au where WWX manages to save the wens & destroy the seal but the...

13 views Aug 23, 2024 ~10 min read

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au where WWX manages to save the wens & destroy the seal but the resentment thus released enslaves him — making him exponentially powerful & irreparably corrupt.

so when a certain news of HGJ being punished reaches the burial mounds, the YLLZ deems it fair to abduct him.

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// dark wwx, kidnapping, murder, violence. (this is DARK, plz be cautious.)
———

"Wei Ying! Stop."

The effect is not immediate, it's unusually slow. LWJ feels the oppressiveness  prickling his skin lessen before he sees the tendrils of resentment begin to recede one by one.

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Seeing the people around struggling to breathe under the corrosive atmosphere currently heavy due to patriarch's power, he instinctively pulls the dark robe on his back closer. Perhaps he understands now why WWX makes him wear this thing sewn with protective arrays and charms.

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Not that WWX doesn't care about his people but he also doesn't spend his every waking & sleeping hour with them, unlike with LWJ.

"Wei Ying," LWJ calls again. "It's me. Lan Zhan."

Resentment recedes, slowly returning to the body it has made a home out of, disappearing into WWX—

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leaving behind only the man—or the husk of the man he used to be—shaking on the ground few feet away from LWJ, repeatedly mumbling to himself, "it's him, it's Lan Zhan, it's him, stop." 

His hair is in disarray, skin pale as if all the blood has rushed to his eyes—

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blood red eyes that keep flitting to and fro, in fear, anxiety or anger, LWJ has long stopped wondering. 

still, LWJ wouldn't call it usual. This hasn't happened before, at least, not yet. WWX losing control is usual. WWX not responding to him... not so much.

But then—

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nor is the transgression that happened today. 

Unlike the Lan cultivators who had come upfront and on being unable to break the wards made peace with the letter LWJ had decided to send his brother, the Jin cultivators currently trembling infront of WWX came as spies.

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They entered mingled with the refugees WWX had given shelter to. Fools, all of them, to think anything in this dead place gets past the one who basically keeps it alive. 

LWJ finds he never ever wants to witness the aftermath of this.

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"Wei Ying," he calls again, with desperation. "Come back to me."

WWX slowly pans his head, brows knotted in confusion. The haze in his eyes clears the moment the land on LWJ and then WWX is infront of him, almost in a flash, eye wide with shock. 

"What the hell," he hisses—

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his voice betraying none of the anger LWJ can now see in his eyes. There's no malice this time, no killing intent, no threat. Just fury and perhaps, the concern it is borne out of. 

WWX absently raises his hands, as if to hold him, before abruptly jerking himself back.

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Clenching his fists instead, he grits out, "Wen Ning!" 

Right on cue, ghost general shuffles up next to him. LWJ is too used to this to resist now, and Wen Ning too faithful to WWX to care if LWJ wishes to be carried. 

Very gently, WN places a hands behind—

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LWJ's shoulders, then bends down and carefully lifts him up. Without a word, WWX begins to walk and WN, as always, follows with his sister in tow.

WWX single mindedly leads them to the wooden room far across the demon subdue cave, before kicking the door open and—

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ushering them all inside. 

It's a small room that WWX had haphazardly built two months ago, surrounded by arrays on all sides.

In no time, LWJ finds himself being seated on the single bed with cotton sheets and silk quilts, softer than any he has ever known.

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The smell of sandalwood and medicinal herbs wafts around and despite the situation, LWJ finds himself calming down. He has come to call this home in the last two months. His room is probably the only gentle thing about burial mounds. Besides A-Yuan.

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"Wei Ying," he calls again, quietly. 

WWX responds with his eyes on WQ. "Take a look." 

sighing, WQ begins untying his belt, "I'll be taking the robe off," she says without turning. WWX back-sprints to the far end of the room, although his eyes remain on LWJ, he'd probably—

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sink into the wall if he could.

WQ examines him thoroughly & just as easily, dresses him back up. "None of the stitches have opened, nothing to worry, he's fortunate."

WWX crosses the room again, although he still leaves a respectable distance in between.

"Why was he there?"

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He asks in a kind of tone that makes people cower. WQ only stands and turns, meeting his glare head-on. "He was there so you won't kill yourself." 

His eyes turn colder. "I believe I've made it perfectly known—

"Wei Ying," LWJ interrupts. "It was my choice. I asked her."

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WWX's glare is on him now, accessing his face, before he grits out, "You've been making a lot of bad choices Lan Zhan, don't you think so?" 

LWJ closes his eyes, knowing well what the jibe is for. "Let the cultivators go, they were only doing their job, they meant no harm."

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WWX laughs, empty and mirthless. LWJ wishes he'd get used to this too. "No harm?" He laughs more. "What harm is left to be meant? Aren't you already bedridden? Aren't you already scarred for life?" 

"It was my choice," LWJ tells him for the hundredth time. "I consented to it.""

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"Why?" WWX almost snarls, also for the hundredth time.

LWJ could tell him, that this was the price he paid for wanting to help in destroying the seal. He could tell him that he wasn't allowed and his retaliation had consequences. Five injured elders. Five lashes for five elders.

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He could tell WWX that his punishment was deserved, even if unfair, because even now, his only regret is that he couldn't come here on time. 

But it had taken everything to stop him from annihilating the Lan sect when he had come to take LWJ, from pleading to begging to—

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threatening self harm, everything. He can no longer be sure what WWX will or will not do if he's told the whole truth of it. So he does what he has always done.

Sweeping his up, he requests, "Play for me, won't you?"

But WWX doesn't fold, not a single muscle on his face budges.

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He keeps staring at LWJ, eyes unnervingly blank. After what feels like an eternity, he speaks.

"They infiltrated my home today, Lan Zhan." The hollow certainty in his voice sends a chill down LWJ's spine. He knows that voice, he— 

"Wei Ying, no!" Tears spring in his eyes. "No."

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WWX bends to his eye level. "They had the audacity to think they could enter my home," he says sweetly, like a song, "and harm what's mine." 

LWJ desperately makes a grab for him. WWX abruptly jerks out of reach. Flicking his eyes up, he orders WN. "Lay him down."

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His protests fall on deaf ears as WN, carefully but with force, lays him down and WQ promptly pins him to the bed.

"Do not struggle," she pleads. "You will worsen the wounds.

The tears fall. "Wei Ying, don't. They already have too much against you." He only has his voice now.

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"Don't be rash like this," he sobs as WWX pulls the quilt over him and gently tucks the pillows on his sides. "This is what they want, it's a ploy, don't you see?"

He grabs the fabric of WWX's robe. WWX swiftly moves away, plucking it out. 

"Lan Zhan!" He warns.

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"Stop this madness," his pleading intensifies. "It will help no one."

WWX quirks a brow. "What will help then? Cleansing?"

LWJ knows it's a mockery, a taunt. "Yes," he says still, helpless.

WWX laughs. "Lan Zhan, ah Lan Zhan," he smiles, fond. "So demanding you've become."

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"I don't think I like it, Lan Zhan." WWX casually turns to the door. "You don't listen to what I say, you won't answer what I ask. All you have are demands." He shakes his head. "Wei Ying, don't do this, don't do that, let me play for you."

I don't like it at all."

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"This obsession will kill you, Wei Ying." LWJ's voice uncharacteristically raises. Then, very quietly, he adds, "It will kill me too. If you die, I will die too." 

WWX pauses at the door. 

"Do not go out, Wei Ying, stay with me. Please."

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WWX turns, head tilted. "Obsession?" 

He frowns to himself, nearing the bed once more. LWJ's heart breaks at his confused face. He doesn't even have to move a finger for the two tendrils of resentment that rise up, seemingly from the ground and gently coil around LWJ's wrists.

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They make no contact with his skin anywhere at all, leaving a breath of space in between, but exert enough force to move his hands up and pin them above his head. 

Only then does WWX take a seat beside him. 

"But you're so far away," he says, tracing a finger along LWJ's face—

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not touching, quite like the resentment he controls, never touching. LWJ wishes he would touch him. "You're not my obsession Lan Zhan, you're so far away, don't you see?" It's almost a whisper when he says, "So far away I can't even touch you." 

"You can." LWJ whispers back.

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WWX continues tracing his face as if he did not hear him at all. 

"Wei Ying, listen—

"Shhhh," his finger comes to hover over LWJ's lips. "You are no madness of mine, Lan Zhan," he bends down, his breath fanning over LWJ's face. "You are the only sane thing left about me."

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"The only humanity left in me," his eyes dip down to his lips. He does not lean in. LWJ desperately raises his face to capture his lips, and WWX immediately moves back out of reach. 

"See," his gaze sweeps up. "You are no obsession, you're too precious for that."

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"You are perhaps," his eyes tremble with the barest flicker of emotion, the first LWJ has seen in days. "Perhaps…

"Perhaps what?" He prompts, heart racing. 

WWX scrutinises his face, then completely straightens up. His face shutters back to blankness. "I don't know."

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"Don't say that again." He tilts his face. "Had you been a madness, you wouldn't be so far away, would you? You'd be bound to my bed, begging at my feet, don't you know? Hm?"

The gasp that hitches out of him is as inadvertent as the flinch on WQ's face. She quickly turns away.

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WWX flicks up his gaze, still seated, and the resentment uncoils. It's a test, LWJ knows. Still, he takes the chance, even if that means he will fail. 

His fingers make the barest contact with WWX's cheek before the man slides out of the bed, shaking his head, smiling sadly.

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"Hanguang-jun," he orders, sharpening his eyes. "Do not disobey me again." 

On his way out, he stops next to WQ. "I should find him asleep by the time I'm back." 

And then he's gone, WN following him out, leaving LWJ with wet pillows and an aching chest.

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WQ wordlessly brings him the concoction he knows will make him sleep like nothing ever happened. "Better if you drink it, he's right, you need rest."

He's too exhausted to object. He opens his mouth & accepts. WQ's medicines work like wonders. For once, he's glad for it.

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He's on the last dredge of wakefulness when the pleas for mercy begin pouring in. No! His mind attempts one last revolt before sleep takes him in.

He falls asleep to wailing screams, hoping with all his heart, that he never finds out what Wei Ying did to those cultivators.

[ I only have this much for now. twitter absolutely ruined this thread for me, I feel like crying. had to delete twice and then copy/paste tweet by tweet. so much time wasted. ]

Anyway. To the top!
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au where WWX manages to save the wens & destroy the seal but the...

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