I live... I finally managed to get a job. not industry and it doesn't even make enough to cover my loan payments and I basically spend my entire free time looking for an industry job or looking for a second job. It's great... over half my paycheck weekly goes to pay rent to my parents and basically the other half goes to pay my brother's rent because he's too lazy to get a job and I will need to make over $1500 a month just to make student loan payments or i can cost my parents the house
"I thought something smelled rotten around here," Jiang Cheng clicks his tongue fidgeting with the ring on his hands like Madame Yu always did when she was frustrated. Still and chilled was Wei Wuxian's blood at the sight of those eye boring down on him. "Here I was trying to find Jin Ling and instead bump into you and the corpse."
He swallowed and tried to hold firm so as not show how panicked he was at the prospect of dealing with Jiang Cheng again as a distinct wolf like growl slipped out of that throat. "Your savior isn't here this time to keep you from running away Wei Wuxian." The crackling sparks of Zidian as it unfurled and snapped along the ground. "You and the Ghost General are going to come with me."
What could he do or say? He wanted to just run but also the growling and that sound of electricity snapping along the dirt kept him still. Wei Wuxian tried to say just a name but all he did was clench his tongue, "Where is Jin Ling? You got his smell on you so you must have seen him. Tell me where he is and what you have done to him?"
Wei Wuxian opened his mouth but all that came was hot air.
The whip cracked.
"I'm waiting."
How badly he just wanted to turn and walk away but instead he smiled grimly. "I can't say where he is but he is certainly in a troublesome predicament."
A growl rumbled louder from Jiang Cheng's throat and electricity dances around his mouth.
"Three months."
"Huh?"
"That was how long I was stuck in that wretched state. Three months stuck as some malformed animal until I was able to break through the curse you placed on me. Three fucking months."
What's he supposed to say? He didn't mean to? He's sorry? That he was just caught in his rage and didn't want to hurt him.
Jiang Cheng growls again and Wei Wuxian covers his ears and tries not to cower completely but that innate fear in him crawls back up, "What did you say to me then? That you don't bow to dogs? What happened to all that bravado?"
Hesitantly, "Jin Ling? Is he with you?"
Sparks along the ground. "I will make this simple you tell me what you did to him and I won't skin you alive in the next two minutes."
Wei Wuxian raised his hands and looked into Jiang Cheng's glare, "I don't know how he got the way he is."
"Bullshit!"
"I don't. Jiang Cheng, you must know he's too young to be going through this sort of transformation on his own. In order for this to happen a corrupting force would have to be meddling with him."
The honest and clearest truth that both knew and understood was that something dark had taken in and rooted itself in Jin Ling's core and while he'd expelled it for now it would come back on it's own. "You said you were looking for him. Is he still missing?"
The whip cracked along the ground. "Shut your mo uth and come along quietly before I break your legs."
With a heavy sigh Wei Wuxian lowers his head and walks forward. The last time he saw Jiang Cheng and was lucid in his old life it been as he twisted him back into that malformed animal body.
I hurt you. I hurt and betrayed you and Shijie
He did it in the worst way possible and no amount of apology or tears would change that. With a glance at Wen Ning and a gesture with his head his friends takes the signal that he wants him to run and leave and the sound of those chains clinking at the body dashes away while Jiang Cheng readies to strike with the whip only for Wei Wuxian to hold himself in the way is just enough.
"Still defending that Wen corpse above yourself. I can't stand you."
"Come now, wouldn't it be better to catch up just the two of us."
Sparks along the ground and the around his body. "Try anything and I will snap your neck instead." Noted.
He follows obediently behind as he's guided towards a different inn then the one he and Lan Wangji had chosen to stop at for the night.
They sat awkward and silent in the room with only a table between them to cut the close tension. It takes far longer for them to speak but when Jiang Cheng opens his mouth, "Was he okay?"
"He should be for now but I was worried when we found him."
"What was it?"
"A Shishi."
Jiang Cheng leaned forward, "Not a Jiang Hound?"
Wei Wuxian shook his head glumly. "Whatever resentment you have for me please believe I would never hurt Jin Ling."
"You already did with your careless words. You are already took away his mother and father and you want me to believe you would never hurt him!"
"I would never hurt him intentionally."
"You hurt everything just by existing," Jiang Cheng's hand smacked the center of the table and an audible crack rang out through the room.
I know.
Wei Wuxian knows that he seems to take chaos in and make it worse for everyone around him. That his life is bound in blood and agony and that even when he tries to help he somehow does things wrong but he still must try. He must because otherwise why bother living otherwise. He smiles and he keeps smiling at Jiang Cheng even if it is an empty smile built on miserable bubbling guilt that lives in his gut.
Even if it will swallow him. "I just want to know he's okay."
Jiang Cheng huffs, "I haven't been able to find him. I know he's close but that's about it." The earie wail of dogs howling comes in the distance making Wei Wuxian flinch. "They're looking for him but he's been good at hiding. The brat!"
"What will you do for him once you find him? What will you do if he's not human?" Jiang Cheng says nothing but a curdle of fear makes it way through his throat when they lock eyes. "You- you can't do that! If you do it will only get worse and-"
"I will not allow him to end up like you!" Jiang Cheng grabbed the front of his robes and those nails dig into the fabric tearing it so gently, "I will not. If he needs to be kept by lies then so be it but I will not let the only family you haven't taken from me end up worse than you!"
Wei Wuxian doesn't let the smile faulter even as his head drops. Too young. Truly Jin Ling is far too young. "What would you like done with me?"
"I want to see you never do anything again." There were worse fates he supposes besides he really didn't expect much for himself.
"That's fine. Just one request," Jiang Cheng's eyebrow twitch his lips curving in disgust but also disappointment, "I want to know why there are so many Rabbits in Gusu Lan. Why things have changed and so many turn or as they say revert."
Jiang Cheng let go and let out a snort as he leaned back, "As always meddling when you aren't wanted."
"It's in my nature."
Says a scorpion to the frog and Wei Wuxian pretends that he doesn't know. That he isn't going cause pain all over again. "You are horrible person. I bet you even still have Lan Wangji under your thrall! Isn't that why he saved you? Because he saw his master and was compelled!"
Don't remind him. Don't remind him that in all of this he's using wicked tricks to move and pull strings and has apparently even from beyond the grave ruined a man he respects and thinks so much of. So instead, Wei Wuxian will do what he does best.
"And you're not?" He deflects.
He had been curious on that matter since their reunion because Jiang Cheng should still be enthralled and yet he wasn't. He could feel that there wasn't a connect and hadn't been one for a good amount of time. Yes, Jiang Cheng was completely independent and free aside from the obvious; Wei Wuxian steeled his eyes away from where the scars would be instead choosing to focus anywhere else. "I broke that shit on my own. It isn't hard once you know the trick."
His eyes widened and a fear snaked around his throat that his brother was in a state like his, "Pfft, you're stupid if you really think I need to eat to sustain my form."
"…You broke it without eating cores and such?"
"Duh."
How the fuck did you do that!? I didn't know how to do that- hell what do you mean easy!?
"How?" It comes out more exasperated and desperate that he'd wished. "No really how?"
"Are you stupid? Same way anyone would." He says it like it's the most clear-cut explanation in the world and not incredibly vague and abstract to a point of near parody.
"That explains nothing!" If he could Wei Wuxian would be vigorously pointing at Jiang Cheng demanding an explanation in further details as he eventually moved to smacking him on the head but tied up he could only squirm further and press against the table. "What do you mean? How did you even do it!?"
Jiang Cheng just was absolutely baffled, "How do you not know?"
"What am I supposed to know?"
"You- you- the thing! Look it can't be put into words," Jiang Cheng was beat red.
"I'm pretty sure it can and you're just not trying hard enough."
"I can't believe you don't know what I mean."
It was slowly devolving into a shouting match as Wei Wuxian stood up, "No I don't! Speak clearly because apparently I'm a moron."
"You are a moron! How does anyone think you're some genius if you never even figured this out?!"
The door to the inn room suddenly was thrust open and a middle aged woman with her hair a mess and her eyes covered in dark circles looked between them and said, "It's three in the morning," and just as suddenly the door was slammed shut and an awkward silence fell over them.
"Um so… there's a way to just break it?"
"Yeah. I learned it years ago from a Dog who often shifted back on her own," sorrow dances in Jiang Cheng's eyes one that Wei Wuxian doesn't know the full story for or what went on but he has a clue. He remembers on of the Dogs in Yunmeng and how Jiang Cheng mourned that particular loss.
Wei Wuxian didn't realize there could be a way other than what he knew but it also meant if Jiang Cheng learned it had to have been through agony. A price for breaking binds like this has to be heavy otherwise it wouldn't be so secret and out of the way. It might have to do with the silver in Jiang Cheng's hair or the feral look hidden in his eyes but when Wei Wuxian remembers that time as stone- a time worse than death his stomach turns. "Explain it to me."
"It's not something can be put into words just like how you can't name the spell we use for punishment."
"Bullshit." There always ways but Jiang Cheng just keeps looking on with fury.
"You haven't let him go, disgusting."
"I need him."
And the sneer on Jiang Cheng's face as he looks away, "What for even? Are you wanting a puppet? A slave to do the heavy lifting?"
"Don't talk like I think so little of Lan Zhan!"
Don't talk like I don't regret every second. Like I don't feel like the worst sort of monster here.
Wei Wuxian wanted to laugh cruelly at everything that was between them.
He thinks he loves me.
What sort of penance can he make for that? "Then let him go and come back with me."
"I can't-"
A loud sound crashes in the near distance with a small muttering of curses and Jiang Cheng freezes before rising up and chasing after a shadow by the door, "Jin Ling!" In that haste to catch his nephew Zidian comes undone and Wei Wuxian slips away stopping only when he reaches his own room and notes that it is so quiet and cold in this space.
So much that he can't sleep and he keeps seeking warmth and comfort but all he finds is an empty bed. Wei Wuxian's lips go to mouth the words to call but he stops because he doesn't deserve that. He doesn't.
The bed is nice and plush with pillows and blankets and yet so cold. From his pillow he can see out at that moonlight streaking in along the floor.
In the end sleep doesn't come instead he waits for dawn never quiet able to say anything on his mind to the empty room.
so um... I am trying to sell acrylic charms and all that in hopes something that can be a hail marry to save my ass from debt. I had preorders up and all that but literally didn't get any so I'm extending the time a whole week in hopes I get lucky because otherwise I can't afford the cost of actually ordering any. Anyway they're bunny holo charms of MDZS wangxian bunnies and critical role mighty nein... idk... maybe someone reading this might be interested... idk i just... i am desperate not to ruin things for my parents or just I want to get out but i just end up trapped here
critical buns:
twi tter .comm Feloney _Felinis / status /1334724244928929793?s=20
