Unlearn the Way of Being Strangers by afrikate, cryptive, fox_of_nine_tales, frith_in_thorns, Hils, Merinnan, mimosaeyes, MountainRose, Onmyo-Jin (silvercolour), rainisfallingdown, WindStainedDreams
Fandom: DMBJ | The Grave Robber’s Chronicles and related fandoms
Relationship: Hei Xiazi/Liu Sang/Xie Yuchen
Rating: Teen
Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Action/Adventure, Post-Canon, canon-typical tomb creatures, Injury, Caretaking, Mind Control, Tentacles but not like that
Summary:
Having finally regained his hearing and his health after his Thunder City adventures with the Iron Triangle, Liu Sang is looking forward to a new contract with a new employer. With Xie Yuchen's reputation for competence and the resources he has to draw on, this should be a smooth, professional tomb raid that gives Liu Sang a chance to showcase his skills. What could go wrong? Well, for starters, Hei Xiazi is there.
Excerpt:
Liu Sang wiped his nose irritably; if there was some sort of hyper-allergenic mold down here he was going to be livid–
Oh. His fingers and the back of his knuckles were smeared with something dark, and a flash from his flashlight lit it up bright, virulent red.
"Oh fuck, uhh–" he had tissues somewhere, right? Shit, he’d emptied his pockets when he got doused…
"Use this," Xie-ye said, handing him... was that silk? Definitely too nice a handkerchief to bring into a tomb – unless, apparently, your name was Xie Yuchen. "What happened?
"Nothing," Liu Sang said, reluctantly taking the handkerchief. It really was far too nice to get bloodstains all over it, but it seemed it was that or nothing. "No, really," he added as he held the handkerchief to his nose, catching Xie Yuchen's sceptical look. "I didn't hit it, or smell anything, or get anything in my face, or anything like that. It just started bleeding." He shrugged. "It's just a nosebleed. They happen."
“Did you hear anything before it started bleeding?” Hei Xiazi had materialised next to him, holding up some more standard paper tissues.
That triggered a niggling in Liu Sang's mind. There was something he was supposed to do. He shook his head to try to clear it. The door was open. Right. He needed to map the mechanism he could hear.
"Hey, did you hear me?" Hei Xiazi asked, putting something in his hand. What had he said before? Something about listening?
"I'm listening, the floor's hollow–"
"I'm asking you about the bells, Sangsang," he repeated. "Stop listening, put your white noise in."
There were people on all sides now, the medic, and Mop, and Xie Yuchen was touching his shoulder, and they all had nice, solid heartbeats that he didn't want to stop hearing, actually. "No, no, I'm listening–"
There were suddenly too many hands on him. He felt claustrophobic. He tried to bat them away but they kept coming back. Someone forced his earphones in his ears and turned up the white noise, and suddenly the world felt bleak, like he had lost something precious. He needed to listen. Why didn't they understand?
He tasted some warm and salty on his tongue and his knees hurt – had he fallen? Where was the music?
He tried to get up again, but someone had a hand on his shoulder and he just couldn't get the leverage. Warm, sticky, salty, unswallowable something filled the back of his throat and he was going to choke, off, off, get off–
He heaved over onto his side and coughed, violently enough that his ribs ached. In the harsh light-and-shadow, the ground misted red in front of him.
Commentary:
This fic came about over on the Yucun Discord when Jin suggested cooperatively group-writing a fic just for the fun of it. Well, you can't go wrong with that DMBJ standard, the tomb crawl, and all of us are whump enthusiasts (in fact , I think most of the authors still lovingly refer to this by its working title, Tomb of Whump) so we set out to make our boys suffer and see where the plot took us. Nine months, 176k words, and a whole lot of hurt and comfort later, the entire fic is available to read on AO3!
Image credits 1 2 3 4
This was an incredible experience to work on, everyone was so amazing and the ideas on just how to whump our boys were always fabulous. Thank you to everyone who wrote this with me, commented, and for anyone new, please go check it out!
