Chapter Text
A shichen goes by before Wei Wuxian is confident that the giant tortoise is asleep.
During that time, Wei Wuxian sits and circulates spiritual energy through his body in order to heal as much as he can until his ribs no longer twinge with every breath.
The cold of the stone beneath him leeches all the heat out of his bones despite the fire a few of the other disciples have started, Wei Wuxian not sparing the spiritual energy to warm himself while he's trying to heal his ribcage to the point where he can, y’know, move.
The wounded disciples have been treated, several robes having shortened, frayed edges at the bottom now from being torn up for bandages. Wei Wuxian, having wet robes, had been spared from this. Mianmian had pressed herbs into the wounds of everyone who needed them, including Wei Wuxian, who had given her a flirtatious wink. She seemed intent on making up for being the reason (sort of) that they were all in this situation, though Wei Wuxian thinks that it really was inevitable-- eventually, Wen Chao would’ve gone too far, crossing the line for one or many disciples on some future hunt, probably sooner rather than later. Then, the rebellion would’ve started anyway, and possibly in a less advantageous situation.
When he tells Jiang Cheng this, he gets a glare and an elbow in his (uninjured) side for his trouble.
It really is quite fortunate! He thinks. We’re cut off from the rest of the Wen clan-- we won’t be summarily slaughtered by them for a few days at least! All we have to deal with is this stupid turtle! And the Wens were even kind enough to leave some corpses for it to go into a food coma over!
He diligently ignores the fact that many of the bodies hadn’t been wearing Wen red.
The remaining disciples are all sequestered in a divot that is half a dozen yards deep in the large cavern that they're trapped in, located over fifty yards away from the giant tortoise. The presence of so many people in a relatively small space makes it hard for Wei Wuxian to focus on healing, their various smells and sounds distracting in their proximity and number.
He ends up zeroing in on Lan Wangji’s breathing patterns and heartbeat, slow and steady as the other teen meditates, allowing Wei Wuxian to do the same. Wei Wuxian has to strain to hear it over the whispering and shifting of the disciples and the crackling of the fire, Lan Wangji being on the other side of the cave as far away from Wei Wuxian as he can get, but this helps instead of hurts his concentration.
Wei Wuxian opens his eyes and stretches, testing his range of motion with an exaggerated yawn.
Not great, but it'll have to do!
All eyes turn to him as he claps his hands once, the sound echoing in the small space, and says brightly, “well everyone, what say you we get out of here? The feng shui in this place is horrible, and the staff is terribly rude!” He grins.
“Idiot!” Jiang Cheng snaps next to him. “How can you joke at a time like this?!”
“It’s asleep?” Jin Zixuan clarifies, the firelight casting flickering shadows over his face as he ignores Wei Wuxian’s nonsense.
“Its resentment levels are almost as low as when we got here,” Wei Wuxian confirms, not mentioning the snores he can hear emanating from its shell. “I don’t think we’re going to get a better chance than this.”
Jin Zixuan nods, then gets to his feet.
They’d grabbed a few torches that hadn't been in range of the tortoise, so those are lit and the small fire on the floor of the cave stomped out, having served its purpose.
The disciples creep through the cave on careful feet, Wei Wuxian struggling not to wince at each scuff of a foot or kicking of a pebble that they make.
“All right,” Wei Wuxian calls quietly as they stop at the edge of the water, “those who can swim get on the right, those who can’t on the left! Good, good,” he says approvingly, seeing that there are slightly more people that can swim than can’t. “Those that can, partner up with those that can’t, we aren't leaving anyone behind!”
As the disciples get themselves situated, Wei Wuxian searches through the dark before finding that weird rock that marks the area where the hole is. It’s far, far closer than he’d like to the giant tortoise, but it's what they have.
The bright red of the maple leaves floating in the water nearby look like salvation instead of a warning, and as he watches, another one drifts up out of the depths of it.
Wei Wuxian leads the way, being the only person that knows where the hole is (and that can actually see far enough past the torchlight to tell) and he shudders as the frigid water soaks back into his already-not-quite-dry robes.
The only sound for a while is the sloshing of water as the disciples trickle (ha) into the water two by two, their breathing loud in the semi-darkness. Splashing starts up as they get further in and the water deepens, the disciples’ feet no longer able to touch the bottom even when they bob up and down.
Wei Wuxian in front holds one torch, while Jiang Cheng in the back holds the other, the two of them being the only ones who can conceivably swim with only three of their limbs in the water. They go from rock to rock, mimicking the path that Wei Wuxian had taken out of the water over a shichen ago, partly out of consideration for his own still-bruised ribs and partly out of consideration of the disciples that can’t swim.
Wei Wuxian halts, finally, at the small rock that marks their destination, leaning against it and propping the torch up high so that the disciples can (hopefully) see where the hole in the bottom of the lake is located.
“All right!” he says cheerfully, “Everyone in!”
The disciples swim down, disorganized in their tiredness, some with enough sense to go down in groups of five, but Wei Wuxian is content as long as each non-swimmer is paired up with a swimmer. Jin Zixuan’s group goes first, all taking a gulp of air before diving down, two of them, the non-swimmers, dragged down by the other three.
Jin Zixuan is one of them, and Wei Wuxian has to hold in a laugh as the other teen visibly struggles not to flail his arms as he goes under.
In the second to last group, one of the disciples hisses in pain, and there's the sudden scent of blood.
One of his wounds reopened!
“You idiot!” Wei Wuxian says angrily under his breath, “you didn't think to get that bandaged?!”
“What?” the idiot says, apparently unaware of the situation.
“You’re bleeding all over the place! What were you thinking?!”
“I-I didn’t want to trouble anyone more than I already had!”
More like you didn't want to lose face by drawing Mianmian’s attention to yourself after what you did! He snarls internally, recognizing him as the Lan disciple who had tried to capture her.
The crimson of the blood disperses in the water, and Wei Wuxian dismisses the idiot disciple, saying urgently, “everyone, go, go, go! It’s going to wake up!”
This has the opposite effect than he wanted, and pandemonium breaks out as all the disciples panic, scrambling to get through the hole, pushing and shoving each other unnecessarily.
The resentment of the tortoise spikes suddenly as the scent of blood reaches its nose, causing all the hair on Wei Wuxian’s body to prickle in alarm.
“Shit!” Wei Wuxian curses. “Everyone stop!” he yells harshly. “Stop, if you don’t get organized, we’re all going to get eaten!”
They don’t listen, continuing to fight among themselves, Jiang Cheng trying in vain to break up a scuffle and getting punched in the face for his trouble.
“Cease fighting,” Lan Wangji says, and his voice booms as he puts spiritual energy behind the sound, everyone wincing as the words echo in their heads, the sound seeming to come from right next to their ears.
Thank you, Lan Zhan!
By this point there are few enough disciples left that Jiang Cheng is able to shout them into compliance, organizing them even as the water behind them bubbles, the turtle breathing out as it begins stirring to awareness.
That last group of five goes under as the turtle starts to move under the water, its head quickly rising.
It surfaces from the water as Jiang Cheng grabs onto the last disciple, letting his torch fall into the water with a splash, leaving Wei Wuxian’s torch the only remaining light source for the four disciples left in the cave.
The resentful energy of the turtle crescendos into a sharp, threatening spike and the muscles of its neck contract, but its eyes aren't facing Wei Wuxian, but someone to his left.
Wei Wuxian bunches the muscles in his legs without looking and leaps simultaneously with the lunge of the turtle, turning and pushing off of the rock behind him with all the strength in his legs and a good amount of spiritual energy. He tackles the other person around the shoulders from where he’s treading water, and Wei Wuxian barely has time to process the faint scent of sandalwood, almost washed off, as he takes a deep breath and drives them both under the water.
Lan Zhan, you can swim, why didn't you go?!
The tortoise’s jaws close with a loud, concussive snap above their heads that Wei Wuxian can feel even from below the waves he’d created with his entrance into the water.
He resurfaces with a gasp, Lan Wangji letting out a cough from next to him, not having had time to brace himself before going under.
“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng yells frantically, Wei Wuxian’s light having been extinguished when he’d flung himself into the water.
“Just go! I’ll be right behind you!” Wei Wuxian yells back.
“You’d better!”
And with that, Jiang Cheng grabs the hyperventilating non-swimming disciple around the waist again, having let go at some point, and dives underwater and down into the hole at the bottom of the lake.
The resentment spikes again and Wei Wuxian uses a burst of spiritual energy from his feet to shoot through the water in a random direction, the tortoise’s teeth closing over where they’d been a second prior with a resounding snap as he drags Lan Wangji through the water.
Lan Wangji gives a pained grunt as his injured leg crashes into a small rock jutting out of the water that Wei Wuxian hadn’t noticed in his flight from the turtle.
He doesn't have time to worry about that though, as he realizes that they’re now further away from the hole!
The ancient, watery resentment increases sharply once again and Wei Wuxian is forced to use that same small rock to kick up and off to the side, flying through the air even as he hears the turtle’s teeth crush the rock he’d pushed off of into pieces behind them.
Wei Wuxian’s curse howls suddenly, making him stumble where he lands on the rock he’d been aiming for. He only doesn’t send himself and Lan Wangji, who he’s been dragging by the arm, toppling into the water because Lan Wangji uses his good leg to kick himself upwards, readjusting their balance. Wei Wuxian brings his arm up automatically to catch Lan Wangji, and his forearm slots neatly behind the other man’s knees.
Lan Wangji freezes in place in his new bridal carry before trying to push off of where he’s laying against Wei Wuxian’s chest, and Wei Wuxian only doesn’t drop him by the grace of having jumped off the rock he was standing on, the momentum bringing Lan Wangji back against him.
“Grow a thicker face, Lan Zhan, we’re in the middle of something!” Wei Wuxian shouts frantically as he alights heavily on the next rocky platform.
It’s not like I want to be doing this either!
Lan Wangji responds with an angry grunt as his injured leg is jostled with the landing, then grabs Wei Wuxian around both shoulders hard, right hand gripping the back of his robes and the left latched onto his shoulder with bruising force.
How considerate of him to not strangle me! Wei Wuxian thinks wildly.
Lan Wangji can wrap himself around and hold onto Wei Wuxian fairly easily, being slightly taller than he is and having long, slender fingers attached to hands a bit larger than Wei Wuxian’s.
It’s this same size disparity that makes this position precarious, Lan Wangji’s greater mass causing Wei Wuxian to careen forward or to the side every time he lands, but with the giant tortoise bearing down on them, there isn't time to readjust their positions. Lan Wangji learns to lean back against Wei Wuxian when he tips forward and shift his weight up when Wei Wuxian tips to the side after the first two times they almost tumble into the water, however, and they quickly find a rhythm.
Unfortunately, they get further and further away from the hole as they flee, Wei Wuxian unable to even consider doubling back, all his focus on keeping his balance as he leaps for the next rock.
The tortoise’s thunderous footsteps cause the water to froth, rocks and stalactites and stalagmites breaking on the front of its hard shell as it barrels towards them at top speed, heedless of any obstacles in its path.
Wei Wuxian’s ribs are screaming as his breath comes fast and hard in his lungs, and adrenaline is the only thing keeping him going as they finally reach the shore, his perception of time seeming to have both stretched and dilated simultaneously.
He makes one last final leap to the shore and tumbles into the inch-deep water, dropping Lan Wangji and rolling twice before springing to his feet.
Wei Wuxian turns towards Lan Wangji and hikes him up by his armpits with both hands before he can even try to get up. Then, before Lan Wangji’s feet can make it to the ground, Wei Wuxian whips around so that his back is facing him and crouches, grabbing the other teen’s ankles. He stands quickly, forcing Lan Wangji to grab onto his shoulders or else fall backwards.
“Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji yells angrily. “Let me down!”
“No can do, Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian says as he lunges forward at a sprint, slightly top-heavy with Lan Wangji’s weight. “You'd be turtle food if I wasn’t carrying you! Besides, isn’t this great fun? I’m having the time of my life!” he wheezes the last word as his ribs twinge, but keeps going.
The immense tortoise behind them careens closer, its clawed feet kicking the water upwards in great sheets as the water becomes more shallow. No longer hampered by the drag of the water against its large shell, the turtle’s speed increases, and Wei Wuxian throws them to the side as the resentment behind them spikes, Lan wangji’s arms coming around his neck none-too-gently to avoid being flung off his back. The turtle’s jaws close loudly where they'd just been with the deafening clack of teeth as long as Wei Wuxian’s arm impacting together.
Wei Wuxian turns and heads not in the direction that they’d entered the cave from but to the right, where he can see a latticework of holes dotting the wall.
He pours on the speed, lacing his legs with spiritual energy to go faster as the tortoise whips its long neck around to pursue them.
Wei Wuxian dodges the ginormous snapping jaws twice more before throwing the two of them through the entrance of a cave small enough that the giant reptile chasing them can't get past. He keeps running, the walls of the tunnel around him streaming past. Wei Wuxian hears the shell of the tortoise impact the entrance to the cave with a tremendous crash but doesn’t stop, not sure how far the creature’s neck can extend.
He stumbles as the tortoise roars in anger, the sound ringing in Wei Wuxian’s ears as it echoes down the walls of the cave as loud as a thunderclap. Wei Wuxian glances back, still running, to see the turtle’s neck straining against itself, unable to stretch out any further.
He grins, breath coming in sharp pants, more from the pain in his ribs than exertion, though there’s a fair amount of that too.
Wei Wuxian runs a few more yards and then slows, heading to a divot in the side of the wall that is a few yards deep.
Wei Wuxian’s legs stutter to a halt as they reach the back of the depression in the tunnel, chest heaving painfully, and crouches to deposit Lan Wangji against one wall.
The tortoise’s frustrated roar echoes down the length of the cave to spear painfully into Wei Wuxian’s ears once again, and he falls forward onto his hands and knees in front of Lan Wangji in surprise.
He crawls away from Lan Wangji to sit against the opposite wall, listening intently until he can no longer hear the beast’s great billowing exhales, though the smell of its rancid breath lingers in the air.
“Well! Looks like we escaped with our lives and limbs intact! Mostly,” he says with a glance at Lan Wangji’s leg.
Lan Wangji says nothing, but shifts in place as strong vibrations from the tortoise’s steps jump through the floor of the cave and jostle said leg.
“Well!” Wei Wuxian says again once his heart rate has slowed and his breaths no longer heave. “Let’s take a look!”
He scoots over towards Lan Wangji, the other teen looking like he wants to scoot away, and hikes up his robes.
“Wei Ying!” Lan Wangji exclaims, sounding faintly alarmed and slapping Wei Wuxian’s hands away.
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian says cheerfully in return. “Relax, I’m just looking at your leg.”
Then, he pulls at the leg of Lan Wangji’s trousers until it comes free from his boot, rucking the fabric up to his knee.
Lan Wangji shudders and pushes at his shoulders, hard, and Wei Wuxian blinks as he’s deposited on his behind.
“Fine, fine, you can look for yourself!” he says indignantly.
What’s up with him!?
He sees Lan Wangji pause however, narrowing his eyes as he looks down at his own leg, and Wei Wuxian thinks he must still be angry before he says, “...I cannot see it.”
Wei Wuxian realizes, suddenly, that it's quite dark in the cave, almost bordering on pitch black, and that no human without extremely high cultivation would be able to see in the darkness well enough to navigate the cave as he had.
He ignores the implied, silent question and says brightly, “right! There are some bushes nearby, I’ll go gather some wood for a fire!”
Then he gets to his feet and flees the conversation.
As he’s collecting the wood, Wei Wuxian can’t help but think about their situation, or rather, his situation.
There are approximately five days before the moon is full.
However, if rescue from the Lan sect was fast enough, he might be okay.
But if it isn't… Well, he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it!
He returns to Lan Wangji, dropping the sticks of wood on the ground with a clatter. After arranging them into a pile, he bites down on the pointer finger of his dominant hand with his canine teeth, blood welling up from the small wound. He draws the talisman for fire into his hand with the blood, then, putting only a small amount of spiritual energy into it, he pokes the pile of sticks and foliage, drawing his hand back with a yelp as it bursts into flames.
Ai, still a little too much power behind it, eh?
That done, he listens again, intently, to Lan Wangji’s slightly labored breathing. It rattles wetly with every inhale and exhale, like there's something clogging his chest.
Now how do I get him to cough out that congestion…?
Lan Wangji’s heart jumps just slightly, looking up from where he’s inspecting his own leg as Wei Wuxian claps his hands and says, “I think it's triage time, eh, Lan Zhan?”
Then he walks on his knees to sit next to Lan Wangji, hovering over his leg and ignoring Lan Wangji’s glare.
“I will do it myself,” Lan Wangji says stiffly.
Wei Wuxian ignores him.
His leg is swollen, an ugly purple bruise from being bashed against the rock in the water already blooming on Lan Wangji’s skin.
“Hmmm, Lan Zhan, I think this needs to be splinted,” he says faux thoughtfully, though he really has no idea if this is true. Wei Wuxian selects two especially straight sticks from his pile of excess kindling and turns back to Lan Wangji. “Alright Lan Zhan, hand over your forehead ribbon!” he says brightly.
“Unnecessary!” Lan Wangji spits.
“Ai, we don't have any good fabric! Here, I’ll just--” Wei Wuxian snatches the forehead ribbon, fingers brushing Lan Wangji’s hair as he hooks his fingers underneath the strip of fabric.
It comes undone, the knot apparently loosened by all the activity, and Lan Wangji grabs the ribbon before it can even leave his head all the way, the silky fabric fluttering between them.
“Wei Ying--!” he shouts angrily, air gurgling in his throat past the obstruction, before blood erupts from between his lips, splattering the ground and Lan Wangji’s white robes.
Wei Wuxian lets go of the ribbon immediately, his hand burning where it had touched the fabric, and taps several acupoints on Lan Wangji’s chest.
“There, now that’s out of your lungs! Can’t leave stuff like that to fester!” Wei Wuxian chirps, sitting back on his haunches. He squints at Lan Wangji’s leg again, saying, “hey, it might actually be a little crooked, we probably actually should splint it.”
“Do not!”
“Relax, relax, I won't touch your precious forehead ribbon again!” he says, feigning ignorance as to its meaning to save Lan Wangji some face. “My robes are perfectly functional for this purpose! Besides, we really should let our robes dry.”
He starts to strip, removing his belt and getting to his feet to lay his overrobes out next to the fire.
“I will not,” Lan Wangji says flatly as Wei Wuxian shucks out of his under robes, the sachet given to him by Mianmian falling out of where he’d stashed it in them with a wet splat, and he sets it aside with relief that its smell has been neutralized by the water soaking it. Then he starts tearing the bottom of his under robes into strips with his teeth.
“What? Lan Zhan, don’t be a prude! You could catch a cold, and then where would we be?” he says, spitting out grit that was on the bottom of his robes as he sits in front of Lan Wangji in just his trousers and starts to splint his leg.
“Regardless, I will not,” Lan Wangji insists, voice expressionless.
Lan Wangji holds still, an unnatural stiffness against pain, Wei Wuxian knows, as he ties the strips of fabric tightly around the sticks being held up to the leg by Lan Wangji.
“Ay, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan!” he says, an idea occurring to him as he’s almost done tying the last strip of cloth. “Is it your embarrassing scars? I’ve seen them already, and besides, it's normal for men to have scars! Ladies even find them desirable!” he says, like he’s imparting some great wisdom.
Lan Wangji doesn’t seem grateful for his wisdom however, spitting, “ridiculous!”
“Here, I’ll help you!” Wei Wuxian says, and pounces on Lan Wangji.
He pushes down the shoulders of Lan Wangji’s wet robes to his waist in one quick movement, exposing his scarred chest to the air. Wei Wuxian notices in surprise that Lan Wangji’s right nipple is missing, hacked off in a gnarled scar much wider than the thinner, much more neat and uniform one on the left.
So it was done by two different creatures! What bad luck!
That’s all he has time to notice, however, before Lan Wangji lunges, his teeth fastening into the meat of Wei Wuxian’s bare shoulder.
“AAAAAAAAHHH!!” Wei Wuxian screams, pushing at Lan Wangji’s own shoulder but having enough mind to not flail with his legs and risk injuring Lan Wangji further. If anything, Lan Wangji bites down harder at this struggling. “Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan STOP, STOP! Letgoletgoletgoletgo!!” Wei Wuxian shrieks, hitting Lan Wangji in the chest. “I’ll go, I’ll get lost, I’ll never bother you again just stop biting me!!”
Lan Wangji releases him, and Wei Wuxian scuttles back away from him as fast as he can.
I thought I was supposed to be the dog! he thinks incredulously, inspecting the bitemark to see that there’s a ring of teeth marks on his left shoulder, skin scraped off in places, but thankfully no blood.
Lan Wangji might find out about the dog thing in a few days here, Wei Wuxian realizes with a falling mood.
Wei Wuxian faces away from Lan Wangji, hearing the other teen ruck his robes back up over his shoulders. He doesn’t sulk for long however, turning back to face Lan Wangji a few minutes later. Much to Wei Wuxian’s relief, he has his eyes closed in meditation, seemingly calmed down.
“So, Lan Zhan,” he says, and Lan Wangji opens his eyes, “I was thinking. Waiting for rescue is our best bet. Jiang Cheng will definitely make it to Yunmeng-- he’s a smart cookie! But he won't be back--” before the full moon, he doesn’t say, “for a while!”
He pauses for a moment, but he’s never been one for tact, so he plows ahead.
“GusuLan is closer, but it was burned. Will they send anyone for us?” he asks.
Wei Wuxian doesn't even have time to hold his breath in anticipation before Lan Wangji replies, his hopes dying in his chest like the embers of a fire doused in a torrent of water.
“No.”
“But… They wouldn’t just leave their Second Jade here to die!”
“Father is nearly gone. Xionzhang is missing. They will not, cannot come.” Lan Wangji says, voice severe.
Wei Wuxian feels his face fall, and turns away from Lan Wangji.
…Well, we can just swim out through the tunnel when it's asleep! Unless the tunnel is blocked… Then that’ll be it for me! Exposed as a-- wait what am I? A Yao? A once-a-month-Yao-beast? Whatever-- to the whole jianghu by the revered Second Jade of Lan! I’ll have to go on the run, avoid the sects entirely! What could I do instead of cultivating? Could I be a farmer? Or, oooh! A traveling merchant!
He’s broken out of his thoughts by the smell of salt reaching his nose.
Wei Wuxias whips his head around to look at Lan Wangji, gaping at the tears tracking down his face. His tears are silent, glistening in the firelight, the wet hitch in his breath only barely perceptible even to Wei Wuxian.
Ah, crap! I don’t know how to deal with crying people!
“Uh. Hey, Lan Zhan--”
“Shut up!” Lan Wangji spits venomously, cutting him off.
Which is probably for the best, since Wei Wuxian doesn't even know what he was about to say.
“Wei Ying, you’re really such a loathsome person,” Lan Wangji says harshly, anger contained in every line of his body.
Wei Wuxian’s heart trembles, and he turns away.
If he really hates me this much, he’ll definitely tell everyone-- though there was really no question of that in the first place, now I know he’ll be glad to see me gone! He might even want to be the one to kill me himself, if they ever catch me, he thinks gloomily.
Then he shakes himself, smacking himself a few times on both cheeks.
But that’s only if he ever finds out! There’s still hope!
Wei Wuxian gets up without a word, figuring Lan Wangji won’t miss him.
Leaving the firelight of their small cave, he keeps walking as his eyes adjust to the dark.
The giant tortoise isn't asleep, not yet. Its head is inside its shell, though, and Wei Wuxian can hear the sickening sound of chewing.
He squints through the dark, searching for the rock that marks where the hole is. He thinks it must have been destroyed at first, or might be hidden behind the tortoise, but the tortoise is far enough to the left side of the lake that that doesn't make sense. His eyes finally find the rock, but he feels despair instead of relief upon seeing it.
The rock is almost right up against the giant tortoise-- it's really a miracle that it hadn't been destroyed-- indicating that the beast is laying right on top of the hole.
Wei Wuxian lays his forehead against the stalactite he's peeking out from behind, wanting to scream.
After only a moment of self pity, he brings his head off of the stalactite to peer back at the tortoise.
Well, there’s only one option left then, if I don’t want to have to flee the jianghu!
Turning, he strides back to their small cave, steps assured in his new tentative plan.
He plops down across the fire from Lan Wangji and says brightly, “Lan Zhan, we’re killing that turtle!”
The crackling fire illuminates Lan Wangji’s face in flickers of light as he says flatly, eyes closed, “we will follow the same plan as before.”
“Ai, normally I’d agree with you! Unfortunately, that option has been blocked off to us by the fact that our escape route is currently full of giant turtle!”
Lan Wangji opens his eyes, face intent as he asks, “the tunnel is blocked?”
“Yup!” Wei Wuxian says, far too brightly for the situation at hand, “just think, this way, you'll have a great story to tell Zewu-jun when he returns!”
“Do not make light!” Lan Wangji spits.
Ai, I always manage to piss him off! Wei Wuxian thinks despairingly, sitting in silence for a moment, aware that he’s reached the end of Lan Wangji’s patience.
Then Lan Wangji takes a deep breath and says, still seething, “however, if rescue does not come, that may be a necessary endeavor for our survival.”
Wei Wuxian says contemplatively, “How, though, is the question! We don’t know what it is, and even if we did have our spiritual weapons, Wen Chao’s sword broke in half on its hide!”
It really does seem quite hopeless when he puts it that way!
However, Lan Wangji, no longer sounding murderous, says, “I may have an answer to your second statement.”
“Oh?” Wei Wuxian turns fully to face him, hands gripping his knees as he leans forward in anticipation.
Lan Wangji tells him the story of a failed, malformed divine beast, the Xuanwu of Slaughter, which disappeared over four hundred years ago.
Why were you so interested in the thing, I wonder? He thinks, resisting the urge to poke at the curse curled up in his head.
He brings his mind back to the matter at hand when Lan Wangji continues talking, this having been the most words Wei Wuxian has ever heard him speak at once.
“As for how we kill it, I believe I may have insight into that as well.”
----------
They wait three days.
During those three days, they rest and recuperate, needing to be at the peak of their strength to take on the Xuanwu of Slaughter.
Wei Wuxian keeps himself (mostly) in check until Lan Wangji seems to be back to his old self, and even after that he doesn’t tease to the extent that he normally would, mostly keeping to himself until he gets too restless.
Even as he’s circulating spiritual energy through his body, his thoughts whirl with theories as to his curse’s reaction to the Xuanwu of Slaughter.
Maybe it saw it as a threat but was too scared to do anything, he thinks at one point, but he hadn’t gotten that impression from the being residing in his head. There was more recognition than fear in the wolf’s phantom consciousness at that point, though there had been a hint of wariness as well.
Wei Wuxian can’t get it out of his head that the creature that had planted this curse in his body with one fateful bite, leaving behind the only scar that will ever be present on his body, was somehow connected to the Xuanwu of Slaughter.
There is no wolf-like divine beast, so the creature that had bitten him as a child could not be like the Xuanwu of Slaughter, a creature that failed to ascend to that status.
This roadblock leaves him stumped, and at the end of the three days he’s no closer to an answer than when he had started his ruminations, even as the pacing of the wolf sounds louder and louder in his head with the steadily-increasing fullness of the moon.
At the beginning of the fourth day, marked by Lan Wangji’s ridiculously rigid sleeping rhythms, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji collect all the bows, arrows, and branding irons on the ground, the snores of the Xuanwu of Slaughter loud enough that Wei Wuxian knows that even Lan Wangji can hear them.
The plan they’d hatched was really quite good, revolving around the Lan secret technique, the Killing Chord.
After they finish their preparations, they put the plan into motion.
----------
Wei Wuxian surfaces from the water, climbing into the gaping opening of the shell where the Xuanwu of Slaughter's head is located.
His feet sink into the mud at the bottom of the shell, which he realizes immediately upon breathing in and taking a closer look isn’t mud at all. Rather, it's a mushy pool of flesh and blood, mixed together with the lake water to create a cesspit of gore and viscera. He can see hair and clothing floating in the mire, arms, legs and heads that have rotted off their bodies littered in the sludge.
The stench of rot is so pervasive and revolting that Wei Wuxian vomits, bile burning up his throat. Thankfully, the smell of that is much more tolerable to Wei Wuxian.
Never thought I’d be grateful for the smell of puke!
Breathing shallowly, he forays deeper into the opening, the slimy flesh of the floor sucking at his shoes as the snores of the Xuanwu of Slaughter echo harshly inside its shell.
He doesn’t feel it at first. The ambient resentment from the Xuanwu of Slaughter is so great that he doesn’t detect it until he’s a few steps away.
The new resentful energy signature is sharp and metallic and with the pervasive impression, but not the smell-sensation, of smoke. And layered over it all is the feeling of many voices crying out.
And just what could you be? Wei Wuxian wonders.
Luckily, his immense curiosity is outweighed by the knowledge that he has a job to do and the prickling feeling that the Xuanwu of Slaughter could wake up at any moment, and he skirts around the pile of bodies that the object is buried under to reach its head.
By this point, he’s nearly to his waist in the sickening (literally!) swamp of pulpy flesh, and he inspects the neck of the Xuanwu of Slaughter, confirming that there is indeed a vulnerable area there, as he thought he’d seen on one of the occasions that turtle’s head had shot forward in pursuit of him and Lan Wangji.
Wei Wuxian reaches back and takes a bundle of arrows in hand to act out the first part of their plan-- he’ll need the rest of the bundles, three remaining, for the second part.
Rearing his hand back, arrows clutched tightly in his fingers, he stabs the Xuanwu of Slaughter in the middle of its right eye with the arrows. The sharp-tipped ends slice cleanly through the closed eyelid and into the flesh of the eye beneath with a wet spurting sound, and Wei Wuxian jumps back as far as he can in one leap on the uneven terrain.
The reaction of the failed divine beast is immediate. It jolts awake with a bellow of pain that reverberates inside the shell, the sound ricocheting into Wei Wuxian’s eardrums, and he feels a burst of something wet trickle out of his ears.
All sound is deadened completely but Wei Wuxian barely has time to notice as the Xuanwu of Slaughter thrashes its head in pain, jaws open in a scream. Purple blood and a clear fluid gush out of the injured eye, the arrows having been yanked out by the eyelid opening, and they hang from the lid like gorey eyelashes.
The thrashing of the Xuanwu of Slaughter causes the inside of the shell to quake heavily, and Wei Wuxian is knocked off of his feet and onto his back, falling into the mire of watery human detritus. The slurry is sloshing wildly, a bloody whirlpool, and Wei Wuxian realizes that he’s being sucked in a particular direction.
The beast's mouth!
He tries to grab onto the remaining arrows and branding irons strapped to his back, but they’re trapped beneath his body and a mostly-intact corpse, his feet failing to find any traction to lever himself up. He switches tacks, scrabbling for anything to hold onto, fingers reaching wildly as he’s pulled in, and they latch onto something hard and metal.
His curse yowls as screams, desperate, wanting, hungry, invade his mind with a violence so complete that Wei Wuxian loses track of the outside world.
He can’t help but hear them, the thousands upon thousands of voices raggedly crying out, caught eternally in their death throes.
“Someone help me! Please, help! Save me!”
“Mama! Mama please, it hurts!”
“Make it stop, please, please I’ll do anything--!”
“I’ll kill you! I’LL KILL YOU!! I’LL KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL YOU, CUT YOU ‘TIL THERE’S NOTHING LEFT--!”
His curse howls, and the voices pause before resuming their caterwauling anew, almost like they're responding to it.
Wei Wuxian blocks them both out, pushes them down as far as he can so that he can focus, coming back to awareness of his surroundings with a jolt.
There's a strain to his arms from where he hangs onto what he now sees is a sword, knuckles white with his iron grip on it to stop himself from falling down the gullet of the Xuanwu of Slaughter. The sword is wedged between the upper and lower jaws of the beast, and he can’t take even a moment to marvel at his luck before he notices that it’s starting to bend under the pressure, and Wei Wuxian releases the sword with one hand to fumble at his back. Finding two of the bundles of arrows left, he jabs each of them at an angle up into the Xuanwu of Slaughter's mouth, which clenches in pain, only digging them in deeper.
Wei Wuxian feels a hot blast of air at his back as the Xuanwu of Slaughter wails in agony, the stench of its breath assailing his nose. He looks up yet again, noticing this time that he can see the interior of the cave instead of that of the giant turtle’s shell, and he grimaces in victory.
He hopes that Lan Zhan is following through on their plan, waiting in what would be the Xuanwu of Slaughter's new blind spot to attack it, threading the improvised Killing Chord around the weak spot on its neck and pulling.
His view through the mouth of the Xuanwu of Slaughter jerks and jolts in all directions as its head thrashes in what he hopes are its death throes. Beyond this limited, blurred vantage, he has no way to know through the cotton in his ears and the beast’s rancid breath in his nose what’s going on outside.
Do it Lan Zhan!
Wei Wuxian can’t tell how much time passes as he’s thrown around inside the Xuanwu of Slaughter’s mouth, keeping a death grip (or rather a preventing-his-own-death grip) on the sword, fingers locked so tightly that he’s not sure if he could let go of it if he wanted to.
He’s aware of the fever that had been steadily getting worse since he’d noticed it right before the start of the mission, the sticky smell of infection emanating from the burn mark on his chest. Sweat is starting to gather on his forehead, and he feels himself growing delirious as time goes on, mind growing bleary and everything taking on an edge of unreality.
When Wei Wuxian regains consciousness (though he had been unaware of losing it), it’s to the feeling of cool air hitting his body as the jaws of the Xuanwu of Slaughter are pried open in a feat of strength that he’ll marvel at later.
He blinks, realizing that he had curled up around the sword in his unconscious state, likely the only thing that had kept him from sliding down the Xuanwu of Slaughter's gullet while he’d been out.
Like a shrimp! He thinks brightly, a tired laugh catching in his throat.
Wei Wuxian peers upward and spots Lan Wangji looking down at him with a slight frown, his figure framed by the large, jagged teeth of the Xuanwu of Slaughter.
“Lan-- Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan, did we kill it? Is it dead?” Wei Wuxian asks, unable to hear his own words even as Lan Wangji grabs onto his shoulder and hauls him out of the Xuanwu of Slaughter’s mouth, Wei Wuxian’s arms finally releasing the sword they’re clenched around.
Strangely, his awareness of the sword doesn’t fade, its presence still in the front of his mind, and it's almost like he can still feel it there, glowing brightly in his mind in a way not at all reminiscent of his resentment sense.
As such, Wei Wuxian doesn't notice when Lan Wangji speaks, his wavering attention only brought back when the other teen moves him, his arm around Wei Wuxian’s waist where they float in the lake, water a sickly purple-black color from the Xuanwu of Slaughter's blood. Lan Wangji inspects his face with a slight furrow in his brow, treading water as the dim firelight of the few remaining torches that they had set up on shore reflects in his eyes. They’re luminous, shining with an inner light, pupils vast and deep like the lakes surrounding Lotus Pier at nighttime. Highlights of brighter gold swim in those irises like koi in a pond as they inspect Wei Wuxian, swirling and radiant, color like the sky right at the edge of the sun as it sets in the evening.
Wei Wuxian is staring, both because those eyes are mesmerizing, and because there are currently two Lan Wangjis holding him by his shoulders.
Ah, fevered hallucinations, how I have not missed you!
Lan wangji’s mouth is moving, making the same two shapes a few times before Wei Wuxian says, tries to say, “Ay, Lan Zhan, I can’t hear a word you're saying…”
Lan Wangji’s eyes narrow, zeroing in on his ears which still have blotches of blood dotting their entrances.
“Don’t worry about that Lan Zhan, eh! It’ll heal,” he slurs, the tongue in his mouth uncoordinated, feeling like they’re forgetting something even as he pats Lan Wangji comfortingly on the cheek.
He leaves a nearly-round splotch of purple blood on Lan Wangji’s jaw, and Wei Wuxian frowns.
“AH! The hole!! Lan Zhan, we have to find the exit!” he says triumphantly after a moment, words garbled proud of himself for remembering.
Lan Wangji puts down the hand that had been on one of Wei Wuxian’s ears (he can’t decipher which one in his fever oddly enough), nodding at him and likely giving him one of his signature grunts. Lan Wangji is still holding him around the waist, supporting Wei Wuxian as he sags in the water, unable to even weakly kick his legs, and Wei Wuxian is grateful.
They dive an uncountable (to Wei Wuxian) number of times beneath the surface of the water, searching for the entrance to the underground tunnel to no avail, starting in a perimeter around the Xuanwu of Slaughter's corpse and working their way outward, the rock marking the tunnel nowhere to be found.
Wei Wuxian laughs as they surface from the water, hysteria eating at his lungs as he says to Lan Wangji, “Just our luck! That damned turtle is blocking our escape even in death!”
He lets out another breathless laugh, briefly wondering if the tunnel had been blocked by caved-in rocks or if the turtle’s dead body is still at this very moment seated atop it, before deciding it doesn’t matter.
He wants to cry, wail that it isn’t fair, he was so close! All of that, all of that and he’s still going to lose everything! He giggles instead, aware that he’s not quite cognizant of what’s going on.
As they near the shore, Lan Wangji suddenly transitions his hold on Wei Wuxian’s waist to cradling him to his chest, one arm behind his back and the other under his knees, hefting him out of the water as he walks.
“Ahahaha, getting back at me are you, Lan-er-gege?” Wei Wuxian thinks he says, eyes closed, too tired to do anything but let it happen.
Wei Wuxian lets his head fall against Lan Wangji’s chest, his cheek laying against his right pectoral muscle, and drifts into a fevered sleep.
----------
He wakes to splitting bones and a splitting headache.
His ears hurt, stinging and aching on the inside where he knows he’ll never be able to reach. The burn mark from the brand is hot and itchy, painful and smelling of infection and pus and, strangely, medicinal herbs.
Ah, Lan Zhan must've found Mianmian’s sachet, he thinks wildly as he struggles to get up off the soft yet firm surface his head is pillowed on.
Strong hands help him sit up, and he scrambles, uncoordinated in his haste to try and get away, hands scraping roughly on the floor of the cave as his skin prickles uncomfortably at the pressure, at the sensation of robes touching skin.
Said robes are dry for the most part, if stuck to his skin in some places, making the sensation altogether worse.
His bones shift in his flesh, and the need to get away, to safety, is overridden somehow by the need to get out of this restrictive, increasingly painful clothing.
Wei Wuxian gets to his knees, hands on his belt, before his eyes lock on Lan Wangji, who has somehow appeared in front of him, his eyes wide.
Or rather, the two Lan Wangjis that he can see in his doubled vision.
“Ahahaha! Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan! Just uh, bathroom break you know!” he says, though he can’t hear his own words, his rabbiting heart echoing in his deafened ears.
He starts to crawl, intending to go past Lan Wangji and the fire and out into the open, because he’s currently backed into the corner of the cave and that’s bad, life threateningly bad! But the curse howls in his head, the one thing he can hear, and he feels his left hip crack as it starts to shift up and in before he can even put his second hand forward.
He feels a scream tear its way out of his throat, the pain sharp and jutting even as he wrestles with the curse, trying to get it to stop, to wait, but the moon is too high overhead--- he can feel it even this far underground.
Wei Wuxian notices Lan Wangji reaching out like he’s about to touch, to try to help, but Wei Wuxian’s skin crawls and he feels himself yell, “Don’t! Don’t touch me!”
Lan Wangji pulls back with an unreadable expression, as usual, and Wei Wuxian’s hands go back to his belt, unfastening it.
“Ai, Lan Zhan, this-- this is normal!” he babbles as he shucks out of his over robes. “Well, for-- for me! Don’t-- don’t--!” freak out, kill me, he's not sure what he was going to say there, but his curse surges in his mind and his left forearm snaps, the wail punching its way out of his chest cutting him off.
Wei Wuxian chest rises and falls rapidly as he pants with pain, the sounds of the wolf’s own excited pants ringing in his head as he gets his under robe over his right shoulder, the garment hanging down his back before he shrugs his left shoulder with a whimper and it falls off his wrist.
His awareness of Lan Wangji standing frozen and staring in what must be confusion and alarm-- because who wouldn't be feeling that--fades as he writhes, falling painfully to his back in his haste to get his trousers off, leaving scratches on himself as claws poke out from his fingernails.
He only barely gets them off his hips before another scream rends its way out of his mouth as his neck crackles.
He levers himself up onto his one hand and knee only barely and, curse thrashing and clawing and fighting in his mind, rips his red ribbon, talisman smoking as it struggles to suppress his shift, painfully out of his hair with his injured arm, claws catching on the strands.
The change explodes out of him, and though he’s learned to keep himself quiet over the years he can’t stop a scream from scraping its way roughly out of his throat.
Wei Wuxian’s flesh writhes, bones reforming and shifting as muscles break and reknit themselves into new configurations. His lungs heave as his ribs narrow and his spine is levered upwards as the vertebrae crack into a different shape. His vision cuts out and he feels his ears lengthening into points as they shift upwards on his head. The meat of his thighs extends back and the bones of his shin and thigh fuse, reforming as his feet stretch with a sharp ache until he’s standing only on his toes. Said toes curl into paws along with his fingers, tingling painfully like needles. Fur ripples down his skin last, and just as he becomes aware that his hearing is back, he hears the unmistakable sound of a sword being unsheathed.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes fly open to see Lan Wangji standing in front of him, an unnamed sword in hand and pointed in his direction, the firelight reflected in the surface of the blade and Lan Wangji’s furious eyes.
“Give. Him. Back!” Lan Wangji’s voice shakes, imperceptible to anyone but Wei Wuxian.
What?
After the last word, Lan Wangji lunges. The sword whistles through the air, fast as a striking snake, and Wei Wuxian springs backwards with a surprised yelp, the trousers still pooled around his back feet nearly tripping him.
Wei Wuxian lands lightly on his paws, tail brushing against the wall, gaze fixed on Lan Wangji and still panting with the pain and exertion of his shift. To his surprise however, Lan Wangji doesn’t strike again, frozen in place as his eyes land on Wei Wuxian crouching defensively, now on the other side of the fire, wolfish features fully illuminated.
“...Wei Ying?” Lan Wangji asks with a trembling voice.
Wei Wuxian keeps his still-shaking muscles bunched in preparation to leap but yips an affirmative and wags his tail slowly, watching Lan Wangji closely.
Lan Wangji’s body sags, his grip on the sword slackening until Wei Wuxian thinks he might drop it.
“Wei Ying…”
Wei Wuxian still doesn't move, waiting for Lan Wangji’s surprise to wear off and for him to move on to the “eliminate” step of the protocol for dealing with resentful beings.
Seeming to see the way Wei Wuxian’s eyes track the sword, Lan Wangji sheathes it in one movement. Wei Wuxian can’t help the way his muscles relax at that, but he stays huddled in the corner, tail tucked in confusion and wariness.
“Wei Ying, I will not harm you,” Lan Wangji says calmly, composure returning to him outwardly, but Wei Wuxian can still hear the way his heart races.
But… Lans don't lie? Lan Zhan especially doesn't lie! So… he’s really not going to kill me…? Wei Wuxian whines in confusion, and Lan Wangji sets the sword on the floor of the cave and steps away from it for good measure.
Wei Wuxian wags his tail, ears unpinning from his skull, he tilts his head at Lan Wangji in question.
Lan Wangji says, “you will explain.”
That’s my line! This is against like, ten Lan principles!
Still, Wei Wuxian nods with a whine and wags his tail, genuine relief at not being skewered flowing through him like a warm bottle of wine on a cold day.
A smoldering smell wafts into his nose suddenly, and Wei Wuxian yelps as he notices that his trousers have started to burn, having been flung onto the edge of the bonfire when he’d jumped to get away from the sword. He leaps towards the garment, reaching it in one bound and dragging it back away from the fire with one paw.
Wei Wuxian is about to roll onto the small flame with his body to put it out when a white boot, still stained with dried, watered down purple blood, stomps onto the leg of the trousers, extinguishing it before Wei Wuxian can.
Looking up at Lan Wangji from where his head is at the height of his hip, Wei Wuxian yaps appreciatively and then licks the hand closest to him.
Lan Wangji draws his hand back, graceful somehow, and lets out a burst of air from his nose.
“Ridiculous.”
That’s me!
Wei Wuxian yips, dancing on his paws in a circle around Lan Wangji, who watches him with a blank face, hands clasped behind him.
Then Wei Wuxian’s stomach growls, and he can tell it’s audible even to Lan Wangji by the way he glances down at Wei Wuxian.
He noses at Lan Wangji’s hand once more with a wag of his tail and trots off, nose scenting the air even as he feels Lan Wangji’s eyes on him.
----------
He lopes back toward the divot he and Lan Wangji are hidden away in, a dead frog hanging from his jaws.
It had been impossible to smell anything but the stench of the Xuanwu of Slaughter’s rotting corpse tainting the lake, but he had distinctly remembered the scent of frogs-- it was only a matter of finding them. He had headed back where the party of now-escaped disciples had come from, towards the entrance of the cave. In the end, he had heard the frogs rather than smelled them, their chirps reaching his ears in the silence.
It was relatively easy to catch them, just a pounce onto the backs of the small creatures with his claws extended and a nip to the tops of their necks to sever their spinal cords.
Wei Wuxian had eaten his fill already, the texture similar to chicken and with a muddy flavor that he attributed more to the fact that he hadn’t cleaned the skin of the frogs before tearing into them.
He enters the small cave (a cave within a cave!) where Lan Wangji is located, unsurprised to find him meditating, heartbeat and breathing steady.
Wei Wuxian drops the frog on the ground in front of Lan Wangji, nudging his shoulder with his nose with a yip to get his attention, wagging his tail when Lan Wangji opens his eyes to regard him silently.
Lan Zhan, I’ve got something for you! he thinks, and nudges the frog further towards Lan Wangji with one paw.
Lan Wangji looks down at the frog and his eyebrows tick downward.
“No, thank you,” he says calmly, and, very rudely, goes back to meditating.
Ay, is this because of that stupid rule against eating meat? These are extremely extenuating circumstances, Lan Zhan! I’m sure your elders would understand!
He picks up the frog in his mouth and thrusts it in Lan Wangji’s face with an undulating whine that is slightly muffled by the dead amphibian, the noise as obnoxious as he can possibly make it.
Lan Wangji opens his eyes again with furrowed brows, looking at Wei Wuxian.
“I do not eat meat,” Lan Wangji says levelly once Wei Wuxian halts his whines, “it is against the rules.”
Just then, Lan Wangji’s stomach growls, and though the teen doesnt so much as twitch, Wei Wuxian thinks he sees the tips of his ears pinken.
Wei Wuxian whines again, placing a muddy paw demandingly on Lan Wangji’s good knee.
“Wei Ying, I do not eat meat,” he says again in that same tone of voice.
Wei Wuxian drops the dead frog in his lap and lets out another whine, further back in his throat and more guttural to get across his displeasure.
“Wei Ying--!”
Wei Wuxian yaps, shoving his nose into Lan Wangji’s stomach.
Eat! Your core is way too drained for you to practice inedia! He thinks, attempting to project his thoughts directly into Lan Wangji’s brain.
Lan Wangji lets out a tiny, angry huff of breath through his nose.
“Your concern is appreciated, but I will survive,” he says, tone firm.
Wei Wuxian yanks at one of Lan Wangji’s sleeves with his teeth, pulling his hand towards the frog in his lap.
At this rate, you’re going to be too weak to travel home when Jiang Cheng gets here!
Just then, Lan Wangji’s stomach growls again, a low, hungry moan.
Wei Wuxian sends him a pointed look and one of Lan Wangji’s eyebrows twitches before he closes his eyes and lets out a slow breath.
“...Very well,” Lan Wangji says, face like stone if not for the most infinitesimal twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Success! Wei Wuxian thinks, bouncing on his paws.
Lan Wangji peers down at the frog, eyebrows drawing lower over his eyes by the smallest margin.
“I do not know how to cook it.”
Wei Wuxian tilts his head, thinking, hmmm yeah that is a bit of a problem.
An idea alights in Wei Wuxian’s mind, and he picks the frog back up in his jaws and sets it on the ground. Then he abruptly braces one paw on the frog’s belly and rips off one of its legs. After doing the same with the other and placing the legless body to the side, he trots off and grabs a small stick and returns, dropping it on the ground before leaving again and coming back with the sword.
The weapon held between his teeth hums in his mind, a bright spot in his senses as he sets it gently on the ground in front of Lan Wangji.
He only has to roll the stick towards the sword once before Lan Wangji nods in understanding.
I didn’t even have to try and play charades! he thinks brightly, not able to help a wag of his tail.
Wei Wuxian sits and watches as Lan Wangji withdraws the sword from its sheath and whittles the end of the stick on the spiritual sword’s edge until said end is pointed, not able to hold in a wolfy grin at the absurdity.
No one is ever going to believe me if I tell them about the peerless Second Jade, using a pilfered spiritual weapon to sharpen a stick into a skewer!
Lan Wangji looks up, finished, and his eyebrows twitch into a glare, but he doesn’t dignify Wei Wuxian’s silent laughter with a response.
Sheathing the sword, he spears the two frog legs on the stick horizontally and holds them over the fire.
When the frog legs are (probably) cooked through, Lan Wangji holds the stick in front of his face, still smoking and slightly burned on one side.
His eyes flick to Wei Wuxian before returning to the frog legs in front of him, and he opens his mouth to take a bite when Wei Wuxian yips encouragingly.
Lan Wangji hesitates for the slightest moment before sinking his teeth into it, tearing off a piece and chewing methodically, face expressionless.
Aiyah, not even a grimace of disgust? Wei Wuxian thinks.
Disappointed at the lack of reaction, Wei Wuxian flops over onto his side with a whump and a long growling moan. He’s delighted when Lan Wangji looks over at him with a twitch of his mouth, Wei Wuxian getting the impression that he’s amused. Wei Wuxian’s tail wags, thumping loudly on the floor of the cave as his mouth opens in a canine grin.
He watches silently as Lan Wangji finishes eating all the meat off the bones. Then the other teen regards the bones with a blank face and goes to set them aside, but Wei Wuxian yips a protest and pops up onto his paws.
Lan Wangji looks over at him, expressionless, and Wei Wuxian snatches the stick from his hand and flops onto the floor of the cave next to him. Maneuvering the stick so that he’s holding it between his front paws, Wei Wuxian bites off the foot of one of the legs and crunches the thin fragile bones between his back molars, relishing in the texture and taste of marrow in the center.
“Is that safe for you to eat?” Lan Wangji questions.
I sure hope so, considering that I did the same with the eleven other frogs I ate! …It’s a solid probably!
Wei Wuxian yips an affirmative, only half a lie, and continues to chew.
When the frog bones are finished being devoured, Wei Wuxian looks up to find Lan Wangji regarding the remaining parts of the frog. Wei Wuxian gives a questioning whine, and Lan Wangji looks up.
“‘Do not be wasteful,’” Lan Wangji quotes, and Wei Wuxian snorts.
Yes, yes, I copied that rule like a hundred times!
Wei Wuxian, not quite hungry anymore but feeling able to eat one more frog easily, nudges the body of the frog over to himself with one paw, too lazy to get up. He digs in, munching on bone and flesh alike, the midgut tasting a bit strange like usual but not bad necessarily, the flesh juicy and lean on his tongue.
It only occurs to him as he finishes the last bit that Lan Wangji might be squeamish about things like that, and that Wei Wuxian is literally right next to him.
Not my problem!
However, when he looks up at the other teen, Wei Wuxian finds Lan Wangji watching him calmly.
Then Lan Wangji says, “good,” and pets him on the head.
Wei Wuxian freezes in surprise, and Lan Wangji draws his hand back quickly like he’s also surprised at his own, seemingly automatic action as well.
“I apologize,” Lan Wangji says with a furrowed brow.
However, Wei Wuxian stands and shoves his head under Lan Wangji’s hand with a trilling whine, begging shamelessly for pets.
Lan Wangji breathes out sharply through his nose, seemingly reluctant.
After a few seconds, however, he says, “very well,” and runs his hand over Wei Wuxian’s head again in that familiarly gentle way.
Wei Wuxian flumps down on the floor of the cave, laying his head in Lan Wangji’s lap with a contented sigh. Lan Wangji’s hand stutters for a moment, and Wei Wuxian looks up at him in question before Lan Wangji continues.
Wei Wuxian lets out a happy groan as Lan Wangji scratches behind his ears, wagging his tail when Lan Wangji stills as if not sure that the motion is welcome.
Ai, I haven't been petted like this in over a year, ever since I stopped being allowed to see Shijie or Jiang Cheng! He thinks, luckily too blissed out to be melancholy about it at the moment as Lan Wangji’s hand resumes its motions.
Jiang Cheng always exclaims that, “you’re not actually a dog, Wei Wuxian!” but gives in and pets him anyway, rubbing and scratching into his ruff like he’s rough housing. Shijie always says, “alright, A-Xian,” with a gentle, indulgent smile and trails her hands gently down his sides and over his ears--which are apparently very soft!
The way Lan Wangji pets him is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, and it is, in a word, perfect.
Wei Wuxian, nearly asleep, is brought back into awareness as the feeling of the lap beneath him trembling, and he opens his eyes blearily in confusion.
Lan Wangji says nothing, but trembles again a few moments later, and Wei Wuxian remembers, suddenly, the way the cold of the cave floor had sapped all the heat from his bones when his golden core was otherwise occupied.
Ah, his core must be so drained that he can’t circulate energy to keep warm! Good thing there’s a simple solution to that!
Wei Wuxian stands abruptly and, before the other teen can even draw his hand back, shoves Lan Wangji to the floor of the cave with his shoulder onto his good side. Then he noses the stunned Lan Wangji onto his back and promptly lays down on top of him.
“Wei Ying--!” Lan Wangji protests.
Shhh, let it happen Lan Zhan! I don’t do this for just anyone! Wei Wuxian would tease if he were able.
Lan Wangji shudders and, to Wei Wuxian’s surprise, doesn’t struggle, instead wrapping one arm around Wei Wuxian’s neck and placing the other against his side, his long sleeve covering Wei Wuxian like a blanket. He must be really cold! Wei Wuxian thinks, flipping over onto his side, careful of his elbows.
A human bed and a wolf blanket! Wei Wuxian thinks, chuffing in sleepy amusement.
Wei Wuxian drifts off, safe and content, ears filled with Lan Wangji’s soft breaths and steady heartbeat.
----------
Wei Wuxian stirs, briefly, to someone gently pushing him, like they’re trying not to wake him. He rolls over and goes back to sleep, knowing instinctively that the moon is still too high for him to shift back.
He wakes a while later, slowly coming to awareness, still groggy as he opens his eyes.
Lan Wangji is meditating silently across the fire crackling merrily between them, but he opens his eyes when Wei Wuxian stretches his legs out with a low, whining moan.
Wei Wuxian rolls over onto his side and gives a jaw cracking yawn, not quite awake but getting there.
His stomach growls suddenly, and that's enough motivation for him to lever himself to his paws and stretch again, claws unsheathing and scraping on the floor of the cave.
He yips at Lan Wangji to get his attention and motions with his head towards the exit of their little cave and the other teen nods in understanding.
The smell of the rotting Xuanwu of Slaughter is even stronger and more repulsive than it had been before, and Wei Wuxian makes a beeline to where he’d hunted the frogs the previous day.
He brings the bodies of fifteen of the relatively small creatures back to their cave as he catches them over the next hour, setting down two of them in front of Lan Wangji with a pointed yip.
Wei Wuxian lays down and eats two of them in their entirety, growing dread sitting low in his belly.
So naturally, he stalls.
Anxiety curdling in his chest, he doesn’t ask for pets, but instead trots over to where the coil of bow strings lays neatly curled in the corner of the cave. Picking it up in his jaws, he brings it over to Lan Wangji, poking him in the shoulder with his nose and dropping it on the floor of the cave.
Lan Wangji stares at him and Wei Wuxian lets out a huff before sitting back on his haunches. He then mimics the way Lan Wangji strums his guqin strings with his paws as best he can, flicking them through the air like he's plucking phantom strings, elbows bent.
Nodding, Lan Wangji separates the bow strings into three sections and ties them around nearby stalactites at varying lengths.
Then, he starts to play, and to Wei Wuxian’s surprise, begins to hum, low and melodious.
Lan Zhan, I didn't know you had such a nice voice! Wei Wuxian thinks with amazement.
The tune is slow in some sections, before picking up the pace in the middle; Wei Wuxian knows little about music, the loud sound irritating to his sensitive ears, but he would almost say that the song sounds longing and joyful in equal parts. Wei Wuxian finds himself relaxing despite himself, the lilting melody soothing his anxiety and nervousness, tail swishing slowly across the floor of the cave.
Lan Wangji stops suddenly, and, strangely enough, his heart is racing.
“It is unfinished,” he says, almost apologetically.
Wait, Lan Zhan, you wrote this?! he thinks with amazement. No wonder Lan Zhan is nervous!
Wei Wuxian yaps encouragingly and runs in a tight circle like he's chasing his tail in clear excitement, wagging his tail as he sits, tongue hanging out of his mouth in a grin.
Lan Wangji seems to get the message he intends, and his shoulders relax infinitesimally.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, “can you… come back?” the last part, said almost like he’s unsure as to what term to use.
Wei Wuxian tilts his head inquisitively, because he’s right here! Then he catches onto Lan Wangji’s meaning and his ears droop, the dread and apprehension that had been melted away by the music returning in full force.
Wei Wuxian slinks over to the corner where he’d thrown his clothing into a messy heap and blinks when he finds them neatly folded. His tail, which he had been tucked between his legs, gives a slight wag of amusement.
Picking them up in his mouth, a task made much easier by the garments being folded into a condensed pile, he trots away and out of the small cave without looking at Lan Wangji.
Walking until he's sure that Lan Wangji won't be able to hear, Wei Wuxian shifts back, teeth clenched to keep in the pained sounds he'd now be able to hear out of habit as his bones crack and his flesh twists and writhes.
He pants on his hands and knees for a few minutes, skin prickling with leftover tingles from the change. Judging by the ease of this shift (or as easy as they ever get), he estimates that it must be late morning.
Wei Wuxian’s stomach groans with a painful clench.
He shakes his head at himself, pasting a grin on his face, Ai, I can’t avoid Lan Zhan forever! Then I’d never get to tease him!
He gets to his feet shakily, readjusting to standing on two legs, before getting dressed in his dirty robes.
Then he strides towards their cave, trying not to think about the conversation he's about to have.
Lan Wangji’s eyes find him as he enters the cave, and Wei Wuxian’s smile grows, feeling fake and brittle on his face, trying for nonchalance with his body language and failing.
He blinks in surprise however, to find the eleven remaining frog legs already separated from their bodies and cooking on the fire, speared on more skewers and elevated using rocks pushed together.
Wei Wuxian’s grin turns more genuine as he teases, “ai, Lan Zhan! Who knew you were so considerate? You’ll make some lucky lady very happy in the future!”
“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji utters.
There is silence for a few minutes, before Lan Wangji says, “Wei Ying--”
“Ah, looks like these ones are ready!” Wei Wuxian says, cutting him off and plucking one of the skewers that's a bit closer to the fire than the others from the rocks it's propped on and taking a ravenous bite.
He almost spits it out, however, when it burns his tongue, doing that thing where you breathe in rapidly through your mouth to try and cool it down.
“Hot hot hot!” he yelps, then swallows the bite of the frog leg.
He glances over to find Lan Wangji looking at him flatly, likely judgmental despite the lack of expression on his face and it being against the Lan precepts.
“Ai, Lan Zhan, don’t look at me like that, unmaking and remaking your body makes a guy hungry!” he chirps, like that's a perfectly normal and common occurrence.
Lan Wangji’s eyebrows tick down, and Wei Wuxian takes another bite, chewing loudly to fill the silence, not learning from his previous experience and burning his mouth again.
“Hm, not bad! It tastes more like chicken or fish, and the texture is a bit different now as well!” he says after he’s been eating long enough for the legs to have cooled down, on the second one of them already.
“Explain,” Lan Wangji says, seemingly done waiting for Wei Wuxian to start the conversation.
“Oh, things taste different in my cursed form,” Wei Wuxian says brightly, deliberately misunderstanding but still fumbling the execution and bringing the topic back around to the thing he very much does not want to talk about.
Though he supposes he needs to, if he wants to convince Lan Wangji not to expose him.
…fat chance of that!
“Curse,” Lan Wangji repeats, and Wei Wuxian doesn't look at him, taking the last bite of the second frog leg on the stick to buy time.
“Mhm!” he chirps after he swallows, the meat almost sticking in his throat, “just a uh, condition I acquired as a child! No big deal! Though it did make the lectures a bit harder!”
Wei Wuxian’s attention is caught as Lan Wangji’s heart stutters, and he looks over as he hears a rustle of cloth to find Lan Wangji shifting position.
To his horror, Lan Wangji kneels on his injured leg and starts to kowtow, to Wei Wuxian. Said teenager yelps in surprised alarm and springs to his feet, dropping the skewer on the ground.
He darts over to Lan Wangji and yanks him out of the kowtow, yelping, “Lan Zhan! What are you doing?!”
“This one is deeply sorry for the way you were treated in the custody of--”
Wei Wuxian cuts him off, hauling him up by his armpits and forcing Lan Wangji to take his weight off his leg, “Stop! Stop! It’s-- it’s fine,” he says through a suddenly clogged throat as memories he tries to ignore invade his brain, and the wolf growls low in his head.
“The way the Lan sect conducted itself was deeply shamef--”
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian yells, cutting him off again, “Just-- just stop, you're going to hurt yourself, and then where will you be?!”
Wei Wuxian waits for Lan Wangji to get his legs out from under himself, perhaps in pain or seeing his point, setting him down even as Lan Wangji says, “the way this Wangji behaved was deeply disrespectful and--”
Wei Wuxian slaps a hand over Lan Wangji’s mouth.
“Lan Zhan! Listen it’s-- it’s fine! You… you didn’t know,” he says, despite the memories of that cage, the humiliation of being treated like an animal making bile rise in his throat. “Besides,” he chirps, voice wavering, “you’re a very skilled petter! I have half a mind to have you pet me as a person!”
Lan Wangji turns his mouth away and says, ignoring Wei Wuxian’s shamelessness for once, “regardless. This one is deeply sorry.”
“Aiyah, stop, stop, I hate it when people apologize to me! It makes my skin crawl worse than when I change!” he shudders, then grimaces as he realizes where he brought the conversation back to.
It’s still better than receiving a formal apology for one of the Twin Jades of Lan, he decides.
“Change?” Lan Wangji questions.
“Yeah!” he says brightly, removing the skewers, some of which have started to burn, off the fire and propping them against the wall behind him to cool. “It happens every full moon, like clockwork!” he says brightly, like he doesn’t constantly dread the cycle of said heavenly body.
“Why?” Lan Wangji says simply, seeming to have used his daily, or perhaps weekly allotment of words in his earlier attempt at an apology.
Wei Wuxian sits back down and grabs a skewer, blowing on one of the legs before taking a bite to buy himself time, then says, “That’s when I was bitten.”
“Your scar,” Lan Wangji says.
“So you did notice that!” Wei Wuxian smiles, “you're really such a gentleman, not even mentioning it!”
Wei Wuxian pauses, chewing thoughtfully.
“I don’t really remember it very well, truth be told-- I got a terrible fever,” he says, leaving out the detail that he had almost died from said illness.
“It was a dog?”
“Wolf! Wolf, Lan Zhan!” he stresses, because this is a very important detail that he needs acknowledged or he will lose his mind, because he is not a dog!
Lan Wangji nods, “A wolf bit you, and now you… turn into it, on the full moon.”
“That about sums it up!” Wei Wuxian chirps.
“What was the creature?”
Wei Wuxian deflates, taking a sullen bite out of the next frog leg, “naow taht, we don’ know,” he says around a the mouthful of meat, before swallowing. “Uncle Jiang’s first priority was getting me back to Lotus Pier, and by the time he thought to see what it was, the body had disappeared.”
Wei Wuxian tries not to remember the slavering jaws studded with teeth as long as his pointer finger, the dark, hulking figure bearing down on him before pain erupted from his midriff as those jaws latched around his torso.
He fails.
“There was something off about it though…” Wei Wuxian says contemplatively, munching on his third set of frogs.
“Feline features,” says Lan Wangji.
“What? No, I meant that the thing was teeming with resentment,” Wei Wuxian says, not sure what he means. “What feline features?”
“Your claws retract. And you are more flexible than most canines. Resentment?”
Wei Wuxian tucks that information to the back of his mind, some thought niggling at his brain but unable to parse it right now.
“Well, you can't get cursed by a normal wolf biting you, Lan Zhan! Uncle Jiang said that it was overflowing with resentment, and he had to cut off its head before it would-- die.” he says, instead of, “let go.”
Lan Wangji doesn’t call him on his hesitation over his words, instead saying, “you can sense resentment.”
“Yep! I’ve been able to ever since the fever broke!” Wei Wuxian says brightly, starting on the fourth skewer. “It’s really quite useful! The heightened smell, though, not so much, especially when dealing with walking corpses…” he says the last part more to himself.
Lan Wangji sits up straighter, however, eyebrows rising by the faintest margin, “Your other senses are heightened?”
“Yeah, it's pretty convenient most of the time! Say, Lan Zhan, I think you have a heart condition-- you should really go to the healers. See, there it goes again!” he says as Lan Wangji’s heart jumps.
Lan Wangji only huffs out through his nose with an expression Wei Wuxian can’t read, but interprets, once again, as anger.
“Ay, Lan Zhan, you have such a thin face! It's nothing to be ashamed of! We can be chronic health problem buddies!” he chirps brightly.
“Ridiculous,” Lan Wangji says flatly.
“Yes, yes, I’m ridiculous!” he laughs.
Wei Wuxian eats for a while in silence while Lan Wangji seems to be digesting the information he’s been given. However, Wei Wuxian can’t stand quiet for long, and he starts fidgeting, restless.
“Lan Zhan, what are you thinking about?” Wei Wuxian finally asks.
“Why you cultivate,” he answers simply.
“Well…” Wei Wuxian says, swallowing the frog meat in his mouth, “I already had a golden core by the time I went to stay with the Jiangs--what else would I be but a cultivator?”
Because, despite his contemplation about what he could do instead of cultivation if he were driven out of the jianghu, he doesn’t want to do anything other than cultivation! Those other things, they were a last resort, a way to survive. Cultivation is literally in his blood-- he was made for cultivation!
Not to mention that he wouldn't have even survived the bite without his fledgling golden core.
He doesn’t mention this to Lan Wangji, however.
“It is dangerous,” Lan Wangji states. “Earlier, you felt…”
“Resentful?” Wei Wuxian says ruefully, remembering when he had grabbed Lan Wangji out of his kowtow.
“Yes.”
“Well, I am technically a Yao! Or, a once-a-month-Yao-beast?” Wei Wuxian contemplates, licking his lips as he finishes the last frog leg. He shrugs, then says cheerfully, “Never have figured out how to classify myself!”
Lan Wangji furrows his brows slightly, like he hadn’t yet considered that Wei Wuxian wasn’t a person.
“How do you hide?” Lan Wangji asks.
“Hide my nature?” Wei Wuxian clarifies, then jolts suddenly, alarmed. “Shit! Where’d it go?! That was a present from shijie!”
Wei Wuxian whips his head around, searching for it, before letting out a sigh of relief at it being next to Lan Wangji. Crawling over, he takes the red ribbon in hand and ties it into his hair, reclining against the wall next to Lan Wangji.
Then, he grabs Lan Wangji’s hand to demonstrate and says, “See? Not a trace of resentful energy! I helped design it myself! Cultivators always underestimate the utility of talimen, it's really quite a shame,” he tuts faux disapprovingly, “like this, I’m just a person! No Yao beast here!”
“Do not call yourself that,” Lan Wangji says.
“Hm?” Wei Wuxian questions, because Lan Wangjis sounds almost… angry?
Ah, he must hate having to interact with something like me! he thinks, letting go of Lan Wangji’s hand.
Then, Lan Wangji says something that turns all of Wei Wuxian’s expectations on their heads.
“Wei Ying is always a person,” Lan Wangji states, like it's a fact, like there’s no question.
“Ahahaha, I think most people would disagree with you there!” says Wei Wuxian, still reeling.
“Regardless, it is true.”
Lans don’t lie, Wei Wuxian remembers, like a blow to his sternum.
Hope kindles in his chest, the coals of a fire he’d thought extinguished.
“So…” he says haltingly.
Lan Wangji looks at him, perhaps questioningly, perhaps just waiting for him to get on with it, the dim firelight dancing in flickering patterns on his face.
“...Does that mean you won't tell anyone?”
“Correct.”
“Wait, really?!” Wei Wuxian says, incredulous. “But I’m a resentful creature! A Yao! You know, the thing cultivators are meant to eliminate?! I’m lucky you didn't run me through with your sword!”
“I apologize,” Lan Wangji says, not addressing the rest of what Wei Wuxian said.
And Wei Wuxian has never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, despite how he’s internally (and externally) reeling.
“Lan Zhan! Thank you!” Wei Wuxian says, looking at Lan Wangji with a grin so wide it squints his eyes nearly shut.
“...But I will not lie,” Lan Wangji says, like this is a failing when he’s already going against the very rules that every cultivator is duty-bound to follow.
“That’s probably for the best! If I've been seen, and telling them will prevent me from getting stabbed, you have this one’s full permission to spill the beans!” Wei Wuxian says with faux solemnity.
Then he laughs, high and clear, his body relaxing when he hadn’t even known it was tense, giddy relief mixing with something inexplicably warm and bright expanding in his chest.
Ai, I really don’t understand this guy! He thinks, knocking his shoulder into Lan Wangji’s.
Lan Wangji doesn’t move away.