#Nonbinary Mo Xuanyu
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After Each Midnight Begins A New Day
Extra #13d - Technically A Cutsleeve? (Mo Xuanyu and Lan Jingyi)
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]
[Masterpost] [AO3]
Instead of a small snippet of something for WIP Wednesday this week how about a rarely seen, highly endangered, actual update on a WIP? Groundbreaking 😂 This particular chapter has actually been sitting mostly-written in the doc for a very, very long time, just waiting for me to figure out if I liked it/how I'll tie it into the overall plans for the story, and I've finally figured it out (I think). These boys are doing the ancient fantasy China equivalent of U-Hauling it and I personally love that for them 😌
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“Uuuuuggghhhhh!”
“That’s it, I’m done. Sizhui, it’s your turn to sit with him,” Zizhen sighs as he stands and stretches his arms over his head.
“It’s just a cold, Jingyi,” Sizhui reminds him as he takes the empty spot next to the bed to start taking his turn wiping his forehead with a damp cloth and Jingyi cracks one glassy eye open to glare at him.
“You don’t know that,” he croaks, aiming for ‘belligerent’ but too weak to really sound it. “I could be dying.”
“Jingyi - I’m an actual doctor,” Sizhui reminds him gently with a laugh that thankfully doesn’t jostle him.
“Then I’m dying of some brand new unheard of disease and your doctor training is no help here,” he pouts without missing a beat. His deathbed is no place for logic, he doesn’t want it.
“Oh good. In that case when you die can I take your corpse home with me for my aunt and I to study?”
“Sizhui what the fuck,” Jingyi deadpans. Zizhen throws his head back to laugh loudly enough to make the pain in his head spike. “Zizhen shut the fuck up,” he adds as he bats Sizhui’s hands away to pull the cloth down over his eyes with a groan.
“Zizhen, his head does hurt, it’s best to be quiet,” Sizhui tempers and just as Jingyi is groaning his agreement the door bangs open, making him flinch.
“Idiots. Sizhui,” Jin Ling greets - standard. Really his crush could be seen from the moon at this point but even Jingyi has to agree that it’s cute how it makes Sizhui blush. It’s a lot cuter when Jingyi isn’t dying.
“Oh good, you’re back. Did you find what I asked for?”
“The healer said she’s never seen one of the herbs you wanted but when I told her what it was for she said we have one here in Lanling that she swears does the same thing. Other than that yeah, they had everything.”
“Mm. Oh! Hello,” Sizhui says warmly and that’s strange enough that Jingyi lifts the cloth off his eyes enough to peek through his lashes and he’s glad no one’s taking his pulse at the moment because he’s pretty sure his heart stops.
“Hello Wen-gongzi,” Mo Xuanyu replies in that smooth, low voice of his, an indulgent smile on his rouged lips. Jingyi is definitely going to die. This is it, he’s done for, goodbye cruel world. “I don’t mean to intrude but I was in the healer’s pavilion helping sort the herbs when A-Ling came in, and I don’t think you’ll blame me for not trusting him not to get them mixed up on the way over here,” he teases, obviously pleased with himself as Jin Ling scoffs, and Jingyi drops the cloth back over his eyes with a groan.
No matter how badly he wants to keep looking at Mo Xuanyu, Jingyi is pretty sure he’ll die of embarrassment at being seen like this before he could properly appreciate how beautiful Mo Xuanyu looks today. It was embarrassing enough when Mo Xuanyu had to help him with his depleted core, but getting sick like a child mere days later because of it?? Better to just hide his face and die in peace. (Although…if he could pick a last sight of this world, Mo Xuanyu’s coy smile would be a phenomenal option.)
“I trust A-Ling,” Sizhui says as he shifts around a bit to face their visitor, audibly smiling. “But I’m grateful for your help anyway, you’re not intruding at all. Is medicine also an area you’ve trained in?”
“One of my many skills, yes. You have a good memory, Wen-gongzi,” Mo Xuanyu laughs and his laugh isn’t grating - Zizhen - so Jingyi doesn’t comment. Or make a noise at all. Or move. Maybe if he doesn’t move Mo Xuanyu won’t see him. “I’m sure I’m no match for a doctor of the Dafan Wen, but I help our doctors pretty often, usually when the summer rains bring fevers, or on the odd chance our disciples are injured in a night hunt and the numbers overwhelm our usual rotation of healers.”
“Oh that’s perfect, it’s nothing serious anyway so that’s more than enough experience,” Sizhui replies. In the interest of saving at least some of his pride Jingyi decides to go ahead and break his brand new vow of eternal silence.
“Don’t lie to him, it’s very serious,” he retorts with a cough for his parched throat. “I’m dying, I just told you that Sizhui.”
“You’re not dying you moron, you have a cold,” Jin Ling snaps. How he manages to sound so snappish without raising his voice is an interesting skill. Jingyi both appreciates it - for the sake of his headache - and doesn’t - for the sake of his little remaining pride.
“I am dying, Sizhui already said he wants to take my poor corpse home to poke and prod at once I’m done using it.”
Mo Xuanyu’s responding laugh sets him on fire from head to toe, though it’s a small mercy that at least right now he can blame his dismayed groan on being sick rather than the stupidly massive crush he’s doing his best to hide.
“A-Ling tells me you four were planning to head into the city today,” Mo Xuanyu says as he sets down the wide, flat box of herbs on the table next to the bed. “What a shame poor Lan-gongzi is going to die without one last chance to enjoy it.”
“See? At least he understands me,” Jingyi posits weakly. He lifts one hand from his eyes to make a rude gesture in the general direction of Zizhen’s snickering. (Alright fine, so maybe his crush can be seen from the moon too, though thankfully Jin Ling has been too short-sighted to spot it yet .)
“It’s alright, we can just go another day,” Sizhui replies, conciliatory as usual, always trying to keep the peace.
Mo Xuanyu instantly tuts, “Oh don’t be silly, you three can still go. I don’t have anything else to do as I was already helping the healers anyway. Leave Lan-gongzi to me and you three enjoy your day out.”
Seriously — who did Jingyi piss off so badly that this is his karmic repayment?! What in the world could he have possibly done to deserve being a sick, miserable mess in front of his crush who just so happens to be, oh right, absolutely fucking incredible? He’s going to actually become a monk after this. His parents had done it, after all - they had put him in the group care for the parentless children of the Sect and retreated right up the mountain to become monks in total isolation, what a grand family tradition to follow, what an incredible idea they had had! In fact, he’s been an idiot for not doing it sooner. He’s absolutely made for life as a monk, he doesn’t need to go chasing after the most stunning man he’s ever met.
Jingyi waves one hand in half-hearted dismissal when his friends, after one more round of convincing from Mo Xuanyu, say their goodbyes and well-wishes and then the doors slide shut with a soft clack. For a long while there’s nothing but the quiet sounds of Mo Xuanyu moving around next to the bed — his even breathing, the nearly-inaudible jingle of the jeweled chains dangling from the zanzi in his hair, the whisper of fabric brushing against itself, the quiet grind of dried herbs between his gentle fingertips. Jingyi finds himself starting to relax against his best intentions. He’s tired, is the thing, and (at least when it’s just the two of them) Mo Xuanyu’s presence is surprisingly calming.
Jingyi frowns softly when the cloth is removed from his forehead and eyes some time later and he blinks his eyes open with an effort to study his companion. He’s hardly wearing any face makeup today, just a feather-soft dusting of his pale powder. It makes his skin look like porcelain, even more so than his heavier makeup, in Jingyi’s opinion. His eyes are similarly subtle, with just the faintest kiss of a red so gentle it’s almost pink at the outer corners and his long lashes darkened with black powder. It’s really not fair, Jingyi thinks, that Mo Xuanyu can do anything at all with his looks and be so beautiful.
“You’re staring, Jingyi,” Mo Xuanyu teases as he re-wets the cloth and wrings it out with a smirk on his lips.
“I am not! I died and my eyes are just open like that.”
“Ah okay, I see,” he laughs. “In that case, this humble one is honored to have been the last thing you saw before death.”
Mo Xuanyu turns to face him fully and Jingyi knows he should stop looking but there’s more to see at this angle. Mo Xuanyu’s huadian today is an intricate, beautiful thing, a flower of some sort clearly painted with a delicate, patient touch. He’s still smirking with gently-stained lips and his eyes, sharp and clever, are studying him right back with an intensity that makes Jingyi feel too warm all the sudden.
“Be honest with me, how are you actually feeling?” he asks after a long few moments and Jingyi’s eyes slip shut without his permission as Mo Xuanyu rests one gentle hand on his forehead. It feels unbelievably intimate without his ribbon — he hadn’t even managed to get up and put it on before he’d realized he’d gotten so sick overnight and decided to stay in bed — but he can’t say he minds. He doesn’t mind at all.
“It really is just a cold,” he grumbles, irritated with having to concede that ground. It’s worth it at least to hear Mo Xuanyu hum softly in approval, perhaps a bit in sympathy as well.
“Well I think you’ll pull through just fine, then — we’ll have to deprive Wen-gongzi of your corpse for a little longer,” he teases and Jingyi laughs weakly, though it’s still enough to set off a fresh coughing fit.
“You really don’t have to stay, you know,” Jingyi says when it’s over and Mo Xuanyu has replaced the hand on his forehead with the soothing sweep of the cloth, regular and steady.
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I do. Your cruel, heartless friends have abandoned you in this sorry state to go into the city, someone has to take care of you!”
Since their return from the night hunt, there have been moments (a lot of them, actually) when Jingyi suspects that Mo Xuanyu might like him too. They’re just little moments, hardly noticeable, but if he pays attention, and if he strings them along one right after the other in his mind like a strand of pearls, a pattern starts to take shape.
Mo Xuanyu always takes his arm if they happen to walk alone. He drops his wild act around him to be soft and genteel instead — but then cuts through that softness with acerbic wit when least expected just to make Jingyi laugh. He calls him by his name alone in private though he still uses his title in front of any audience. He finds excuses to touch him. He keeps finding excuses to get him alone. When he does, he looks at him like- like—
“Xuanyu-“
“Mhm? What is it, Jingyi?”
“Why do you look at me like that?”
“Like what?”
Jingyi says nothing for a long moment as he studies Mo Xuanyu’s gaze — intense, perhaps ever so slightly vulnerable, but..so warm. Practically daring him to take a deep breath and jump..
“Like you could do it forever.”
Mo Xuanyu takes a deep breath in of his own and smiles softly as he exhales again, his hand slipping down from his forehead to touch his cheek — just his hand, without the cloth between them as an excuse. Jingyi can’t help but stare at him as he brushes his thumb against his skin, his touch cool and soft as silk.
“Ah, Jingyi, Jingyi. Only you would choose to do this when you’re ill. But alright. Tell me — what did you think of me, when you first met me that day in the gardens?” he asks, his voice quiet.
Later, Jingyi will blame what he says on being sick, his defenses crumbled first by feeling so poorly and then toppled completely by the tenderness Mo Xuanyu offers him. Really, though, it’s just that he’s been dying to say it almost since that first moment Mo Xuanyu had waved and called out his hello, kneeling in the middle of a field of white peonies like a beautiful heroine in those novels Zizhen is always reading.
“‘I’d rather die now than live with the possibility of never seeing such beauty again’,” he answers (he definitely hasn’t ever dipped into Zizhen’s stash) and Mo Xuanyu laughs (it’s still not fair that even his laugh is beautiful), covering his smiling mouth with one slender wrist.
“You did not! Stop borrowing lines from Ouyang-gongzi’s romances and tell me what you really thought.”
Jingyi snorts out a laugh that makes his head pound but he doesn’t care when Mo Xuanyu is smiling and laughing at him like that.
“Alright, alright,” he acquiesces, coughing slightly as he settles. “I just thought that if you were really as wild and ridiculous as the Young Mistress had told us you were but you could still be so beautiful and elegant at the same time then…you seemed to be everything I didn’t even know I wanted until it was right in front of me. Nothing poetic, sorry.”
“It doesn’t have to be poetic,” Mo Xuanyu mumbles around his shy blushing. “I like the real version better. I don’t like that you’re finally confessing to me while you’re too sick to do anything about it.”
“Too bad,” Jingyi retorts with a haughty little lift of his chin, smiling weakly when Mo Xuanyu instantly flicks him in the throat lightly enough that he hardly feels it, but the teasing intention is there.
“You’re really terrible, you know. I think I’ll keep you.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
Jingyi smirks then, immensely proud of himself, and Mo Xuanyu chuckles softly as he strokes his cheek again with the back of one knuckle.
“You should get some sleep,” Mo Xuanyu murmurs after his eyes have slipped shut. “I’ve made your medicine, you can drink it and then rest.”
“Are you still going to be here when I wake up?”
“Of course. What sort of doctor would I be if I left one of my patients to die all alone?”
Jingyi chuckles at that but it quickly turns into a coughing fit that has Mo Xuanyu curling a comforting hand around his shoulder to help him lean up on one elbow and hold him close as he brushes his hair back from his forehead with the other hand.
“You’re disgusting,” Mo Xuanyu stage-whispers when he’s finished coughing and Jingyi groans weakly, shoves half-heartedly at his shoulder to hear him laugh. “Come on, A-Yi, sit up for me for a minute,” he continues once his chuckling has subsided and Jingyi’s ears burn at the diminutive. He’s pretty sure he’s never been more motivated to sit up in his entire life though so he does as he’s asked, and if he personally feels that Mo Xuanyu touches (and squeezes) his arms a little more than strictly necessary to “help” him accomplish it then that’s their business.
He turns then to pour him a cup of the medicine and this time Jingyi doesn’t even feel guilty about staring. Mo Xuanyu’s smirk only grows as he works and by the time he turns back to hand Jingyi the decoction he looks on the verge of bursting into laughter, which is charming in and of itself, but he’s also blushing a deep red under his powder which is probably one of the loveliest things Jingyi has ever seen.
He stops staring, finally, to take the medicine and drain it as quickly as he can with a grimace, the bitter grassiness of the herbs thick and cloying on the back of his tongue. Mo Xuanyu makes a sympathetic noise in his throat and takes the cup back to fill it with fresh water, which Jingyi drinks a bit more slowly to help rinse out his mouth. He wonders if it’s strange for him to feel so comfortable around Mo Xuanyu, but at least for now he sees no need to try to make conversation or to do anything, really, except let Mo Xuanyu tend to him. He’ll return the favor a hundred-fold as soon as he can, but for now he lies back to let Mo Xuanyu cool his face with the cloth again, content to be cared for.
Just as he’s drifting off, he hears Mo Xuanyu chuckle quietly and mutter, “A-Ling is going to be so mad,” and Jingyi falls asleep mid-snicker.
—//—
When Jingyi wakes again it’s with a gasp and a start, sending him sitting straight upright fast enough to make his head spin.
“Hey, easy,” someone tells him and Jingyi fights through the lingering dizziness to turn his head and find that –
Uh-huh. That’s Mo Xuanyu. Who nursed him back to health, apparently staying with him all day and all night, judging by the quality of the light beyond the windows.
“Uh-”
“Oh no no, don’t get embarrassed now!” Mo Xuanyu chides around a smile. “You’re awfully sweet when you’re sick and if you tell me you regret anything you said I’m going to say fuck the rules of hospitality and tell Xuan-ge to kill you.”
Jingyi snaps his mouth shut because that’s certainly not the case, not at all, but…well…even if he doesn’t regret it, it was still embarrassing! He settles for leaning forward to prop his elbows up on his lap to bury his face in his hands and naturally he doesn’t pull away when Mo Xuanyu stands up to come sit next to him so he can rub a small hand in circles on his back.
“How are you feeling?”
“Great,” he tries to say, but it comes out weak and raspy. Mo Xuanyu tuts softly and slips away from his side again with a rustle of his skirts. Jingyi takes slow, measured breaths like he’s trying to meditate through the quiet clinking of ceramic and the nearly-inaudible burble of pouring, and by the time Mo Xuanyu returns to press a cup of water into his hand he feels slightly more capable of showing his face.
He takes a sip of it obediently and then drains it in a few greedy gulps, abruptly aware of the fact that his mouth feels mildly reminiscent of the deserts far to the north. Mo Xuanyu refills it for him without a word, and when he’s drained the cup for a second time Jingyi actually feels ready to look at the other man straight on.
He hides the anxiety lurking in his gaze quickly, but not quickly enough.
“I meant it,” he blurts, panicked by the idea that Mo Xuanyu looks so nervous because of him. “Everything I said yesterday, I meant it! I…Lans are cursed,” he grumbles the complaint — and then abruptly realizes how that must sound and he twists to get his knees under him and turn to face Mo Xuanyu directly, to hold his face tenderly between his palms like he can hold him in place long enough for his wild, racing thoughts to chase each other in the right direction to not fuck this up completely.
“Wait no it’s not a real curse – and not that I think falling in love with you is a curse at all! Honestly it’s probably the best thing that’ll ever happen to me even if I scare you off because honestly how could I not? I sound insane. I feel insane, actually, and none of this is helping me give you a reason to stick around is it? Um. What I meant was that Lans just…we just do this, and I always thought that I maybe wasn’t really a Lan because no one’s ever made me feel like this and I’ve met so many wonderful people that I liked just fine but they didn’t make me feel like you did when I realized who you were and what that could mean and —”
Jingyi cuts himself off as abruptly as if he’d been Silenced (perhaps partially thanks to how he’s pretty sure he’s been conditioned by how many times someone else has Silenced him when he spirals) at the sight of Mo Xuanyu’s growing smile and the blush stealing across his powdered cheeks, so beautifully arresting that Jingyi feels like he might die if he doesn’t stop and appreciate the sight while he can.
“A-Yi,” Mo Xuanyu chides, soft and sweet as he nuzzles his cheek into Jingyi’s cupped palm. “You’re forgetting that I’ve seen my fair share of Lans in love. I know what you meant, stop panicking.”
Jingyi exhales sharply and sags forward to press his forehead against Mo Xuanyu’s, careful not to smudge the other man’s huadian. He stays still as Mo Xuanyu’s hands curl slowly around his wrists, stroke slowly up the lengths of his forearms to cup under his elbows and tug softly until Jingyi shuffles closer on his knees.
“You love me?” Mo Xuanyu teases when Jingyi’s heart has slowed and he groans, sagging further forward to bury his burning face in Mo Xuanyu’s shoulder.
“Can we pretend like I didn’t say that? I know it’s weird, and too fast and…just forget it? Maybe?”
“Hmmm…no, I don’t think I will.” His voice is warm and low, a banked fire, and Jingyi has to fight hard not to be lulled into a false sense of security. Because there’s no way that’s a good thing. There’s no way that he could confess to this man he’s known for little more than a week and have that just…be okay. And even if it is okay, Jingyi knows precisely how quickly that can change when he lets his guard down and stops watching what he says and does. Mo Xuanyu hasn’t known him for very long, it’s too much to expect to think that he would want to pursue any sort of lasting relationship, which would be…rather unfortunate, for Jingyi’s apparently very ‘Lan’ heart that, if the clan stories are true, will only love like this once.
“You know, I always secretly thought that Yao-ge and Wei-ge were bluffing a little about how passionate you Lans are,” Mo Xuanyu muses when Jingyi’s mortified silence must go on a bit too long. He tuts softly and brushes gentle fingers through Jingyi’s hair, combing it away from the nape of his neck until Jingyi has to suppress a full-body shiver of pleasure. “You poor thing, I’ll have to be extra careful with that soft heart of yours, won’t I?”
Oh.
Jingyi sucks in a sharp breath and tries to think of some way to reply to that but finds himself strangely at a loss for words. How is he supposed to express how good that sounds? To be treated gently? Carefully? Maybe he’s still a little worn out from his fever, because his eyes are suddenly burning and he exhales shakily around something tight in his chest. Mo Xuanyu hums quietly in the back of his throat and stops petting his hair to cup the back of his neck directly instead, his thumb brushing softly back and forth just below his hairline.
“Yeah,” Mo Xuanyu murmurs, audibly smiling as he tucks his cheek against the side of Jingyi’s head, “It’s mine now, no taking it back, and I promise I’ll be careful with it, alright?”
As is quickly becoming a pattern that Jingyi can’t be mad about at all, he finds himself helpless to do anything but agree and go along with whatever Mo Xuanyu thinks is best. He nods and slips one arm tentatively around Mo Xuanyu’s waist to hold him close, and they don’t separate until they hear a ruckus beyond the door that gives them a solid 30 second warning before Jin Ling’s blustering, fussing arrival with breakfast for them both.
#the untamed fanfic#Technically a Cutsleeve?#Lan Jingyi#Mo Xuanyu#Lan Jingyi/Mo Xuanyu#Nonbinary Mo Xuanyu#Junior Quartet#not me updating an old project after a year plus and it's the one that's significantly less popular than all the others accumulating dust 💀#But for the select people who really like this fic I hope this is an exciting day lol
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Fic finder
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1. Looking for a Cloud Recesses era fic. LWJ eventually ask WWX why he doesn't complete his punishment to get it out of the way (he just doodles in the library so the punishment stretches on). WWX points out that it takes more than 1 to cheat in an exam and yet where are the other culprits? This leads to LWJ's awakening to the unfairness/hypocrisy of LQR and interpreting rules. I think this might be just before the betrothal is cancelled, and LWJ confronts LQR or he steps up for WWX during this scene. Maybe? It could be 2 separate scenes. Argh! Please help! Until A03 lets me download and filter my reading history, you're my only hope! @mreisse
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2. Hi.
So i read an uncompleted ao3 fic that wangxian had an arranged marriage and were NOT in a good terms and lwj was always cold to wwx also wwx had to wear a mask all the time or a bad fate would come to him if anyone aside jiangs see his face. At some point he goes to live in a mansion in yilling with mian mian and mo xuanyu and xu yang to go away from rumors because lwj had to also marry wen qing to appease wen rouhan
Anyway i couldn't find the fic anywhere and i don't remember its name. I was hoping if you guys have any idea what happened to it?
FOUND? #2 is A Price to Pay by Wangxianist. They have deleted account and all fics.
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3. Hi! ／(^ x ^)＼
I have a request for the fic finder!
I only remember this one bit? scene?
it's at a battle, SSC maybe? and WWX and 3 or 4 others hold hands and talk as one and they light up, and weird magic happen?
I'm sorry that it is so little and confused ／(＞×＜)＼
Hi! ／(^ x ^)＼ I'm #3 on the fic finder and it is not Quartet
but thank you anyway! I know that I really didn't give a lot to go of
if it helps I think one of the people with WWX might have been WN or NHS, but I'm really not sure
Not FOUND! Quartet series by WithBroomBefore (T, 69k wangxian, JZX & JC & WWX & LWJ, Canon Divergence, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, WWX's canonical comfort with the prospect of his own death, Hurt/Comfort, JZX makes friends, Eventual Happy Ending, some unhappiness along the way, Canon-Typical Violence, JC keeps his golden core, JYL Lives, WQ Lives, Minor Character Death, Kissing, WWX Lives, no golden core transfer, JZX Lives, Fix-It, WN Lives, Weeping, temporary major character death, Murder Road Trip, Implied Sexual Content, Sunshot Campaign, Nonbinary NHS, Telepathy, platonic group soulbonding, Family, Found Family, POV WWX, Podfic Available, Siblings Sworn Brothers, aroace JZX, Happy Ending, all the Wen remnants live, POV JZX, JGY is less murdery, Asexual Character, Aromantic Character, JZX's social awkwardness, Poison)
FOUND! We Can See a New Start by preciousbunnynoiz (M, 127k, WangXian, XiCheng, XuanLi, Soulmates, Time Travel Fix-It, Biting, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, but mentally they are adults, Making Out, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Happy Ending, PTSD, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Supportive LWJ, Communication, Soul Bond, Blood, Found Family, Parent-Child Relationship, aromantic JC, Lesbian WQ, Queerplatonic Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Disassociate episodes, disassociating, Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Depression, Delusions, Mental Health Issues, Mental Breakdown, Attempted Sexual Assault, Therapy, Supportive JC, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Family Feels, Implied/Referenced Torture, Revenge, Self-Sacrifice, Accidental Bonding, Brotherly Bonding)
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4. Hi! I'm trying to find a fic similar do the 8 ask from the previous fic finder. In this one, it's also an arranged marriage, and Lz also pushes Wy into a pond when they're teenagers, but there is a scene, after they're adults and already married, where Lz prevents Wy from falling into a pond, and it's revealed that Lz didn't actually push Wy into the pond, he just bumped into Wy when he turned around too fast and Wy fell into the pond, he was going to help Wy get out, but Wy got out by himself before Lz coulp help him and went away before Lz could say he was sorry and explain what happened.
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5. looking for a fic were lan xichen has the big sad, probably was a modern au. lan wangji and wei wuxian come by to help him clean his apartment and lan wangji is like ���sorry I haven’t been here for you”. there’s mention of them putting the laundry away and stuff. fairly short.
FOUND! found in translation by sysrae (E, 12k, LXC/NMJ, wangxian, modern cultivation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, not LQR friendly, Meddling brothers, Coming Out, Loss of Virginity, Under-negotiated Kink, slight breathplay, Light Dom/sub, Aftercare, Angst with a Happy Ending)
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6. Hi! I’m looking for a fic. It’s wangxian modern au, they’re friends with benefits (top!LZ / Bottom!WY) and it’s told from Lan Wangji’s pov. Wei Ying gets in a car accident and is in a coma for 13 days (might be 16) and he ends up staying at Lan Wangji’s place while he gets better. I really can’t remember the title and it making me coo coo. Thank you xx @liv-andletdie
FOUND? Almost Lover by vesna (mrsronweasley) (E, 37k, Wangxian, modern, Angst with a happy ending, Hurt/Comfort, a bad thing happens to WWX, LWJ gets very sad, Hospital Scenes, Dubious Medical Science, pining for the person you're fucking, Friends With Benefits, friends who come together stay together, learning to use our words, there are also rabbits, Traumatic Injury, mention of past WWX/WQ)
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7. Hi, Thank you so much for your amazing work!! I am specifically looking for a fic where Jiang Yanli tells the Jins about where the Wens were living which leads to their death? And Wei Wuxian doesn't forgive her for that and even Jiang Cheng was upset about it. @yilinglaobunny
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8. It's both a fic finder and an ITMF, in the fic wwx had a tiger/lion and it was canon era, I'm not able to find it. // added the last part to ITMF post ~Mod L
FOUND? Time Unwinds in a Kaleidoscope of Red by vamprav (E, 30k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time Travel Fix-It, WWX Has No Golden Core, Golden Core Reveal, BAMF WWX, Undead Tiger, Sentient Burial Mounds, JGY Redemption, As in wei ying recruits him to yunmeng, deadly hairpins) WWX raises a tiger from the dead in that one
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9. I’m looking for the fic where WWX “develops” a silver core - him, NMJ (I think), and LWJ follow JGY down a tunnel and catch him being shady, and JGY tries to activate the tiger amulet. It spirals out of control and WWX absorbs the power and it becomes a cool reservoir of power similar to a core, and WQ tells him “congratulations, you successfully invented a new kind of cultivation .”
Thank you for all you do!! @seussian
Hi! #9 on the recent fic finder post isn’t Never Again, although there are similar elements! The scene I’m remembering definitely involved fall~out from JGY using the tiger seal and WWX absorbing its power to save everyone. Thank you for all of your efforts!!
NOT FOUND! Never Again by Hauntcats (T, 67k, WWX & WN & WQ, JC & WWX, wangxian, graphic depictions of violence, major character death, Canon Divergence, Angst, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Time Travel Fix-It, Not JC Friendly, Dark, BAMF WWX, mentions of abuse, Not Everyone Dies au, XY doesn't have a happy ending)
NOT FOUND! ❤️ Tragedy is Not the End by Hobbsy3 (T, 358k, wangxian, Time Travel, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Golden Core Reveal, Canon Divergence from Qiongqi Pass, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Yunmeng sibling bonding, good dad wwx, good dad lwj, JZX Lives, JYL Lives, Junior Quartet Dynamics)
FOUND! The Breaking of Your Soul (Upon My Lips) by sunsandships (M, 40k, WangXian, XuanLi, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Mutual Pining, Canon-Typical Violence, Golden Core Reveal, Happy Ending)
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10. I'm looking for a fic where lqr regrets sending wwx away. I think it was something along the lines of yzy kicking wwx out, and wwx went to the lan household first (in the middle of the night?) but lqr thought he was being a disturbance and didn't let him in to see lwj and then wwx disappeared. Then several years later, lwj and wwx reconnect and there's a part where lqr is really repetent and shows that he always regretted turning wwx away bc he felt like it was partially his fault for how difficult wwx's life was after that. Tyvm in advance for everyone's help!
🔒Welcome to the Family Series by jiejieaini (E, 231k, WangXian, NieLan, XuanLi, Modern AU, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, London, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Adopted WWX, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Reunions, Hand Jobs, Gay Sex, Consensual Non-Consent, Dom/sub Undertones, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Christmas, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Praise Kink, Rough Sex, Rough Kissing, LWJ and WWX Have a Breeding Kink, First Time, Public Blow Jobs, High School, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Falling In Love, Love Confessions, Blowjobs, Soft WangXian, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Family Fluff, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Drowning, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Dubious Consent, Rimming, Panic Attacks, Anxiety, Marriage Proposal, Weddings, Nightmares, Adoption, Pregnancy)
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11. Hello I am trying to find a fic, it was a little long ago
So what happens is that lwj and wwx were in full on love making session, cloths discarded and all and some people barge in on them 😭 I don't remember the rest but the people included lqr maybe idk
FOUND? divulgences by ataraxistence (Not rated, 3k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, Fluff, Humor, Love Confessions)
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12. Hi! I read a fic a couple of years ago that I'd love to find again... it was a modern au, where LWJ worked in his family run martial arts complex or something along those lines (I think a-yuan was a student, which is how WWX met him? But I might be getting my fics crossed) I remember LWJ was autistic, and there was a community festival or something and he was getting super overwhelmed so wwx put some juice or ketchup on his hand and pretended to be hurt so LWJ would have an excuse to go inside and "heal" him.
Thanks for all that you do! @scenicpixie
FOUND! leave all your love and your longing behind by ScarlettStorm (E, 143k, wangxian, modern, Meet-Ugly, Panic Attacks, autistic LWJ, neurodivergent WWX, the neighborhood asshole dog, if you've met one then you know, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Minor Angst, major shenanigans, Happy Ending, for everyone including the asshole dog, setting out to make the neighborhood safer for your crush and accidentally building community, Eventual Smut, switch rights, Sex Toys, horny yearning, Masturbation, the chef's assortment of partnered sex acts)
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13. hi, im looking for a fic with a scene where lwj is in seclusion mourning wwx and is told he'll be forced to marry. he runs out immediately and gets drunk/brands himself, wakes up to lxc telling him their uncle has changed his mind and he won't have to marry (so please stop trying to die please). i remember literally nothing else so any assistance appreciated! @onlyegret
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14. For fic finder I am looking for a fic where Wei Wuxian is banished from Lotus Pier while Madam Yu is still alive and everyone in the sect has to turn away from him. Literally turn away: he walks down the streets to leave Lotus Pier and everyone he has ever known turns their faces from him. I think was technically outcast from the world of polite cultivation in whole (like no one from a sect was supposed to interact with him) but I don’t remember how his banishment played out after leaving. TY~!
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15. Hi i was wondering if you could help me find a fic. It is set during the yilling patriarch arc, the wens are in burial mounds. In koi tower madam jin was searching for jgs asking jgy about him. JGS was in a brothel and JGY got hit in the head with a vase because he didn't answer? JZX and JYL helped him but he suffered from a concussion and started acting weird and blurting out all his father's evil plan about planning on killing NMJ and trying to get the tiger seal i guess? In the end i think burial mounds and the wen creat a sect with jgy's help ? Amd i think it was a 3zun fic but i really cant remember sorry. Can you please help me find it i am searching for it for weeks now thanks!!! @booksandkdrama01
FOUND? Just a drop by R95irth (Not Rated, 184k, XiYao, WangXian, XuanLi, ChengSangQing, Humor, Crack Treated Seriously, Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, 3zun | Venerated Triad Dynamics, 3Zun at the very end)
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16. Hello, seeking a bit of help because my own searches are turning up nothing. Looking for a fic where Mdm Yu had first (secretly?) married Jin Guangshan, before marrying Jiang Fengmian a bit later. It turns out that Yanli and Cheng are both actually Jin (because Mdm Yu *kept* cheating) and are disowned by Jiang and taken into Jin as servants. Mdm Yu loses her arms(?). Jin Guangyao tried to frame Yanli for poisoning Mdm Jin. @zoolooney
FOUND! Could this one be “OOC!” by A_flower_in_the_snow that was reuploaded on Wattpad
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17. Hi, i'm searching for a fic where lan wangji needs a favor from yiling laozu. Wei ying jokingly says He wants his first born and lan wangji proceeds to marry him so the can make that child.
FOUND? ❤️ spider lilies to sunflowers by cicer (E, 33k, wangxian, ABO, YLLZ WWX, fairy tale elements, mpreg, omega LWJ, alpha WWX, LWJ topping from the bottom, Mojo’s post)
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18. Hello for the fic finder, can you help find this fic, lwj is a uni professor who's stoic and cold and he's taking online classes and then one day wwx walks into the frame wearing booty shorts (?) and everyone of lwjs students are shocked and trying to figure out who he is. Eventually they find wwxs oh or smth. That's all I remember, if you can find it thank you so much 💞
FOUND? looking through a window by glitteringmoonlight (T, 5k, wangxian, modern, POV Outsider, College/University, Fluff and Humor)
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19. Hi, can you help me find this fic in which WWX is a General in the army (and is also a Prince I suppose but not like next in line) and is rumored to be hideous looking because of the scar on his face or something and is feared by the world. WangXian are married (arranged) and WWX only sleeps with LWJ enough to conceive a child and once he is informed of LWJ being pregnant, WWX stops seeing LWJ at all. WWX is under the impression that LWJ would find him ugly and so he even dims the lights and has LWJ wear a blindfold whenever they share their marital bed. LWJ doesn’t know his husband, hasn’t even seen his face properly and has never spoken to him in all the months they have been married and he is feeling extremely lonely but one day he finds an injured man in his courtyard and takes care of him without anyone’s knowledge. He doesn’t know the injured man is actually his husband WWX.
I read this on ao3 and forgot to bookmark it and now I can’t find it. Please, I will be extremely grateful if you could find it.
Thanks!
FOUND? 🔒 Love Swept in with the Rain by Sirendipity (M, 35k, WIP, WangXian, Bottom LWJ/Top WWX, Historical, Arranged Marriage, Secret Identity, Mistaken Identity, Emotional Infidelity, lwj cheats on his husband with his husband, Depression, Mpreg, Discussion of Abortion, Period-Typical Sexism, Hurt/Comfort, Fantasy, Older WWX, Younger LWJ, General WWX, Unreliable Narrator, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Beauty and the Beast Elements)
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20. Looking for a fic that I remember only one scene from 😅 WWX tells LWJ that he could not have saved him no matter what he would have done, LWJ breaking down hard after. Pretty sure they were in the Jingshi.
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doodle of emo teenager mxy from me and @milfholder‘s modern au
#hes like 13 and just moved in with the jins. hes having a hard time adjusting cuz hes a bit fucked up from living with the mo family#so they call in wwx fellow weird homo goth with trauma and he ends up being like. a cool older brother figure#they go to the hot topic and charge so much money to the jin family credit card#mdzs#mo xuanyu#mo dao zu shi#he also becomes friends with fellow nonbinary lwj and slightly closer to his age and also goth wen ning#and also befriends fellow drawer and makeup wearer nhs#he also gets therapy. very important.#and jin guangshan is dead because fuck that guy
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Mo Xuanyu :3c
MY BOOOOYYYYYYY :rolle:
Sexuality Headcanon: Demisexual with a preference for Men! And.. I say this because like. I never thought he was straight up Gay. He would just really cling to someone who cared for him and if he finds them attractive, too, then he’s goin’ for it.
Gender Headcanon: Nonbinary/Agender... He’ll dress like a man or a woman, have a different body or inbetween and would literally be okay with it.
A ship I have with said character: CHAOYU... PLS
Shen Jiu and Mo Xuanyu too! I did briefly ship Nie Mingjue and Mo Xuanyu because nmj is Big and could hold mxy plus he just seemed Caring and I liked the dynamic jkshlkdjfh
A BROTP I have with said character: XUE yANg and Mo Xuanyu. I just think they’re Neat. i mean, fwb just because they Can but I mostly just like them as frienditos
A NOTP I have with said character: On god don’t come at me with the Inc*st ships. I’ll kick your aSS >: V
A random headcanon: He never wanted to die :) But he gets nervous a lot and doesn’t want to be hurt anymore. He’s also got a bad inferiority complex because of abuse and how much he’d been beaten down so thinking kindly of himself does not come easy but he’s trying.
General Opinion over said character: m... my boy.... I love him smuch
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What about a wangxian college au where freshman Mo Xuanyu asks his older friend Wei Wuxian to go to a pride event with him since it’s his first time
And Jiang Cheng is like “aren’t you afraid people will see you and think you’re gay?” And Wei Wuxian is like “it’s called a gay-straight alliance bro lots of people go to support their gay friends it’s not weird”
Anyway they get there and Wei Wuxian is having the time of his life — “Hey Mo, did you see the booth over there giving out free condoms?? Being gay must be great”
They eventually bump into the twin Jades of Gusu Lan. Lan Xichen is there to support Lan Wangji, but of course Wei Wuxian immediately assumes it’s the other way around, so he’s like “omg Lan Zhan it’s so nice of you to support your big brother I know your family is conservative but you’re doing the right thing”
And Lan Wangji desperately pleads with his eyes to Lan Xichen to please, please just go along with it so Lan Xichen is just “yup! That’s me. I’m the gay one”
Wei Wuxian then proceeds to flirt with every guy, gal, or nonbinary pal they bump into, and he isn’t at all mad when one guy gets a little too handsy, because who wouldn’t feel flattered by the attention, especially from such a handsome man? Wei Wuxian keeps reminding everyone that he’s not gay but damn he can certainly tell when a man is good looking
Meanwhile Lan Wangji is slowly dying inside and Mo Xuanyu hangs back with Lan Xichen to exchange awkward chit-chat about the one thing they have in common: Meng Yao, Mo Xuanyu’s older half-brother and one of Lan Xichen’s best friends
Mo Xuanyu starts going to Lan Xichen for advice on coming out, and how did Meng Yao react when he told him?
Eventually Lan Xichen feels bad for fibbing and fesses up and Mo Xuanyu sees the way Lan Wangji stares longingly at Wei Wuxian from afar and how they act like they’re already married, with Wei Wuxian lamenting the fact that Lan Wangji won’t date anyone, which is a shame because Lan Wangji is too beautiful inside and out, and if only Wei himself was gay...
Mo Xuanyu quickly puts two and two together
Rumors spread and eventually everyone is in on the secret, even Jiang Cheng, who has to admit that his brother has always been a tad too fascinated with the male physique, except of course for Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, who remain blissfully unaware in their increasingly tactile relationship
And Wei Wuxian keeps sighing and saying it’s a shame he doesn’t like men, because Lan Wangji is such a catch, and Nie Huaisang eventually just snaps and paints the word “BISEXUAL” on one of his fans and he smacks his lovesick friend across the head with it
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( mxy needs friends and love )
sun lijun, a former member of the lanling jin sect...he left not long after mo xuanyu was exiled from the sect for being a cutsleeve. lijun endured nearly the same ridicule if not for his cultivation skills ; lijun was judged for being nonbinary. he cares not for if he looked a FEMALE, or looked a MALE, he enjoyed both genders ; he liked having rouge on his face, makeup that accentuated his features. people have said that while he had his father’s cultivation abilities, he took on more of his mother’s features.
sun lijun came from a family of four, with THREE elder sisters...he was often the SUBJECT of their experimentation with makeup and fashion, a doll for them to play with as his skill was much like porcelain. yet while he found it a HASSLE, he didn’t hate it, it was a habit that carried into adulthood where he was conscious of how he looked and was unafraid to use makeup, wear effeminate clothes...he was someone that hardly fell into status quo but people had a hard time getting rid of him as he was a proficient cultivator.
he had attempted to befriend mo xuanyu during the male’s short stay, knowing that everyone needed a friend and he didn’t mind that the other was into males. he found the other quite cute and tried his best to help his junior out...while he was unable to shield mo xuanyu from bullying nor stop the other’s exile, he did what he could to support mo xuanyu, teaching him small ways to ‘ level up ’ his golden core.
when mo xuanyu left, sun lijun made the decision to also leave the sect at his own volition. his actions caused discourse and friction between him and his family, but he couldn’t care much for it. becoming a ROGUE cultivator, he heard the massacre at mo village and was saddened to hear that mo xuanyu had gone missing....currently going wherever he wishes, sun lijun acts as a traveling musician / artist during the day and a cultivator at night. he is both a weapon cultivator ( his blade is named meixue ) and a music cultivator ( playing the erhu ).
sun lijun goes by he / him, she / her, they / them...having no preference for what people use with them...he tends to use HE / HIM more.
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WIP Wednesday
I'm taking a bit of a break from Polyship week (I'd still like to write today's prompt 'soulmates' but I'll probably try to post it on the free day instead since I don't have a single word written for it) but it's still Wednesday, so I've got a little something! I don't know when I'll actually sit down to work on it next, but I have a bit of the next chapter of Technically A Cutsleeve started, so here's that. We're switching back to Mo Xuanyu's POV after having Jingyi's for a bit.
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Cloud Recesses is precisely as Mo Xuanyu remembers it. He hasn’t stepped foot in Gusu in years, not since a discussion conference years ago when Mianmian was too sick to come and Zixuan had needed an advisor. But he can say with confidence that very very little has changed for the Lan seat of power since then.
They’re welcomed with all the proper pomp and circumstance befitting a visiting Sect Leader and his entourage, the occasion so unlike when any of their family — yes, even the Lan family — comes to visit them in Jinlintai. Meng Yao is at least there to join Qingheng-Jun in welcoming them, and he’s the one who shows them to their guest quarters rather than the high-ranking disciples who flank their Sect Leader for the welcome. It’s all very…stuffy. Very Lan, even the part when Meng Yao takes over, guides them away, and lets his father-in-law greet the next retinue. He’s even wearing Lan blue as he does for most special occasions, though Mo Xuanyu will allow he at least has small hints of Jin gold and Nie silver or green dispersed tastefully through trimmings or jewelry (and of course his vermillion mark sits squarely between his unmistakably Jin brows). He seems to take this duty seriously, since he acts all proper and Lan just like everyone else, unlike when he comes to Jinlintai and actually relaxes for a minute.
It’s been less than a shichen and Mo Xuanyu’s skin is starting to crawl with the desire to stop all this stoic nonsense and act like they’re actually a family, damn it.
“You didn’t have to accompany me, Yu-didi,” Zixuan reminds him — gently, for him — once they’re safely ensconced in Zixuan’s quarters and Mo Xuanyu is free to pace back and forth with voluminous swishes of perfumed silk. “Why the sudden interest in discussion conferences anyway? You haven’t been to one outside of Jinlintai in ages.”
“Just felt like a change of scenery and you were already coming here anyway,” Mo Xuanyu shrugs, the lie smooth and easy in a way his oldest brother will never be able to accomplish (and that his second brother taught him how to do). “Besides, I need to annoy Uncle Lan, Xichen-gege said he’s working himself too hard again lately.”
Lan Xichen has, in fact, told him no such thing, but if there is anything Mo Xuanyu can rely on in this world it’s that Lan Qiren is perpetually in a state of overworking himself whilst reminding everyone else around him to properly balance their lives. Someone needs to cajole the old man into resting, and though Wei Wuxian is well placed to be that person he apparently doesn’t do it unless things get dire. Probably because he’s busy overworking himself too and is kind of shitty at recognizing it in anyone else. The longer Mo Xuanyu thinks about it, the more he’s able to almost convince himself that’s actually why he tagged along this time.
The true reason is, of course, a secret, one that literally no one but him knows. For his entire life, up until roughly two months ago, Mo Xuanyu has very loudly and very firmly declared that though he appreciates the male form, he has very little (or no) desire to appreciate it up close and personal — certainly not for any significant length of time. He’s considered it recently in an abstract sort of way, but nothing serious.
And then Lan Jingyi just had to tumble into Jinlintai and made a liar out of him. So rude! Though Mo Xuanyu had kept his distance as much as he could during the last week of the boys’ visit, it would’ve been ridiculously rude to ignore the boys when they’d gone out of their way to help him feel included, and considering the most vocal of the four of them in wanting him around had been Lan Jingyi…is it any wonder Mo Xuanyu had developed a crush?
#the untamed fanfic#WIP Wednesday#Technically A Cutsleeve#Lan Jingyi/Mo Xuanyu#Nonbinary Mo Xuanyu#tfw your previously-ace ass gets a Crush (derogatory)#Pour one out for Mo Xuanyu during this trying time#And traveling ALL THE WAY to Gusu to see him????? Embarrassing!#(except for the part where Jingyi is gonna be THRILLED and spoil him half to death)
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After Each Midnight Begins A New Day
Extra #13 - Mo Xuanyu and Lan Jingyi
[Listen, real question: What do I start calling these things that I write in this universe that aren't actually extras for the main fic? I call them all extras because that's what I started out writing alongside the main fic, but this is just straight up a different fic in the same universe, only very tangentially related to the main work. Is it still an extra? What is this??]
[P.S. This is completely self-indulgent fluff and Gender Feelings that I started writing last spring but never actually posted. Am I projecting so hard on Mo Xuanyu I essentially created a brand new character? Lol yeah, and many thanks to MXTX for not fleshing him out much at all in canon. He's free real estate.]
[Masterpost]
-/-
Jinlintai is about as gaudy as Jingyi had expected it to be, just judging based on Jin Ling’s usual wardrobe and his haughty attitude that he still hasn’t managed to drop around them completely even after years of friendship.
He climbs the stairs of the tower with Zizhen and Sizhui making suitably impressed noises on either side of him. He nearly breaks their act when he meets Zizhen’s eyes and starts snickering at the disbelieving look he finds there (‘oh gods it’s even worse than we pictured’ his eyes scream and Jingyi knows his are screaming back ‘I know I know I know!!!’) but thankfully they’re saved by Sizhui stepping neatly on his foot with that serene smile of his still on his lips.
“Be kind,” Sizhui murmurs under his breath, too low for Jin Ling to overhear, and Jingyi shares an eyeroll with Zizhen. The day those two admit that they like each other is going to be the day all four of their lives get so much easier, honestly.
Thankfully when they reach the top they’re quickly swept into a receiving pavilion to be officially greeted by Jin Zongzhu and Madam Jin, the two of them clearly happy to have the three of them visiting. It’s a lovely welcome, and the moment the official greetings are over Jin Ling’s siblings are just as clingy and wild as their friend had warned them. It’s funny though, and the children are clearly happy so Jingyi doesn’t mind one bit. Jin Fei, at least, is clearly looking forward to having other people close to his age to hang out with besides Jin Ling, and Lan Jingyi suspects the twins are going to be equally as interested in spending time with them as new sparring partners if nothing else.
Jingyi is a little embarrassed when it takes him a few days to realize that there’s one member of the family who’s notoriously absent any time they’re all gathered in the same place.
“Hey-“ he finally says a few days into the visit, “Where’s your weird uncle you’re always whining about?”
“Yu-shushu? He’s uh…He’s busy,” Jin Ling deflects very poorly. Really, they’ll need to work on sharpening up his lying skills but for now it’s more fun to torment him, which is how he finds an excuse to grab Zizhen so they can both sit on their stupid best friend while Wen Sizhui laughs at their antics.
-/-
For all his teasing and cajoling when Jin Ling had said he was inviting his friends to Jinlintai for a few weeks, Mo Xuanyu is actually really happy for his nephew. Of course Jin Ling and his siblings are all fond of each other, and their enormous but ridiculously close family is pretty much a built-in friend group, but Mo Xuanyu is still proud of Jin Ling for going out into the world and making successful and fulfilling connections in the other sects.
And he knows Jin Ling probably didn’t really mean anything by asking Mo Xuanyu to hold off on meeting them. He’s much like Jin Zixuan in that way, back when he had been younger - talking first and only thinking about implications once the words are already out. Mo Xuanyu is as willing to be generous with Jin Ling as he was with Jin Zixuan so many years ago, fumbling his way through trying to comfort him, trying to be a good brother, trying to show him he cared about him.
He’s willing to give Jin Ling the benefit of the doubt and assume that his request has more to do with him not wanting Mo Xuanyu’s feelings to be hurt by his friends’ potentially negative reactions to meeting him, rather than embarrassment at having his friends see him related to someone like Mo Xuanyu.
Probably.
Maybe.
He knows he’s eccentric, is the thing. And that it’s perfectly fine and normal as long as it’s just the family around, or when Jin Zixuan lets him tell off asshole sect leaders who think they have a right to dictate how he acts in his own home because he makes them uncomfortable.
But Jin Ling is easily embarrassed, easily flustered, and Mo Xuanyu is pretty sure he wants to impress his guests (mostly because he’s pretty sure Jin Ling has a crush on at least one of these new friends of his, judging by how often the name ‘Wen Sizhui’ gets dropped).
Well, he amends, they’re not really new. Jin Ling had first met them years ago in Cloud Recesses when it was his turn for the summer lectures, but this is the first time any of them are coming here to Jinlintai rather than just meeting each other out on their night hunts or whenever Jin Ling travels with Jin Zixuan for sect business. So: new to seeing Jinlintai, new to meeting the family - new to meeting him, and he knows he’s a lot to take in.
He doesn’t judge Jin Ling for asking him to hide for a little bit, at least until his friends are more settled and they don’t have to worry about the boys becoming..overwhelmed by the force of his personality.
In the end, though, when he does meet them it’s entirely by accident and not his fault, Jin Ling, get over it.
He’s busy doing his favorite thing to keep himself entertained when everyone else is busy : he’s escorting little Jin Ye through Jinlintai wherever she wants to go and treating her like a princess. She’s the only one of her siblings still young enough not to be annoyed by his antics, to still find him absolutely delightful like her siblings once had, and he loves spending time with her in return, knowing that she’ll always appreciate it. He knows his family and the servants appreciate it too, that he keeps her out of trouble and in doing so keeps himself out from under their feet as well. Everybody wins that way, and Mo Xuanyu, for all the noise he makes about not wanting children of his own (which is true), loves spoiling his youngest niece as much as humanly possible.
This afternoon, he’s kneeling with her in one of the public peony gardens intently watching her watch a bug crawling across one of the closed buds of a Sparks Amidst Snow. They’ve been here for a while, which means his lap is already full of some of the choicest early blooms - according to Jin Ye’s impeccable taste - to take back to Jiang Yanli whenever it’s time to return inside.
He looks up from Jin Ye’s concentrated little face - reluctantly - at the sound of a burst of laughter and he smiles to see Jin Ling horsing around with his friends. They’re easy to identify even just based on what he knows of their names and the clothing standards of their clans, and so he knows when it’s Lan Jingyi in his soft blues and distinctive headband who gives Jin Ling a rough shove that almost sends him toppling into the flowers, and when Wen Sizhui in his red and white is the one who rescues him at the last moment with a hand under his elbow while Jin Ling splutters his indignation. It’s Ouyang Zizhen, in his deep jewel blues and purples, who spots Mo Xuanyu first, kneeling there amongst the flowers with a hand on Jin Ye’s back to steady her as she totters to her feet to follow the bug from one flower to the next. He offers a nod and an uncertain smile, wary of Jin Ling’s desire that he not meet his friends too soon, and is prepared to duck his head again and continue with his own business when the Ouyang boy calls out to him.
“Stop it you idiots! We apologize for the disruption, guniang,” Ouyang Zizhen calls and Mo Xuanyu blinks in surprise when he looks up and realizes the boy is bowing to him, and then his face splits into a delighted grin at being addressed as such even as Jin Ling coughs on a laugh and tries poorly to hide it.
“What’s the matter with you?” Lan Jingyi snaps and Mo Xuanyu muffles a laugh of his own into his sleeve at the sharpness in his voice that’s so biting he wonders for a second if he got the names wrong in his head - he’s never heard a Lan talk like that, and he’s met plenty of them over the years.
“Yu-shushu,” Jin Ling calls wearily with a pained look on his face. Calling out to him is no doubt more of a correction of Ouyang Zizhen’s assumption of his title and status rather than any actual desire to address him in this particular moment, and Mo Xuanyu has the pleasure of watching three comically identical looks of surprise cross his friends’ faces. Ouyang Zizhen looks particularly stricken, and so it’s to him that Mo Xuanyu directs a reassuring nod.
“Hello,” he calls with a wave - and then, because he can’t help being a little shit sometimes, he adds, “Hi LingLing, long time no see. Can I finally have the honor of meeting your boyfriends?” just to see his nephew splutter and his friends blush so brightly it makes him laugh all over again.
“What are you doing out here?” Jin Ling snaps. Mo Xuanyu waves a lazy hand in his direction, dismissive as he turns his attention back to Jin Ye.
“I can go anywhere I want to, A-Ling. And my favorite person in this entire world is very determinedly chasing a bug, so I’m watching with rapt attention to make sure I don’t miss a moment of the action.”
“You’re so weird, Yu-shushu,” Jin Ling grumbles with a huff as he straightens his robes and flicks his sleeves behind his back in a gesture he absolutely learned from Jin Zixuan - Mo Xuanyu makes a mental note to tease his brother about it at the next opportunity.
“Someone in this family needs to be. I’m hoping if I spend enough time with Xiao-Ye at this age I can corrupt her into being the next black sheep to carry on my legacy,” he laughs as Jin Ye darts up and runs to another patch of the flower beds to point excitedly at a peony in full bloom.
“Shushu!!” she cries and he smiles as he gets smoothly to his feet, the cut flowers she’s already chosen clutched carefully in his hand in a loose bouquet.
“A beautiful choice yet again, Xiao-Ye, your mother will love it,” he praises as he bends to snip the stem with a small knife from his sleeve and add the flower to his handful. When he straightens again and turns around he’s nonplussed to find Jin Ling and his friends still standing there - normally Jin Ling storms off at the first opportunity when Mo Xuanyu has irritated him. “Oh. Yes?” he prompts, confused.
“You said you wanted to meet them so come over here and meet them!” Jin Ling snaps and Mo Xuanyu slowly raises a darkened eyebrow at him. He doesn’t often pull rank on Jin Ling, not seriously, but honestly...after a week and a half of being mostly shepherded to the private areas of Jinlintai to make things easier on his nephew and his friends, and then having his afternoon with his niece interrupted by their presence anyway, he’s not really in the mood to get ordered around, he doesn’t care if Jin Ling is embarrassed. And for all that they were once classmates before Mo Xuanyu decided not to seriously pursue cultivation, he is still older, both in years and generation, technically speaking. And they have company - important company.
Jin Ling at least has the good sense to look abashed and, perhaps, a touch guilty. It’s for that reason alone that Mo Xuanyu decides not to point out that he had wanted to meet Jin Ling’s friends along with the rest of the family when the boys had arrived over a week ago, not as an afterthought, as an accident, caught by surprise in the gardens when their visit is already well underway. Like he’s not as important as the rest of the family. Like he doesn’t deserve the same respect, eccentric or not.
“Come on Xiao-Ye, let’s go tell LingLing how horrible his manners are,” Mo Xuanyu ‘whispers’ plenty loudly enough to be heard by their audience as he holds his free hand out for the toddler to take. He carefully helps her pick her way through the flowers to the path and then he measures his steps to make sure he doesn’t outpace her before he comes to a stop in front of the quartet to offer a perfectly executed curtsy in response to the three visitors’ bows. He watches Jin Ling’s face go red but he thankfully has enough tact not to comment.
The thing is, Jin Ling isn’t ever really there on the extremely rare occasions when Mo Xuanyu pulls out his real manners. The manners and etiquette he had shyly asked Qin Su to teach him once she had come to Jinlintai, just as he was beginning to accept that he wasn’t going to be like the rest of the boys his age. He knows how to bow properly, his sword in his hands. He knows how to walk through the world like he owns it, like the rest of the Jin men do. But he also knows how to own it the way his sisters do - how to be soft and proper but with steel in his eyes. How to be a walking contradiction for the world to rail against every single day of his life, and do it with his head held high. His decision to act like he doesn’t know it most days is just that - a decision, a choice. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t actually know how.
(He frequently teases Jin Ling about his youth in comparison to his own age, and while it is usually a joke, he still hopes that one day Jin Ling will be able to look back on it through the lens of experience and realize that, for Mo Xuanyu, the gaps in their experiences and the way he’s been forced to grow up ahead of his time where Jin Ling has not have been blindingly obvious since the first day they met.)
“Mo-gongzi,” Jin Ling’s friends chorus and he offers them all a wide grin.
“So respectful! Let me take guesses with your names, I’m sure I can get them right,” he says with a playful hum, ignoring Jin Ling’s impatient shuffling. “Ouyang-gongzi,” he starts with Ouyang Zizhen, offering him a polite curtsy that the boy is apparently still too embarrassed to acknowledge. “Wen-gongzi,” to Wen Sizhui with another curtsy (Wen Sizhui offers him the sweetest smile Mo Xuanyu has ever seen on someone who’s not either of his sisters and his heart melts a little - if anyone can soften Jin Ling’s too-sharp edges, it’s going to be that boy). “Lan-gongzi,” he finishes with one more curtsy for Lan Jingyi, who’s just staring at him, wide-eyed with blatant curiosity even as he returns the curtsy with a quick sketch of a bow.
Well. Curiosity is better than the outright disdain he tends to get from the older generations.
He glances down when there’s a tug on the skirts of his robes and he laughs in delight to see Jin Ye pouting up at him imperiously. He instantly turns to her and offers her the deepest curtsy he can, bowing so low she can reach up to tap her fingers at the ornaments tinkling softly in his hair.
“And of course, this humble one could never forget! The beloved Xiao-Ye, the little treasure of Lanling,” he says with a dramatic flourish that makes her giggle as he straightens up again, her hand finding his instantly when he reaches down to her.
“Mo-gongzi, we were just on our way to spar with Jin-er-gongzi, Jin-guniang, and Jin-er-guniang,” Wen Sizhui supplies when he faces them again and Mo Xuanyu is unsurprised to find his voice is as soft as his smile. “Would you like to join us?”
“Oh that’s very sweet of you to ask,” Mo Xuanyu laughs as Jin Ling makes a sound like a dying animal. “Hush, LingLing, your friends are being nice to your poor Yu-shushu, let me enjoy it! You never invite me to watch your sparring.”
“Because you show up anyway if you want to!”
“That’s neither here nor there - it’s nice to be asked sometimes,” he sniffs. “But as it happens I have to take Jin Ye into the nursery for her nap and then I have letters I’d like to write, so I’ll have to join you some other time. I’m interested to see your different clan styles though, so I will definitely watch one day during your stay here.”
“Do you have training with a sword too?” Lan Jingyi suddenly pipes up in a rush and Mo Xuanyu tips his head a bit to the side as he looks at him with a playful smirk on his rouged lips.
“I’ve had lots of different types of training,” he teases. “Today I’m practicing my flower arranging for the Little Treasure. Tomorrow maybe I’ll remember my old sword forms. Ask me again at the afternoon meal and I may agree to participate. If you’ll excuse me.”
He offers another curtsy and then he turns to head back inside, pausing only to bend and lift Jin Ye onto his hip with careful hands so he can walk as quickly as he wants to. He hears conversation break out behind him before he’s even inside, but he doesn’t listen. Let them talk.
He delivers Jin Ye to the servants in the nursery with a kiss to her forehead and an extracted promise that she’ll be good and then he goes to find Jiang Yanli, flowers in hand.
“Ah, Li-jie, here you are,” he says happily when he finds her a few minutes later on the path that leads to the main part of the tower from the family residences.
“A-Yu,” she greets warmly, instantly reaching out for his arm, which he loops through hers easily, both of them folding their hands demurely over their sternums. “How is your day?”
“Wonderful. Xiao-Ye has been showing me that her taste in flowers is still unmatched,” he smiles as he holds the flowers out to Jiang Yanli with a flourish for her to take with her free hand. “She wants you to put them on your writing desk.”
“Oh I’ll be happy to! They’re beautiful, thank you.”
They walk in silence for a few long moments before he gathers up the courage to say, “While I was in the gardens I met A-Ling and his friends,” though it still comes out with a hint of hesitation. Jiang Yanli’s arm goes stiff in his for a moment before she relaxes with what seems like an effort.
“Were they kind?”
“The young masters are very polite, it was a pleasure to finally meet them.”
“Was A-Ling?”
Mo Xuanyu clears his throat and doesn’t answer, but that’s answer enough. He hears Jiang Yanli take a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slowly.
“I don’t understand this new problem,” she admits as they turn a corner to walk slowly along the perimeter of a shady, currently unused courtyard, empty but for someone sweeping the stone clean on the other side. “You’ve been a part of the children’s lives since you were a child yourself, he’s never had this issue before.”
“I embarrass him.”
“A-Ling is so much like A-Cheng - his pride is easily turned against him and that means plenty of things embarrass him. That’s no excuse for him to treat you like this.”
“Li-jie…” he starts, his voice quiet, timid in a way it almost never is anymore. “Do you think the children respect me? I mean..truly respect me as their uncle, the way they respect Yao-ge, or Su-jie as their aunt?”
Jiang Yanli stops in her tracks to turn to him and Mo Xuanyu unlinks his arm from hers to face her as well, to meet her scrutinizing gaze with a vulnerable one of his own.
“Why do you ask?”
“I know I bother them,” he starts, his chest feeling fluttery and hollow in a way that doesn’t bode well. “I know..none of the rest of them are quite ready to have to make their peace with the way I’m thought of in the public eye just yet but..but A-Fei and A-Yan and A-Yu are nearly ready; A-Fei has already gone to Cloud Recesses for his lectures, and the twins will be ready for the next lecture season if they want to go. They’ll all make friends from other sects just like A-Ling has, they’ll bring them here as guests eventually. What if none of the children want their friends to know I’m related to them? What if they’re all ashamed of me like A-Ling is?”
“Oh A-Yu...” Jiang Yanli murmurs sympathetically and somehow that’s what pushes the feeling in his chest outward, the shiver of it turning into a trembling in his hands and stinging in his eyes that he furiously blinks away.
“The children may love me, Li-jie, but sometimes...I don’t think they like me very much. I’m just..I’m so different.”
“Shhh it’s okay, come here,” she soothes, pulling him in for a hug and he collapses gratefully into her arms with trembling and quiet sniffles that he’s trying to stifle.
When he had first come to Jinlintai - actually, when he had first met Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli back in Mo village - he had immediately been drawn to his sister-in-law. She’s steady and warm like his mother had been while she had been alive. She had loved him with her whole heart from the moment he was brought to Jinlintai, even when he got comfortable enough to be himself and the other children became wary of him and his wild nature, the way he grinned too widely, laughed too loudly, raised chaos everywhere he could simply for the hell of it. He’s calmed down in recent years somewhat, become marginally more acceptable, but Jiang Yanli had loved him from the instant they had met and he had been a young boy afraid of disappointing his mother, and she had been the young Madam of a Great Sect and a pregnant mother of four, doing her best to fulfill her roles with grace and poise.
He had always yearned for a big sister, and he had found everything he had ever dreamt of in Jiang Yanli’s soothing presence. Of all of his family, she - along with Qin Su, later - has never once made him feel like he was too much to handle, too strange to love, or to like. He’s older now, more assured in himself (usually), but he knows that he wouldn’t be at this point if not for her constant, gentle nature, the way she had nurtured his behaviors, his choices, to help lead him to who he is now.
Her support as a sister has been an invaluable part of his life, and he’s reminded of it for the millionth time now as she hugs him tightly and rubs his back in slow, soothing circles like she had when he had been a boy and he’d just lost his mother to a swift fever that had swept through their village.
“Hush, A-Yu, shh. The children love you,” she murmurs quietly. “I love you, as does A-Su, and A-Xuan, and A-Yao, and all of our extended family too. Our family wouldn’t be complete without you in it, A-Yu. You belong with us, we wouldn’t have you be anywhere or anyone else.”
Mo Xuanyu huddles closer and squeezes his eyes shut as tears drip from his lashes - he’s careful not to let them drip onto Jiang Yanli’s clothes, stained black as the tears are with the kohl painted around his eyes and dusted in his lashes. Her robes are a pale gold-trimmed lavender today, his tears would only ruin them.
“The children -”
“Know their Yu-shushu adores them,” Jiang Yanli cuts him off to soothe. “Children go through phases where they’re beginning to learn and think for themselves, and sometimes they lose their way while they test their new boundaries. I can talk to them if you’d like me to, make sure they know that the casual way you show your love for them isn’t an invitation to disrespect you.”
Mo Xuanyu considers telling her not to worry about it, but..he can’t escape the mental image of being pushed to the background as the children grow, shunted aside because he doesn’t fit their idea of what they want their family to look like to people they want to impress. Even little Xiao-Ye will one day be old enough to possibly push him away like that no matter how much they adore each other now, and the thought breaks his heart. His family is all he has in the world - he doesn’t want to lose them because they’re ashamed to know him.
“Please,” he says instead, then. The children always listen to Jiang Yanli - as they should, she’s a wonderful mother. If she tells them to respect him, they will. If she tells them to be gentle with him for a while as he finds his feet again after this newest blow to his confidence, they will. He can trust her.
“Alright,” she hums, as easily as if they had just agreed that clouds are white. “I’ll talk to them, and I’ll begin with A-Ling. Do you want to help me decide how he should make this up to you?”
“No! No, that’s okay,” he protests as he finally straightens up to wipe at his cheeks. Jiang Yanli tuts and pulls a handkerchief from her sleeve to dab gently under his eyes, cleaning the smears of his makeup. “I...I trust you and A-Xuan to take care of it.”
“Okay. Come on, let’s go get you cleaned up, hm? You’ve smudged your kohl.”
He nods and follows along at her side as they turn back to the family pavilions and his nerves settle further as he realizes they’re heading for Qin Su’s rooms. She opens the door just as they reach the steps and Mo Xuanyu offers her a watery smile.
“Su-jie,” he wheedles with a pout to see her smile. “Mean boys have ruined my makeup again.”
“Oh dear,” she says gently, playing along - unfortunately his makeup getting ruined was a common occurrence when he began wearing it, and he had frequently come to Qin Su both for comfort and for her help in reapplying. “Come inside, come on. We’ll make you even more beautiful than before.”
#the untamed fanfic#Lan Jingyi#Mo Xuanyu#Lan Jingyi/Mo Xuanyu#Nonbinary Mo Xuanyu#Junior Quartet#Jiang Yanli#Qin Su#this will be multichaptered but I don't know how many#for as long as I've been working on it in bits and pieces it's not actually a cohesive whole with a plot or anything#but I've had this beginning written for like. Over a year now I think#So I figured I could at least share this much lol#Also this is 100% an exercise to find out how much gender fuckery and cis4trans love I can fit into one fic#don't get me wrong I love a good t4t but idk this dynamic compels me
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After Each Midnight Begins A New Day
Extra #13c - Technically A Cutsleeve? (Mo Xuanyu and Lan Jingyi)
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]
[Masterpost] [AO3]
Instead of a snippet for WIP Wednesday this week how about an entire chapter? I'd like to say it's one of the ones I've been working on here and there but....I wrote all of this a WHILE ago and thought I wanted to add more then decided I didn't so. OH WELL here it is anyway, new chapter of 'Technically A Cutsleeve?'
-/-
“Mo-gongzi, are you sure you’re ah…ready?” Zizhen asks, and though Jingyi heartily seconds that question he’s glad that someone else has asked it.
“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” Mo Xuanyu asks breezily, like he isn’t standing across from Jingyi in the Jins’ training yard with a borrowed practice blade in his hand still dressed like he’s ready to go hold court with Jin-zongzhu at any moment. The multiple layers of his full skirts flutter ever so slightly in the breeze and the jewels in his hair and dangling from his ears catch the afternoon sunlight with little winks when he turns his head to smile at Jin Ling, Sizhui, and Zizhen standing far enough away to not be in danger.
“Well, it’s just -”
“Just let him do it,” Jin Ling interrupts to grumble. “He’s got robes to train in if he wants, but if he doesn’t want to then he doesn’t have to.”
“Aw, thanks A-Ling! So considerate of your shushu,” Mo Xuanyu teases, and Jingyi doesn’t bother hiding his smirk when Jin Ling visibly flinches at the not-so-subtle reminder that he hasn’t been considerate so far. “He used to tell that to the rest of the disciples too, when we were kids.”
“If you’re sure then I’m ready to start when you are,” Jingyi says mostly so that Mo Xuanyu can’t say anything else to make him inclined to forgive Jin Ling any faster.
Sparring with Mo Xuanyu is, unsurprisingly, fun. Jingyi starts their first round with the easiest forms he knows, the ones he helps teach to the youngest of the juniors when they’re ready to graduate from working on their forms alone to sparring each other in preparation to start night hunts in a few years. He isn’t sure how far Mo Xuanyu got in his sword training before he’d decided not to pursue martial discipleship, but it’s clear very quickly that he at least knows how to do that much and so Jingyi ups the difficulty as they go.
Mo Xuanyu is by no means a natural swordsman – but Jingyi doesn’t think that he would ever claim to be one in the first place, and so their match becomes more of an exhibition than an outright match like he might be inclined to do with his friends. He looks gorgeous anyway, practically glowing in the afternoon light and ever so slightly disheveled around the edges, stray hairs sticking to his temples and at the nape of his neck by the time Jingyi whirls to a stop with him to a round of clapping from the other three off to the side.
The smile Mo Xuanyu gives him likely wouldn’t be considered blinding by anyone else - it’s small and maybe a little shy around the edges, rouged lips just barely tipped up at the corners until the little yedian marks at the corners of his mouth dip into proper dimples - but Jingyi feels like he shouldn’t be allowed to witness such a stunning thing at all. “Thank you, Lan-gongzi,” Mo Xuanyu says, his tone somehow even gentler than Sizhui’s. “That was fun.”
Jingyi feels as winded as if the relatively gentle bout had ended with him slammed flat down on his back. “No need,” he responds without thinking. “I’m happy to do it again anytime.”
“I’ll hold you to that. Who’s next?” That last is thankfully directed to the others and Jingyi exhales as quietly as he can manage to hide how much it shivers in his chest. The look Sizhui gives him as Jingyi trades places with Zizhen is far more knowing than he’d prefer, but with Jin Ling right there there’s no way for his friend to ask him about it discreetly, and so he’s mercifully safe for a little while longer at least.
His luck continues to hold, surprisingly enough, and he has to wonder after a couple of days if it isn’t actually luck but instead Sizhui respecting the fact that he clearly doesn’t feel ready to talk about it, which is actually sweet enough that he almost considers telling him. Almost. Honestly if he were to choose any of his friends to discuss romance with it would probably be Zizhen first, but even then the thought of saying anything about it out loud, the thought of bringing anybody else into something so personal like that makes him a bit…squirmy. Especially considering it’s not just some vague idea of romance but that it actively involves someone else. And not just any someone else, but the last single son of the wealthiest great cultivation family, who oh yes, that’s right, is also their best friend’s uncle.
Gods this is awkward!
Still. If he doesn’t say it out loud to anybody else then it’s only awkward to him, and he can take that no problem. He’s been awkward in one way or another for his entire life after all, whether that be in the way he hadn’t been able to effectively control himself at all as a child and had therefore wound up punished more often than any other disciple in his generation, or the way he fumbles through social situations that he very rarely has the ‘proper’ responses to as expected by the rest of the world when they catch sight of his obviously Lan robes and headband. He can be awkward about this too, a little awkwardness hasn’t killed him yet.
It’s a fact he has to remind himself of every single time he sees Mo Xuanyu going about his daily life in Jinlintai, looking absolutely devastating without even seeming to try. After the eighth time he stumbles over nothing because he caught a glimpse of rouged lips and fluttering skirts he has to accept the fact that he’s been similarly cursed with the Lan heart and resign himself to his pining fate.
A week after all of these revelations upended his entire life and understanding of himself, Jingyi is distinctly relieved to leave Jinlintai for a couple days on a nighthunt with his friends and Jin Fei, who’s apparently old enough now to be leading his own nighthunts if he wants and so is perfectly fine to tag along with the four of them. He’s good company, so much like Jin Ling but more relaxed than his brother in the way that Jingyi sort of thinks all second-born kids are allowed to be. After all, Jin Ling is the Sect Heir, it stands to reason that his younger brother would be more relaxed about life in general considering he probably isn’t being raised with so many expectations as a Sect Leader has. (Though, he supposes, the same absolutely can’t be said for Lan-xiansheng as the second brother, so maybe in the end it really does still come down to personality.)
They spend the first night tracking their prey through the forest surrounding a small farming village near the Lanling border, the next day preparing their tools for the hunt, and that night bagging their prey rather neatly, all things considered. Not that the yaoguai went down easily, of course, but there are five of them to one of it, and there hasn’t been anything particularly vicious even in border towns without large sects nearby since Lianfang-zun’s watchtower idea was implemented as a joint effort by the great sects some years back. Still, a hunt is a hunt and outside of his occasional bouts of restlessness he is still a Lan, and therefore accustomed to going to bed at hai shi if at all possible – by the time they’re finished and bedding down for what few hours of the night are left, Lan Jingyi is utterly exhausted, hollowed out in the way he knows means he’s pushed himself (and his golden core) just a bit too far to be safe.
He’s lying on his back in his little one-man tent a safe distance away from the fire when the sound of talking rouses him from the doze he’d just barely slipped into, the others not used to sleeping as early as him even after a tiring hunt.
“Xiao-shushu told me you came and apologized about asking him to hide,” Jin Fei murmurs after some quiet jostling for position, barely audible over the crackling fire even with Jingyi’s qi-enhanced hearing.
“Yeah. So what? You think I shouldn’t have?”
“I think you shouldn’t have done anything that needed apologizing for in the first place,” Jin Fei’s response is outwardly lazy but the barb hidden in it is unmistakable. “You know dad came and told the rest of us we had to make sure to be extra nice to him for a while to make sure he knows we respect him? You really messed with his head this time, ge.”
Jin Ling sighs heavily and Jingyi uses the noise of it to cover the sound of him shifting enough to sit up and peek through the opening of his tent to where the pair of them are sitting in front of the fire, nothing more than nearly identical orange-limned silhouettes against the flames.
“Alright, fine! So I’m the worst behaved out of all of us, is that it then?”
“You said it, not me.”
“A-Fei!”
“Don’t pinch me A-Ling, how old are we?” Jin Fei snaps and Jingyi rolls his eyes as the pair of them wrestle for a second, shoving and pinching until they’re both apparently satisfied with the amount of roughhousing and settle again. At least that explains why Jin Ling shows his affection with shouting most of the time, he supposes.
“What did the others think about..what dad said?” Jin Ling asks once they’ve settled again, and Jingyi finds himself holding his breath as he waits for the answer. The only thing that would hurt Mo Xuanyu worse than Jin Ling being embarrassed of him, he thinks, is if the rest of Jin Ling’s siblings are too. He’s seen firsthand now how much Mo Xuanyu treasures every single member of his family – and he knows exactly what it’s like to face criticisms and uncertainty about where he belongs amongst the people that are supposed to be the closest to him. He hopes that Mo Xuanyu won’t have to be subjected to the same sort of pain.
“About what you’d expect, I guess. Lulu said she’d ask him to sit with her for her next three etiquette lessons with mom so she can make extra sure to ask him for help since mom taught him the same things before. A-Zhuang didn’t say anything but he nodded a lot with that look on his face that he gets when Great-uncle Lan brings him a new score to learn. A-Yu and A-Yan wanted to come after you with their knives but dad said no.”
Jin Ling sighs long and slow and Jingyi gets the sense that he’s scrubbing at his face judging by the way his silhouette shifts.
“I really fucked up this time, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. Think so.”
“Do you think mom’s going to tell anybody else?”
“Like who?”
Jin Ling huffs a sigh again and gestures expansively with a hand, sleeve trailing dramatically in the wake of it with a quiet swish.
“Oh I don’t know - any of the rest of our army of uncles, all of whom love jumping on any chance to scold me??”
“Ah come on, A-Ling, they’re not that bad! They’re hard on you because you’re the Heir, that’s all, and so many of them are Sect Leaders too. They can’t help it. But now that I’m old enough to go out hunting and everything they’re hard on me too, it isn’t just you. I swear I couldn’t shake da-jiu off the entire time I was in Cloud Recesses last summer, he wouldn’t quit pestering me to make sure I was working hard and getting along with all the other disciples…or fighting with the ones I didn’t and winning, even though I was getting along with everyone just fine. I didn’t mind too much though. They only want us to grow up well, you know? Xiao-shushu included.”
“I bet Uncle Nie wouldn’t scold me,” Jin Ling mutters as if he hadn’t heard a word his brother said.
“Which one? Pretty sure Uncle Jue would string you up by your toes.”
“I know that! Obviously I meant Uncle Sang. He never scolds anybody.”
“Mhm. Except he also acts just like da-jiu and xiao-shushu, so he’d probably be offended that you were embarrassed enough to ask xiao-shushu to hide like that and then scold you anyway. Or else er-jiu would do it on Uncle Sang’s behalf, and he’s great at scolding.”
Jingyi can’t tell if his head hurts from the sheer volume of uncles these two have to keep straight or if it’s from exerting too much spiritual energy on the nighthunt, but either way his temples are starting to feel tight.
“A-Fei…be honest with me.”
“About what?”
“You made friends at Cloud Recesses. You know how other people talk about people like xiao-shushu. Would you be eager for him to meet your friends, especially if they’ve never met someone like him before?”
Jin Fei is quiet for long enough that Jingyi wonders if he’s going to answer at all, that carefree attitude he typically sports apparently giving way for serious contemplation when needed. More surprising than that is that Jin Ling doesn’t rush him through the answer with his usual impatience, instead just letting him sit and think it through at his own pace.
“I think…people meet new types of people they’ve never seen before almost every day, especially as young as us, so it’s useless to worry about how they’ll react since it won’t change anything. If they meet him now or someone else like him later, it doesn’t really make much of a difference does it? I know that there are plenty of people who have said cruel things about xiao-shushu, especially when he first came to Jinlintai, and then again after he quit his cultivation training to start learning etiquette from mom and Su-gugu. Why should we add to it, or our friends? And if you’ve made friends with the kinds of people who would say those things about someone who’s just a little different than them then…maybe they aren’t the type of people you should be friends with in the first place. And yours have all accepted him anyway, haven’t they?”
“Yeah. They have.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I guess there isn’t one,” Jin Ling huffs, sounding very much like the admission pains him. Jingyi, rather uncharitably, hopes that it does (and promises the frowning Lan Qiren who lives in his head that he’ll assign himself lines for it when they get back to Jinlintai tomorrow).
“How much longer are your friends here for?”
“Another week.”
“Oh good - do you think Ouyang-gongzi has any more romance novels he can lend me? I’ve read through the ones he gave me last week-”
“Are you serious? That’s it?” Jin Ling demands.
“What?! I thought you said there isn’t a problem! What else is there to talk about??”
Jingyi rolls his eyes as the brothers go in for another scuffle. He’s too tired to care about sibling bonding or whatever now that they’ve finished talking about Mo Xuanyu, so he lays down as quietly as he can and settles in to try to go to sleep, his heart a little lighter than before to hear Jin Fei defending his uncle so…simply. And in doing so defending them too; honestly the thought of Jin Ling doubting their ability to be kind to someone who’s eccentric but ultimately harmless is a little insulting, though he’s going to be oh-so-kind and not force his friend to apologize for that on top of everything else he needs to make right.
The next morning when they wake and begin preparing to return to Jinlintai, Jin Ling seems a bit subdued but Jingyi doesn’t bother offering him comfort. He’s had to apologize to plenty of people in his life for thoughtless words and actions that hurt them, and he knows well that the only times it really stuck was when he was pushed to sit and deal with his guilt on his own.
Instead, he spends the morning anxiously (but happily) thinking ahead to returning to Jinlintai. They’ll only be staying in Lanling for another week or so before their duties will pull them apart again, and though he knows he should probably be dreading separating from his friends (which he is!) he finds that what he’s dreading more is losing Mo Xuanyu’s company. It’s perfectly logical that it seems worse, really, since Jingyi isn’t sure when he’ll next make it to Jinlintai, but he could always arrange to meet up with the others anywhere their nighthunting may take them. Mo Xuanyu doesn’t ever really leave Lanling, but unless Jin Ling invites him to visit again Jingyi won’t have any solid excuses to see the Jin family in their home. He’ll just have to content himself with what he can manage this last week, and make the most of it.
They arrive back in Jinlintai a shichen or so after midday, the flight having taken a little longer than at the outset thanks to the extra energy they’d expended hunting down the yaoguai. By the time they’re landing in the front courtyard at the top of the steps Mo Xuanyu and Jin Zixuan are both waiting for them, Jin Lu on her father’s hip though none of the rest of Jin Ling’s siblings in sight.
“Dad,” Jin Ling greets as they touch down. “Yu-shushu.”
“Boys. Welcome back,” Jin Zixuan replies, warm and pleased. He jostles Jin Lu in his arms slightly and whispers something in her ear that makes her lift her head to glare at all five of them hard enough that they all raise their hands in immediate surrender.
“You’re late!! You better not be hurt!”
Jingyi just barely manages not to laugh at her vehemence and turns his attention to Mo Xuanyu as the others all rush forward to reassure her in a jostling pack, all of them clearly aiming to make her laugh. At his glance, Mo Xuanyu steps forward with something teasing in his posture, hands clasped behind his back and his steps long and lilting to match the smirk on his lips.
“Xuanyu,” Jingyi greets (quietly) when he’s close enough, through a genuine smile and around the desire to clear his throat of the attraction that threatens to choke him.
“Jingyi.” Mo Xuanyu’s voice is honey sweet, pitched low and soothing — masculine. Confident. Jingyi’s knees nearly buckle. Two and a half days’ reprieve from Mo Xuanyu’s charms has apparently only made him weaker to them, rather than making him more immune as he’d foolishly hoped. “It’s good to see you back in one piece.”
“It was an easy hunt with the others there,” Jingyi deflects with practiced ease. “I barely even did anything-”
“Somehow I find that hard to believe,” Mo Xuanyu teases, eyes glittering. He brings his hands out from behind his back to reach out for Jingyi’s arm, a gesture that sets his heart racing even before Mo Xuanyu’s cool fingers wrap around his wrist and press in gently to check his pulse. “Mhm, just like I thought! Your qi is low, and your pulse is unsteady. Were you injured?”
“No, honestly, I’m fine-”
“You should still come see the healers with me,” Mo Xuanyu interrupts him again, still smiling slyly up at him. His fingers tighten ever so slightly around Jingyi’s wrist, no longer reading his pulse but just..holding onto him. Shameless. Jingyi’s neck burns under his high collar and he hopes it isn’t obvious how flustered just that single innocent touch is making him.
“Ge, I’m going to take Lan-gongzi to the infirmary,” Mo Xuanyu calls over his shoulder, their locked hands hidden from the others between their chests. “A-Ling, can you make sure the kitchens send over something nourishing for him to eat?”
“The infirmary?” Jin Ling barks over the sound of Jin Lu laughter for the others’ exuberant fussing. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m-”
“Just a check-up, A-Ling, don’t worry!”
“I’m just a bit too tired after the hunt and the flight back,” Jingyi relents, because in the end he’s pretty sure Mo Xuanyu will get his way no matter what anyone else has to say about it. Jingyi wonders for a moment if it should bother him that he’s apparently so easy to boss around like that. But then Mo Xuanyu is smiling up at him sweetly enough to wipe his mind completely clean as meditation has never been able to accomplish, and suddenly he finds he doesn’t particularly care anymore.
“Be more careful then, idiot!” Jin Ling huffs at him, so Jingyi sticks his tongue out at his friend over Mo Xuanyu’s head — because even though Jin Ling is probably right and he should be more careful it’s the principle of the thing — but allows himself to be led away before Jin Ling has finished his grumbling.
“Your qi really does feel pretty low, Jingyi, and I know you’ve usually got plenty of it to spare,” Mo Xuanyu tells him once they’re out of earshot of everyone else, heading deeper into the confusing maze of Jinlintai in the direction he assumes leads to the doctors. “What happened?”
“Overextended myself a bit, I suppose,” he shrugs. “It’s probably nothing worth bothering the healers about, you know. I’ll meditate and recover it this afternoon, it’s really fine -“
“Jingyi,” Mo Xuanyu interrupts him, low and serious. He lets the smaller man tug him to a halt to peer up at him again and Jingyi’s face immediately flushes warmer under such focused attention. “I know you’re right, and you could fix it on your own, I trust you. But is it alright if I worry about you and try to help?”
Jingyi manages to bite down on the tip of his tongue to keep from asking the first question that springs to his mind which is, of course, ‘why?’ With his tongue thus trapped, though, all he can do is nod (it doesn’t even cross his mind to deny Mo Xuanyu what he wants) and the smile he gets in return makes his heart thud hard enough in his chest that maybe, he thinks, he should go see the healers. Mo Xuanyu takes him by the arm, hand tucked neatly into his elbow like he’d done that very first night they’d met, and Jingyi lets himself be towed along more than happily, still flushed and off-kilter enough that he can’t stop smiling as they go.
#the untamed fanfic#Technically A Cutsleeve?#Lan Jingyi#Mo Xuanyu#Lan Jingyi/Mo Xuanyu#Nonbinary Mo Xuanyu#Junior Quartet#Jingyi like all Good Lan Boys falls hard and fast with all the subtlety of a freight train#bless his heart#also this fought me on the formatting so fuckin hard so sorry if it looks weird I had to copy it from google docs#paste it into AO3 then copy it from AO3 into word to get rid of the weird spaces between paragraphs#and then paste it all into here again so. hope it was worth it for y'all lol
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After Each Midnight Begins A New Day
Extra #13b - 'Technically A Cutsleeve?' (Mo Xuanyu and Lan Jingyi)
[Part 1] [Part 2]
[Masterpost] [AO3]
-/-
Jingyi stares up at the shadowed ceiling of his guest quarters and Thinks.
It isn’t unheard of for him to be unable to sleep despite it being well past hai shi - it happens every so often that his mind won’t quit running itself in circles even if he’s physically tired, and he’s even got special permission in Cloud Recesses to be up and about at any time of night (so long as he keeps quiet and doesn’t disturb others’ sleep with his restless wandering). But this isn’t Cloud Recesses, and though it seems like Lanling city far beneath the tower never sleeps, he still doesn’t think anyone here in Jinlintai would take kindly to him pacing around the halls in the dead of night.
So he stays put in his bed, and he thinks about Mo Xuanyu.
Throughout Jingyi’s (relatively sheltered) life, he’s had no shortage of examples of relationships to look up to and help him attempt to decide what he might, hypothetically speaking, want for himself and his own future. His parents, from what he can remember, were very much in love. He hopes they still are, he hopes they’re still alive and cultivating together on the back mountain like they’d left him behind to do shortly after he’d turned five. He dimly remembers watching his mother kiss the top of his father’s head any time he was seated at the table in their home, and the way his father would always smile back at her, or pour her tea, or fetch her her favorite books down from the shelf just to read them to her himself. He’s always loved to think of them like that, happy and sweet.
He’s seen Hanguang-Jun and Wei-qianbei over the years - what he privately thinks of as a ‘traditional’ cutsleeve relationship, if one can really call it that. Cutsleeve pairs weren’t unheard of before Hanguang-Jun and Wei-qianbei fell in love, but the practice wasn’t exactly in fashion either. But then, so the story goes, they’d wanted to marry as young children, and Jiang-zongzhu had humored his ward and thought little of it, seeing as cutsleeve pairs had been (relatively) common in Lotus Pier. The Jiang don’t seem to bother making much of a distinction between relationships between men and women and those between cutsleeves, and Grandmaster Lan, who’d been acting sect leader at the time, had allowed it for reasons everyone can only guess at. Jingyi has always thought that was romantic too, the way Hanguang-Jun and Wei-qianbei had fallen for each other so young and in the course of pursuing each other had changed the very culture around romantic relationships in the Cloud Recesses - after all, if Hanguang-Jun is allowed and encouraged to have a husband, why can’t others be cutsleeves as well?
And then of course there’s Zewu-Jun, Lianfang-Zun, and Chifeng-Zun. Jingyi’s mind still boggles a little sometimes if he thinks too hard about how that works, but he knows better than to try to ask anyone his questions. It’s not something he could ever imagine for himself anyway - with men or women - so he supposes it doesn’t matter.
The point is - Jingyi has seen cutsleeve relationships of all sorts over the years in his own sect and in others, and he’s never once felt that it’s right for him. He’s never seen a man, no matter how handsome, and felt the same sort of fluttering, shivery anticipation he feels sometimes for pretty women. It’s a sensation that he’s been heartily reassured is attraction and therefore he should closely monitor it to ensure he doesn’t allow it to become a distraction from his cultivation.
What he’s never felt able to confess to another living soul, though, is that in the last couple years or so he’s grown afraid that he’ll never meet someone he truly wants to settle down with. He’s met pretty women and they’re fun to flirt with in passing in the same way that he likes making anyone laugh and feel happy. How is he supposed to pursue something as fleeting as that and turn it into a lifelong partnership, even if he’s definitely attracted to them physically?
He hadn’t known until today that someone like Mo Xuanyu could even exist, and it’s making him feel as if everything he’d thought about himself, everything he’s been afraid of, is pointless. He can understand, in abstract, the appeal of a cutsleeve relationship. He’s comfortable around men, he knows how to talk to men, how to behave with them. He’s also comfortable enough around women, though he knows he has to behave differently, talk differently. As Gusu Lan’s head disciple as a boy - and now as a skilled full cultivator of a Great Sect in his adulthood - his interactions with women always feel so…loaded. It’s difficult to feel as if he can truly become friends with any women not in his sect, and he’s already decided that he isn’t interested in any of the eligible Lan women his age.
He’s thought plenty of times before that things would be so much easier if he were attracted to men, if he could marry someone who had been easy and comfortable to befriend, if they could go forward through life as friendly companions and never have to bother with flirting and courting and dating and all that mess. But at the same time - he wants to court someone. He likes flirting, and who could ever say that they don’t enjoy a pretty face? It would just be nice if those things could fit nicely together - all the ease and comfort of a man, and the beauty of an elegant woman.
Someone like Mo Xuanyu.
Jingyi groans to himself and covers his face with both hands as if that could help his mind stop turning itself in anxious circles like a dog snapping at its own tail. He’s heard plenty about Mo Xuanyu over the years of being Jin Ling’s friend, of course, but somehow his friend had neglected to mention that his uncle is so beautiful there must be reams of poetry written about him somewhere if there’s any justice in the world at all. He’d never once told them that Mo Xuanyu dresses and moves like any wealthy woman of the gentry, but that he still seems perfectly comfortable and natural in the company of men without any of the distance of propriety Jingyi’s so used to with women. It’s maddeningly attractive in a way Jingyi has never felt before, and he suddenly understands why he’s been warned not to let physical desire run away from him.
Which, of course, begs the question - is he even allowed to be attracted to Mo Xuanyu? Jingyi isn’t a nobody, necessarily, but he’s realistic about his position in life. He’s lucky enough to have made friends with three sect heirs who truly respect him and see him as an equal, but that doesn’t really mean much as far as the rest of cultivation society is concerned. Jingyi is, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. He’s closely enough related to the main branch of the family to be a reluctant consideration for sect heir in the absence of literally anyone else better born for it, but Lan Xiafeng will probably step up to take the position soon unless Zewu-Jun and his husbands find a child to adopt and name as heir. Jingyi was the head disciple while he was still a student disciple, but now that he’s a fully-fledged senior cultivator that distinction doesn’t really matter anymore. He’s just…a Lan. One of many. And Mo Xuanyu is not only a direct member of a powerful and wealthy gentry family, he’s also technically of the older generation. He may be the very youngest of it, and Jingyi one of the oldest of his generation, but that line is still there. Jin Ling still calls him ‘shushu’ and is expected to show him the proper filial respect, whether he actually does or not. How could Jingyi ever hope to bridge that divide while keeping Mo Xuanyu’s reputation intact and not causing offense?
Besides - Mo Xuanyu is Jin Ling’s uncle. There must be some kind of unspoken rule about that, not courting your best friend’s unfairly beautiful uncle, and Jingyi doesn’t want to find out for sure that it exists by upsetting the balance of their little foursome with an inappropriate crush.
Jingyi flips over onto his stomach to bury his face in his pillow and groan again. It’s too hot in Lanling and he feels stifled under his blanket, his trousers and shirt are all twisted up around him now from his restless stirring, and his mind is still running incessantly, so in the interest of not going insane he shoves himself up out of bed to give into the inevitable and start pacing.
Moving helps him focus his thoughts a bit more, but it doesn’t help him stop thinking about Mo Xuanyu, or about what this might mean as to how he’s understood himself these last few years - nor does it help him sleep. He changes his clothes at dawn and forces himself to stick to the schedule ingrained in him over the course of his entire life. His golden core is more than strong enough to push through a bit of exhaustion from one sleepless night, so he meditates and prepares for the day as well as he can with his mind still hounding on the same exact things he’s been obsessing over all night long.
He goes to breakfast still feeling distinctly unsettled, and any hope he might have had of hiding it promptly flies out the window when he arrives for two reasons he can’t even be annoyed with.
Sizhui takes one look at him and frowns softly, obviously concerned. Their guest quarters share a wall, and it’s unlikely that a cultivator as keen as him hadn’t heard the way Jingyi was up pacing all night long even though he’d tried to keep quiet.
Mo Xuanyu smiles sweetly up at him from where he’s kneeling with little Jin Ye in his lap to cajole her into eating her breakfast and Lan Jingyi is absolutely certain that none of his questions about what all this means actually matter - which in turn leaves him hopelessly defenseless against trying not to look absolutely gobsmacked by his attraction to this impossible man.
“Are you alright?” Sizhui asks when Jingyi sits down beside him and he brushes it off with a smile and a jostle of their elbows, some joke he doesn’t bother to think too hard about already on his lips. That’s easier; it’s like when he was a kid and he never knew how to answer questions in class, or when adults would ask him what he thought he was doing with a punishment already in mind. Jokes are safe and they make people happy, he’s good at using them to deflect attention away from himself, he doesn’t even have to think about it anymore. Which is good considering Jingyi feels like he’s one more happy glance from Mo Xuanyu away from blurting out that he’s already picturing a future together despite his sleepless night spent trying to convince himself not to fall for him just yet just yet.
(Oops.)
Jingyi eats as quickly as is polite and makes his escape the moment Sizhui looks like he’s done as well, which means that it’s only a matter of minutes before they’re safely on their own in the gardens where Sizhui pins him with that damn look of his that’s kind and understanding but also leaves no room at all to successfully bullshit him. (Having met Wen Qing a couple of times now, Lan Jingyi knows exactly who he learned it from, though her version is usually not gentle at all.)
“If I apologize for keeping you up with my pacing will that be enough to get me out of this conversation?” he asks somewhat desperately. Sizhui’s smile just widens and he tips his head a little to the side in a gesture that’s all Wen Qionglin.
“It doesn’t, but thank you, it only woke me up briefly and I was able to go back to sleep when I was sure you weren’t leaving to go off on your own somewhere to get into trouble.”
“Where would I have gone to get myself in trouble?”
“Out of all of us you’re the most upset with Jin Ling for how he treated Mo-gongzi. I thought you might want to go punish him yourself.”
“Well that brat needs someone willing to smack some manners into him,” Jingi grumbles and crosses his arms tightly over his chest. “I’m happy to take on such a sacred duty for the good of all mankind - hey!”
Sizhui pockets his needles again calmly when Jingyi yelps and jerks away from him, the implicit threat startling a laugh out of him even as he escapes out of reach. If only Sizhui would do that in front of people who think he’s purely sweet and not at all a little shit under that polite exterior, but alas, he plays his cards too well to ever get caught being the absolute gremlin he is.
Jingyi’s distraction tactic has thankfully done its job, though, and before Sizhui can insist on him spilling what’s on his mind he hears Zizhen calling out from behind them, Jin Ling hot on his heels, and the chance to corner him is thankfully cut short for the time being. Safe for now, but he’s savvy enough to know that he’ll have to get more and more creative if he’s going to manage it again.
The presence of all three of his friends is a decent distraction for most of the morning, the only problem is that apparently Mo Xuanyu had been really good at hiding before, and now that he’s not bothering to hide anymore he’s everywhere. Over the course of the morning Jingyi spots him no less than six times, though always at a distance and simply in passing as the man goes about his beautiful business.
And then disaster strikes at the afternoon meal.
“Mo-gongzi,” Sizhui starts with an innocent little smile. “You mentioned before that it might be possible to persuade you to come spar with us if we ask at the right time - could I persuade you today?”
Jingyi feels flushed from head to toe at the laughing, sly look Mo Xuanyu sends Sizhui, who’s still smiling peacefully like he isn’t a monster out to kill Jingyi specifically. “Wen-gongzi, you flatter this humble one,” Mo Xuanyu teases with a little half-bow accompanied by the quiet tinkling of the chains dangling from his hair pins, the pair of jade bracelets on his wrist clacking ever so slightly as he reaches for his cup to toast Sizhui. “I’d be happy to join you, I’m not needed anywhere else.
Jingyi risks a glance over at Jin Ling and can’t help but think that it’s good it had been Sizhui to bring it up - he’s pretty sure Jin Ling would have outright murdered anyone else for trying if he didn’t die of embarrassment first. Something hot and protective takes ugly root in Jingyi’s chest at the sight of his friend’s grimace, and his irritation with him for being so awful to his uncle creeps back up to the surface, not so easily pushed down again this time like he’s been trying to do since yesterday.
What’s he so embarrassed about anyway? Jin Ling has described some of Mo Xuanyu’s wilder stunts to them before, but they hadn’t been anything that Jingyi himself wouldn’t think up if given the same choices, so it can’t really be that. He wonders abruptly if it has to do with the way Mo Xuanyu dresses, the way Zizhen had mistaken him for a woman when they’d bumped into him in the gardens the day before, and if that’s the case then Jingyi really is going to run him around the practice ring a few extra times to give him a nice set of bruises. He’d do it even if he hadn’t already developed a rather unfortunate crush; as someone who’s never really fit in with the family he was born into, he finds it especially difficult to tolerate seeing others shamed for the same thing.
“Your uncle’s cool,” Jingyi tells Jin Ling at the first available opportunity once they’ve finished eating. They aren’t planning to spar for a little longer yet so they’re wandering the gardens again, this time skirting around a lotus pond under an arched bridge in the family quarters, and Jin Ling turns to glare at him suspiciously.
“Which one?”
Jingyi doesn’t bother trying not to roll his eyes. “Which one do you think? Mo Xuanyu. I bumped into him last night on my way back to the guest quarters so he walked me back, and Sizhui got him to hang out with us for a while. He’s nice, I like him. So do Zizhen and Sizhui.”
“You - what?!”
Jingyi stops walking and turns to face Jin Ling, his smile slipping just a little in the face of his friend’s baffled spluttering. “We invited him to spend some time with us last night after dinner, and we were lucky enough that he agreed. He’s nice, A-Ling. Don’t keep him away from us anymore, alright?”
Jingyi claps Jin Ling on the shoulder once, just shy of too hard to be entirely friendly, before he turns and runs up to where Sizhui and Zizhen are walking ahead of them to sling his arms around their shoulders and jostle them into wrestling him off them, all three of them laughing even as Jin Ling recovers enough to snap at them to cut it out.
#the untamed fanfic#Technically A Cutsleeve?#Mo Xuanyu#Lan Jingyi#Lan Jingyi/Mo Xuanyu#Nonbinary Mo Xuanyu#Junior Quartet#Jingyi is specifically attracted to gender fuckery#Like that is the basis of his attraction even if he doesn't have the language to describe it#He wants masculinity and femininity in one person but had no idea until he was confronted by someone who can offer that#and suddenly he's like 'oh this is why Lans love Like That okay I get it' lol#Also Black Sheep Un-Lanest-Lan Jingyi doesn't know what it's like to struggle with his gender but he does know what it's like#to be eccentric and weird by your family's standards and struggle to feel accepted for who he is so he's particularly sensitive#to Jin Ling's behavior about all of this
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After Each Midnight Begins A New Day
Extra #13a - 'Technically A Cutsleeve?' (Mo Xuanyu and Lan Jingyi)
[Part 1]
[Masterpost] [AO3]
-/-
For the first time since the arrival of their visitors in Jinlintai, Mo Xuanyu attends dinner with his family. He’s missed them this week and a half, eating his meals alone in his rooms, but he tries not to let it show too much as he listens to the familiar patterns of their conversation now interrupted and enriched by the voices of their three visitors.
None of the guests speak to him directly during the meal, but that’s fine by him. Jin Lu monopolizes his attention for the evening instead, regaling him with every story she deems important that he’s missed while not attending family meals, and by the time she’s yawning over her last bowl of soup everyone else is preparing to leave for their beds as well. He rises and helps Jin Lu and Jin Zhuang to their feet, taking their hands in his and saying his goodnights to everyone he needs to before he leads the children from the pavilion to take them to their own rooms. He feels eyes on his back as he leaves, but what else is new.
Mo Xuanyu puts the children to bed with a story for Jin Lu and an affectionate, gentle headbutt - forehead to forehead - for Jin Zhuang, who has recently decided he’s much too old for lullabies unless he plays them for himself on his guqin.
He’s making his way slowly back to his own rooms, lost in thought, when he hears his name and he stops, turning to look for the source only to realize he’s outside Jin Ling’s rooms. He climbs the steps on silent feet to shamelessly eavesdrop, surprised to hear Jin Zixuan rather than Jiang Yanli through the closed door.
“...-havior towards Yu-didi has been completely unacceptable, A-Ling,” Jin Zixuan is saying and it’s clear that though the scolding has already begun, it’s still early yet. Mo Xuanyu settles in with his shoulder and ear pressed to the wooden doorframe, arms crossed over his chest as he listens. “You singled him out as the only member of the family not to meet your friends when they arrived, and I said nothing because he agreed to it out of love for you; but today you treated him like he was beneath you in front of three visiting cultivators, two of whom are their sect heirs and the third of whom is his sect’s first disciple and a potential heir as well!”
“Dad -”
“Do not interrupt me right now, A-Ling. Yu-didi is not only your family, he is your senior, and he deserves your respect like anyone else of his rank - your mother and I raised you better than this. I don’t know when you got this idea in your head that Yu-didi is somehow less than my other siblings, but he is still your uncle and you do not have the right to tell him to stay isolated in the family quarters for over a week because you don’t want him to meet your friends!”
“Dad, he’s embarrassing! No one else in the world acts like he does!”
“I don’t care that you’re embarrassed, A-Ling!!” Mo Xuanyu’s breath hitches in his chest and for the second time that day his eyes fill with tears. “Have you ever once seen me lock my brother in his rooms because he embarrasses me? I’ve seen him do and say every shameless thing I can think of - and a thousand other things besides that I would have never even dreamed of - but I still make sure that he knows every day that I want him here, that this is his home and he has every right to be himself here. Do you want to know what he said to your mother after he left you and your friends in the garden?”
Utter silence greets the question and Mo Xuanyu puts a hand to his chest as if that would calm the thundering of his heart or make it easier for him to draw his next breath.
“Because of you, he’s afraid that not only you but all of your siblings will also want to keep him hidden away from everybody when it’s their turn to invite members of other sects here. He loves you so much, A-Ling, and he cried on your mother’s shoulder because he thinks you’re ashamed of people finding out you’re related, and now he’s scared that all of you feel this way. How could you do this to him?!”
“A-Xuan.” Jiang Yanli’s soft voice is hardly audible through the door. Mo Xuanyu tucks himself even closer, curling in on himself and closing his eyes to better hear her. “We should give A-Ling time to think of an appropriate way to apologize to A-Yu.”
“Fine. We’ll revisit it again tomorrow after dinner. And after your friends have finished with their visit you’re going to spend a month working with me, especially during the audiences we have with other sect leaders. It’s time you get a real look at what your uncle has to deal with from everyone outside of this family - and what he does for this sect every day without anyone’s thanks but mine, your mother’s, and Mianmian’s.”
Mo Xuanyu hastily backs away from the door and hurries soundlessly down the steps as he realizes their meeting is coming to an end and he darts around the corner towards his own pavilion with a shuddery sigh. He tucks himself into the eaves of the building to try to catch his breath, but he doesn’t get very many in before he’s tentatively interrupted.
“Mo-gongzi?”
He looks up, startled, to find Lan Jingyi hesitating a few paces away.
“Oh - Lan-gongzi. Hello,” he says with a hasty swipe of his fingertips under his eyes, grateful that Qin Su had neglected to add more kohl to his look earlier and had instead just given him a gentle kiss of pink rouge around his eyes. At least this time he isn’t in danger of smearing it everywhere with his tears.
“Ah-hah..you can just call me Jingyi if you want to,” Lan Jingyi laughs nervously and Mo Xuanyu manages to muster up a smile for him.
“Call me Xuanyu, then. I hate formalities.”
“Ah..alright. Xuanyu. Are you okay?”
“Oh. Um.”
“I’m just asking because Jin Ling was a real brat today, and..I mean. We all kind of figured he’d said or done something to get you in trouble, which is ridiculous because everyone knows he’s bound to be the bitchiest and most biased person in any confrontation, no matter who the other person is, so it’s not like whatever he could have said would have been believable.”
Mo Xuanyu blinks for a second before he has to stifle (slightly wet) laughter into his sleeve.
“Oh gods are you sure you’re a Lan, kid?”
“To just about everyone’s confusion, yeah. I get asked that a lot.”
“Yeah I’ll bet you do,” Mo Xuanyu chuckles as he dabs at his eyes with his sleeve.
“Oh, here - you don’t have to use your sleeve like that,” Lan Jingyi fumbles with his own sleeve for a second before he passes him a snow-white handkerchief and Mo Xuanyu is caught off guard by the gesture, though he doesn’t let that keep him from using the cool silk to keep drying his eyes.
“Jin Ling has told us a little bit about his family tree...situation,” Jingyi prompts when the silence has dragged on for a few long moments and Mo Xuanyu can’t help but snort at that.
“‘Situation’,” he quotes back with a nod. “Sure, that’s one way to put it. You mean how the whole thing is pretty much a circle because his uncles are all already related, and the ones who aren’t are married to each other?”
“No, I meant - wait yes! What is with that?!” Lan Jingyi bursts out and Mo Xuanyu hides another laugh in the handkerchief.
“Don’t ask me! They were all already married by the time I got here. Oh, except for Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang. I actually got to go to that one, but apparently that was just because their sect negotiations took forever since they’re both sect leaders, but they’ve been courting since they went to their lecture season in Gusu anyway so it barely counts.”
“Oh okay. Huh…Well I only mention it anyway because the idiot told us he has two Jin uncles and we all knew Lianfang-zun is in Cloud Recesses and you were here, but Jin Ling kept making really weak excuses for why you couldn’t meet us and we were all judging him. We think he was being awful.”
To say that Mo Xuanyu is startled would be the understatement of the century. He glances at the building they’re standing in the shelter of, remembers that Jin Ling’s rooms are right on the other side of the wall next to them, and without thinking he steps forward to loop his arm through Lan Jingyi’s with a conspiratorial wink.
“Walk with me,” he hums as he tugs Lan Jingyi along the path. His arm is stiff in his grip like he doesn’t quite know what to do with it and when Mo Xuanyu glances at him it’s to find that he’s blushing furiously and staring straight ahead as they walk. “So you all knew I was here, hm?” He prods as he leads Lan Jingyi away from the complex of family residences and back towards the guest quarters.
“Well I mean yeah,” Lan Jingyi snorts without a care in the world - absolutely nothing of the Lan stoicism in this one and Mo Xuanyu is delighted. “Jin Ling told us himself that you’re his uncle and that you don’t really travel so you’re always here to hang out with him and his siblings and stuff, but then you magically can’t make it to anything we’re all doing for over a week? Plus he looked guilty every time one of us asked about you. We’re not stupid!”
Mo Xuanyu is uncharacteristically quiet for a few slow steps as he thinks about how to answer. Normally he wouldn’t care, of course, but he had promised Jin Ling he wouldn’t scare his friends off, and he didn’t know yet what they could handle. He’s not very good at censoring himself though so after a long moment he sighs gustily and shakes his head a little, hair ornaments tinkling.
“A-Ling forgets sometimes, I think, that not everyone in the world is actually at his beck and call,” Mo Xuanyu says a bit tartly and Lan Jingyi laughs, short and barking. His arm finally relaxes under Mo Xuanyu’s hand as he no doubt gets over the impropriety of it and Mo Xuanyu allows himself a little smile.
“Did he tell you not to talk to us or something?”
Mo Xuanyu clears his throat a little. “Yeah. Or something.”
“He really earns his title of Young Mistress, spoiled like he is,” Lan Jingyi scoffs under his breath and Mo Xuanyu can’t help but snort, which he quickly tries to cover with little success.
“Oh gods is that what you boys call him?” he asks, delighted all over again, and he’s pleased to see Lan Jingyi grinning down at him (perhaps still a little shyly, perhaps with something curious still in his eyes, but at least he’s smiling).
“I came up with it when we were all in our lecture year. He acts just like one, don’t you think?”
“It’s perfect! I can’t believe I never thought of it before, I’m heartbroken that there’s someone out there who can tease A-Ling better than I can!”
“Mo-gongzi!”
Mo Xuanyu looks away from Lan Jingyi to find Ouyang Zizhen and Wen Sizhui sitting on the porch of the nearest of the guest pavilions under a few lanterns to ward off the gloom of dusk. He raises a hand to wave, startled when they both wave back - wave him over. He releases Lan Jingyi’s arm quickly, figuring after a moment that the gesture was for his companion and not him (and that he’d better stop teasing his nephew’s guest anyway), but even when Lan Jingyi goes to join his friends they keep looking at him as if they’re waiting for him too.
He drifts closer with a bit of caution in his steps - it’s been a very long time since he’s had a friend his own age or close to it, and certainly not young men. A-Ling is the closest he’s got since they were classmates once upon a time and could still be seen as the same martial generation if one squints, but that’s it. The concept has become a bit unfamiliar. How do people even make friends with people their own age?
“Mo-gongzi, Zizhen is telling stories to pass the time until it’s late enough to sleep,” Wen Sizhui says when Mo Xuanyu is close enough for the boy to be heard without having to speak up. “Would you like to join us?”
“Me?” he asks, startled, and though he’s expecting a flippant response like the type he usually gets from his nieces and nephews, this time all he gets instead is three quick nods, all just slightly out of sync with each other and painfully earnest. “Oh...Yes, alright,” he agrees with a little thrill for the novelty of it, being invited into a space. He steps up onto the porch to fall gracefully to his knees on the fourth side of the table, and something of his tentative pleasure for the invitation must show on his face because Lan Jingyi shoots him a smug smirk from across the table.
It’s almost like..like he’s proud that they got him to join them. Like Mo Xuanyu’s presence at their table for the evening is something he’ll be able to gloat about in the future.
(Mo Xuanyu does, incidentally, overhear him gloating about it to Jin Ling the next day, and he’s unsure why it makes him blush but at least his makeup hides it.)
#the untamed fanfic#Mo Xuanyu#Lan Jingyi#Lan Jingyi/Mo Xuanyu#Nonbinary Mo Xuanyu#Junior Quartet#Jin Zixuan#Ultimate Dad JZX lol#Lowkey sees MXY as like. kind of a brother kind of a son#but hearing that Jin Ling disrespected him and made him so upset brought out full dad mode so time for a Dad Lecture™#Am I posting this today because I just found out the one person I've ever been in love with is getting married in a month? lol maybe#It's a long story but anyway have people loving and sticking up for Mo Xuanyu who's my vehicle for blatant projection#For no questionable reasons at all
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Mo Dao Zu Shi — Character Sexuality Headcanons
Wei Wuxian: chaotic bisexual, it took him forever to realize he was also attracted to men because he just assumed everyone was at least a little bit attracted to men
Lan Wangji: disaster gay, like all Lan once he fixates on a single person he develops tunnel vision and no longer experiences attraction to anyone else
Jiang Cheng: straight as uncooked spaghetti
Nie Huaisang: nonbinary pansexual, uses he/him or they/them pronouns, his gender identity can be most easily summed up by the shrug emoticon
Wen Qing: distinguished bisexual
Wen Ning: aro/ace, wants to be Wei Wuxian’s queerplatonic partner but doesn’t have the language to ask
Lan Xichen: the straight ally we all deserve
Jin Zixuan: “confused but he’s got the spirit” straight ally
Jiang Yanli: straight, or maybe a tad bicurious
Nie Mingjue: aro/ace himbo, sick of everybody’s love drama, drinks “respect everybody” juice, is a bro
Mo Xuanyu: thot gay, gnc but still identifies as a boy
And perhaps my most galaxy brained take...
Madam Jin: sugar mommy lesbian, secretly just as much of a flirt as her husband, except she actually treats her sugar babies with respect
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G and A from the fandom meme
Omgggg an ask! Thank you, my anonymous friend!!
A - Your current OTP(s)/OT3(s)/OTX(s)
I have so, so many. You didn’t specify any fandom, so I’m just gonna go with my current obsession: Mo Dao Zu Shi! And be warned, I have a lot...
* Lan Wangji x Wei Wuxian (as romantic lovers)
* Jin Zixuan x Jiang Yanli (as romantic lovers)
* Jiang Cheng x Wen Qing (mostly as Jiang Cheng pining after Wen Qing, or them as friends w/ benefits who aren’t ready to admit they’re in love)
* Wei Wuxian x Wen Ning (as queerplatonic partners)
* Nie Huaisang x Mo Xuanyu (as casual lovers, or as Mo Xuanyu pining after Nie Huaisang)
* Jiang Cheng x Nie Huaisang (as nonbinary Nie Huaisang making Jiang Cheng question his sexuality)
* Madam Yu and Madam Jin (as kickass best friends who dump their husbands and become lovers)
* Xiao Xingchen x Song Lan (as romantic lovers)
G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it
I do!! It was Ike/Soren from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn! I still really love them. I’m actually kind of sad that Ike has become so popular through Super Smash Bros that people are always shipping him with other fighters from that game. I mean, I multi-ship myself, but I’m not into crossover pairings. Not that I begrudge anyone for that, but... I just feel like poor Soren has been forgotten ;_;
Soren was and remains to be my favorite character from any Fire Emblem game
Thank you for asking!!
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