Thread by @raeinthe

Thinking bittersweet thoughts about omega LWJ visiting alpha WWX at burial mounds, near the end.

#omegalwjseason

They had never touched each other in that way, before that night, but they had both suspected (hoped) for a long time that there was something other than a normal friendship there.

But something about that whole day had felt like a goodbye, and perhaps that’s why LWJ felt brave. When he should have been leaving to head back to Cloud Recesses, he lingered instead. Rather than say goodbye, he leaned forward and brushed his lips against WWX’s.

Tentative at first, but then WWX leaned in, accepting the kiss enthusiastically. LWJ lunged fully into WWX, hungry, the two pressing their bodies together and clinging to each other as if it’s the end of the world.

Somehow, they made it to the cave that served as WWX’s quarters.

LWJ rode WWX next to the Blood Pool until they were both delirious with pleasure, just a mess of emotions, so full of love and awe at that love being returned and longing and grief for the peaceful life they’d never get the chance to have together.

LWJ took WWX’s knot. It was overwhelming and perfect.

In the morning, they shared sweet, slow kisses as LWJ dressed and tidied himself up as best he could. Finally, one kiss felt like the last. LWJ mounted his sword and flew back to the Cloud Recesses.

Everything went (further) downhill from there.

They had been wrong before. They did see each other one last time. Or, LWJ saw WWX. WWX was delirious with grief, and didn’t seem to recognize LWJ.

Then, he was gone.

When LWJ, body bruised and ripped open from the discipline whip, learned he was pregnant, he wept. He was afraid.

cw // thoughts of miscarriage

Not afraid of living in shame, of telling his family that he was pregnant out of wedlock.

Afraid that he was too weakened to bear a child, that his ravaged body would reject the pregnancy, and he would lose this last piece of the man he loved.

But no, he remembered, not the last. There had been a child at burial mounds, WWX’s, though not by blood. Overwhelmed by maternal instincts and desperate to find anything left behind by WWX, LWJ escaped to the Burial Mounds to look for A-Yuan.

As he walked the destroyed settlement, a thousand voices whispered in his ear, though the Burial Mounds had never spoken to him on his last visit.

The voices offered help him, to make his child strong, to lend LWJ strength to bring his and Wei Ying’s child into the world.

His and the Yiling Laozu’s child.

// pausing here for now!

Another sound cut through the whispers. A whimper. LWJ found A-Yuan curled up sleeping in a tree stump, tendrils of black smoke twisting around his tiny form, burning up with fever.

LWJ held A-Yuan to his chest, so relieved that the boy was still alive, and so heartbroken over the relentless, pointless pain A-Yuan had had to endure in his short life. And the pain that WWX had to endure to protect him.

LWJ thought of the angry cuts on his back that had barely begun to heal. That many blows from the discipline whip could have killed a cultivator with a weaker core. Even with LWJ’s powerful core, his body would likely never be quite the same.

He could not take WWX’s children to the Cloud Recesses. A-Yuan would be taken away from him while LWJ lived out his forced seclusion. The baby, too, once he was weaned. And if people figured out the baby’s heritage, the child would be raised under the harshest scrutiny.

The elders would be determined to stamp out every trace of the father they saw. As part of the main family line, the child would be protected from physical harm, but there would be no such guarantees for their spirit.

As he was lost in these thoughts, LWJ heard footsteps behind him. He mentally kicked himself for letting his guard down (of /course/ there would be others coming to scavenge what they could of the Yiling Laozu’s legacy).

He stood up to his full height to face the intruder, doing his best to show none of the pain that surged through him at the sudden movement.

Jiang Wanyin started, purple sparks jolting from his hand as he tensed at the sight of LWJ, his face contorting in rage.

But as quickly as the sparks from Zidian died, so did the fury on Jiang Wanyin’s face. His eyes traveled to the toddler in LWJ’s arms, to LWJ’s tear-streaked face, and he heaved a sigh.

Of course, LWJ thought: Jiang Wanyin mourned Wei Ying, too.

So LWJ decided to take a chance. He needed a safe place to stay, and the help of skilled healers. The Jiang had both.

Though they had never been friends, he and Jiang Wanyin had formed an unlikely partnership during the Sunshot campaign, in the search for Wei Ying.

If there was one thing they could form an alliance on, it was their love for WWX.

LWJ /hoped/ there was still love in Jiang Wanyin’s heart for his brother. Things had soured between them at the end, but LWJ hoped that those feelings hadn’t had time to fester & turn to hatred.

Worst case, a small part of him thought, if he was wrong to put his trust in Jiang Wanyin, he could always take the voices of the Burial Mounds up on their offer.

He tried not to think any more on that, and instead, got to the point:

“I am carrying Wei Ying’s child.”

Once again, Jiang Wanyin’s face cycled through an impressive range of emotions in a very brief span of time, this time settling somewhere in the vicinity of an eye-roll.

“I can see that,” he spat out. “That’s not his real kid though, he tried to pull that on me when I came to visit, but he would have told me if he’d ever… and that kid’s a few years old already, Wei Wuxian could never have kept a secret like that. Don’t tell me you fell for it.”

Now LWJ couldn’t help but roll his eyes back.

“I did not mean in my arms.”

And, just to make himself abundantly clear, because Jiang Wanyin was apparently denser than he realized, he placed his hand on his still-flat abdomen and made unblinking eye contact.

Jiang Wanyin opened his mouth, then closed it. His face softened briefly, then arranged itself back into the scowl LWJ was quickly learning was just Jiang Wanyin’s default.

“And you’re going to raise the kid in the Cloud Recesses, where I’m sure everyone will be completely understanding of an unwed omega giving birth to a child that looks like WWX. Where they’ll do /that/,” his eyes scanned where LWJ’s robes were staining red, “to one of their own.”

Jiang Wanyin kicked up a small cloud of dirt. “WWX’s child should be raised at Lotus Pier. He would have wanted that, if you’d… before he… he would have brought you there, he wouldn’t shut up about you visiting. He would have never been happy in Gusu.”

LWJ tried not to feel offended at that last part, and instead focused on the invitation.

“Thank you. My children and I would be honored to be your guests at Lotus Pier.”

Jiang Wanyin snorted. “Guests. The Jiang were nearly wiped out and Lotus Pier nearly destroyed in the war, we don’t have time for guests. I fully expect your help training disciples once your injuries have healed and the child is born. And I could use some help with A-Ling, too.”

He motioned toward A-Yuan, face softening briefly as the boy whimpered in his sleep, “And he will start training as soon as he’s well. The earlier he starts building up a core the better off he’ll be.”

LWJ was a bit overwhelmed.

/Once your injuries have healed and the child is born./

/As soon as he’s well./

Jiang Wanyin had said those things as if they were inevitabilities and not the fragile hopes LWJ knew they were.

It was still hard to picture ever befriending Jiang Wanyin, but LWJ was grateful to him nonetheless, and was starting to see how, for WWX’s sake, he could potentially learn to tolerate the man.

// happy WWX day! I’ll be updating intermittently throughout the evening. Gotta get to the birthday boy’s resurrection ❤️✨

They made their way to Lotus Pier.

The Jiang physician gave A-Yuan medicine for fever, tended LWJ’s wounds, and confirmed to Jiang Wanyin that yes, LWJ was pregnant.

Jiang Wanyin insisted they write to Zewu-Jun right away to inform him of LWJ’s whereabouts.

It would only be a matter of time before word spread that Hanguang-Jun was at Lotus Pier, and, Jiang Wanyin said, he did not need LWJ’s family thinking he had kidnapped the Second Jade.

He wrote that LWJ was safe and they were treating his wounds, and left it at that.

As LWJ headed toward his new quarters to rest, Jiang Wanyin awkwardly walked along with him, and, before LWJ could go inside, stopped him with a slight scowl.

“Wait. I would like to. Give you spiritual energy. Just. I know you’re probably too proud to take it. But.”

He glared at LWJ as if be had already rejected the offer.

LWJ was a bit taken aback. He knew that maintaining a pregnancy while simultaneously healing his injuries was enough to nearly drain his spiritual powers. But he had not thought to ask for help, in this way.

It was nearly as important to Jiang Wanyin that this piece of WWX survived as it was to LWJ.

It would, of course, be a huge scandal if an alpha was seen entering the quarters of an unwed omega. But LWJ was well past trying to preserve his marriageability.

He accepted.

As Jiang Wanyin poured his spiritual power into LWJ, something about the energy flowing to his meridians reminded him of what it had felt like to spar with WWX. It was unsettling for a moment, but then, he supposed it made sense. WWX and Jiang Wanyin had been martial brothers.

The two had built up their golden cores training together, it was reasonable that their spiritual energy would have similar properties.

For the first time since he’d received the blows from the discipline whip, LWJ slept the full night.

When he woke, the wounds on his back had tentatively begun to knit themselves together again.

The ache of his grief felt less raw, too.

Instead of the agony and panic that had overwhelmed LWJ since learning of Wei Ying’s death, it had begun to settle itself into the hollow ache he knew he’d carry the rest of his life.

Within the day, Zewu-Jun arrived at Lotus Pier. To the untrained eye he looked as immaculate and put-together as the First Jade ever was. To LWJ, his brother’s worry was all too obvious. He must have rushed there as soon as he received Jiang Wanyin’s letter.

When Zewu-Jun requested (in that incredibly polite, I’m-not-asking sort of way he was so good at) to speak with LWJ alone, Jiang Wanyin bristled visibly, already growing protective over WWX’s omega. But of course, he would not deny a sect leader an audience with his own disciple.

“Wangji, why are you here?”

There was no point in keeping the real reason from LXC.

If they’d been back in Cloud Recesses, LWJ would have been more hesitant, knowing that his brother would feel obligated to convene with the Lan elders to discuss LWJ’s fate.

But alone, he was just LWJ’s brother, and LWJ knew that, even if LXC wasn’t always strong enough to stand up for him, he still cared about his younger brother. He would let LWJ go, if that’s what he truly wanted.

So LWJ told LXC about the pregnancy.

“I don’t suppose,” LXC said, “we’d be lucky enough for you to tell me that Jiang Wanyin is the father, and that’s why he’s sheltering you at Lotus Pier?”

LWJ summoned up his most withering glare.

“Ah. I didn’t think so.”

LWJ found his eyes suddenly filling with tears. It would take some getting used to, the way reminders of his grief could crash into him without any warning. LXC squeezed his brother’s hand, since LWJ’s wounds prevented him from enveloping LWJ in his arms like he wanted to.

“I don’t imagine I can convince you to come back to Gusu.” LXC said as LWJ’s sobs subsided. It wasn’t a question; he knew how stubborn his brother was.

“You cannot,” LWJ confirmed.

“If you don’t come back to serve the rest of your punishment, it’ll be seen as defecting from our sect. Even as sect leader there’s not much I can do about that. I can welcome you back to Cloud Recesses as my brother and a guest, but it can no longer be your home.”

“I am aware.”

LXC looked a bit sheepish at his next thought, but voiced it anyway:

“It would, perhaps, be a more amiable break if you were to marry into the Jiang sect, rather than leave the Lan outright. I could attempt to broker a marriage between you and Jiang Wanyin.”

LWJ gave /that/ idea all the thought it deserved.

“Please do not.”

LXC sighed.

“Well then, I wish you the best, Wangji. I look forward to meeting my niece or nephew one day.”

LWJ was bedridden for weeks, though the spiritual energy from Jiang Wanyin helped him heal faster than he would have on his own.

Jiang Wanyin visited LWJ every evening. They hardly spoke; neither man had much patience for empty courtesies.

It still gave LWJ an odd sense of deja vu, the moments Jiang Wanyin would begin transferring energy.

Some evenings, he closed his eyes, imagining it was Wei Ying sharing his spiritual energy.

He pictured the warmth of WWX’s teasing smile coursing through him, waking up every cell of his body, encouraging him to heal and thrive.

His wounds became scars as the rest of body grew round and soft.
LWJ wondered what WWX would have thought of the way he looked now: he had always been leaner and more muscled before pregnancy, but now his features were softer and his muscles hidden behind newly-formed curves.

Would WWX have liked seeing LWJ this way, knowing he looked different because of WWX’s child growing inside him?

As the time for the birth drew closer, LWJ became restless. He spent his days building a nest, arranging and rearranging blankets and cushions and bits of clothing, trying to make it perfect. He would bury a giggling A-Yuan in the blankets, making the nest smell like family.

Jiang Wanyin brought LWJ a gift. An inner robe that had belonged to WWX. It had, of course, been laundered and barely carried a hint of his scent. But it was an old enough robe that was worn enough to always carry a /faint/trace of its owner.

LWJ held the garment to his face as he slept in the nest that night, imagining Wei Ying slept next to him.

LWJ went into labor the next morning.

At first, it was just a tensing up of his body, uncomfortable but manageable. By nightfall it had crescendoed into searing surges of pain.

Any last bit decorum or self-consciousness LWJ possessed evaporated in those last few hours. He paced and moaned, tore off his robes and squatted naked in his nest, far past caring about modesty.

His physician, to her credit, seemed entirely unperturbed to wander in to an eyeful of naked LWJ squatting in his nest, making noises more animal than human. She merely checked his meridians and assured him that he & the baby were doing fine; many first labors took this long.

Just before dawn the next morning, as fog rolled off the lakes and meandered through Lotus Pier, LWJ and WWX’s son entered the world.

LWJ couldn’t look away. He had never seen a baby this small before. His tiny son squirmed on his chest, eyes mostly closed, single-mindedly rooting around for milk. He was perfect.

Word spread quickly that Hanguang-Jun had given birth at Lotus Pier. It was a favorite topic of gossip among common folk and cultivators alike. However, people didn’t seem to talk about LWJ with the same sort of disdain that an unwed omega would normally face in LWJ’s position.

Instead, it was Jiang Wanyin who became the villain of the story.

“He despoiled Hanguang-Jun, convinced him to run away with him, then refused to marry him when he fell pregnant!”

“What, does he think he can find a better spouse than LWJ? Hanguang-Jun could have had his pick of alphas to marry before Jiang Wanyin ruined his prospects.”

Although both LWJ and Jiang Wanyin found these rumors distasteful, they didn’t make much of an effort to silence them. After all, the assumed child of the Jiang sect leader would be much better off in the cultivation world than the son of the Yiling Laozu.

As the child grew from a plump toddler to a gangly kid to an athletic teen, he began to look more unmistakably like a young copy of his alpha father. If anyone pointed out the resemblance to WWX, though:

“Well that’s to be expected, isn’t it? They say WWX was a son of Jiang Fengmian, so he’d be the child’s uncle, after all.”

LWJ would tell his sons about their father some day. In the mean time, though, he did all he could to prevent the world from poisoning their minds against WWX.

When they came to him with wild stories about the unforgivable crimes of the Yiling Laozu, LWJ calmly encouraged them to think about the sources of the tales and whether they were likely to be true.

LWJ told them stories of his playful, kind, & brilliant friend Wei Ying. Jiang Wanyin told them stories of his brother.

The boys grew up knowing about all of WWX’s favorite activities and places in Yunmeng. Without ever knowing what WWX was to them, they grew up admiring and missing the man who was so important to the adults in their lives.

As for LWJ, as soon as he was well enough, he began training again amongst the Jiang disciples. He grew lean and strong again, the evidence of his body having borne a child only noticeable to those who knew him best.

Within a few years, his place amongst the Jiang was made official when he was named Head Disciple.

Though his relationship with the Lan was strained for a time after defecting to the Jiang sect, LWJ’s ties to his family were never severed. His brother and uncle visited whenever they could.

(Jiang Wanyin would usually make himself scarce during these visits, as LQR didn’t know the truth of his great-nephew’s parentage, and would glare daggers at him whenever they were in the same room.)

Over time, the relationship with the Lan was repaired enough that Sizhui went to Cloud Recesses as a guest disciple just as Jiang Wanyin and WWX had all those years ago.

There, he became inseparable friends with Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen.

The two boys visited Yunmeng and also became fast friends with Sizhui’s younger brother, and his cousin, Jin Ling.

(Jingyi often jokingly called Jin Ling “Young Mistress” because he could be a bit temperamental, but LWJ didn’t think that was quite fair: JL was a tad prone to crying & lashing out, but LWJ was sure it would have been far worse had he been left solely in the care of his uncles.)

When LWJ awoke one morning, thirteen years later, and helped his responsible teenager and his rambunctious preteen prepare for a night hunt at Mo Manor (the younger one’s first unsupervised night hunt!), he reflected quietly on the life he had built at Lotus Pier.

If you had asked him back when he lay in Cloud Recesses, back torn open, his true love gone from the world, he would have said that he was a broken man with no chance of happiness left in his life.

He would have been wrong, then.

The loss of Wei Ying was an ever-present ache, but LWJ had carried on. His life was full of love of a different kind. He had children who loved and depended on him, disciples who looked up to him, and, over time, even a sort of (very grumpy) second brother in Jiang Wanyin.

He thought of Wei Ying every day (he couldn’t not, with a young copy of WWX buzzing around him all the time), and strove to be a good parent and a protector of the weak in his name.

And if he also, maybe, wandered around from time to time, taking on night hunts that hinted at demonic cultivation, still searching for a trace of his lost love…

Well, he tried not to make too much of a habit of it. It was unseemly to dwell on hopes that could never be.

// and that’s a wrap for LWJ! From here on the story will continue from WWX’s POV.

// link to the top:

https://twitter.com/raeinthe/status/1454330561741443076

WWX wakes up.

He immediately notices two things that are very wrong:

First, his surroundings reek with the scent of a strange alpha. It’s so strong in the tiny room that WWX’s scent is completely undetectable, even to himself.

Second, he is completely unbothered by it.

His instincts should be urging him to get away, or to drown out the offending scent with his own. But instead, he’s remarkably unperturbed, and…

…oh.

Not a strange alpha’s scent. It coming from his body. But it’s… not his body?

There are four gashes on his arms. Formerly Mo Xuanyu’s arms, he learns from the fragments of writing he finds in the dingy room.

From what WWX can tell, Mo Xuanyu was an alpha, a cultivator (although not a particularly strong one), the bastard son of Jin Guangshan and the sister of Madam Mo. The family he had left treated him horribly.

He saw that firsthand when Mo Xuanyu’s cousin burst into his room.

He learned that cultivators had arrived in Mo Village to help with a disturbance. He barges into where they are meeting with MXY’s aunt, and is surprised to see it’s a group of junior cultivators from the Jiang Sect.

The leader of the group seems very polite and capable. WWX likes him instantly. Next to him is another disciple who seems to be the youngest. There is something extremely familiar about his face, but WWX can’t quite recall where he’s seen him before.

“Who’s that?” He says aloud.

His horrible cousin hisses: “That’s the son of Hanguang-Jun by Jiang Wanyin. Everybody knows that, you idiot.”

WWX’s heart drops into his stomach.

The closest thing he had to a brother, and the only person he’d ever slept with (or even kissed, for that matter). And he instantly feels guilty about it, because he /should/ be happy for them.

He’s been gone thirteen years! Of course they should have moved on.

And he will be so, so happy for them that they’ve moved on together, dammit.

And anyway it’s not like he had any claim to LWJ; they had only slept together the one time, and he and Jiang Cheng have a kid together now!

Judging from the age of the boy, they must have gotten together right after he died. That’s… so, /so/ great, they didn’t have to be sad about him for long.

So of course that junior looks so familiar; he must be reminding WWX of JC!

The juniors, it turns out, are in over their heads. They fire off a flare. WWX helps them fight off the arm until backup arrives.

WWX is not expecting that backup to be LWJ and JC.

LWJ looks stunning under the moonlight holding his guqin. He still has his forehead ribbon, but now wears the violet robes of the Jiang instead of the white robes of the Lan.

He looks much the same, just maybe a bit broader.

The way LWJ & JC work together to trap the arm in a qiankun pouch, WWX can see how close they’ve grown in his absence. And he sees how their son admires them.

It makes him feel a pang of… something. He’s not sure what. All he knows is he needs to get out of here, immediately.

Turns out WWX isn’t able to avoid them for long.

At Dafan mountain, he finds himself helping the Jiang juniors again. This time, they’re with a Lan junior named Jingyi, who treats “Mo Xuanyu” with some suspicion, and a boy from the Jin sect who WWX learns is his shijie’s son.

Jin Ling seems close with LWJ and JC’s son, which makes sense, he’s about the same age and probably would have spent a lot of time at Lotus Pier.

WWX’s stomach gets that squeezy feeling again, which he swiftly ignores in favor of solving the mystery of the soul-stealing statue.

…though it’s not as much /solving/ as it is running when an impatient JL accidentally wishes the statue to life, and it attacks.

WWX counters the attack by summoning Wen Ning using a hastily-carved bamboo flute (which… what?)

After taking down the statue, WN is worked into a frenzy which WWX calms with a melody that had soothed him once before, though he can’t recall when.

He almost, /almost/ has everything under control when a familiar large hand grabs his wrist.

WWX finds himself headed back to Lotus Pier with LWJ and JC after all.

As thanks for helping the juniors, he is given a spot in the guest quarters and invited to dine with the sect leader and his family.

It’s awkward. They still think he’s Mo Xuanyu, and he’s having to hold himself back from asking all kinds of impertinent questions that /Mo Xuanyu/ would never care to know the answers to.

WWX finds himself attempting to observe the Lan “silence at meals” rule, for LWJ’s sake.

Although, apparently, that excuse doesn’t even hold up anymore: LWJ isn’t talkative by any means, but he’s perfectly willing to respond to his sons’ chatter. It’s a testament to how much the man has changed: in Yiling LWJ had insisted on silence when he ate with WWX and A-Yuan.

The strangest moment by far, though, is when LWJ fills his bowl with the sort of fiery red food that WWX has always liked so much, and LWJ always hated. LWJ adds an extra spoon of chili oil for good measure, and begins eating as if it’s /normal/ for him.

The youngest boy and WWX follow LWJ’s example while JC and Sizhui eye their bowls with mild horror. (Sizhui, he’s learned, is adopted, but in that moment he and JC look so alike WWX almost has to question it.)

As perfectly seasoned as everything is, it’s hard for WWX to thoroughly enjoy the food. As the heat of the chili oil warms his tongue, his thoughts wander to LWJ learning to tolerate the spice of Yunmeng cuisine. Learning to love it, even. The way he now loves JC.

Would LWJ have done the same for WWX, if things had been different?

WWX can’t help but glance over at LWJ. His lips are swollen and red from the spicy food, and he’s looking right back at WWX.

He must have noticed WWX staring at his lips because his eyes have gone dark and he seems… angry.

WWX doesn’t look at him for the rest of the meal, and excuses himself to his quarters as soon as he can politely get away with it.

He’s barely had time to walk back to his room, pace around a bit, bury his face in his hands and mutter “what are you /doing/?” before the door is sliding open and LWJ is standing in front of him.

LWJ must have been really, really angry, then.

It’s /definitely/ not proper for LWJ to be in a strange alpha’s quarters, but from the look on his face, he doesn’t seem to care.

LWJ is closing the distance between them, and WWX isn’t sure whether he’s about to be lectured or punched in the face, when…

“Wei Ying,” LWJ whispers, and kisses him.

WWX’s brain goes temporarily, blissfully blank as their mouths open to each other and LWJ’s scent surrounds him: sandalwood and magnolia and crisp mountain air with a hint of something musky that makes WWX feel simultaneously comforted, loved, and insatiably horny.

Nothing in either of WWX’s lives has ever smelled as completely perfect as LWJ. He’s drowning in it. “Lan Zhan,” he murmurs, and… now he’s essentially confirmed his identity. Mo Xuanyu would never call LWJ by his birth name.

“Wei Ying,” LWJ says again, kissing down WWX’s jaw, and then his lips are on WWX’s neck, his teeth dragging feather-gently above WWX’s scent gland, and WWX comes back to his senses, because LWJ has a mate already.

…but WWX has had his hand on LWJ’s neck, and, oddly, he hasn’t felt the scar of a mating bite there.

LWJ must have noticed WWX feeling his neck, because he detaches his mouth from WWX and lifts his hair to bare his unmarked neck.

“Do it.”

WWX is equally horrified and aroused.

“What about Jiang Cheng?”

“He knows I went after you, I’m sure he won’t be surprised.”

WWX finds /that/ hard to believe. LWJ’s actions tonight have been very surprising so far.

“You have a son,” WWX says, more to remind himself why this is so very wrong.

“Yes.” LWJ says, and gives WWX a meaningful look, like he’s waiting for WWX to say something.

But whatever it is, WWX is not going to say it. As much as he wants LWJ, he’s not going to break JC’s heart.

And then WWX has a realization. LWJ would never act this way in his right mind, and he seemed to be hinting at something when WWX mentioned his son.

Maybe LWJ was trying to hint at giving WWX children.

“You’re in heat.”

Of course. LWJ must have gone into a spontaneous heat. It /can/ happen sometimes. And LWJ had just reunited with the first alpha to knot him, that must have set it off.

LWJ nuzzles WWX’s neck again.

“Not in heat.” He gently bites WWX’s earlobe.

“Or. Always in heat, for Wei Ying.”

It takes all of WWX’s self control not to tear LWJ’s robes off right there.

He can’t, he can’t he can’t he can’t he can’t.

So, WWX takes the only other reasonable course of action: he untangles himself from LWJ, and runs.

WWX comes careening out the door, and, as luck would have it, crashes directly into JC.

“Wei Wuxian!” JC hisses.

WWX freezes. He’s trapped. Not that he really wants to run away from Jiang Cheng.

“How did you know it was me?”

“I told him,” a deep voice cuts in from behind WWX. LWJ stands calmly in the doorway and from the blank, almost bored expression on his face, you’d think he had merely dropped by to lend WWX a book. He doesn’t meet WWX’s eyes as he brushes past them & makes for his own quarters.

JC scowls after LWJ. “You’ve got Hanguang-jun in your room in broad daylight? You couldn’t wait until after dark and sneak around like normal people?”

WWX forces himself to meet JC’s eyes. He’s not going to try and run (not that he could make it past Zidian). He owes his brother an explanation and an apology. He gave JC his core, once. He can give him the truth, and can accept whatever revenge JC sees fit to take.

“I’m sorry. I betrayed your hospitality and took liberties with LWJ. It was all my fault, I lost control, and I will take full responsibility for my actions. Whip me with Zidian if you want—”

“What the hell? Why would I do that? That’s a bit dramatic, even for you,” JC interrupts. “You were being shameless, as always, but I’m not going to /whip/ you for it. And it’s not like LWJ is some virgin I was hoping to marry off, where the hell do you think his son came from?”

This is… not exactly the reaction WWX was expecting. “You mean /your/ son. Yours and LWJ’s.”

JC’s scowl deepens. “My son…. with LWJ? My… mate?”

WWX nods.

“WWX, just checking, Mo Xuanyu was an alpha, right?”

WWX nods again.

“And you, in Mo Xuanyu’s body, are still an alpha? The… ritual or whatever brought you back didn’t turn you into a beta?”

Another nod.

“So you still have your sense of smell, then. Tell me: in the past few days, have you ever smelled LWJ’s scent on me? Or mine on him?”

“No…”

“What even made you think we were mates, anyway? Wait, don’t tell me, it was probably those yokels in Mo Village. I didn’t think anybody still believed those old rumors, it’s not like the kid looks anything like either of us. No wonder you were acting so weird at dinner.”

“So Lan Zhan is…?”

“My first disciple. And. Well. I guess. Myclosestfriend, these last years. And /don’t/ tell him I said that, he’ll be even more of a stick in the mud out of spite.”

WWX’s heart is pounding. There are tears in his eyes. He… does he have a son? He’s not sure but he thinks he might have a son.

“How did Lan Zhan end up here?”

“Some asshole got him pregnant 13 years ago then got himself killed. The Lan had practically shredded him to pieces with the discipline whip when I found him. I told him the Jiang didn’t care if he was an unwed omega, what we needed was strong cultivators.”

WWX’s heart plummets as he thinks about LWJ alone, pregnant, injured. He wasn’t there to protect him back then, but he /will/ be there to protect LWJ, & their family, from now on. If LWJ will still let him.

“I need to talk to Lan Zhan,” he says.

JC rolls his eyes. “I’ll say.”

WWX starts walking, then pauses.

“Just checking. When you said, ‘some asshole impregnated him,’ you /did/ mean…”

“You, asshole.”

WWX nods.

“Thank you. For taking care of him. Both of them.”

“The three of them. Make sure to ask LWJ about A-Yuan.”

A-Yuan. Is A-Yuan alive? He must be, if JC knows who he is. WWX beams.

“I will.”

JC snorts.

“Yeah, yeah. Just go. But don’t think I’ve forgotten about you taking liberties with my mate.”

“He’s not your mate!”

“Yeah but /you/ didn’t know that!”

WWX had missed his brother so much.

WWX finds LWJ’s rooms easily enough. He follows the omega’s mountain-crisp scent that stands out amongst the spice and lake water and lotus blooms of Yunmeng.

As he approaches the door, he realizes he doesn’t know what he’s going to say, but it doesn’t slow him down. He might make an ass of himself, but it won’t be the first time today.

LWJ isn’t there.

WWX wanders around Lotus Pier as the sun sets, following every hint of LWJ’s scent he encounters, until he stops at the edge of a lake. His favorite to swim in growing up.

LWJ bobs in the water further out in the lake. WWX stands at the shore, but doesn’t wade in just yet. He watches for a moment, taking LWJ in. He looks beautiful, serene under the moonlight, eyes closed and hair unbound.

“Wei Ying,” LWJ says, without opening his eyes.

“Lan Zhan,” says WWX, pulling off all but his trousers and wading into the water. He doesn’t close the distance between them yet, he’s not sure LWJ wants him to.

WWX is just about to speak when LWJ says:

“I’m sorry.”

WWX paddles a little closer.

“What do you have to o be sorry for, Lan Zhan? I was the one who ran out on you without explanation.”

“Wei Ying does not owe me an explanation. I was the one who acted shamelessly. Who barged into your room unsolicited. I acted on my one-sided desires without pausing to think about what you wanted. I thought only of myself, like I did the time I visited the Burial Mounds.”

“When I saw you looking at me at dinner, I… made certain assumptions. But you have never once indicated that you desired me. Your body has responded to mine, yes, but that does not mean you /wanted/ me. I understand, now, that you do not. I am sorry for my lack of restraint.”

This is all wrong. Lan Wangji, First Disciple of the Yunmeng Jiang, Second Jade of Lan, Hanguang-Jun, looks so unsure of himself. Thinks /he/ is someone who could be unwanted. Who in their right mind would dare not to want him?

WWX disappears under the water and surfaces next to LWJ. “Lan Zhan, my Lan Zhan, of course I want you. I wasn’t always thinking about it, but it was always there, always a part of me, I think it must have been for as long as I’ve known you.”

“Earlier, when you came to my room, when you kissed me like that after all this time, I wanted you more than ever. I only ran away because I thought you were someone else’s, and I couldn’t stand to have you like that, I would have hated myself, and resented you.”

“You thought that I was Jiang Wanyin’s, LWJ says, putting it together, just a hint of disdain in his voice. “You thought that he was our son’s father.”

/Our son./ WWX let’s those words soak into him. He swims closer to LWJ, so close they can feel each other’s breath.

“I was gone for so long. Is it such a ridiculous thing for me to believe?”

“Yes,” LWJ says firmly. WWX can’t help but laugh, and with that, he’s more at ease: everything he’s been thinking about saying to LWJ as he wandered Lotus Pier comes tumbling out of his mouth.

“Lan Zhan, I’m sorry I ran away from you. I’ll never run away from you again. I like you so much, Lan Zhan. I know it’s been 13 years & I haven’t been back that long. I can tell you’ve changed in so many ways. But I know I love you just as much as I always have. I always will.”

“And when I think about how I left you alone, and pregnant… I never got to see you grow heavy and round, never got to hold our son, never saw him grow up. He’s so old now! He’s as tall as I am, in this new body, and I’ve never known him any other way.”

“I’ve missed /so much/, and it makes me crazy. I never want to miss anything again, I want to get you pregnant a dozen more times, and be there for all of it, over and over, even though it will never make up for—”

LWJ kisses him. The two are barely able to stay above the water as they tangle together, but neither one of them cares much.

“Yes,” LWJ sputters through lake water. “Yes. A dozen more children. Want Wei Ying there for all of it. Like you. Love you. Always have. Always will.”

They make their way back to LWJ’s rooms to get started on their new plan right away.

💖 The End 💖

After that, they follow the arm, solve the mystery of what happened to NMJ, and the rest of the story is pretty much the same, except the two are newly bonded mates who thoroughly traumatize their sons and the other juniors with their shamelessness.

By the time they’re at the Guanyin temple, LWJ is most definitely pregnant again, and WWX goes feral the second anyone touches his omega. JGY didn’t stand a chance.

WWX always regrets the time lost with their first two sons, but loves them both just as much as the dozen -ish children he /does/ eventually get to raise. (And he gets to be there for their teenage years, at least. Everyone knows those are the most fun times, right? 😅)

Anyway, thanks for joining me on my first li’l thread fic 💕

From the top:

https://twitter.com/raeinthe/status/1454330561741443076