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Wei Wuxian was almost dozing at the droning voice of Lan Qiren covering another series of less than exciting subjects.
How was anyone expected to pay attention to such? The fact that he, Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang had spent the previous evening drinking until well into the night, thus missing out on quite a portion of sleep, didn’t help his concentration. If only Lan Qiren made these lectures more interesting than they were.
Like by doing voices, or setting something on fire. Accidentally was fine too.
By some miracle, they survived until the lesson ended, and Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng were walking back towards their lodgings when they came across the Two Jades on the pathways.
Wei Wuxian had a casual arm thrown across Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, and he had been talking some rubbish or other at his shidi (and, to all intents and purposes, his didi), so he was very aware of the fact the other tensed like a statue under his arm. There was a sudden flush of colour on Jiang Cheng’s cheeks and he didn’t meet the gaze of either Jade.
They paused to make the correct greetings, but it flowed over Wei Wuxian’s head as he considered Jiang Cheng’s reactions.
Did he have a crush on one of the Jades? Not Lan Wangji, surely? He doubted Jiang Cheng would find that stuffy fuddy-duddy at all crush-worthy. Although he was much more upstanding than Wei Wuxian, he was still of Yunmeng Jiang, and a Lan that unbending would stifle him.
So Lan Xichen? His gaze travelled betweenhis brother and the elder Lan, still paying little attention to what was being discussed around him.
Lan Xichen was addressing some point to Lan Wangji, who didn’t seem to be very receptive to whatever was being said, and Jiang Cheng seemed to be watching Lan Xichen while his attention was on Lan Wangji.
Interesting.
Lan Xichen wasn’t quite so severe and dour as his brother; he smiled, for a start.
Wei Wuxian thought that a staid Lan would make a terrible choice for a partner in the long term, but Jiang Cheng was a boy, and boys could enjoy a flirtation or two without becoming seriously attached. It would probably do him good. And what harm could come of it, really?
As he reached his deeply thought out conclusion the estimable Lan er-gongzi had stalked away from them, perhaps in response to whatever Lan Xichen had said to him.
That man had a slightly rueful look on his face, but Wei Wuxian saw his opportunity.
“Ah, I have to talk to Lan Wangji about...something, bye!” and he skipped away, neatly leaving the Lan and the Jiang Sect heirs in each other’s company.
***
Lan Wangji had been very cold and almost rude to him when he’d finally caught up with the Second Jade on his made up task. It hadn’t taken long for a sulky Wei Wuxian to give up on talking to him, and go and find Nie Huaisang to discuss his plan of throwing the First Jade and Jiang Cheng together for the purposes of flirtation. Despite the fact Nie Huaisang didn’t seem to think it would work he agreed to act as Wei Wuxian’s assistant in the scheme, and by the time he made it back to their accommodations he found Jiang Cheng pouring over a book.
“So, how did it go? Tell me” he urged, and Jiang Cheng glanced up with an annoyed look on his face.
“How did what go, Wei Wuxian?” he asked irritably.
“Your chat with Lan Xichen of course!”
“What chat? Did you hit your head too hard when you fell asleep in class?” Jiang Cheng demanded, “We didn’t chat, he apologised for his brother’s behaviour, then went to see his uncle, or something”
“Jiang Cheng!” it was very definitely a whine, “I went to all the pain of having to deal with Lan Wangji to leave you two alone so you could get closer to him. You do have a crush on Lan Xichen, right?”
“What!? You!” there was a definite change in complexion on Jiang Cheng’s face, it seemed to turn at least three shades paler, “Who has a crush on Lan Xichen? Are you insane? I don’t have a crush on anyone, least of all Lan Xichen” as expected Jiang Cheng was vehement in his denial.
“Then why did you blush when we met him this afternoon? Don’t tell me it was Lan Wangji who made your heart flutter”
“Why are you talking rot? It wasn’t a blush, it was hot and I was too warm” his voice steadily rose in volume as their argument continued.
“It’s barely spring, Jiang Cheng” Wei Wuxian pulled apart his weak excuse with ease.
“I’m hot blooded! Just shut up Wei Wuxian, you’re confused and embarrassing yourself”
Wei Wuxian arched an eyebrow.
“It didn’t look to me like I was the embarrassed one, Jiang Cheng, when Lan Xichen looked at you”
“SHUT UP!” the book Jiang Cheng had been reading was thrown at Wei Wuxian, who collapsed laughing as he caught it.
It was time to enact Operation: Innocent Flirtation with a vengeance tomorrow.
***
After class the following day their little threesome ran into Lan Xichen leaving the Library Pavilion.
As expected Jiang Cheng’s face had heated up at the presence of the First Jade, and he lowered his eyes.
They exchanged greetings and Wei Wuxian saw his opportunity to throw his brother together with the elder boy.
“Lan-gongzi, Jiang Cheng asked me about what Lan-laoshi spoke of on Lan musical cultivation in class today. Obviously you will understand much better than I ever could, would you mind explaining in more detail to Jiang Cheng?”
Lan Xichen wore his usual kind expression, and he smiled, “If you think I could be of help, Jiang-gongzi”
Jiang Cheng’s cheeks had almost turned an interesting shade of puce, with a severe blanch under their brightness. Of course he couldn’t do anything other than agree or be thought ill-mannered.
Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang left him to his fate, “May I sleep in your rooms tonight, Nie-xiong?” Wei Wuxian begged, knowing Jiang Cheng might actually throttle him in his sleep if he stayed in their own rooms tonight.
***
The next day, as the class came to an end, Lan Qiren asked a Lan disciple to return some scrolls to Lan Xichen.
Quick witted under pressure Wei Wuxian managed to convince the disciple to let them deliver the scrolls as he had something else to return to the Lan Sect heir, and it made sense for one person to deliver both items. Then he pushed the scrolls into Jiang Cheng’s arms, who hadn’t been quick enough to catch on to what Wei Wuxian planned, and had only just started to back away.
“Enjoy, Jiang Cheng, make sure you compliment Lan-gongzi’s eyes! And his smile”
“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng’s tone was an interesting cross between rage and utter despair, but Wei Wuxian didn’t give him a chance to get out of it, merely caught Nie Huaisang’s wrist and dashed away.
***
The next day there were no classes, and the trio spent the day in the streams at the back of the mountain, catching fish for fun and letting them go again, sunbathing in the soft spring sun, and drinking the Emperor’s Smile they had stashed for just such an occasion.
“So Jiang-xiong, have you captured the interest of the First Jade of Lan yet? Have you exchanged passion filled looks over open scrolls in shared study yet? Is the air thick with tension when your eyes meet?” Nie Huaisang questioned, waving a bare foot in the air as he laid back in the grass with one leg propped on the other.
“No!” Jiang Cheng snapped, “Honestly, your stupid little games are pointless, Wei Wuxian, I don’t think you realise how dense Lan Xichen is. He takes every word you say at face value; he doesn’t see what you’re doing. So there’s no point” he sounded suspiciously like he was caught between the need to laugh insanely, or cry his heart out. “He’s far too intent on throwing his stick-in-the-mud brother at you, Wei Wuxian. But you’re too dense to notice too” Jiang Cheng went on the attack, and Wei Wuxian tensed.
Jiang Cheng was being deliberately obtuse, surely. Trying to direct the attention away from himself onto Wei Wuxian. He didn’t for a moment believe that the fuddy-duddy was being thrown in any way at him; Lan Wangji could barely look at Wei Wuxian, and definitely didn’t know how to react to his teasing personality.
Wei Wuxian dismissed the thought and decided Operation: Innocent Flirtation needed to be stepped up.
***
The next day presented the perfect opportunity to decrease the subtlety in his schemes, as they passed down a walkway at the same time as the Two Jades walked through the garden below in the opposite direction.
“Lan Zhan! Lan-gongzi” Wei Wuxian called them, and they both halted at the greeting, (note the impassive face that also managed to impart the annoyance of the boy wearing it on the younger Lan).
Wei Wuxian kicked gently at the back of Jiang Cheng’s moving foot, so it locked around the back of his weight-bearing leg and sent him flying forward down the stairs the Lans stood at the bottom of.
As Wei Wuxian had hoped Jiang Cheng was caught in the arms of the elder Lan brother, and cradled gently, before being set back on his feet.
“Careful, Jiang-gongzi, I’d hate to have to write to your father and let him know we allowed you to be hurt under our protection” he patted a Jiang Cheng who looked on the verge of bursting into flames of embarrassment on his shoulder, and the two Lans moved on, with a final dead-eyed look from Lan Wangji at Wei Wuxian.
As they moved out of ear shot Jiang Cheng turned on him, incandescent with rage.
“Please just stop it, Wei Wuxian, there’s no purpose to it, except making me want to die of embarrassment” Jiang Cheng’s voice suddenly cracked, and Wei Wuxian moved in to hug him with an arm over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Jiang Cheng, I was sure it would work”
“Well it isn’t, please just stop it”
“Alright, alright, I promise. No more. I thought you would be fine, you’re handsome, have a good lineage, your temper could do with some work but you’re young yet…”
Wei Wuxian couldn’t repeat the dressing down that followed from his didi, in polite company; even his ears burned a little at the language used.
***
Wei Wuxian had, as promised, retired Operation: Innocent Flirtation, but it seemed fate was going to have one more attempt, as they went to Caiyi town to investigate reports of water ghouls during a break in lessons.
The Jiang clan disciples had managed to convince the Lans to let them help, mostly because they were both chafing at the boredom, because they both missed being on the water and water ghouls were a speciality of the Jiang Clan due to their location and affinity for water.
This time it wasn’t Wei Wuxian who caused the problem, as Lan Xichen suggested Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian share a room, thus leaving the two Sect heirs left to share the final room at the inn together.
Jiang Cheng turned a ghostly-white face on Wei Wuxian, who wavered briefly between pretending to not see his plea for help, (oh my, they were room-mates, such a perfect way to force them to spend time together), and his guilt because he had promised to drop his schemes, and Jiang Cheng was genuinely upset about the whole thing.
“Perhaps we should stay in our clans, I snore, and I wouldn’t want to keep Lan Zhan up tonight, we have a big day tomorrow” he tried.
“Wangji won’t mind in the least” Lan Xichen said cheerfully, ignoring Lan Wangji’s soft, yet venom-filled Xiongzhang, that suggested that Wangji, indeed, minded.
His own evening was particularly trying; Lan Wangji was anything but the ideal room-mate. He refused to talk to Wei Wuxian on any of the subjects Wei Wuxian raised, and continued to ignore him, until he felt justified in telling him off.
“Really, Lan Zhan, please never take a wife, any poor girl you do marry will weep at nights at the terrible mistake she made. How can you expect to foster good relationships when you treat people so badly? So much for the well mannered Second Jade of Lan” he scolded, then went to bed to avoid having to deal any further with his room-mate.
***
If he thought his evening went badly, the next morning proved Jiang Cheng’s might have been worse.
The First Jade of Lan looked shell-shocked, and Jiang Cheng looked like he wanted the first water ghoul they met today to drag him under the surface of the lake for good.
Their adventures of the day eventually drew their attentions away from their individual grievances, and they had a very near brush with what turned out to be a waterborne abyss.
It was later that night, when they were back in their rooms at the Cloud Recesses, when Jiang Cheng checked Wei Wuxian over for injuries, that he got the chance to ask what had happened.
“I yelled at him. For being dense. And I think I may have admitted than I liked him?” Jiang Cheng said tentatively, unusually willing to share due to the over-wrought state the previous evening and today’s close call had put them all in. “And then I might have kissed him”
Wei Wuxian was sure his jaw hit the floor at that point. His shy, easily embarrassed didi had actually dared to kiss the First Jade of Lan?
“How did he react to that?” he asked when his tongue began to work again.
“To the kiss? So shocked you’d think I’d tried to steal his virginity. Like anyone cares about a stupid kiss, anyway” Jiang Cheng mumbled, “I think by the next morning he probably thought he dreamed it all. He returned to treating me the same as he has all along”
Jiang Cheng took the bowl of water to empty away.
“The sooner we get back to Yunmeng the better” he said eventually, then threw himself onto his own bed, “This place is full of idiots, anyway. There’s Lan Xichen who’s too stupid to notice you throwing me in his path like an unwanted parcel. Then there’s you, too stupid to notice Lan Xichen doing the same with his brother. Then there’s Lan Wangji, too emotionally constipated to know that tingling you make him feel isn’t rage after all. Honestly, I just want to be back in Lotus Pier” Jiang Cheng sulked.
Wei Wuxian had felt a hot flush at Jiang Cheng’s comments; it wasn’t the first time he had intimated that Lan Xichen was trying to push Lan Wangji at Wei Wuxian; he really hadn’t noticed. And anyway, Lan Wangji was definitely not happy with the plan if that was the case; he thought he was the last person Lan er-gongzi would want to be friends with.
Jiang Cheng had to be mistaken.
But hoping to get back to Yunmeng soon, that wasn’t a bad idea. He’d almost had his fill of Gusu by now; he was equally as out of patience at the rude Lan Wangji and his incredibly dense brother, and the lessons were dull an uninteresting. The only fun to be had was when they fooled around after classes, and drinking Emperor’s Smile. Honestly he thought the Emperor’s Smile might be the highlight of the entire trip.