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The screeches and shouts rose in pitch as the three children – two of them old enough to be wearing junior disciple's robes – chased around the pathways and bridges of the lotus garden, calling dire threats and waving their wooden “swords.” One of them turned to battle his pursuer, and made a valiant defence, clacking the wooden swords together three times before being dramatically “stabbed” in the stomach and stumbling back, performing an elaborate death scene that ended with him splayed on the ground, while his erstwhile companion caught their “attacker” in the back with his own sword. He shrieked and fell to his knees, and Wei Wuxian grinned at their commitment to accuracy. Certainly when he'd been a child he'd never accepted defeat in play-battles with such grace.
His smile faded as a sharp voice from across the courtyard interrupted their play.
“You three,” Jiang Cheng shouted. “What do you think you're doing? Running around the lotus pond waving sticks! Someone is going to get hurt.”
The children all popped up with matching expressions of startled guilt on their faces, and bowed in unison to Sandu Shengshou, and then to Jin Ling, who had come in beside him. They muttered hasty apologies, and Wei Wuxian watched with disappointment as they hid their wooden swords behind their backs and meekly left the garden, the unfairness of it dampening his good mood.
He turned to glare at his... at Jiang Cheng. They had built an uneasy peace between them, in the six months since the Guanyin temple, seeing each other intermittently at Koi Tower, or when Jiang Cheng came to Gusu on sect business. For the most part, they exchanged stilted pleasantries and then steered clear of each other. Jiang Cheng kept his temper, and Wei Wuxian held his tongue lest he spill forth uninvited apologies or reminiscences that would only reignite Jiang Cheng's fury with him.
Now, though, he was annoyed. “Jiang Cheng,” he snapped, “you didn't have to be so harsh with them! They were only playing!”
Jiang Cheng turned towards him, but his eyes seemed to look right through him, as though he wasn't there. He didn't answer. Instead he flexed his hands and turned to Jin Ling. “We can talk more later,” he said. “I'm going to my rooms.”
Jin Ling opened his mouth to protest, then closed it, a look of understanding passing over his face, before he nodded and said, “Of course, Jiujiu, we'll speak later.”
Jiang Cheng turned in a swirl of violet robes, and marched out of the lotus garden, moving with just slightly too much dignity to be called running.
Wei Wuxian turned to Jin Ling. “What was that?” he asked.
Jin Ling gave him an assessing look. “It doesn't matter,” he said finally. “Jiujiu doesn't like to talk about it. If he doesn't want to tell you then it's none of your business.”
As if telling Wei Wuxian something was none of his business had ever been anything but an invitation for him to poke his nose into it. As if Jiang Cheng had ever been able to avoid talking about something once Wei Wuxian got wind of it. He huffed.
“Alright,” he said “keep your secrets then.” He stretched innocently, rolled his shoulders as if they had stiffened up. “I think I'll go find some wine,” he said lightly. “I'll see you at dinner young mistress!”
“Don't call me that!” Jin Ling yelled after him. Wei Wuxian's laughter echoed back through the entrance to the garden.
Then he made a sharp turn and started toward Jiang Cheng's apartments.
He caught up with Jiang Cheng in a deserted passage. His former sect-brother was stopped, bracing himself grimly against a pillar as if he might collapse at any moment.
“Jiang Cheng!”
He looked awful. His face was pale, and sweat stood out sharply on his skin, despite the cool afternoon. He was gasping for breath as if he had just been saved from drowning, and his hands clenched the pillar so hard the knuckles had gone white.
“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian repeated, “What's wrong, how can I help?”
Jiang Cheng threw up an arm to block him as he approached, but the gesture was half-hearted, weak. He stopped regardless, cautious of pushing too far where he was not welcome, but his hands itched to help, to do something, and he tried again. “Jiang Cheng please, tell me what's wrong. I can take you to the physicians, or fetch one here, just tell me-”
“I don't need a physician,” Jiang Cheng snapped. “I need to get to my room, and find my scent bottle, and be left alone.” This last was snarled in his direction, in a tone that would probably have had Jin Ling running for the hills. Wei Wuxian, who had dared his brother's wrath for far stupider things than this when they were children, let it roll off him without a thought.
“Fine,” he said. “If you need to get to your rooms, I'll help.” He dragged Jiang Cheng's arm across his shoulder, ignoring the pro-forma attempts to bat his hands away, and trying to ignore the part of him that remembered when Jiang Cheng had used to sling an arm across his shoulder gladly, easily, just because they were together and they were brothers and it was them against the world.
Jiang Cheng had no such affection for him any more. Only bitter anger, and old grudges, and festering resentment for the thing Wei Wuxian had given him in secret, and lied about for years. He had built his sect into a thing to be proud of, become a power to be respected in the cultivation world, raised his nephew into a noble cultivator, all without Wei Wuxian's help. Of course he wouldn't want it now.
He took Jiang Cheng's weight on his shoulders and started hauling them both in the direction of Jiang Cheng's rooms.
As soon as the door closed, Jiang Cheng wrenched away from him, digging through his bag and pulling out a bottle of oil, which filled the room with a warm, spicy scent when uncapped. Jiang Cheng held it in front of his face and closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, staring around the room, his lips moving silently. His frantic breaths began to even out, replaced with the steady, controlled rhythm of meditation.
The next time Jiang Cheng's eyes fell on him they focused. “What are you still doing here,” he rasped. “Get out.”
“When I'm sure you're alright,” said Wei Wuxian. “Jiang Cheng-”
“I'm fine,” he snapped. “I can handle this on my own. I have plenty of practice.”
Wei Wuxian couldn't keep a look of horror from crossing his face, and he saw Jiang Cheng grimace in response. Plenty of practice. How often did this happen? Was is some sickness, some condition of the lungs? Why-
“Oh calm down,” said Jiang Cheng. “They're only waking nightmares. They pass. Don't you have better places to be?”
Oh.
He had known cultivators who suffered from something similar, especially right after the war. For most they had faded with time.
“How long-”
“None of your business,” Jiang Cheng replied.
Wei Wuxian stood in the middle of the room and waited, watching his brother's face.
Jiang Cheng sighed. “I've had them since the war,” he said. “They're always worse when the lotus are blooming.”
Wei Wuxian swallowed. Since the war. Since the fall of Lotus Pier, when everyone they loved had been butchered and their bodies left lying among the lotus flowers for the birds to feast on.
He had nightmares about that time too, though not waking ones. He'd never thought... “I never knew,” he said.
“You weren't around much,” said Jiang Cheng acidly.
It cut, as it was meant to, and he flinched. You failed me, Jiang Cheng's bitter voice said. You abandoned me. You have no right to know when I'm hurt.
Jiang Cheng had always been vicious when he was frightened.
“The children in the courtyard,” he said.
“Sixth Shidi was trying to nock an arrow when they stabbed him through the back,” said Jiang Cheng tonelessly. “I saw them take his bow and break it when they brought his body out to lie with the others. I could see the rows of bodies from the room where Wen Chao-”
He broke off, looked away, as if that could make either one of them forget what he'd been talking about.
Nearly 18 years. But the details were clearly just as fresh in Jiang Cheng's mind as the day they had happened.
Wei Wuxian could hardly remember that night at all. Only confused flashes, and scattered images, only the feeling of terror and sickening guilt. He felt it now.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “If I hadn't-”
“If you hadn't what?” Jiang Cheng snapped. “If you hadn't bested Wen Chao, would Wen Ruohan have left us alone? He'd already attacked Cloud Recesses and Qinghe, wiped out half the minor clans in our region...” He shook his head, looking utterly tired. “They were coming for us already. It was only a matter of time.”
“Maybe not,” said Wei Wuxian. “You don't know-”
“I know enough,” said Jiang Cheng flatly. “You have your own guilt, Wei Wuxian. You cannot take credit for Wen Chao's crimes as well.”
He was breathing easier now, his hands steady as they capped the bottle.
“I need to go find Jin Ling,” he said. “He worries when I have these episodes.”
“Jiang Cheng-”
“I don't need you worrying too,” said Jiang Cheng. “And don't tell Jin Ling what you saw. I don't want him fussing any more than he already does.”
“I won't,” said Wei Wuxian. “Jiang Cheng... I'm sorry I didn't notice. Before.”
Jiang Cheng froze. A frown crossed his face, there and gone in an instant, and then he laughed, short and sharp and humourless. “You were no better off,” he said. “I used to be so furious with you for going out drinking all the time, leaving me to handle everything on my own. But when Jin Ling was a baby and was sick and crying all the time, and I hadn't slept in three days, and I was seeing bodies everywhere and half the time didn't know if the screams I was hearing were the baby or the nightmares...I used to wish I could just drink myself unconscious. It would stop the noise, at least. And I started to wonder... if you had nightmares too. If you were drinking all the time because-”
Wei Wuxian swallowed. It was true, the alcohol helped with nightmares. And with feeling afraid and hollow and useless all the time.
“And then I found out about your little experiment,” said Jiang Cheng, “and I started to wonder if that had been part of it too. If you were feeling anything like what I was after Wen Zhuliu-”
“Stop,” said Wei Wuxian. He didn't want to think about that. Didn't want Jiang Cheng to think about that. What did it matter now, anyway? Given the choice again, he wouldn't change it.
“It's not the same,” he said. “I gave it up. It was my decision. And it was worth it, Jiang Cheng, you've done so much, you rebuilt our sect from nothing, you saved so many lives, during the war and since. Giving you your cultivation back... it was the right choice. The only choice.”
Jiang Cheng's lips pressed together, disagreement in every line of his stiff posture, but he said nothing, and at last the tension bled out of him. “At any rate it can't be changed now,” he said finally. “Anyway if I didn't notice that you were walking around with no golden core you can hardly be blamed for not noticing a few nightmares.”
It didn't ease the guilt churning in Wei Wuxian's gut, not completely. He had worked hard to hide the loss of his core, had used Jiang Cheng's faith in him to do it, deflecting his brother's worries, using demonic cultivation to hide the fact that he had nothing else. If Jin Ling, who Jiang Cheng protected with his whole being, knew to worry about his jiujiu's nightmares... He should have known. He should have-
But he closed a door on that line of thought before he could slip any further into his own guilt and grief. Let it go. There was no changing the past; he knew that better than most. Only going forward from where you were
Jiang Cheng gathered himself, made his way to the door, but stopped before he opened it. “Our sect,” he said.
“What?”
“You said I rebuilt our sect.”
Wei Wuxian went cold. “Ah...I apologize,” he said. “I spoke quickly. I didn't mean to presume-”
Jiang Cheng ignored him. “At first,” he said, “when you defected, I assumed it was temporary. A ruse, a way to keep the cultivation world off our backs. But you kept refusing to return. Eventually... I understood. That you must have been serious about wanting nothing more to do with us. But if it matters...” He hesitated, shifted his shoulders as if trying to settle a too-heavy weight. “If you ever wanted to be considered a member of Yunmeng Jiang again, all you would have to do is ask.”
Wei Wuxian's heart thundered in his ears. He tried to wet his lips, but his mouth felt dry as salt. “Jiang Cheng,” he said, “Sect Leader Jiang. This cultivator respectfully requests to be reinstated as a disciple of Yunmeng Jiang Sect.”
There was a moment's heavy silence. Jiang Cheng seemed to go even more frozen, and then Wei Wuxian heard the breath go out of him, and saw his throat work as he swallowed.
“I'll see to it when I get back to Lotus Pier,” he said. “Sorting out your seniority is going to be a disaster, with the missing sixteen years, but I'm sure we'll figure out something.” He paused. “It will mean you have to actually come to Lotus Pier once in a while,” he said, and there was a sarcastic edge to his voice that Wei Wuxian didn't understand, but it didn't matter. If Jiang Cheng was offering him his home back he could be as bitchy and sarcastic about it as he wanted.
“If Sect Leader Jiang allows me back, I'll be there as often as you'll have me,” said Wei Wuxian, trying to keep his voice light and not quite succeeding. He hoped at least that Jiang Cheng could hear the sincerity in it.
He'd have to convince Lan Zhan to come with him, once things had settled a little between him and Jiang Cheng. He could show him the lotus ponds, show him the market, watch his face turn red trying to eat hot dry noodles with too much spice...
“See that you do,” said Jiang Cheng, and disappeared out the door.
He didn't even kick me out of his rooms when he left.
He closed up his brother's apartments behind him, still trying to figure out what had just happened. He had to make plans to visit Lotus Pier. He had to research how to help with waking nightmares, maybe check the Gusu library, he had to tell Lan Zhan... he didn't know where to start.
Wine, he thought. This definitely calls for wine.
He made his way through the halls and out into the city, heading for the nearest inn, smiling every step.