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victorluvsalice · 8 months

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And so it was off to Isle Of Volpe National Park in the Bramblewood, so everyone could rest and relax and enjoy themselves in the sunshine! Alice, who was starting to feel the Fury a little bit, decided this place was a great spot to have some Zoomies and ran off, while Victor and Smiler hung out with the pets, flirting and being silly together. :) It soon became apparent that there wasn't much they could DO with the pets -- there's not that many options for playing with a cat anyway, and Shadow couldn't do much of anything with her cone on -- so Smiler flew off to search Sophie for goodies. They found a couple of plantains in the shrubbery near her base, and left behind in return that talking llamacorn toy that's been in their inventory for AGES. Look, it was a gift from Clement Frost at Winterfest one year, so I felt weird about selling it or recycling it -- but leaving it for a kid to find? That's GOTTA be acceptable!

Anyway -- with that sorted, Smiler began looking for someone to make friends with and maybe get a drink from while Victor did a little cloudgazing, then splashed around in the little fishing pond nearby. They ran into one Brian Pimental near the log bridge, whom they had a little relationship with -- but apparently had never properly met, as I had to introduce them when they flew over. O.o Asking about Brian's career solved that mystery pretty quickly, though -- apparently Brian is an Eco Inspector, which means he must be the guy who shows up periodically to make sure the gang are continuing to use clean energy and maintain a garden of decent size. Anyway, they got along well, and Smiler was able to both get a drink and use their vampiric powers to learn all their traits, while Alice returned from her run to play laser pointer with Kelly and Victor stopped soaking his shoes and pants in the pond to talk with a rabbit --

And then I got the pop-up that FINALLY clued me in as to what was going on with Kelly. Telling me that she was in labor.

Cue me stopping DEAD and yelling at my screen "WHEN THE FUCK DID YOU GET PREGNANT?!" XD Yeah, so, as it turns out, Kelly was in the family way all this time! And while I certainly didn't tell her to breed with anyone, I think I know how it happened -- namely, Kelly is one of those cats who will periodically wander off-lot on their own adventures. I think she must have come back pregnant from one of THOSE, as I believe that is a risk with an unspayed cat! Which is why you have to spay and neuter your pets AS SOON AS POSSIBLE people.

Anyway -- with me reeling from that revelation, and with kittens on the way, I figured it was best for the gang to head home. Alice finished up playing with Kelly; Smiler finished up with Brian; and Victor finished up teaching Shadow how to lie down (as you can apparently teach pets to do things while they have cones, which feels -- a little wrong?), and with a final Van Alton kiss to mark the occasion --

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gravitywonagain · 10 months

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Can't Cheat Death While You're Digging Your Own Grave; Part 3

Continued from [1][2]

What if Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian were closer? Sworn brothers, even? What if NHS visited WWX in Yiling?

Prompt from the wonderful @shiranai-atsune

[T (for now?), implied Wangxian, 2k, 3/?]

Wei Wuxian:

“How much do you know about the Saber Path, Wei-xiong?”

There’s a change in his friend as he asks the question. Nie Huaisang prefers to be seen as someone who is flighty and unaware. He never makes definitive statements, nothing anyone could pin to him as his own opinion; he doesn’t like to appear to know things.

But now, Wei Wuxian is cut by the sharpness in his friend’s eyes.

“Uh… I know it’s strong,” he says. “Very yang focused, active.”

“Did you know it kills its practitioners?”

Wei Wuxian blinks. “Early deaths of Nie sect leaders do seem to be a pattern.”

“I thought,” says Wen Qing, next to him, “that was mostly about… ah, temperament.”

It’s a delicate way to put it. But Wei Wuxian is pretty sure this isn’t the time for delicate.

“She means that they always seem to go out in a blaze of idiotic glory on some epic nighthunt.”

Nie Huaisang does not appear offended on his ancestors’ behalf. He remains sharp, rigid. The blade of a saber he always keeps sheathed. Voice hard as steel.

He says, “My father died at home when my brother cut him down to protect my mother and me from his final rage. After his saber broke, he deteriorated. It was,” he pauses, clears his throat. It’s a raw kind of sound, wet and red, but he remains calm and cold. “It was difficult to watch. I still don’t understand what happened to him. But our doctors called it a qi deviation.”

“I see.”

“Nie-er-gongzi, may I ask,” Wen Qing seems to be struggling to phrase her question but finally settles on, “may I see your saber?”

When Nie Huaisang smiles at her, it’s discordantly soft. Gently amused. “Oh, I doubt my saber will tell you very much, Wen-daifu. I do not cultivate with it.”

“How much do you know about the Saber Path, Nie-xiong?” Wei Wuxian asks.

“Not a lot, to be honest.”

Nie Huaisang flicks his fan open then, retreating back behind a vapid smile as if his candor has reached some limit and he must rest a moment. It’s an oddly placating kind of gesture. Like Wei Wuxian is someone who needs to be coddled or pacified. It irks. Sits wrong, stringing a tension between his shoulders where there wasn’t any before.

“I believe you,” he says. “But you still haven’t answered my previous question. What is the cost, Huaisang?”

The fan flickers back and forth as Nie Huaisang seems to consider how exactly to arrange his words.

Usually he doesn’t take this long. Usually he walks people through a conversation he’s rehearsed in his mind, choreographed and memorized. At least, when he wants something. And maybe the pause itself is strategic, but Wei Wuxian knows his friend well. It seems… careful. Which only twists the band between Wei Wuxian’s shoulders tighter.

Finally, Nie Huaisang snaps his fan closed. He deliberately meets Wei Wuxian’s eyes and says, “You’ll have to study it.”

It would be misleading to say that this is what Wei Wuxian had been afraid of. The idea would have had to occur to him first, for him to fear it. But it is tangential to his fear. Connected.

“Ah…” Wei Wuxian rubs his palms against the rough fabric of his robe. He glances over to Wen Qing, who meets his gaze with the anxiety in her own. “Nie-xiong…”

“You don’t have to… cultivate it,” Nie Huaisang says, far too knowingly. Wei Wuxian’s eyes jump to his friend’s face, but Nie Huaisang presses on, “Just. Just study it. Fix it.”

They’re going to have to address that at some point. Probably. Because just how the fuck-- No. Not now.

“Fix it?” Wei Wuxian asks with no small amount of incredulity. No small amount of curiosity either. “I can’t-- I know I helped you pass your exams during the lectures but--” His brain is already beginning to circle around what he knows of the Saber Path. Yang-focused, prone to qi deviation -- or at least something like it.

Nie Huaisang must see it in his face, because he smiles, a little fiercer this time, and says, “You can. You think about cultivation in ways that other people can’t even imagine. Look at what you built during the war!”

“You’ll recall,” Wei Wuxian says, raising a pointed eyebrow, “that not many people are very pleased with what I built during the war.”

Wen Qing, with a bit more wariness adds, “And some are extremely greedy for it.”

“Also true.��

“Wei-xiong,” Nie Huaisang huffs. “False modesty will get us nowhere.”

Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes. “Yes. I’m smart. But this…” He flaps his hands uselessly.

“This is new. A challenge,” Nie Huaisang grins, and Wei Wuxian hates that it works on him. “And you’ll be tackling it inside a library. With insulation. And on a full stomach.”

The Wens, aside from Wen Qing, are all outside the cave somewhere. Tilling corrupted soil, washing clothes with barely cleansed water, gathering any scraps of cloth they can find to sew into blankets and coats as the winter looms near.

Wei Wuxian looks toward the strained sunlight that brightens the mouth of the cave. He bites a strip of cracked skin from his lip. His leg bounces under the table.

When he turns back, Nie Huiasang is watching him closely. He’s letting Wei Wuxian see how closely he’s watching, which counts for something here. Between them. He needs this. He’s almost begging them for it. And when has Wei Wuxian ever been able to turn down someone in need of his help?

“Chifeng-zun has agreed to their safety?” he asks. An insane question in any other circumstance.

“He has.” A similarly insane answer.

That Nie Mingjue would willingly shelter Wens is almost as unbelievable as the Wens all surviving this winter in the Burial Mounds. But that’s the thing, isn’t it. Their options are severely limited. And if Wei Wuxian wants to keep them safe, he must consider any that are open to him.

He nods and asks, “What else?”

The vapid smile returns. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Huaisang.”

Nie Huaisang shakes his fan at him. “You sound eerily like Da-ge when you do that, did you know?”

He’s avoiding the question. “It’s bad, then.”

“It’s…” he trails off for a moment, but has the decency to look guilty when he nods and says, “permanent.”

Wei Wuxian huffs, exasperated. He’s so fucking tired of games.

Nie Huaisang sets his fan down on the table. Presses his fingers against the surface until his knuckles bulge with it. Then he says, “You’ll have to give up the Yin Tiger Seal.”

“To whom?” Wen Qing asks, the question quick to her tongue, like she already knew this would be the request.

She probably did. Wei Wuxian probably should have known, too. But he’d thought, of all people…

“No,” he says.

“Wei-xiong--”

“No, I’ll do it,” he amends. “But I won’t give it to anyone.”

“Wei Wuxian.” Wen Qing’s voice is sharp with warning. Pointed and precise like her needles. Because she knows what he’s thinking now, too.

“Qing-jie. It’s the only way we do this.”

“You don’t know it won’t kill you.”

It won’t matter if it does, he doesn’t say. Instead, maybe more bullheaded than necessary, he bites out, “Luckily, I’ll have a library at my disposal.”

Wen Qing’s jaw tightens like she heard him anyway.

“Ah, Wei-xiong?” Nie Huaisang flutters his fan, blocking the lower half of his face, exactly like he used to during their tutoring session when Wei Wuxian would go off on some borderline esoteric tangent about cultivation theory.

It’s so familiar that Wei Wuxian almost laughs aloud with the nostalgia in his chest.

“When?” he asks.

“When what?” Nie Huaisang returns.

“When will I need to give it up?”

Nie Huaisang’s eyebrows dip together. “I don’t--”

“If your brother will allow me to hold onto it --” unlikely, but, “fuck, if he’ll lock it away for me -- Tight, safe even from himself. He's more suspicious of Jins than any of the other clan leaders,” he trails off, considering. But Nie Huaisang taps his fan and Wei Wuxian finishes, “I can figure out how to destroy it. Safely.”

That seems to take Nie Huaisang by actual surprise. His fan pauses, mid sway, then shivers back into motion, faster and far less even. “Destroy it?”

“Completely,” Wei Wuxian says with a confidence he forces into his throat.

He needs to be confident in this. He needs to be sure he can destroy it, otherwise… Otherwise none of this will matter anyway.

Nie Huaisang hums, considering. He folds the fan and taps it against his lips. “We can probably make that work.”

Something like relief breaks in Wei Wuxian’s chest. A breath he hadn’t been holding. He wants to reach for Wen Qing’s hand, but she probably wouldn’t appreciate the gesture in front of their guest.

He takes a deep breath. Waits for Wen Qing’s tiny nod. And says, “Okay.”

“Okay?” asks Nie Huaisang, hope shining too bright to be false in his eyes.

“If you can guarantee the safety of the Wens,” says Wei Wuxian, “we’ll go.”

Wen Qing inhales, pauses, inhales again, and says, “Nie-er-gongzi…”

“Yes, Wen-daifu?”

She still seems to be gathering her words, but Nie Huaisang waits patiently. His fan is still, his smile gentle again.

She tilts her head, eyes calculating, and says, “There will be political backlash for this.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose there is one last thing I’ll require of you, Wei-xiong.”

Wei Wuxian waits, annoyed, but also dazed. He’s not entirely sure that any of this is really happening. It’s too good. Even if there is yet another condition.

Nie Huaisang smiles -- smiles, not a grin full of mischief or a calculating quirk of the lips -- and says to Wei Wuxian, “Become my sworn brother.”

Wei Wuxian’s face reacts before he can tell it not to. His jaw drops open, his brow furrows, his eyes search his friend for the joke, for the punchline, for any hint that he’s not serious about this. When he doesn’t find one, he yells, “Huaisang!”

“What?” asks Nie Huaisang, fan flapping back and forth over an exaggerated pout. “I didn’t realize it was so detestable a concept.”

“You cannot swear yourself to Yiling Laozu.”

“We’re not getting married.”

Wei Wuxian scoffs. “We kind of would be, and you know that.”

“So what? You’re a war hero. And an incredibly powerful cultivator.”

A glance to Wen Qing offers no help. Her lips are softly curled and her eyes are unfocused, like she’s imagining Jin Guangshan’s face when Wei Wuxian is pulled out of his reach for good. Or maybe just the spectacle of Yiling Laozu swearing himself to Nie Huiasang, the most unassuming figure of the highly ranked gentry.

“I don’t have a core,” Wei Wuxian blurts out, “which you seem to have figured out somehow.”

Nie Huaisang looks very smug and says, “Nothing in the ceremony requires a golden core.”

“I’m a servant’s son.”

“Meng Yao is a prostitute’s son. Wei-xiong, I really don’t understand what the problem is here?”

“He has self-esteem issues,” says Wen Qing. Which is just--

“I--? What? I’m incredibly full of myself, ask anyone.”

Wen Qing catches his eyes and glares. But he isn’t lying.

It’s not self-esteem he has issues with. It’s other people risking themselves for him. Reputation means everything in this world, all three of them know that. And Nie Huaisang’s reputation is far from spotless. He does not need it raked over the coals by being associated with Wei Wuxian.

But then. It’s not for him. Or not just for him. It’s for Nie Mingjue. It’s for the Wens.

It-- Damnit, it could work, too.

This time when he looks at her, Wen Qing looks back. It’s in her eyes: his acquiescence. He can see it there, taunting him. She knows him too well. She knows him better than anyone, it seems, even himself.

“In front of everybody?” he asks, a whine more than anything.

Nie Huaisang’s smile gets wider. Victorious. “That is generally how it’s done, yes. I’m planning it for your nephew’s 100 days ceremony.”

“That’s quick,” says Wen Qing.

“It’s necessary.”

“I’m impressed.”

Nie Huaisang winks, “Don’t tell anyone.”

“And Nie-zongzhu is just-- fine with that?” Wei Wuxian asks, some last token protest before he has nothing left.

“He understands the complexity of the situation. And the… Jin Guangshan of the situation.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

Wei Wuxian blows out all the air in his lungs. It’s not a lot, but it gives him several seconds to collect himself. Then, finally, he says, “Alright, let’s do it.”

He’s not sure who looks more satisfied, Nie Huaisang or Wen Qing. He ignores the strange ease that settles into his own gut at the idea of it. At a path forward that isn’t a single-log bridge in the night. It’s… nice, he thinks. To have somebody else to help him across the river, to help him help the rest of them cross safely to the other side.

It’s a new feeling. A new lightness.

He’s sad, suddenly, that it didn’t come from someone else. Someone who has been his candle in the dark since they were teenagers.

And then he is abruptly guilty for that feeling, and he shakes it off, letting his mouth run instead.

“How does this sworn brotherhood thing work, anyway? Am I siblings with my sworn sibling’s siblings? What about their sworn siblings and those sworn siblings’... siblings?”

He ran out of steam at the end a little bit, and “siblings” now more resembles a jumble of sounds than it does a real word. But then Nie Huaisang sighs and says, “You will still be allowed to marry Wangji-xiong,” and Wei Wuxian feels all of the blood in his body rush into his cheeks.

“Good,” he nods, with every ounce of dignity he has left. It’s not a lot. “That’s all I need to know.”

#wei wuxian #nie huaisang #wen qing #mdzs #fanfiction #you'll never guess what i spent my afternoon doing instead of homework....#ccdwydyog #nhs + wwx sworn brother au #my writing #i have absolutely nothing written after this so like... idk where this is going really but it's fun to play with anyway :)#first draft! please be nice :)#let me know where you want it to go and i'll see what i can do #probably will run in the vein of wwx wq mad scientist fun times idk

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