face buried in his husband’s stomach and his arms wrapped around his torso. Wei Wuxian wondered if Lan Wangji could feel how hard his heart was beating.

Considering this was rather unprecedented, Wei Wuxian dumbly looked up at the juniors to guard their reactions. All of them with one exception were looking anywhere in the room other than the scene on the platform. Wei Wuxian locked eyes with Lan Sizhui‒who, for once, didn’t seem too flustered by such a bold display‒and watched as he gave a curt little nod. He wasn’t sure what he was nodding about, but he assumed it was a subtle way of saying to just let it happen. As if he needed approval to do that.

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said softly, resting his hand on his husband’s cheek. He used his thumb to smooth out his already perfect eyebrows and couldn’t help his smile as Lan Wangji visibly relaxed a little. His eyes stayed closed and he looked every bit like the jade everyone said he was. “Alright. Sleep well.”

Wei Wuxian looked back up, his hands sliding to cradle the back of Lan Wangji’s head against his stomach.

“Anyone got a quieter one to try next?”

Lan Wangji stayed put for the entire length of his break before silently getting up and walking back out.

His class was nearly over at this point, but it was clear everyone had questions that he couldn’t answer. Their Hanguang-Jun had definitely changed and gotten more bold since Wei Wuxian came to live in the Cloud Recesses, but not like that. That was… Well, there was something wrong, to say the least. Even if it was sweet to just have him lay there for at least four incense sticks worth of time. He would have to ask him once they got back to the jingshi.

“You all did great today. For next week, how about something inspired by the word ‘heat’,” Wei Wuxian said.

“Wei-qianbei, don’t we already have at least a few different existing talismans for that?” Lan Huizhong asked. He grinned as he pushed himself to his feet.

“Looks like you’ll have to think quite hard to come up with something, hm?” he said. Lan Huizhong smiled just a little bit‒no excessive smiling and all‒and bowed.

Wei Wuxian gathered his things and started to walk out of the lanshi. He was going to drop these off at the jingshi and then he planned to slip in on one of Lan Xichen’s sword forms classes. He did that relatively often and could feel the way that was slowly but surely helping to build Mo Xuanyu’s core. If he played it off like he was just there because he was bored, no one needed to call him out on it.

“Wei-qianbei, may this disciple speak with you for a moment?” Lan Sizhui called. Wei Wuxian grinned as he spun to see him, though stopped himself from teasing him about the formal way he called him when he saw the serious set of his features. It seemed everyone was very serious today.

“You don’t even need to ask,” he said. Lan Sizhui looked around to make sure they were alone and still took a step closer. He was breaking some rule, Wei Wuxian thought‒impropriety, personal space, secrecy, something. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s Hanguang-Jun,” he said softly. Wei Wuxian was very interested at this point and stepped even closer. “He is… melancholy.”

Wei Wuxian searched his face as he slowly repeated, “Melancholy?”

That didn’t sound right. Lan Wangji had made him tea this morning and shared his spiritual energy. Lan Wangji had smiled when Wei Wuxian had braided his hair the night before and had smiled before he bedded him. Lan Wangji had shared a bath with him, had washed his hair, had done many, many things for him as he did every day. That didn’t seem melancholy.

“Forgive this disciple’s forwardness,” Sizhui said, though he didn’t sound like he was sorry. He sounded, Wei Wuxian thought with untimely fondness, like the man who raised him. “This humble one does not mean to insinuate that Wei-qianbei does not know his husband well. Wei-qianbei is attentive and thoughtful, that is obvious. But… Xian-gege, for all that you may know him and see him and spend time with him, I know him better than anyone.”

Wei Wuxian couldn’t even be hurt by that statement. It was the truth that Lan Sizhui had probably spent more time with Lan Wangji than anyone else in the world, perhaps even rivalling Zewu-Jun at this point. Lan Wangji had admitted in the dark of one night that he’d spent many years paranoid that people would find out his A-Yuan was a Wen and that they’d go after him, so he kept him out of the dormitories until he was nearly fourteen and even then made a point to watch over him as often as he could just in case. Of course he knew him well.

“He’s always been… sad, I suppose, but some days are worse than others. Sometimes he can seem happy and other days it’s…” Lan Sizhui trailed off, looking to the side and swallowing. Wei Wuxian’s stomach twisted in his gut. “He’s been very well since you got back, but today is one of those… other days. Zewu-Jun and I handled it in the past, but now it’s sort of your duty as his husband, isn’t it?”

“Yes, A-Yuan, I think it is,” Wei Wuxian agreed. Sizhui’s shoulders relaxed a bit and that familiar smile found his lips.

“If you need help, just ask. It isn’t something you can fix completely, it’s more of making sure he doesn’t feel worse and alone. I think he’d appreciate your company. He did come to you,” Lan Sizhui said. Wei Wuxian nodded and tried to smile through the guilt in his stomach. How blind he’d been to his husband’s feelings.

“He did. I’ll do my best, thank you,” Wei Wuxian said.

“Xian-gege,” Sizhui said before he could walk too far away, reaching out to grab his arm, “It really isn’t your fault, it’s no one’s fault. It just… is.”

“It is a bit my fault,” Wei Wuxian suggested, laughing softly to try to make the guilt sound less, well, guilty, “I didn’t see it before.”

“How could you see something you weren’t looking for, though?” Lan Sizhui said, “And, really, he has been much happier since you came back.”

“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian said, trying his best to get rid of the guilt. There was no place for that when he needed to just take care of his husband in the way he took care of him. “We’ll have tea tomorrow, all three of us.”

Lan Sizhui smiled and nodded, “I’d like that.”

Wei Wuxian had to convince himself to not skip Zewu-Jun’s sword forms class. Lan Wangji still had meetings and Wei Wuxian would be helping no one by pacing around the jingshi for hours. Besides, he would still need his strength, wouldn’t he?

His mind, however, wasn’t all there as he thought about Lan Wangji and started dissecting every moment to see what he’d missed. This morning when it took him longer than usual to get out of bed, was that a sign and something he would need to look for? That distraction, however, led to a small, eight year old Lan accidentally nicking Wei Wuxian’s cheek with his sword. It wasn’t even enough to bleed, but Young Lans crying in guilt was not a part of the agenda and class ended early.

That left Wei Wuxian to go back to the jingshi and wait for Lan Wangji to be done for the day so he could do his best to make up for all the times he’d had Lan Wangji coddle him when he was the one who needed to be coddled. He prepared a bath, talismans on it to keep it warm, and stripped to nothing but his underrobe. After letting his hair down entirely, Wei Wuxian decided to meditate. He hated it, but it passed the time while also helping his core, so he settled in.

It was easy to slip out of it the moment Lan Wangji walked in, eyes visibly tired and shoulders rigid. Wei Wuxian rose to his feet and met him near the door, conjuring an easy grin.

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” he said softly, reaching up to hold his face in his hands. Wei Wuxian didn’t even need to pull him down, Lan Wangji’s body moved towards him as he wrapped him up into a hug. He had to stand on his toes, but he didn’t mind. “Your husband already drew you a bath. Come, let me bathe you, hm?”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji hummed. Wei Wuxian smiled and left a kiss on his shoulder before beginning to tug him behind the privacy screen.

Wei Wuxian reached up to remove his forehead ribbon first and folded it neatly to get it out of the way. His hands worked to strip him of his layers and it was hard not to see how much he was putting in to seem like he wasn’t struggling. That crease between his brow, the way his entire body was full of tension, the way he looked exhausted. How hadn’t he noticed before?

“My Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian breathed, leaving a soft kiss to his chest as he rid him of his last layer, “My love.”

He got rid of his own last layer and got in the bath first before ushering him in. Lan Wangji got in without even one playful look and laid against Wei Wuxian’s chest without any convincing. He sunk into the water up to his chin, his knees poking above the surface in response. Wei Wuxian didn’t know what else to do other than wrap his arms around him and bathe him slowly.

He thought of Sizhui’s words, how there wasn’t anything to actually do. Just make sure he didn’t feel worse or alone. Though Wei Wuxian could remember‒albeit faintly‒times when he’d felt very lonely despite being surrounded by people. He wasn’t sure his presence alone would be helpful.

“Let me hold you tonight,” Wei Wuxian told him, rubbing his hands over his chest, “Is that something you would like?”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji hummed. Not even a ‘whatever Wei Ying likes’. Wei Wuxian raked his fingers through his hair.

Wei Wuxian worked at his body slowly. He didn’t have much spiritual energy to give him, but he tried his best to make up for it in rubbing at all the tense spots and paying extra attention to places Wei Wuxian knew he liked to be touched. The back of his neck, his arms, his hands, things that felt present.

They eventually decided to get out of the bath and move to bed. Lan Wangji seemed to be moving in slow motion as he got out of the bath. Wei Wuxian didn’t bother with drying him off with a cloth, instead making a talisman to dry them both.

“Did you eat anything, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asked as they both got dressed in night robes. Lan Wangji made a noise that translated to no. “Should I go get something from the kitchens?” Another ‘no’ noise. “Lan Wangji, you have to eat something.”

Then there were no noises.

Wei Wuxian looked over to his husband to see him staring at him, all that tension he’d tried to get out of his body filling him right back up like it’d never left. It seemed he’d done something wrong. Or, perhaps he’d always been doing something wrong if simply being an attentive husband set off alarm bells in Lan Wangji’s mind.

“Ah, Lan Zhan, what are you staring at?” Wei Wuxian asked, hoping to play it off as he sat in bed, “Am I not allowed to be responsible for once?”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said and maybe Wei Wuxian was being a little bit more obvious than he thought.

With a sigh, Wei Wuxian patted the bed and Lan Wangji climbed in beside him. Wei Wuxian led his head to his chest and held him there for a moment while he thought of a way to say what he was thinking and not be insulting.

“Sizhui and I had a talk today,” Wei Wuxian told him, running his fingers through his hair slowly, “And he said that you were sad. He said that you were always sad. What kind of husband have I been if I haven’t noticed, ah?”

Lan Wangji had gone tense again, but he didn’t try to pull away. His fingers slipped over Wei Wuxian’s collarbone, careful as silk.

“Does it bother you?” Lan Wangji asked carefully. Wei Wuxian made a hurt noise, trying to keep the situation as light as he could.

“Aiya, Hanguang-Jun, how could you accuse me of such a thing? As if anything about you could bother me!” Wei Wuxian said, reaching out with his other arm to grab his thigh. He pulled Lan Wangji until he was all but cradled in his lap like a baby, regardless of how much bigger than Wei Wuxian he actually was.

“Wei Ying…”

“No,” Wei Wuxian said, sighing as he allowed himself to be a little serious. He rubbed his thumb in small circles against his husband’s thigh, still keeping him in his arms, “No, it doesn’t bother me. I… Obviously it isn’t the same, but I do understand the constant of it, I guess. Shijie was, for as long as I can remember, nearly always ill, some days worse than others. The way Sizhui explained it made it seem like that’s how it is for you, only… melancholy.”

“There is nothing left to mourn that is more powerful than Wei Ying breathing,” Lan Wangji said slowly, hesitantly, “And yet I still… It seems I forgot it was this way since the beginning.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan, don’t let that make you worse, alright? I understand, I do! There is nothing worse than feeling bad when you have every reason to be happy, I understand,” Wei Ying said, trying his damnedest not to crawl out of his skin while saying that aloud. But Lan Zhan needed it. He was meant to make him feel less lonely, wasn’t he? “I do apologize for being so needy this morning. I didn’t realize.”

Lan Wangji shook his head. “No apologies.”

“Yes, but‒”

“Wei Ying will have whatever he desires.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan, don’t say things like that, I might take advantage,” Wei Wuxian said warmly, nuzzling his nose into the top of his head, “But, truly, it’s alright. I’m here and I plan to annoy you for the rest of this life and probably a few more, so of course it doesn’t bother me. You may have to tell me sometimes if I don’t notice right away, but I will never mind it. I get to cuddle you during class and everything. Do you know what I would’ve done in my first life if you cuddled me in class? I would’ve fainted!”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji hummed. But his eyes had closed and he let his body relax a bit more in Wei Wuxian’s grip.

Wei Wuxian smiled and traced his jaw with his thumb, pulling his legs a bit closer so he could cover him up with a blanket. If this is how bad days ended for the rest of their life, he wouldn’t mind.

“My cute little Hanguang-Jun, so small,” Wei Wuxian cooed, kissing the side of his face as he tucked the blanket around him. A smile pulled at Lan Wangji’s lips and although it didn’t stay, it still was worth everything. “Ah, you like that? Should I baby you more, my love? My A-Zhan, hm?”

It was easy to just hold him and cover him in kisses and cuddles without any expectation for him to say anything back or even smle if he didn’t want to. Wei Wuxian held him until he fell asleep and then held him a bit longer before he eventually had to slowly get up and find something to eat. There were some loquats in a bowl that were there for any late night snacking on Wei Wuxian’s part or just if he forgot to eat in the first place, so he sat and ate a few while staring where Lan Wangji laid the entire time. It wasn’t until he crawled back into bed that Wei Wuxian realized he no longer felt guilty.

It simply was and would be and Wei Wuxian was more than willing to take it in stride.

#mdzsnet #wangxian #wangxian fic #lan wangji #wei wuxian #the untamed #mdzs #my fic #actor/character birthday fic

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aquadrazi · 3 years ago

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Find Someone to Carry You

Chapter 23

………Qinghe………

Nie Huaisang and Jin Zixuan were in the study, going over the most recent letters from the spies. As far as they could tell, Xue Yang WAS in fact, in Yi City, and no one has been able to locate Jin Zixun’s hiding place, as of yet.

Nie Huaisang was looking at a map, with the locations of unusual and unexplained demonic activity was reported and frowned. “You know, I think that pack of Juniors might be on the same trail as us.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. Didn’t you say that they found Mo Xuanyu in an array designed by Wei Wuxian?” Jin Zixuan joined him at the map.

“Yes, and Mo Xuanyu was apparently part of Jin Guangshan’s demonic cultivation experiments, before he was kicked out of Koi Tower.”

“Do you think that somebody WANTED Young Master Mo to be found?” Jin Zixuan mused.

“Not only that, but I’m wondering if that person wasn’t the one who gave him the idea of attempting the Sacrifice Summon in the first place.” Nie Huaisang added. “Now I want to know if that person knew it wouldn’t work, or if they were hoping it would.”

“So either the person knew Wei Wuxian was alive, and wanted the Hanguang-Jun to find out as well…”

“Or the person wanted to bring Wei Ying back and have him found by Lan Wangji.” Nie Huaisang finished the thought.

“It sounds like either way, someone was trying to get Lan Zhan involved in events in the larger cultivation world again.” Yanli said as she entered with a bowl of soup.

“I don’t know what Jin Guangyao would gain from getting Lan Wangji’s attention. It seems his life is better with the Second Jade of Lan out of the way, sulking on the backside of a mountain.” Nie Huaisang just could not shake the idea that there might be more than one key player that he was missing.

“So maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it’s someone else, trying to mess with Jin Guangyao, and using Lan Zhan as a tool.” Yanli offered as she rationed out the soup into bowls for them.

“Xue Yang maybe?” Nie Huaisang wondered.

“A-Sang, please sit down and eat. We can continue to discuss this with full stomachs.” Yanli scolded.

“I should dispatch someone to Yi City.” Nie Huaisang decided as he accepted the bowl Yanli was offering him.

Wei Ying was reading the dual cultivation techniques Lan Zhan had left, the ones that he said he would be interested in trying. His entire face was red. He felt like he was being instructed on how to produce good porn, by a Lan professor.

“Applying pressure to this spot had been known to result in a positive response.”

Who WROTE this?!

Leave it to the Lans to make even forbidden dual cultivation acts boring.

Wei Ying had been a mess of nerves ever since Lan Zhan had announced that they should start to attempt to grow him a new golden core. How was this even supposed to work? He’d never even SEEN Lan Zhan naked. Is he just going to stay clothed the whole time? That felt too much like what Wei Ying had been forced to endure in the past. No, he was going to put his foot down. If Lan Zhan wanted to do these things to him, he got to do things to Lan Zhan too.

No, Wei Ying decided. Lan Zhan was going first. He wanted that man naked and writhing in pleasure first, before he was allowed to do any of the things that were described in these texts to Wei Ying. It was only fair. He pulled out the list of things that Lan Zhan had written down when they had their previous discussion and began to plan out what he would need to as A-Sang for.

A-Sang was being particularly difficult to locate. If Wei Ying didn’t know any better, he would think that A-Sang KNEW about his plan, and was avoiding him on purpose. He was so preoccupied that he didn’t even realize that anyone else was in the courtyard until he heard a yelp and the sound of rustling fabric.

“A-Xian, we didn’t expect you to be wandering about.” Yanli said, a little breathlessly.

Wei Ying turned and realized that he had CLEARLY interrupted his Shijie and Jin Zixuan, doing…something…

He quickly covered his eyes and whined “Nope, nope nope nope”

Yanli laughed. “Oh A-Xian, you’re old enough to know better. We ARE married-“

“Lah lah lah lah lah” Wei Ying childishly yelled over whatever it was his Shijie was going to say as he ran as quickly as he could to be ANYWHERE but there. Why is EVERYTHING about sex lately? What he wouldn’t give for a good undead corpse right about now.

He really should have been watching where he was going, because he bumped right into Lan Zhan. He squeaked and turned to run the other direction.

“Is Wei Ying 3 years old again?” Lan Zhan asked as he was running off.

“YEP!” He yelled over his shoulder.

Wow, Lan Zhan sure is a quick learner.

Wei Ying was finally safe from people and he continued his quest to find A-Sang. Luckily he’d written down what he needed, so he could just hand the page to A-Sang and run away in shame.

He honestly didn’t know where he was at this point. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here either. He had just been trying to get away from his Shijie and Lan Zhan, so he didn’t pay attention. He turned a corner and his body froze when he smelled an aroma that he recognized.

No.

Not again.

Not here.

I was supposed to be safe here.

Help.

Someone help me.

Please.

Lan Zhan heard the wail and shot towards it. He’d heard it enough to know that it was Wei Ying. He had Bichen unsheathed as he rounded the corner and found him.

Wei Ying was cowering against a wall, wailing and rocking back and forth. There was a man, looking startled, standing off to the side, watching Wei Ying. Lan Zhan let out a growl and got his attention.

“Honorable Hanguang-Jun!” He greeted quickly with a bow. “I apologize for the disturbance, but I do not know what set him off.”

Lan Zhan didn’t believe it. Not for a second. He pointed Bichen towards the man, threateningly.

Nie Huaisang arrived and quickly ran to Wei Ying’s side. He bent his head down to listen to what Wei Ying was muttering in between wails.

“GUARDS!!!” Nie Huaisang yelled, louder and more commanding that Lan Zhan had ever heard him. Before Lan Zhan could blink they were surrounded by Nie Guards.

“Please escort He Shao to the Conversation Room.” Nie Huaisang ordered, darkly.

“Sect Leader Nie I protest! This is completely uncalled for. I did NOTHING to this, this…”

“This…what?” Nie Huaisang asked as he turned and stood up, cocking his head to the side. “Say it. Say what you were going to.”

“Whore.” He Shao spat. “I did nothing to the whore. I don’t know why he’s so upset.”

Nie Huaisang had to physically stand in front of Lan Zhan to stop him for running He Shao through with Bichen right then and there.

“TAKE. HIM. AWAY.” Nie Huaisang ordered to his guards, staring Lan Zhan in the eyes. “He will be dealt with Lan Wangji. But we will take our time with it. He does not deserve a quick or painless death.”

The guards dragged He Shao away, as he struggled and yelled his objections.

It took Lan Zhan a couple seconds to calm down enough to sheath Bichen. He quickly knelt by Wei Ying and pulled him to his chest.

“L-Lan Zhan…” Wei Ying sobbed.

“I am here. Wei Ying is safe.”

Wei Ying wrapped his trembling arms around Lan Zhan’s neck and buried his face into his shoulder. “You kept your promise.”

“Will always protect Wei Ying.”

Lan Zhan picked up Wei Ying and carried him back to his room.

#mdzs fic #the untamed #ptsd #possessive lan zhan

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curiosity-killed · 4 years ago

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a bow for the bad decisions

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

“Shut up,” he hisses, wet. “Shut up.” Wei Wuxian falls silent and somehow that’s worse. His brother is silent, tears slipping down his cheeks, and it is worse than anything he could say aloud. “A-Cheng? Xianxian?” Swallowing, he unclenches his fingers from around Wei Wuxian’s collar and sinks back onto his heels. Released, Wei Wuxian sways and stutters back down, his eyes downcast. “What’s wrong?” a-jie asks, worry thrumming through her voice. Wei Wuxian bows his head still, leaving this confession for Jiang Cheng. Anger echoes through Jiang Cheng’s chest at the way he presents himself as if waiting for punishment. It’s what he deserves; it hurts that he thinks it’s coming.

He hesitates for a moment. As much as he scolded Wei Wuxian for the same thing, he doesn’t want to worry jiejie more than necessary. If she knows Wei Wuxian’s core is gone, she’ll not only have all that backed up worry from the war but also fresh worry every time he wanders off without one of them. She fusses over the both of them enough as is; she shouldn’t strain herself so much for them.

On the other hand, there’s no one able to persuade Wei Wuxian like a-jie. And — and he’s not sure he can keep it a secret from her. He didn’t know Wei Wuxian could; Jiang Cheng is used to being in on his pranks and lies, not kept out by them. He swallows. “Wei Wuxian’s core is gone,” he says. Distantly, he’s a little proud how steadily he says it. His voice comes out a little inflectionless, but it doesn’t shake or, gods forbid, break in a sob. Wei Wuxian’s head dips lower. His hands still hang at his sides, shoulders curved forward. He hears the hitch in jiejie’s breath, the quiet gasp, before he forces himself to look up. One hand covers her lips, the other pressed to her stomach, and she stares wide-eyed at Wei Wuxian. “A-Xian,” she breathes out. He swallows, draws his hands over his knees so that they’re both tight around the stupid flute. Jiang Cheng’s teeth grit, jaw clenching in useless anger. What right does he have to look so browbeaten, so defeated? He’s kept up this lie for years — so successfully that the whole cultivation world has no idea. Of course he would. Even mediocre, even without the golden core that impressed everyone up to Lan Qiren himself, he can bend the world to his wishes. What is impossible for Wei Wuxian? “Wei Wuxian, don’t you have anything to say?” he snaps. His throat bobs as he swallows before he shifts, straightening up on his knees so that he’s facing both of them equally. Folding his hands before him, he stretches them out and bows his forehead flat to the floor. “I am sorry, shijie, Jiang Cheng,” he says quietly. Horror shoots through Jiang Cheng’s chest at the sight. This isn’t— he didn’t— This isn’t what he wanted. “A-Xian,” a-jie says over the rustle of her skirts as she crosses the room and tugs up on his elbows. “A-Xian, stop that. You don’t need to — to apologize like that.” He rises only reluctantly and keeps his gaze down. “I can’t fulfill my duties as Head Disciple of Yunmeng Jiang,” he says, evenly like he’s reciting facts. “I am no longer fit for the title or — or position. I can leave.” “Shut up,” Jiang Cheng snaps. “Shut up. You’re not going anywhere. What the hell are you thinking? You’re our brother. Did I stop being your brother when Wen Zhulio got me?” His eyes flick to Jiang Cheng, something almost fearful in the way they dart sideways to him. He hates that as much as he hates this awful, complacent self-sacrifice. “A-Cheng’s right, Wuxian,” jiejie says. She reaches out for his wrist, giving it a squeeze. “You’re our brother no matter what. You shouldn’t have kept this from us but now that we know, we can figure it out together. We can help you.” For all that she’s never been very strong at cultivation, Jiang Cheng privately thinks a-jie knows a whole different form of magic with her words and voice. She could calm a typhoon with only the right words. Now, Wei Wuxian doesn’t look wholly convinced, but he gives a trembling nod. It’s something, at least. It’s not like Jiang Cheng knows how they’re going to fix this, either, what help they can give. A-jie’s right: they’ll figure it out together. “It’s late,” a-jie says. “Why don’t we all go to bed and we’ll figure things out in the morning?” It feels like they’re little kids again, caught throwing tantrums because they missed a nap. Still, they both rise and let a-jie guide them out of the hall, one on either side of her like overgrown guard dogs. They escort her to her rooms first, like good brothers, and she pauses at the door to reach up and cradle Wei Wuxian’s damp cheek. “A-Xian,” she says softly, “we’ll get through this. No matter what, we three will solve it together. Alright?” He gives an obedient nod, and she smiles, smoothing back his hair absently. She looks over to include Jiang Cheng in her smile and reaches out to squeeze his wrist once. He summons up an answering smile and gives her a nod. He feels heartened somehow, impossibly, by her steady calm. After saying their goodnights, he and Wei Wuxian turn back to walk to their own rooms. “In the morning, Healer Xiong should look you over,” he says a few steps in. “See if your demonic cultivation has affected your meridians or if there’s anything she can do.” He remembers, still, the burning hollow after. How it felt like emptiness was a physical thing chewing away at the stem of his heart, the fine thread of his veins. He thinks of Wen Qing, her brusque manners and stubborn care. He brushes the thought away. It’s not like she could fix his core in the end anyway. “Ai, no, there’s no need for that,” Wei Wuxian says. “I’m fine, really. There’s no sense troubling Healer Xiong, and anyway, who knows my body better than me? I can tell you my meridians are fine.” The deflection is too similar to what he said back when they first found him over Wen Chao’s wailing form. It’s said more lightly this time, but it still echoes that same words he used against Lan Wangji, and Jiang Cheng shoots him a sharp look. “Don’t be stupid,” he says. “If you actually want any chance of figuring this out, we need the best help we can get. It’s not like Healer Xiong will tell anyone anyway. She’s been with us since a-jie was born.” Wei Wuxian grimaces slightly, looking away. He worries at his bottom lip for a second, as if chewing on his words, and Jiang Cheng frowns, waiting. At last he sighs. “It’s just — I uh I used resentful energy to heal some injuries,” he admits. “Nothing bad! Just — you know Healer Xiong will see that and then give me that sad look she has like I just ran over all her herbs—” “She didn’t even yell at you when you ruined her herbs, you baby.” “—and you know how awful that look is,” Wei Wuxian continues. “It’s like she’s sad she’s somehow failed you and then you just feel terrible. It’s the worst.” Glaring at him, Jiang Cheng crosses his arms. It’s true that Xiong Chunfeng has perfected the art of looking disappointed to the point that he thinks she might have been able to stop the war if they only got her in front of Wen Ruohan at the start. Her whole face goes soft and sad, dark eyes searching like she’s trying to understand how she could have done better in order to prevent their mistakes. Just thinking about it makes his skin itch with old shame. “Fine,” he relents, dropping his arms. “But as soon as it’s cleared up, you go see her.” “Of course. Right away,” Wei Wuxian agrees readily. They continue a few steps in silence, Jiang Cheng casting searching looks out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t remember Wei Wuxian getting hurt recently. In the war, they weren’t often fighting too close to each other, but Wei Wuxian always had his corpses and ghouls and spirits spiraling out from him like the branches of a hurricane. He frowns. “How bad?” he asks. “Eh? Oh.” Wei Wuxian’s smile falters a moment, just a flicker, before he grins and waves it off. “It’s nothing. Stop worrying, Jiang Cheng, your face is going to stick like that and then who’ll ever marry you?” Jiang Cheng jerks away as Wei Wuxian loops his arm around his shoulders, cheeks heating red. He’s a sect leader, fought in a war — he shouldn’t still be flustered by something so stupid, but he can’t help the flush that burns his ears. “Shut up. I wouldn’t have to worry if you weren’t such an idiot,” he mutters. When he elbows Wei Wuxian this time, it’s gentle, barely a nudge. Wei Wuxian is silent a moment before his arm slips off Jiang Cheng’s back. He misses the familiar warmth immediately. “Jiang Cheng, don’t do that,” he says quietly.

“Do what?” Jiang Cheng snaps back. He can already feel the shame creeping up as quickly as his brief embarrassment. All their lives they’ve roughhoused and shoved each other recklessly, using their strength because they knew each other could match it. They hadn’t during the war, but Wei Wuxian had been cold and closed off, and the distance had felt wrong. It had felt like he didn’t remember how to hug the one time Jiang Cheng had embraced him, before he was scared off by Wei Wuxian’s sharp new edges. Now — now he isn’t sure how to close that distance without hurting his brother. When they were younger, he could shove Wei Wuxian because he knew he was strong enough to shove back harder. Without his core, though, he’s missing that power. It’s what started all this in the first place. “Acting like I’m going to fall apart at any second,” Wei Wuxian says. “I meant what I said. I’m not fragile or — or broken. You don’t have to act any differently. We could just — forget all this. Go back to normal.” He doesn’t sound particularly hopeful, and Jiang Cheng swallows. They can’t go back, no matter what either of them say. They can’t go back to any of it — to before Lotus Pier burned, before his parents died, before the war and Wei Wuxian’s ghostly path. Even if he never found out about Wei Wuxian’s core, they can never go back to the way it was.

#mdzs #the untamed #untamed fic #cql #yunmeng siblings #my writing #the thesis of this story: Siblings are Complicated and sometimes wanting to help does not make you actually good at or capable of helping

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disastermages · 4 years ago

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this is part 9 of the au where Xiao Xingchen is the one to raise Wei Wuxian

Quiet voices outside their door make Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan pause in their nightly routine, their movements going still as they try to guess who the voices might belong to, though they both relax once they realize one of the voices belongs to their nephew.

“He’s back before curfew, barely.” Song Lan murmurs, coming to stand just behind Xiao Xingchen, a hand resting underneath his elbow. Smiling and huffing out a quiet laugh, Xiao Xingchen lets himself lean back against his husband.

“He got into trouble enough times for breaking it, he should have it memorized by now.” Xiao Xingchen says, shaking his head fondly. There’d been a laundry list of rules Wei Ying had broken that Xiao Xingchen had only just begun to dig through when they’d been caught in the forest, his mind trying to walk down the same paths Wei Ying’s had when the rule had been broken. “Who do you think he’s with?”

“I overheard Jiang Wanyin say something about a going away party in the dorms.” Song Lan says, his eyes squinting at the silhouettes cast by the light of the full moon. “Someone might’ve walked him back.”

Casting a look over his shoulder, Xiao Xingchen shakes his head. “A-Ying knows better than to let us catch him drinking or drunk, he would’ve stayed in the dorms until he sobered up.” As close as he’d been to coming and retrieving him then, Xiao Xingchen had written his nephew a letter longer than he’d truly intended, but it had gotten the effect he’d desired, even if it had surprised both himself and Song Lan.

“What are you thinking, then?” Song Lan asks, moving his hand from Xiao Xingchen’s elbow and onto his hip. Wei Ying seemed to be doing most of the talking, his voice naturally louder than whoever he was with, the most Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan could hear from them was a deep and low mumble, a sigh of their nephew’s name coming every once in a while if they truly listened.

The door is opening before Xiao Xingchen can voice any of the theories he’s managed to think up or admit that he doesn’t know, both he and Song lan separating immediately to try and look like they hadn’t been waiting as Wei Ying does his best to close the door silently behind him. His eyes are wider than Xiao Xingchen has ever seen them when he turns around, his back pressed against the door.

“Uncle Xiao! Uncle Song! I thought you’d be asleep.” Wei Ying laughs awkwardly, smiling as he tries and fails to nonchalantly drop something in his hand into his sleeve, but Xiao Xingchen doesn’t call him out for it, not yet.

Slowly Xiao Xingchen stops pretending to adjust the quilt on the bed, though Song Lan puts up the act of fluffing the pillows just a little while longer. “We were about to,” Xiao Xingchen nods, that much was the truth. When he steps forward, he can’t find the smell of alcohol anywhere around his nephew, and for that Xiao Xingchen is grateful, casting a quick, quiet look at Song Lan before he comes to stand right in front of Wei Ying. “Did you have fun with your friends?”

The smile drops off of Wei Ying’s face then, confusion taking over almost completely before he remembers himself, color dusting his cheeks. “The party...” Wei Ying says, smiling at his uncle sheepishly now, “I only went for a few minutes, there was something I had to talk to Lan Zhan about.”

That catches Xiao Xingchen’s attention, his eyes flicking back up to the door behind Wei Ying for just a moment. If they’d been together, had Lan Wangji walked Wei Ying back to the guest house? There was no possibility of writing off the way they looked at each other, even if it turned out to just be teenage flirtation.

“Is everything alright?” Song Lan speaks first, coming to stand next to Xiao Xingchen again, their knuckles and fingertips brushing quickly. It had been easier for the two of them, Song Lan had been allowed to wander as he pleased so long as he remained available to Baixue Temple for certain duties, Lan Wangji was one of the Twin Jades of Lan and his brother’s heir. It would be much, much harder for Wei Ying and Lan Wangji to have any kind of relationship while one wandered and the other stayed in one place.

Xiao Xingchen felt woefully unprepared whenever thoughts of guiding his nephew through heartbreak bubbled to the surface of his mind. Song Lan would step in if Xiao Xingchen couldn’t help him through it, Xiao Xingchen was sure of that much.

“Everything’s fine! Better than fine!” Wei Ying says, his voice almost too loud for the hour as he tries to press himself further back against the door. “We just talked, that’s all.” His hands are up in front of him, palms facing his uncles as he avoids their eyes. There was more, Xiao Xingchen was sure there was more, but Wei Ying’s face is turning a shade of pink that Xiao Xingchen is sure he’s never seen on his nephew, and the brushing of fingers turns into hand holding with a gentle squeeze.

It’s something silent that they’ve picked up somewhere along the way, they don’t need to look at each other for it to be understood. A squeeze back lets Xiao Xingchen know that the message has been received, a quick swipe of Song Lan’s thumb over the back of Xiao Xingchen’s hand to finish the conversation.

Smiling softly, Xiao Xingchen pushes down the thoughts of his nephew getting hurt and heartbroken, “Did the two of you tell each other everything that needed to be said?” He keeps his voice gentle, when he’d gotten Wei Ying’s letter in the middle of the night, he hadn’t known who’d he’d been thinking of when he wrote it, but he knew now, and he hoped the advice he’d been able to offer had been enough.

“We’re going to write letters for a little while.” Wei Ying nods, his head turning back to the door as if Lan Wangji were still standing there to hear him, though Xiao Xingchen was sure he’d hurried back to his own rooms, if only to avoid breaking curfew himself.

Xiao Xingchen was sure that if his sister were here, she’d be falling over herself laughing.

He’s not sure why he’s surprised at his nephew’s solution, it had worked for the four of them for almost a year hadn’t it? The simplicity of it makes his smile more relaxed, the tension melting out of his shoulders as he reaches forward, his hand resting on top of Wei Ying’s head. “I should have known my very wise nephew would have a solution ready.” If Lan Wangji was able to make his nephew happy, Xiao Xingchen could push aside his hesitations and doubts, even if they pulled at his sleeves the way A-Qing did when she was impatient. “We’ll have to think about including Gusu on our normal routes from now on, won’t we?”

They’d come during the summer, Xiao Xingchen quickly decides, thoughts of trudging through Gusu’s thick snow and bone chilling winds erasing any ideas he’d entertained within seconds.

“Really? You mean it?” Wei Ying finally comes off the door and Xiao Xingchen is laughing before he can stop himself, nodding as his nephew’s smile turns positively blinding. He’d already told Wei Ying he had his mother’s smile, but Xiao Xingchen is tempted to repeat it now.

“We can talk about it in the morning.” Xiao Xingchen says instead, his hand dropping back down to his side, “We have an early start in the morning, go get ready for bed.” It wouldn’t matter if Xiao Xingchen left Wei Ying at Gusu for one year or two, his nephew would still put up a fight over being woken up before sunrise.

Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan are already settled in bed by the time Wei Ying lays down in the extra bed that had been brought in once the healers had accepted that he wouldn’t return to his own room, no matter how much they prodded him.

The last candle has already been blown out when Wei Ying speaks again, “Uncle Xiao? Can we visit my mom and dad after we leave?” Wei Ying doesn’t sit up, but Xiao Xingchen does, leaning up on his side and only pretending to think about it.

“It’s been a while since we’ve gone, hasn’t it?” The first time they’d gone to Lotus Pier, it had taken Jiang Fengmian almost a week and a half to tell them that he’d managed to recover the bodies and swords of his sister and brother in law and bury them there. It had taken every bit of learned and natural patience for Xiao Xingchen not to throttle him on the spot.

Wei Ying hadn’t known what to say that first time, he’d looked at Xiao Xingchen for direction, but the only thing he’d been able to tell his nephew was that he should speak from the heart, smiling as he stroked Wei Ying’s hair out of his face. Cangse would’ve wanted to see him clearly, she would have fussed with his hair far more than Xiao Xingchen did, he could speak from experience.

“Of course we can.”

“Mama, Baba, I’m sorry for not visiting for so long,” Wei Wuxian speaks aloud as he kneels between his parents’ graves, his hands resting on his knees and Suibian resting at his side, “Sect Leader Jiang offered to send me to Cloud Recesses with Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, and Uncle Xiao agreed after I told him I wanted to go.”

Once, after he’d caught him alone, Sect Leader Jiang had asked Wei Wuxian to call him Uncle Jiang instead, but Wei Wuxian hadn’t been able to do it, the change in titles didn’t come easily and Sect Leader Jiang remained Sect Leader Jiang, only now with a vague look of disappointment in his eyes.

“Grandmaster Lan told me that I’m just like you, Mama.” Wei Wuxian speaks again, smiling at the memory of the old man’s finger in his face, at the memory of barely dodging a book that had been thrown at his head in a fit of frustration, “I don’t think he meant it as a compliment at first.”

He almost certainly hadn’t, but Wei Wuxian had taken it as one, just like he’d taken pride in the fact that he’d managed to leave him red faced and fuming. Other, far more fond, stories had come later, after Grandmaster Lan and Wei Wuxian had come to an understanding with one another. There hadn’t been any more books thrown at his head after that.

“I met someone while I was there.” Wei Wuxian speaks quickly now, smiling as the wind catches the smoke from the incense sticks and blows it back in his face. “He’s a fuddy duddy like all the other Lans, but I like him so much. I wish you could meet him. I think you would like him, Baba.”

Wei Wuxian was guessing, he could only hope that his father would like Lan Zhan. Uncle Xiao had told him everything he could think of about both of his parents, and Sect Leader Jiang only ever gave him breadcrumbs of information, like anything more would be too painful to talk about.

There was more, Wei Wuxian was sure he was forgetting things, but the sun was going down, and he’d already gone last on purpose, sending Uncle Xiao and Uncle Song ahead and telling him that he would watch A-Qing for a while.

To his younger sister, Cangse Sanren was a fairytale, one that she’d learned from the stories that Wei Wuxian repeated from his uncle, she had no reason to kneel in front of her grave and bow to her. They’d played hide and seek while they waited, though during the last round, Uncle Xiao had been the one to find Wei Wuxian, smiling as he told him it was his turn.

He’d wanted to come back from Gusu with stories for A-Qing and his parents, but sitting in front of their graves now, Wei Wuxian can’t seem to remember half of what he’d meant to tell them, the smile dropping off his face as he leans back on his heels, eyes glancing up at the pink-orange sky.

There’s a warm hand on his shoulder before he can remember properly, and Wei Wuxian jumps despite himself, only relaxing once his eyes meet his uncle’s.

“It’s starting to get dark.” Uncle Xiao says gently, stating the obvious, though he kneels down next to Wei Wuxian, uncaring if his white robes get dirtied. “Do you need me to bring you a lantern?”

There wasn’t a doubt in Wei Wuxian’s mind that his uncle would bring him a lantern if he asked for it, but he shakes his head with a smile, looking at his parents’ graves one more time. “I was only finishing up here.” Wei Wuxian says cheerfully, grabbing Suibian from where it lays as he stands.

His uncle straightens right along with him, a smile of his own on his face as a breeze comes and sweeps the leaves off the graves. “Are you sure? We don’t mind waiting if you want to tell your mother how many rules you broke, A-Ying.” Uncle Xiao says, laughing at his own joke when Wei Wuxian grins back at him. “I think she’d be proud.”

Wei Wuxian can’t help but look down, then, the smile on his face less of a grin now.

“Zewu-jun told me that they added a thousand new rules after Mama left.” Wei Wuxian says, following his uncle back down the hill they’d climbed up earlier, the fading light making the path harder to follow, but not by much.

“And I’m sure A-Ying has added a thousand of his own.” Uncle Xiao says, smiling widely at his nephew.

It wasn’t a reprimand, Wei Wuxian was certain of that.

“Is this something they taught you in Gusu?” Song Lan asks, watching as Xiao Xingchen sits across from their nephew, their hands not touching just yet.

“Sort of,” Wei Ying says, leaning forward and grabbing at the tattered book laying next to his knee, notes scribbled in every corner and diagrams littering empty spaces wherever they could’ve been found.

Xiao Xingchen could only feel sympathy for anyone who dared to try and read his nephew’s notes, or perhaps it was pity.

“I heard about Inquiry from Lan Zhan, but he wouldn’t show me how to play it, so I thought I could make my own version of it.” Wei Ying turns the pages over as he speaks, looking for something specific that he’d written down, though he only seems to find it once he turns the notebook upside down in his hands.

It had been Song Lan’s rule that Wei Ying test his talismans and spells on one or both of them before he tested them on spirits, and Xiao Xingchen had agreed. They were safer than any spirit could ever be.

“Tell us how it works, A-Ying.” Xiao Xingchen says, his hands resting on his knees, Wei Ying had already explained it once, quickly, and in the middle of the night when the idea had come to him. Xiao Xingchen had tried his best to understand what was being explained to him, but there were pieces missing now that he was wide awake.

“Spirits aren’t able to lie when Inquiry is performed, but they can choose not to answer if they don’t want to or if they don’t know.” Wei Ying explains, his mouth pressing into a fine line as he tries to concentrate on the notes in front of him, “Empathy is supposed to let the spirit show me specific memories, but I need someone who can bring me out of it after a certain amount of time has passed.”

It sounded simple enough when it was explained like that, but theorizing about something, talking about it, and actually doing it were three different things. Opening up one’s own mind to spirits was something different entirely. Wei Ying would have to perfect it on the living before Xiao Xingchen would even consider letting him try it on some wayward spirit.

Even knowing that, though, Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t pretend that he hadn’t thought up specific memories to show his nephew, his hands suddenly itchy on his knees. When Wei Ying had first brought up the concept of Empathy, he was supposed to sit with Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen was meant to act as a tether to them both, but things had gotten jumbled along the way, and now Song Lan was to be their tether.

“I’m ready.” Xiao Xingchen says, forcing himself to let go of the breath he’d been holding, looking up at his husband and smiling. “We agreed on half an hour, right, Zichen?” Half an hour would be enough to let Wei Ying see those specific memories, anything shorter than that wouldn’t allow their nephew to take accurate notes and improve on Empathy.

“Half an hour,” Song Lan confirms, “anything longer and I’m breaking the connection.” He looks between the two of them as he speaks, a fair warning for a fair concern. Wei Ying nods and raises his hands up slowly, turning them palm up and Xiao Xingchen smiles, taking a deep breath as he pulls himself into the center, his eyes falling closed in time with his nephew’s.

"You'll meet one of my older disciples once we reach the top of the mountain." Baoshan Sanren says, her hold on Xiao Xingchen’s hand firm and sure of herself as she guides him up the rocky path. "She likes to play tricks, but she'll treat you kindly and look after you."

She didn't expect him to respond, in the two weeks they'd walked together she hadn't expected him to respond, but the words come out of Xiao Xingchen’s mouth before he can stop them. "Is she nice?" He didn't even know the name of his new sect sister, but he couldn't stop himself from asking, his grip on his new grandmaster's hand tightening.

Baoshan Sanren stops and looks up towards the sky as if she were trying to guess the incoming weather. "Cangse is colorful." Baoshan Sanren says finally, looking into Xiao Xingchen’s eyes. She does not smile, but there's something warm in her eyes.

Xiao Xingchen is only five years old, but he trusts that warmth, it was the same warmth she'd shown him when she offered him her hand. They're halfway up the mountain when she decides the path is too narrow and too rocky for the two of them to walk side by side anymore, helping him onto her back and telling him to hold on tight instead.

There are more questions he wants to ask. He wants to know how many other disciples there are on the mountain, he wants to know how she knew where to find him, he wants to know why she was able to appear so suddenly.

Before he can so much as breathe a single one of those questions, a girl dressed in bright blue is bounding towards them, a wide grin on her face as she skitters to a stop. Her arms fold behind her back innocently as she leans forward on tiptoe to look Xiao Xingchen in the eye. "I got your butterfly, is this him, Mama?"

“Grandmaster will do, Cangse.” Baoshan Sanren sighs, sounding as though they’d had this conversation dozens of times already. “I told you to stay at the summit.” Baoshan Sanren tries to walk past her then, but she only walks close behind, her eyes mischievous when Xiao Xingchen meets them.

“The more you tell me to do something, the less I want to do it.” His new sect sister says, and Xiao Xingchen feels himself grip their grandmaster’s robes tighter.

If Baoshan Sanren answers the obvious taunt, Xiao Xingchen doesn’t hear her. “I’m Cangse,” She murmurs to him quickly, reaching forward and brushing stray hairs out of Xiao Xingchen’s face, her grin turning gentle, but only for a moment. “You’re my first little brother.”

She hadn’t called him shidi, she’d called him didi, and Xiao Xingchen can feel himself curl against their grandmaster’s back.

“I’m Xiao Xingchen.” He says quietly, unable to look away from those bright eyes until she looks away first.

Cangse is colorful. That was how their grandmaster had first described his sister, Xiao Xingchen remembers that now.

“Why do you call Grandmaster “Mama”? She doesn’t like it.” Cangse had led him out to one of the fields after their last lesson of the morning, her hair and pink robes fanned out around her as she lays in the grass.

“That’s why I do it.” Cangse answers simply, she doesn’t even open her eyes for a few moments, not even when Xiao Xingchen calls her name, not when he calls her Shijie, she doesn’t continue until he calls her Jiejie.

“Why shouldn’t I call her Mama? I’ve been with her since I was a baby.” There’s a note of something in Cangse’s voice as she speaks now, her eyes staring upwards into the sky, though she doesn’t look as if she’s questioning it the way Xiao Xingchen had seen their grandmaster do.

Shuffling forward on his knees, Xiao Xingchen comes to lean over her, staring into her dark eyes, his eyebrows knit together. “She didn’t find you?”

“She found me.” Cangse argues, reaching up and running her thumb between Xiao Xingchen’s eyes in one quick move. “In a basket in a field somewhere, that’s the story she’s always told me, and she’s always taken care of me like a mother would. I think.” His sister shrugs after she finishes, crossing her arms over her stomach and closing her eyes again.

In the two years he’d been on the mountain, Xiao Xingchen had learned that that meant his sister was done talking about something. It didn’t mean she wanted an apology, it only meant she was done talking.

“Do you remember your parents, A-Chen?” The quiet of her voice catches Xiao Xingchen off guard, his sister was loud, anything less than her usual volume felt like they were trading secrets.

“I don’t remember their faces. I only remember that they wore straw hats.” Xiao Xingchen admits, twisting blades of grass around his fingers and pulling them up with little resistance. “I think they were farmers.” His birth parents were a blurred spot in his mind, hands reaching out for him without recognition or voices.

For a long moment, it seems as though Cangse doesn’t have anything else to say, her eyes are only half open, and he thinks she might’ve fallen asleep in the field like she usually did, but then, her voice is coming again, back to her usual volume as she smiles. “Being a farmer sounds nice, don’t you think?”

Xiao Xingchen is the one who doesn’t answer now, at least until his sister throws a fistful of grass at him and rolls away when he tries to retaliate.

“I’m sorry, Didi, I have to go.” The next time Xiao Xingchen opens his eyes, bleary and heavy with sleep, Cangse is eighteen and kneeling beside his bed in the middle of the night. She’s smiling sadly at him, a bag hanging off the side of her shoulder and her green robes easily identifiable in the dark.

Sitting up, Xiao Xingchen frowns at his sister and shakes his head, “You don’t have to do anything.” If he sounds petulant when he speaks, Xiao Xingchen will blame it on being woken up in the middle of the night, instead of admitting to some childish fear of being left behind.

Cangse’s smile only gets sadder then, her hand reaching up and stroking his hair away from his face, and Xiao Xingchen can see that her eyes are wet. “I have to do this.” Cangse repeats, her hand pulling away painfully slowly, as if she didn’t actually want to. “I can’t stay here my whole life, A-Chen, you’ll understand one day.”

Xiao Xingchen didn’t want to understand, he knew that much even then, but he couldn’t force himself to be angry at his sister.

“Will I see you again after this?”

“Maybe, Maybe not.” Cangse says quietly, she wouldn’t make promises she couldn’t keep, Xiao Xingchen had always admired that about her. “You have to call her Mama when you tell her that I left in the morning.” Cangse is speaking quickly now, reaching for and grabbing Xiao Xingchen’s hand as she forces any uncertainty out of her voice, “If I can’t get on her nerves one last time, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself.”

“Shijie,” Xiao Xingchen groans, trying to sit up straighter, but she pushes him back down. He’d wanted to argue with her, she always got him in trouble whenever she decided he should call their grandmaster that.

“Promise me, Xingchen.”

There’s a quiet desperation in his sister’s voice that kills any arguments on Xiao Xingchen’s lips, and he feels himself nodding.

“I promise.” Xiao Xingchen says, still propped up on his elbows when Cangse smiles at him again.

“Good, now go back to sleep.” Before he can stop her, Cangse runs her thumb between his eyebrows with a brush of her spiritual energy, and suddenly, Xiao Xingchen’s body is heavy and his eyelids heavier.

He doesn’t get to see or hear her leave, the door to his room closes silently behind her.

“I always hated it when she did that.” Xiao Xingchen says, pulling his hands away from Wei Ying’s slowly and reaching up to rub at the spot on his forehead. He could still feel it, even after they’d pulled out of the Empathy session, and he watches with a smile as Wei Ying reaches up and does the same.

“Did Mama do that a lot?” Wei Ying asks, trying his hardest to hide the way he wipes the tears off his cheeks, Xiao Xingchen lets him have it.

“Mostly when she wanted to win an argument.” He confirms, smiling as he nods, casting a quick glance up at Song Lan, his eyes softening even more. “You couldn’t keep arguing with her if you were sleeping, and by the time you woke up, she’d already forgotten about the argument.”

“I always wanted to know where his bad memory came from.” Song Lan teases, kneeling down next to the both of them, and smiling when Wei Ying finally laughs, his shoulders shaking as the smile comes back to his face.

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t stop himself from leaning forward and resting his hand on top of Wei Ying’s head, fingers combing through his hair like he used to do when Wei Ying was younger.

His nephew only bows his head and leans into it, and Xiao Xingchen can feel something warm twist in his heart.

Stories had been nice, but Empathy was something different entirely.

They’re somewhere between Meishan and Yueyang when they hear a screech above their heads, all eyes pointed towards the sky as a smokey, black bird circles around them, dipping lower and lower on each pass, until A-Qing starts to wiggle and fight trying to get down from her older brother’s back.

“Xian-gege, what is that?” She pulls at his robes as she asks, squinting and trying hard to concentrate as she catches sight of something in the bird’s claws. “It’s holding something.”

“It’s the Wen clan’s dire owl.” Wei Ying says, his hand reaching for his younger sister’s as his eyes follow the path the owl makes.

“What could it want with us? We aren’t subjects under Wen Ruohan.” Song Lan says, moving to stand closer to Wei Ying and A-Qing, though he doesn’t reach for Fuxue, his eyes meeting Xiao Xingchen’s, anxiety nipping at both of their heels.

Once the dire owl is close enough, it releases whatever it had been carrying, crying out again as it swoops back up into the wind and a tightly wound scroll all but falls into Wei Ying’s hand, though he nearly fumbles it.

Worry and curiosity climb higher and higher in Xiao Xingchen’s throat as he watches his nephew break the seal on the scroll, he doesn’t even have the mind to scold A-Qing for pulling at her brother’s sleeves.

“Wen Ruohan is dead.” Wei Ying says after a few moments of reading, confusion filling his eyes as he meets the stares of his uncles, the scroll still held tightly in his hands. “Wen Qing sent the owl to find us and ask us to come to Qishan.” Slowly, Wei Ying holds the scroll out to Xiao Xingchen, and he leans over to pick A-Qing up the second it’s out of his hands. “She wants our help with the investigation.”

Wen Qing’s calligraphy is careful and unmistakable, her request clear and obvious as Xiao Xingchen reads, Song Lan coming to stand over his shoulder even though their nephew had just told them the gist. She hadn’t said how His Excellency had come to pass, she’d only said she could offer more information if they agreed to make the journey to Qishan.

But she’d also given them an option to refuse, and that’s what makes Xiao Xingchen sigh. It would take them four days to arrive in Qishan, three if the mountain roads had been cleared of winter debris by now.

“Dafan Wen believe in repaying every kindness.” Xiao Xingchen says, echoing the words that Granny Wen had spoken years ago as he turns and looks at his husband. The conversation only lasts a few seconds, their fingers laced together already.

“We’ll have to be careful while we’re there.” Xiao Xingchen says, speaking slowly and deliberately to make sure he’s understood. “A-Ying, the next letter you write to Lan Wangji, I want you to ask him if he’s heard anything at all about this.” The death of the chief cultivator wasn’t something easily hidden, but something didn’t feel right about this, about any of it.

“Ask him to keep it a secret if you’re the first one to tell him.”

#the untamed #mdzs #songxiao #wangxian #xiao xingchen #wei wuxian #song lan #a-qing #a qing #as usual the ao3 link and links to the other parts will be in the reblog to my main

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