Work Text:
Mo Xuanyu had been called many things throughout his admittedly short life, and through it all only one remained the same. He was an ‘oddity’. It didn’t matter where he was, or what he did, everyone he came across seemed to share the same notion that there was something intrinsically different about him. He was just that odd. Even when he tried to fit in, it seemed like his disguise was made of glass, and everyone could see through it.
Before he’d been taken in by his father, the other kids in his village had refused to play with him. Some of them, because he was a bastard; others, because they’d already caught on to him being a cutsleeve; one child had even called him a freak to his face! He’d heard what they said about him. The not-quite-whispers about how creepy and odd he was. He tried to pretend it didn’t hurt, but not even he could fool the night sky that watched him weep.
When his father came for him, he thought things would change.
Then came the beatings.
This time, not from cruel family members, but from peers who found him useless. Who’d seen him for the oddity he was and circled him out as the one they should take it out on if anything went wrong for them. He’d found brief refuge with his brother, in his work on demonic cultivation. His brother had seen how odd he was and had tried to help him mould it into something useful.
At least, that was how he liked to remember it.
But one day Xuanyu’s oddness became too much. He’d let himself get carried away. Found out things he never should’ve been able to, and was sent home in disgrace for his efforts.
Nobody even questioned it, when the rumours spiralled from ‘flirting’ to ‘harassment’ to ‘lecherous behaviour towards his brother’. He was odd, he always had been, so to them it just made sense. No need to ask Xuanyu, no need to look into anything, no need to verify the facts! He was a cutsleeve and odd, and that was evidence enough.
When he’d met sect leader Nie, he had thought that maybe it would be different. The man had certainly treated him kindly enough, had shown no signs of believing the vile things people said about him.
But Xuanyu’s oddity loomed over him, dripping onto him like sludge, tainting everything and everyone he touched, and soon he was met with a ritual in hand and a plot to bring back the Yiling Patriarch to get some form of revenge. He knew the ritual. Knew it would kill the caster, knew it would tear his soul apart to never reincarnate again. He knew that Nie Huaisang knew that was the cost too.
And so he had no choice but to realise that Nie Huaisang, just like everyone else, had seen how much of an oddity Xuanyu was. That Xuanyu had been. That Xuanyu always would be. He’d seen it, and decided that it was okay for him to die.
He wanted to be angry. Upset. Frustrated. Betrayed!
He wasn’t.
He was just numb.
As he drew the carefully plotted lines on the floor, careful not to mess it up with the blood dripping from his arms, he couldn’t help but wonder… when the patriarch awoke, would he see Xuanyu for the oddity he was too?