The Nine-tailed Fox learns what sorrow feels like

tw: eye gore (again, I have issues), mutilation, blood

They drink the plum wine Lan Tian brought, trading sweet, sipping kisses. Wu Yun allows Lan Tian to pour the wine into his mouth and then kisses him with his mouth filled with it, so they can share both the wine's fragrant taste and each other.

The heat doesn't subside, but eventually Wu Yun drinks enough to become drowsy, his words slurred and slow.

Lan Tian takes him out of the pool and carries him up to the bed on the floor.

Wu Yun's last conscious thought is of nestling his head against Lan Tian's warm chest, and being lulled to sleep by the steady rhythm of his heart.

---

He wakes up in Ling Yan's body, right where the dream left off. With the strange man looking at him with a frown. He twists his fingers and the cuff around his ankle comes loose with a metallic clink.

"He's in the dungeons. Chained to the rock of Heavenly tribulations," the man says, and just as quickly as he stepped into the room he is gone.

Ling Yan gets up from the bed and tries to run after him, he whispers a rushed "wait" but there's no one in the long jade hallway.

Wu Yun resents being brought back to this dream when his mind and heart were soaring with happiness just moments before. He knows how this story ends.

Ling Yan can run as fast as he wants, and it still won't be enough to save Shu Luan. 

He runs anyway, and Wu Yun can only wait for the heralded outcome.

As much as he believes himself ready for it, he's not prepared for the depth of Ling Yan's grief when he opens the heavy iron doors to the dungeons and finds Shu Luan kneeling on the stone floor, his head bent, and his arms spread and chained to the large limestone behind him.

Ling Yan runs to him, and tries not to notice the puddle of silver blood below Shu Luan.

His bare feet almost slip on it.

"A-Luan, A-Luan, can you hear me?" Ling Yan asks, raising Shu Luan's face with both hands, cupping his jaw tenderly between his palms.

Shu Luan raises his head slowly, and Ling Yan gasps when he sees the ruin of his face.

His beautiful golden eyes are gone, the sockets empty and leaking silver tears down his cheeks, dripping in gory rivulets down his neck and naked torso.

"A-Yan, is that you?" Shu Luan asks, his voice hoarse and raw.

Ling Yan hugs him softly to his neck, and muffles his tears against his blood-soaked hair.

"What has he done to you?" Ling Yan asks, running his thumbs softly over Shu Luan's cheeks, smearing blood on his fingertips.

Wu Yun can feel Ling Yan's sorrow and fury, how they fight inside his chest. It breaks Ling Yan's heart to see what Shu Ai has done to Shu Luan but it only makes his desire to kill him grow stronger.

For his part Wu Yun can't reconcile the horror of seeing Shu Luan's empty eye sockets, with the smiling, cheerful man he last saw.

It strikes him as unfair, that this is the last memory Ling Yan will have of him. That he will have of him.

"I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing your face for the last time, during his execution." 

Shu Luan walks through the dungeon with his hands folded behind his back, and a smirk twisting cruelly on his thin lips.

Ling Yan doesn't stop holding on to Shu Luan even as Shu Ai's hand falls on his shoulder, to pull him away.

"I don't know how you managed to get away, but you needn't be so impatient, you'll see him again soon, everything is ready. I've chosen the perfect spot for the execution."

"Kill me too, I'm not leaving him," Ling Yan says, and presses a fleeting kiss against Shu Luan's neck.

Shu Ai sneers, and digs his hand into Ling Yan's hair to pull him away.

"Don't say that A-Yan, I want you to live well," Shu Luan says, through his cracked lips.

"How can I? Without you?" 

Ling Yan wraps his arms tighter around Shu Luan's neck, being careful not to put more pressure on his overextended arms.

He hears the crack of a whip behind him, and Shu Ai says, "I advise you to let go of him."

Ling Yan looks at Shu Ai from the tail of his eyes, and tries to convey as much hatred in that single look as he can. 

"Fuck you."

The next thing he feels is the cruel slash of the whip against his back, ripping his robe and tearing his skin.

He bites down on a scream, but Shu Luan hears the whip too. "A-Yan? What's happening? Is he hurting you."

Ling Yan whispers a quiet, "no", and kisses his ear, but Wu Yun can feel the searing pain of the open gash on his back.

"Let go!" Shu Ai screams, and cracks the whip against Ling Yan again.

The next strike intersects the first one, and Ling Yan lets out a whimper, as the blood soaks through his robes.

Shu Ai is enraged by his refusal to let go, and strikes Ling Yan again and again. Drawing blood with each strike, adding to the silver pool beneath Shu Luan.

Even in his disoriented state Shu Luan notices something isn't right. "Why are you shivering, A-Yan? What's that sound?"

"It's nothing, it's nothing," Ling Yan says, running his fingers over Shu Luan's face almost desperately. "Kiss me, please kiss me."

Their lips meet clumsily, Shu Luan can't see, and Ling Yan has his eyes closed against the pain tearing through his back.

Shu Ai lets out a loud roar and the next strike echoes through the dungeon like thunder. Ling Yan is bowled over by the impact and falls into Shu Luan's stretched arms.

Blood splatters against Shu Luan's lips, and realization dawns on him. "Shu Ai! Filthy dog, what are you doing! Stop hurting him."

Shu Ai lets the whip fall to the floor, and wipes his bloody hands on his robes.

He picks up Ling Yan by the hair, and turns him around, as if to show Shu Luan how his back has been cut to ribbons.

Ling Yan tries to struggle in his hold, but Shu Ai backhands him across the face. Ling Yan barely feels it, just one more hurt to add to thousand others. Wu Yun can feel the burning sting of each lash, and yet he knows they don't pain Ling Yan nearly as much as what has been done to Shu Luan.

Shu Ai pulls each end of Ling Yan's robes and rips it, tearing violently at it, until his bloody back is bare to the cold air.

"Maybe I was hasty in removing your eyes," Shu Ai says, and kneels next to Ling Yan on the floor. He runs his finger over the raw wounds, so that Ling Yan can feel the perfect pattern carved into his skin.

"It's a shame you can't see my name written on your lover's back."

Wu Yun recognizes the character as Shu Ai traces over each stroke. 

His name means sorrow.

---

Wu Yun wakes up with a start, and with Lan Tian's amber eyes peering worriedly down at him.

"You've been crying in your sleep," Lan Tian says, helping Wu Yun to a sitting position.

Wu Yun runs the back of his hands over his cheeks and finds them wet with tears.

"Was it a dream?" Lan Tian asks, running gentle fingers over Wu Yun's hair.

Wu Yun sighs and leans his head against Lan Tian's warm chest, feeling his strong pulse beneath his cheek. He's lucky, he thinks. Fate must have taken pity on him, and decided to give him a second chance at happiness with Lan Tian, since he couldn't find it in his first life as Ling Yan.

"Shu Ai, he...he took out Shu Luan's eyes, and when he found Ling Yan with him, he whipped his back, he wrote his name on Ling Yan's back with whip marks."

Saying it aloud is enough to turn his stomach.

Lan Tian's hand tightens on his shoulder. "You mean he whipped you. He whipped you."

"It was another life, it can't hurt me any longer," Wu Yun says, raising his face so he can plant a soft kiss on the corner of Lan Tian's lip.

He isn't sure he believes his own words, but it's true that Ling Yan's life still doesn't feel like part of him.

"I will kill him for having hurt you." Lan Tian leans over to kiss Ling Yan's lips, his lips taste like a promise.

"I'll kill him to avenge Shu Luan. I owe him that much," Wu Yun says, when they break away.

Lan Tian stiffens next to his side, but he says nothing.

"Speaking of which, I think it's time we find out what's really happening with the Shu Luan wandering around Kunlun, we need to be sure if he's telling the truth," Wu Yun says, linking his fingers with Lan Tian's.

If he really has the soul of the man Ling Yan loved so much he spent four hundred years piecing it together, he owes it to himself to know.

---

When they arrive at Master Cang's pavilion, he and Shu Luan are talking animatedly about something, heads bent over a scroll Cang Chuxi has spread out over a table.

They're so engrossed in their conversation, that they don't hear their approaching steps.

"Master Cang," Lan Tian says, by way of greeting, when it becomes apparent that whatever Shu Luan is saying is more deserving of his attention than their presence.

"Oh, I'm sorry, we were distracted," Cang Chuxi says, the corners of his eyes crinkling in mirth. "A-Luan has some interesting views regarding the medicinal uses of ginseng."

Hearing Cang Chuxi call Shu Luan like that brings the dream back to the front of Wu Yun's memory, and he has to close his eyes to dispel the image of Shu Luan's empty eyes.

"You said we could see into his memories, we want to do it," Wu Yun says, fixing Shu Luan with a searching look.

"Oh, if Shu Luan agrees, then I have nothing else to do."

Cang Chuxi turns to Shu Luan, waiting his reply.

He doesn't take long to decide. "I want to do it, I have nothing to hide," he says, his jaw set with determination.

"Then lets begin," Lan Tian says, and takes hold of Wu Yun's hand.

Shu Luan's dark eyes travel down towards their joined fingers.

---

Cang Chuxi explains the process, but Wu Yun isn't very concerned with the hows.

In the end they all drink a draught Cang Chuxi prepares, mixed with a few drops of Shu Luan's blood.

Cang Chuxi lights an incense burner and leaves it burning on the table, it smells medicinal and fresh, and leaves Wu Yun feeling light-headed.

They sit in a triangular formation, with Shu Luan in the center. They all close their eyes as Cang Chuxi starts chanting under his breath.

When Wu Yun next opens them, he's no longer in Master Cang's pavilion.

He's in a small house, sparse but clean, under a thatched roof, watching a child, who is clearly a young Shu Luan, down to the red crown on his forehead, and his midnight-sky forearms and neck, practicing his calligraphy at a low table.

 Shu Luan's face is drawn in concentration, but he almost drops the brush when he hears noise at the door.

The door opens, and a man wearing a straw hat walks in, carrying a bamboo basket filled with vegetables strapped to his back.

Shu Luan jumps up from the floor and runs towards him. "Daddy, daddy, you're back!"

The man tips back his straw hat, and Wu Yun gasps when he sees his eyes. Molten gold.

"Your dad is home, little bird," Shu Ai says, as he ruffles Shu Luan's hair.

---

A.N.: In case anyone is confused, the "Ai" in Shu Ai's name is the character for sorrow.