the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns
by Rose Thorne
Disclaimer: I don't own The Untamed or its characters.
Jiang Cheng stalks to the dock when a disciple informs him of an approaching boat. He's had them on the lookout ever since Lan Wangji's passive aggressive letter arrived.
As if it wasn't bad enough learning he'd hated Wei Wuxian for no reason for sixteen years due to a petty bastard's machinations, he'd had him ripped away again by Lan Wangji.
Whose letter had informed him that he would be bringing Wei Wuxian to Lotus Pier to pay his respects to Jiang Yanli. And that they would stay at a local inn if necessary to avoid "infringing on the hospitality of the Jiang sect."
The entire missive reeked of Lan Wangji's grievance toward him over Wei Wuxian's death, and somehow managed to imply that he was inhospitable and would refuse Wei Wuxian.
To hell with that.
Jiang Cheng had ordered that no inns around Lotus Pier take them, and had prepared one of the more opulent rooms for Lan Wangji, befitting his station as Chief Cultivator. And he'd had Wei Wuxian's old rooms aired out and furnished with fresh linens and sundries.
He ignored the fact that Wei Wuxian's quarters had been largely untouched, waiting for him, in the sixteen years he'd been dead; Jiang Cheng hadn't had the heart to touch it. He polished Suibian until it practically glowed and placed it on an ornate sword rack decorated with carved lotuses next to the bed with a second slot for Chenqing, filled the wardrobe with dark clothing with embroidered lotuses, every article with purple in it, to make it clear where he belonged—even if they'd fucking eloped the last time they were here, he was of Yunmeng Jiang, dammit.
And hanging from Suibian's hilt, Wei Wuxian's clarity bell.
So he stands at the dock, his feet itching with the urge to stomp, Sandu clenched in a fist at his side, willing Zidian to be still despite his fury.
The boat pulls up and a disciple gets off first, one of the Lan brats Jin Ling was friends with—the one that got seasick, judging from the green tint to his face. But the youth turns back to the boat to help someone out.
Wei Wuxian looks awful—pale, dark circles under his eyes, too thin. It brings Jiang Cheng back to meeting him in Yiling with A-Jie before her marriage, seeing how thin he was and wanting to do something about it, but what? And then the next time had been at Nightless City, and he'd hung from Hanguang-Jun's grip like a limp doll, his face like a ghost, smiling at him with bloody teeth, as though trusting him to end it, and he couldn't, but he'd wound up doing it anyway and Wei Wuxian doesn't even blame him, just expects to be turned away and it was his fault.
It's almost a relief that they're paying attention to his brother as he stumbles on the pier, giving him time to breathe, to collect the tatters of his calm.
Wei Wuxian doesn't look any less like shit when he's on the dock, and watching him try to smile is a special sort of hell now that he knows what his brother hides under his smiles. Jiang Cheng wants to throttle him until he's honest about what he's feeling, but he holds himself back, clenching his fist again to let the metal of Zidian cut into his fingers and ground him.
But he doesn't know what to say, and he has to say something now that they're here, to welcome them. To welcome him home.
So of course "You look like shit, Wei Wuxian," is what comes out of his mouth instead.
Wei Wuxian's smile does a weird thing where it turns more genuine and almost fond, and Jiang Cheng is even less sure what to do with that.
Lan Wangji keeps him steady when he sways, and when they approach he can see details he missed at a distance—his eyes lined red and bloodshot, his face not as thin as Jiang Cheng first thought. Maybe that's just the ghost of his own memory, haunting him.
He fucking hates it.
Many thoughts run through his head; at the fore is that separating them would be cruel—Lan Wangji is the most disheveled he's seen him since the war. While the man has been a petty asshole to him (and Jiang Cheng can no longer consider it unwarranted with everything revealed in Nie Huaisang's machinations), he won't respond in kind.
Especially not with Wei Wuxian looking so damn fragile.
"The kid can stay in your old room," he manages.
He's not prepared for the raw emotion on the kid's face, or sure where it comes from.
"Ah, little radish," Wei Wuxian murmurs, only audible because they've moved off the dock. "You can see where your Xian-gege grew up."
Well, isn't this a night of revelations?
Jiang Cheng forces himself to keep walking, even as pieces of a puzzle slide together in his mind.
The Lan is the kid from Burial Mounds. The one that hugged his leg the one time he visited. The one he'd assumed died with the rest, the Jin just tasteful enough not to hang the body of a dead child with the rest.
The one he hadn't dared give another thought to with dead siblings and an orphaned nephew to raise, terrified of the road those thoughts might take—that he'd lost another family member, another nephew.
Instead, he poured everything he had into raising Jin Ling, into strengthening Yunmeng Jiang until he was certain no one could ever raze it again, and then strengthening it some more.
It's appropriate for the kid to stay in Wei Wuxian's old room now. If Jiang Cheng had raised him, that's where he would have lived, his right after his adoptive father's death. Instead, he was raised by Lan Wangji, and it rankles him to have reason to approve of the man who's hated him for sixteen years.
Hate he won't let himself consider, for fear he'll realize he deserves it.
"A small repast is waiting in the main hall," he finds himself saying, leading the way into Lotus Pier. "And then you can settle into your quarters before dinner."
That would give the servants time to move the sword rack with Suibian and the robes from the wardrobe into the quarters Wei Wuxian would now share with Lan Wangji. It wasn't as poignant a message as his room, and it implied acceptance of the Chief Cultivator as his…
For a moment he imagines calling Lan Wangji saozi, but he prefers living. He has no idea what he'd call him. Xiongfu?
No, he's not going to think about this right now.
The steps of his guests are fading behind him, so he stops, flagging one of the servants to issue his orders.
Oh, gods, he's going to have to walk them both to their quarters after tea, his brother and his brother's whatever. Jiang Cheng will look like a coward, or the gesture ingenuine, if he sends servants to guide them. Knowing Wei Wuxian and his well-established and infuriating lack of self-worth—he gave him his core and it makes him want to scream—it would absolutely be interpreted as the latter.
But the footsteps are closer now, so he forces himself to start walking, only this time at a slower pace. He doesn't dare look behind him, not when his brother is taking in Lotus Pier, this time without the threat of Jin Guangyao's machinations to distract him.
Jiang Cheng has lived with the ghosts of memories of this place before the war for sixteen years. Wei Wuxian's experiencing them for perhaps the first time, at least since A-Jie…
Oh.
Oh.
Lan Wangji's demands in his letter suddenly make so much more sense. With A-Jie's birthday in a few days, of course Wei Wuxian is a fucking mess.
Jiang Cheng pointedly refuses to remember the agony of that first year. A Wei Wuxian unable to hide his hurts and accepting of help demonstrates it well enough.
At least dinner won't include lotus root and pork rib soup. He was being petty when he nixed that from the dinner plans, and he'd argued with himself over it, but now he's glad he did, after all.
Jiang Cheng has no illusions that he can avoid Wei Wuxian's grief, but now that he gets what's going on, he'd prefer not to have his brother break down on his first night back.
A-Jie's birthday means Jin Ling will be coming, as well, and maybe his presence will help somehow.
Honestly, how did he not make the connection before now? He should have anticipated this.
Fuck, he should've been the one to invite Wei Wuxian home, but he's been too busy definitely refusing to wallow that he just didn't even think about A-Jie's birthday. He's sure it would've hit him like a ton of bricks when Jin Ling shows up tomorrow, and then he'd decidedly refuse to cry over forgetting, pretending his tears are from missing her only. But it doesn't change the fact that he forgot, and on what was, to his idiot brother, the first birthday without her.
Worse, some milestones have already passed, and more will be coming up, and if he knows Wei Wuxian, he's suffered silently through them and would have continued to do so if not for Lan Wangji's interference.
He's going to come out of this appreciating that stone-faced bastard, isn't he?
Thankfully, they reach the main hall before he can go further down that tangle of thought, though he's sure it'll come back to torment him later.
For the repast, Jiang Cheng made sure to include the spicy fish balls from a market stall he knows Wei Wuxian likes—extra spicy, of course, so much so that the stall popo, who's been there since they were kids, gave him a knowing look and approving nod. He even got enough bland snacks, like lotus seed buns, to satisfy Lan Wangji's palate. He didn't expect the kid, and doesn't know his preferences anyway, but there are plenty of snacks available to choose from. There is also, of course, lotus tea and Hefeng wine, just to show Wei Wuxian his creation is still made at Lotus Pier, still valued.
Jiang Cheng was being petty when he included it, but he's glad he did when Wei Wuxian's expression shifts from that empty smile to something more real, a sort of touched nostalgia that brings him back to the day that idiot came up with the idea after using a lotus leaf as cup for his wine.
He realizes he needs to go through the annual sales records since Wei Wuxian's fake defection and calculate his share of the profits, along with the sales of all his talismans—he'll be damned if his brother lives off his husband's purse strings when he's brought in so much money to Lotus Pier even in death.
Even in death, he'd ensured Yunmeng Jiang would prosper, with both jindan and his inventions.
He needs a drink, just thinking about Wei Wuxian's death, the hole it left in him and how angry he was at missing him, anger he didn't deserve then and absolutely doesn't now.
Wei Wuxian warns the Lan kid about the spicy fish balls, and the boy tries some anyway, sending himself into a coughing fit.
"Aiya, A-Yuan, you didn't have to taste them if you don't like spice," his brother says, laughing.
"It reminds me of your cooking, A-Die," the teen teases when he's cleared his palate with something sweet.
Ah, hell, he's going to have to respect Lan Wangji saving the kid, isn't he, his brother's son.
Thankfully the repast's awkward silence is filled by Wei Wuxian talking to his son and… again, whatever Lan Wangji is. Jiang Cheng won't accept they're married—not when Wei Wuxian deserves an opulent wedding—even if they bowed to his parents. Wei Wuxian is getting married at Lotus Pier properly, with all the fanfare of Jie's wedding, and far more tasteful because it's not the Jin. He'll fucking insist if he has to.
If nothing else, Lan Wangji will agree with him that Wei Wuxian deserves a beautiful wedding, and he doesn't feel some sort of vindication that the man would basically have to, if he knows what's good for him. He might fight over holding it at Lotus Pier, but dammit, Jiang Cheng never took Wei Wuxian off the Jiang clan roster, and he'd only let someone else have the title of da-shixiong reluctantly.
Just like they planned A-Jie's wedding when they were kids, Jiang Cheng and A-Jie planned Wei Wuxian's. And maybe those documents with the plans hadn't survived the Wen, but they were still in Jiang Cheng's head and he would see them implemented. He'd swear to A-Jie if he had to.
He realizes with a carefully-repressed jolt that his guests have not eaten in some time, meaning it is time to let them rest before dinner and specifically to save Wei Wuxian from having to find more to talk about in the silence, and clears his throat.
"I'll see you to your rooms, then."
I finally have a diagnosis. Multisystem long covid. It's what I expected, but finally diagnosed. So it's more a relief than anything. My doctor is affiliated with one of fifteen long covid centers in the US that is studying it, so I'll have access to clinical trials and such. It's not a great diagnosis, but it's an answer.
This is going to be several chapters. We'll see what it demands. This has been sitting in my files, largely written, and I realized I could give myself permission for it to be multiple chapters.
Thanks again to adrian_kres for the beta!
a-die = dad
da-shixiong = eldest martial brother, or head disciple
Hefeng liquor = lotus breeze liquor
popo = grandmother
saozi = sister in law
xiongfu = not an actual word but breaks down to brother's husband