Work Text:
“A-Cheng, A-Cheng, what’s taking so long?"
The braid. The stupid braid. No matter what he did, Jiang Cheng couldn’t get the braid on the left-hand side of his temple to lay flat against the crown of his head. No amount of smoothing over or combing could get it to twist into place, but he kept trying again and again anyway.
Jiang Cheng flicked his eyes from the mirror to the door, glaring at a waiting Wei Wuxian. His hair was thrown up in his customary ponytail, loosely secured with the red ribbon that served as well as any hair ornamentation in helping him stand out in a crowd. It never took him more than a few minutes to get ready: his hair still barely tamed, no top-knot or braids required.
“Not all of us are afforded the luxury of looking sloppy,” Jiang Cheng bit out, undoing the half-done braid with a quiet curse under his breath.
A little laugh - infuriating - and then he flinched as Wei Wuxian was suddenly also in view of the mirror. “Hm? Is there a pretty girl coming to Lotus Pier you’re trying to look nice for?” he teased with a small smile.
Jiang Cheng spluttered and shoved at him to get him out of the way. “Not all of us are shameless flirts, either,” he growled.
“Ah, A-Cheng, you wound me,” Wei Wuxian said, his smile morphing into a melodramatic pout. “Here, it’ll be faster if you let me help,” he said, moving back into Jiang Cheng’s space and reaching for the strands of hair he held out from his head.
“What--” Jiang Cheng started to splutter. “Stop, you’ll wreck the rest!”
“I know what I’m doing,” Wei Wuxian said, and the deft movement of his fingers was proving his statement to be true. “I know what a pain it is to do, which is why I never bother.”
A few quick movements later and Jiang Cheng had a braid tucked neatly beneath his top-not, laying flat against the rest of his hair. It was nearly identical to the braid on the right side - the one he had no trouble doing. Now, the left side looked just as perfect.
He glared at Wei Wuxian’s reflection in the mirror. “I can do it myself,” he muttered. He immediately regretted it. He sounded like he was eight years old again.
Wei Wuxian grinned at him, patting his hands against his front in an exaggerated manner. As if he’d just finished some great task of labor. “Of course, but having someone help is faster. Now we have time before breakfast--”
“Time for what?”
Wei Wuxian’s grin tilted up at the corner - a tilt that always meant mischief. Jiang Cheng was wary of such smiles but his stomach gave an involuntary, excited little flip against his better judgement.
“You know that bakery nearest the pier with the sweet-buns with too much sugar? The loquat seller who was here yesterday told me the baker’s brother is visiting and he’s a baker too! We should go see if he’s any better at measuring out his ingredients,” he said, floating to the door and gesturing for Jiang Cheng to follow. “Come on, before they open the stall for everyone else.”
“You’re just trying to get some free sweets,” Jiang Cheng said, voice dripping with suspicion.
Wei Wuxian shrugged. “That’d be nice, I guess. I just want to meet the new person in town, really,” he said with a smirk, falling into an easy gait beside Jiang Cheng. As if he were the one following because of course Jiang Cheng knew where their favorite baker’s shop was.
“I bet his brother is just as bad as he is about the sugar.”
“Want to bet a sweet-bun on it?”
“Fine, I say they both make the buns too sweet.”
“And I say his brother makes the near-perfect bun for grown-ups,” Wei Wuxian said with a grin, reaching to have him shake on it.
Jiang Cheng blinked, but then returned his smile and reached out to clasp his hand. His brother’s laughter rang out in the heavy summer air, the early morning fog not yet burned off by the sun wisping beneath their boots as they walked side by side.
.o.
And so it went, every morning. Jiang Cheng found himself frowning in the mirror less and less as Wei Wuxian stepped in to help him with the last of his routine without needing to ask or be asked.
It had been a long time since anyone had helped him with his hair. His mother had when he was younger, and A-Li still sometimes did help him wash it, or get it styled ahead of special events. This wasn’t anything so involved - it was just a single braid - but still. The routine of having someone else care for him even this much was… nice.
He’d die before he’d tell Wei Wuxian as much though.
What wasn’t nice was the glare his mother shot his way when they walked into the main hall for breakfast each morning.
Those violet eyes had a way of piercing through him, leaving his heart and bones exposed to her prying gaze. He loved her, and he knew she loved him, and yet… Why was she disappointed in him now? What grievance was made plain to her before he could even say ‘good morning’?
“A-Xian, A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli said with her always-there smile. “Good morning. Did the storm last night keep you awake?”
Jiang Cheng smiled at his sister but let Wei Wuxian do the talking, distracted by the heavy weight of his mother’s gaze. He took his seat and ate his breakfast, his movements mechanical. He could feel a second set of eyes on him; he tried not to flinch when Wei Wuxian feigned falling over to elbow at him, trying to cheer him up. He didn’t want to look up; he didn’t think he could stand the concern he knew would be waiting in his brother’s eyes.
Madam Yu cleared her throat, bringing their brief conversation to an abrupt end. “The storm caused some damage to the irrigation systems in the southwest of Yunmeng,” she said, her eyes squarely on Jiang Cheng. “The Sect Leader has gone to assess the damage and will return home sometime tomorrow.”
He had wondered why Jiang Fengmian was missing at his usual seat, but he hadn’t dared ask after his father. Maybe that’s what had his mother so on edge, maybe it had nothing to do with him--
“I hope your performance during drills today is not affected by the absence of your father,” she said, the words pressing like daggers against his ribs. “The eyes of the other disciples will be all the more on you without his presence to shield you from their judgement.”
Jiang Cheng kept his eyes to the ground and said, as firmly as he could: “Understood, mother.”
They finished their meal in relative silence but he could feel her stare, speaking louder than any words would ever need to. What did she see that made her so angry?
Maybe it was the braids, he realized with a start. Were they so improved she could tell it wasn’t his own doing? Was it so obvious that he needed help with something so trivial? Did she think him vain? Or incapable of even this simple thing?
Or worse, could she tell that it was Wei Wuxian who had helped him?
The bell calling them to practice sounded. He barely managed a perfunctory bow to his sister, and then to his mother, his stomach twisted in knots as he made for the door at a coward’s pace.
One, two steps out the door, and he heard the sound of footfalls hurrying behind him.
“Jiang Cheng?” Wei Wuxian called.
Jiang Cheng said nothing, forcing his feet to move him forward, alone.
.o.
The oppressive afternoon heat was a relief compared to the atmosphere during breakfast. Jiang Cheng could lose himself in the ins and outs of every maneuver, his mind singularly focused on doing everything perfectly.
He could ignore the prying eyes of the others who glanced furtively between himself and their senior-most disciple. It wasn’t often that they practiced drills separately; it wasn’t often these days that he told Wei Wuxian “no” when he approached Jiang Cheng to spar.
But he did, and he didn’t know why his insides seemed to sour when he did it. He couldn’t explain the shame he felt bubbling up in his gut, making him eager to escape the attention of everyone else as soon as practice came to an end.
No one knew Lotus Pier better than he did. No one - not even Wei Wuxian - could best him when it came to finding a place to hide away from the summer heat. A convenient excuse, the sharp voice in his mind supplied. Convenient, cowardly, craven.
So, he hid. And he noticed as Wei Wuxian did the same, in his own way, once it was obvious that Jiang Cheng was going to remain steadfast on this coward’s path.
Once full of laughter and chatter, their bedroom had become eerily silent within a week of this realization. Wei Wuxian had made an attempt, at first. Jiang Cheng had used sharp words and a sharper sword to make his point: he didn’t want to keep pretending they could be friends. Not when his mother hated him for it; he saw her disapproving glare when he closed his eyes, trying to sleep.
The lack of sleep wasn’t doing anything for his temper. When he pulled Sandu on Wei Wuxian in a fit of frustrated rage, it felt more like an inevitability than an unfortunate slip of judgement.
“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian yelped, easily dodging away from the half-hearted swipe. “Fine, I’ll shut up. But can’t you tell me what’s gotten into you? Did I do something wrong?”
Jiang Cheng sneered; his sword hand trembled. “No,” he said. “I just--” He bit down on his words, gritting his teeth until his jaw ached.
“What?”
The confused look on that always-smiling face turned his heart to lead in his chest.
“I don’t want your help anymore. I don’t want you around,” he said, the words lashing out of him like a whip wielded by the echo of his mother’s voice that lived, forever, in the back of his mind.
He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.
“Oh.” Wei Wuxian shuffled his feet in place, abruptly looking so much like the small displaced boy he’d been when Jiang Cheng had first met him. “I--uh,” he started, then stopped.
And then, Wei Wuxian turned around and ran from the room. He moved so quickly Jiang Cheng nearly swiped at him again in surprise, only just barely managing to hold himself steady as the violet of his Yunmeng Jiang robes disappeared around the corner.
“Wei Wuxian!” he shouted, the sound choking out of a throat that didn’t sound like his anymore. He dashed to the door, stepped out onto the pier--
Just to see the very-ends of a trailing red ribbon disappear around the corner, its owner well and far ahead of him. He wouldn’t be able to catch up; as his vision blurred with frustrated tears, he thought to himself he’d never be able to.
“Dammit,” Jiang Cheng whispered to the empty room, shoving Sandu back in its sheath. It clanged metallically into place, signifying something final.
.o.
Jiang Cheng cursed the dead of summer, resenting the season for its ever-longer days. He had never wanted time to go faster--he wanted, he wanted--
He wanted Wei Wuxian back. He wanted the laughter in their bedroom back.
He didn’t want to go to sleep every night in an empty room only to wake up hours later to find Wei Wuxian fast-asleep in his own bed. Wei Wuxian did come back, that night and every night since. It was just that he came back when he knew Jiang Cheng would be asleep-- I don’t want you around , Jiang Cheng had said.
And so Wei Wuxian had made himself scarce.
Had Wei Wuxian always been so willing to do what others asked of him? Of course not, he thought bitterly.
He’d called his name, shaken him once, but Wei Wuxian had shoved him away. Likely exhausted after staying out after curfew, night after night. He’d been arriving later and later to breakfast, until - finally - he stopped coming altogether.
“Where is A-Xian?” Jiang Yanli had asked him. He’d shaken his head, feeling the hot stones of his mother’s eyes burning against the back of his neck. “Sleeping in, I guess,” he’d said, hating himself.
“Do not trouble yourself over him, A-Li,” Madam Yu said, and so Jiang Yanli let it drop.
Jiang Cheng didn’t miss his sister’s prying stare the next morning. An exasperated look that said, I spoke with A-Xian .
And what had he said, he wondered? He felt he had no right to ask.
“Hm, as expected of such a poor excuse for a disciple.” Madam Yu’s voice rang out like a bell as she took her place for their morning breakfast. “First, he no longer presents himself for morning meals. Now, he’s started showing up late to practice. What a disgrace to have such a fool as the head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang,” she groused, folding her long sleeves one over the other across her lap.
Jiang Yanli made a soft humming sound that Jiang Cheng was sure only he could hear, sitting so close beside her on the childrens’ side of the hall. He looked up to see her gazing at her tea, eyes swimming with thought. Finally: “A-Xian has been taking breakfast with the younger disciples,” she said, gently placing her tea cup back on the table. “He leaves the dining hall after the last shidi,” she added, seemingly as an afterthought.
Her words were presented as fact: a simple report on what she knew from personally speaking with the head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang. Jiang Yanli was always so careful; she never sounded defensive, or like she was justifying improper behavior.
Jiang Cheng lowered his head, once again feeling unworthy of the better people he called siblings.
“Is that so?” Madam Yu said, rapping her fingers once against the wood of her table. “A-Li, must you refer to him so casually?” she asked, her tone more exasperated than biting. Always, always just that much softer with Yanli. “It is unbecoming of the child of a sect leader to be so companionable with a servant’s son.”
Jiang Cheng was tired. He was tired of being spoken at through others.
He stood up from his table.
“A-Cheng?” his mother asked, that soft gaze reserved for her daughter evaporating as it fell upon her son. “What is it?”
“Mother,” he said, trying desperately to keep his voice steady. “I ask for leave to attend to the practice fields early. There is a manner of swordplay I wish to dedicate additional discipline to today,” he said, lifting his arms to bow towards her.
Madam Yu sighed and waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, of course. That is likely a wise course of action given your difficulties with some of the more advanced maneuvers. You are free to go.”
Jiang Cheng stood up from his bow and made for the door. He avoided Jiang Yanli’s gaze, ignored the sound of her worried, whispered, A-Cheng ; he walked as fast as he could out of the hall and towards the practice fields.
Wei Wuxian wasn’t there.
He circled back to check the disciples’ lodgings, but no one had seen their elder disciple yet that morning.
There was no sign of Wei Wuxian anywhere at Lotus Pier - until practice started, when he appeared on time with Suibian in hand.
And disappeared just as quickly, as soon as they were given leave to go.
And so, Jiang Cheng realized, Wei Wuxian had quickly become just as good as he was at hiding here in Yunmeng.
.o.
Night came and Wei Wuxian came with it, at last. As usual.
“A-Cheng?”
He pretended not to hear. He remained still in bed - still enough that it was suspicious, he knew. But he couldn’t bear to look towards the door, to see Wei Wuxian looking at him with questions in his eyes. He could guess what those questions were and he knew he didn’t have any answers for him.
“A-Cheng, I’m sorry.”
Oh.
Jiang Cheng shot up in bed, ready to whirl on his brother in a flurry of - what? What was he going to say? - but he jerked to a stop as soon as he saw there was no one there.
“Wei Wuxian!” he called, hopping up from his bed and running to the door. He slid it open, looking to his left, to his right, for the second time that day, and--
No one was there, save the echoing chirp of cicadas and the sound of the lake lapping against the pier beneath them.
.o.
Jiang Cheng eventually slept, albeit fitfully. He wasn’t Wei Wuxian’s keeper; he’d come back, in his own time. And if he didn’t, one of Madam Yu’s attendants would drag him to bed before long.
He expected to be woken up by just that, but the sounds never came. He shifted to steal a glance beneath his covers at the bed on the opposite wall and startled at what he saw.
Nothing. No one. He sat up fast enough to make himself dizzy and glared out the window, thinking for a horrible moment that he had slept late but--no, the sun was just then starting to crest over the violet horizon hanging over the lake.
Jiang Cheng swung himself out of bed and padded over to the other side of the room, carefully - as though Wei Wuxian would be waiting for him on the other side of it, ready to pounce on him. Ready to grab him, hug him, make him laugh and tell him things were okay between them--
But the bed was empty. And it had been empty the entire night, from what he could tell. The covers hadn’t been disturbed, the pillow was in the same place; his brother’s clothes from the previous day were missing. They should be strewn out on the floor until one of his mother’s attendants came to scold him into picking them up.
Something cold settled in the center of his chest.
There had been a time when he’d been very young, shortly after his father had brought Wei Wuxian to Lotus Pier to live with them. He remembered it because it hurt to think about.
The anger, the confusion - the resentment. Why did his father need another son? An older son, even. Was he not enough?
Why couldn’t Wei Ying find some other family to live with, he’d asked the shadows on his walls. Why did he have to live here, of all places?
He felt his fingernails digging into his palms before he realized he’d clenched his fists.
If Wei Wuxian had run away--
No, he wouldn’t. Would he?
He would , that same voice from all those years ago supplied in the back of his mind. And you were the one to run him out of the house like the stray you think he is.
Blood pooled in his palms as he reached for his outer robes, staining the shoulder of them as he flung them on and ran out the door.
His mother would scold Wei Wuxian for causing trouble. His father would scold Jiang Cheng for upsetting his older brother to the point of making him run away.
He couldn’t ask for their help.
He had to be the one to bring Wei Wuxian back and he would, dammit.
He just had to find him first.
.o.
Jiang Cheng begged forgiveness from Heaven, his father, and Wei Wuxian as he slipped a collar over the head of one of the local farmer’s hunting dogs. If it was good at hunting pheasants, it’d be good at hunting Wei Wuxian, he reasoned.
He’d just have to be careful to set the thing back towards Lotus Pier before Wei Wuxian caught its scent on the wind.
“Here,” he cooed at the dog, gently holding one of Wei Wuxian’s belts up to her snout. A few sniffs later, and the dog was quickly spinning around his feet, nearly tripping him in her eagerness to find whatever it was that matched the clue she’d been given. The faster the prey was found, the faster she’d be rewarded.
He was dragged from the inner city surrounding Lotus Pier to the very outskirts, his feet trudging up mud and skidding over still-new dew left over from the night before. Slow down, he wanted to command but--well, he didn’t want to go slower.
He wanted to find Wei Wuxian sooner, not later.
After what felt like far too many minutes walking at a brisk pace away from Lotus Pier, Jiang Cheng recognized the silhouette of a tree cresting up from the barely-dawn horizon stretching out in front of him. Of course , he thought, shaking his head. If it had been Jiang Yanli searching, she would have known already.
Jiang Cheng gave the dog a pat on the head and tossed her the morsel of dried pheasant he’d snuck into his robes for this exact moment. “Go home, be quiet, be good,” he hushed the dog, slipping the collar off and patting it on the rump just hard enough to encourage it to get going.
Showing up with a dog would not serve his plan to drag Wei Wuxian back with him well.
He walked nearly a half-hour more, until the tree loomed in view, its many-tiered limbs stretching out over him. He squinted, searching its summer-full branches but--he didn’t see anything. He didn’t see anyone.
Had he been wrong? Was this not the tree? Where was Wei Wuxian, then, if not--
“Hello?” Wei Wuxian called from around the looming trunk. “Is anyone there? I could use some help--”
Jiang Cheng rounded the base of the tree, his pulse rabbit-quick in his ears; his breath seized when he caught sight of Wei Wuxian in yesterday’s clothing, propped up against the trunk of the tree, half-bent over a wrong-looking ankle, free of its boot.
Idiot--his brother was an idiot.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he said, hiding all the fear and worry behind a well-practiced frown.
“Oh, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian said, suitably sheepish. “Good morning?”
“Is it a good morning?” Jiang Cheng growled, kneeling to prod at Wei Wuxian’s raised ankle. Wei Wuxian winced, hissing through his teeth. “How’d you end up like this?” he demanded, reaching to hand his idiot brother his abandoned boot.
“I might have fallen asleep in the tree.” Wei Wuxian tried for jovial, aggravating the frustrated thundering of Jiang Cheng’s heart. “And then, I fell out of the tree and didn’t land right on account of me being, you know. Asleep.”
“And then?”
“Well, I didn’t want to wake you up limping back into the room or anything,” he said, shrugging. He was being insufferably nonchalant, as always. “So I just slept out here. It’s been a while since I got to do that, you know?”
Jiang Cheng didn’t know. He had never been left to sleep outside in the elements, exposed to Heavens knew what without even a pillow to make the rest easy. He wondered, briefly, if it might actually be nice - the stars had just barely started to blink out of the early-morning sky, and he imagined they might be a pleasant substitute for the surety of warm wood and warmer sheets--
No. He wouldn’t let Wei Wuxian ease his mind this time; he wasn’t going to be tricked into thinking this was okay, just because Wei Wuxian had managed to justify it in his own head.
“You should have and saved me the trouble of finding you at the crack of dawn,” he grumbled, holding a hand out for him to take. Wei Wuxian looked at it warily, like it was a snake waiting for him in the grass. “Come on,” he said, waving the hand in front of his face.
“You don’t have to,” Wei Wuxian said, offering him a contrite smile. “It’s just a sprain. I figured it’d be fine enough to walk on before the training bell rang.”
“Well let’s not wait until just before practice to find out, hm?” Jiang Cheng said, rolling his eyes. “How would it look for our eldest disciple to walk in late with a limp?”
Wei Wuxian’s silence made him regret saying it but -- it was true. It was long past time for Wei Wuxian to start considering how his actions would reflect on the sect, on the other disciples, on Jiang Cheng.
He had his own end of the bargain to uphold; he had to be a sect leader worth following, a man worth considering. He’d been failing so far, but he’d rather make the effort a hundred times over than risk losing Wei Wuxian again.
(And wasn’t it funny--like how pleasant he’d found it to have freely-given help on something as simple as a hair braid. He knew he’d never say these things out loud. He’d sooner die than sound so sentimental, like some mourning maiden.)
“You can just say you missed me,” Wei Wuxian said with a carefully-measured amount of mischief. “No need to be so coy about it, Jiang Cheng.”
Jiang Cheng lowered his hand and let both arms hang at his sides, feeling ridiculous out here in the mud in his morning robes with his heart exposed to the cool morning air.
“Fine,” he said shortly, turning his palms forward. “I’ve missed you, Wei Wuxian. I’m sorry—“ I’m sorry I said I don’t want you around? I’m sorry I failed to shield you from my mother’s wrath? I’m sorry for not being a better brother? — “I’m sorry.”
The smile on Wei Wuxian’s face dimmed, something foreign flickering beneath his grey gaze. He opened his mouth, closed it again. What a feat, Jiang Cheng thought, to finally render him speechless.
The moment dragged out between them, stretching well past awkward until: “Okay.”
Wei Wuxian raised his hand to reach for Jiang Cheng’s, a tentative reply to the implied offer to help. Jiang Cheng closed the gap between them, taking his hand and hauling him up to his feet as carefully as he could. He moved to bend beneath his weight, draping an arm over his shoulder.
Forgiveness was his to have if he wanted it, and he so badly wanted it.
Still, there was a poisoned thought, unresolved, buzzing in the back of his skull. He said, slowly, “Were you actually going to come back to Lotus Pier?”
“Of course I was!” Wei Wuxian said, a little too quickly.
Jiang Cheng stared at him.
“Don’t believe me?”
“No,” Jiang Cheng said flatly.
“I wasn’t going to leave forever,” Wei Wuxian muttered. “Just spend a few days in Yunping City, maybe. Until Madam Yu calmed down--” he started, then stopped short with a hiss of a gasp.
Jiang Cheng furrowed his brow. “And what would you have had the rest of us do, then? Waste our time coming to get you? Do you think that would have improved Mother’s mood?”
Wei Wuxian winced and it had nothing to do with the rhythmic pressure each step was placing on his injured ankle. “I don’t think they would have done that,” he said, his shoulders shrugging in Jiang Cheng’s grip. “I’m just a ward. If I came back quick enough--”
“‘Quick enough’ was before this morning,” Jiang Cheng growled, wanting to hear nothing of it. “Am I not here now? Did I not come looking for you? Did I not steal some poor farmer’s dog to sniff you out before someone else could find your sorry ass and scold you?”
Wei Wuxian looked stunned for a moment and Jiang Cheng struggled with feeling both smug and ashamed.
“If you’d made it to Yunping, I would have found you there too. You could have walked all the way to Qishan and I would have figured out a way to find you and drag you back here. Because--”
His voice caught in his throat and--when had he gotten so worked up? Why did the words get caught somewhere between his heart and his mouth and refuse to move?
Wei Wuxian remained - concerningly - silent. Jiang Cheng grit his teeth and continued. “Because you are my brother, and you belong at Lotus Pier.”
Their steps faltered as Wei Wuxian tripped. He’d have risked falling on his face had he not been half-draped around Jiang Cheng. “A-Ah, A-Cheng,” he said, fumbling with the words. “You don’t--”
“Don’t say, ‘you don’t have to say that’,” Jiang Cheng said, roughly pulling him back to standing and getting them walking again. “I know I don’t have to but I want to because it’s true.”
Wei Wuxian blinked at him, his grey eyes owlish in the dim morning light. And then, he smiled, brighter than Jiang Cheng had ever seen.
He smiled, and he laughed, and Jiang Cheng couldn’t figure out what was funny until he said, “A-Cheng, that’s so sweet! I might faint!”
It felt like something wrong had been righted. Wei Wuxian leaning against him, smiling, laughing, teasing - something missing, suddenly returned. Jiang Cheng couldn’t keep the relief from his voice even as he growled, “You’re insufferable.”
“Ah, treating your injured elder so rudely! How’d I get so unlucky to have a brother such as you?”
Brother , he called him. The word shone through the tension and the teasing like a lantern light in a clouded sky, the one true thing that made it easy to keep putting one foot in front of the other when the way forward was no longer clear.
.o.
They were both late to breakfast that day but - luckily for them - so was Jiang Fengmian.
Jiang Cheng tried to drown out the sound of his parents arguing and found it much easier when he could glance down from his seat to Wei Wuxian beside him, and Jiang Yanli beside him. They both glanced up, looking to him, to each other, and then back to him.
Wei Wuxian smiled, and Jiang Yanli raised a hand to hide a quiet laugh.
He loved them both, he realized with a horrifyingly pleasant rush of warmth. It seized his heart in a vice grip and refused to let go, choking him even as it settled content in the core of him.
“Your hair looks nice today, A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli said, her voice low to not interrupt the ongoing verbal battle being waged beside them.
“I helped him with it as thanks for helping me walk back,” Wei Wuxian said, glancing from Jiang Yanli to him; he raised an eyebrow. “Even sleep-deprived, it’s easier to do braids when you’re not doing it on your own head.”
“Very true,” Jiang Yanli said with exaggerated sagacity, gesturing at her delicate pile of plaited hair with a gentle flick of her wrist. “But the both of you have it easy,” she said, gently chiding.
Wei Wuxian laughed, the sound ringing out easy as ever.
It would never be as easy for him, but Jiang Cheng felt himself smiling anyway. Felt the laughter slipping out of him, unrestrained and unbidden.