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“Come here,” the Yiling Laozu tells him.
Xue Yang’s feet obey before his brain does.
Wei Wuxian is sitting on the dirt of the cave floor. A large and unfamiliar array spans out around him, drawn in blood. Xue Yang isn’t sure if it’s his own blood or someone else’s, though that’s hardly important now.
“Strip. And kneel,” Wei Wuxian tells him, “right here.”
There is a spot in front of him the size of a man’s body. Xue Yang strips off his clothes and then kneels down. He’s always so quick to obey Wei Wuxian’s words. He’s never quite sure whether or not that obedience is rooted in admiration, obligation, or the fact that the Yiling Laozu owns a bit of Xue Yang’s soul. In the end, the reasoning doesn’t matter; all that matters is that Xue Yang folds easily to his knees, more smoothly than he ever has for anyone else in his life, before.
“Good,” Wei Wuxian says. There is tension strung tight across his shoulders. With a brisk, impersonal touch, he moves Xue Yang’s body the rest of the way, arranging him how he wants him. “You know what must be done, yes?”
Xue Yang nods.
This isn’t the first time that the Yiling Laozu has touched him. Almost always it is under the guise of demonic cultivation, of blood magic and its aftermath, but Xue Yang will take whatever he can get.
In the burial mounds, the nights are long and cold and lonely. Difficult to get through sometimes, especially in the dead of the winters that drag on endless, bleak and bitter. Xue Yang would share Wei Wuxian’s bed, if only he were asked. (Xue Yang has offered, of course. And he has been turned down countless times.)
But this is fine, Xue Yang thinks. This is enough. To have his mentor ask this of him -- Xue Yang would never refuse. Could never. Xue Yang would give the Yiling Laozu anything; he saved Xue Yang’s life, after all. Wei Wuxian was the only one to help Xue Yang after Wen Zhuliu melted Xue Yang’s core, dissolving it into something molten and burning in his veins, leaving him screaming, convulsing -- and then, catatonic. Xue Yang does not remember his journey to the burial mounds, does not remember it other than the endless, searing pain -- but he does remember collapsing at Wei Wuxian’s feet, begging and pleading for aid, for a solution. And he remembers Wei Wuxian’s hand, so cold, as it came to rest on the top of Xue Yang’s head; a small comfort, a token of Wei Wuxian’s acknowledgment. His agreement to help Xue Yang.
Xue Yang has felt the ghost of that touch lingering on him ever since.
A promise, fulfilled.
In another life, Wei Wuxian is not the fierce man sitting in front of Xue Yang with bloodlust in his eyes. Xue Yang remembers how he was when he was younger: spirited and carefree, unburdened by constant struggle and catastrophe. There is a world in which he could still be that, where he could live without the weight of countless lives on his shoulders, without resentful voices screaming endlessly in his ear -- but it is not this one. This, instead, is a cruel world, a world where one must fight to get their way, one where one must make endless sacrifices in order to survive.
All in all, for Xue Yang at least, the sacrifices here aren’t too bad. He certainly has had to make worse in his lifet.
“Wei-qianbei,” Xue Yang says, as he looks up at Wei Wuxian.
When Wei Wuxian looks down at him, his eyes are dark with death, full of the resentful energy that swirls perpetually around this space, polluting every breath, every lung-full of dusty air.
Xue Yang thinks of the children growing up here, of how this is all they will ever know. He yearns, strangely, for that life, that reality. Xue Yang remembers his own lonely childhood, full of pain and misery and emptiness -- there’s nothing like that here. Even the tireless pain of existence feels moot, almost negligible, when surrounded by familiar, hungry energy at all times. Those children will never be alone again.
“It will hurt,” Wei Wuxian tells him. He plucks a stray strand of hair out of Xue Yang’s face -- not out of comfort or affection, but not out of malice, either. Something like that is simply an empty gesture where Wei Wuxian is concerned. Still, Xue Yang can pretend, can’t he? “It has to hurt,” Wei Wuxian says.
Xue Yang knows how this works. It almost always has to hurt.
Wei Wuxian touches Xue Yang’s forehead, beginning the process of writing on Xue Yang’s skin with blood. This time it is Wei Wuxian’s own, still warm from a fresh wound on his own chest. Xue Yang stays still as Wei Wuxian adorns him with symbols and writing, allowing Xue Yang to become the vessel he was meant to be.
The touch travels lower like a tumbling cascade, down to Xue Yang’s collarbones, his chest, and then to his belly, where he is the softest and most vulnerable. He holds his breath as Wei Wuxian’s cold fingers press warm blood to his skin. So easily, Xue Yang lets himself fall into the feeling, head going cloudy as Wei Wuxian works, as Xue Yang feels his meridians shift, as his body begins to open like a cavernous and empty room.
This is not the first time, nor will it be the last. Wei Wuxian needs this stabilizing ritual. He needs Xue Yang. It is a heady thought that Xue Yang finds himself clinging to on his most desperate of nights.
“Ready,” Wei Wuxian says. It is not a question.
He presses bloody hands against Xue Yang’s shoulders and eases him down to the rocky, dirty ground. It is the most gentle Xue Yang has ever seen him, save for with the children. There is a slight curve to Xue Yang’s spine that digs into the dirt. He could shift to find a better position, but he knows better by now; he will stay where Wei Wuxian has put him.
Xue Yang is never as still as when Wei Wuxian’s hands are on him.
(Xue Yang learned the hard way not to push against Wei Wuxian’s boundaries. If they are doing a ritual like this one, it means Wei Wuxian truly needs it. His patience will be frayed, his control will be thin. He will not have any tolerance for Xue Yang’s misbehavior.)
Like this, kneeling between Xue Yang’s spread knees, his hair and eyes wild, the Yiling Laozu is something beautiful to behold.
Xue Yang is already hard and ready. His cock bobs heavily at his groin, already beading a dot of moisture at the tip. At first, he was embarrassed that these rituals had this effect on him, but Wei Wuxian didn’t seem to mind. If anything, Xue Yang’s desire only made him more receptive to the flow of energy, which made things easier and smoother for Wei Wuxian.
The only lubrication they are able to use is blood, and not a lot of it. But at least that’s something.
The Yiling Laozu does not ask him if he is ready to start. And he does not prepare Xue Yang. He only drops one bloody hand to his length and strokes himself until he is just as hard as Xue Yang is.
Xue Yang lifts his hips upward, to give Wei Wuxian a better angle. He clenches his teeth as Wei Wuxian begins pressing inside his body. This time, there is not much blood to ease the way; Wei Wuxian had been sparse with it, had not pressed fingers renewed with fresh blood to Xue Yang’s hole as he sometimes does. This time, it must be truly bad, Xue Yang thinks, for it to need to hurt.
This would be easier with Xue Yang on his hands and knees. Originally, they tried this that way, but the ritual did not work. It had just been dual-cultivation, pure and simple -- which alleviated some of Wei Wuxian’s issues, but not all. It had been a waste of time. And it meant that Wei Wuxian had to use Xue Yang’s body again too soon, while the pain was the worst. Xue Yang remembers screaming through his teeth at the discomfort until it echoed in the cave, in his ears. The resentful energy had torn through him along with the Yiling Laozu’s cock, ripping him to pieces. It had left him a burnt-out and useless shell for days.
The fit is not easy. While Wei Wuxian is not as generously endowed as some of the men who have taken Xue Yang before, he is not small, either.
Xue Yang’s body should be used to this by now, he thinks desperately, as he forces his muscles to relax to make way for the inexorable press of Wei Wuxian’s cock. He should be open and ready at all times for the Yiling Laozu -- and yet.
And yet Xue Yang still must choke back the noise that bubbles up from his throat as Wei Wuxian’s hips thrust forward in a sharp movement, shoving the rest of his cock to the hilt, like a sword. Stabbing Xue Yang through, as if piercing him right through the heart. It feels like it, Xue Yang thinks, suddenly dizzy -- he’s been stabbed before, many times, and it feels just like that.
“Silence,” Wei Wuxian says, as he presses a bloody palm to Xue Yang’s lips. “This time, you must --”
Xue Yang nods. He understands. This time, the ritual must center around silence. And pain.
When Wei Wuxian removes his hand, Xue Yang laps at the remnants of blood left on his lips. It is salty and iron-rich, more flavorful than anything he’s consumed in days.
Wei Wuxian begins moving again. His hands find Xue Yang’s hips, fingers digging into flesh. He is not fast with his thrusts, and yet any movement feels like a prelude to torture. The bite of skin on skin drags with difficulty, and Xue Yang finds himself having to bite his tongue to keep quiet for his senior. It is a challenging task, but Xue Yang has done more difficult things in his short time in this world.
He will stay quiet, even if his mouth must fill up with his own blood.
The sun is just beginning to rise. The light that fills the cave is golden as it streaks across the floor in auspicious, bright rays. Eventually, as it works its way across the room as if drawn by Wei Wuxian’s movements, it finally drapes over the array, right across the center of Xue Yang’s chest. It warms the blood that has been cooling on his skin, leaving it so hot that Xue Yang is sure he can feel it in his heart. Dizzily, he wonders if it will brand him like a piece of livestock. As something that belongs only to the Yiling Laozu.
Lit up with the brilliant gold of the sun, Wei Wuxian now begins fucking him with renewed vigor.
It hurts. It more than hurts.
Xue Yang would scream, if he allowed himself to. Instead, he swallows his pain down and down, until he feels it heavy in his chest, until he feels it fill up his lungs like water.
The light seems to linger on him as Wei Wuxian fucks him -- like it’s caught there like Xue Yang, trapped in the blood array, trapped in this cave by Wei Wuxian’s heavy gravity. Xue Yang feels tied to the ground with invisible binds; trapped. Caged, by his own needs, by his own devotion to Wei Wuxian. And by the pain.
Around them, the resentful energy swirls and twists in the air. It is headier here in the cave, adjacent to the blood pool. And it is always thickest around Wei Wuxian.
Xue Yang nearly chokes on it as it begins to flood into him. The taste rises on his tongue like bile would, ashy and sweet. The harder Wei Wuxian fucks into him, the more Xue Yang’s body opens for the energy, and the more the energy pours out of Wei Wuxian and into him.
Xue Yang opens himself to it, making his body into a golden and willing vessel for the Yiling Laozu. At first, it was difficult to do, to open himself like a flayed thing -- now, sometimes it feels as if it is all Xue Yang knows how to do. It is so easy to let Wei Wuxian fill him up. To use Xue Yang like a tool.
It feels good to be useful, to give something back. After all, Xue Yang owes Wei Wuxian his life.
Xue Yang arches his body. He feels the shift in position open him up more. Wei Wuxian must feel it too, because his fingers press even harder into Xue Yang’s hips, urging him on.
Xue Yang must achieve release for this ritual to work properly. But Wei Wuxian cannot touch him. They learned this the hard way, too.
It’s no problem, though. Xue Yang can find pleasure just like this, with Wei Wuxian’s cock filling him up, prying him open, with Wei Wuxian’s malignant energy flooding into him. With Wei Wuxian needing Xue Yang.
Even the pain is useful, at this point. It is a constant in Xue Yang’s life. Without it, he wouldn’t know how to make it through the days.
The feeling of resentful energy flooding his veins, swimming through his meridians -- it feels like nothing Xue Yang has ever experienced before. It’s intoxicating in the worst way, filling his head up with black tar, with storm clouds, with endless and terrified screams. He can feel the phantom hands of darkness pulling at him, grabbing at his bones from the inside, like the resentful energy is trying to collapse him into himself until he crumbles.
But Xue Yang’s foundations are strong. They are built on pain and suffering. The fight is all that Xue Yang knows and clashing against it is a fierce rush like no other.
The energy swirls in the place where Xue Yang’s core had once been, pulsating and throbbing and filling him up. There is a centering, a coil of it in the shape of his old core. A mirror of how he once had been; complete. It feels good. It feels right. It feels like a becoming.
Xue Yang comes with a silent shout, fists balled at his sides, nails digging into his palms. His mouth opens, but he chokes down any sound as he comes across his own stomach in streaks. The golden light of morning fills his eyes, too bright, too warm.
Wei Wuxian comes soon afterwards, spilling himself into Xue Yang’s body, wet and hot.
The rush that comes afterwards -- the way the previously coiled energy tears now through him with Wei Wuxian’s release --
Every time, Xue Yang passes out with the force of it. The pain and the intensity.
This time is no different.
Afterward, when Xue Yang blinks himself conscious again, Wei Wuxian is more himself. He looks at Xue Yang with dark, pained eyes, and then away, to the side. Xue Yang’s head spins as he tries to make the familiar shapes of the cave, of Wei Wuxian’s face, make sense.
“Did I hurt you badly?” Wei Wuxian asks. His voice is rough, disused. There is a tightness between his eyebrows -- faint worry. But the tension that had been held taugt across his shoulder blades is gone; that’s good.
Xue Yang smiles, his mouth full of teeth. He swallowed down the last of the blood long ago. “No,” he says, even though they both know that it is a lie.
But it is a lie worth telling.
Wei Wuxian helps clean him. Careful, steady hands wash the blood from his chest, a strange and distorted mirror of how they put it there; an undoing. When Wei Wuxian cleans the rest of him, he is almost gentle. The water is cold as he presses a damp cloth between Xue Yang’s legs, wiping away the blood and release left there -- but it feels good, too Like a balm, a breath of fresh air.
Afterwards, Xue Yang is left clean and cared for. His body feels weak for the way the resentful energy hollowed him out. And he aches for how Wei Wuxian fucked him. But he is used to all of that, too. The emptiness, the pain, it all fades so easily into the background noise.
“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian says. His fingers are cold as they brush across the apples of Xue Yang’s cheeks.
No one else sees the Yiling Laozu like this. In the bleary, sugar-spun moments after, he is almost soft, almost kind. It is all thanks to Xue Yang that he is freshly cleansed and emptied. He is as close to his original self as Xue Yang has ever seen him; a strange, but pleasant spectre of what used to be.
This version of the Yiling Laozu is secret, shared only with Xue Yang.
Outside the cave, Wei Wuxian will don his usual sharp smile and the layers of black and crimson robes that make him seem larger than life. He will shroud himself in the persona he has become until it overtakes him again, until it is no longer a persona, but who he is.
But for now, Wei Wuxian lets Xue Yang lean up against him. He puts a hand on Xue Yang’s head, on his ratty and knotted hair. Soon, Wei Wuxian will comb through it. He will help Xue Yang’s shaky, trembling hands shape it back into his usual braids. He will help Xue Yang dress, making him presentable once again.
And then he will walk out of the cave like nothing happened at all.
But he will be back. He always comes back to Xue Yang.