Archive of Our Own ^beta

The inn Wei Wuxian is staying at is small, dark, and most importantly, out of the way. It’s near enough the great river they see not-infrequent trafic, but far enough away that it’s not crowded. 

He is trying very hard not to be noticed. This is hard for several reasons, which begin with his loud donkey, and end with his own twitchy, still-hungover self. He got here mid-morning, looking like he slept in a tree (which was because he had, in fact, slept in a tree), managed to pass Little Apple over to a stable boy, send off a message, and slump down at a corner table, back to the wall.

“Food?” he asks hopefully when the landlady comes by. He knows he looks a state, he just hopes he looked enough like someone with money that she won’t care. Or at least, won’t care enough to withhold food.

“What kind of food?” 

“Spicy?”

She nods and goes away again, apparently deciding that was all the useful information she was getting out of him. It seems to be sufficient, because when she comes back a little while later it’s with tea, and rice, and steamed fish in a dark sauce that sets the inside of his head on fire. Excellent. Hopefully he’ll feel more human before he has company. Hopefully he’ll have company.

He settles in to wait.

------

Before his death, Wei Wuxian had hoped fervently that he and Jiang Cheng would be able to resolve their many, many disagreements. Preferably without telling him about the cour transfer, getting punched, or upsetting Shijie too much. After his resurrection he’d assumed it would never happen, no matter what Jiang Cheng knew or who got punched. He’d thought he could live without it. He’d thought maybe it was best.

But then Wen Ning had told his secrets.

And then the Guanyin temple.

Shouldn’t I hate you?

Can’t I hate you?  

And he really did think, for a little while, that they could put it away in the past, find a fragile new peace. Not a happy peace, necessarily, but something that didn’t involve anybody getting stabbed again.

But then he went and wandered the world. A world in which the Sunshot campaign happened decades ago. In which the Yiling Patriarch had died sixteen years ago. Where Shijie- where Shijie had been dead for 16 years. Fuck. He’d gotten drunk about it, once, and sobbed hysterical tears over the idea that everything was sixteen years ago but it all just happened , and how could he act like it was the past, like he’d had those sixteen years to grieve and grow and get over it.

And the next morning, very very hungover, he’d realised that he’d done exactly the same thing to Jiang Cheng.

The core transfer happened nearly twenty years ago in real time. Even in Wei Wuxian’s own personally truncated experience of time, it was years . But it was barely any time at all since Jiang Cheng had found out. Barely any time, since he had looked at an unconscious Wei Wuxian on the floor of Lotus Pier and realised for the first time that's why he’s unconscious, that’s why he’s so weak .

And maybe. Maybe possibly perhaps, they were going to have to have an actual conversation about this. With words. Urgh. So he’d loaded himself, his grief, and his hangover onto his donkey, and turned towards Yunmeng.

------

He feels better come afternoon. Food, tea, and a few hours asleep with his head on the table have done wonders. He’s hoping to make a good impression, so of course Jiang Cheng turns up just as he’s opened his first jar of wine. He realises the flaw in his choice of a small, dark, out of the was inn when an angry man in Sect Leader regailier walks in and everyone in the room of the small, dark, out of the way inn very quietly freaks the fuck out.

It doesn’t get any better when Jiang Cheng stalks over, sits down angrily, and scowls. Wei Wuxian tries to ignore the single spark he sees skitter over zidian. He is one of the few people left in the world who can read this particular variant of Jiang Cheng anger as nervous and angry about it . Someone behind him whispers Oh shit .

“Wei Wuxian.”

“Jiang Cheng.”

They spend a little while both pointedly looking at the table, the walls, the floor, anything but each other. Shit, they’re both bad at this. Eventually Wei Wuxian manages to flag the landlady back over and make a mumbling request for another cup. Once they both drink, the room relaxes slightly, apparently deciding that they’re not going to trash the place quite yet.

“I got your message.” Jiang Cheng growls, and puts the crumpled paper on the table, as if Wei Wuxian might not be sure which message he’s talking about, smoothies it out absently. 

Passing through. Follow the talisman back if want, I included a tracer. It’s new, feel free to copy. I’ll be here a few days. Or ignore this and I’ll go away. It’s up to you. Wei Wuxian.

“Are you here for a reason?”

“Oh you know, I just-” Wei Wuxian waves vaguely. He wants to say I got lost, you know what my memory’s like , he wants to say I’m here for the food . What he says instead is: “I miss you.”

“Oh.”

They both look down and away. They don’t- they don’t say these things. Or they haven't. But it’s time to start. It’s going to suck .

“So why are you here and not Lotus Pier?”

He laughs nervously.

“You kind of tried to hit me a bunch with Zidin, last time I was there.”

Jiang Cheng- flinches. That’s new. Hopefully it means he won’t try it again, not that he’s actively planning to do it again as soon as he gets him alone and is flinching at being caught out.

“Yeah, well, this time I’m inviting you. It’d be rude to hit you a bunch after I invited you.”

Oh. Ok, that’s good. That’s great , and if it aches down to the bone that Lotus Pier is a place he has to be invited to now, it's an ache he’s used to ignoring.

-----

They spend the world’s most awkward hour walking back to Lotus Pier. Jiang Cheng’s proximity is a weight on the world, pulling his eyes every time he forgets himself, but he doesn’t know what to say. There isn’t anything he can say that he knows for sure won’t cause a fight, and they should probably wait until they’re at least back home- back at Lotus Pier. (And fuck , he hasn’t made that slip-up in a while. He hopes he doesn’t make it out loud, Jiang Cheng might actually murder him).

It breaks his heart a little, to finally see Lotus Pier. It’s so beautiful against the sky, the sun dipping just low enough to set the water alight. It doesn’t look like fire (he knows what it looks like, on fire), it looks like gold, like spiritual energy flowing free around the flowers. The silhouette is just different enough to be jaring, though. He knew this place in his skin once, in his bones , but time has passed, and it’s changed without him, like so many things.

The guards on the gates are wary, but not surprised. Like they were expecting him. When Jiang Cheng leads him inside, there’s food, and wine, a table set for two.

Like he’d seen Wei Wuxian’s letter and decided, strate away, to bring him back here.

Like maybe Wei Wixuan isn’t the only one wanting .

There’s soup. It’s not pork and lotus root, but it’s spicy and rich and delicious, and has dumplings in it. It’s the weird fusion of Yunmeng and Meishan you only really get at Lotus Pier. It tastes amazing. He picks out the radishes though.

“Since when were you a picky eater?” Jiang Cheng demands.

“I lived on radishes for a year. A year, Jiang Cheng, on radishes . I get to pick them out of my soup now I’m not going to starve to death.”

“You ate things that weren’t radishes.”

“I know, but I ate so many radishes that it feels like I should have turned into one. It was the only thing we could really get to grow, for a long time. I wanted potatoes but Wen Qing overruled me every time.”

“I still don’t know how you got anything to grow in that place.”

“Hard work and forbidden cultivation. Mostly hard work. Still,” he says, hesitant but- well, he’s here to talk about the hard stuff, isn’t he. “It beat the first time I was there.”

“Yeah? What did you even eat for those three months? There was nothing there but-”

“No, no, we need much more alcohol for that conversation.”

“You're already halfway drunk.”

“And we need to be drunk and a half at least before I’ll talk about this.”

They drink, and they talk.

Jiang Cheng tells him about coming home and seeing Jin Ling, knowing it was just the two of them left, not being able to stop the baby crying because he couldn’t stop crying. About rebuilding a Lotus Pier that was heartachingly familiar and heartbreakingly strange. About trying to train new diciples, having always thought that would be someone else's job. About Jin Guangyao ascending as Sect Leader, about looking around and realising there were three great sects joined in swarn brotherhood, and then Yunment Jiang, off to the side. About feeling like he’d failed. About getting himself blacklisted from the matchmakers. About chasing every rumour of demonic cultivators, sick with hope and fear. About being alone. About being the only one left.

Wei Wuxian… Wei Wuxian tells him everything.

The things nobody left alive knows. The things he only ever told Wen Qing, and even then only because she could see the evidence, or needed to know them to keep him alive. The things he hasn’t told Lan Zhan yet, and the things he’s never going to tell Lan Zhan at all. 

He doesn’t want to tell him, doesn’t want to put them into words and doesn’t want Jiang Cheng to know. But the consequences of not telling him things have been extreme in the past and he’s trying to learn from his mistakes and he- and he wants his brother back, ok? Wants Jiang Cheng to know him again, his history and his hurts. To know when he’s joking because he wants to and when he’s joking because he’s scared. To trust that he’s making, if not good decisions, then at least well intentioned ones. Wants to not have to play a delicate balancing game of truth and lies every time they talk.

So he tells him.

About the dogs, the streets of Yiling, and the things he did to survive. About the Direwolf at the Wen indoctrination, about what Wen Chao did in retaliation when Wei Wuxian didn’t die, about feeling sick, and shaky, and violated, and not being able to show it. About the sword that screamed. About the baby, and about losing the baby, about feeling like the blood would never end. (He has to stop Jiang Cheng going to the ancestral shrine to yell at his mother, then, because she didn’t know, she couldn’t know and it wasn't her fault ). About looking at Jiang Cheng, knowing he was going to die, and knowing that he would never, ever feel as hollowed out as he would if he couldn’t save his brother either. About begging Wen Qing to hollow him out one last time. About the surgery. About how they’d looked at each other after, him and Wen Qing, and each been afraid of the other. About the burial mounds, and the things he did to survive. The things he ate to survive. About coming back. About the screaming in his head, and trying to drown it out. About dying. About coming back, again. 

“You were right,” Jiang Cheng says when he’s finished, “We need so much alcohol for this conversation.”

“What I need is less of an alcohol tolerance. Do you know how expensive it is for me to drink myself unconscious these days? It’s ridiculous.”

“Just make your Hanguang-jun pay for it.”

“Can’t, he’s in Gusu.”

“Why is that anyway? He’s your- whatever.”

“Solemate.”

“Ugh.” Jiang Cheng takes a long drink. “So why is he sitting on a mountain while you’re waltzing around the country on that horrible donkey?”

“Because if we tried to make you be Chief Cultivator, you’d have killed at least three sect leaders by now, and if we tried to make Huaisang the Chief Cultivator he’d have killed the lot of us for it, and Jin Ling has enough to deal with, and Lan Xichen’s in seclusion. So it has to be Lan Zhan.”

“So why are you-”

“Because I was dead while everyone had sixteen years to freak out about everything that happened, so I’m doing my freaking out now.”

“On a donkey.”

“She helps.”

“She’s a donkey, that makes no sense.”

“It makes no sense to you, but it makes sense to me, and it’s my freakout, so there.”

Jiang Cheng grumbles and takes another drink. Wei Wuxian grew up with this man, trained with him, fought a war with him, so when his gaze starts drifting in the direction of the ancestral shrine, eyes narrowing, he knows exactly what his brother is thinking. When he pushes to his feet and tries to dart towards it, Wei Wuxian is ready and catches him with a good, solid lunge to the solar plexus, bringing them both to the floor.

----

When the retainers who have been hovering outside in case of ‘incident’ hear the crash and come rushing in, they find their Sect Leader lying the the floor bellowing about giving someone the telling off they deserve, and Wei Wuxian sitting on his chest, hitting him repeatedly in the face with a cushion, and calling him an unfilial little shit.

They have sworn their lives to Yunmen Jiang, pledged to serve and protect their Sect Leader, to preserve their Sect and their people unto death. But they agree that maybe, just this once, it’s better they don’t get involved.

The oldest one, the only one who remembers what the two drunken men when they were children, who learned to wright with them, and fight with them, sheds tears of joy.

----

“The thing is,” Jaing Cheng slurs some time later. He’s not sure how long he’s been lying on the floor since he managed to push Wei Wuxian off. “The thing is, though.” He stops and thinks for a bit. “The thing is.”

“You said that already.”

“Shut up, I know. The thing is, they really were bad parents.”

“No they weren’t.”

“Especially to you.”

“No they weren’t!”

“Yes they- look, look, shut up. Look, if you found out that when Jin Ling was fourteen he dropped an entire tray of tea on another Sect Leader and I beat him half to death with Zidian, what would you do?”

“I’d beat you the other half of the way, what the fuck Jiang Cheng?!” Wei Wuxian yells, because he has the self awareness of a plank of wood. “That’s not OK!”

“Then why was it OK when my mother did it to you?!” Jiang Cheng yells back, because he will never not match his dreadful brother for volume.

“Because I was an annoying little shit!”

“SO IS JIN LING! He’s an anoying little shit and I love him to fucking peices but he was even more of an anoying little shit than you when he was fourteen, if you can fucking beleave that, I don’t always and I was there , for both of you assholes, and he wouldn’t deserve it and neither would you!”

“I dropped an entire tray of tea on a Sect Leader!”

“ That’s why I used it as an example!”

Wei Wuxian throws a cup at him, because he has no good argument and he knows it. Ha. Jiang Cheng throws a cushion at him, because he can’t not throw something back, but also he can’t throw something hard, not in the middle of this horrible, terrible, no good conversation. Not if he wants to get Wei Wuxian to believe him. He’s fucked up a lot of things with Wei Wuxian, but he’s not going to hit him with something hard, here in the hall where his mother decided to beat a fourteen year old with Zidian .

“It’s not the same.” Wei Wuxian mutters, and oh look, he has the expression that means he knows you're right but is going to be a shit about it.

“Why not?”

“Because I like Jin Ling. Ack! Get off me! What are you doing?!”

“It’s called a hug, you asshole.”

He doesn’t remember anything after that.

----

The next morning is horrible.

“This is your fault.” Jiang Cheng says into the table.

“How? It was your alcohol we drank.” Wei Wuxian is just as unhappy about the sunlight, but also knows the dangers of dehydration and so is drinking tea with his eyes screwed shut. He has it worse, anyway. This is his second hangover in three days, and he never really finish having the first one. He’d considered blindfolding himself, but that seemed way too complex a maneuver. A lot of last night is foggy at best, and the bits that aren’t he intends to put in a box and never think of again. 

“You insisted we be drunk.”

“Would you have liked to have that conversation sober?”

“Fuck no. I’d have liked to have that conversation never, but we needed to, so I’m blaming you.”

“That doesn’t make sense”

“It doesn’t need to make sense to you, it’s my hangover.” He pushes himself into what you could, if you weren’t picky, call a sitting position, and starts picking reluctantly at some very bland congee. Wei Wuxian, because he has tastebuds that want actual flavour, thank you, has emptied the chilli oil into his. His eyes are still mostly closed.

“You should go to the shrine today, apologize to your parents. You were very rude about them last night.”

“Fuck you, I will do no such thing.”

He goes though. He doesn’t apologize, but he goes. They go together.

-----

It doesn't get magically easier after that. Even when they get over the hangovers, the next few days are excruciatingly awkward. They try not to make too much eye contact, and do a lot of exaggerated yelling and waving of arms when they can’t avoid each other, but they’re settling, gradually, into a new equilibrium.

The next breakthrough comes when Wei Wuxian is wandering past the training grounds and ducks in to see who Jiang Cheng is yelling at who isn’t him, and if watching will be entertaining. He’s actually yelling at an entire class of baby Jiangs about footwork (baby Jiangs! Wei Wuxian can remember when they were, like, a sect of seven, and now there’s an entire class of baby Jiangs!). It is, ostensibly, a lesson, but the baby Jiangs (baby Jiangs!) don’t seem to be learning much. He leans against a wall for a while to figure out if the yelling is the cause or effect of the educational deficiency.

“No, no, you’ve got to get your- look watch me do it again.” Jiang Chen is shouting. “Like that, you- what are you staring at Han Bo? Oh.”

Wei Wuxian waves.

“Yeah, yeah, ignore him and watch- actually, no. WEI WUXIAN, GET OVER HERE.” Wei Wuxian looks around theatrically, and then points questioningly to himself, as if there might be a different Wei Wuxian that Jiang Cheng ment. Stranger things have happened. “Yes, you, who else- get over here.”

“What can this humble one do for the Sect Leader?”

“He can stop pissing around and show them how to do it right. We’ve been at it all morning and it’s going nowhere.”

“That’s because you show them too fast. You can’t show them like you do it, you’re too good, it’s too fluid for them to see all the steps. You have to show them all the bits one at a time.”

He doesn’t have Suibian with him. Carrying it around makes him too sad, and it’s not like he can do much with it anyway. But he’s showing them footwork, so he pulls Chenqing out from his belt and holds it like a sword, so they can see the balance. The assistant instructor takes a startled step back, and the baby Jiangs (baby Jiangs!) actually laugh at her. 

He shows them the move. Fluid and fast, at first, skirts swirling theatrically, so they trust that he actually knows what he’s doing and are motivated by wanting to look as cool as him, and then slow and smooth, letting them see the transitions, then haltingly, pausing to name all the parts as he goes. Then he makes them coppy him, move by move, slow and jerkily, until they can all do it without wobbling or staring at their feet.

“Come on, eyes on me. You can’t look at your feet in battle, you know what happens if you look at your feet in battle? You die . If I’m too distractingly pretty, look at Sect Leader Jiang. He’s not pretty at all.”

All the babies (baby Jiangs!) laugh. People used to disapprove of the way he carried on so much while teaching, but being able to do their forms without thinking whilst listening to him prattle is much more useful than only being able to do them whilst concentrating without distractions. Battles and nighthunts are full of distractions. Really, he’s helping.

Once they’ve got the motions down, more or less, he stops demonstrating and goes around checking more closely, pokes a few of them into better posture here, makes a few watch him demonstrate more closely there.

“Good, you can all do it perfectly. Aiy! Who said you can stop? Now you do it perfectly one hundred times in a row, then you can stop. Honestly, the standards here. Come on, start at one, count yourselves through.”

The baby Jiangs (baby Jiangs!) groan and grumble.

“But shixiong, that’s so many times! ” One of them moans, and Wei Wuxian looks sideways at Jiang Cheng to judge how bad the blow-up is going to be and- hu. Jiang Cheng looks shifty . 

“Hay!” the assistant instructor shouts, “Show some respect!” which is both helpful for their learning, and helpful vague if it turns out they really shouldn’t be calling him that anymore, and the babies (baby Jiangs!) start going through the form, calling out their count in unison.

“Send them off when they’re done.” Jiang Cheng tells the assistant instructor, and stomps off.

Wei Wuxian hesitates. He wants to stay, bask in the existence of an entire class of baby Jiang diciples , follow them to lunch and learn their names, maybe have a word with the skinny one who keeps overextending his left arm about how to tell how far his elbow is actually supposed to bend, and how to make sure he doesn’t fuck up his entire arm by the time he’s twenty. But he’s put a lot of work and some very, very unpleasant conversations into reconciling with Jiang Cheng, and he really needs to make sure he hasn’t accidentally ruined everything again and turned the last week into a wasted effort. He bows to the instructor and hurries after his brother.

“Jiang Cheng! Jiang Cheng! Ah, such a good class of disciples you have. Are you overcome with pride? Angry angry pride?”

“Fuck off, I’m not angry.”

“Then why would you leave like that? Surely they’d love to be told what a good job they’re doing by their Sect Leader? Don’t be so cruel Jiang Cheng!”

“You already told them they got it perfect!”

“Because they did! But I’m just a wandering cultivator, what does my praise matter to them?”

Silence.

“Is this because they called me shixiong?”

More silence.

“I know I’m not.” He says quickly. “I know I burned those bridges a long time ago-”

“I never took you out of the books!” Jiang Cheng snaps, and Wei Wuxian stumbles because what the hell . “I never took you out of the books. I had to appoint a new head disciple, obviously, but you’re not- you’re still a senior disciple of Lotus Pier. On paper, anyway.”

Wei Wuxian thinks about that. He mentally flips it over. Thinks about it again.

“...what?”

“I thought- I hoped you were going to come back. Eventually. And then you and A-Jie were dead, so it didn’t seem important. And then you weren’t dead and dealing with that seemed more important, and then- I just didn’t.”

“Wow.”

“I can if you want-”

“No!”

“Fine.”

They can’t quite look at each other.

“Alcohol?” Wei Wuxian suggests when the silence passed from awkward to excruciating.

“Yeah.”

They get drunk. They don’t get as drunk as their first horrible terrible no good conversation, but when Jiang Cheng’s chief retainer comes in an hour after lunch he looks at them for a while, throws his hands in the air in exasperation, and leaves. Still, they manage to botch together a few curriculum improvements, and when dinner time rolls around Wei Wuxian has somehow agreed to stay for a month until Li Chunhua, the junior disciple's sword instructor has come back from visiting her mother in Meishan.

------

Wei Wuxian has taught countless Jiang disciples in his life. But until now he had the benefit of knowing them all first, and of not being known as the terrifying Yiling Patriarch, demonic cultivator extraordinaire. Happy as they’d been to have a stranger roll in and take over their (frankly not very productive) class with their very loud Sect Leader one time, the junior class isn’t very impressed when he presents himself as their new temporary instructor. He can see it in their faces as their assistant instructor introduces him.

“Alright, any questions before we start?” He asks. Every hand goes up. Oh boy.

“Are you the Yiling Patriarch?”

“I was, but the pay was terrible. Never take a job that pays you in radishes.”

“Did you make the Ghost General? Is he the fiercest fierce corps ever? My mama says he is.”

“I returned his spiritual cognition to him, and he’s actually very polight.”

“Where’s your sword? Why don’t you use it?”

“I left it in my other robes. No, I don’t cultivate with a sword any more, I have a flute. But I taught Jiang sword forms before you were alive.”

“Can we see your flute, Shixiong?”

“Later, if you’re good.”

“Can we touch it?”

“Absolutely not, it bites.”

“Are we going to have to do all the forms one hundred times?”

“No, you’re going to have to do them until you can do them perfectly, then you have to do them another hundred times.”

“But that’s boring , Shixiong!”

“That’s the point. You do them again, and again, and again, until you can’t concentrate any more and you could do them in your sleep, and then you do them again, until you could do them with an army of screaming demons coming at you, and then you won’t die on your first night hunt.”

That of all things seems to mollify them. Children, in his experience, are always much more willing to go along with slightly boring plans if they know why they’re important, and you threaten them with something improbable and over the top. It’s something Gusu Lan could do with learning, really. He’s only here for a month, only tiding them over until their regular instructor returns, but he was proud, once, of being first disciple. He had erned that position three times over, Madam Yu had held veto power but even she had gone along with it, and most of what erned him the position was his skill at teaching the little ones, at making them want to learn. It’s been a long time since he taught anywhere so structured, but he had A-Yuan for a little while, and then the juniors (which joy of joy turned out to include A-Yuan), and now he regularly picks up gaggles of baby cultivators on his way through Gusu, or Lanling, the Unclean Realm, or Ouyang teratories. He’s good at this.

They get to work.

By the end of the morning, everyone’s sweaty and exhausted. They’ve practiced several forms and gone their rounds of one hundred repetitions, and the juniors are excited about their progress, which is always the best was to guarantee more progress. Hu Ling, the skinny kid who overreaches with his left arm, is overreaching a whole lot less, and is probably not going to fuck up his whole arm by the time he's twenty. He’s told them three stories of outrageous childhood escapades, because Jiang Cheng has spent too long being taken entirely too seriously, and Wei Wuxian is planning to change that.

------

Jiang Cheng’s asshole brother shows up in his office with alcohol.

“Oh gods now what.” He says, because every we need to be drunk for this conversation they have had so far has been terrible.

“We need to talk about Lan Zhan.”

“I have meetings.”

“No you don’t, I checked.”

“Ugh, fine. Give me that wine and try to keep it short.” Wei Wuxian sits down and pours two cups of wine. Ok, it can’t be that bad if they’re using cups. If it was going to be really, truly, awful they’d be drinking straight from the jars already. But then the asshole just keeps staring at his cup rather than telling Jiang Cheng anything. “Fuck. Did you two elope?!”

“What? No! Why would you think that?!”

“Because you’re the grandmaster of terrible ideas, and he looks at you like- like how he looks at you, which is disgusting, especially if you're not even married yet, and you don’t usually stay quiet for this long so I’m jumping to the worst conclusion!”

“Wow, that was remarkably self-aware. Well done. No, we haven't eloped. Yet.”

“Wei Wuxian!”

“I’m not planning to! It’s just- I’m going to Gusu for the winter.”

“Yes, I know. So you can live in shame with Lan Wangji.”

“You know we haven't even kissed yet, right?”

“No, I do not know that, because I don’t want to know anything about that.”

“Well we haven't. I’m sure there will be a certain amount of shame happening by the time winter is over-”

“Wei Wuxian!”

“-but I also expect to be engaged by then, if not actually married.”

“Wow. Ok. Congratulations?”

“Thanks.”

“Why do I need to know this?”

“Because you’re my brother. And because I need to know if me still being technically a disciple of Yunmeng Jiang is going to make things complicated.”

“Why would it make things complicated. You think I’m going to object? Hurry up and marry him before you bring shame down on us all!”

“I’m going to! But I know what you were like when Shiji was getting married, and…”

And there it is. Wei Wuxian is an idiot asshole unreliable brother, but he’s Jiang Cheng’s idiot asshole unreliable brother, and Jiang Cheng is nothing if not possessive of his people. If Wei Wuxian is going to give him the slightest excuse to push his nose in, Jiang Cheng is going to take it, and run with it, and make sure Wei Wuxian has the best damned wedding possible and not bring shame down on them all whether he likes or or not. 

“Oh no.” the idiot asshole says. “Oh no, I know that look. Jiang Cheng-”

“Here is what you are going to do.”

“Oh no.”

“I’m not stupid enough to think I can actually make you behave propperly in Gusu, but if you could try not to rub it in Lan Qiren’s face, I’d apreciate it.”

“Oh this is bad.”

“You are going to find out whether Lan Xichen is coming out of seclusion before winter, and let me know.”

“This is really bad.”

“If he isn’t, you are going to be as nice as you can manage to Lan Qiren because he’s who I’ll have to negotiate the marriage contract with.”

“This is awful ”

“You are getting married in Lotus Pier, by the way. I’m not doing this sober.”

“You don’t have to do it at all! I take it back, we’re eloping.”

“You are doing no such thing! You are getting married in Lotus Pier, with me and Jin Ling, and A-Jie’s and your parent’s memorial tablets, whether you like it or not.”

“Eloping and never coming back .”

“Are you going to adopt his ward?”

“Uhhhh...”

“I’m giving you till midwinter to sort out whatever you need to sort out with Lan Wangji before I write to whoever it is I’m writing to and make the proposal. Do not have sex with him before the contract is signed .”

"I don't want to have this conversation any more!" 

“Too late!”

-----

Jing Ling shows up four days before Li Chunhua is due home, and five days before Wei Wuxian is supposed to leave.

Wei Wuxian finds out as he’s walking away from the training yard for the mid day meal, sweaty and rumpled and high on endorphins. The mid-junior class is doing so well , they can do all the basic forms , although they do sometimes trip over their own feet or bonk themselves with their practice swords if they go too fast because they are precious adorable babies and he still can’t get over how there are entire classes of baby Jiangs!

Jiang Cheng is walking past with an advisor, and he hears just enough to gather there’s a visiting sect leader.

“If it’s Yao, tell him we’re not in!”

“It’s Jin Ling you idiot! I- Ack! Get off me you’re grose!”

“Nope, I’m coming to see Jin Ling!” Wei Wuxian sings, refusing to move his arm off Jiang Cheng’s shoulders no matter how hard the latter tries to shift him. One day he’ll be able to show physical affection to his little brother in public without dressing it up as purposeful irritation, but today is not that day. Not yet.

“Go and wash up!”

“After I’ve seen Jin Ling!”

“He might have bought Fairy!”

Wei Wuxian hesitates and swallows nervously. Then he takes a steadying breath, braces himself, and continues forwards, pulling Jiang Cheng along with him.

“I am going. To see. Jin Ling.” He grits out. “If Fairy is there, I will just run away screaming, won’t I.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Jiang Cheng growls, but leaves it be.

Jin Ling doesn’t have Fairy with him, which is excellent. And slightly surprising, but Wei Wuxian isn’t going to look a gift lack-of-dog in the mouth (don't think about dog mouths. All those teeth! Don’t think about the teeth! ). 

The reason for this fortuitous canine absence becomes obvious after Wei Wuxian has succumbed to Jiang Cheng's demands that he go away until he no longer smells like a training ground, and has rejoined his brother and nephew in the western-most pavilion for an impromptu family lunch.

“You!” Jin Ling snapps when he sits down. "I can't believe I had to find out you were here from Lan Jingyi. "

"What's wrong with Lan Jingyi?" Wei Wuxian says, because he likes Lan Jingyi.

"How does Lan Jingyi know who's staying with me?" Jiang Cheng asks, because he has entirely the wrong priorities. 

"Nothing's wrong, with Lan Jingyi! What's wrong is that I had to find out from him because he found out from Lan Sizhui who found out from Hanguang-jun, and neither of you told me! And neither did Han Meng, who is supposed to tell me things like this!”

Jiang Cheng chokes on his food.

"What the fuck!” He yells when he can draw enough breath to make it loud, “Do you have SPIES? In MY SECT?" 

Jin Ling splutters a denial. 

"Oh!" Wei Wuxian gasps. "Jiang Cheng! You know what I think? I think he has friends ." 

“Of course I have friends! Han Meng and I were in the same training group for years, we write to each other at least once a month! Of course she tells me things!" 

"Jiang Cheng, you did it! You raised a socially well adjusted child!"

"Shut up! I'm not a child!"

"I'm so proud of you both!" 

Jiang Cheng throws a steamed bun at his head. He catches it and takes a bite. Spicy pork. Nice.

------

Once upon a time, Wei Wuxian thought he would live in Lotus Pier forever. He was head disciple, and when they were older and Jiang Cheng was Sect Leader, he would be Jiang Cheng’s right hand man. Shiji would go to Jinlin tower, but if he married his spouse would come to Lotus Pier. Any children he had would grow up on aged wood, the warm water, spend their days shooting kites and stealing lotus seeds.

Then, it burnt. Then, he gave away the golden light inside of him. Then, the burial mounds. He knew, afterwards, that his time was limited. He could help rebuild, maybe, start training the scant handfull of disciples. But time would always be finite, the incense stick always burning down to scorch his fingers.

And then he left. Separated from the sect, from his family. Forght Jiang Cheng. Lotus Pier became a place he would never see again.

And then he died.

And then he came back.

And now, absurdly, he’s back in Lotus Pier. Walking the new wood, swimming in the warm water, teaching other people’s children to shoot kites, while his own sort-of-child lives on an austere mountain, separated by many days' travel.

Lotus Pier is no longer a place he will live forever. He couldn’t, even if there weren’t other places, other people, calling him away. He couldn’t bare it. Waking to from dreams of soup and laughter to the ripple of sunlight on the walls, and having to remember all over again that his sister is dead, that his brother spent so many years alone. Teaching the junior diciples, watching them learn and flourish, and then having to ask who their parents are, because he didn’t celebrate their birth, didn’t watch them grow up.

Lotus Pier will not be his home ever again.

But neither will it be a place he never comes back to. He and Jiang Cheng can go entire days without hitting each other’s sore spots. The junior disciples do know him, and trust him, ask his advice and come running to show him their achievements. Their instructor had looked horrified when she learned who had been covering her classes, but then she’d seen the progress her classes had made under his tutelage and now somehow he’s agreed to come back next year, and she’s agreed to let him teach talisman theory.

Today, he will rise and pack his things. Today, he will eat breakfast with Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling. Today, he will say goodbye to the junior classes, walk down to the stables, saddle his donkey. 

Today he will leave Lotus Pier.

But he’s coming back.