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Chapter Text

It’s not that Jiang Cheng isn’t aware that he has faults.

He knows that he’s a flawed person; quick to anger, and easy to incite. It had displeased his father, reminded his mother too much of herself, but his siblings had always been able to read him well enough.

And then, the only two people with any real understanding of how to communicate with Jiang Cheng had died.

He’d spent a lot of time blaming Wei Wuxian before his return. It was easier than the other times, when Jiang Cheng would lie awake and think about how he’d done nothing but watch him slip away like trickling sand. Watched silently, as the shadows in his eyes grew until they’d consumed him.

“How cheap your admiration was,” he had shouted, from the pantiles of a dark rooftop. 

Cheap, indeed.

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to come to terms with the events of Guanyin Temple. He doesn’t want to think of it, afterwards. He wishes he could remove it from his mind entirely; but Wei Wuxian has never been far from his thoughts, not even when he was dead, so he supposes it doesn’t matter very much what he wants.

It starts with a letter to Cloud Recesses.

Or, at least his attempt at one. He manages several drafts, before he scraps them all. He abandons the wastes of his effort on his desk, instead flying by sword to ask his questions in person.

To his surprise, when he finally arrives, Wei Wuxian isn’t there.

“What do you mean, he’s traveling alone?” Jiang Cheng demands.

“I mean what I have just said,” says Lan Wangji, the tea between them sitting cold. “Wei Ying needed… time.”

The half-Jade of Lan is even testier than normal. On the best of days, he isn’t terribly fond of Jiang Cheng, but all the annoyance does is betray his worry. The corners of his mouth are downturned, and he stares resolutely at a plate of pickled greens that neither of them has touched.

“Time? It’s been sixteen years.”

“For us. Not for Wei Ying.”

The thought is one he hadn’t yet considered. He doesn’t pursue it, lets it sink into the back of his mind to be returned to later. Or never, if he can manage it.

“You’re worried,” he says instead.

He doesn’t acknowledge his own concern. It’s too hard, after such a long time spent hating his brother, both publicly and privately. It’s far easier to make it about Lan Wangji’s feelings, poorly disguised as they are.

Lan Wangji says nothing, but his mouth tightens, and it’s all the answer Jiang Cheng needs.

Jiang Cheng returns to Lotus Pier, and begins to make inquiries.

The first is to Jin Ling. It’s buried within a series of unrelated matters, so as not to make it the entire point of the letter. He places it towards the end, as though it were an afterthought. Have you heard anything from Wei Wuxian?

The letter he gets back comes within a day, and unlike him, Jin Ling doesn’t bother pretending the response was about anything else. I ran into him on a night hunt with my shidis. He said he was excited to see me, but he looked sad, whenever he thought I wasn’t looking.

Jiang Cheng is familiar. He thinks about the aftermath of the Sunshot Campaign, when he would smile to Jiang Cheng’s face, then drink himself half to death as soon as he’d turned his back.

I think you should talk to him; Jin Ling had finished. Jiang Cheng wonders when he’d gotten the confidence to start telling him what to do. Probably around the time he had started being right.

He frequents some of the inns in Yunmeng, inquiring after any unusual guests in a way that must come across as anything but casual. None of innkeepers, bartenders, or merchants have seen the guest they all know he’s looking for.

He starts taking night hunts that he’d normally assign to his advanced disciples, telling himself that it’s good leadership. He stays overnight at some of the inns, with one excuse or another. He doesn’t see Wei Wuxian, and he tells himself that he isn’t disappointed.

It’s been close to than a month of Jiang Cheng’s new routine when he discovers a case of corpse poisoning, close to the border of Qishan. It’s fairly standard, nothing he wouldn’t send his own shidis to handle, which is why he’s surprised when he sees the signs of a fight.

Felled trees and scattered underbrush litter the area, and in the middle, Lan Sizhui is bent over, recovering his breath, while a mussed Wen Ning frets at his side. Corpses surround them, unmoving.

“What happened?” he asks, but Lan Sizhui brushes him off, straightens to look past Jiang Cheng, into a nearby thatch of trees.

“We should find Wei Wuxian,” he says instead.

“He was here?” Jiang Cheng asks, ignoring the swooping in his chest.

 “He led most of them away,” Lan Sizhui replies, while Wen Ning nods in confirmation.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t wait, hurrying in the direction that they give him. His pulse pounds in a constricted throat, but the trees around him reveal nothing, their branches thick and intact.

He stumbles out into a clearing, only to see the object of his concern just beginning to lower the dizi from his lips. The relief that hits him is punchy in the moment it has to settle, but swiftly sharpens into irritation.

“Ah, Jiang Cheng? Are you here to help? Sorry, there’s not very much left for you.” Wei Wuxian waves, a laugh on his lips as he gestures to a field of corpses freshly returned to a less animate, more amicable form of death.

The ire that washes up at his words is hot and immediate, shame flushing at the back of his neck. A voice that sounds like his mother echoes in his head. Jiang Cheng, always the fool, rushing after a brother that doesn’t need saving. Who, it seems, never needed saving, content to cater to his own whims.

Only now, with Wei Wuxian finally in front of him does he admit to himself that he had been worried. The feeling of embarrassment is nearly as recognizable as the vitriol that follows.

“It doesn’t look like you need any,” he observes sourly.

“Jiang Cheng-ah,” Wei Wuxian complains, the tone plaintive and put-upon.

It’s familiar, and Jiang Cheng realizes it didn’t take more than a minute for them to be drawn back into the exchanges they used to have, the kind he thought he’d grown past. Sixteen years without him, and Wei Wuxian makes him feel the same way as he did when he was ten years old.

All of this lasts as long as it takes for Wei Wuxian to bound up to him, the tassel on Chenqing swinging as he comes to a stop, and clasps it behind his back.

Closer to him now, he can see what hadn’t been obvious from afar.

This close, Jiang Cheng can make out the bruised quality of his eyes, the pinched, moisture-less character of skin suffering from poor sleep. When he stills his flighty gestures, the robes he wears sag in all the places where he isn’t quite filling them out.

This too is familiar, but in a way that Jiang Cheng wishes he didn’t recognize.

Against his will, he feels the faint stirrings of concern he’d stifled so quickly just a minute before, and he chastises himself.

As soon as Wei Wuxian had opened his mouth, it had been like a tide sweeping him away, old habits tugging in an inexorable pull.

It will be different this time, Jiang Cheng reminds himself. He’s older now, not the same overwhelmed leader that had emerged from the death of his parents and the aftermath of war.

In the past, he’d ignored all the signs, as though he could hold everything together with enough willpower and a healthy amount of ignorance.

He’s no longer so easily convinced.

“What can I do for you, esteemed Sect Leader?” Wei Wuxian asks, and Jiang Cheng notices how the accompanying smile strains, like his face struggles to support the weight of it.

He knows that to Wei Wuxian, what he’s offering is a gift. Jiang Cheng could walk away now, contented by the shallow front, and they could both exhale in relief at another conversation successfully avoided.

Unfortunately for Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng has grown up since the last time they played this game.

“I heard you were traveling around. Alone.”

“Ah.” Wei Wuxian avoids eye contact, scratching the back of his head with the accursed flute. “Yes, yes, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the sights. So much has changed.”

Jiang Cheng thinks about moon-pale hands, made whiter by the clenching of a porcelain teacup.

“Hanguang-Jun didn’t want to come with you?”

Wei Wuxian fights to hide his surprise behind a cough.

“So many questions! Why can’t you ask me them over a meal? I am so hungry after laying to rest all of those poor souls,” he complains, clutching a hand to his chest.

Jiang Cheng knows Wei Wuxian isn’t expecting him to say yes. This is the point in the conversation where he strides away with a temperamental huff and a flick of his elegantly draped sleeves, while Wei Wuxian congratulates himself on a successful evasion.

His eyes catch on ill-fitting cloth, clinging to a slim shoulder. Drift down, to a tightly cinched belt.

“No winehouses,” he declares, and watches surprise flicker for the second time, before it’s overtaken by performative groaning.

He turns to step over an inanimate body, reminding himself to send word to his disciples when they reach the nearest town. Lan Sizhui and Wen Ning are staring at him as he does, both with indiscernible expressions.

“You can come too,” he grates out, and almost doesn’t taste blood in his throat when he says it.

The tavern they find isn’t very busy, at this time of day, and their party is easily granted a table. They would have been even if the establishment was packed full, by the way their server eyes Jiang Cheng’s prominent robes and ornate hairpiece. He settles them by a window, and hustles away quickly once he collects their orders.

When he leaves, they are left to contend with the awkwardness of their situation. Around the table sit the Sect Leader of Yunmeng Jiang, the Ghost General, The Yiling Laozu, and his maybe-adopted son, in what must make the beginnings of either a fight, or a very good joke.

Wei Wuxian breaks the silence first, in a move that couldn’t have been more expected of him.

“This tea is very good, wouldn’t you say, Wen Ning? Not as good as the wine, I’m sure, but…”

He continues on, making cheerful observations about the food, the decor. When he exhausts those topics, he turns to a discussion of the corpse poisoning cases. He manages to prod Lan Sizhui into an account of the fight, nodding encouragingly in all the right places.

Jiang Cheng tries as best as he can to ignore Wen Ning, which isn’t admittedly difficult, since the undead man barely speaks. Wei Wuxian seems to have elected to do the same when it comes to Jiang Cheng, hardly looking in his direction.

Jiang Cheng would call him out for it, if it seemed like it came from a place of ridicule. It doesn’t. The avoidance is far more reminiscent of trepidation, than of disrespect.

Most of Wei Wuxian’s food is still piled on his plate, since he picks at it more than he actually eats it.

“I thought you said you were hungry,” Jiang Cheng observes.

“Ah, you know how I get when I’m talking, Jiang Cheng! I didn’t notice.” He takes a large, exaggerated bite of food, and almost manages to stifle the wince he makes directly after. He swallows, opening his mouth for what is undoubtedly another ridiculous anecdote, and Jiang Cheng interrupts before he gets the chance.

“You were going to tell me why Hanguang-Jun isn’t with you,” he reminds him.

A complicated expression occupies his face for the barest moment, before it’s smoothed over with a grin.

“Lan Zhan is very busy.”

He narrows his eyes. “Too busy for you? That’s not what it looked like when he was defending you in front of half of the cultivation world.”

For an instant, the smile falters, revealing a look that is cold and affronted.

“I don’t need anyone to look after me.”

Jiang Cheng snorts, he can’t help it. “Of course. The hands-off approach worked so well with you the last time.”

“Well, I’m here now, and I’m doing fine.” Wei Wuxian smiles again. His hands shake, almost imperceptibly, where they rest on his knees.

“Yeah. You look fine,” he notes, tone bitingly acerbic.

No one is eating now. Wei Wuxian’s eyes flick across to Lan Sizhui, and Jiang Cheng knows he’s about to hear another watered-down denial of what is obvious to everyone who can see him.

It makes Jiang Cheng grit his teeth, watching Wei Wuxian act like there isn’t anything wrong, in the face of everyone else’s discomfort.

He feels like they’re repeating something, stuck in a cycle neither of them can escape. The last remaining Wens are even here, shielded at Wei Wuxian’s side.

He takes it in, and the words leave him before he can think about their implications.

“I want you to come back to Lotus Pier.”

They fall with all the grace of a lead mallet, and Jiang Cheng watches the Yiling Laozu’s face contort as he chokes on a sip of tea.

“You… what?”

“You’re coming to stay in Lotus Pier. With me.” This time, he uses his Sect Leader voice. He’s had sixteen years of practice.

On either side, Wen Ning and Lan Sizhui just sit and watch, eyes wide. Lan Sizhui’s eyebrows are raised, like the proposal merits his surprise, and Jiang Cheng wonders how much he knows.

He doesn’t think either of them have taken a bite in over five minutes. He’s also not sure Wen Ning needs to, but he’d been doing well enough so far.

Wei Wuxian finally manages to swallow his cough, eyes streaming.

“If Sect Leader Jiang insists, who is this humble one to deny his wishes?”

And that is that.

The journey back to Lotus Pier is long enough that Jiang Cheng has a wealth of time to second-guess his decision. They move slowly, most likely because of the donkey that Wei Wuxian refused to leave behind.

He can’t complain, not really. He’s part of the reason Wei Wuxian can’t travel by sword, after all.

Lan Sizhui and the famed Ghost General (who, somehow, has gotten grass stuck in his hair after less than an hour of walking) bid them farewell before they’re more than halfway through Yunmeng, with a fumbled excuse Jiang Cheng accepts gratefully.

This will be easier if there are less opportunities for Wei Wuxian to deflect his attention.

Then, it’s just Jiang Cheng, and his… whatever Wei Wuxian is to him.

They walk in a silence that would be awkward if it weren’t already tense, and Jiang Cheng thinks he might regret every decision he has made that day, up to and including his invitation to Wei Wuxian.

It only lasts until their return. Wei Wuxian looks at Lotus Pier with such sadness, like he can still see it falling, and Jiang Cheng’s regret stills, compresses into something firm and hot in his chest.

He steels himself, marches resolutely through the halls without checking to see if Wei Wuxian is following. He must be, because he hears footsteps behind him.

“Where are we going?”

Jiang Cheng pauses long enough to shoot him a disparaging look, but the wide eyes he’s greeted with tells him that it hadn’t been a joke.

“Has it been so long you can’t remember the way to your room?” Jiang Cheng presses onward, stalking up to Wei Wuxian’s door and flinging it open.

For a moment, he doesn’t move. He looks through the entrance warily, as if peering into the room of a stranger. “You kept it?”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t answer, instead watching him as he steps inside. He trails his fingers over old scrolls, the tops of half-finished drawings.

It’s pristine. Clean and dust-free, like he’d never left. Aside from the infrequent tidying, it had gone unoccupied for the entirety of his absence.

Jiang Cheng had ignored it, for the most part, over the last decade, but he’s never given it away.

He’d tried, more than once, but every time he’d attempted to dispose of the room’s contents, he’d had to face the innocent signs of Wei Wuxian’s former life. An ink sketch on the bedside, a pile of river rocks in a carved dish. They’re reminders of a different Wei Wuxian, his shixiong.

Even at the height of his anger, Jiang Cheng couldn’t bear to erase what little had remained of him.

Wei Wuxian stands in the middle of it all. His back is to Jiang Cheng, so he can’t see his reaction. He looks out of place, like the black spill of ink on fresh paper. With one hand, he brushes over some spot on the bedframe, over indents scratched deep into the wood.

Jiang Cheng clears his throat uncomfortably. “We’ll take dinner here. Try not to cause too much trouble while I’m gone.”

Jiang Cheng slides the door shut behind him, and tries to feel the least bit like he has any idea what he’s doing.

His meetings take up the majority of the afternoon, but he hardly gets through them, too inattentive to focus. He’s never been one to scheme, and it leads him to feel out of his depth. By the end of the day, he’s feeling irritable, set on-edge.

At dinner time, he carries a tray of Yunmeng-style fried noodles through the hall. Separate, smaller bowls of ground spice and chili oil are set to either side.

Inside his room, Wei Wuxian is rolling his dizi between his fingers, an inscrutable look on his face.

Jiang Cheng sets the meal down upon one of the low tables, and he looks up, smiling when he notices Jiang Cheng is there. He’s recovered some of himself in the time he’s been left alone, enough composure to keep a pleasant face. He sits at the table without prodding, sprawled in a way that makes some part of Jiang Cheng’s heart twist.

There’s no rule against talking during meals at Lotus Pier, but he still finds himself hesitant to speak.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to notice, content to scatter the bowls of spice across his noodles, stirring until the change in color is uniform. The flecks of red stand out against the noodles, like the vermilion ribbon he keeps in his hair. Even his food looks distinct.

He still isn’t really looking up at Jiang Cheng. He wonders if it’s easier for him to pretend, that way.

“Jin Ling is worried about you,” he says. Internally, he cringes at how abruptly it comes out, but doesn’t let it show on his face.

He’s never been good with words.

Wei Wuxian pauses from where he’d been fiddling with his chopsticks. “Jin Ling shouldn’t worry,” he says mildly. His posture doesn’t change, still casual, but it grows just a touch more rigid.

Jiang Cheng pours a small amount of chili oil over his own noodles, mostly for something to do. “He wouldn’t, if you didn’t give him anything to worry about.”

Wei Wuxian sets his chopsticks down. “Is that why you brought me back?”

The pleasantness around him has slipped, decayed into something wearier. He seems to consider something, then nods. “I won’t visit him if you don’t want me to.”

The idea looks like it wounds him, but he doesn’t take it back.

“That’s not what this is about.”

He frowns. “I won’t travel into Yunmeng anymore, then.”

“It’s not that either.”

“Then why?”

Jiang Cheng grits his teeth, looks down into his bowl. The sauce inside is already beginning to congeal, aging as it cools. His hands clench on the edges.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t allow him any time to organize his thoughts, continuing on when Jiang Cheng says nothing.

“You shouldn’t worry, I’m not raising any corpses. I haven’t been any trouble for the cultivation world since we last saw each other.”

He says it knowingly, like he’s sure that he’s figured out the problem, and it’s the cool certainty that finally snaps his tender control.

Jiang Cheng slams his bowl down, and Wei Wuxian leans back, resigned, as if the outburst was the normalcy they had both been waiting for.

“You think I brought you here because I’m worried about what you’re going to do to everyone else?”

Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows raise, incredulous. “Why else would you bring me here?”

The genuine confusion in the question is what burns him the most, he thinks. His anger crumbles away, settles in his stomach like flakes of hot pepper.

Jiang Cheng wonders what a-Jie would think, that Wei Wuxian finds worry on his own behalf to be unthinkable. He knows she would ache at what her family has become in her absence, starting at the very moment of her death.

He clenches his teeth, inhaling a deep breath. “Maybe I just don’t want to see you throwing yourself off another cliff.”

Wei Wuxian pauses, goes frigid and still, like a jade carving.

“That won’t be a problem,” he responds, after a protracted stretch of silence.

His gaze is far off, hand going lax around where it had come up to grip the edge of the table. He doesn’t blink, and Jiang Cheng gets a vague sense that he isn’t really seeing the room around them.

Jiang Cheng opens his mouth, not yet sure what he’s going to say, but Wei Wuxian cuts him off before he can decide.

“I’m tired,” he interrupts, and even with his eyes unfocused, it’s clearly a dismissal.

Jiang Cheng feels the frustration spike again. “Fine,” he returns, and stands sharply.

He feels helpless. It’s a familiar feeling, if an old one.

It rains that night.

Jiang Cheng stares up at his ceiling. He’s ill-suited for what he’s attempting.

It doesn’t matter.

There isn’t anyone left to help him, but he’s never been any good at fixing things.

A part of him, young and bitter, wonders why he’s even trying. If Wei Wuxian wants to fall apart again, he should let him, and damn the consequences.

Eventually, he drifts away to the sounds of the water falling against the roof.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t show up in the dining hall for breakfast. Jiang Cheng stares at the empty seat across from him, resigned. It seems that Wei Wuxian truly isn’t fated to be at his right hand; in this life, or the last. That doesn’t mean he’s allowed to skip meals.

After he eats, Jiang Cheng goes to rouse him, determined. He’ll eat even if Jiang Cheng has to force him. He didn’t bring him back to Lotus Pier only for him to get even skinnier.

He’s prepared to give the same tirade he used to give when Jin Ling refused to eat his vegetables, but when he gets to Wei Wuxian’s room, he isn’t inside.

Jiang Cheng gaps at the empty room, refusing to acknowledge the thrum of anxiety that runs through him at the sight.

Behind him, a shimei passes by, clearing the loose branches that had fallen from the rainfall during the night.

Jiang Cheng beckons to her. “Have you seen Wei Wuxian?”

“Not since last night.”

“Last night.” His voice is flat, and the shimei looks as though she might start to wring her hands with nervousness.

“Yes. He was asking about… night hunts?”

Jiang Cheng swore, spinning on a heel. Screw what he’d said the previous night. When he found him, he was going to kill him.

So much for not causing trouble.

He’s nearly to the edge of the circular courtyard when the gate swings open, Wei Wuxian holding onto it like he needs it to stay upright, and Jiang Cheng comes to an abrupt stop.

His robes are soaking wet, and they drip slowly onto the ground. The hand not clinging to the gate holds his dizi, and water runs from it, too.

Wei Wuxian looks almost abashed, like a child hiding a broken vase. He’s out of practice with not being caught.

For a moment, they just stare at each other.

“…I was going for a walk?” He tries.

“I’m going to throw you into the sun.”

Wei Wuxian huffs a laugh, then winces, and Jiang Cheng notices where an arm comes up to clench tightly about his ribs.

Unbelievable.

Jiang Cheng reaches out and grabs his other arm, refusing to yield to the startled yelping that follows.

He tugs Wei Wuxian all the way back through Lotus Pier, past startled shidis just beginning their morning training.

They’re watched with undisguised curiosity; and Jiang Cheng is sure his reputation for being unapproachable is the only thing preventing them from being accosted with questions.

It’s probably a good thing they don’t ask; he wouldn’t know how to explain it to them if he tried.

“Call for a bath,” he says to the same shimei from before, pushing the errant demonic cultivator back into his childhood bedroom.

Wei Wuxian attempts to look put-out, but it’s undercut by the way he’s shivering, lips tinged blue around the edges.

When the bathwater arrives, he hesitates, looking pointedly at Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng decides that if he’s uncomfortable with being watched, then he should have thought of it before running off to nearly die of exposure during the night.

When it becomes clear he isn’t planning on leaving, Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes. “I can take a bath by myself, Jiang Cheng.”

Jiang Cheng folds his arms over his chest, nodding toward the water. “With your luck, you’ll drown yourself reaching for the soap. Now get in.”

They grew up together, after all. It’s not like staying will show him anything he hasn’t seen before.

Wei Wuxian must truly be cold, because he doesn’t offer further resistance. He begins to peel off his soaked outer robe, and Jiang Cheng does him the slim courtesy of averting his gaze until he settles in the water. Even half submerged, his limbs tremble faintly where they come up to wrap around himself.

It turns out to be a good thing that Jiang Cheng stays.

When Wei Wuxian tries to wash his hair, he can only lift them about halfway to his head before faltering with a cut-off hiss. Even through the water, the bruising on his side is plainly visible.

They could call for a servant to help. Wei Wuxian might find it embarrassing, but he wouldn’t be able to argue, with the state he’s in.

“Lean your head back,” Jiang Cheng instructs.

Wei Wuxian looks doubtful, but does as he’s told, settling back against the edge of the tub. Jiang Cheng tugs his ribbon free from his hair, removing the band underneath so it falls flat against his back.

Without thinking too much about what he’s doing, Jiang Cheng pushes his sleeves back, tucking them so they won’t get wet, and grabs the hair-washing liquid. He pours some over his hands, applying it throughout the hair and beginning to scrub.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes close against the soap, but his body is stiff with tension.

Jiang Cheng is not a gentle person by anyone’s judgment, but he makes an effort to keep his touch light. He finishes washing and rinses the hair, applying a light-scented oil to the now clean strands.

Underneath him, Wei Wuxian slowly relaxes when Jiang Cheng doesn’t attempt to shove his head under.

He finishes up, toweling the head dry, and Wei Wuxian’s eyes flutter open. Jiang Cheng hasn’t been this close to him since he came back from the dead. He looks as young as he ever has.

Jiang Cheng, like most cultivators, hasn’t aged very much physically, but he knows his years are visible if one knows where to look. He carries it in experience, in the leadership he has learned to wield. There’s a youth, a rawness in Wei Wuxian’s eyes that hasn’t yet had time to fade.

“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, and Jiang Cheng can feel his face warm.

“Shut up,” he says. “I just didn’t want to have to look at your greasy hair.”

Wei Wuxian nods without argument and pulls himself up, wrapping a towel around his middle, and Jiang Cheng busies himself by drying his own hands.

Wei Wuxian redresses, tying his hair back up and running his hands along the ends. “It’s so soft,” he says wonderingly.

Jiang Cheng snorts. “It would feel like that all the time if you bothered to oil your hair.”

Wei Wuxian cuts him a look that is just short of a pout, then turns, as if to head for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Jiang Cheng interrupts.

Wei Wuxian is nonplussed. “To sit by the lake?” he suggests, as if it could be a reasonable course of action when he’s injured, and the circles under his eyes are nearly as purple as his bruising.

He straightens. “You’ve been out all night. You’re not going anywhere but your bed.”

Wei Wuxian’s eyes flash in preparation to argue, and Jiang Cheng sets his face; sticks out his chin.

He sees the exact moment Wei Wuxian recognizes his expression, and he swallows whatever arguments he had prepared, accepting defeat.

He lays down on top of the blankets instead of climbing inside them, and shuts his eyes without relaxing a single muscle.

Jiang Cheng waits. Despite his combativeness, it takes Wei Wuxian surprisingly little time to fall asleep. He fights it at first, but eventually he settles, going pliant and still.

Jiang Cheng pulls a blanket free from where it’s been trapped under his legs, spreading it across the sleeping body. He won’t have him getting sick when he’s just been warmed up.

He has some of his documents brought from his office. Even now, he doesn’t quite trust Wei Wuxian not to make an escape when he isn’t looking. After the previous night, he won’t take any chances.

The morning passes quietly, still but for the sound of Jiang Cheng’s brush against paper.

Sometime in the afternoon, when the sun begins to sink from its peak, his focus is broken by a faint rustle emanating from somewhere behind him. When he pauses to look around, he finds Wei Wuxian twitching in his sleep, head moving as if fighting off some invisible thing.

He must be dreaming.

Jiang Cheng gets back to his work. A few minutes pass before he’s interrupted again, this time by a low moan.

Again, his brush stills, and he watches this time as Wei Wuxian’s limbs begin to move. His eyebrows furrow, distress creeping over his face.

Jiang Cheng sets the brush down just as he jerks hard, almost falling off the bed, and he makes it over just in time to pull him away from the edge.

“No,” he mumbles. With Jiang Cheng’s hands on him, he begins to fight harder, dislodging the blankets over his chest. “No!”

“You’re okay,” Jiang Cheng tries to shush him. He’s awkward, his soothing unpracticed.

It doesn’t matter because Wei Wuxian doesn’t hear him.

“Wen Qing,” he cries.

Jiang Cheng stills, reassurances dissolving on his tongue.

Wei Wuxian is immune to his discomfort, a moan low in his throat. “Wen Qing, keep going, you promised!”

A sudden horror fills Jiang Cheng. The pieces fall together, painting a vivid picture of the memory he must be reliving.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t want anything to do with it. He himself still hasn’t fully finished processing his own thoughts about that particular reveal.

Knowing Wei Wuxian still thinks about it, that the memory of the exchange still affects him, even now…

Unconsciously, his hands have pulled back from where they’d been holding Wei Wuxian to the bed, and an arm flies free, nearly striking him in the face.

He renews his hold, shaking him lightly, then more urgently when it fails to rouse him. “Wei Wuxian,” he urges. “Wake up.”

Wei Wuxian makes another distressed noise, now twisting in his grip, fighting him. He’s gotten louder, his wails high and indistinct, and Jiang Cheng raises his voice to match.

“Wei Wuxian!” He calls, and shakes him again. “It’s okay! You’re okay.”

Wei Wuxian jerks awake with a wild gasp. It takes a moment for his eyes to find Jiang Cheng’s, and the sight doesn’t seem to reassure him. He’s panting. A strand of hair is curled across his face, plastered to the skin with the sweat that wells there.

Jiang Cheng’s own heart is beating so fast, he feels it might escape. Beneath it, his core –Wei Wuxian’s core– hums steadily. His hands are on Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, who is still taking breaths like he can’t be sure he isn’t drowning.

“Jiang Cheng,” he gasps. “Jiang Cheng, I’m sorry.” His hands come up to grasp at his forearms. “I’m sorry, I’ll fix it, I said I was going to protect you and I will –”

His mind scrambles to catch up, and he gives Wei Wuxian a little shake. “You’re not– it’s not then, I’m fine, you’re fine, okay?”

Wei Wuxian gazes up at him for another speechless moment, before abruptly slumping. “Oh,” he says, awareness slowly filtering back into his eyes. “Jiang Cheng, you should have said something.”

He’s beginning to pull back into himself now, letting his hands drop from Jiang Cheng’s wrists. Jiang Cheng doesn’t let go yet.

A familiar feeling is burgeoning within him, the same feeling he gets when he sees Jin Ling about to cry. The sentiment is jarring to feel directed at Wei Wuxian, the very person who used to soothe him when he woke up in the night as a child himself.

But it’s Jiang Cheng that’s older now, older by more than a decade while Wei Wuxian’s soul has floated, untethered, unaware. The Lan shidis might call him qianbei, but the truth is that he’s barely old enough for the title.

Even clinging to scraps of composure, he’s strung-out, too fresh from sleep to put up a truly convincing front. Indents are pressed into his cheek, his hair mussed from the friction against the pillow. There’s a weight to him that seems bottomless.

It tugs at Jiang Cheng, at a protective instinct that is rarely stirred.

“Don’t…” he trails off. Trying, for once, to find the right words.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes dart over his face, searching. “What?”

Jiang Cheng’s throat closes. “Don’t pretend nothing’s wrong.”

Wei Wuxian makes a soft noise of protest, but Jiang Cheng cuts him off.

“You did a terrible job even when I was doing my best not to notice, so I don’t know why you think you can get away with it now.”

At last, the haunted look is wiped from his face, replaced by such inordinate shock that Jiang Cheng has to tamp down a bubble of inappropriate laughter.

He stares past him, at a spot over Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. He can’t say it to his face. “I didn’t want you to sacrifice yourself for me the first time. Stop doing it for no reason.”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth snaps shut, like he’d just realized it had fallen open. Guilt is trickling in. All those sharp edges turned inward, cutting him open.

“Okay,” he agrees lowly, like he knows he’s in no position to disagree.

It’s a small victory, but Jiang Cheng has been through war. He knows to savor even the most miniscule.

The morning after, when he isn’t in his room, Jiang Cheng doesn’t panic.

When Jiang Cheng finds him, he’s dangling his legs over the pier, staring across the water. In the light of the early morning, he’s a pale afterimage. It makes him think of the other times he’d looked distant, over the past several days.

He’d looked like that before his death, too. Even after they’d gotten him back, he’d be right in front of them and just… disappear. Wherever he went, none of them could reach him.  Not even a-Jie.

Jiang Cheng wonders where he goes.

He sits next to him, dropping his legs down alongside. The edges of his robe brush the water, and moisture seeps in, purple flushing darker as it dampens.

“What does it feel like?” Jiang Cheng asks.

Wei Wuxian’s head tilts. “Death?”

The wetness along the bottom of his robe spreads like a bloom. “Dying. Coming back.”

Wei Wuxian swings his legs where they hang over the water. “You know when you wake from a dream, and you can tell time has passed?”

Jiang Cheng hums.

“It’s like that. Everything happened so quickly. I tried not to think about… before.”

He doesn’t say until now, but Jiang Cheng hears it anyway. “They all say I killed you, but...” He hesitates. “We both know that isn’t true.”

“I didn’t want to die, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says quietly.

“Didn’t you?”

He exhales a frustrated breath, puffing away one of the strands that frames his face. “There wasn’t any other way out.”

Jiang Cheng recalls crumbling coherency, wisps of resentment wrapped about Wei Wuxian like a shroud. He remembers how the tight control would falter, revealing something warped, a shade away from unhinged.

Jiang Cheng hadn’t been able to make sense of it, and Wei Wuxian had never explained.

“You could’ve asked me. You could have told us what was going on.”

Wei Wuxian’s face twists. “Jiang Cheng,” he breaths. “It wasn’t that simple.”

“It was.”

He shakes his head. “I caused too much damage.”

Jiang Cheng wonders if he means to the world, or to himself. “If you had told me… I would have helped you. I would’ve tried.”

You were our family too.

Wei Wuxian mouth betrays the barest tremble. “I know I didn’t do what I promised you, Jiang Cheng, but you weren’t the only one I made a vow to.”

Jiang Cheng can taste salt. The memory of his own wails ring in his ears, bringing to life the way he had begged his parents to stay, begged them not to leave him.

They reach past him, toward Wei Wuxian, demanding from him something he never could have fulfilled.

They were children, and it was war. Wei Wuxian was his shixiong, not a human shield.

A-Niang had never seen him that way, but he’d thought his father, at least, had loved him more than that.

It’s worse, somehow, that Wei Wuxian had accepted the burden without complaint, that he thought he had owed them. Jiang Cheng wonders what might have happened if they hadn’t wrung that promise from him.

And Wei Wuxian still believes that it had been right.

Jiang Cheng had thought he was done being angry. His hands tighten into fists by his sides. The feeling bubbles up in his chest, a hot, caustic mess he’d never had the slightest idea how to pull apart.

“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng snaps, abandoning any attempt at eloquence. Instead, he reaches out to cross the unspoken void that stretches between them, pulling him into a fierce hug.

It proves to be what snaps the last thread holding him together, and Wei Wuxian sags into him, for once not even attempting to hold himself upright.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes. “I tried to help, but everything I touched fell apart. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t do anything.”

Jiang Cheng squeezes his eyes shut. “You weren’t responsible for everything.” 

Wei Wuxian is quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry about Shijie,” he says, the word small on his lips, and even with his arms around him, Jiang Cheng can feel him drawing into himself. Jiang Cheng lets out a sharp breath, stiffening at the mention of her. The echo of his rage from that night rises up to batter him from the inside, aching to be let out.

“Don’t apologize for that.”

“I am, I’m sorry –” The pain in his voice is clawing, desperate, and Jiang Cheng remembers the desolation on his face, in his voice, when a-Jie had been struck through by that sword, the defeat etched over every part of him when he’d given up.

Even more disturbing had been the acceptance, the peace that had replaced it when he’d fallen. It leaves him cold.

“Jie chose to do that for you. It was her choice, not your fault. Don’t take that away from her.”

Wei Wuxian pulls away from him, scandalized, but Jiang Cheng kept a grip on him. Letting him distance himself is a mistake Jiang Cheng won’t make again.

“She knew what she was doing when she went out on that battlefield to look for you.”

Jiang Yanli had been many things, but she had never been stupid. The choices she had made, like all of them, had been her own. Jiang Cheng won’t take her agency from her in death.

Wei Wuxian just looks at him, mouth hard-edged. His eyes are red-rimmed, dark enough to swallow light. “Would you still say that if I had killed Jin Zixuan?”

His mouth opens, but no answer comes to fill it. He doesn’t know.

The confrontation at Nightless City, for a long time after, had seemed inevitable, like the erosion of a tall mountain; but there’s no point in speculating for himself, not when he knows that a-Jie had never blamed him for a second. Not even on the occasions when it had been deserved.

“What’s done is done. I can only tell you what I know now.”

He looks out over the water. They used to swim here, harvesting lotus pods under a hot summer sun.

“I forgive you.”

A breeze blows over the water, but the air is warm where it brushes his cheek.

It feels like healing. 

Chapter Text

There are a lot of things about their early life that he regrets.

Jiang Cheng had only just begun coming to terms with the mess that their childhood had been. He had compared himself to Wei Wuxian relentlessly, even when Wei Wuxian himself had never tried to make him feel lesser. He thinks, now and again, that the resentment in his blood had poisoned them as surely as what Wei Wuxian had pulled from the air.

He’d loved a-Niang, he had, but he can’t reconcile how she’d treated them, sometimes. He’d tried to do better with Jin Ling, to not work out his issues on his ward like she had on Wei Wuxian.

He clearly hadn’t done too well, if the way Jin Ling had stabbed him was anything to go by. Still, he thinks the relationship they’ve developed in the aftermath speaks to something.

Even if it isn’t his own parenting.

It’s as he’s considering this that he hears the faint strains of conversation outside of his window. He cranes his neck, but can’t quite get a good view.

“Is he in his office?” someone says. “I’ll bet he is, he’s always in there –” There’s a rustle, and the rest is muffled.

He’s just about to stand and investigate the disturbance, when his door is flung open. Jiang Cheng blinks up at Jin Ling, now standing over him with his arms crossed.

“I knew it. You’re always doing work.”

“Jin Ling,” he chastises. “Sect Leaders usually send notice in advance of a visit.”

“Yes well,” he sniffs, “Sect Leaders also shouldn’t withhold information from family.”

With the imperiousness in his voice, it’s a wonder Jin Ling’s hands haven’t found a home on his hips.

Jiang Cheng leans back in his chair. “What did you hear?”

“Were you going to tell me Wei Wuxian is in Lotus Pier?”

Jiang Cheng thinks he might know how Jin Ling might have come by this information.

“Lan Sizhui told you.”

Jin Ling appears to inflate, and Jiang Cheng prepares himself to be berated by a Sect Leader half his age and size.

“He’s worried! I was too, and here you are just hoarding all of the information to yourself.”

Jin Ling has really gotten bolder since becoming Sect Leader. Jiang Cheng feels like he should do something about that. He doesn’t admit to the other, smaller part of him that swells in pride. “He’s fine, Jin Ling. I promise.”

“Your version of fine or everyone else’s?”

“Jin Ling!” Jiang Cheng says, a bit more sharply. There’s a limit to the insolence he’ll allow, after all.

It’s not Jin Ling that answers the rebuke. “Don’t berate him Jiang Cheng,” another voice replies, equally as insolent. “He’s just worried about his favorite Da-jiu.”

Wei Wuxian appears, like encroaching mist, and slings an arm over Jin Ling’s shoulder. He allows it, but Jiang Cheng knows that it is only because of Wei Wuxian’s reference to himself as his uncle.

Jin Ling still huffs. “Only because I’d rather keep track of you. Even Hanguang-Jun doesn’t like leaving you to yourself.”

Wei Wuxian makes a noise of mock offense. “Hanguang-Jun? What is it with everyone these days about Lan Zhan?”

Jin Ling’s eyes meet his, and neither of them says a thing.

“Jiu-jiu,” Jin Ling says instead.

“Oh, now I’m Jiu-jiu? I guess it’s a good thing to know I haven’t been replaced.” Jiang Cheng can’t help but needle him, a little.

Jin Ling rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he says, and stomps off, presumably to annoy their disciples.

He doesn’t look back at Wei Wuxian, but Jiang Cheng notices that Fairy is nowhere in sight.

Sometimes, Wei Wuxian’s damage is obvious. It shines through barely-patched cracks, seeps from the fractures of his newly-restored body.

The first time Jin Ling approaches without him hearing, he flinches so hard that Jin Ling backs up a step, nearly losing his balance. Wei Wuxian blinks back at him in shock.

Jiang Cheng recalls a time from the beginning of the Sunshot campaign, when Nie Huaisang had moved to innocently rest a hand on Wei Wuxian’s arm, only for him to jerk away so fast it looked like it had surprised even him.

Jin Ling looks down, embarrassment rising in his cheeks.

Wei Wuxian is quick to reassure him, as he had then, a blush on his own face. “Ah, Jin Ling, you startled me, is all. Ask Jiang Cheng, I never pay attention.”

Jin Ling nods, but swallows hard. He excuses himself, and the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face is nothing short of devastated.

Jiang Cheng knows, despite his agreement, he won’t understand. Wei Wuxian isn’t any better. If he doesn’t do anything to correct the misunderstanding, it was entirely possible they would cease to speak for the duration of Jin Ling’s visit.

He sighs, and goes to find his nephew.

Jin Ling is trying his hardest to look like he isn’t upset, but he can’t quite keep it from his face. He’s far too much like Jiang Cheng to be capable of that.

“He doesn’t blame you, a-Ling.”

Jin Ling scoffs. “What do you mean? Of course he doesn’t blame me.”

He wonders how to explain. Everyone who had lived through the war had their wounds smoothed over time, like water wearing down the grooves of a shell. They were visible if one knew what they were looking for, but were no longer so obvious.

Jin Ling had no experience with someone whose wounds were still fresh.

“It’s not because you stabbed him. It’s because he didn’t know it was you,” Jiang Cheng informs him. “He trusts you.”

“You don’t know that.”

Jiang Cheng snorts. “I do. He doesn’t hold a grudge against me,” and Jiang Cheng had helped kill him. “Do you really think he could keep one against you?”

Jin Ling just shrugs. “Maybe he should. I could have killed him.”

Jiang Cheng’s lips twitch, at that, he can’t help it. Jin Ling scowls, face flushing.

“You don’t know,” he declares, and whirls away, but Jiang Cheng knows him well enough to be sure he’ll think about what he’s said.

The next time he sees the two of them together, they’re occupying the same bench in a small courtyard.

Jin Ling is pressed right up against his side, as if there is nothing unusual about it, and Wei Wuxian’s face is lit with quiet delight, like they’re at Cloud Recesses and a particularly reticent rabbit has clambered into his lap. The expression is so soft, it’s infuriating.

They’re angled so that only Jin Ling can see him, and his eyes catch on Jiang Cheng’s. Jin Ling gives him a slow nod, like they’re conspirators. It’s ridiculous.

That doesn’t stop a smile from tugging at the corners of his lips, however, and Jin Ling’s answering smile is as bright as Wei Wuxian’s.

For the first time in a while, Jiang Cheng feels like he must be doing something right.

For the most part, Jin Ling’s presence is a good thing. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are often as much a reminder to one another of what has been lost as what’s been gained. With Jin Ling, it’s better, somehow.

Jin Ling convinces them to teach archery to the younger disciples on one particularly bright afternoon, arguing that “they need a demonstration from the best.”

Wei Wuxian looks to Jiang Cheng, and it takes him a moment for him to realize that it is in search of permission. Jiang Cheng shrugs, and Wei Wuxian brightens like a flower in the sun.

Jiang Cheng hasn’t seen him pick up a bow in years, even before his death, but to no one’s surprise, he is as adept with it as he has always been. Their disciples crow with excitement as he executes some of the trick shots he’d perfected so seamlessly in his first life, and Jiang Cheng can’t help a reflexive grin.

Seeing him with the disciples feels good, feels right. He can tell Wei Wuxian feels it too, can see it in the way he looks back at Jiang Cheng excitedly, expression light and open.

Jin Ling looks between the two of them like a satisfied canary, and even the obvious manipulation doesn’t prompt even a flicker of irritation.

Their good mood persists into the evening. It’s enough, even, for Jiang Cheng to entertain Jin Ling’s not-quite subtle attempt at wringing a story from Jiang Cheng once dessert has been cleared away.

“Who showed you how to shoot so well?” Jin Ling asks.

Jiang Cheng actually stops to consider the question, instead of brushing it off as he has so many others in the past. “Your Lao-ye taught us both.”

“What was he like?”

Wei Wuxian is carefully silent.

Jiang Cheng pauses, thinking about the answer. “He was kind. A lot like your mother.”

He can feel Jin Ling’s surprise from across the table at the mention of Jiang Yanli, and has to stifle a wave of regret.

There’s still so much he doesn’t know. So much Jiang Cheng has been incapable of telling him.

“He taught me to shoot the same way I taught you,” Jiang Cheng continues. “Wei Wuxian too. Your mother would make us dessert whenever we won an archery competition.”

He smiles fondly, remembering. It was usually Wei Wuxian that won, but a-Jie would cook for them both, regardless, as if in silent opposition to the combativeness a-Niang always tried to foster between them.

How silly, it seemed now, those petty fights. He looks up, without thinking, to share a grin with Wei Wuxian, but stops short.

Jin Ling is still looking up at Jiang Cheng, expression open, but Wei Wuxian isn’t. He’s staring blankly at the space where a-Jie used to sit, face pale.

The loss hits Jiang Cheng, but the blow has softened, lost its sharpness over time. It aches, but no longer leaves him with his chest feeling hollow.

“Your mother was stubborn,” he tells Jin Ling. “People tell you that you got that from your father, but she was even worse than him. She cared so much about the people she loved. All she ever wanted was for them to be happy.”

Wei Wuxian is finally looking at him now. Jiang Cheng meets his eyes, trying to communicate as much as he can through the glance. He relaxes, slightly, his fists unclenching. Wei Wuxian acknowledges him with a dip of his head, and he shifts his attention back to Jin Ling.

“Besides,” Jiang Cheng continues. “She had to be stubborn to deal with us. We used to get in so much trouble.”

Jin Ling’s mouth has fully fallen open. “You?”

Jiang Cheng smirks. “More than you’d think.”

“Him, I understand,” Jin Ling responds, and Wei Wuxian makes a small noise of offense. “But you?”

“Hey,” Jiang Cheng interjects. “I’m perfectly capable of getting into trouble.”

Jin Ling shakes his head in denial, and Wei Wuxian snorts.

“Did I ever tell you about the time your Jiu-jiu hid wine in one of the plum vases?”

The answer, obviously, is no. Wei Wuxian hasn’t exactly been around long enough to tell very many stories. Jin Ling still shakes his head.

Aided by the encouragement, Wei Wuxian launches into the story. Jiang Cheng interjects every so often, adding embellishments, and filling in the spaces Wei Wuxian has forgotten. After the first, it’s easy to keep going, for the second to blend into another, and then another.

Jin Ling pays rapt attention throughout, as though afraid of missing a single detail.

As it goes on, however, his eyebrows began to scrunch together. He’s obviously puzzled by something, but Jiang Cheng can’t figure out what it might be.

It isn’t until the end of the next anecdote that he interrupts, after Wei Wuxian explains how furious a-Niang had been when they had accidentally destroyed a century-old tree in a mishap with a talisman.

“I couldn’t sit down for a week,” Wei Wuxian finishes with a laugh, and it’s here that Jin Ling scowls.

“Why was it always you being punished?” he asks, like a shadow cast over the warmth of the memory, and it’s only then that Jiang Cheng realizes the problem.

Most of their escapades, in one way or another, had ended with the majority of the punishment falling on Wei Wuxian. It was something that his father had often abstained from, the matter of discipline often left to the less forgiving hand of Yu Ziyuan, who would never let Wei Wuxian get away with a single thing if she could help it. To anyone outside of their situation, it must be clear to read as the bias it had been.

Wei Wuxian falters, brow creasing. Of all the questions Jin Ling could have picked to ask, this is a difficult one to brush off. He shifts uncomfortably, eyes darting up to Jiang Cheng’s like he’s afraid of the ramifications should he stray too close to the truth of the matter; that Wei Wuxian hadn’t been their brother, not really.

“Well, they were mostly my ideas,” Wei Wuxian tries, but Jin Ling is already refuting it with a shake of his head.

“No, they weren’t. You only destroyed that tree because Jiu-jiu was having trouble with the talisman lessons.”

Wei Wuxian, again, looks to Jiang Cheng, who is quickly realizing that there are more than a few things he had failed to clarify for Jin Ling.

“Well, yes,” Wei Wuxian acquiesces awkwardly, clearly out of his element now that the discussion had taken a more serious turn. He changes the subject, but there’s a trace of a frown on Jin Ling’s face for the remainder of the evening.

After, when they had all retreated to their own chambers for the night, Jiang Cheng hears a knock at his door. He opens it, and encounters Jin Ling, hand half raised like he’d been prepared to keep knocking had Jiang Cheng not answered.

He still has that stubborn line between his eyebrows, and Jiang Cheng braces himself for a difficult conversation.

Jin Ling seats himself on a floor cushion, and, with clear effort, refrains from speaking until Jiang Cheng has also seated himself.

He rocks forward, impatiently, but Jiang Cheng holds up a hand, stilling him. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you about your mother’s family,” Jiang Cheng explains, before he hesitates, unsure of how to start unearthing the complicated, unspoken dynamics that had defined their childhoods.

Jin Ling needs to know, but that doesn’t mean Jiang Cheng knows how to go about telling him.

“Wei Wuxian’s parents died when he was very young,” he begins, making a concerted effort to ignore the impatience Jin Ling radiates. “They were rogue cultivators, and no one knew what had happened to them for a long time after. Wei Wuxian spent a year on the streets of Yiling before my father found him.

“I wasn’t happy, when he was brought to live with us. I’d had to get rid of the puppies I’d owned, just for him. He fought dogs on the streets for the scraps of food people threw away, and he never did get over his fear from when he was attacked as a child.”

There’s a dawning light in Jin Ling’s eyes, as he finally realizes just why Wei Wuxian is so frightened of Fairy, and acerbically, Jiang Cheng thinks of how much easier it would be if Wei Wuxian ever bothered to inform others of his problems.

He rolls his next words over in his mouth, trying to find a delicate way to phrase them.

“Your grandmother… she was not pleased. Your grandfather was fond of Cangse Sanren, Wei Wuxian’s mother, and I think she always wondered whether he would have been happier with her. She punished Wei Wuxian for it, whenever she could.”

Jin Ling, whose face had only more indignant as Jiang Cheng had continued to speak, shakes his head. “That’s not fair. He couldn’t help who his parents were, or what happened to them.”

“No, he couldn’t,” Jiang Cheng acknowledges, but Jin Ling’s face just pinches further, unsatisfied.

“So, that was how it worked?” he questions. “You both acted out, and Wei Wuxian took the blame? His parents died, and because the Jiang rescued him from the streets it meant you could treat him however you wanted?” Jin Ling glares hotly, then looks down. “If… if my parents weren’t members of a sect, would have been alright if I was treated the same way?”

Too late, Jiang Cheng realizes the similarities of Wei Wuxian’s situation to Jin Ling’s own, and the response he’d planned to make flees him, disintegrating.

“It wasn’t like that,” Jiang Cheng protests, but Jin Ling continues like he doesn’t even hear him.

“What does it matter if someone is a part of your family if you don’t treat them like it? Everyone is always talking about how he betrayed you, but how could he have betrayed you if you weren’t even loyal to him in the first place?”

This is what Jiang Cheng gets for trying to be open, for once. “That’s not what happened, Jin Ling. You don’t understand.”

“It’s not? So, you didn’t turn him away the second he did something you didn’t like?”

No, Jiang Cheng wants to protest, I gave him every chance I could.

Jiang Cheng had presented their sister, clad in wedding red, outside Yiling, visited him at the very beginning to see the Wens that he sheltered with his own eyes, and given all the approval he could from the crumbled remains of his sect. There was no way he could have done more.

Even as he thinks it, the excuse begins to wither, like a flower shrinking in cold wind.

He’d gone to the Burial Mounds and seen desperate people, clinging to what scraps of goodwill they could unearth from sallow dirt, from cups of hot water without any tea leaves.

When he’d brought a-Jie to Yiling, the richness of her dress only served to highlight the raggedness of Wei Wuxian’s own robes, clear signs of hunger etched into the planes of a face that got thinner with every visit.

Jiang Cheng had seen glimpses of his struggle, and he had turned away. He’d comforted himself with the idea that Wei Wuxian would abandon his frivolous moral stand when it got to be too hard, like he hadn’t seen just how difficult a situation it had been with his own eyes.

“I had the interests of the Jiang to think about,” he finishes. He had had a responsibility to his sect, and Jin Ling had no idea just how tenuous the ground they’d stood on had been.

The heat in Jin Ling’s eyes doesn’t diminish. “I know Lan Sizhui is actually Wen Yuan,” he reveals. “Wei Wuxian is the only reason he didn’t die. Was the Jiang sect worth his life?”

Jiang Cheng scrambles, unbalanced. “Jin Ling, you weren’t there, you don’t know–” he cuts himself off, teeth gritted. “I had an obligation to the sect. I couldn’t risk their welfare for a group of Wens. It didn’t matter that they were innocent.”

“I thought Wei Wuxian was a part of your sect? Or was that only when he listened to you?”

“Jin Ling!” Jiang Cheng snaps as the last of his patience erodes, but Jin Ling pays it no mind. He stands up. His eyes are red.

“You and the rest of the cultivation world would rather brainwash an entire generation into hating Wei Wuxian than admit to your own mistakes. No wonder Jin Guangyao got as far as he did.” He leaves, sliding the door shut hard enough for it to bounce against the adjacent wall. It sounds like a condemnation.

Jiang Cheng is left sitting in the middle of the room. The hands in his lap are clenched so tightly, they’ve gone numb.

Wei Wuxian notices, when they begin to snap at each other again, the floaty atmosphere of the last several days evaporating like mist in sunlight.

They sit quietly around the table for breakfast.

Jin Ling fiddles with his chopsticks testily. Jiang Cheng is sure that the only reason Jin Ling hasn’t left is because he knows Wei Wuxian would be upset if he suddenly disappeared.

That, however, doesn’t keep him from being hostile to Jiang Cheng’s face. Every so often, he shoots Jiang Cheng a glare that’s far more obvious than he thinks it is, which Jiang Cheng ignores with all the grace he can summon. It isn’t much.

Even Wei Wuxian is silent this morning. He’d tried, after the first day, to smooth over the clear tension between Jiang Cheng and his nephew, but now he seems to have realized that whatever argument they were having couldn’t be fixed by a few well-placed words.

He’s started to pick at his food again. Jiang Cheng thinks that might be the biggest tragedy, out of everything. He had just started to fill out again, and Jiang Cheng can already see it all going to waste.

Jiang Cheng musters some resolve, and uses his chopsticks to grab more food from a serving dish. He places it in Wei Wuxian’s bowl, then looks away nonchalantly when Wei Wuxian peers up at him, startled.

This, unfortunately, puts Jin Ling in his line of sight of sight, who is staring at him like Jiang Cheng had just ordered Fairy to be shot.

Without breaking eye contact, he pushes the chili oil closer to Wei Wuxian.

Jiang Cheng absolutely has no intention of getting in a petty fight with his own nephew over this. Then, he sees Wei Wuxian’s wide-eyed expression, torn somewhere between bewilderment and wary softness, and changes his mind.

He takes the chili oil, turns it over, and sprinkles it liberally over the food he had just put down.

Jin Ling’s face sours, and he sets his chopsticks down with a clack against the table surface. “I’m not that hungry today,” he says, and storms from the room, not attempting to muffle his steps in the least.

Jiang Cheng wouldn’t be far behind him, but hesitates at the mournful look on Wei Wuxian’s face, who has turned to him, beseeching.

“Did I do something?”

Jiang Cheng sighs. “No. He’s angry with me, this time.”

Wei Wuxian just looks hopelessly lost, and in halting words, Jiang Cheng explains their interaction from several nights ago.

“You fought… about me?” Wei Wuxian asks, slowly. He frowns thoughtfully, holding a finger up when Jiang Cheng tries to contest his conclusion.

He taps the finger against his lips, thinking for another moment. Finally, he nods to himself. “Don’t worry,” Wei Wuxian says. “I’ve got this.”

He breezes after Jin Ling before Jiang Cheng can get out a single word, disappearing around the corner with a swirl of black-patterned robes.

Jiang Cheng looks despairingly at Wei Wuxian’s bowl, still mostly full, now abandoned.

This family will kill him, he’s certain.

Jiang Cheng at least waits a few minutes before he follows. He makes his way through the hallway slowly, stopping outside Jin Ling’s room. Through the paneling, he can just about distinguish the sound of two voices.

“How could you forgive him?” He hears Jin Ling say, and Jiang Cheng pauses, where his hand had been raised to slide the door open.

There’s a moment of quiet after the question, and Jiang Cheng waits with his breath caught.

“…There was nothing to forgive,” Wei Wuxian responds, so muted, Jiang Cheng can hardly hear him say it. There’s the sound of a muffled protest, but it soon trails off, and Wei Wuxian speaks again.

“Jiang Cheng did the best he could, Jin Ling. I –”  

There’s more, but the rest is too quiet to hear. Jiang Cheng pulls away, soundlessly. It wouldn’t do well to be caught eavesdropping as the leader of a sect, after all.

After Wei Wuxian speaks to him, Jin Ling seems better. Or at least cooler, his temper no longer raging hot. There’s a note of apology, now, when their paths cross. Jiang Cheng can’t know exactly what was said to make him change his mind, but he has some idea.

They’ve all settled, tentatively, back into some kind of balance. Jin Ling had even smiled at him, once, when Jiang Cheng had come across him showing off sword techniques to the younger disciples.

It makes a weight fall into his stomach, to be forgiven so easily.

Jiang Cheng spends the rest of the afternoon in the Ancestral Hall. He lights incense by the tablets bearing the names of his family, and sinks to his knees in front of them.

He’s not sure how long he’d been sitting, in quiet contemplation, when he hears the rustle of another set of robes settling beside him. He doesn’t have to turn his head to know who they belong to.

Jiang Cheng opens his eyes. Wei Wuxian sits next to him, face relaxed, his mouth a solemn line. He waits several moments before he breaks the silence.

“Why did you lie?”

Wei Wuxian shifts a little, so that he can look at Jiang Cheng. His brow furrows quizzically, in the way it always does when he’s stumbled across something he doesn’t expect. “Lie?”

“To Jin Ling,” Jiang Cheng clarifies. “You told him it wasn’t my fault.”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t poke fun at him for eavesdropping. Instead, he just looks more confused, and Jiang Cheng almost questions whether he had heard correctly.

“I wasn’t lying,” Wei Wuxian refutes. “Jin Ling just didn’t understand the position you were in. I explained to him how I see things.”

How you see things is part of the problem, Jiang Cheng thinks.

Past his shoulder, his eyes catch on the tablet for his father.

However much Wei Wuxian had acted out in their youth, Jiang Cheng’s father had never stopped viewing him with anything but fondness. It had always read to Jiang Cheng as favoritism, especially when his own outbursts were met not with a smile, but clear disapproval.

His perspective is different, now. As an adult, his view is no longer clouded by the burden of jealousy, or fitful grasps for approval. Now, it seems more like a weak effort to make an orphaned child feel at home, a counter to all the times his own wife had treated Wei Wuxian with bitterness and disrespect.

Shame curls in Jiang Cheng’s gut, at the way his envy had corrupted even this small blessing. A spot of brightness, Jiang Cheng realizes, for someone who had never stopped feeling out of place. The harder he had tried to please everyone, the worse it had gotten.

Wei Wuxian just blinks at him placidly, lips upturned in a reassuring smile. Jiang Cheng kind of wants to shake him for it. He’s grown enough, however, to realize that this course of action might be counterproductive.

“You should blame me,” he says. “That’s the problem. I blamed you for years, why can’t you do the same to me?”

Wei Wuxian softens, full of gentility. “Jiang Cheng. You’re my didi. I don’t blame you for anything. I never have.”

Jiang Cheng is embarrassed to find tears pricking at his eyes. This time, Wei Wuxian is the one to pull Jiang Cheng into a hug.

He no longer looks like he had in his previous life, when Jiang Cheng had visited him in Yiling. His skin is flushed from the sun, his cheeks less hollow. He’s still slender, but lacks the unhealthy, pinched thinness from before. With his arms around Jiang Cheng, he feels steady, solid.

He pulls back, and the look they share is comfortable, easy in a way it hasn’t been for over a decade.

When they leave the temple, Jiang Cheng almost crashes into Jin Ling, who couldn’t have made what he was doing more obvious if he’d tried. Jin Ling tucks his arms behind his back guiltily.

“I wasn’t listening,” he claims.

Jiang Cheng levies him with a stern look, but doesn’t argue. It’s not like he can call Jin Ling out for overhearing when he was guilty of the same.

Despite being caught, Jin Ling looks… pleased, for lack of a better word. If Jiang Cheng didn’t know just how truthful his anger had been, he might have accused Jin Ling of orchestrating the whole ordeal.

Jiang Cheng turns back to Wei Wuxian, and Jin Ling watches expectantly. Jiang Cheng looks back at him, eyebrows raised, and he colors, shuffling away with a muttered excuse.

Wei Wuxian watches him go, his expression fond.

“How long will you stay?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs. “As long as you need me.”

“I don’t need you,” he scoffs. Wei Wuxian shoves his shoulder in retribution. “Anyway, that’s not what I meant. Won’t the great Hanguang-Jun be looking for you soon?”

“Why would Lan Zhan be looking for me?”

He can’t be serious. No one can possibly be this oblivious.

Jiang Cheng can’t help but feel incredulous. “Why would he–?” He cuts himself off. He doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but it’s a close thing. “How do you not…?”

It’s clear that Wei Wuxian is only growing more puzzled by the second. Jiang Cheng abruptly decides it isn’t his problem. He can figure it out on his own time.

“Nevermind,” he mutters. He has a feeling it won’t be long before the subject of their conversation shows up, anyway. He gives it a week.

Jiang Cheng is wrong.

Lan Wangji doesn’t show up in a week. He shows up the very next morning.

Jiang Cheng isn’t sure he should bother feeling surprised anymore.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, his eyes filled with burning intensity. It hurts just to look at. Both of Wei Wuxian’s wrists are clutched in his hands, a softly possessive gesture.

Surely, surely, he must realize.

A quick look at Wei Wuxian’s face reveals that he has not, in fact, realized a single thing. He looks happy at least, if not slightly thrown off from what must seem for all the world like a completely unexpected arrival.

Jin Ling is standing at the edge of the courtyard, and a quick glance at him reveals the same lost incredulity that Jiang Cheng has been feeling for the last several minutes.

“Lan Zhan! What are you doing here? Do you have business with Jiang Cheng?”

Lan Wangji finally looks away from Wei Wuxian, his icy stare flickering over to Jiang Cheng. He looks contemptuous at the mere idea that he might have traveled all the way to Lotus Pier just to speak to Jiang Cheng.

If a fight is what he wants, Jiang Cheng will be more than happy to provide. Lan Wangji is quick to resettle his gaze on Wei Wuxian, however, so he supposes it won’t come to that.

“I am here for you,” he responds smoothly.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian teases. “You could’ve written me a letter!”

Jiang Cheng has no idea how he can say such things, in the face of such unwavering emotion from a man who, at his most expressive, typically resembles an ornamental garden rock.

“I would not worry if you came back to Gusu with me.”

Wei Wuxian freezes in his grasp. There’s a hint of a blush on his cheeks. “I wouldn’t want to burden you, Lan Zhan.”

“Wei Ying is never a burden.”

Helplessly, Wei Wuxian looks back at Jiang Cheng. “I wouldn’t want to –”

“It’s fine,” Jiang Cheng interrupts. Next to him, Jin Ling nods his head emphatically.

Wei Wuxian’s mouth shuts with a snap, and he looks back at Lan Wangji. “I suppose it’s been a while,” he says weakly.

He suddenly remembers a very, very important meeting he needs to attend. Jin Ling follows him hastily.

The wedding Jiang Cheng plans is going to be so ostentatious; it will make Lan Wangji cry.