“Consider rivers.
They are always en route to
Their own nothingness. From the first moment
They are going home. And so
When language cannot do it for us,
Cannot make us know love will not diminish us,
There are these phrases
Of the ocean
To console us.
Particular and unafraid of their completion."
-from "Anna Liffey" by Eavan Boland
When the change comes, it comes like a lightning strike out a clear blue sky.
There's a moment of just...nothing, a blankness, and then it hits him with the force of a blow.
(No.
I'm not ready.
And only after that, the grief.)
The first thing he does is cancel Jiejie’s wedding.
No. The first thing he does is sob and rage and try to swallow down the acid fear that keeps rising in his throat.
(It doesn’t work. No matter how much he tries to tamp it down, it just keeps rising.
I’m not ready.)
But three days after (and there will always be a Before and After now, a sharp line bisecting his life), he manages to hold his hand steady enough to write the letter to Koi Tower. Even as he couches the decision in terms of appropriate mourning periods, he knows this is not a delay. Jiejie isn’t going to leave. If Jiang Cheng has to shoulder the weight of the sect (so soon, so much sooner than he’d ever dreamed), he’s going to allow himself this one selfishness.
(The first day, when he had stopped crying long enough to wash his flushed, red-eyed face, to pull on his finest robes and wrangle his hair into something like neatness, he had hesitated outside Sword Hall. How could he walk in there, stand in front of the lines of disciples and make the announcement? They already knew anyway—what was he supposed to say? I’m the sect leader now, and you should definitely believe I know what I’m doing?
He didn’t know what he was doing. He still doesn’t.
But then Jiejie squeezed his hand and Wei Wuxian gripped his shoulder and said, “We’re right beside you,” and somehow, somehow Jiang Cheng did it.)
He somehow keeps himself from saying anything about it for a few days more. But one afternoon he finds himself sitting beside Wei Wuxian on one of the docks. Wei Wuxian wandered up after sword practice with the disciples, half-stripped out of his robes, and dropped down beside him in silence.
This would normally be the time that they bicker and shove each other, maybe right into the water, which would turn into a frolic in the lake. But now they just sit there with the sunlight pressing down on their heads and shoulders, bare feet in the water, Jiang Cheng trying his best to think about nothing at all.
(It’s weird, this silence with Wei Wuxian. Silence has never been their way.)
It doesn’t work, so he just says it, the thing that’s been trying to escape from between his teeth for days. “I want you to marry Jie.”
He’s watching out of the corner of his eye so he sees the surprise flash across Wei Wuxian’s face before it shifts into understanding. “So she can stay here,” Wei Wuxian says. So we can all be together, he doesn’t say.
“I already wrote to the Jin.”
Wei Wuxian is silent for a moment, then says, “We could use the support of other sects.”
Jiang Cheng only says it out loud because he’s so fucking tired. (He doesn’t sleep much anymore.) “I don’t care.”
Wei Wuxian smiles, a tight, mirthless smile Jiang Cheng has never seen before. “Me neither.”
They don’t say anything more about it for a few days. Wei Wuxian’s words keep bouncing around in Jiang Cheng’s head. We could use the support of other sects.
It’s true, he knows that. The smart thing to do, for a brand new sect leader still in his teens (if barely), would be to marry his sister off to a powerful neighbor immediately. Show that the major sects still consider the Jiang one of their own despite the change in leadership. Prove his own prudence, his filial dedication to his parents’ wishes. Use this as an opportunity to demonstrate that he’s going to be steady and wise and all the things he knows he isn’t.
But even though his mind is full of his father’s disappointed eyes (always, always disappointed, if he bothered to look at Jiang Cheng at all), his mother’s sharp reprimands (and insults. She always was fond of calling him foolish), he can’t do it.
(And he doesn’t even think about how A-Niang would react to the thought of her daughter marrying the son of a servant and that woman. Jiang Cheng has done nothing but disappoint and infuriate her his whole life. What’s one more line in the ledger?
Besides, there’s no one he’ll ever trust with Jiejie the way he does Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian would die for her without hesitation. The Peacock doesn’t even want her.)
Eventually Wei Wuxian says, “You have to talk to Shijie,” and so he makes himself seek her out.
She listens quietly as he stumbles over his words. She’s very pale these days though her eyes aren’t red anymore.
“Unless you—I know that you—Jin Zixuan—” He can barely speak around the knot in his throat. If she protests at all, if she so much as implies she’d rather go to Koi Tower than stay here, he’ll fold. (He could never say no to Jiejie.) The thought of it, of her actually going….
“A-Cheng,” she says, and her voice is so kind. (She is so kind. No wonder he and Wei Wuxian have always clung to her like drowning men cling to jetsam.) “I barely know him. It’s true that I…” The faintest blush tinges her cheeks. “...that I have always been taken with him. But he has never wanted me.” She holds her head high when she says that, though he knows how much the words cost her. “You and A-Xian need me. This is my home. I will be happy here.”
She says it like she believes it, even though Jiang Cheng can’t remember what happiness feels like. (And not because of the grief, if he’s honest. Because of the fear.)
And then she asks, voice neutral, “And is this marriage in name only?”
The question strikes a gong in his head and a ringing fills his ears. He does his best to ignore it as he answers, voice gruff, “Whatever you two want.”
“We could give you heirs.”
How can she just say that? Jiang Cheng feels embarrassment heat his cheeks. (Embarrassment and a hot, sharp jealousy that he doesn’t let himself examine. He’s gotten really good at shoving that particular emotion away whenever he feels it.) A month ago, Before, he would have shouted Jie! in protest, and she would have laughed and patted his cheek. But now he manages to say, voice only a little bit rough, “All of that is up to you two. It’s your marriage.”
She gives him a knowing look, but she doesn’t press. (He feels pathetically grateful. She had tried to talk to him about it, once, a few years ago. He’s not your brother, she had said, so kindly. Not really. You shouldn’t feel ashamed. It’s not wrong if your feelings— and he had cut her off, yelling at her. He’d felt guilty about the yelling even while he couldn’t stop himself from doing it. She hasn’t brought it up since then. Just further proof of her kindness.)
He makes up his mind not to think about the words give you heirs ever again. (Just another thing he’ll fail at.)
Maybe it’s how raw he feels about all of that that makes him blow up at Wei Wuxian. (No. He was always going to blow up at Wei Wuxian. It’s a wonder it didn’t happen before.)
The day after the conversation with Jiejie, Wei Wuxian finds him crying in one of the boat houses.
Wei Wuxian climbs down into the barge and immediately wraps his arms around him. Jiang Cheng stiffens, holds that stiffness even as he can’t find the strength to pull away. (He should pull away. This is too close to what he wants. It would be so easy to curl himself around Wei Wuxian and never let go, wind them together till they merge into one. But he can’t. He can’t.)
Jiejie has held him while he’s cried, stroking his hair and wiping the tears from his cheeks. He’s held her, too, so aware of the delicacy of her body despite her strength. But this is Wei Wuxian, and so it’s different. (Different in ways he shouldn’t allow it to be. But he’s always been so weak when it comes to Wei Wuxian.)
It helps. He’s debating whether to just let himself go limp (let Wei Wuxian hold him together. Can he risk that weakness, just for a moment? Just for one moment?) when Wei Wuxian has to ruin it.
“I know. I know it hurts.”
Jiang Cheng shoves him away so hard that the barge rocks underneath them. “Fuck you, no you don’t!” The crying has turned ugly already; he can feel his nose running.
For half a second, annoyance (anger?) shows in Wei Wuxian’s eyes, and then patience takes its place. “I miss him, too,” he says, like that’s going to help and not make it worse.
Jiang Cheng stands abruptly and half-laughs through his sobs. It’s an ugly sound. “Of course you do! He thought you were the greatest thing ever! You must miss hearing a thousand times a day how smart and talented you are!”
It isn’t fair. He knows it isn’t fair. He knows that Wei Wuxian never sought praise from Fuqin. As arrogant as he can be in other circumstances, he often looked uncomfortable when Fuqin complimented him, eyes guilty as they darted to Jiang Cheng. That was honestly just as bad as if he’d preened, but Jiang Cheng had always tried to choke it down because it wasn’t Wei Wuxian’s fault.
But right now, with the weight of the sect on his shoulders, with the persistent whisper in the back of his mind (sometimes in his father’s voice, sometimes—worse—in his mother’s) that Wei Wuxian would do a better job of leading, he can’t be fair.
An emotion Jiang Cheng can’t name shoots through Wei Wuxian’s eyes. The line of his mouth is tighter than it ever is.
“And don’t even pretend like you care about A-Niang! You’re relieved that she’s gone!”
“I’m not the only one,” Wei Wuxian shoots back, ice cold, and Jiang Cheng flinches. It isn’t just the cruelty of the words (Wei Wuxian has always been able to surgically strike at Jiang Cheng’s heart when he wants to. The only thing that’s saved Jiang Cheng is that he doesn’t often want to).
It’s the truth of them.
Because here’s what he’s been hiding from himself: he is relieved. Underneath all the fear and the guilt and the grief, there’s been this little, persistent bud of relief. He’s tried and tried to rip it up, but the roots are deep, and it sprouts back up again.
(She’s never going to hit me again.
He’s never going to look right through me like I’m not even there again.
She’s never going to hit Wei Wuxian again.
He’s never going to praise Wei Wuxian when I’m standing right there again.
She’s never going to say something petty and mean to Jiejie again.
They’re never going to scream at each other or glare or ignore each other and I never, ever have to sit through one of those awful family dinners.
Never again.)
“Fuck you!” he shouts, voice ragged, and he has to escape, he has to (from Wei Wuxian, from this conversation, from his own feelings). He dives into the water.
It closes around him, cool and green and silken against his hot cheeks and throbbing temples. It tugs at his robes (ruined now, but he doesn’t care) and it would be easy to just stay here in this shadowy place forever.
He makes himself kick off and under the walls of the boat house, out into the open lake. The sunlight filters through, sparkling and golden, and he lets it pull him back to the surface. Then he strips his clothes off, throws them in a sodden wad up onto the nearby dock, and swims.
He swims until his mind is numb and his arms are rubbery.
The next morning, he finds Wei Wuxian sprawled in one of the pavilions eating lotus seeds. He kicks him. “Lazy ass. You’re supposed to be my right-hand man.”
They don’t apologize to each other. That’s never been their way unless Jiejie makes them. It’s better like this: just pretending like it never happened.
Thankfully, that, at least, comes easily to both of them. Wei Wuxian just kicks him in return and says, “I bet my ideas for that trade agreement with Baling Ouyang will be better than yours,” and then they spend the next two hours going over the details. (Wei Wuxian’s ideas are better than his. Only the tiniest bit of resentment mars Jiang Cheng’s gratitude.)
It’s just so much. Jiang Cheng goes over paperwork and writes letters until his eyes swim and his hand cramps. He dictates while he lets the tailor measure him (he can’t feel like a sect leader in the clothes he’s always worn. It’s an expense, having an entirely new wardrobe made, but whenever he puts on one of his new sect leader robes, the sharp shoulders and thick embroidery, he feels just slightly more steady. It’s worth the price), has meetings with sect representatives and petitioners and the magistrate’s agents. Trade agreements and infrastructure and budgeting, page after page, report after report.
Jiejie does all the things she’s been doing since she was twelve years old, the things no one ever praises her for (he should do that, praise her. Let her know how grateful he is, how much he appreciates all he does. How he couldn’t do this without her. But that sort of thing has always been exhausting for him, and he’s already so tired). She makes sure the kitchens run smoothly, that there’s enough food for all the disciples and servants. She oversees the laundries and the weavers and the smithy and the fletchers. She hires new servants and arranges for pensions for elderly ones. She puts together packages of food and fabric for the poorest villagers, sends the magistrate gifts, corresponds with the wives and mothers of other sect leaders. And makes pork rib and lotus root soup and gently bullies him and Wei Wuxian into eating it. He doesn’t know when she sleeps.
Wei Wuxian trains the disciples, running them through sword drills, teaching archery, overseeing the lectures. He encourages the shy ones, reels in the ones who show off, nudges feuding disciples into good humor with each other. He monitors the requests for help that pour into each of the major sects and prioritizes the needs, assigning and dispatching Jiang cultivators and then debriefing them when they return. He leads nighthunts and goes on solo ones, and Jiang Cheng misses hunting beside him as much as (no: more than) he misses his parents.
One night Wei Wuxian hunts him down at his desk, blinking blearily at the paper in front of him.
“Are you trying to ruin your eyes, dumbass?” he says, going to trim the lamp, and it’s only then that Jiang Cheng realizes it was guttering. “What are you fussing over? It’s past chou shi.”
Is it really that late? No wonder his eyes are so gritty and his neck aches. “The invitation list.”
“Ah.”
If they had their way, the wedding would be small. Just the three of them, maybe, and the tablets. But while Jiang Cheng is selfish, he’s not stupid. This wedding has to be a real event, a stage for showing that the Jiang sect is stable and prospering. A proper month after the end of the mourning period, all the sects will descend on Lotus Pier to watch the sister of the Jiang sect leader marry its head disciple. Jiang Cheng has to impress them. He has to.
Wei Wuxian settles down beside him, peering down at the paper. “Can’t you do it tomorrow?”
“I have a meeting with the Yueyang Chang.”
“Mm.” Wei Wuxian leans closer, settling his sharp chin on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder. Jiang Cheng should really shake him off, but he’s too tired to be strong. Not when Wei Wuxian’s warmth is pressed up against his side, his scent filling Jiang Cheng’s lungs. “Let me do it.”
“Let you do what?”
“The meeting. You greet them, then excuse yourself, and I’ll handle the negotiations.”
Jiang Cheng turns his head to glare at him, ignoring how close their faces are (how Wei Wuxian’s breath fans against his lips, speeding up his heart). “Why the fuck would you do that? You hate dealing with the other sects.”
Wei Wuxian sits back and shrugs. (Jiang Cheng tries not to miss his nearness, but it’s so late.) “I can do it, though. The kids will be fine with Jiang Jianbi. I’ll do some of the sect leader-y stuff, you plan the wedding.”
It’s right there on his tongue, the defensive, What, you think I can’t do it myself? You think you’d do it better than I would? But fuck it, he slept for two hours last night and he needs the help. Just this once. Just this once, he can let Wei Wuxian do this for him.
“Fine. But if the Chang end up declaring war on us, I’m offering your ass as a sacrifice.”
Wei Wuxian rises, stretching. (Jiang Cheng does not watch the lines of his body as he does.) “Whatever, the Chang are going to be so charmed, they’ll agree to whatever I suggest.”
Jiang Cheng snorts, and Wei Wuxian nudges his hip with his foot. “Go to bed, Jiang-zongzhu,” he says. “You don’t want the Chang to run when they see you looking like a reanimated corpse.”
He lets Wei Wuxian pull him up and drag him over to the bed. He doesn’t think about how easy it would be to pull Wei Wuxian down beside him, how good (safe) it would feel to have Wei Wuxian curled up against his back all through the night. He doesn’t have time before sleep claims him.
Wei Wuxian meets with the Chang and it goes fine. He reports back and ends with an arched eyebrow as if to say, See? I am responsible enough to handle this. And then he crosses his arms and waits as if expecting Jiang Cheng to give him more assignments.
But some actual sleep has allowed Jiang Cheng to shore up his foundations again. He won’t be as weak as he was last night. He ignores his shixiong’s expectant look, and when Wei Wuxian finally gets frustrated enough to ask if there’s anything else Jiang Cheng would like him to do, he glares when Jiang Cheng says no.
For better or worse (and his parents’ voices are always a chorus in his head, telling him that it’s for worse, that it’ll be the downfall of the sect), Jiang Cheng is the sect leader now. He’ll fulfill his responsibilities.
(Wei Wuxian and Jiejie both look disapproving, but he’ll sleep after the wedding.)
(Afterwards, he’ll barely remember the lead-up to the wedding, just a long blur of exhaustion and stress. The details get lost, except for that one night with Wei Wuxian’s chin on his shoulder, the dream that came after: Wei Wuxian curled around him in bed, their breathing falling into the same rhythm. When he woke up, he was so cold.)
The night before the wedding, he and Wei Wuxian get drunk.
He had ordered the best wines from all the surrounding provinces, and tonight he takes out a few jars of Emperor’s Smile from Gusu. Even though he associates Gusu with boring food and a rumored wall twenty chi high and covered with rules, apparently the province also produces some fine alcohol. He’s been hoarding these, and it’s as good as the rumors say. He’s almost finished with the first jar when Wei Wuxian saunters into the room and pulls it from his hand.
“Why do you always drink like that?” Jiang Cheng demands, watching a clear drop roll over the red of Wei Wuxian’s bottom lip, down his chin and along the line of his throat. (Fuck. Fuck, he wants to follow it with his tongue.)
“Like what?”
Like that. With his head thrown back, his neck on display, his eyes closed, his mouth open. (Just the sight is enough to get Jiang Cheng hard sometimes. He’s thankful, in this moment, that he’s halfway to drunk already.) “Like you’re showing off.”
That’s not the right way to phrase it, but he can’t possibly say, So sexual. (Like you’re showing off for me.)
“This is the correct way to appreciatively drink wine. Everyone knows that.”
“No one knows that, dumbass, because it’s not true.” He grabs the jar back and takes another drink—a proper drink. He’s no sooner lowered it from his lips when Wei Wuxian pulls it back, and they’re off.
He knows why he’s getting drunk. Months and months of strain and sleepless nights and now the guests have all arrived and been greeted and schmoozed and conducted to their chambers and Jiang Cheng feels like he’s going to explode if he doesn’t slow his mind down for a little while.
(That and: last night, he dreamed he was the one wearing red. He woke up hating himself.)
He’s less sure about Wei Wuxian. He’s been making jokes for weeks now about how happy he is to marry the best woman in the whole world, about how he wouldn’t take any other woman. Jiejie laughs at him and pinches his cheeks and tells him that he’ll have to behave if he’s to be her husband. (They’re just playing around, he knows that, but he can’t stop the throb of jealousy.) Yesterday, when they were watching the servants hang silk banners in Sword Hall, Wei Wuxian had said suddenly and (uncharacteristically) seriously, “You know nothing’s going to change, right?”
Jiang Cheng didn’t know that at all (everything’s already changed), but he just said, “Of course,” and then yelled at Lao Li to watch what he was doing—that side was drooping, did he want Jiejie to be shamed by uneven decorations? (Lao Li yelled back—he had helped raise them and gave as good as he got, which was the only reason Jiang Cheng felt okay about yelling at him. Yelling was for family, not for servants.)
“Fuck,” Wei Wuxian says at one point. He’s laying flat on his back, looking up at the ceiling. “This time tomorrow night, I’ll be married. Fuck.”
He’s not going to ask. He’s not going to ask.
He’s not going to ask.
“Are you going to sleep with Jie?”
Wei Wuxian rolls over, a lazy motion (one that shouldn’t make Jiang Cheng’s cheeks flush even more than they already are) and tilts his head in that way of his. “Are you serious right now?”
Jiang Cheng shrugs, looking away and picking at the ribbon tied around the neck of the jar.
“You said it was our decision.”
“It is your decision! God, forget I asked.” He lies down now himself, unwilling to look at anything more complicated than the ceiling.
There’s a rustle of fabric and then Wei Wuxian has crawled over and flopped down beside him. “We talked about it.”
Jiang Cheng intestines promptly tie themselves into a complicated knot. “I said to forget I asked.”
Wei Wuxian ignores him; he’s good at that. “We decided we might.”
Jiang Cheng wonders if he has enough energy to roll over so that he can throw up without ruining his robes.
But then Wei Wuxian says, “Someday. Not now. And then just so we can have kids. Maybe. Or we’ll adopt. Or you can adopt.”
The knot loosens. Maybe he won’t throw up. “Fine. Whatever.” And then, even though he’s telling himself to just shut up and let it go: “It’s your decision.”
Wei Wuxian sits up and leans over, his face right above Jiang Cheng’s, and suddenly Jiang Cheng can’t breathe. “It doesn’t have to be,” Wei Wuxian says, and his face, despite the alcohol flush to his cheeks and the slight glassiness of his eyes, is so serious. “I mean. If there was another…interested party, their input would be appropriate.”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t say anything for a long moment, his mouth so dry, his tongue so thick he’s not sure he could form words even if he could think of them. When his overwhelmed mind finally offers some up, he croaks. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Wei Wuxian shrugs. He’d loosened his robes before, and now they slip down just a bit on his left side, baring his collarbone. There’s a mark there, matching the one just below his mouth. He’s so close. Jiang Cheng could just lift a hand, slide it over that collarbone and up around the back of his neck. Pull him down. So easily.
(No. Not like this. Not while we’re drunk.)
He does reach up, but only to push his Wei Wuxian’s face away. “Your breath is fucking rank,” he says, and it’s a lie, but he can’t think of anything else to say.
Wei Wuxian snorts and lays back down. They lie there for a moment, silent against a backdrop of cicada song. Jiang Cheng can hear him breathing, the most familiar sound in the world. “We should go to bed. We don’t want to embarrass Shijie tomorrow.”
Jiang Cheng knows that. He’ll get up. In just a minute.
The robes Jiang Cheng commissioned for himself are luxurious, shades of deep purple with highlights of teal and tracings of gold, and they fit like armor. He feels secure (safe) in them, like they’ll be able to contain all the feelings roiling inside him. He wears his father’s most formal guan and has the sudden, bitter thought that Fuqin, at least, would be thrilled by the day’s events (he doesn’t let himself think about A-Niang at all).
Jiejie looks just as beautiful as he had known she would in the silks he picked out, a shade of red that strikes Jiang Cheng as hopeful, and gold in her hair, at her ears, on her fingers. She smiles at him as she hands him her comb, and the smile is so serene that any lingering doubts he had evaporate immediately. (It had kept him up some nights, wondering if she’d agreed to give up on Jin-gongzi even though she didn’t want to. Jiang Cheng has accepted his own selfishness, but he never wanted that.)
“I’m glad,” she says, “that we three will always be together,” and that’s all he needed to hear.
Her hair is finer than the silk of her robes under his fingers, and he feels like a child again. They all used to comb each others’ hair, experimenting with braids and ribbons. It feels right (steadying) to be doing this now, and she smiles when he’s done. She tugs on the front of his robes and he leans down so she can kiss his forehead, just like she used to do when he was upset as a child. Some of her serenity seems to have seeped into him.
It all dissipates when he walks into Wei Wuxian’s room.
He freezes at the door, and it takes him a humiliatingly long moment to remember how to move forward. His shixiong is wearing scarlet, a deeper shade than Jiejie’s, but complementary (Jiang Cheng picked these too, and his hands had stuttered over the silk when he imagined Wei Wuxian wearing them). Less gold in his robes, but what’s there gleams in the sunlight. His hair hangs loose over his shoulders, just a little damp. He’s fussing with the ties (he’s tied them wrong, of course he has) and he gives Jiang Cheng a sheepish smile when he notices him.
And he looks—
(No. There’s no time to have a breakdown now. The guests will be assembling soon.)
“Count on you to pick the most complicated robes in existence,” Wei Wuxian says, and the ribbing pulls Jiang Cheng back on kilter.
“A three-year-old could figure it out,” he snaps back, settling into the familiar grousing. “How did you even manage to make such a mess?”
“Someone could offer some help, if it’s so simple.”
It’s the hardest and the easiest thing in the world to step close to him, to brush his hands aside and work at the knots. (To smell the newly bathed scent of him, the oil in his hair, and underneath just Wei Wuxian. To feel the warmth radiating off him like a sun pulling Jiang Cheng into orbit.) He holds his hands steady enough to tie, somehow, and jerks the robes into place with more firmness than he would have used on Jiejie.
When he looks up, Wei Wuxian is watching him with an expression he doesn’t understand but that sets his heart thundering, and Jiang Cheng thinks Maybe. Maybe he…
But no. This is Wei Wuxian’s wedding day. (It doesn’t matter how easy it would be to close the distance between them, to sink into his warmth. It doesn’t matter.)
“I could use some help with my hair, too,” Wei Wuxian says and Jiang Cheng doesn’t think he’s imagining the edge of roughness in his voice. (Or maybe he is. Jiang Cheng’s imagination has never known any bounds, not when it comes to Wei Wuxian.)
Jiang Cheng grabs onto the rope of Wei Wuxian’s words (not his tone. There’s no room for that today) and climbs up to safety. “Of course you do, you’re always a disaster,” he says, snatching up a nearby comb.
Just like he had when they were children, Wei Wuxian stills under Jiang Cheng’s hands. He’s always liked having his hair combed, and Jiang Cheng always enjoyed doing it far more than he’d admit to anyone (holding quicksilver Wei Wuxian still and with him). It still overwhelms him and centers him at the same time, the thick hair that he wrestles into lying smooth and fine. He needs that centering to arrange the guan and the hair pins, to put everything into place. (To ready Wei Wuxian for his fucking wedding.)
When he’s done, Wei Wuxian spins around, throwing his arms out and then stopping to face Jiang Cheng. “Well? How do I look? Will I embarrass the Jiang sect?”
There are no words. And so Jiang Cheng simply says, “You’ll do,” and hopes the rasp in his voice sounds like his usual gruffness and not like what it really is.
And then it’s time.
(He’ll have the mental breakdown later.)
Something settles in his chest as he watches them, his two most beloved people (his only people, the only ones who matter), beautiful in scarlet, bowing to each other and to him and to the tablets of their parents and ancestors. (Something else claws at his ribs with howling jealousy, so he focuses on how pretty Jiejie looks and not on the way the red silk makes Wei Wuxian’s skin gleam golden and how securely he holds Jiejie’s hand.)
And then it’s done, and it’s the banquet, and Jiang Cheng has to preside and to accept congratulations and thank all the guests and not punch Jin-zongzhu’s superior face or Jin-gongzi’s relieved expression.
The banquet seems very, very long and through it all, he’s so aware of Wei Wuxian there on the other side of the room, laughing and accepting congratulations and never leaving Jiejie’s side. The one time he allows himself to look over (he been listening to Yao-zongzhu imply in a way he thought was subtle but wasn’t at all that the Jiang have really come down in the world—Jiang Cheng deserves a reward for not shooting back something about how the Yao have never risen very high despite all their hanging onto the Jin’s robes, have they?), it pierces through him like a spear: Wei Wuxian is so beautiful he can’t breathe.
(It happens like that a lot. You’d think, after all those years together, seeing his face every single day, that he would have gotten used to it by now. That the edge of it would have worn down, blunted by familiarity. But it hasn’t. If anything, it staggers him more with each passing year.)
Jiang Cheng takes a shot of the most potent alcohol he’d bought, but the bite of it, the burn, is so much less than the sight of Wei Wuxian.
Nothing’s going to change, Wei Wuxian had said. And now, at Wei Wuxian’s fucking wedding, Jiang Cheng has to admit to himself that this, at least, is never going to go away.
Despite the alcohol fog hanging over the night before, he does remember that Wei Wuxian said, Someday. Not now. Jiang Cheng believed that. (Wei Wuxian lies a lot, or at least glosses over the truth, usually to keep other people from worrying. But he doesn’t lie about things like that.) So it makes no sense that when the new couple is sent off to the bridal suite, he wants to fall to his knees and scream.
He holds it in, because of course he does, and somehow makes it through the rest of the banquet (why are these things always so long?) without embarrassing himself. When it’s finally an appropriate time for him to leave (he knows a few of the less conscientious guests will linger until dawn, but he doesn’t have to be there for that), he says the closing words without hearing them.
He desperately wants to remove his guan, but he knows there’s a possibility he might pass someone on the way to his rooms, so he ignores the ache in his head. He tells himself that the way past the bridal suite is the quickest way back to his rooms, and it’s true, but it also tastes sour, like a lie.
He knows they’re not doing anything. But what are they doing? What will it be like between them, now that they’re married? (Now that Jiang Cheng is standing on the other side of a door he imposed between himself and them?)
The door is open. Not all the way, but cracked enough to hear anyone pass, and his steps slow as he sees this. There’s a sudden scurry behind the door and then Wei Wuxian pokes his head around the jamb. “There you are! Fuck, I thought the banquet would never end.” And then he reaches out and grabs Jiang Cheng’s arm and tugs him into the room.
Jiang Cheng shoulders him as he passes (even though a surge of cool relief is flooding through him). “You thought it would never end? You didn’t have to watch Ouyang-zongzhu simper over whatever Jin-zongzhu said!”
Wei Wuxian pulls the door shut. He’s in his red underrobes, his hair in a messy ponytail (and fuck, he looks just as good as he did in the formal robes. Better maybe, because this is really him, none of that false formality he’d been forced into earlier today, all smoothed down and laced up and contained. Like Jiang Cheng’s feelings for him, Wei Wuxian can never be contained). “Did you bring us some food?”
“You were just at a banquet!”
Jiejie, sitting cross-legged on the bed, laughs. She’s changed into one of her more casual robes, her wedding silks hung carefully, her jewelry set neatly on the nearby table. Wei Wuxian’s outer robes lie in a snarl on the floor, and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes as he crosses to pick them up and smooth them out.
“Yeah, and people wouldn’t stop congratulating us long enough for us to eat any of the food! It smelled really good, though,” Wei Wuxian says wistfully.
“I can’t believe you’re thinking about your stomach right now.”
“What else am I supposed to be thinking of?” Wei Wuxian shoots back, and there’s hint of pointedness in his expression that Jiang Cheng is not going to think about.
“Boys!” Jiejie says, and when they look over at her, there’s laughter in her eyes, that fondness that’s always there when she watches them. “A-Cheng, it was a beautiful ceremony. Everything went perfectly.” And of course she gives him this gift. That’s who she is. (Oh, he needed to hear that.)
“Yeah, if you call having to spend hours wearing a thousand layers and listening to the sect leaders talk ‘perfectly,’” Wei Wuxian says, because of course he does. Jiang Cheng turns back to him, ready to snap, but then Wei Wuxian’s face goes serious. “It really was beautiful. They won’t be able to find anything to criticize.” And then, just as fast (he’s quicksilver, and how could Jiang Cheng think he could ever hold on to him?), he’s grinning, “Except for the groom, of course.”
“A-Xian!”
“And Jiang-zongzhu glowering through the whole thing.”
Had he glowered? He hadn’t thought he did, but he had tried to keep his face as expressionless as he could (he couldn’t catalog everything he was feeling, but he knew he didn’t want the whole cultivation world to see whatever it was), so yeah, he probably did look like he was glowering.
“A-Cheng looked proud and dignified,” Jiejie says, and he doesn’t know if he believes her, but he’s thankful all the same.
Wei Wuxian, of course, opens his mouth to say something smart, but is stopped short when his stomach lets out an undeniable growl. “See? See how you’ve let your shixiong starve? And on his most blessed of days? What a bad shidi you are!”
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes and turns to Jiejie. “Are you hungry, too, Jie?”
“I wouldn’t say no to some of that delicious-looking food you chose,” she says, which means she is.
“Fine. I’ll be right back.”
He could call a servant, but the last thing any of them need is gossip spreading about him being in the bridal suite. He peeks around the door to make sure there’s no one near, then hurries back to the hall. The last of the revelers are too drunk to notice him, so he fills up as many plates as he can juggle and stuffs one of the few remaining jars into his qiankun bag.
When he gets back to the room, Wei Wuxian crows and falls on the plate, picking out the best bits for Jiejie. Jiang Cheng removes his guan (finally) and his outer robes and they end up sitting on the floor, the three of them, swiping food from each other and passing the jug around and listening to Wei Wuxian’s impressions of all the different sect leaders. Jiejie’s cheeks are pink with health and her eyes are shining, and it’s like a thousand nights when they snuck into each others’ rooms to stay up late and talk.
Jiang Cheng finds himself swallowing down sudden tears of exhaustion. (No. Not exhaustion. Or not just. Relief, too. Maybe Wei Wuxian was right. Maybe nothing that really matters has to change.)
There’s a vast bed swathed in silk just behind them, but they fall asleep on the floor as dawn approaches, curling close together, just as they had as children.
Things truly do seem the same after the wedding. Fuqin and A-Niang always kept separate rooms, so no one minds that Wei Wuxian and Jiejie do the same. They settle back into their normal roles, and there’s always lots of work, but it practically feels like a holiday now that there’s no wedding planning to do. Jiang Cheng even manages to go on a few nighthunts, mostly leading the juniors, but occasionally with just Wei Wuxian. There are afternoons on the lake and dinners cooked by Jiejie (nothing like the cold or stormy ones they used to have to endure), early morning sword drills and nightswims after the disciples go to bed.
(No. Things aren’t the same as they were before the accident. Even with all the new responsibilities, the anxiety that he won’t measure up, the guilt he feels for his failure to be a filial son, life is better.)
Wei Wuxian still calls Jiejie Shijie, except for when he’s at his most high-spirited and he teases her with Niang Zi. And when he’s especially wanting to annoy Jiang Cheng, he goes on and on about my wife this and my wife that. The servants and disciples call her Jiang-furen now, but other than that, the wedding has changed nothing.
Nie Huaisang, who’d taken a fancy to Wei Wuxian, writes to him that the talk among the sects is that the young Jiang-zongzhu did his sect proud, though he hints that there’s also a lot of gossip about how the Jin broke ties with them as soon Yu-furen died. Jiang Cheng mostly doesn’t care. Let them believe that. He has Jiejie and Wei Wuxian with him, and that’s what matters.
If things stay like this forever, he thinks he’ll remember (learn) how to be really, truly happy.
(Even if there is a yearning in his heart he can’t beat down no matter how hard he tries.)
When the change does come, it comes like a lightning strike out of a clear blue sky.
The day is a bad one. One of their best disciples was seriously wounded on a nighthunt the day before—she’ll recover, but slowly, and in the meantime she’s in a lot of pain, and Jiang Cheng hates to see that (the head healer had banished him from the sickroom for hovering). Then he had to admit to himself that the last shipment of silk they owe to the Qinghe Nie is going to be delayed—he’d hoped they’d meet the deadline, but it’s clearly not going to happen (everything seems to move less smoothly than it did under his father’s leadership—everything takes more time). Jiejie’s not feeling well—not so bad that she has to stay in bed, but she’s been in her comfortable chair by the window all day, her embroidery forgotten in her lap, her cheeks pale. Their healers weren’t concerned, but Jiang Cheng always is when Jiejie has a bad day (she smiles when Wei Wuxian clowns for her, and she pats Jiang Cheng’s hand and says, Don’t let me distract you from your duties which is her way of banishing him for hovering too).
And after lunch, a courier arrives bringing the worst news of all.
It’s a reply from Jin-zongzhu to the packet Jiang Cheng had sent last month with the Jiang sect’s official suggestions of topics of discussion for the next cultivation conference. He and Wei Wuxian and Jiejie had gone over and over the list, debating all sides of each point to ensure that his arguments were sound, reading back through records of past cultivation conferences to learn what kinds of topics were discussed previously, laboring over the phrasing of every sentence. When they finally declared it complete, he had sent it off with anxious pride, feeling more confident in the work than anything else he’s done in the sight of the cultivation world so far (except for the wedding. He is damn good at planning weddings, if he does say so himself. It’s almost a shame that there aren’t any more for him to plan).
He’s been jittery, waiting for it, but a good kind of jittery. He knew his work was strong, as good as anything his father had ever submitted. So it takes him out at the knees when he reads the letter and finds that Jin-zongzhu has rejected almost all of it.
Wei Wuxian finds him again in the boat house. Rain is drumming on the roof, and the gentle rocking of his mother’s barge isn’t working its usual magic on his nerves.
“Let me see it,” Wei Wuxian says, stomping down the steps onto the barge to where Jiang Cheng is lying on the bench seat with his arm thrown over his eyes. He doesn’t stir even when Wei Wuxian kicks the bottom of the bench.
“Fuck off.”
“No. Let me see it.”
Jiang Cheng still doesn’t move, so Wei Wuxian just rips the packet out of his hand.
“What a fucking asshole,” Wei Wuxian says after a moment’s silence. “He didn’t even pretend to consider anything you actually said.”
“Because it sucked.”
“That’s fucking bullshit and you know it. Jin-zongzhu didn’t reject your proposals because they weren’t good enough, he rejected them because he’s a puffed-up blowhard who likes to throw his weight around. Whenever he sees someone who looks even slightly vulnerable, he pounces on them to prove his own power. Besides, he’s still probably pissed at you about Shijie.”
That last makes Jiang Cheng remove his arm and look up, blinking. Pissed? “But everyone knows he never wanted the marriage in the first place. He only did it because it was a way to assuage his wife.”
“Well, yeah, but he sure as hell was offended by us being the ones to call the whole thing off.” When Jiang Cheng just stares at him, Wei Wuxian sighs. “Think about it, A-Cheng. You picked me for your sister instead of his solid-gold son. How could he not be insulted by that?”
He’s right. And Jiang Cheng hadn’t even thought of that. He’d just thought of how relieved Jin-zongzhu and Jin-gongzi would be. (He just thought of how he needed her to stay.)
Something smacks into his forehead and Jiang Cheng shoots upright to see Wei Wuxian brandishing the packet.
“Hey! What the fuck?” It didn’t hurt, but it’s the principle of the thing.
“Don’t start with that!” Wei Wuxian throws the packet to the floor, frustration crackling through him. “You were drowning in grief and new responsibilities, Jiang Cheng! So you missed one angle of one situation. So what? It turned out fine. You wouldn’t have changed your mind if you had thought of it!”
“But I should have thought of it!” It’s my job, my responsibility.
“You can’t think of everything!”
“I have to!”
“No you don’t! I’m right here!”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I thought of it, but I didn’t bring it up because I knew you were right!”
Jiang Cheng lets out a scoffing half-laugh. “Of course you thought of it.”
“Fucking hell, Jiang Cheng, are you really going to do that now? Yeah, okay, I thought of something you didn’t. That’s my job. That’s what I am for you!” Wei Wuxian’s eyes flash as he yells, his voice bouncing strangely around the half-enclosed space. “No one can think of everything all the time, so I’ve got your back! And, yeah, this time I was the one who thought about the Jin being pissed, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t care! Because I was so fucking glad you made the decision you did! Because it was worth offending him if it means we get to keep Shijie with us! You made the right call, so of course I wasn’t going to bring up some totally irrelevant consideration!”
“Well, you should have!”
“No, I fucking shouldn’t have! I’m not going to be that kind of right hand! I’m not going to make you doubt yourself more!”
Of course. Of course there’s some part of Jiang Cheng that has to be handled. Of course his own securities are tripping him up again. He’s never going to be able to do this, to be the kind of leader he needs to be. He’s never going to—
Wei Wuxian grabs him by his shoulders and shakes him, hard.
“What the fuck?” Jiang Cheng yells at him again, his sudden, shocked anger driving away the tears that had been rising.
“Don’t do that! I’m not going to let you do that!”
“What?”
“That—” Wei Wuxian makes an unreadable gesture. “That tearing yourself down, inside your own head. I’m not going to let you do it anymore!”
“You can’t stop me!” Jiang Cheng yells back. “I’m never going to be good enough, so you should just be sect leader instead!” It’s what Fuqin really wanted. It’s what A-Niang always feared. I handed you a claim, however tenuous. Inevitable, really.
“I don’t fucking want it! I don’t want to be sect leader! I wouldn’t do better than you would, I don’t care what you or anyone else says! I don’t have your weaknesses, no, but fucking hell, Jiang Cheng, you don’t have mine! Mine are just as bad as yours, just in different ways. You know how my mouth is—if I was the one in charge, I’d probably have every sect declaring war on us within months because I couldn’t stop myself from saying something I shouldn’t say!”
Jiang Cheng tries to pull away, but Wei Wuxian holds on, shakes him again. “Hey! Listen to me! I’m sick of this! I’m sick of watching you kill yourself with guilt and exhaustion and insecurities! I thought you were going to break during the wedding planning! Why can’t you just let me help you with these things?”
“Because I have to do it!”
“Why? Because of your fucking parents? Because they made you feel like you couldn’t?” Jiang Cheng tries to pull away again, but now Wei Wuxian grabs his head between his hands and there’s nothing in the world but the blaze in Wei Wuxian’s eyes. “You can, Jiang Cheng. Jiejie and I don’t doubt that for a minute. If you can’t believe in yourself, can’t you at least believe in us?”
“No!” There’s nothing in the world but Wei Wuxian’s hands, strong and sword-calloused, against Jiang Cheng’s skin.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not good enough! I was never good enough for Fuqin and A-Niang, and I’m not good enough for you!”
Silence descends, and after the way they’ve been roaring each at each other, it feels heavy, oppressive. Wei Wuxian’s thumbs are still pressed against Jiang Cheng’s cheekbones, but his eyes now just look confused. “What the fuck does that even mean, Jiang Cheng? What the fuck did I do to make you think that?”
(It’s what you haven’t done. It’s what you won’t give me, what I want so badly that sometimes I think I’m made up of nothing but longing wrapped in a too-thin layer of skin.)
“Nothing,” Jiang Cheng rasps, voice raw. “Just…forget it.” Once again he tries to pull away, and once again Wei Wuxian doesn’t let him. Instead, he pulls Jiang Cheng in until their foreheads are pressed together.
Jiang Cheng can’t help it, overwhelmed by the closeness, the warmth of Wei Wuxian’s breath on his lips. He closes his eyes.
“Ah, fuck, A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says, so quiet, and now his voice is as raw as Jiang Cheng’s. “Is that what you really think?”
And then—
And then.
(Lightning strikes.)
Jiang Cheng has never been kissed, but he’s fantasized about Wei Wuxian’s mouth for so long that for a moment he can’t believe this is actually happening. A half heartbeat later, sensation slams into him and it’s undeniable. That’s Wei Wuxian’s mouth, hungry on his. Those are Wei Wuxian’s hands, one still cradling Jiang Cheng’s face, the other sliding, not gentle, into his hair. That’s Wei Wuxian’s body, pressing so insistently into his that it’s like Wei Wuxian has that same murky fantasy about merging together.
And that’s Wei Wuxian’s tongue, asking a question that could only ever have one answer.
Yes.
(Yes.)
They’re both panting harder than after any sword practice when they pull back. Wei Wuxian’s hand flexes in his hair, and Jiang Cheng feels like every cell in his body has been rearranged.
“You—?” He can’t get the words out.
“Yes,” Wei Wuxian says, like a vow.
“Then why the fuck did you make me wait so long?” (The words come out almost on a whine, and later he’ll hate himself for that, but right now, there’s no space for anything but Wei Wuxian.)
Wei Wuxian laughs, giddy and rueful all at once. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to distract you. You had so much on your plate, I didn’t want to force you to figure out a way to smack me down if the answer was no.”
Jiang Cheng’s laugh is short and sharp and incredulous (he’s still breathless). “You really thought there was any fucking chance of that?” Fucking hell, he knows he’s been obvious, as hard as he fought not to be. (It’s always been too big for him to contain, this thing he feels for Wei Wuxian. A thin layer of skin and all those layers of fine robes, trying to hold it in.)
“You’re really good at talking yourself into and out of things because you think it’s your responsibility.”
Jiang Cheng wants to argue with that, but he can’t. He came so close to letting Shijie leave, closer than he’s let himself understand until this moment. Every time he heard his mother’s voice in his head calling him selfish….
“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says, though Jiang Cheng hasn’t said anything. “I did think there was a chance you’d turn yourself into a martyr about it.”
“You’re one to talk!”
“You’re really fucking annoying, you know that?” Wei Wuxian shoots back, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t have time to reply because he’s being shoved up against a post, Wei Wuxian’s fingers winding in his hair, Wei Wuxian’s mouth devouring his. Jiang Cheng pushes back with everything he has, fingers digging into Wei Wuxian’s hips. (It’s always been like this between them: push and pull. Jiang Cheng has always known it would be like this.)
He isn’t sure which of them turns the kisses slower, deeper. Achingly intense. Jiang Cheng has never felt anything as secure as Wei Wuxian’s hand on the back of his neck. (If everything, everything he is weren’t focused on kissing Wei Wuxian, he would weep. Finally.)
When they surface this time, it takes long, gasping breaths before Jiang Cheng’s mind focuses. He doesn’t like where it settles. “You’re married.”
Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes. “Shijie knows.”
“You talked about it?”
“Some of us actually talk about what we’re feeling,” Wei Wuxian says, breathtakingly hypocritical.
“And you said what? That you’d rather get in my pants than under her skirt?”
The look Wei Wuxian gives him is irritated and judgmental and fond all at once. “No, dumbass. I told her it was always you for me and that marrying her wouldn’t change that, and if she couldn’t deal with that, then she should go to Koi Tower because I wasn’t going to lie to her.”
“Oh.” Fuck. Jiang Cheng is going to be thinking about that for the rest of his life. Then: “You said that to Jiejie?”
Another eye roll. “So fucking annoying.”
“Not as annoying as you!”
The words are so familiar, exchanged a thousand times, but there’s something entirely new about them when they’re followed by other ways of using their mouths to argue. The way they push into each other isn’t all that different from the roughhousing they’ve always done, only this time they’re pushing towards the same thing, together, and when Jiang Cheng gets hard, he doesn’t have to pull away and run off before Wei Wuxian finds out.
Wei Wuxian pushes him down onto the bench, climbing on top of him and this, this is what Jiang Cheng has always wanted.
No. This is what Jiang Cheng always wanted:
Wei Wuxian, pulling back, staring down into his eyes and saying through swollen lips, “I’m yours, okay? I’ve always been yours. And not because of your parents or what I owe them. Because I am. So let me in.”
And Jiang Cheng, shimmering with a thousand stars singing his blood, says, “Yes.”