ｓｏｒｔｅｄ　ｂｙ　ｗｏｒｄ　ｃｏｕｎｔ

• a sure thing | sugar daddy/modern settingl!au, explicit, 95k+

the message says, i require exclusive commitment as well as flexibility. you may spend the night, but not always. i will be the one to keep the schedule of our meetings.

wei ying crunches on a chip thoughtfully, then takes a deep breath and writes back, what do i get in return?

• wrong turn, right place | time travel!au, explicit, 71k+

fuck, he had totally walked into a set, hadn’t he? yhe beautiful, ethereal looking actor in his period piece outfit was pissed and waiting to tear him a new one, if the expression was any clue.

one moment the man was up, and then, the next second, he had gracefully jumped from the wall in front of wei ying, who, only by the strength of his will, did not scream in alarm.

he did yelp a little. but very manfully.

“no entry after daybreak,” said the man, and his voice was deeper than wei ying could’ve guessed. “how did you get past the wards?”

or, modern!wwx takes a wrong turn and ends up in the cultivation world

• hello, it. have you tried turning it off and on again? | office/modern setting!au, teen, 65k+

lan wangji is the respected head of the it department.

wei wuxian is a graphic designer in marketing with computer problems.

he mistakes lan wangji for tech support and just... doesn't stop calling.

lan wangji lets him.

____

or a wangxian modern office au with the juniors as interns

• all your life you'll dream of this | cinderella/fairytale!au, general, 64k+*

wei ying first hears about the ball over dinner.

"they're trying to marry off second prince," fourth uncle says, through a mouthful of stew. "there is going to be a ball, for all the gentry." "everybody who's rich and titled, who's got a son or daughter the right age, will be invited. second prince will pick someone out."

"he's probably very stuffy and full of himself!" wei ying snorts. "i pity whoever has to marry him!"

(in which wei ying, a fugitive from justice, sneaks into the palace, steals from the imperial family, and eats his words.

_aka, yet another cinderella au.) _

• nothing but trouble | fake dating/modern setting!au, explicit, 60k+

"i don't want to really date anyone. it's so stupid, i just need to pretend date someone until jiang cheng gets his act together, then go back to my own life." he stares at his empty coffee cup.

"date me," lan zhan says. then he looks at wei ying's empty cup. "would you like another cup of coffee?"

"always," wei ying says automatically. "but wait, what."

"i'll get you another cup." lan zhan rises smoothly from the table.

"no, wait, hang on." wei ying grabs his wrist before he can take the cup and lan zhan freezes up, staring down at where wei ying is hanging on to him. "fuck, sorry, i'll—" wei ying hastily lets go of his wrist. "sorry, i—what did you mean?"

"i can pretend to date you," lan zhan says. "you take it with cream and sugar, correct?"

• by mistake or design | fashion designers/modern setting!au, explicit, 51k+*

“you’re indeed the head designer of nuage haute couture,” wei ying says between giggles. “i just said your designs were pretty and you just—did you write an essay on that in fashion school?” he shakes his head. “i’m so far out of your league.”

“your designs are also pretty.” lan zhan adds.

“i feel like i did you a disservice, lan zhan,” wei ying grins. “i can wax poetics on your use of draping to accent the body if you want. i’ve kept all my praises to myself for far too long.”

“please don’t.”

or: lan zhan and wei ying are the head designers of nuage. one does haute couture, the other does ready-to-wear. they fall in love. chaos ensues.

• if i can't have you | actors/modern setting!au, explicit, 47k+

lan wangji hates wei wuxian.

that's what wei wuxian and the rest of the world think anyway. that's also the reason why no one can wrap their mind around the news that lan wangji has agreed to star alongside wei wuxian, and as his love interest no less.

(spoiler alert: lan wangji doesn't really hate wei wuxian)

• love wakes me | angst, explicit, 46k+*

it starts with a bet. all mistakes, wei wuxian thinks, start with a bet.

it’s starts with a bet and ends with wei wuxian losing everything.

nine years ago, wei wuxian made a bet with disastrous consequences. now, he is part-owner of the popular and eclectic yiling cafe, years and miles away from his old life, making the best of things and trying to leave the past where it belongs. when lan wangji walks into his cafe by accident, wei wuxian finds himself doing what he thought he'd never do again; reclaiming some small part of his past, and hoping for a future he'd given up as lost.

• your heartbeat, across the grass | modern setting!au, explicit, 44k+*

to his unbridled horror, wei wuxian sees his face up on the giant screen in real time for the entire stadium to see. still laughing as his face takes a moment to catch up with the sheer mortification he’s feeling, a-yuan perched on his shoulders as the lan wangji cape drapes over them.

there’s also commentary.

“—scenes from the stands here, this dad and his son making for an adorable twosome all decked out in support for local hero lan wangji—”

“—speaking of, our man seems to have taken a little tumble—”

wei wuxian finds lan wangji on the field. the ball is nowhere near him but he seems to have fallen inexplicably backwards, sitting on the grass as he looks up at the giant screen.

right up at the footage of him.

(au where a-yuan is professional footballer lan wangji's biggest fan, and his babysitter wei wuxian wants nothing more than to forget his days as the photographer of their school football team, calling out to the captain from the stands just so he'd look around at him.)

• i'm the one for your fire | modern with magic!au, explicit, 42k+

wei ying, virgin and noted heterosexual, gets hit with a curse of an unusual nature on his 30th birthday: through physical contact, he can read the minds of others around him.

enter lan zhan, hot former rival and current coworker, whose true thoughts about wei ying are nothing like he expects. (a loose cherry magic au)

• one good thing | ghost/modern setting!au, teen, 26k+*

wei wuxian has been haunting his childhood home for three years. he's perfected the fine art of scaring away all the tenants, and has grown used to living with the dying flowers in the garden as his only company.

when lan wangji buys the house, wei wuxian fully intends to drive him off too. except lan wangji is beautiful, and interesting, and captivating company - even if he supposedly doesn't know wei wuxian exists.

• shadows in the sun rise | cursed, post canon, explicit, 24k+*

“wei ying,” lan wangji says, voice slow and a pitch too quiet. a second later wei wuxian understands why. “i cannot hear.”

or; lan wangji is cursed into internal isolation. their ability to understand one another remains as unwavering as ever.

• seldom all they seem | arranged marriage, canon divergence, explicit, 24k+*

or, one hundred and thirty-three principles of the gusu lan, pertaining to the state of marriage

***

he bows to wei wuxian, sword in hand, sleeves falling properly. wei wuxian bows in return, and the sect leaders begin the opening courtesies, and for all of ten minutes lan wangji is under the impression that he is betrothed to a boy who is perfectly normal and acceptable apart from an unfortunate tendency to fidget with his clothes.

that impression does not last.

• if you go chasing rabbits | witchcraft/modern setting!au, teen, 23k+

wei wuxian drops his hand, leans one shoulder into the stunted door frame. “oh. okay. so. why are you here, exactly?”

“the institute sent me to assist you,” the ridiculously beautiful cardigan owner says, “as your familiar.”

wei wuxian laughs as if it’s a joke, although the man’s stony expression makes it clear that any humor gleaned from him is likely unintentional.

“well, uh, i appreciate your,” wei wuxian says, “you know, time, but everything is under control here, actually.”

with impeccable timing, a tea-kettle sound keens from the kitchen, followed by a contained bang.

—

or: wei wuxian is a witch, lan wangji is sent to be his familiar. they figure it out.

• all your life you'll dream of this | cinderella/fairytale!au, teen, 22k+*

lan wangji should refuse. he should. he looks back down at the mask. beneath it is the soft creamy paper of the invitation. he could present this at the door and slip into the palace and—

“go see him, wangji,” lan xichen says quietly, and lan wangji feels his resolve crumble beneath him.

a very loose cinderella au, featuring lan wangji as cinderella, wei wuxian as prince charming, lan xichen as fairy godmother, the forehead ribbon as glass slipper, and gusulan bedtime as midnight.

• night of sixth magnitude stars | students/modern setting!au, mature, 22k+

lan wangji gave him a disapproving look as they left the classroom. “you can’t be late every time.”

wei wuxian walked with light steps, seemingly in a happy mood. “they can’t fault me if i want to spend more time with the only student who really listens to me.”

lan wangji followed reluctantly, because wei wuxian always made him follow, even when he was driving him crazy.

• of skin and scales | fantasy!au, explicit, 21k+

it was a dragon, lan zhan thought dizzily.

he brought his hand to cup its face and distantly supposed that he should have been frightened at some point during this encounter. but the dragon leaned into his touch, intelligent eyes blinking down at him owlishly, and all he could think was how beautiful it was.

(the state of wei wuxian’s shape never mattered. human or not, lan wangji falls in love.)

• between the lines | gaming/modern setting!au, general, 19k+

☆yilingpatriarch☆: pls...give me some face, help me fight these monsters...i'm gonna die

bluetooth: no.

"you have died." the screen said, and wei wuxian threw his hands up in frustration.

• (just you, just me (just us, just we) | professional cuddling/modern setting!au, explicit, 19k+

when his brother had sent him the appointment confirmation, lan wangji had assumed it had been for lan xichen’s oft-praised and highly recommended acupuncturist.

it is not, he soon found out—standing inside the lobby of a studio lit by soft, warm light and faced with a beautiful man in well-worn, rumpled clothing and with a lopsided bun on top of his head, wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket and wearing no shoes at all—an acupuncturist.

“cuddle therapy,” lan wangji says, his voice drawn carefully flat over the overwhelming panic welling up inside his belly. he had not thought his brother so cruel. this must be some sort of horrible mistake.

-----

in which wei wuxian cuddles people for money, lan xichen takes matters into his own hands, and lan wangji is doomed.

• window shopping | professional cuddling/modern setting!au, explicit, 18k+

lan wangji didn't look out across the other apartment building often, but now, as he scooped up his escaped rabbit, he looked over only to see a piece of paper taped to the window of the apartment across from him. it was written on purple construction paper in big block letters, like a child had written it.

what's your bunny's name???

and they were quarantined.

oh my god, they were quarantined.

• a buried and burning flame | angst, canon divergence, teen, 17k+*

it’s been nearly a year since the four clans allied and won the sunshot campaign. nearly a year since cloud recesses and lotus pier and everywhere else fallen have been rebuilt.

nearly a year since jin guangyao stood before a hall of cultivators, and confirmed that wei ying had been cast into the burial mounds and, despite his best efforts, there was no body to be found.

now, though, lan wangji has found jin guangyao’s letters to su she.

• resonant frequencies | fake/pretend relationship!au, teen, 15k+

in which wei wuxian decides that the best way to deal with being in love with lan wangji is to pretend to date him for three weeks.

it goes about as well as can be expected.

• grow | age regression, post-canon, teen, 14k+*

“okay,” jingyi says, as sizhui puzzles this out aloud. “okay! so the demon has been turning its victims into children.”

“i think so,” sizhui says.

“to make them easier prey,” jingyi says.

“yes,” sizhui says.

“so—” jingyi’s voice cracks here, “this kid is senior wei.”

wei wuxian, still tangled in his own massive robes, blinks politely at them.

(or: wei wuxian is cursed on a night-hunt, and the junior quartet rapidly finds themselves in over their heads.)

• they call me homewrecker? | modern setting/abo!au, explicit, 12k+

lan zhan only gets the idea when wei ying jolts up in his arms half an hour later, drunkenly calling after him, "lan huan?"

a though so horrible and vile slips into his head, and it refuses to slip back out

"yes..." lan zhan begins to say, apprehensively. "it's me. lan huan."

"a-huan," wei ying says, so fondfully, small hands cupping lan zhan's strong jaw. his eyes glaze over. he does not seem to recognize lan zhan for who he is

or, wei ying is lan zhan's new, pretty, omega brother-in-law. there's only one problem: lan zhan’s madly in love with him, and he cannot do anything about it. (until he does.)

• and they have escaped the weight of darkness | amnesia, canon divergence, teen, 10k+*

in the aftermath of everything, the scars of thirty-three lashes heavy on his back, lan wangji walks.

he walks through a land ravaged by war, by hunger, by death and sheer neglect, walks through a land that the cultivation world all but forgets in their own haste to rebuild. he upholds justice, protects the weak. lives with his regrets.

and then, in a small village south of qishan, he finds wei ying - alive, smiling, and asking lan wangji for his name.

• how, or when, or from where | amnesia/modern setting!au, general, 10k+

jiang cheng sucks in a sharp breath. “what year do you think it is, wei wuxian?”

“2001,” wei wuxian says, and then cracks up when jiang cheng’s eyes widen in alarm. “calm down, i’m just kidding. i know it’s 2014.”

jiang cheng stares at him.

wei wuxian is quiet for a beat. "i presume from your reaction that it is not actually 2014.”

“no,” jang cheng says softly. “no, it’s not.”

(or, the one where wei wuxian loses his memories, and tries to figure out why he isn't dating lan wangji yet.).)_

• the bunnysitter: a post-it romance | fluff, modern setting, general, 9k+*

busy grad student lan wangji adopts rabbits over the summer, and then finds himself in need of a rabbit sitter. enter, out of work drop out wei wuxian.

• covered in bees | modern setting!au, teen, 8k+*

“cloud reccesses apiary,” says a toneless, deep masculine voice, with zero question in it. wei ying doesn’t care, because whoever possesses that voice is probably going to come save him from bees like a fucking hero while wearing like, a suit of armor. that’s what you wear to catch bees, right?

“i have like, so many bees outside my front door right now,” he says, mouth running out ahead of him before he can even begin to think about reining it in. “it’s like a sandstorm of bees out there. there are so many bees. i got out of my car and there were just bees and i don’t want these bees. do you want these bees? please tell me you will come get these bees. i can’t leave my house and i have enough food for maybe a week but then i’m gonna have to learn how to cook dry beans and no one wants that, especially not me.” wei ying runs out of air, takes a breath, and belatedly adds, “my name is wei ying. hi.”

or: the beekeeping au that no one asked for.