#alxina

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern! Thank you @merinnan @killerandhealerqueen & @alxina for tagging me 💜

Terms and Conditions

Leaving Wu Xie at home while he heads into Beijing to conduct some business is a lot easier for Pangzi now that they’re retired.

2. Hard to Catch the Wind

There’s a subtle art to getting Hongjoong to take care of his own health and wellbeing.

3. Man, Interrupted

Retirement was never something Pangzi really thought about when he was younger.

4. Alone in the Dark

Deep down Pangzi has always known that one day a tomb he ventured into would end up becoming his own.

5. Here In My Arms

These are the moments Pangzi will cherish until his dying day.

6. Carry You Home

Zhang Qiling is slowly starting to accept that there are people in the world that he cares about, and who care about him in return.

7. Strength in Numbers

Qiao Yifan is still getting used to all this - this being surrounded by people who actually notice him and listen to what he has to say.

8. Any Port in a Storm

“Are you sure you’ll be okay without me?”

9. Life Through a Lens 

The nerves churn in Liu Sang’s stomach, burning up into his throat until he feels like they might choke him.

10. Xiao Xiaoge

“Tianzhen, don’t touch—”

The only real pattern that I can see is that they're all quite short and snappy opening lines. IDEK. I have no idea what I'm doing at the best of times.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Liu Sang & Wang Pangzi, Wang Pangzi & Wu Xie, Wang Pangzi & Zhang Qiling

Characters: Wang Pangzi, Wu Xie, Liu Sang, Zhang Qiling

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Space Opera, Psychic Abilities, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, ish, Spaceships

Series: Part 11 of Network of the Heart

Summary: Pangzi did not like the stowaway that Xiaoge and Tianzhen had decided to adopt. The brat was mouthy and suspicious, and Pangzi was sure he was up to something.

When Xiaoge left the three of them behind on the Yun Cai to go feed his ship and strange things happen, Pangzi knows exactly who to blame and he's not having any of it.

"Are you talking to Xiaoge?" Tianzhen asked, finally making an appearance on the flight deck and immediately stealing the entire bag of Pangzi's chips.

Pangzi nodded, leaning back in his chair again and putting his feet back up on the console. "I was. He reached the radiation field about 15 or 20 minutes ago, and his ship is feeding. He said he'll try not to be too long." He swiped the bag of chips back from Tianzhen. "Where's the jinx?"

"Do you have to call him that?" Tianzhen asked around a crunching mouthful of chips. "And Liu Sang is asleep. He wouldn't say why he was so anxious about Xiaoge making him stay behind on Yun Cai, even though I assured him it would only be for a few hours. I was afraid he was going to stress himself sick, so I convinced him to take some sedatives. He's in Xiaoge's cabin for now."

Pangzi just grunted at that. "Well, I don't think Xiaoge will mind, and I suppose there isn't anywhere else he could sleep," he allowed. Certainly not in his cabin, and Tianzhen needed his own in case he wanted to nap, too.

"No," Tianzhen agreed. "Not with him being a baby ship."

Pangzi levelled him with a look. "And what exactly is a fucking 'baby ship', Tianzhen? No weaselling out of it this time, there's just the two of us and all the time in the universe until Xiaoge gets back."

"Well, it's..." Tianzhen hesitated, then gave a brilliant, innocent smile. "I'm not exactly sure."

Pangzi heaved a deep sigh. Of fucking course Tianzhen didn't actually know, no matter how much he acted like he did.

"But I do have a theory," Tianzhen continued. "I think it means that Xiaoge thinks that Liu Sang might be from the same race as him. Or maybe the same race as his ship, and 'baby ship' means that ships like that start out being people-like when they're young, and grow into being more ship-like as they get older."

Pangzi closed his eyes and counted to ten before looking at Tianzhen again. "Tianzhen," he said patiently, "that has got to be the stupidest fucking theory I have ever heard in my life, and I've been travelling with you for several years by this point. A humanoid growing into a giant fucking ship like Xiaoge's? Impossible." He fished the last few chips out of the bag. "Xiaoge thinking Liu Sang is from his race, whoever they are, sounds a lot more likely, I guess. Even if they don't really look anything alike."

"Most humanoid races have a lot of variation," Tianzhen said. "Especially the ones that are really close to humans. Besides, they do have some similarities, like their fingers. Haven't you noticed before that they both have really long fingers? And they're both really pretty, too."

Pangzi side-eyed him hard at that. It was bad enough that he had to put up with Tianzhen's unacknowledged crush on Xiaoge, the last thing he needed was Tianzhen developing a crush on the brat as well. "Long fingers and pretty," he said flatly.

Tianzhen just nodded in agreement, as if he didn't come out with some of the most batshit insane things at times. "That's right. I know it's not much, but that's what I've got to go on right now, unless Xiaoge ever decides to be more forthcoming. Or we find out more about him and where he's from and what happened to him."

Pangzi grunted again, brushing crumbs off of his fingers. That went for both of them, to be honest - Xiaoge didn't remember anything from before he and Tianzhen had woken him up, and the brat was stubbornly close-lipped about his own past, other than a flat refusal to ever go back to Malaz."Well," he began, then stopped, grabbing hold of the console with a gasp as the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach turned into a wave of overwhelming fear that almost blanked out his ability to see, leaving him panting and shaking once it passed. Beside him, Tianzhen was curled up on the ground, whimpering.

New fic by @xantissa @merinnan and me and this time it's DMBJ Space Opera!

We'll be updating new works in Network of the Heart series!

Summary: All Liu Sang wanted was to get away - away from the crowds, away from the cacophony of thoughts and feelings and noise and people, away from the planet. Away on whichever ship he could sneak aboard. Everything else he could work out later.

It was just his luck, Liu Sang thought, leaning against the corner of one of the towering, cramped buildings that called itself an apartment block while he caught his breath, that the Quartermaster’s offices had to be right next to the public entrance of the docks. Because of course it would be just his luck that his only way in would be past the busiest and most heavily surveilled building in any spacedock. He glared resentfully at the giant grey cube that more resembled a prison than an office building - although, from what he knew of such offices, perhaps the comparison was more apt than one would initially think. All of the ships and shuttles docking at the spaceport had to pass through a plasma scanner, the mainframe of which was in the Quartermaster’s offices. While in most cases it was simply a matter of standard procedure that didn’t really matter beyond timestamping the arrivals and departures of each vessel, the vessel could be detained indefinitely in cases of rules violations. Even from the other side of the street, Liu Sang could feel the anxiety rolling off of the people who were lining up outside the entrance to the offices, the line curling past the dockyard entrance and stretching off into the docks, and just as much anxiety - albeit mixed with relief - from the people emerging from the exit.

by @alxina @xantissa

Series: ← Previous Work Part 4 of the Between Dusk and Dawn series Next Work →

Characters: Wu Xie (DMBJ Series), Wang Can (DMBJ Series), Zhang Qiling

Relationships: Wu Xie/Zhang Qiling, Wang Can/Wu Xie (DMBJ Series)

Additional Tags: Spying, Revelations, Awkward Conversations, Relationship Negotiations, Angst, Humor

Summary:

When Wu Xie left Wushanju without telling him where he was going, Zhang Qiling followed, curious, and got to see Wu Xie with his… other lover, as odd as that sounded.

-

Usually, Wu Xie was harder to follow. Zhang Qiling knew this because he’d made a game of trying to follow Wu Xie whenever he tried to slip away, and, the thing was, he’d found from this that Wu Xie had well over a sixty percent  chance to notice a tail. He checked back often and made lots of random direction changes to make the life of whoever was following him as difficult as possible.

But this time was different. Wu Xie had been pretty open about the fact that his other lover was going to be in town - and it was still so very awkward to hear that term; not just the ‘other’ part, but the ‘lover’ part, too - and Zhang Qiling had expected that the two of them would meet first. If this man was as fragile and as skittish as Wu Xie said, then it only seemed reasonable for Wu Xie to meet him in person first before trying to introduce him and Zhang Qiling. It made sense.

Zhang Qiling still couldn’t help his curiosity.

So, when Wu Xie had announced that he would be out for the evening and had mentioned no other plans for the next day, Zhang Qiling knew what to expect. After all, Wu Xie had told him everything regarding this.

But he still hadn’t expected the way Wu Xie had walked out without turning back even once, and then, halfway down the road, had realized that he was missing his phone and had come back, breathless, picking it up from the table where he had left it. It was definitely not the kind of behaviour Zhang Qiling associated with who Wu Xie was now, and it somehow startled him.

He gave it a good ten minutes after Wu Xie had come back and left again before he started strapping his bag around his shoulders, and then he waited for another five minutes just to be sure. He could always catch up, but he didn’t want to give himself away by going out too soon. He expected to have to take up to the roofs at some point, which was really the only way to get away from Wu Xie’s line of sight, but, since Wu Xie never bothered to check back, he didn’t have to after all.

Wu Xie didn’t take his car, which meant that he was either going somewhere close, or heading into the city center where parking was hard. He got onto a bus, and Zhang Qiling had no choice but to wait until the last moment and then get on with his cap tightly over his head and bulky headphones giving him as much of a student look as possible. He’d even abandoned his black hoodie for a tan, soft looking jacket, one that was very bulky and very much not anything he would usually wear.

Next fic in @alxina, @xantissa​ and my Network of the Heart space opera series.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Characters: Wu Xie, Wang Pangzi Zhang Qiling

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Space, Space Opera, Spaceships

Part 3 of Network of the Heart

Summary: After retrieving the cryopod from the wreckage of the Republic ship and escaping through the back routes, Wu Xie and Pangzi found that there really was no way to get the pod opened correctly, no matter how hard they tried. They couldn't go to anyone for help with it - they couldn't let anyone know that they had stolen Republic tech on board. There was no other choice but to force it open and hope for the best.

He was still coughing like mad, his eyes watering, when the mist finally cleared up enough to see inside.

The med unit was holding something - no, someone - in place as the electrodes placed on top of the man's chest made him convulse and then fall back again into the pod like a puppet with cut strings. It was horrible to watch; Wu Xie wasn't particularly squeamish and had seen the med unit in action many times before when they'd had an emergency on board, but none of them had been like this.

None of those emergencies had been a naked, defenceless, possibly comatose man who had been induced into cryosleep for god knows how long, and was brutally, shockingly being forced to respond when all of his senses were rendered inactive. Even through the periodic thrashing, and the way the wire-thin arms of the med unit were clamping down on him, Wu Xie could see parts of his face when his head jerked to the side, and he had to hold in a breath, because, damn, he had never seen anyone that beautiful. It was just ridiculous that Wu Xie noticed that even before he noticed anything else - but when the jerking movements turned him that way again, even with how the damp strands of his hair were falling over one half of the face and the air mask obscured the rest of it, Wu Xie was struck again by the fact that it was a shockingly beautiful face: almost perfect bone structure, a high nose bridge, a sharp jawline and pale, alabaster-white skin.

"Tianzhen! Tianzhen! Wu Xie!"

It was Pangzi's voice that cut through the sudden stupor that Wu Xie was in, and he coughed again, because even though the smoke had dissipated, the burning feeling in his throat was still there.

"What?" Wu Xie asked, peeling his eyes away from the man in the pod, even though something inside him was telling him not to look away, not to lose sight of him even for a moment.

Next installment of @alxina​, @xantissa​  and my space opera AU!

Rating: Mature

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Relationship: Wang Pangzi & Wu Xie & Zhang Qiling

Characters: Wu Xie, Wang Pangzi, Zhang Qiling

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Space, Space Opera, Spaceships, Canon-Typical Violence. Blood and Injury

Part 5 of Network of the Heart

Summary: Wu Xie woke up suddenly, his heart pounding so hard it hurt. It was dark in his cabin - too dark: not even the emergency floor lights were glowing and those were never off. Even later, he wouldn't be able to tell what exactly had made him move. Maybe it was something he heard, something his senses caught onto before his conscious mind registered it, but whatever it was had him rolling off the bed and onto the floor, his hands and knees aching from the sudden jolt. He felt the impact of something striking his bed, the harsh thump spiking his adrenaline even higher. If he had been there at the moment it had hit, if he'd still been in his bed, he was sure that he would have died.

It was too dark to see, but he realized there was someone in his room when the person stepped on his hand. He felt a sudden, icy sense of clarity in that moment. Pain and shock were pushed back, muted, as his brain raced a million miles a second.

They were being attacked. He was being attacked. He was going to die if he didn't fight.

Wu Xie honestly had no idea where Xiaoge came from - if he ran or just teleported - but suddenly he was there, kicking the man's legs from under him. The blade passed barely a millimeter from Wu Xie's skin, so close that he could feel the way it displaced the air. A second later, a few neatly-sliced strands of hair landed ticklingly on his face, making him blink up, and... fuck, that was his own hair, he realized in horror.

Xiaoge didn't seem scared; his only expression was a frown between his brows as he grabbed the attacker's messy hair and heaved him headfirst into the corridor wall, hitting with such shocking force that Wu Xie could not just hear the crack of bone but also see the way the skull became misshapen on impact, blood spraying out from the man's nose and mouth.

Xiaoge didn't pause - just reached down to grab the machete, still gripped by the dying man's hand, and take it from him.

Wu Xie realized dumbly that Xiaoge was only wearing his black sleep pants - the ones with the pink kitten pattern that Pangzi had gotten him. He was barefoot, too, his chest naked and vulnerable to attack. But there was no hesitation in his movements; he flipped the machete in his hand and threw it farther down the corridor, catching another man right in the throat with so much force that the blade kept going through the flesh and only stopped once the handle hit the neck. The man hadn't even had time to raise his arms against the attack before he went down, convulsing in his death throes.

Fic from me, @alxina​ and @xantissa​!

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationship: Wang Pangzi & Wu Xie

Characters: Wu Xie, Wang Pangzi

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Space, Space Opera, Spaceships

Part 2 of the Network of the Heart series

Summary: Scavenging from Republic ships was always a risky business. For Wu Xie, cut off from his family's funds and contacts and with a string of bad luck when it came to less riskier salvage, the potential reward was worth the risk. He hoped.

Even so, he never in a million years would have guessed what he found there.

Wu Xie attached his magnetic grip to the damaged hull and tried hard not to pant from fear or let it show that his limbs felt like they were made of watery dough.

He'd been out in a space suit before - as he'd truthfully told Pangzi when they were preparing for this action - but what he hadn't realized was that there was a huge damn difference between ten-minute 'tourist' strolls around a ship in a group of other people with ample security measures and plenty of security, and launching himself from Pangzi's ship with only a small hand-held thruster to try and get through a field of debris to reach the remaining intact half of an old Republic ship.

That 'fun' trip had taken over two hours, and completely fried Wu Xie's nerves. With so much small debris all over the place, they had had to be extra careful not to let their suits be damaged. They had magnetic shields, of course, but those only really worked against the ferromagnetic metal trash, not other types of materials.

It had been the scariest experience of Wu Xie's life so far: using his limited manoeuvrability, aided only by the hand-held thruster, to try his best to avoid speeding bits of tiny trash from the half-exploded ship as he oh-so-slowly and carefully made his way towards it. Like a lunatic. There was a reason why nobody had come to retrieve the ship in the last five decades since it had mysteriously wrecked, and that was because of where it was located, in a small but fierce magnetic field that turned the whole area into a death trap.

Pangzi had not only been the one leading the way, he had also been carrying the most equipment. Since Wu Xie hadn't wanted to add to Pangzi's stress any more, he'd kept quiet about how fucking terrifying it was the first time a piece of something the size of his palm had whizzed past two inches from his face. If he hadn't jerked his head back in time, his brains would have been splashed all over the area before he could even blink.

Now that they were actually by the hull and he'd stuck his grapplers onto it, finally securing himself, he felt the adrenaline suddenly drop, turning his limbs into limp, overcooked noodles.