Garden of Little Lights: An Alternate Epilogue for Banana Fish

Eiji comes back to America. 

Eiji comes back to New York City.

Eiji comes back to Ash. 

He stays with Ash as he recovers in the hospital; he stays by his side day, and night, and all the hours in-between. The nurses and doctors become accustomed to having him there, and even if they don’t what can they do? Eiji almost lost Ash; he almost lost him over, and over, and over again—and there are only so many times one can almost lose someone before the loss remains, and Eiji is all out of chances. 

And even if he had one, he wouldn’t take it.

Not this time. 

They grow back together.

Ash heals; physically first and as always; mentally and far, far more slowly, in bits and pieces, starts and stops. Eiji doesn’t push nor pull him, force or surrender—but he is constant, and he is faithful, and he is forever, and this Ash had always needed, and this Ash finally accepts. The nightmares continue, they probably always will. Sleep remains a far away thing, peace further away still. But when dawn comes, Eiji is there when Ash awakes. And when dawn comes, Eiji is there to help Ash try again. 

They grow up together.

Eiji becomes a photographer. Ash gets his GED, and dabbles in various pastimes. Maybe he’ll have a proper career or maybe he won’t, but the choices are always there, and to have choices at all is a strange and a wonderful thing. In time, they buy an apartment in Greenwich Village, and rescue a golden retriever who they name Buddy. Later still, they build a tiny garden in the back, and add some plastic pumpkin decorations—because Eiji is no gardener but he is a tease, and while Ash refuses to acknowledge the orange abominations, they remain, as does his fondness of Eiji’s whims. 

They grow older together.

Max and Jessica often drop by with Michael, who grows up looking up to Ash as his hero, much to Ash’s embarrassment, and Eiji’s amusement. Sing stops by frequently—he despairs, and discusses, and debates everything with Ash from schoolwork, to politics, to motorcycles; he learns how to speak, read, and write Japanese from Eiji—hard work that pays off when Akira comes over from Japan to attend NYU. Cain stays in touch, as do Bones, and Kong, and Alex and a few others. Some of them change their lives around, and others don’t, but they’re always welcome nonetheless. Nadia visits with her and Charlie’s boy, named after another boy she, and Ash, and Eiji knew once upon a time and long ago. In another time, in another life. 

Every now and then Ash and Eiji receive letters from a faraway place in the Caribbean. There is no return address, and they are never signed—but they smell of sunshine, and salt, and the sea, and their contents are always thoughtful, as is the cursive that forms the Russian words.

Time passes. The seasons change. 

Maybe Ash and Eiji go to the Museum of Natural History. Maybe, one day, they ride the train to Coney Island and back again. Maybe, on another day, they go to the New York City Public Library. 

Perhaps Ash and Eiji visit Cape Cod. 

Perhaps they visit Ash’s childhood home by the sea. 

And perhaps someday, when they are old, and they are slow, and the city moves too fast for them—they shall return. But for now, the house simply waits. For now, it slumbers. For now, it dreams. 

There is no happily ever after. 

There is no happily ever after for memories have teeth, and memories bite. Time does not heal all wounds, and there are some things that one cannot get over, only carry. 

And yet, nonetheless, there is an ever after.

And yet, nonetheless, there is happiness. 

"Who got you smiling like that?"

Oh it's just words on screen about some fictional gay people falling in love. nothing much.

When there are 0 fanfics with the pairing you want

worse: when the fics exist and are ALL BAD

I need someone to write a full essay on how m/m erotica made by women can be boiled down to: the women who wrote them and the women who consume them are projecting their f/m sexual and romantic fantasies onto m/m relationships. That's why the sex scenes are so far removed from what actual m/m sex looks like in real life. They eliminate the realistic (but less glamorous and romanticized) details that would make it feel *too different* from f/m sex. They focus on certain aspects and they choose specific vocabulary in a way that you could swap one of the men (the receptive one) for a woman and the whole scene could practically work as well. (I'd give examples of extremely common patterns but it's too NSFW for me to explain it properly here lol)

It's just straight erotica... without women. And I think a huge part of it is due to internalized misogyny - by giving the role of the woman to another man the reader can consume it while keeping a detachment from her own female body. She can avoid the almost inevitable sexist sexual dynamics that come with straight relationships, she can see two characters she perceives as equally complex and human and interesting (which doesn't happen often with female characters (for which both, creators and consumers, are to blame)), she can project herself onto one of the men and experience what is like to be loved by a man the way they only seem to be able to love other men, not women

And then on top of that, another reason behind this phenomenon is the fetishization of gay relationships of course

I couldn't leave this in the tags, especially the third point! @thatsonemorbidcorvid

Inspired by my fav fic of these two

The taste of blood, the claim of love

wich unironically uses this tag 

and i vibe

I've noticed that meta writers and fic writers operate under different notions of "canon compliance."

Meta writers operate on what I call an evidentialist approach on canon compliance: they state their claims, and then they back those claims by citing certain stuff from the source material. The relationship between the canon and the meta is affirmative/positive; the things cited from canon should actually support your claims.

On the other hand, fic writers that invoke canon compliance operate on what I call a coherentist approach: the fic is written under the maxim that under certain parameters (e.g. usually fics would state something like "Canon compliant until S10"), no canonical information should be able to invalidate any of the fic's contents or else it loses its claim of canon compliance. The relationship between the canon and the fic is non-negative (which is NOT the same as positive); as long as there are no contradictions between the two, the fic can retain its label of compliance.

Notice the typical kinds of fics written under the umbrella of "canon compliant." They're usually either fills (i.e. fics that fill notorious "fanfiction gaps" and gray areas to speculate as to what could've happened) or extenders (i.e. fics that extend to events beyond a certain point in canon). By their very nature, they cannot be taken under an evidentialist lens; in fact, the reason why you're writing fills and extenders is that there's literally no canon to tell you what happened.

I wanted to point out the distinction because these concepts would be useful in my upcoming essays about 1) "characters" as inferential constructs, and; 2) how (1) gives us insights as to what people get out of reading and writing "out-of-character" fics in the first place. I would totally cite this post again for later posts.

(The reasoning behind the coherentist definition is explained in more detail here, where I analyze in extreme detail the concepts of canon compliance, divergence, and a proposed concept of canon convergence.)

Wei WuXian knew immediately.

The moment the thing walked through the door, even before it spread it’s lips in a wide, fond smile anyone would expect a doting husband to give his spouse, he knew.

That was not his Lan Zhan.

Suibian leapt out of it’s sheath and across the room even as he rose Chenqing to his lips and wove a net of resentful energy that should have held any angry spirit or yao.

Should have.

With a shrug it tore through, then launched itself across the room, movements too blocky and sharp, a more earth centered martial style that would have been jarring to see performed by any Lan, but especially Lan Wangji.

It took a few exchanges of blows before the truth sunk in.

This was not a creature wearing Lan Wangji’s face.  It was wearing his body. He’d known that torture from time to time.  Demons born and bred in the Burial Mounds had taken their turns one by one to tear into his body, invasive, violating tendrils of dark laughter and glee that walked him here and there to perform ghastly atrocities while he was helpless to do anything but watch.

Somewhere quiet inside, his husband still lived.

Wei WuXian thought fast and felt his stomach sink like a stone.

He could not kill Lan Zhan.  Could not cripple him or bind his soul with that wretched creature.  Could not let that thing walk out with the face of Hanguang-Jun into the heart of a Cloud Recesses teeming with juniors that flocked to his side like baby chicks.

With a swift series of hand motions and a sharp crack of his palm down on the floor, he activated the sturdiest of his wards and locked himself within the grounds of the Jingshi, then turned and ran for the perimeter. 

Laughing in that unsettlingly bubbly way demons always seemed to, a sound so utterly wrong colored by his husband’s deep tenor, it chased behind, lashing him with scythes of vile power or carving Bichen through his flesh to scrape the bone.  The swords light flickered and waned and it refused to fly forth when it formed a sword seal, so it threw it with a snarl.

Wei WuXian caught the precious blade with his remaining hand with a sincere prayer of thanks to heaven.

Stabbing the tip down, Wei WuXian used his momentum and grip on the handle to reverse direction as he let the demon think it had cut him off from escape again.

One more sigil to adjust to change the barrier into a banishing array.

Crashing to his knees hard enough to scrape them open through his robes, Wei WuXian dug the point of Bichen into the stone and began carving, love burning bright as the sword’s familiar blue power flowed from the blade and made the carving easier.

Two strokes before he completed the adjustment to the sigil, a familar, beloved hand closed around his throat and hauled him back. 

Wei WuXian kept his grip on Bichen as he was slammed into the ground hard enough the breath was knocked from him and he felt a horrible crack in his spine.

“~Caught youuu~” the demon grinned, childlike and playful. 

Idly, Wei WuXian wondered how demons had garnered a reputation for being fierce and grave.  Every one he’d ever met had brimmed with malicious cheer and been all the more terrible for it.

“Yeah?  So what are you going to do now that you have?” Wei WuXian stalled, not darting a look at the sigil, but glancing at the bench Lan Wangji had had arranged beside the pond after he’d noticed Wei WuXian’s preference for sitting in the sun here, and calculated the distance while the demon expounded on it’s own creativity.

There was no way for him to make it.  Not with his body so damaged.  Not without mortally wounding Lan Wangji, and then what would be the point?

Maybe....

Closing his eyes, Wei WuXian sighed and pictured his husband, Lan Wangji as he’d last seen him - really seen him.  Gold eyes warm and lips still pinked from where Wei WuXian had been biting them, Lan Wangji had reached out and stroked one hand over his hair, palm sliding over Wei WuXian’s ear causing a brief rush of sound like a surging sea, and then one final, lingering kiss before he walked out the door.

He’d watched him walk away this morning.  Let himself be hypnotized by the way his glossy hair swayed and lifted; eyed the tantalizing flutter of the tails of his ribbon as he opened the door and the breeze pushed them back; sighed over the perfection of that last, beautiful image of him framed in the doorway as he looked back and smiled and told him he would return soon.

He’d had a lot of practice bearing pain.  Three months, thirteen years and two lifetimes.

It took longer than he thought it would to die.  His golden core had grown so strong lately.

Like before, the moment of death was quick.  A taut thread touched by a sharp blade, the now two pieces springing away from each other.

Ignoring the call of the afterlife with the ease of a powerful cultivator that had never been given a soul calming ritual, Wei WuXian floated back to the Jingshi’s yard from where his soul had begun drifting in the direction of Lotus Pier.

His garden was being dug up.

Rows of cabbage for his husband, turnips for Lan Sizhui, and potatoes for himself alongside wide squares for his newest attempt to get the right spices to grow were overturned and strewn about.  Seedlings already dying with their roots exposed to the bare sun.

Fighting his affront, aware that emotions were stronger now that he was a naked soul, Wei WuXian headed back to the final sigil.

For a normal soul, this would be impossible.  For him it was merely very difficult.

By the time his body thumped heavily into it’s new shallow grave with an odd squelching sound, he’d finished the marking.

Now to figure out how to activate it.

The demon finished recovering his body, doing a passable attempt at returning the garden to it’s previous state.  No one would notice, not even Lan Wangji.  It only looked like Wei WuXian had been trying another experiment with the garden and walked off halfway through in boredom.  Tense, Wei WuXian watched it dither around, tottering Lan Wangji’s body back and forth in an ungainly way before jutting it’s chin up and flicking Lan Wangji’s hair over it’s shoulder like a villainous prince, eyes squeezing closed in self satisfied amusement as it headed into the house to change out of the now dirtied clothes.

Heaven really was smiling down on him today - aside from the having been slowly butchered by a demon wearing his husband’s body.  In the few extra minutes before the demon would inevitably begin tearing at the barrier with it’s monstrous strength, Wei WuXian thought and tried every method of infusing enough power into the banishing array to activate it.

Minutes burned away and if he’d still had a heart it would have been pounding like a rabbits in panic as the Jingshi door slid open and the demon stepped out, trussed up in Lan Wangji’s most elaborate finery - the sort only for special occasions.

Just as he was about to go with his final option, destorying his own soul to power the array, the strains of a guqin brushed against the barrier; power welcomed by his own, feeding quickly and eagerly with every note that cascaded after.

Sizhui.  Wei WuXian thought, rushing beyond the barrier to find Lan Sizhui in a circle of disciples, taking advantage of the peaceful glade not far from the Jingshi to demonstrate Inquiry.

Punting the other souls aside that had been approaching, Wei WuXian all-but slammed into the strings. 

“PLAY CLEANSING!!” the strings screached for him, making the assembled disciples wince and cover their ears. 

“What is your name?” Lan Sizhui played back, mouth setting in that nearly annoyed way he’d picked up from Lan Wangji as he infused more power and command into the notes.

Lan Sizhui was not Lan Wangji though, and Wei WuXian was not a normal spirit.  Easily shrugging aside the compulsion to answer, Wei WuXian screamed again.

“PLAY CLEANSING, NOW!!”

“What is it saying?” one of the smaller juniors asked with a nervous look around.

“It wants me to play Cleansing.” Lan Sizhui said with a puzzled tilt of his head, forefinger almost beginning to idly pluck at a string before he stopped himself.

Wei WuXian repeated his request three times quickly as the first pound against the barrier came.

“Just do what it asks!” one of the juniors wailed and Lan Sizhui nodded and began.

With the first note, power funneled again into the barrier.  Quickly, Wei WuXian rushed back, this time to the heart of the wards, a stone buried under the Jingshi itself.  Exerting all the force he could, Wei WuXian bent the fresh power until at last the sigils caught like oil touched by flame.

A hideous shriek came from the front yard.  It wasn’t all rage and thwarted malice.  There was heartbreak and horror too, bottled up too long and finally allowed to be voiced.

Ignoring the instinct to go to the sound of his husband in pain, Wei WuXian shifted his attention to the characters binding Lan Wangji to the seal.

The final change activated in a white burst, and Wei WuXian lost time after that.

Gradually, he became aware of the sound of Wangxian played at the table in the main room.  The warm way the notes sunk into the wood and fabrics in much the same way as the sandalwood incense.

Even when the song cut off abruptly, Wei WuXian continued to float in a sense of well-being and peace as he became more aware of the room.  The room was more bare than usual, a set of black robes was folded and set on a table beside the bath and dust was gathering on the notes he’d been working on in the study when the demon stepped in the door - the ink spilled over them now dried and gluing them to the table. 

Outside it was snowing.  It had been the start of summer, hadn’t it?

Lan Wangji was bowing over the strings of his guqin, hands shaking as he visibly grappled with himself before straightening and resuming a playing position once more.

Inquiry strummed out, dragging hundreds of souls from miles away into the small space of the Jingshi, demanding in an irresistible command:

“Have you seen Wei Ying?”

“Yes” the collected souls answered.

Lan Wangji’s throat hitched in a gasp and his next question was almost clumsy in it’s haste.

“Where is he?”

Wei WuXian pushed forward, a shrug ending the Inquiry for the others, scattering their souls back to where they’d been lingering, waiting for closure.

“I’m right here Lan Zhan.”

Wei WuXian curled close,pressing unnoticed against his husband’s shoulder as he bowed forward and began to cry.

He should go.  Move on to the next place to wait for Lan Wangji to join him, then carry on to a new, hopefully better life after.  He didn’t want to though.  He wanted Lan Wangji as he was, wanted their life as it was, the Jingshi, Sizhui, their donkey and their travels, the exciting moments and the quite ones, the richness of a love and happiness earned after so much patience and hardship.

Wei WuXian didn’t want to be dead.  He wanted to stay.

“I’m here Lan Zhan.” he made the strings play even without Lan Wangji’s power keeping the connection open.

He was here, he’d come back from hell and death so many times.  For Lotus Pier’s vengeance, for Jiang Cheng and Shijie, for Mo Xuanyu’s helpless rage. 

He would do it again for his love, for Lan Wangji’s happiness.

p0rn w/ feelings is so funny it’s like I’ve tricked you into reading this fic by offering you smut but as soon as you get there I pull out a chair, sit backwards on it, and say “hey, pal. you wanna talk about abandonment issues?” and then you have no choice but to listen

#what is the POINT of porn if it’s not also a character study

When life gives you lemons be like “wow this fic is really old”

Wei Wuxian storms into the Lanshi where the elders convene, when he receives word from Lan Yuning. 

“Wei Wuxian,” an elder calls out, frowning, “you have not been summoned.” 

Entry into the Lanshi is forbidden unless summoned by the elders, but Wei Wuxian has broken worse rules on the Wall of Discipline in his youth, and frankly, doesn’t care about what any of the elders think of him. Not today. 

“I have not,” Wei Wuxian agrees.  

“Why, then, have you come uninvited?” the elder asks. 

“You intend to punish Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says. 

“You will address him properly, or not at all,” another elder says. 

“I will address Lan Zhan the way he wishes for me to,” Wei Wuxian counters, not even turning to face the elder who has spoken to him. He stares at Lan Qiren, who is sitting at the head of the table, instead. “You intend to punish Lan Zhan for bringing me back from Qinghe.”

“Yes,” Lan Qiren says. 

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[follow up to this]

Lan Wangji is tired.

He has fought hard. He has tried to turn the battle around. He has tried so hard, but the Gusu soldiers, those who survived the night before but are still weak from the poison, keep falling, and Lan Wangji is- 

Tired. 

He forces himself to focus on the face before him, to listen to the words spilling out of Wen Chao’s mouth. He is gloating about his imminent victory, taunting Lan Wangji by telling him how easy it was to turn one of his men, to use him to plant the poison.

Lan Wangji’s grip tightens on his sword. If he is to die on the battlefield today, if the Gusu army is to fall, he will at least take Wen Chao down with him. 

“Do you know who you have to thank for this tremendous defeat?” Wen Chao asks. “Only yourself, Lan Wangji! If you had been a little kinder to him, a little more accommodating… Would you be in this situation right now?” Wen Chao’s lips quirk into a sneer. “It’s not like you haven’t already taken a whore into your bed, I hear,” he says. “What is one more?” 

“Shut up,” Lan Wangji snarls, swinging his sword at Wen Chao.

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You know a fanfic hits you hard when you close your phone or whatever you are reading on for a few minutes and just stare into the void cause holy motherfucking son of a bitch

I’d like to share a little question, rethorical or otherwise,

about this one book, Dresden. Come now, I haven’t been talking about Dresden in ages.

For those who don’t yet know, Dresden is a historical fiction novel set in 1944-1945 in the Geman city of, yeah, Dresden. It’s about a Jewish man with fake papers who lives with a gypsy girl and a homosexual German man, who joins a Nazi officer (actually a spy for the Allies) and a Resistence operation in the midst of enemy territory.

For those who don’t know yet, Dresden was almost entirely destroyed by Allied bombings in 1945. This event is shown in the book. The book also has an incredibly well done instropection into the German society under nazi rule - to common people, not necessarily just generals and soldiers. It’s an exploration of human complexity that is just insanely well written, where it shows that not everyone is good or bad on both sides. That shows that human beings, as destroyed and humiliated as they may be, can find ways to survive and fight back. That, in a war, everyone commits crimes and no side should be held unaccountable for their actions, and that is the real horror of any war. There is no romanticizing a war.

This story joins fascinating and complex characters with a historical time that is ripe for all sorts intrigues and complications that make for the background of a good book. There’s historical facts, there’s violence, there’s consequences to every decision and mistake, there’s one-way trains to hell, there’s death (lots of death), there’s the effects of pursecuting people because of some random undesirable characterisic out of a long list of choices - both on personal and social level. There’s power plays, plot twists, comedy, heart warming romance, heart breaking romance, sex (like five scenes. Or seven. It’s a  334478 words/772 pages book for f sake, it’s like 20 pages tops).

What sets this book apart from other WWII-set historical fiction peers are its particularly fascinating characters and a really engaging and well thought-out plot. And 2 more aspects.

For those of you that do know this story, you have certainly realized by now that I have purposefully avoided describing it what it is, a fanfic, because we all know fanfics cannot be sold as books regardless of how insanely well written and planned they are. This whole post is to try and make the question I said I wanted to place, and for it to be possible, we’d have to get around the fact that this is a fanfiction piece and simply go to the hypothetical field of ‘this book can be sold in a bookshop’.

And that’s exactly the question. Everything I’ve just described is a book that should be sold in a bookshop. But which one?

This whole post was prompted by the fact I discovered there’s a LGBT bookstore in London. Not such a section, but a whole bookshop. But would this be the most suitable? 

What if it was sold in a bookshop without any sort of section or label except it’s own - historical fiction?

I’ve made the ‘social experience’ of ‘selling’ this story to a reader by showcasing all its interesting aspects, except a fundamental one. I wanted to see the reaction of the reader to the natural flow of things of the story without any unconscious preconceptions or biases. (as a tiny trivia, he’s a cis hetero man). 

And it worked. All the other aspects were taken as fascinating and he started reading, and when he got the fundamental aspect I had left out, it was just embraced as natural and interesting in terms of plot. 

I am now going against my own little experience, but I wanted to talk a bit about how interesting it would be if this book and story could be appreciated, or constructively criticized, regardless of the fact that it has a romance between two men. 

Or rather, that it could be accepted because of that.

Happy Pride Month.

Dresden by @hedera-helixwriteseruri​

German translation by @chopzoe

Portuguese translation by me

Chinese translation by onesadgummybear

cover art by @seitsen-sarvi + fanart

OST / playlist + cover by smooshieboosh

amazing fanart by @littleskrib

amazing fanarts x x x by @gravesecret

more fanart by kabenosoto more x x by wheniseelevimyheartgoesdokidoki more by @und-der-wald more x x by @adnerdiora

cosplayish by me and Near

edit by @momtaku that made me find this story to begin with.

Ah this made me tear up. Dresden by @hedera-helixwriteseruri is just a pure masterpiece. 

(cover art is actually by 35grams. I don’t know what else 35grams goes by these days.)

MDZS: Wangxian ficlet; Mistake

For lanlingjins @ twitter, kiss prompt 46 (out of envy or jealousy), Wangxian. Based on a potential Hwayugi AU, the Korean adaptation of Journey to the West. Lan Zhan as the modern reincarnated equivalent of Tang Sanzang; Wei Wuxian as Sun Wukong; Jiang Cheng as the bull demon from Hwayugi. 

Unedited, apologies for any mistakes!

—

Jiang Cheng’s scream rings through the mansion.

Bolting out of his seat, Lan Zhan races to the kitchen, umbrella in one hand, paper talismans in the other. Jiang Cheng had insisted that he, the wise and virtuous Hanguang-Jun, should wait to be served at the dining table, but something must have gone horribly wrong for a demon of Jiang Cheng’s level to let out such a blood-curdling sound.

Lan Zhan makes it as far as the kitchen doorway before he freezes, brows furrowed in confusion.

Jiang Cheng is heaving, one hand clutching at his chest. His eyes, narrowed and bloodshot, are riveted on the freezer box of the refrigerator—in which an entire person is curled up in a fetal position and looking back at Jiang Cheng with a sheepish expression.

Lan Zhan wonders if it is a person. No living being can possibly survive that temperature, and the man’s complexion is far too pale, bordering on a deathly grey.

“Who the fuck are you!?” Jiang Cheng bellows.

The man bobs his head in greeting, his voice gentle as a spring breeze. “My name is Wen Ning and I’m really sorry to bother you.”

“What the hell are you doing in my freezer!?”

“Master Wei told me to stay here so I wouldn’t stink up the house with my undead smell—”

“Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng shrieks.

In a puff of smoke, Wei Wuxian materializes, face lighting up when he spots Lan Zhan. His smile, bright and open, makes Lan Zhan’s chest clench in a way that he’ll never get used to, never wants to get used to.

“Lan Zhan, you’re here—”

Jiang Cheng yanks Wei Wuxian forward by the collar, throwing him at the refrigerator. “Why is there a fucking zombie in my freezer!”

“Oh, Wen Ning?” Unfazed, Wei Wuxian rights himself to wave at Wen Ning, who waves back. “I found him! He was wandering around downtown, completely lost, so I thought it’d be safer to store him here for safekeeping.”

“Master Wei is very kind,” Wen Ning says, softly.

Wei Wuxian beams, reaching into the freezer to ruffle Wen Ning’s hair. Lan Zhan doesn’t miss the way Wen Ning’s lashes dip, the way he shyly leans toward Wei Wuxian’s touch.

“My house is not a storage unit for your stupid pets,” Jiang Cheng hisses.

“Wen Ning isn’t a pet,” Wei Wuxian huffs.

“And where did you put my food?”

“What food?”

“The food in the freezer.”

“Oh, I threw them out.”

Jiang Cheng’s demonic aura flares up in a burst of purple. “Threw them out!?”

“You’re a demon, Jiang Cheng, demons don’t eat,” Wei Wuxian snorts. “Why do you even have food?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, asshole, I’m trying to blend in with these mortals!”

“You’ve been ‘trying to blend in’ for a hundred years!”

“Do you think it’s easy for a great demon to lower himself to their level!?”

“You hear that, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian turns to Lan Zhan in a great show of indignation. “He just insulted you and your kind!”

“How does calling them ‘your kind’ make it any better?” Jiang Cheng snaps.

Lan Zhan exhales. His entire life, he’s been on the run, plagued by demons assailing him for a bite of his flesh. But that might actually be preferable to the pair of demons who have offered to be his protectors. All Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian have done so far is bicker over Wei Wuxian throwing his clothes on the floor, Wei Wuxian clogging the bathtub with his long hair, Wei Wuxian walking around Jiang Cheng’s house as if he owns the place.

“Ridiculous,” Lan Zhan concludes.

Wei Wuxian grins. “See, Jiang Cheng? He’s displeased with you now.”

“He’s referring to you.”

“So Wen Ning,” Wei Wuxian says, turning, Jiang Cheng’s retort gone ignored, “You said you’re looking for your sister, right?”

Wen Ning nods. “Yes, Master Wei. That’s the only memory I have… that I have a sister I called Qing-jie.”

“It’s settled then,” Wei Wuxian declares. “We’ll help you find her.”

“I’m not doing anything for a damn zombie.” Jiang Cheng folds his arms across his chest, his eyes flicking to Lan Zhan. “Our only mission is to see through Hanguang-Jun’s mission.”

Wei Wuxian flings his arms in the air. “We don’t even know what that mission is yet! While we wait for those peacocks to figure out what it is up there, we can help a man—”

“Undead,” Wen Ning corrects from the freezer.

“—an undead find his sister and protect Lan Zhan at the same time!” Wei Wuxian turns his smile to Wen Ning. “Sound good to you, Wen Ning?”

Wen Ning smiles back, dimples deepening at the corners of his mouth. “Whatever Master Wei thinks is best.”

“I wish I’d found you earlier,” Wei Wuxian laughs.

Lan Zhan’s grip tightens around the handle of his umbrella. His stomach is churning and roiling with some feeling he can’t put a name to, something that makes him want to whack at Wen Ning with his umbrella and tell Wen Ning to get lost.

Instead, he whirls around and storms out of the kitchen to the sound of Jiang Cheng shouting at Wei Wuxian to store his fucking pet someplace else.

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