xparrot | time for an h/c comment fest!

Crossposts: https://xparrot.livejournal.com/193437.html

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time for an h/c comment fest!

The last couple of days have been rough on my writing (for dumb annoying reasons, why don't we come installed with a "will not be bothered by this thing" button?)

So! In the hopes of getting me to write something, and because this is what I'm feeling most wobbly about: it's time for hurt/comfort comment-fic!

Leave me a prompt/request for h/c, any hurt or any comfort, short or long as you want -- if it's character-specific, Guardian WeiLan please, that's all I'm in the mood to write; if that's not your thing then please leave a more general prompt! I don't promise to write anything (nor do I promise to write an actual commentfic and not some 10K-word monster, knowing me) but I would love any inspiration.

And if one of the prompts happens to tickle your fancy, please post your own comment fic (art, etc!) here (any fandoms, any characters) -- the more h/c the merrier!

The fills! \o/
(as of Nov. 23)

The Sundial goes full Equivalent Exchange. by

frith_in_thorns
aftermath of torture by

xparrot
Shen Wei is having trouble focusing (and how!) by

xparrot
Hypothermia and cuddling for warmth (or: Shen Wei Is The Least Reliable Narrator) by

yue_ix
Shen Wei has a weird allergic reaction by

frith_in_thorns
Nightmares (and knives) by

xparrot
Shen Wei suddenly has the power to hear people's dreams by

naye
Fanart: Scars by

yue_ix
Comfort tea & hypothermia by

marycrawford
Wings, the kind that stay inside until they tear their way out by

frith_in_thorns
Scars (AU fic for yue_ix's art) by

xparrot
Dragged away screaming by

marycrawford
Shen Wei thinking he's minorly hurt, but it's actually a lot worse by

wintersoldier77
Zhao Yunlan has a literal healing cock by

xparrot
Shen Wei thinking he's only minorly hurt, take 2 by

rlyqueer
winter has come by

extrapenguin
Shen Wei accidentally (or not) ingests poison meant for Zhao Yunlan by

xparrot
muffled screams by

duckwhatduck
Like a snowglobe by

frith_in_thorns

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I don't know what backstory you had in mind for this picture -- most of this one I didn't have myself, until I started writing it, and then...

[this is completely unedited and I am up WAY past my bedtime so please excuse typos or possible complete lack of sense-making; I will polish it for AO3!]

[also it's mostly just hurt; the comfort will be coming to them...]

*

Shen Wei doesn't understand. He almost doesn't believe it--can't believe it's really him, the first time he sees the man, spots him from across the campus quad, talking furtively with a couple of students.

Shen Wei misses a step, loses a breath--Kunlun, it's Kunlun, and he's been waiting so long for this moment that it's hard to believe he's not imagining it. That he's dreaming, as he hasn't since he was forced up out of the earth, but surely he'll wake up; fate cannot be this kind, to actually give him Kunlun again--

Across the quad, one of the campus security personnel shouts, "Hey, you--what are you doing here? Do you have any identification--"

The security team has been on edge, what with the student death two nights before. Kunlun jerks up his head to stare at the incoming guard, hunches his shoulders under his leather jacket and slips away between the buildings.

Shen Wei watches him escape, still frozen in a trance of disbelief, and doesn't even think to follow.

***

Shen Wei sees the man again over the next couple days--he's being more careful, not approaching students on the quad, but Shen Wei is watching closely, and the man is waiting for students at the edges of campus. Ambushing them--not to assault but just to talk. Though whenever Shen Wei gets too close the man melts away. He's got an uncanny sense of when Shen Wei or any other university authority is approaching.

Shen Wei sees a fat black cat once, in the bushes. Even the brief glimpse he gets seems oddly familiar, but surely...not ten thousand years later...

But then, if Kunlun himself is here...

Shen Wei is no fool; when he awoke in this present world with its firearms and plastic-wrapped candies, he realized why Kunlun had always been so vague talking about the place where he came from. And he could guess, too, the reasons for the familiar way Kunlun had with him; they must have met before.

Depending on how the time-space continuum curves, the likelihood is that this Kunlun has yet to meet Shen Wei. That the reason he flees is because he has no idea who Shen Wei is.

...If it really is Kunlun. Every brief look that Shen Wei gets is...maddening, in its familiarity, in its strangeness. Not just the leather jacket or the short hair; that's only to be expected in this new time, and Shen Wei's own clothes have changed as much.

But. The hunch of his shoulders, those furtive looks, always checking for who's around him. That's not the bold, confident Kunlun of Shen Wei's memory, larger than life. The trail of smoke from his mouth--he remembers no stench of tobacco sunk into Kunlun's skin, just the sweetness of his lollipop.

Maybe he's wrong. Maybe after so long his memory is playing tricks on him. Fooling him with hope.

Shen Wei catches up with the students after the man who looks like Kunlun vanishes. The guy just had some questions, the students explain. He was asking about Lu Ruomei, the unfortunate girl who died. And Li Qian.

Li Qian, who is Shen Wei's own student; who has been so distracted, this past little while. Shen Wei starts watching her more closely--tracking her, when he can, in case the man who looks like Kunlun approaches her.

Instead, he only barely saves her from an attack. Shen Wei is furious, with himself more than with the Dixing shadow man. He should have realized she was targeted; he should have realized the danger, before an innocent girl died.

His facade as Professor Shen Wei...may soon have to be retired. There are more Dixingren in Haixing now, and while he'd hoped his cover identity might help him start forging better relations between his people and Haixing's, his first duty is still to stop those of his people who might inflict harm. As Professor Shen demonstrably failed to do.

In a moment of weakness, trembling with the pain and blood loss from the gashes the shadow man tore into his shoulder, Shen Wei wonders if it would be worth going again to the Dragon City government. To see if the investigations division might be re-opened.

It's been well over a decade since Chief Zhao Xinci's demise; perhaps those in power now might be amenable to try a new initiative...

...An initiative that could see the brutal deaths of more Haixingren and Dixingren alike. And Shen Wei...doubts his own strength. If another chief went mad as Zhao Xinci had, would he be able to do it again; would he be able to wield his blade a second time against someone he once called an ally , even in the name of saving his people, of preserving the peace?

He remembers, still, the face of Zhao Xinci's son--the whiteness of his face, the hugeness of his eyes, cowering on the ground and staring up in terror at Shen Wei, at Shen Wei's bloody blade. A child who had already lost his mother only a few scant years before, the root of Zhao Xinci's madness. Shen Wei remembers so clearly how his masked and black-cloaked figure had looked, reflected in those terrified eyes.

Some scars cannot fade; some wounds will ever bleed. Wherever that boy is now, whatever type of man he's grown into, Shen Wei is sure he himself appears in his nightmares, to this day.

No; he cannot risk allying again with the Haixingren. His own power is enough; it will have to be. Shen Wei heals the gashes from the shadow man's claws as much as he needs to, enough that he can function; he saves any further energy. He was already foolish in his rage, capturing the shadow man; he should have been faster to act. Cared less about preserving his guise with Li Qian. If the confrontation hadn't reached the roof, then he wouldn't have had to slow time across the campus to hide the battle. It was a dangerous expenditure of power for him.

Worse, it may have failed. Shen Wei doesn't know for sure, but he suspects that the fight did not go entirely unwitnessed. Because he sees the man who looks like Kunlun again, more than once--but now this man is watching him. Not as before, only keeping an eye out--but surveilling him. Stalking him.

He's quite good at it; Shen Wei might not have noticed, had he not possessed senses Haixingren lack. And also because it was Kunlun--looked like Kunlun--and so he could not help but notice; even a block away, Shen Wei could immediately recognize that silhouette draped across the motorcycle, the smoke drifting up from his mouth.

Shen Wei is starting to recognize the smell of his cigarettes, the specific brand of choking poison he favors.

He tries to approach him once, circling around the block--but the man realizes; the motorcycle roars away just as Shen Wei turns the corner.

He's watching the man who looks like Kunlun too closely, and Li Qian not close enough. He doesn't think to ask her the right questions, to look her in the eyes long enough to see her pain.

So that it's a shock, to raise his head and see her on the roof, silhouetted against the sky--too far, too far away, and he wasted too much energy before; Shen Wei doesn't have enough now to stop time to stop her fall, and the opening of a portal close enough would likely frighten her into jumping--

And then, impossibly, there's another figure there, grabbing her arm. Leather jacket, tangled hair, dangling her precariously off the ledge, and slowly slipping--

Shen Wei opens a portal quick as thought to the roof, leaps forward just in time to grab both of them, Li Qian and the man who looks like Kunlun. Pulls them both back up, to safety on the roof.

Li Qian crumples to the rooftop, gasping for breath. The man who looked like Kunlun is examining his arm, the bloody scrape the concrete drew down it, with little expression, not even wincing.

Shen Wei--Shen Wei can only stare at him for a moment. It's not just that blood, nor the man's disquieting calm. But he saw--their eyes met, as they both grabbed Li Qian's flailing hands, and the man's eyes--dark, bloodshot; narrowed in ferocious and absolute determination, that he would save this girl--

Kunlun's eyes; they're Kunlun's eyes, in that too thin, too pallid face. There is no mistake, no second-guessing.

Shen Wei doesn't mean to scold Li Qian, but he can't help himself--to see such hope and promise, nearly lost; to know it would have been, had it been just him alone.

And the man--the man who is Kunlun--says, "Did you think of your grandmother?" as if he knows Li Qian--knows her better than Shen Wei does, for all he's not supposed to be on this campus at all; Shen Wei doesn't even know how he got up here.

Shen Wei takes Li Qian to the student hospital, and when he exits, Kunlun is waiting outside the door--lurking in the bushes, watching for security.

"So," he says to Shen Wei. "I didn't know what to make of you...I don't. But that was good timing, anyway."

Kunlun is smiling but his eyes are narrowed; his face might as well be cast from iron, for all the true expression it holds. But he holds out his hand to Shen Wei.

His cheeks are hollow, almost sunken from too few healthy meals. His eyes are bloodshot, squinting in the sun from the hangover, and the edge of his lip is a little swollen around a newly healing cut. The hand he offers has bruised knuckles.

How, Shen Wei wants to ask him. How can this be Kunlun--what has happened to this man; what will happen to this man, so that when Shen Wei meets him, he's better fed than anyone in that starving time, glowing with health; that all his scars are old, are faded.

That he smiles with his mouth and his eyes and all his heart, when he looks at Shen Wei.

"Zhao Yunlan," the man says. "And your name, sir?"

Shen Wei reaches out, takes Kunlun's hand. "No 'sir' needed. It's Shen--Shen Wei."

Kunlun's--Zhao Yunlan's--lips curve. His eyes crinkle, but they're still stone-cold, distrusting as they study his face, even as he says, falsely light, "Shen Wei? Good name!"

No, Shen Wei doesn't understand. But maybe he'll now have the chance to learn.

Edited 2019-10-07 13:48 (UTC)

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

This is TERRIBLE and also wonderful even if it hurts everything - ZHAO YUNLAN NOOOOO...! All that history between him and Shen Wei - oh dear that secret identity is going to be really important to keep secret...! OMG. I can't. I can't imagine...but I love that it will go from this to Kunlun, who glows with health and confident, who tastes sweet and whose scars are old...

But AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YUNLAN!!!

Snkjhdfghkjhjk

HELP I am so compromised the glorious angst is fantastic but also they both need a hug??

This is amazing - just amazing. I had no idea something like this could be an AU, or that I would want that AU, but it fits

yue_ix's illustration so well...!

All that history between him and Shen Wei - oh dear that secret identity is going to be really important to keep secret...!

I didn't even have this in mind when I started writing and then I got to why there was no SID and. Yeah. I admit, that's the bit that's making me consider returning to this AU, because damn, if Shen Wei was hiding it in the main timeline for no good reason, in this one...

But they work it out! And will get so many hugs!!! Eventually!

SO MUCH IDENTITY PORN?! My little fangirl heart is beating wildly!

Also is there something even more wrong with Dixing or did Zhao Xinci just snap?

...so that Shen Wei had to kill him in front of his son OMGGGG you are pulling no punches with this angst!! (Please don't pull them I love your angsty punches I am very M for this kind of fictional suffering.)

My very vague thoughts were that Dixing is the same, and most of the timeline was identical until Zhao Xinci. Who... I'm not positive, but I think something went very wrong with Zhang Shi. Or something was very wrong with Zhang Shi and that's what the difference is...

But yeah how does this Yunlan feel about Dixingren though.......

. I'm not positive, but I think something went very wrong with Zhang Shi
Oooooooohhhh~

But yeah how does this Yunlan feel about Dixingren though.......
:D :D :D

I'm not positive, but I think something went very wrong with Zhang Shi. Or something was very wrong with Zhang Shi and that's what the difference is...

That was my immediate thought while I was reading!

And this whole thing is fascinating. *_*

:D I am getting increasingly curious to do more with it, I confess...

Wow, what a fascinating AU! I would love to see more of this.

I'll have to see what happens. Glad you liked it!

WOW oh WOW my heart is breaking! I need more of this! I need Shen Wei to help Zhao Yunlan come back from the brink! I NEED IT!

This is a fantastic set up and I loved the, the subtle way things shift with the death of Zhao Xinci. I could totally see it happening this way!

Considering this universe didn't exist for me at all 24 hours ago, I do find myself curious about it...Shen Wei will reach him, he has to, for the timeline to be preserved, but it's going to be quite the road...!

That is bloody brilliant and I am captivated. The grit of this Zhao Yunlan is wonderful; he's a lot less polished but shines just as brightly. He's sneaking around solving crimes with no legal power, a trustful chunky cat, and the bare bones of his back! I love that in this AU, this first-second meeting is a reversal of their second-first one, where Shen Wei is cleaned-up in his full power and Zhao Yunlan is the slightly wild dangerous one. I also deeply appreciate how within Shen Wei's first instinct, "SOMEBODY FEED HIM" stands out.

Those glimpses of backstory hurt so good! The masks Yunlan hides behind are stark contrasts but in the end he wants the same thing as he's always wanted: to help people, and perhaps, unbeknownst to him yet, to meet Shen Wei.

Shen Wei will have to sweat buckets while hiding his identity, but I wonder about a Zhao Yunlan growing up even more alone, and without a team to rely on, but with his same charisma - is he even less trusting? Could he have a Creep Wall of his own about the Black Cloak Envoy and figure it out even faster? Does he still collect stray Dixingen and accidentally already adopted the whole boxing ring youth club, where he too sometimes gets paid for a few rounds? Everything about this AU sounds worth exploring!

This is very compact and hurtful and well done!! :D

Waaah so glad you enjoyed it! Your various mentions in comments about this Zhao Yunlan definitely put me down this path...

Shen Wei is not going to wait for a stomach ache or blindness to start cooking for this Zhao Yunlan, he's going to be bringing in extra lunches starting, like, tomorrow...!

but I wonder about a Zhao Yunlan growing up even more alone, and without a team to rely on, but with his same charisma - is he even less trusting? Could he have a Creep Wall of his own about the Black Cloak Envoy and figure it out even faster?

OOOH. I was already thinking that he might have figured out Shen Wei's identity (what exactly did he see on that rooftop?) But Zhao Yunlan actually having his own stalker wall, eheheh that's maybe too great an idea to pass up? And Yunlan with a boxing ring, well he would need a job...does he seek out Dixingren to get justice for them, or to save them? from the BCE???

--I really don't know if I'm going to be doing more with this yet, but oh, there's a lot there to explore...!

!!! This is all compelling and you and

yue_ix are just brilliant for conceiving of this versions of events, and what they would've made of Zhao Yunlan.

*grabby paws*

He can have both! A stalker wall of the BCE and then the first time he sees Shen Wei, a OH SNAP moment? Which could be before Shen Wei sees him on campus for the first time (ZYL helping a Dixingren enroll? Flirting? Looking at job ads for students?), and ZYL has stalked a little and found him morally okay, so has been reserving his judgement ever since. Collecting data. He's sloppy lately, but just because the case is harder, or because he's ready to meet SW, ooore because he hasn't eaten in days and is in fact getting woozy... Maybe he should refrain from coming that close to rooftops then...

You have got to tell me how this Shen Wei manages to make this Yunlan eat, tho! Does he cook wonderful meals and just leaves the bento boxes at ZYL's last seen location, like lurring a stray cat? Does he just "makes too much" and lurks in suspicious places so ZYL will come ask questions and SW can innocently offer him a bite? I am delighted by this whole concept.

ZYL has golden luck of a crow, the tenacity of a badger and the mind of a fox. I bet the Dixingren cases just flock and stumble in his way; and from their PoV, the BCE is like some special task force, so IDK how this ZYL would react to that kind of authority figure. If his relationship with his dad is Awkward in canon, this takes the cherry. He wasn't a great dad, but he tried, but he went mad, or did he, but he's dead, and he's gone and Yunlan is alone alone alone, but also, he wanted to stand for what was right and taught his son this if nothing else, (and also to shoot a gun, but ZYL prefers to use his fists and his head).... It's Complicated.

Hurt/Comfort wise, how do you think this Shen Wei would react to seeing Zhao Yunlan attempt to bandage himself, alone and half drunk in a dimly lit apartment?

Oh man, now you're making me really want to write some of this Yunlan's POV -- I'm so used to his usual POV but this one will be a ride...

I kind of love the idea of Yunlan running a boxing gym as kind of a halfway house for Dixingren -- that a lot of the "cases" he pursues aren't actually to capture Dixingren but to help and save them. Only when it's a real dangerous case does he drop a dime in the right places for the BCE to turn up. So from Yunlan's POV the BCE is a necessary evil -- but he's pretty sure of the evil.

And then, this Professor Shen -- he has some connection to the BCE, Yunlan is sure, may even be working with him...except the more he sees of Shen Wei, the more he can tell that this is a genuinely good guy, one of the few he's ever met. But he's keeping secrets too, pretty obviously. So Yunlan maybe starts believing that the BCE has some kind of hold on Shen Wei, is extorting his help (maybe it's got something to do with that "Kunlun" guy that Shen Wei is secretly so hung up on, maybe the BCE is using that as leverage against him...)

I think Shen Wei starts making extra food and shares it. And very quickly starts to note what gets eaten the fastest and with the least notice and makes more of that...

Oh man though, Shen Wei being the one who sees Yunlan bandaging himself through the window -- the episode 8 scenario is going to be SO much more fraught here!!

*chants*
do it
do it
do it

Kunlun is smiling but his eyes are narrowed; his face might as well be cast from iron, for all the true expression it holds.

OOF this hits hard.

Such a fascinating AU take, and I hope you expand on this!

Stone cold badass Zhao Yunlan/Kunlun WHO CLEARLY NEEDS FEEDING AND CARETAKING, that is a package guaranteed to make Shen Wei Feel Things.

This could be a whole alternate storyline where the eventual reveal that SW is the BCE feels like the ultimate betrayal to ZYL, instead of a secret cheerfully and gladly accepted. And then, of course, Shen Wei will have to find a way to prove to him that he's not a murdering monster.(Probably in a way that involves harrowing self-sacrifice, because Shen Wei can't stop being Shen Wei...)

Shen Wei is going to be feeling ALL THE THINGS...well it's Shen Wei, he always is; but between this Zhao Yunlan being so much more in need, and this Shen Wei being all the more isolated...it's going to take some figuring out for them not to panic each other...

The BCE thing, yeaaaah, that's the part that most intrigues me, how that goes down...does Yunlan actually figure it out ahead of time, or does it come out in the worst way, and if so how does Shen Wei recover from Yunlan looking at him with not just suspicion but actual hatred in his eyes... ;_;

The BCE thing, yeaaaah, that's the part that most intrigues me, how that goes down...does Yunlan actually figure it out ahead of time, or does it come out in the worst way, and if so how does Shen Wei recover from Yunlan looking at him with not just suspicion but actual hatred in his eyes... ;_;

woww, that last option sounds UTTERLY, deliciously evil, it would hurt Shen Wei so much...I feel bad just typing this, but oh, I would enjoy reading it, just saying. And I know you'd find a way to make everything better in the end. :D

Oh no, this is so angst! But also lovely, because of course they will still find each other and connect, even when the circumstances are all wrong. I love how this fic goes with yue's art even though we never see the scars -- it's so completely obvious that this is that Zhao Yunlan. And Shen Wei's going to look after him now, right, and they're going to make everything better together?? Aaaaa I love this a lot!

Shen Wei is going to be looking after this poor scarred Zhao Yunlan within an inch of his life, he's going to have no idea what hit him...Shen Wei's been even more withdrawn from the world here, he has a lot of pent-up caring to get out...

...though it will probably take them a bit to be comfortable enough with each other for it. But it will work out -- it has to; Shen Wei knows what Kunlun was like, so Zhao Yunlan has to get there (though once he does, then it's time for Shen Wei to panic anyway, what if it all goes wrong...!)

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time for an h/c comment fest!

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