fic recs

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says, dragging himself out of his despondent slouch. “Welcome home. I missed you.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji replies. “Missed you also.” 

He carries the tea over on a tray. Wei Wuxian hastily shuffles the parchments and scrolls off to one side to make room. It’s not until Lan Wangji has poured a cup each for them and sat back, posture straight and body language open, that he finally looks Wei Wuxian in the eyes. “Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says. “What is wrong?”

For a heartbeat, Wei Wuxian considers laughing it off. He’s done it before, after nighthunts where he was a little careless, or selfless, or whatever the kids are calling it these days; brushing off his injuries until the juniors are tucked into their rooms and Lan Wangji finally loses his patience. He’s done it before, at the rare cultivation conferences he attends, shrugging off the snide remarks of cultivators who still spit the name Yiling Laozu like it is poison. But it’s been a long day, and he had to take dinner alone because Lan Wangji was busy dealing with sect responsibilities in his brother’s place, and his shoulders feel incredibly heavy despite having shed his outer robes and inner robes, too, just because stealing his husband’s robes to wear makes him feel safe and quiet in a way that makes him feel spoiled. 

“Nothing,” Wei Wuxian says. “Or—I guess that’s just it, exactly. There is nothing wrong. And that feels… wrong.”

He can tell Lan Wangji does not understand. But, like always, his husband simply sips his tea and waits for Wei Wuxian to gather his scattered thoughts like wildflowers along an age-worn dirt path.

“I gave a great lecture today,” Wei Wuxian says, not pridefully, just truth. He’s good at teaching and he likes it. He always had. Has. He’s only glad that Lan Qiren seems to agree the position suits him, too, albeit very grudgingly. “I had lunch with Sizhui and Jingyi before they left on their hunt, and I passed them a letter to give to Jin Ling when they meet. I even had time to visit the rabbits. I have an invitation to visit Lotus Pier next season and I get to wait for you to come home every day. I have no complaints about this life, how can I? I feel like I get to have everything I hadn’t even dared dream of before, and I’m. I’m happy, Lan Zhan, I truly am.”

“But,” Lan Wangji prompts gently.

“But,” Wei Wuxian agrees. “Today. It feels wrong. I don’t—I don’t know why. I should be happy, and I am, I just—” He shakes his head. Picks up his tea, puts it down without drinking from it. “I’m just being silly. Probably I’ll feel better after I get some sleep. It’s okay, Lan Zhan, I already feel better talking it out.”

Lan Wangji looks at him. He’s considering what Wei Wuxian just blurted at him, and contemplating his own words. Just like Lan Wangji has always, always waited for Wei Wuxian, he returns that patience.

“Happiness is not a duty,” Lan Wangji says slowly. “It should not be something that binds you with guilt. I am glad Wei Ying is happy. But I would be glad to sit with you when you are not.”

Ah, this man. This foolish, wonderful, good man. All his. Whether he deserves it or not—Wei Wuxian decides he does not want to fight that losing battle with Lan Wangji today. He will bask in the gentle glory of being loved by his Lan Zhan. He will savour the sunrise of being able to love his Lan Zhan.

Wei Wuxian pushes himself up on his knees and shuffles around the table. “Lan Zhan,” he says. “You truly spoil me too much.”

Lan Wangji makes a soft noise of disagreement. He shifts, widening his legs and opening his arms to let Wei Wuxian climb into his lap. They settle in a familiar position: Wei Wuxian’s legs wrapped around Lan Wangji’s middle, face tucked into the space where Lan Wangji’s neck meets his shoulder, fingers hooked onto the back of Lan Wangji’s robe. Lan Wangji’s large hands, lovely and warm, loosens the ribbon in Wei Wuxian’s hair, and then strokes through the messy waves, all the way down to the small of his back. Wei Wuxian breathes out a sigh, closing his eyes against the sudden sting at the back of them. 

He’ll be alright tomorrow. But for now, he lets himself sink into the comfort of his husband’s embrace and counts the steady heartbeat pressed against his own. The tea will go cold on the table, but it’s alright. They can heat it up again.

i think jyl called him while he's having the seizure and managed to get help. LWJ then came to visit him at the hospital, if i'm not mistaken (or i prolly mash up some other fic).. and cannot remember anything else..

I am a sucker for hurt!wwx or suffering wwx fics. I am a saddist (¬_¬) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

thanx for your effort!

oOF poor wwx wow i don’t think i’ve read a fic that has that plotline, though i’m ngl i feel you on the hurt!wwx tag hahaha (hurt/comfort? yes please)

INCHRESTING i haven't read many, nearly any fics for the wrh/lqr pairing (link to AO3 relationship)!!!

i had one singular bookmark that had that relationship tagged though, which was the series Resolutions by incendir, specifically the work Empyreal (M, 7371 words; archive warning: rape/non-con)

Spilled pearls by nirejseki (@robininthelabyrinth) (T, 88844 words)

Relentless by nirejseki (@robininthelabyrinth) (T, 29946 words)

POV you (yes, you) are in the all-gender bathroom at a club trying to get a stain out of your shirt when an insanely beautiful guy with an easy grin and a wicked tattooed undercut walks in

You try to ignore him because 1. he’s too beautiful and 2. stain problem, but when he comes back out of the stall his eyes fall on your sad paper towel via the mirror

He’s swaying a tiny bit, washing his hands with the careful movements of the comfortably sloshed, and openly staring at the mess you’re only making worse

“Sauce??” he asks.

“Sangria,” you say.

He grimaces and meets your eye sympathetically.

“Won’t come out with soap,” he says. He starts fumbling around in all his pockets, though how he fits anything in jeans that tight is a mystery.

“Aha!!” he goes, whipping out a detergent pen with a flourish and a lopsided smile. “It really is a tide pen, I’m not just happy to see you.” He grimaces. “But I am happy to see you, too. What’s your name? You seem great. Ooohh nope, here, you do it. ’M too drunk.”

He’s gregarious in a way that manages to be both disarming and endearing. He’s not even actually flirting with you, you can tell he’s just like this, and you can’t help but like him. You take the pen and introduce yourself while you work on the stain. He leans against the sinks, arms crossed, silver jewelry glinting in the dim light, his smile going apologetic.

“I’m Wei Ying! But…terrible with names. Sorry if I call you Sangria, just correct me,” he begs.

You tell him Sangria is fine anyway.

He laughs with you, and says, “True, you were drinking it! You must like it.”

With a sigh, you start to summarize the unfortunate events resulting in someone else’s sangria going down your shirt. He makes a startled sound, though, when he notices a tear in the waist of his own shirt.

“Noooooo,” he groans. “This was my hottest outfit.”

His head thunks against the wall at his side.

You produce a safety pin, and hold it out. “Here.”

He opens his eyes, and his face lights up so bright it almost hurts to look at. He takes the safety pin, and then looks at you with unguarded joy.

“You’re the BEST,” he says, and starts to try to pin the seam. He struggles. “I can’t….reach.”

You put the pen down and help. He smiles at you like you hung the moon, then reminds you you were telling the sangria story. You have no idea how he remembers this, when this drunk, but not names.

He keeps you talking, friendly and genuine and enthusiastically in your corner. He seems ready to march out and dump a fishbowl of red wine on the responsible party himself, but then you mention you weren’t having that great of a time anyway, and he stops.

"Why???”

Without going overboard for a conversation in a crappy public restroom, you tell him you weren’t really feeling the atmosphere, you’ve just been kind of down. The sangria was a sign you should probably head home.

He goes quiet and intent, and reaches out to squish your face in both his hands. He stares into your eyes, his gaze a little unfocused but very determined. It’s actually a little terrifying to have someone this stunning looking at you this close.

“You. Are amazing,” he says. “You wanna party? You party. You are the good Sangria, and you can’t let the bad sangria get you down.”

Horrifyingly, his eyes start to get a little wet.

“D’you even know how awesome you are??? Look!!”

He turns your head to look at your own squished face in the mirror, and gives your head a little shake.

“Look!!! Even Lan Zhan would like you!!”

“Lan Zhan?” you ask, the unfamiliar name coming out smushed like your cheeks.

“Yeah! Even him!! And he doesn’t like anybody!”

You realize at this point that he’s one of those people who appears much less drunk than they are, even as drunk as he currently appears.

“Who ish Lan Zhan?” you smush.

“My best friend!” Wei Ying says, and shakes you a little again before letting go. He’s got a distinctly faraway look in his eye now. “He’s amaaaazing. The best…person. The. He’s really. Yeah.”

“If he’s your best friend, then he clearly likes you, too,” you say.

This has the opposite of the intended effect. Wei Ying blinks several times before closing his eyes. 

“Yeah,” he says. “He likes me. As a friend.”

“That’s good,” you say tentatively. “Since you’re friends.”

Wei Ying hiccups. “En,” he says, with a loose nod. “We’re good friends.”

And then Wei Ying starts to cry.

a continuation of 1

Wei Wuxian has been able to figure out the following: Mo Xuanyu is the illegitimate but very recently turned legitimate daughter of Jin Guangshan, her marriage is being used to solidify al alliance between and Jin and Lan, no one is happy about it, and she’s known to be at least a bit touched in the head.

He’d be impressed with himself with his quick information gathering all before breakfast if he hadn’t heard the servants gossiping about it as they laid out his meal. He’d figured out the last bit because they’d said all this while he was sitting right there and they hadn’t at all reacted to his stare, as if Mo Xuanyu often sat there silently and incredulously as they gossiped about her in front of her face.

No wonder she turned to demonic cultivation.

He eats breakfast then goes searching in the room for her notes. They’re stuffed under the mattress and the sigils she’d used for the ritual are drawn in blood on the floor. It takes him a depressingly short amount of time to confirm the ritual did exactly as she intended, but not why.

Nothing to do but investigate. Based on the ritual, he’ll either be kicked out her body once he completes the task, or when the curse mark grows to book. If she died to get him here and do – something, then the least he can do is figure out what it is.

He opens her wardrobe and resigns himself to doing nothing for her reputation. She has only garish gold Jin clothes, which he literally can’t style without looking like an asshole, and he’s really not sure how a recently legitimized bastard daughter is supposed to dress anyway.

Well. That’s not precisely true. He’d seen Jin Guangyao undergo the same transformation, but it hadn’t seemed to him much good.

So he won’t do that, then, which leaves depressingly little.

He’s resolved to breaking into the washroom to see if he can find something that doesn’t make his eyes want to bleed when there’s a knock at his door and a familiar voice says, “Lady Mo, I heard you were awake. May I come in?”

Wei Wuxian sits to keep from falling, suddenly unable to feel his legs.

It’s a very familiar voice.

because Jiang Cheng keeps the blindfold on. he keeps it on. he believes. even when he hates Wei Wuxian, or is trying to hate him, even after Wei Wuxian has (he thinks) (and sometimes accurately) failed him over and over, even after Wei Wuxian couldn’t control it, Jiang still believes Wei Wuxian was capable of the miracle of his golden core, that Wei Wuxian wasn’t really dead, that Wei Wuxian could do anything, and if he abandoned Jiang Cheng it was because he chose to, not because he tried to fix things and failed

this deep, primal, childhood-rooted trust betrayed by so many lies and so little malice that is one of the lynchpins of the inexorable tragedy in one story would be escape and salvation from otherwise inexorable tragedy in the other

and I know he probably wouldn’t even get the chance because WWX is the protagonist and WWX is the musician and WWX absolutely would look back because the shape of his insecurities and he just does not have that same kind of trust in JC - WWX is the older brother, the genius, he has to fix it himself, he can’t trust JC, JC can’t handle it 

but JC - I mean. he has his insecurities. he would be tempted. GOD he would be tempted - why would WWX CHOOSE to follow HIM. but. but. he would believe wwx could do the impossible and walk out of hell behind him. if the task duty demanded of him was to just - trust. and keep walking.

he trusts wei wuxian so, so much. beyond sense and sanity until both of his siblings commit suicide in front of him, and then, somehow, with chenqing and JIN LING’S WELFARE and beyond, he trusts him. and if there is ONE thing jiang cheng can always do, it’s be surrounded by death and just. keep. walking.

if he had been set this other task, from this other world -

“A-Fu.”

Diedie’s voice was gentle and sad when he sat down across from him at the kitchen table where his math homework was spread out everywhere. Next to A-Fu, Papa sat down too, with a solemn face and shiny red eyes, his moustache squirming around like a baby snake as he tried to keep his mouth from getting all pinchy like it did when he cried. A-Fu sat up straighter, dread all curled up in his tummy like Hensheng. “What?”

“You know that Baxia is…quite old,” Diedie said, still sounding very careful about his words while his eyebrows said ‘sorry’. “And that she hasn’t been eating the last few days.”

Oh, that? Immediately, A-Fu relaxed and rolled his eyes, going back to his multiplications. “Yeah, but she’s gonna be fine.”

He felt his dad’s look at each other across the table and Papa sighed, his hand balling up on the dark wood. “We can’t know that.”

Actually, he did, because this had happened, like, a hundred times before–Baxia didn’t eat for a few days or she went and hid somewhere in a closet and they couldn’t find her or she would pee on the floor and his dads would all act like This Was It and start moving all sad and quiet and try to talk to him about her dying. It just wasn’t gonna happen. A-Fu wasn’t even worried anymore. He was gonna introduce Baxia to his kids. “She’s never gonna die, Papa. She’s like dinosaur bones; she’s gonna be around for-ev-er. Did you know they’re not actually bones? They’re rocks, it’s called fo-ssil-i-fi-ca-tion.” He squinched up his nose and concentration and bopped his pencil in the air for each syllable, just to make sure he got them all. “Mrs. Chao taught us about it in science class. Isn’t that the coolest? Can people be fossilificationafieded?”

Next to him, Papa blew out a frustrated breath, scrubbing his hand over his face and Diedie reached out to lay a hand on his arm. “I think we need to focus–this is a serious conversation, little love. Baxia means a lot to your Papa. Baba is upstairs getting her ready to go into her crate for the vet.” (Baxia hated the vet, so it always took a lot of time, a lot of catnip and treats, and oven mitts and she still scratched and yowled. A-Fu cocked his head to see if he could hear her screeching in anger, but upstairs was quiet.) “But we wanted to know if you wanted to go give her encouragement or if you wanted to go with–”

“No, I’m fine.” A-Fu shrugged and turned to his Papa, patting his other forearm, then his face. “Papa, you don’t gotta be sad, she’s lichrelly gonna be fine in lichrelly tomorrow.” 

Diedie shot Papa a kind of helpless look and leaned back in his chair as Papa’s eyes filled up with tears, his mouth stretching tight the way it did when he was about to cry. Oh Papa, A-Fu thought, all exasperated and climbed up to stand on his chair, wrapping his dad’s head in a hug as he patted his hair. Did A-Fu have to be the realistic one here? “It’s okay, Papa, it’s okay,” he said, patiently, just like Baba did when A-Fu cried. “Do you wanna watch a Disney movie?” 

“A-Fu–”

“That cat,” Baba announced, stomping all sweaty into the kitchen with scratches on his arm and cheek and still wearing oven mitts. “Just fought me like a demon for 30 minutes and then hacked up a hairball the size of a small child onto my pillow and trotted away! Happy as you please! I’m going to take her to the vet anyway just to check if she can die, because I’m no longer convinced!” He flapped his hand angrily at the island counter, flinging off the oven mitts–they were the Baxia Only ones Aunt MianMian had gotten them, red with cat scratches all down them that said ‘Made From Scratch’. 

“A-Yao,” Diedie warned, tipping his head toward A-Fu–who was staring over at the far counter at something he had only just now noticed with his new chair tallness.

Baba heaved a huge, loud sigh and tilted his head back, eyes closed. “I’m sorry, but–”

“Uh…” A-Fu let go of Papa’s head with one arm and pointed at Baxia crouched up on the white counter, gnawing on the corner of the loaf of bread Diedie had cooling there.

Diedie twisted around to look and said in a quiet, despairing voice, “Oh, my bread,” as Papa surged up to his feet, bellowing, “Baxia!”

I’d love some MDZS! Either overpowered first disciple or WWX and JYL with the kiddos. Or anything you want to write!

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Wei Yuan knows he should leave this to his father. The tension is so thick he's almost surprised any of them still have air to breathe. But his indignation takes away his common sense. "You didn't even read them?"

"A-Yuan," Mama says, her voice soothing.

Uncle Wanyin cuts her off. "I didn't get them. How many letters?"

Baba's horrified. "You never - that's impossible!"

"How. Many. Letters?" he repeats, doing his best to glare down at Baba even though they're same height.

Baba throws up his hands. "I didn't count!"

"At least once month to you and Zixuan," Mama says. "Usually more. We sent the first one about a week after we left."

"About two a month for thirteen years," Baba snaps. "That's over three hundred letters. How do you lose three hundred letters?" He turns to glare at A-Ling's father. "What about you? Didn't you get any?"

He shakes his head.

"So you really," Mama pauses, her eyes filling with tears. Wei Yuan feels A-Ling twitch next to him, and knows that they're both resisting the urge to do something about that. "You thought we were dead all this time?"

"We didn't think, we knew," Uncle Jixuan says. He sounds devastated. "We burned you. All of you." His eyes briefly go to Baba. "Almost all of you."

Baba smacks his fist into his palm. "I should have left a body behind for myself! I knew I was forgetting something."

Lan Wangji felt his soulmate die in Hejian.

His brother will ask, in later years, what the pain of it felt like—after Xiongzhang’s own zhiyin dies, and leaves him as a shell of his former self—but even then, after nearly a third of his lifetime spent contemplating that wretched moment, Lan Wangji will not be able to explain it.

He was in the middle of a battlefield when it happens, fighting off two Wen soldiers at once. Lan Wangji saw the taller one lift his sword, and prepared to duck in time to avoid it and answer the blow with one of his own; but then his legs went out from under him, and he crumpled into a pool of someone else’s blood like a sapling felled by an axe. Over his head, he vaguely glimpsed one of the Wen cultivators gutting the other by accident, and screaming as if the very life had been sucked away from him—but Lan Wangji lay silent through it all, consumed by the dull, empty fire burning in his lower dantian, and languished in the nightmarish sleep that followed for three dark days and nights.

When he woke, the first news he heard was of Wei Ying’s disappearance, and the pieces fell into place so swiftly that Lan Wangji nearly took Bichen to his stomach before Nie Mingjue burst into his tent and wrestled the sword away from him.

Everything made sense, all of a sudden—for of course Lan Wangji’s soulmate laughed so often that even Shufu knew the tells in Wangji’s face that indicated his zhiyin’s joy, and of course Lan Wangji’s mother’s death had grieved him so deeply that nothing brought him enough joy to make him laugh again. He does not remember laughing at all after learning that his mother was gone, not once, and if a soulmate’s laugh had to be one of pure joy, then Wei Ying would have had every reason to believe that his own was dead.

“I should have been with him,” he croaks, when his brother breaks down and begs him to eat a little plain rice with tea. “Wei Ying was my fated one, xiongzhang. I should have been there with him, even—even just to hold his hand at the end.”

Lan Xichen covers his mouth in horror. The teacup falls from his hands, soaking the hem of Lan Wangji’s bloodstained robes, and he mouths Wei Ying’s name a couple of times before sweeping the shards of his teacup into a waste bin.

“Should...should I inform Jiang Wanyin? We can send one of the soldiers in recovery out as a runner, the roads—”

“Jiang Wanyin is looking for him,” Lan Wangji says blankly. “I must go to join him.”

Xichen does not order him to stay, or try to persuade him to rest before he leaves. Lan Wangji leaves for Hubei the next morning, carrying nothing but his two spiritual weapons and a small bag of dried rations, and it is all he can do to keep himself upright when he finds Jiang Wanyin and hears of his fruitless search for Wei Ying.

“He promised he would wait,” the other man insisted, his eyes alight like a couple of brands while some no-name cousin of Jin Zixuan’s remarked that Wei Ying—Lan Wangji’s bright, beloved Wei Ying—must be dead or imprisoned by now. “Wei Wuxian has never broken a vow to me, Jin Zixun. Goodbye!”

Lan Wangji joins him that very afternoon, dogging his footsteps across the jianghu for any whisper of his fated one, and nearly breaks with unabashed joy when he finds Wei Ying alive at the Yiling courier station three months later.

He knows now that Wei Ying is not his soulmate, but it matters less than nothing to him. Furthermore, Lan Wangji can’t even bring himself to admonish Wei Ying for his use of demonic cultivation, or for his cruelty in disposing of the Wens.

After all, had Lotus Pier not burned at the hands of these very men? Had some of them not been present at the sacking of the Cloud Recesses, and cheered Wen Chao on from the sidelines while he demanded that Luo Qingyang be strung up and bled to bait the Xuanwu of Slaughter?

ooh, i like you. this ended up a little more angsty than i intended it to. novel/donghua-based

---

For three years after the funeral of the late Nie Mingjue, Jin Guangyao watches Nie Huaisang struggle under the weight of the legacy the man left behind and the guilt of believing he'd been the one to set off the qi deviation that had taken the man's life.

He has seen for himself how carefully the sect's ledgers are being maintained in a familiar elegant script, how letters and missives are always answered promptly, how the towns within Qinghe Nie territory have almost no complaints.

Despite his physical and spiritual disadvantages, despite his lack of experience, despite the rest of the jianghu continually dismissing him as an afterthought at best and an idiot at worst, Nie Huaisang is desperately trying to be a good sect leader.

And early in the fourth year, he finally breaks under all the stress.

"I don't know."

"A-Sang, it's a simple question."

"And I'm telling you I don't know the answer! Why does it even matter? Why do I have to pay attention to everything?"

Jin Guangyao stares at him, bewildered by the sudden petulance. "You're a sect leader."

"So's your father, and I don't see him bothering with any of this shit!" Nie Huaisang snaps, then immediately claps a hand over his mouth.

Jin Guangyao takes a deep, calming breath, then reaches out and puts a hand on the younger man's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Nie Huaisang mumbles behind his hand, expression contrite and eyes beginning to grow wet. "I didn't-"

"You're tired," Jin Guangyao murmurs gently, giving his shoulder a squeeze. "It's been a very long day for both of us, so why don't you get some sleep? Things will be easier in the morning."

---

They aren't. Nie Huaisang is halfway to drunk by breakfast and clearly in no mood to resume the negotiations.

---

The spiral continues, Nie Huaisang slowly cracking apart before everyone's eyes. By the end of the year, he is seen with wine of one kind or another in hand more often than not, and his meltdowns are practically considered entertainment.

"Knew the little nitwit wouldn't last long," his father says smirkingly over his wine cup as Jin-furen rolls her eyes.

Jin Guangyao remains silent.

He knows the numbers in the ledgers are still ruthlessly accurate, even if the hand that writes them is now much more unsteady, that the disciples remain solid as rocks behind their sect leader even as his very public fall from grace would be potential grounds for demanding abdication. Nie Huaisang is still trying even as his own sanity is slipping from his fingers and into the closest wine jar.

Despite his wife and nephew also expressing their disgust with Nie Huaisang visiting so often to beg assistance, despite Er-ge seeming to have given up on getting Nie Huaisang standing again and encouraging him to similarly cut ties, he opens his door every time.