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“Do you ever regret it?”
Jiang Wanyin is tracing the lines on Wangji’s back again. He’s taken to doing that recently, as if he’s fascinated by them. Wangji knows he isn’t, not really.
Regret has never been a thing that’s crossed Wangji’s mind when it comes to his actions. He doesn’t regret anything he’s done for Wei Ying, least of all the punishment he’d taken after saving him. Wangji’s regrets have little to do with his dearly departed sweetheart.
“No,” he says without further explanation.
He knows Wanyin doesn’t understand, the same way Wangji doesn’t understand why Sect Leader Jiang hunts demonic cultivators like a man possessed, only to let them go days afterwards.
Bitterness runs in Wanyin’s blood like it did in his mother’s, but where Madam Yu could rein in her disappointment, her son’s temper burns hotter and more self-destructive than hers ever did. Wangji isn’t sure how to clear the storm building over Wanyin’s face with words, so he doesn’t try. Words have never been of much use when it comes to his on-and-off lover, anyway. He turns over and catches Jiang Wanyin’s cheek with a hand, smooths his thumb over the smooth, tan skin.
“Are you jealous?” he asks quietly.
“Who’s jealous?!”
Jiang Cheng pulls away to sit up, face flushed in embarrassment, or anger, or something else that neither of them dare to think about. The evidence of their evening activities clings to his toned stomach and stains the bedsheets from between his slender legs. Wangji will have to clean him up soon.
They fall into silence again. Wanyin’s fingers are curled into the bedsheets in angry fists, his shoulders tense.
“I’m not jealous,” Wanyin says, then stops abruptly.
“Wanyin,” Wangji murmurs, but Wanyin starts talking, still stubbornly not looking at him.
“I always knew I could never compare to Wei Wuxian.” He spits Wei Ying’s name out in a hurry, like a memory best left behind. When Wanyin hesitates again, Wangji waits.
“He was here after me,” Wanyin says, hands relaxing slowly and stiffly, smoothing over silk sheets. “I’d always been here first. I was always the only son. Then one day my father came home from Koi Tower with this random kid in tow, and out of nowhere, all of a sudden, I had an older brother. All of a sudden I wasn't so important anymore.” He huffs out a bitter laugh, then pauses, staring at his hands, lost in some distant memory.
Wangji wants to reach out, past the invisible barrier between them, and fold Wanyin into his arms. But if he interrupts now, Wanyin will likely never find the courage to say these words again.
The sun has long set, leaving the moon and its glow to the solitary beings that roam the night. Moonlight streams through the window by their bed and casts Wanyin’s face into shadow. He cuts a lonely figure, hunched in on himself, loose hair obscuring his face like a veil and running over his bare shoulders, skin dusted white in the moonlight. He looks tense. The bruises Wangji left on his hips are stark against the pale light.
For a moment, he feels guilty. Wangji doesn't like the defeat in Wanyin’s voice. It's so unlike the persona he puts up in public, that of the young Sect Leader with a temper and all the power of the world in his hands.
He wonders if anyone else has ever seen Jiang Cheng like this, cold and exhausted.
“I was never meant to be second place, Hanguang-jun,” Jiang Wanyin mutters. The distance between them stretches impossibly with a single word. His voice has quietened to a whisper, his hands twisting in the sheets again. “I don't want to be second place.”
When he finally looks at Wangji again, his expression is half-hidden in the shadows. Wangji’s head is blank. This is a private moment - a flash of weakness - and Wanyin has handed it over to Wangji, like it's nothing. Wangji doesn't know what to do with this. He only knows he hates the tremble in Wanyin’s voice, the insecurity radiating from his slumped shoulders.
He waits too long.
It happens too fast - one moment Wanyin is staring at him, an unreadable look on his face, and the next, his expression hardens. Something turns in his eyes. Before Wangji can stop him, he’s pushed past Wangji and headed out the door in nothing but the thin robe he’d draped on earlier, complaining of the cold.
Wangji instinctively moves after him, then remembers he can speak.
“Jiang Cheng,” he calls, trailing after him, out of the Jingshi, into the woods that border the Cloud Recesses.
“Jiang Cheng!”
“Fuck off!” Wanyin shouts from ahead of him, where he's running away, into the thick nighttime mist.
“Wanyin, wait!” He can't go here. This is where the edge of their mountain is. At the end of the woods, the ground drops away into a steep cliff. Though he has no doubt that Wanyin is clever enough to keep himself safe, the possibility of something going wrong sends his heart racing. If anything’s happened, and Wanyin slips away from Wangji’s life like...
A memory of Wei Ying flashes in his mind, quick as lightning.
“Wanyin!” he shouts again, but silence greets him. Wangji is lost in the fog and the dark. He grips Bichen, channeling spiritual energy to light it, and follows in the direction Wanyin went, his heartbeat hammering in his throat.
Please be safe.
“Wanyin,” he calls finally, and stops stumbling around in the dark.
“There is a cliff’s edge somewhere here. Please come back.”
Lan Wangji knows the words Jiang Wanyin wants to hear, but he isn’t ready to say them. He’s not sure he ever will be.
They are both still chasing after a phantom, after all. Jiang Cheng is still struggling to restore his Sect’s former place in the cultivation world, and Wangji is still healing, still supporting his brother’s position as Sect Leader. Neither of them have time for anything more or less than the arrangement they have now. It’s what’s best for now. For both of them.
He waits for what feels like an eternity, his heart in his throat.
A shadow emerges from the dense trees and mist around him. It stumbles into him with a quiet sob; Wangji drops Bichen, the bluish glow from the sword’s edge fading into the night. The two of them are shrouded in the darkness and the crying of insects. He clutches at Jiang Cheng’s shoulders like a lifeline and Jiang Cheng clings to him with the same fierce desperation, face buried in his shoulder. There's a wet spot forming rapidly on his robes, but Wangji pays it no heed.
“Jiang Cheng,” he whispers, and the lithe body in his arms shudders. Wangji runs his hand through Wanyin’s loose hair.
This is enough, he thinks. Wangji can live with Wanyin’s jealousy, and his insecurity, and the shadow of Wei Ying that may never leave.
The great Hanguang-jun , the voice in his head that sounds like Wei Ying laughs. Isn't Jiang Cheng just a rebound to you? And yet he's clearly attached. Aren't you being too cruel?
Wangji’s hand clenches in Wanyin’s thin robe.
“Let's go back,” he murmurs. “It's cold out here at night.”
A tiny nod. Wanyin pulls away slowly, almost like he's reluctant. The coolness of the night air is amplified without the line of warmth along his front. Wangji takes Wanyin’s chilly hand in his and picks Bichen up.
By the time they return to the brightly-lit Jingshi, the only evidence of Wanyin’s tantrum is their state of half-dress and the puffiness of Wanyin’s eyes. Wangji mourns the loss of Wanyin’s hand in his when he tugs it away.
It's way past nine.
Once they're inside, Wanyin retrieves his neatly folded robes from their place by Wangji’s bed and slips them on. The silky purple material rests heavily on his shoulders, gold trim shimmering dully in the flickering light of the Jingshi’s lanterns. He doesn't meet Wangji’s eyes.
“It's late,” Wanyin murmurs, picking up his belt, his voice only a little hoarse. “I won't keep Hanguang-jun up any longer.”
“Sleep here,” Wangji says.
Wanyin’s head jerks up. The hand tying his belt around his waist stills and his fingers dig into the thick cotton. He looks like he’s been splashed with a bucket of surprise. Then the expression slides rapidly into anger.
“Sleep here,” Wangji repeats, reaching out to push Wanyin’s resisting hands away from his belt, reaching out to undress him again.
“I'm not in the mood for another round,” Wanyin protests weakly, letting Wangji push his outer robes past his shoulders, down his arms, pull them off and fold them into a pile. He’s not saying yes, but he’s also not saying no. Wangji catches his hand, still cold from the air outside, and squeezes it.
The glow of the lanterns are soft and warm on Wanyin’s tan skin. His hastily-tidied hair shimmers in the golden light.
“What I want is your honesty,” he says quietly, leading him to the large bed. Wanyin follows without a word of complaint, though he still won't look Wangji in the eye. His face is flushed red.
They lie stiffly, side-by-side, for a long moment. Then Wanyin starts to shift and fidget and make a mess of the blankets, so Wangji presses a hand to his chest and rolls over to stop him. He's already broken so many of his own rules - surely no one will mind that he doesn't sleep in his usual position for one night.
Wanyin stills in his hold, startled. But he eventually relaxes.
The cool brush of the night breeze on his cheeks, the swish of tree leaves, and the warm puffs of Wanyin’s breaths on his neck lull Wangji to sleep. He’s never shared a bed with anyone before, but despite the discomfort of their positions, sleeping - really sleeping - with Jiang Wanyin feels safe.
Morning finds Wanyin still in bed, dappled sunlight warming the pale skin of his face in patches. Wangji sits at the tea table with a pot of freshly-brewed tieguanyin , watching his unguarded expression over the top of a book.
When Wanyin wakes the world will go back to normal, like it does every morning after their nighttime visits. Yet somehow, Wangji feels like something has changed.