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From the door of Jiang Cheng’s personal chambers, Wen Qing snorts and says, “You and Wei Wuxian are the exact same kind of idiot.”
This is the most horrifying insult Jiang Cheng has ever heard. His head snaps up from his paperwork, mouth falling open in outrage. “I beg your pardon.”
“He used to seal himself up alone in his little cave to hack at problems until he collapsed,” Wen Qing continues, stepping inside and flicking the door shut behind her. Her sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, her fingers are stained green from some sort of medicinal powder, and the early-evening light catches on the slightly disarrayed fall of her hair and the pink shell of her right ear. These small details collect into a squeezing sensation inside Jiang Cheng’s chest. “Your choice of cave is just more purple and has a higher thread count in the decor.”
“Wh- I – This isn’t even my office, this is my private – Who even let you in here?” It was Han Zhou, wasn’t it. Jiang Cheng’s First Disciple (“First-and-a-Half!” Wei Wuxian had insisted upon his return to Lotus Pier, but Jiang Cheng’s sticking with First Disciple Han until-slash-unless Wei Wuxian gets his shit slightly more together and finishes detoxing from resentful energy and, most importantly, gets some more meat on his bones; he and all his little ex-Wens are still so damn skinny) had made a pointed comment about the sheer number of tea cups he’d had to collect from Jiang Cheng’s office this morning, and asked how long Jiang-zongzhu had been awake working on trade agreements. Fuck off, Han Zhou. That’s between Jiang Cheng and the teapot.
Besides, the work isn’t going to do itself. That’s why Jiang Cheng had cunningly hidden the remaining paperwork in his robes when the disciples finally shooed him out of his office, insisting he take a rest, so that he could finish it up here in his rooms. Who’s laughing now, Han Zhou? …Well, not Jiang Cheng, since paperwork doesn’t exactly put him in a laughing mood. But victory does.
“‘Let me in’?” Wen Qing raises an eyebrow. “You brought me to Lotus Pier for my medical expertise, Jiang-zongzhu. I am allowed, and I quote, ‘anywhere the hell I want,’ provided it’s to keep a Jiang disciple from dying.”
Damn it, he had said that when she first came here. He hadn’t meant him; he’s not a disciple. And anyway – “Pretty sure I’d notice if I was dying,” he points out. “Unless you’re here to stab me to death with your needles?”
“You haven’t frustrated me to that point. Yet. No, I’m here to give a prescription: Delegate something, or die of overwork.”
Jiang Cheng scoffs. He deliberately pulls yet another missive from the pile, jabbing his chin at Wen Qing’s powder-stained hands. “This from you? How long do you hole yourself up in your workroom, brewing medicines and reading treatises? I clocked you at three days straight, last week. We should count your teapots.”
Wen Qing narrows her eyes. “Counting teapots,” she says slowly, stepping closer to peer at him. Uh-oh. “What’s this, Jiang-zongzhu? Rambling? Disorientation? Sounds like you’ve not been getting enough sleep. There are circles under your eyes, too.”
“I sleep fine and very deeply.” Particularly since he only tends to do it every other night. Works wonders. He collapses face-first onto his mattress or his desk or a convenient bit of floor and sleeps like the non-necromanced dead. “Forget my eyes. You’re thin. Have you been eating? I’m not so poor that I can’t provide for the people here; Lotus Pier is well-fed. When was the last time you had a meal?”
“Recently,” Wen Qing says, with the deliberate offhandness of someone who means probably today but possibly yesterday, I can’t remember, not that Jiang Cheng is personally familiar with that technique or anything. “Have you eaten any sort of proper meal today, other than snacking at your desk?”
“I never snack at my desk.”
“So you haven’t had any food today, then.”
Damn, she’s shrewd. “And you have?”
“A doctor,” Wen Qing sniffs, “can measure her own body’s limits.”
“I hear doctors make the worst patients.”
“Better patients than stubborn, circle-eyed sect leaders, apparently.”
“I am a sect leader, eye-circles and all, and thus can determine my own limits. How about I take a break if you do, and not a moment before –”
Han Zhou kicks in the door.
Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing both jump. Their foreheads almost collide; they’d been leaning in closer to make their points than Jiang Cheng had realized. He had also, he notes with some chagrin, completely stopped thinking about trade agreements, and only been thinking about Wen Qing, and the lightning-spark back-and-forth that their conversations tend to turn into these days.
“Zongzhu! Daifu!” Han Zhou exclaims. There is a tray in his hands. “I hear you both agreed to take breaks! How delightful; everyone is thrilled! Here you go, careful, this is still hot –” In a flurry of movement, he manages to thump the heavy-laden tray down onto the desk, blocking Jiang Cheng’s access to his paperwork. He bundles away Jiang Cheng’s seals and inksticks in a flash, pours tea, dishes up soup, lays out a cushion for Wen Qing and somehow gets her to actually sit down on it, pulls the screens halfway down and somehow manages to light some soft candles on his way out. “Enjoy!” he sings, and slams the door shut.
Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing blink at each other over steaming plates and fragrant cups of tea. Someone is playing distant, aggressively soothing music from the docks outside.
“Damn,” Wen Qing says. “He really is an efficient First Disciple.”
“First-and-a-Half, he and Wei Wuxian agreed they want to split the job eventually,” Jiang Cheng mutters.
Then they both give rueful huffs of laughter. In surrender, Jiang Cheng takes a flaky bite of ginger-seasoned fish. Immediately a huge unfillable void opens up inside his stomach, and he has to shove down the urge to unhinge his jaw and devour everything on the desk, including the tray, at once. He cannot. Half of this food is Wen Qing’s by right, and his jaw is not unhingeable, anyway. Ugh, this is why he didn’t want to do this, he can push himself forever without giving in until he actually starts to eat. “Mmph.”
“Mmph,” agrees Wen Qing, who’d gone straight for the chili-spiced pickled cabbage. Jiang Cheng has seen her taking seconds of it on the occasions they’ve happened to eat at the communal meal hall at the same time, so he stealthily moves some from his own bowl into hers while she takes a gulp of tea. “My apologies, Jiang-zongzhu,” she says as she clacks down her drained cup. She frowns in suspicion at the wealth of cabbage in her bowl, but picks up her chopsticks again anyway. “A-Ning insisted I take a break and kicked me out of my workroom. I was annoyed about it, and bored, and – apparently – hungry, and it seems I took it out on you. It was rude of me.”
Jiang Cheng snorts. “I’m well-acquainted with your mannerisms, Wen-daifu, and I’m usually worse anyway, even without the excuse of being hungry.”
“When are you not hungry? I’ve seen you in the meal hall; you bolt things down like a starving wolf and then glare at your bowl while refusing to take seconds. Your disciples have plenty to eat, as you said; you can eat more.”
They didn’t always have enough; old habits die hard – and, come to think of it, maybe she can relate. Still. “I could be practicing inedia,” he claims.
She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t meditate enough to sufficiently utilize inedia.”
“That’s why it’s practice.” In petty revenge, Jiang Cheng lowers the cabbage he’d just plucked up back towards his own bowl. Wen Qing snatches it from between his chopsticks without even looking in a quick, elegant swipe. “Do you practice inedia, when you get distracted for three days reading medical texts?”
“If that ever happened – which I’m not saying it has – A-Ning is very sweet, and would bring me snacks.” Or kick her out of her workroom, apparently. Jiang Cheng communicates this with his eyebrows. Wen Qing bangs his knee with hers under the table, and uses the distraction to sneak some extra fish into his bowl. Fine. That just leaves more room in hers for cabbage.
For a while, they just eat together. The pangs in Jiang Cheng’s stomach begin to ease, but something else still scrapes at him, something unfilled or unfinished. Some worry that he can distract himself from when there’s paperwork to be completed or letters to write or disciples to train or enemies to whip down, but that he can’t ignore here, in an almost-comfortable quiet, with Wen Qing sitting across from him.
“You know you don’t have to spend so much time working,” Jiang Cheng says eventually. “You don’t have to… earn anything here. Or make up for something. You can just –” He makes a vague gesture.
Wen Qing pauses. Pins him with her gaze. “I know that. Shall I say the same to you, Jiang-zongzhu?”
The food goes a little sour in his mouth. He swallows, hard, and lowers his chopsticks.
Wen Qing’s gaze somehow sharpen even more. “I mean,” she says, “that I do say the same to you.”
He swallows again to get the thickness out of his throat, and looks down when that doesn’t work. “I’m…. It’s not the same. There’s so much that still needs to be done.”
Wen Qing puts down her chopsticks too. “And as I prescribed earlier – delegate. Much needs to be done, but not by you alone. You need to eat well, rest well, and take care of your own body. You can afford to: Lotus Pier is stable and strong again, and you have good, well-trained disciples.” She says these things simply, straightforwardly. She never flatters, only gives her honest opinion. Something goes tight again in Jiang Cheng’s throat, in his chest, prickling and warm. “You even have two First Disciples, of admittedly varying efficiency but equal enthusiasm. Your people care for you. Let them support you.”
She says this simply too.
“My people,” he says after a moment. He watches her eyes widen ever so slightly, watches the lashes fan over her cheeks as she blinks, meets her clear gaze as she looks straight back at him.
His people. Who does Wen Qing include in that? The disciples, of course. The permanent residents of Lotus Pier, certainly. Perhaps the city beyond. His siblings, when they wish it. Maybe Yunmeng, collectively, in times of crisis. Who else does Wen Qing think he has the right to claim as his support, as anything of his at all?
Wen Qing had come to Yunmeng with the other Wen refuges, and stayed even when most of them moved on. Set up a workroom near the south pavilion, a medical library by the west hall. Often comes to eat with him in late afternoons when they’ve both forgotten to do so, and to bully him about not sleeping enough, and to exchange crisp, contented words with him about their respective work for the day, as if they were –
What is she even still doing here?
Hell, what is he doing?
“A Jiang-furen might be an excellent support for you too, zongzhu,” Han Zhou calls through the door.
Jiang Cheng spears his chopsticks down into his rice bowl. “Don’t you have a fucking job,” he snarls at the door. “Is it to listen at keyholes? Wen-daifu is already plenty busy herself and should be free to leave whenever she wants, anyway, if she wants to, I refuse to tie her down or trap her or dump a whole extra set of unasked-for duties onto her –! What’s so funny? Han Zhou, if you don’t stop snickering and go do something productive immediately, I’m coming out there and breaking your legs and then I will work for a week straight just to spite you, get out of here.” He hears an apologetic yelp, and turns back to the table.
Wen Qing is staring at him, eyebrows arched nearly to her hairline. Jiang Cheng frowns at her, confused. She’s heard him yell a thousand times, there was nothing unusual about that exchange.
Then he mentally cycles back through what he’d just snapped out like a moron. Oh.
“So I am the first person you think of when a disciple mentions a potential Jiang-furen,” Wen Qing says. Her hand is lifted to her mouth as if to hide a smile, the possibility of which makes Jiang Cheng’s brain dissolve into fizzing sparks. But then the brightness fades a little from her eyes. “…Even now?” she asks, too quiet for her usually firm voice.
Jiang Cheng stares at her, at the last slivers of sunlight still caught in her hair – at the rolled sleeves that don’t quite hide the flame embroidery she still wears with pride, working to change what that flame stands for. Stares at the strands that have fallen from her neat topknot, the slightly mismatched piercings in the lobes of her ears, the green powder lining the chapped skin of her knuckles. All the tiny imperfections one can only see when living near to someone, days together accumulating like soft sand in a riverbed.
“Of course, even now,” he says, also too quiet. “More than ever.”
Her eyes can get so wide. So dark. Both she and he let out a long breath.
Then he realizes how improper what he just said was. Wen Qing should be able to have only good things, only things she wants, not what he does. Pressure, he’s pressuring her, he’s bothering her, he swore that was the last thing he’d –
He panics, shoots to his feet, ducks back down really quick to cram a final chopstickful of fish into his mouth (waste not; it’s damn good fish), and then shoots back up. “Well, I’m going. There, see, I’m leaving my work, I’m taking a whole break, I may even go nap somewhere, well done, daifu, you’ve cured me of my chronic tendency to overwork.” He lurches for the door.
“Given this new information, perhaps I should prescribe you a furen,” she says thoughtfully from behind him. “Otherwise, I fear this malady may well prove fatal.”
“What, because I’ll die of too much paperwork?” Jiang Cheng retorts automatically, jerking at the stuck door. Did Han Zhou lock it from outside? Is this one of Wei Wuxian’s locking talismans? Are they in on this together? Fuck it, they’re both fired, A-Yuan is the new First Disciple, good to know the literal six-year-old is the most responsible option –
“No,” Wen Qing says.
Something in her tone makes him pause, look back. She has taken his abandoned bowl and is stealing cabbage out of it, her graceful movements framed by the round window.
“Because,” she says to the bowl, “I have lived in Lotus Pier for a year now, by choice. By my will. I am not trapped. I am not tied down. I am not making up for anything. And if I have to endure another year of getting frustrated over your eye-circles and how little you eat, or working through the night when I’m too agitated to sleep, knowing you’re doing the same, or pretending I don’t see you sneaking my favorite foods into my bowl just to save you some face – you’re not subtle – or tripping over my own feet every time I walk past you training the disciples with your robes pulled half-open -”
“Uh,” says Jiang Cheng. “What?”
“- or staggering out of my workroom so exhausted I’m seeing double only to feel completely reenergized after coming to talk with you, or seeing how you smile at dogs and frogs and your nephew and your brother when you think he’s not looking, argh, your face, your illegal cheekbones –”
“What’s. What are you doing. What’s happening.”
“- if I have to endure any more of this affliction, living alongside you without getting to call you my husband –!”
Wen Qing jabs her chopsticks at him, a battle-hardened doctor as fierce and menacing as any soldier. The shreds of cabbage stuck to the left chopstick somehow only make her look even more intimidating.
“– Then mark my words, Jiang Wanyin,” she declares, “you’ll die of it. I will stab you to death with my needles.”
“Fuck yeah, get it, Qing-jie,” someone whispers through the door. There are sounds of clapping, and a familiar gleeful cackle. Han Zhou has not left. Han Zhou has, it sounds like, collected several other disciples and Wei Wuxian to come listen in.
“Thank you, Wei Wuxian. All of you go away immediately,” Wen Qing says, without even raising her voice, and by heaven there’s a squeak and a collective scramble and they go. Jiang Cheng can only dream of that kind of power.
The ensuing silence is heavy and expectant. He stares at Wen Qing for so long that her shoulders begin to stiffen, her blade-sharp brightness to dim. He watches in dazed fascination, then abruptly realizes what it means, and wrenches himself into action.
“Well,” he says, thick-tongued. “I’d hate to die before my paperwork is finished. What would Wen-daifu suggest?”
Her mouth twitches. Relief, the beginnings of what he thinks - hopes - might be joy. “I prescribe,” she says, “a comb.”
Oh, in that case. Jiang Cheng may be unable to breathe and feel like he’s taken a sword-flat to the head, but that he can do. He reaches into his sleeve, pulls out the flat little bundle, and holds it out toward her. The silk wrapping parts, revealing the gleaming wooden comb inside.
Wen Qing looks uncharacteristically taken aback. She stares at the comb. “You… keep it with you,” she says. “And you wrapped it in new silk since the last time you offered it.”
“Well yeah,” Jiang Cheng says, still dazed, “I always carry it. And so the old silk had gotten a little ragged, and, like you said, I’m all about fancy things with high thread count and this was really important, so I got a new –” He blinks. “Wait, you’re objecting to the wrapping?”
“Not objecting,” Wen Qing says, clacking down her chopsticks and standing in one smooth motion. “Merely observing.”
“You’re an observant woman,” Jiang Cheng returns. It’s not his wittiest, but Wen Qing is taking a step toward him, limned in light from the window, her mouth pressed smooth but her eyes bright and smiling. He steps forward too to match her, another step that he can’t help after that. That brings him right up to her; it’s not a huge room.
“I am observant,” she says, the smile spreading to her mouth. “Though perhaps a little too patient.”
“Patient? What with your talk of stabbings? I personally think your bedside manner leaves something to be desired.”
Her eyebrow arches. “No, you don’t,” she says, and his mouth goes dry as her hand closes around both the comb and his fingers.
Her hands are – rough, and powdery. Small. Certain. Cool, fine-boned. There are calluses on her thumb and forefinger, a faint scar on her palm.
“Ah,” she says, in tones of faint surprise, “your hand.”
His stomach swoops. “What’s wrong with it?” Fuck, it’s sweaty, isn’t it.
Wen Qing rolls her eyes at him and turns his hand over between hers. “No need to worry. You just have interesting scarring patterns from your lightning.” She narrows her eyes up at him. She’s so tiny; this close, he could tuck her under his chin. So tiny and so pretty and so scary. It’s wonderful. “If those scars ache, you’ll tell me about it,” she orders.
“They feel great.”
“They’d better. Now then –”
She sweeps her palm over his, raises an eyebrow at him, then turns on her heel, efficiently unwinding her topknot with one hand as she does. Her hair spills, thick and dark and unadorned, down her back.
Jiang Cheng swallows, hesitates, then runs one hand down the cool fall of Wen Qing’s hair, once, smoothing it. Her hair is a little unruly under his fingers, a little tangled, cool where it lies over her shoulders but warm by her neck. There is a streak of green powder at the tip of one long coil, where it must have trailed through the medicine she was grinding.
He passes the comb through the hair, gently, trying not to tug. He did this for A-jie, years ago, for Wei Wuxian when his shixiong felt particularly bored or tried to go out looking particularly unacceptable, has gathered A-Ling’s fine baby-soft hair into a tiny little tail and tied it off with ostentatious Jin ribbons. It’s something you do for family, for your own people.
And Wen Qing is letting him. Or no, not just letting. Asked, ordered, prescribed. Wanted –
Wanted to be here, just like this, talking and arguing and sharing meals. Right here, with him. She never says anything she doesn’t mean.
He combs through one more time, then divides the hair and draws part of it up, coiling it as he goes, his chest pulling tight. He needs a – She reaches up over her shoulder, a narrow pin held between her fingers – no, it’s a needle. He lets out a breath of laughter and takes it from her to fix the hair in place.
Then the comb to crown it, dark red against her black hair.
“Done,” he says, managing to sound practically normal. “How is that?”
She hums as she takes a single graceful step forward, half-turning back toward him, tipping her head as if testing the weight of the comb. A stray lock of hair comes free by her temple. Jiang Cheng reaches up, with only the barest hesitation, and tucks it back behind her ear. His fingers leave a faint trace of green.
“Much better,” she says. “It seems we’ll both survive.”
Every time she’s smiled today, it’s gotten wider, brighter. This one sets her whole face aglow – rounding her cheeks, crinkling her eyes. He’s never seen it before. He can feel similar crinkles forming on his own face, though he’s pretty sure he could never light up as beautifully as she does. But whatever he’s doing, it makes her mouth curl even more.
“You should finish the cabbage,” he blurts out. “It’s good. You should have it.”
She smacks a hand up to her face, but even that can’t contain her huge snort of laughter. When the hand falls, her face is an inelegant red, which is the best thing that’s ever happened to him right up until she brushes his fingers with hers and their hands interlock properly, at which point that instantly becomes the best thing that’s ever happened to him. “It is good, and I will. And then you should nap. Not slumped over your desk, for once.”
“I’m sure you’re familiar with that.” Feeling extremely daring, he squeezes her hand and adds, “Fine, but you have to nap too.”
“Who knows, perhaps it will improve my bedside manner, since you find it so objectionable.” She tips her head again, smile smaller than before, but still bright. “All right. Yes. Let’s have good food, and rest. We should.”
Yeah, she should get to rest. She should have good things, the best of things. They should. They will. They do.
They sit back down, and eat well together.