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“A-Ling,” Wei Wuxian calls through the door, “You really need to let us out.”
The response comes, muffled through the wood, “I’ll let you out once you’ve had an honest conversation with each other. I’m sick of you both pretending the other doesn’t exist, barely being able to be in the same room. You need to fucking talk, it’s been a decade, don’t you miss each other? I’m leaving, I’ll come back and check on you in the morning. There’s food and water and plenty of wine, if that’s what you need. Don’t think I won’t leave you here for days if that’s what it takes.” Jin Ling threatens.
Jiang Cheng bangs a fist on the door, rattling it in its frame, “Don’t you fucking dare leave, Jin Rulan,” He shouts, “You let us out right now!”
All that can be heard are footsteps, padding away from the room.
They sit there in silence for hours. Wei Wuxian tries a few times to lighten the mood, to chatter aimlessly like he always does, but every attempt is quickly shut down by Jiang Cheng’s glare. He’s fuming. Pissed off at the situation, pissed off at their nephew. He’d told Jin Ling them talking was a bad idea and yet he’s gone and done this?
He refuses to say a word if it’s not on his own terms. So he glares stonily at the other man and eventually he gives up, joining Jiang Cheng in sullen silence.
It’s Wuxian who opens the snacks their nephew left them, and a bottle of wine, making a game of tossing a nut in the air and catching it in his mouth. When Jiang Cheng glares at him again he just grins sheepishly, offering him the bowl. Jiang Cheng rudely reaches over his outstretched arm and grabs the jar of wine instead, taking a big long swig right from the bottle.
Wuxian simply grabs a new one, opening it and keeping it out of Jiang Cheng’s reach, continuing his game of nut-tossing in between gulps of wine.
It’s late into the evening, each of them two jars of wine deep, when Wuxian sighs heavily, “You know, we could actually talk. It might not kill us.”
Jiang Cheng scoffs, grabbing another jar of wine and gesturing at him with it before opening it, “You want to talk? You? What would such an expert at secret-keeping ever want to talk about?” Bitterness and sarcasm drips from his voice, and he doesn’t care. He’s had too much wine to care. He’s too angry.
“A-Cheng, I-”
“Shut up. What, do you want me to thank you? For being so noble, for giving up your core for me? For abandoning me afterwards and breaking your promise of staying by my side, without even telling me why? For letting me remain an ignorant fool? Because I won’t. I will never thank you for any of that. All you did was make us even.” He pauses for a breath, “Why didn’t you tell me!?”
Wuxian looks at him sadly, “A-Cheng, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to see you upset.” He sighs heavily once again, “I’m sorry. For not telling you. For breaking my promise. For… For everything.” He takes a swig of wine from his own fresh bottle, “And I never needed your thanks. You’re right, we’re even. It’s what I owed the Jiangs.”
“No.” Jiang Cheng slams his jar of wine onto the table angrily, “It’s what you owed me.”
Wuxian’s face pinches in confusion and he laughs awkwardly, “Forgive me, my memory isn’t what it used to be. What did I owe you?”
Jiang Cheng stares at him for a while, silent. He didn’t really mean to say this much, he’d never intended on telling the other man any of this.
Fuck secrets, they’d never done him any good, “Do you want to know why I ended up without a core in the first place? Why I was captured, tortured, raped? I didn’t go back for my parents' bodies, Wei Wuxian! Do you think I’m an idiot?” He laughs humorlessly, “Oh wait, of course you do!” He leans forward a bit, across the table between them, catching his eye, “It was all for you. To save you from exactly that. The Wen soldiers were right there, they were about to find you. I lured them away. So we’re even. Us. You and me.” It’s not until he’s done speaking that he realizes what slipped out of his mouth. He slumps back, scowling, some of the fight leaving him, and he downs half of his third jar of wine, wiping one sleeve over his mouth as some drips down his chin.
Wuxian stares at him, mouth open, speechless for once.
He doesn’t meet his brother’s eyes, “I’ve wanted to blame you for it. I’ve wanted to hate you for it and for all of the things that really are your fault. I’ve wanted to regret it, but the truth is I can’t. I did it because I loved you.” He thinks he feels something drip down his face that isn’t wine. He wipes that with his sleeve, too.
The other man speaks softly, “I never asked you to do that for me.”
Jiang Cheng laughs again, a little hysterically, “Do you hear yourself when you speak!?”
Wuxian cringes, “Okay, yeah, I hear it now.” He reaches across the table tentatively, placing a hand on Jiang Cheng’s arm, “I’m sorry. Thank you.”
Jiang Cheng shakes his head, but he doesn’t shake him off, “I don’t want your thanks any more than you want mine.” He feels exhausted. He just wants to leave this damn room, “I’m sorry too.” He whispers, “For all these years that we’ve lost. I hate this. But I don’t know how to forgive you. I don’t know how to be brothers again. I miss you.”
Wuxian squeezes his arm, coming around the table to sit next to him, leaning into his side. Jiang Cheng lets him, “I miss you too, A-Cheng. If you can’t forgive me, that’s okay. I’m not sure I deserve your forgiveness. But the past is the past, and we can’t change it. So let’s stop missing each other, okay? Just let everything else go. We can just be brothers again, it doesn’t have to be hard.”
Jiang Cheng jabs him in the side with one elbow, halfheartedly, and his brother flicks his ear in return.
He sighs, “You don’t owe the Jiangs anymore, you know. You’ve paid that debt. Through Jin Ling. He never would have reached his current cultivation level without you.” After a minute he adds, “Jiejie would be so proud.”
Wuxian leans his head on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, quiet for a moment.
He reaches for a nut from the bowl and pops it into his mouth. The man’s hand finds Jiang Cheng’s on his knee, and settles over top of it, “I still love you, you know. You said you loved me, and I don’t know if that’s still true, or if I’ve done too much to fuck that up, but either way, I love you, A-Cheng.”
Jiang Cheng swallows, throat suddenly feeling tight, eyes prickling. He doesn’t know if the man means it platonically or not, but it doesn’t really matter, “It’s still true.”
Wuxian strokes a thumb over the back of his hand once, then stills. They fall into silence for a few minutes, his brother still pressed against his side, warm and comforting.
“Have you ever told anyone? About…” Wuxian trails off.
Jiang Cheng scowls, “Who would I tell, Wei Wuxian? I didn’t even mean to say it to you. Clearly I’ve had too much wine.”
“Do you want to ta-”
“No.”
Silence falls again, a very uncomfortable one, at least on Jiang Cheng’s end. He doesn’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it. After a while Wuxian pulls away from him, going back to sit across the table from him, grabbing the bowl of nuts.
“Hey shidi,” He grins when Jiang Cheng looks up at him with a scowl, “Open up.” Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes as his brother picks up a nut and aims carefully. He opens his mouth, moving forward just a bit to catch it on his tongue. Wuxian giggles, and tosses another one. It hits Jiang Cheng’s chin, bouncing off into his lap. He picks it up and tosses it back, and his brother catches it in his own mouth, a bright smile on his face as he chews. He tosses another one to Jiang Cheng, who catches it in his mouth again. The next one hits him in the eye.
“Ow! Asshole, you’re too drunk for this.”
“You’ve had more than me! And anyway that was your fault, you moved into it!”
“Yeah? Give me the bowl then, I’ll pelt nuts at your face, see how you like it!”
Wuxian tosses another at him, and he doesn’t even have time to try and catch it before it hits him on the cheek, “Ow!” Wuxian lets out a snort, and then a giggle, and soon Jiang Cheng is wrestling the bowl out of his hands, laughing along with him, the levity contagious. It feels good, to laugh with him again, to bicker over something stupid and inconsequential. It feels right.
They toss nuts back and forth at each other until the bowl is empty, playing stupid games like they’re kids again, back in Lotus Pier or Cloud Recesses, before everything had gone so wrong.
Eventually Wuxian finishes the last of his wine and yawns, “I think it’s time for bed.” He stands up, stretching, already undressing, taking down his hair and stripping out of his outer robes, heading for the only bed in the room.
Jiang Cheng scowls, “What, am I just supposed to sleep on the floor?”
Wuxian turns, removing his middle layer of robes as he speaks, “Don’t be silly, we can share. We used to sometimes when we were little, don’t you remember? There’s plenty of room!”
Jiang Cheng follows him, giving another eye roll as pulls out his own hairpiece, and takes off two layers of robes. He crawls into bed after his brother. He’s right, there is plenty of room, it’s not a small bed. He settles in, back turned to the other man, snuggling into the blankets.
“Goodnight, shidi.” Wuxian teases.
“Shut up and sleep.”
The other man laughs lightly, and then falls silent. Jiang Cheng can hear him breathing, inhales and exhales gradually getting deeper and slower. Despite the late hour and the wine, Jiang Cheng himself doesn’t find sleep coming easily. His mind wanders, replaying the night’s conversation over and over in his head. Replaying unpleasant memories as well.
When he finally says it, he’s unsure whether or not his brother is already asleep, but the words come out anyway, soft and quiet, “It was Wen Chao. And it hurt so much. I begged him to stop, and it only made him happy.”
Wuxian’s breath hitches, its steady rhythm interrupted, and he shifts, moving until he’s right behind Jiang Cheng, close enough he can feel warmth radiating off of him, though their bodies aren’t quite touching. A hand settles on his shoulder, stroking comfortingly a few times before just staying there, warm and reassuring.
Jiang Cheng takes a shuddering breath, and shifts backwards into his brother’s heat, pressing his back against the other man’s chest. Wuxian lets him, the hand moving from his shoulder, down his arm, wrapping around him and pulling him even closer.
His brother speaks, just as quiet, but fiercely, “He deserved everything we gave him.”
Jiang Cheng nods against his pillow, and feels lips press against the back of his head. Neither of them say anything more.
In the morning, Jin Ling walks in and smiles at the sight. Empty wine bottles and nuts litter the floor, and his uncles are still tangled up together, fast asleep, barely taking up more than half the bed.