Archive of Our Own ^beta

At some point, Wei Wuxian had picked up the ability to fall asleep anywhere. There were conditions, of course. He had to feel perfectly safe to even begin to nod off, and it wasn’t uncommon in the cloud recesses to find him and Lan Wangji sitting in the rabbit field, the former asleep, leaning on his husband’s shoulder with a fluffle of friends also dozing in their laps. 

It had been very concerning for a new group of juniors, unused to seeing Wei Wuxian from more than a distance, to find the man unconscious at the front of their class, their Hangguang-Jun’s outermost robes draped over his shoulders as their teacher sat beside him, grading papers. They had stared, wide-eyed as they’d come in, and when Lan Wangji began lecturing from beside him without disturbing him at all, they had just taken it in stride. 

They didn’t actually learn that much that day, though, too busy staring. 

Over time, his sleepy addition to their classes didn’t even cause them to blink, curled up into their icy master’s side. 

This went the other way, as well. 

When juniors were allowed to go out on night hunts with him- ( Privileged , they all swore, it was a privilege to be able to learn from him. He was so cool!) 

-it quickly became common knowledge that once the hunt began, their Wei-Gongzi wasn’t going to sleep. Until they were back in the cloud recesses, reports given and they could return to their rooms, he did not sleep. He was always on guard, watching over the others when they’d take their rest, working on talismans and the case, but he would not allow himself to lay down for even a moment, barely blinking, lest his eyelids not open again. 

He could not let a single person he cared about get hurt when he could stop them. 

Not again. 

If a hunt went on for longer than a week, Lan Wangji always dragged them away to an inn and forced him to sleep, all the juniors sleeping around the room and Wei Wuxian was forced to lay with him, trapped within his arms, Lan Sizhui on one side, Jin Ling on the other. 

Jiang Cheng had been aware of this skill, first picked up during the war, and was reminded of it every time Jin Ling came by Lotus Pier for a visit, complaining about how his other uncle wasn’t taking care of himself again. 

It was a few years after Wei Wuxian returned and the conspiracy was discovered that the estranged brothers finally, finally , managed to begin to reconcile, and Jiang Cheng finally got it through Wei Wuxian’s thick skull that he was missed at home . That he could come home . 

It was awkward the first night, the brothers circling each other, Wei Wuxian’s fingers always curled in Lan Wangji’s sleeve, ready to duck behind him at the first crackling of Zidian, and it twisted a knife in Jiang Cheng’s heart to see the flash of fear that had only ever been in those eyes when faced with a dog. 

Wei Wuxian was afraid of him now, too. 

When he showed them to their rooms, pointedly separate, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji did separate, and from what he heard, they didn’t try to go to each other. 

In the morning, when Jiang Cheng went to see him about… something, he couldn’t even remember, he found that the bed hadn’t even been touched, talisman paper scattered everywhere, and his brother writing furiously, ink on his cheek and nose. 

The bed was untouched. 

It was untouched every morning he stayed. 

Wei Wuxian no longer felt safe in their home. 

Jiang Cheng wasn’t sure if it was the rooms or him . 

He didn’t make him stay longer than an afternoon again, but he made more frequent visits to the Cloud Recesses when he could manage it.