#alt headcanons

nonidol!martin! x reader

hey alexa, play redbone by childish gambino

warnings: smoking, skinship, mentions of the  words: babe, baby.

“I cannot believe how irresponsible you are!” Lan Qiren roared. “You left a child all on his own!”

“Uh,” Cangse Sanren said, looking frantic. “Qiren-gege, you can’t be here –”

“It would be bad enough if he were ten, but he’s not even that! He’s barely more than a toddler! Do you know the sort of trouble he could get into by himself?!”

“Lan-er-gongzi – ah, that is, Sect Leader Lan –” Wei Changze tried to speak, but Lan Qiren was having none of it and silenced him at once.

“And not even by himself,” he continued. “Think of the risk of him getting caught up by some – some human trafficker or slaver! Or even some evil creature – you do know that the children of cultivators are the most likely to be targeted by such things, right?! It was taught in the classes! You were there! I saw you, I was there as well!”

“Damnit, Qiren, now is not the time –”

“It most certainly is! How can you possibly think there is reason for delay in such an important matter –”

“Qiren, behind you!”

Lan Qiren turned, still fuming, and saw the gigantic yao barreling down at him. He was so angry that, for once, he didn’t overthink any of his actions, merely pulled out his guqin in a single motion and threw the most aggressive cleansing song he knew right into the thing’s face, dispersing a significant portion of the resentful energy it had accumulated. Then, when some part of it still tried to continue its charge, he forwent his sword entirely (more accurately: he forgot he had one) and simply beat the stupid thing to death with his guqin directly, as if with a hammer.

“…huh,” Cangse Sanren said blankly when he was done. “I. I mean. Well. That’s certainly one way to get around the ‘cannot be pierced by swords’ problem. Really should’ve thought of that myself, actually.”

“The what problem?” Lan Qiren said, still panting a little from his exertion. As he calmed down, he began to feel minorly guilty for having taken out his frustrations on the yao, imagining in its place the face of all the horribly irresponsible parents he’d seen over the years, and most specifically the ones who were currently urging him to neglect his traumatized nephews still suffering from their mother’s death in favor of sect business important only to themselves – it occurred to him belatedly that he might have gone a little overboard. Certainly the poor guqin deserved better; it was going to need to be replaced entirely. Luckily he’d just grabbed a random one from the training rooms in his haste…

“That was the creature that was going to be my doom,” Cangse Sanren said helpfully, as if she thought she was clarifying something rather than being more confusing. “You just killed it.”

Lan Qiren stared blankly at her.

“Never mind,” she said soothingly. “I’ll explain later. You’ve clearly had a very hard time of it recently. Would you like a cup of tea and some time to talk about it?”

“…yes, thank you.” Lan Qiren sheepishly lifted the silencing spell on Wei Changze. “But first we go back to collect your son.”

“Teacher Lan, is it true that the Lan sect has a journeyman stage in your disciple training?” Nie Huaisang asked, his eyes wide and innocent.

Lan Qiren’s eye twitched, Do not tell lies warring with You know exactly what you’re doing by asking that, you impertinent brat in his head, but in the end the first was a rule and the latter merely a complaint, so he sighed and said, “Yes, that’s true. Generally, our sect members will go out for a year to gain experience in the world before returning home and deciding on what they want to do.”

"It's just weird, that's all," Lan Jingyi said. "You're weird."

Lan Sizhui rolled his eyes.

Jin Lin looked between the two of them. "What do you mean?" he asked, more than a little bemused. "Lan Sizhui's completely normal."

"Exactly!"

"...oooookay...?"

"No, that's - that really is it, I wasn't making fun! Sizhui is just really, completely, utterly normal and that's weird."

"You're insane," Jin Ling concluded.

"Allow me to explain," Lan Sizhui interjected, looking amused. "Please sit back down and stop trying to fight, both of you."

They returned to their seats.

"What Jingyi meant is not that I'm weird in and of myself, but just that I'm not like other Lan," Lan Sizhui explained.

Jin Ling scowled.

"I didn't mean it as an insult," Lan Jingyi grumbled, looking injured. "Sizhui knows that. Right?"

"Of course."

"How is being normal weird, though?" Jin Ling wanted to know. "What does that even mean?"

"Well, I mean. You know. He's...normal. He has normal reactions to things. If it's upsetting, he's upset. If it's happy, he's happy. It's all very reasonable."

"...and other Lan are...not like that?"

"Uh, no. Obviously. Most main family members in the Lan sect are just completely feral about something or another."

Jin Ling's eyebrows went up. "Hanguang-jun -"

"Senior Wei."

"Well, okay, nevermind about him then. Zewu-jun -"

"That whole thing with Jin Guangyao? And his new thing with Nie Huaisang. Clearly not results of a sound mind."

"...fair enough. Uh. Teacher Lan?"

"Waaaaay too into the sect rules."

Jin Ling had to concede that one. "Okay, fine. What are you feral about, then?"

It took Nie Mingjue a while to realize that Meng Yao had gotten the wrong idea about his gifts.

“It’s not that I’m not complimented, Sect Leader,” Meng Yao said, that strained smile that was almost a grimace on his face. “But I really can’t accept something so precious.”

Nie Mingjue frowned down at the set of gold cups. “Precious?” he echoed, not sure what Meng Yao meant – they were only gold, no spirituality to them at all; they were as useless as mud to a proper cultivator. “Don’t be ridiculous. Just take them.”

“I really can’t,” Meng Yao said stubbornly. “Sect Leader, if you would permit me to be frank…”

“Always. I hate dissembling.”

“It’s important to me – that is – I want to earn my place at your side through merit,” Meng Yao said delicately, as if he were saying something awkward. “Not through…anything else.”

“How else would you advance if not through merit?” Nie Mingjue asked, exasperated, and only after Meng Yao’s faced did several changes did he finally get it. “Wait, no! No, no, no! You’ve got the wrong idea entirely – this isn’t a courting gift! I was just being polite!”

“Polite?” Meng Yao echoed, arching his eyebrows. It looked somehow simultaneously graceful and deeply sarcastic. “Sect Leader, you’ve gifted me a dozen pieces in gold over the past two weeks, any time you find them, and I know for a fact that you don’t do that for every deputy.”

“None of my other deputies are you!”

That sounded wrong.

“I meant, in terms of your heritage,” Nie Mingjue said, and Meng Yao’s face was getting stiffer by the moment, insulted, as if Nie Mingjue had said the wrong thing again…oh, wait. “Not your mother. Your father! You’re a Jin, aren’t you?”

Meng Yao’s grimace softened into confusion. “I – that is – I’m not recognized –”

“You’re still a Jin by blood,” Nie Mingjue said. “Everyone knows how Lanling Jin’s special bloodline is drawn to gold, how uncomfortable you are without having a hoard of it around you at all times. We even have to have special rooms for visitors from there, or else they can’t fall asleep. Then next thing you know they’ve found their way to your treasury by sniffing it out…”

He trailed off.

Meng Yao’s face was doing something very strange, but in a different way than earlier.

“…did you not know?” he asked, grimacing when Meng Yao’s tightening lips confirmed it. He’d really put his foot in it this time. “Ah. I’d assumed…I hadn’t realized…forgive me. Does the gold help, at least?”

Jiang Yanli is committed to marrying into the Jin! …for the money 🥰

“I thought the Jiang clan valued freedom,” Jiang Yanli grumbled, sulking in a way that she’d never allow herself to do in front of her younger brothers, who needed a reliable big sis. “Choosing your own path…”

“Is this about your engagement again?” her mother said.

“Maybe.”

“A-Li…”

“At least tell me why it matters so much to you! I know Madame Jin used to be your friend, but you haven’t actually been friends in ages!”

Her mother sighed, then turned and looked at her thoughtfully. “I suppose you’re old enough now to understand,” she said. “Jinzhu, Yinzhu, go close the windows.”

Jiang Yanli waited until they’d done so. “So? What’s the reason you care so much about me being engaged with Jin Zixuan?”

“We’re broke.”

Jiang Yanli blinked. “What?”

“We’re broke,” her mother repeated. “The Jiang sect’s liabilities massively outweigh its assets, and the only reason no one has figured it out is because we’re a Great Sect with an immense amount of honor, so no one is willing to call us out on it when we delay or even default on our payments.”

Jiang Yanli stared.

“Your father won’t admit it, of course. That’s why he was willing to break the engagement – but I do care, which is why I care so much about setting it back up.”

“Oh,” Jiang Yanli said. “But…if that’s the case, what is the Jin sect getting out of this marriage?”

“Respectability,” her mother explained. “Jin Guangshan is an odious toad, and also very likely not the father of most of his ‘bastards’, no matter what he might think – the Jin sect’s bloodline treasures work on anyone in the bloodline, after all, not just the main line.”

Jiang Yanli read between the lines what was being implied about Jin Zixuan. “Oh!”

Actually, that made the prospect of marrying him seem distinctly less dire.

“That’s a secret,” her mother reminded her. “Anyway, that’s why you need to marry him anyway.”

“I see your point. But surely it’ll be just as embarrassing when the Jin sect figures out that they have to pay all our liabilities…?”

“I have a plan for that,” her mother said. “Admittedly, it involves a massive tax dodge and most of us pretending to be dead after a ‘massacre’ at the Lotus Pier –”

“Wait, is this why you still write to Uncle Zhuliu?”

“Don’t call your elders by their first names, it’s rude, and also don’t call him ‘uncle’, he doesn’t deserve it. But yes, he’s helping set it all up; it’s the least he can do, given what he owes me. We’re going to fake our own deaths – it’ll be very tragic – and your brother is going to inherit everything, then ‘rebuild’ the sect from scratch using an awful lot of rogue cultivators that he’s going to find hanging around aimlessly.”

“Uh-huh. Rogue cultivators that just happen to know the basics of Jiang sect training?”

“You’re getting it now,” Jiang Yanli’s mother agreed. “That’ll cover up the debt and the past, but that doesn’t solve everything; we’re still going to need a solid financial basis going forward. And that’s where you come in. You, and Jin Zixuan.”

LQR and WRH end up making a bet about who can outdrink who. LN's just as smug as a cat watching them go.

Lao Nie was laughing again.

“Stop that,” Wen Ruohan said, only it mostly came off as “Staaaaaa thud” or something like that, horribly slurred and slow as syrup, and also since when was his head on the table? He’d lifted it back up just a few moments ago, it couldn’t be back on the table again!

“Hanhan, I think you’ve had enough liquor,” Lao Nie said. “Don’t you think?”

Wen Ruohan did not think so, no, and he was definitely going to say as much as soon as he could get his stupid tongue working again.

Okay, maybe he did think he’d had enough, actually, but he couldn’t say as much. Lan Qiren – boring old fogey Lan Qiren, who was a fifth his age in reality and five times his age in behavior – was still upright, and that meant Wen Ruohan couldn’t stop drinking yet. If he did, he’d lose, and Wen Ruohan did not lose.

“I told you both before we started this ridiculous drinking contest that it was pointless,” Lan Qiren grumbled. “I told you, my family don't metabolize alcohol properly; for every one of us that gets immensely drunk right off the bat, there's one of us that don't, and I am the latter. I don’t get drunk, not even when I try. I told you!”

“I know you did,” Lao Nie said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s pointless.”

“No? Then what, do tell, was the point, exactly?”

“The point is that Hanhan is hilarious when he’s drunk off his ass.”

“Mmnot,” Wen Ruohan put in. He was never hilarious. He was scary.

“I’ll grant you that,” Lan Qiren said, which – what? Since when did Lan Qiren think of him with anything other than disdain? “Unfortunately, I think we’ve passed over the part where he gets very witty and irreverent and are now firmly in the part where he can’t do anything.”

Hey, Wen Ruohan resembled that remark.

Wait. That didn’t sound quite right…

“No, no, give him a little while,” Lao Nie said, sounding as if he had experience – which was a rotten dirty lie, since every previous time Wen Ruohan had gotten this drunk (or, well, drunk, because he wasn’t actually sure he’d ever gotten this drunk before) Lao Nie had been right there alongside with him. “Once he gets far enough, his body will eventually start to misread the alcohol as damage and the automatic self-healing array he’s set on himself will activate.”

“An automatic self-healing array? That seems like a terrible idea.”

“It is.”

“I mean, even putting aside the risk of him killing himself with it if his qi ever gets disorderly, why would he not want to control the rate and speed at which he’s healing himself? If he tries to heal himself now, it would…” A pause, presumably accompanied by some sort of revelation. “Lao Nie, that’s not funny.”

What wasn’t funny? Wen Ruohan wasn’t being included in the conversation here, and he didn’t like that.

Maybe more alcohol would help?

“What are you talking about? It’s funny! It’s really funny.”

“It most certainly is not. Sect Leader Wen – no, wait, Sect Leader Wen, don’t drink that, you don’t –”

The array activated.

It was a very good array, and it immediately repaired all the damage that Wen Ruohan’s body was currently undergoing by means of immediately giving him the worst hangover ever.

“Oh,” Nie Huaisang said, blinking. For the first moment, he looked just as stunned as Meng Yao was – but, unfortunately, he recovered faster. “Oh, this is wonderful!”

This was terrible.

Meng Yao had plans, plans that did not involve turning out to be unusually compatible as dao companions with the notoriously useless and empty-headed second son of the Qinghe Nie, no matter how charming he might be. He was going to get back to Jinlin Tower – he was going to get the name and patrimony he was owed – he was going to be the one standing at the top of the stairs, not the bottom –

“I’ll have to tell da-ge at once!”

“No!” Meng Yao blurted out, too panicked to stop himself, and only afterwards belatedly realized that his reluctance could be interpreted as an insult. And that, of course, would be even worse – Meng Yao needed his position in Qinghe Nie to get into a position that would allow him back into the Jin sect, and he couldn’t afford to be throwing ‘wonderful’ opportunities like this back in the faces of the sect heir. After all, for all that Nie Mingjue seemed to like Meng Yao well enough, everyone knew how much he indulged his brother… “Ah, that is – Nie-gongzi –”

“I see,” Nie Huaisang said, looking at Meng Yao thoughtfully. “No, no, it’s quite all right. I’m not offended.”

He said that, but was he really?

“Really,” Nie Huaisang assured him. “I mean, I’m hardly a catch, am I? But that’s fine. We can fix this.”

Meng Yao frowned at him, not understanding.

“It’s just a matter of figuring out how to make this something we both benefit from, that’s all – a way we all win.” Nie Huaisang smiled. “If you stay here and become my dao companion, Da-ge benefits from my cultivation improving, I benefit from having a good friend, and you…well. We need to make sure you benefit, too, don’t we?”

He laughed even as Meng Yao stared, having never seen this particular side of Nie Huaisang before.

“What is it you want?” he asked. “Your rightful name as Jin Ziyao? Would that be enough? Or, ooh, do you want to inherit Jinlin Tower? Because that would be very convenient – da-ge could rule here, you and me could rule there…as long as we can get rid of the Wen sect, which we’re going to have to do anyway, that would position us quite well, now, wouldn’t it?”

“…you want to rule the cultivation world?” Meng Yao asked disbelievingly. That didn’t sound like the Nie Huaisang he knew.

“I want my sect to do well, like any good son,” Nie Huaisang corrected him piously, then grinned. “Besides, why would I want that when you and da-ge can rule the cultivation world for me instead?”

That…sounded a lot more like Nie Huaisang, yes.

“So what do you say? Are you in?”