This Aurora Shines Also On You
Fandom: The Untamed
Pairing: Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang, Song Lan/Song Lan
Rating: Explicit
Words: 43,178
The Jin Exploration Corps has never been able to visit 31 Tianshan e, so when they find its skies unexpectedly clear, they jump at the chance. They send an away team to complete a scientific survey. What they discover is a technologically baffling alien society with a twenty-year history of mistrust for outsiders.
When one of the aliens takes a shine to Xue Yang, he isn't expecting anything deeper than a two-day flirtation. Then he finds himself accidentally married to Xiao Xingchen's fiancé, and everything gets very, very complicated.
It's my @sxx-exchange fic for this year! For @nakimochiku. I once again went totally insane and wrote over forty thousand words. It's fine, who needs sleep or a social life anyway?
I had so much fun writing this. I've wanted to do a biological BDSM setting for ages, and I always love a good sci-fi. The consent dynamics are unhinged, the infidelity is recursive, the kink is unnegotiated, and for all that it's pretty lighthearted when you really get down to it. I just love these boys so much. Enjoy!
“Xue Yang to the bridge,” crackles the intercom.
Xue Yang is so intently focused on the geological samples he’s been cataloguing that the sound of his name makes him jump like a startled cat. He jerks upright, knocking one of the sample boxes off the bench with his elbow, and has to lunge for it before it dumps three different planets’ worth of rock and dirt in an indeterminate jumble on the geolab floor. He manages, barely. “Shit,” he says, and then slaps the intercom button. “Acknowledged. Give me thirty seconds to put these rocks back where they belong.”
Thirty seconds later—probably, who’s counting—he has stored the samples, stripped off his coveralls, hurled his safety lenses back into the cupboard, and thrown himself into the nearest elevator. He arrives on the bridge a respectable three minutes after being summoned, which is pretty damn impressive for having legged it halfway across the ship.
As usual, Jin Guangyao has no respect for his efforts. “Thank you for joining us,” he says, in the passive-aggressive way that means you’re late and he wants you to know it. Rude. “Take a look at the viewscreen. The captain would like your assessment.”
Xue Yang manages to resist pulling a bitchy face for that total lack of context. He knows what the captain would like your assessment means: Jin Guangyao has an agenda, and he’s manoeuvred his brother into asking for Xue Yang’s opinion because he knows that Xue Yang can be counted on to back up whatever he wants. Since what Jin Guangyao wants is usually interesting, Xue Yang doesn’t mind playing along—but it would be less of a headache if he wasn’t going in totally blind. Obligingly, he takes a look at the viewscreen.
And then he blinks, and looks again. “This is the Tianshan system, isn’t it? Is that 31 Tianshan e?”
“You can see, I trust, why we wanted your thoughts,” Jin Guangyao says.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Xue Yang says, and just barely remembers not to swear out loud on the bridge in front of the captain.
The Jinlintai Exploration Corps has been aware of the Tianshan system star—and the dozen or so planets orbiting it—for around fifteen years now. Most of the system has been charted, and there has never been anything of particular interest about it to linger over. Ships passing through this sector of space do a basic scientific survey every few years; this is the first time the Sparks Amidst Snow itself has come out this way, and they had no reason to believe their trip here would uncover anything they haven’t already seen four or five times before.
The one planet in the system that has not been charted is 31 Tianshan e. It has an anomalously strong planetary magnetic field and unpredictable geomagnetic storms; every probe they’ve tried to send down has been torn apart, or completely lost contact with their communications array. They’ve never sent a shuttle with actual personnel. They’ve barely ever even been able to see the surface clearly. Most of the time the planet is wreathed in brilliant auroras: beautiful, but highly liable to interfere with their instruments.
But now Xue Yang is looking out the viewscreen at a perfectly clear atmosphere, unprecedentedly calm geomagnetic readings, and—he crosses to the console to double check the data—absolutely no indication that the storms will be starting up again anytime before the next four days.
“We need to get down there,” he says. A pressing sense of urgency swamps him without warning: who knows if they’ll ever get this chance again? “This might be our only shot to map the planet. We’ve never been able to get decent readings from it—there could be literally anything down there.”
Jin Zixuan, who has been quietly sitting by in the captain’s chair with his usual attitude of vaguely authoritative awkwardness, clears his throat. “Am I correct in understanding that if the storms start up again, we might not be able to get an away team safely back aboard ship?”
Xue Yang shrugs. “Probably,” he says, turning to address the captain directly. “But we don’t need to worry about that. Look at these readings.” He pulls his personal tablet from his belt and transfers over the console data with a gesture, then presents the screen to Jin Zixuan. The captain studies it seriously, his face set in an expression of polite incomprehension. Xue Yang blows out a sigh. “There’s nothing,” he explains. “As far out as our predictive models can reach. We’ve literally never seen the magnetic field this quiet.”
“I’ve been told the storms are unpredictable,” Jin Zixuan says, though he sounds cautiously prepared to be convinced. God, Xue Yang hates dealing with officers.
“Not that unpredictable,” he says.
“Xiongzhang,” Jin Guangyao cuts in. “If Xue Yang says we’ll be safe for a few days, we can trust his assessment. We should be fine to take an away team down for a short survey.”
Jin Zixuan hesitates for another moment, then seems to firm up his spine. “Very well,” he says. “But I want you back up here at the first sign of trouble. We can’t risk anyone being stranded on the planet.”
“Guangyao, I’m putting you in charge. Select your team as you best see fit. Dismissed.”
Jin Guangyao sweeps immediately into an immaculate bow, shooting Xue Yang a glare out of the corner of his eye until he follows suit. “Thank you,” he says. “We’ll leave within the hour.”
Xue Yang waits until the elevator doors have closed behind them before he says, “So you’re taking me with you.”
“Obviously,” Jin Guangyao says. “Pack your things and get down to the shuttle bay. Do not make me wait.”
