#happy birthday haoppopotamus

[needtherapy]

the road in leaves no step had trodden black

“You don’t smile much anymore. You used to smile more.”

“Not much to smile about these days, is there?”

Jiang Cheng gets a little therapy session from Wen Ning, learns to plant potatoes, and decides he's not giving up on something he wants. 

Read more Kristina Writes Tiny Stories or Skadiseven Stories on AO3

The title is from Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and the story was written for Jiang Cheng’s birthday and, more importantly, @wangxianbunnydoodles​‘s birthday!

Jiang Cheng wonders if it’s irony that a dead man is so intent on digging in the dirt, hoping to bring forth new life, or just a strange coincidence. He can never remember the difference.

Irony, he decides, as the dead man carefully buries a row of eyes, one per mound, evenly spaced in neat rows. He wonders if this will even work, if life can come from death, if...

“Jiang-zongzhu, can I help you?”

The gentle voice startles Jiang Cheng from his morbid thoughts. In all the times he’s visited Burial Mounds, Wen Ning has never spoken to him. He supposes that’s his own fault. When has he ever invited conversation? Or, if he’s more honest, when hasn’t he discouraged it?

“Or...would you like to help me? Have you ever planted potatoes?”

No, Jiang Cheng thinks, he has never planted potatoes, and he’s not exactly enthusiastic to try right now, but Wen Ning is handing him a circle of potato with a small sprout, and he takes it without thinking.

“You put it in the ground about this deep, eye facing the sky,” Wen Ning shows him with a little chuckle. “And then you bury it under the dirt, but you have to make a little mound and pat it down.”

It would be rude not to plant the potato he’s holding, and when it’s safely underground, ready to do whatever it is potatoes do, Jiang Cheng looks at his fingernails. He’s a man of the water, and his fingernails are never dirty. But he doesn’t have time to think about it, because Wen Ning is beaming at him and holding out another piece of potato. Much to his consternation, Wen Ning has proven to have all the menace of a kitten and all the enthusiasm of a puppy, and it’s impossible not to smile back. Maybe he doesn’t do it right, though, because Wen Ning’s eyebrows draw together, and he looks concerned.

He doesn’t say anything, just gestures to Jiang Cheng with the potato-eye piece.

Well, what the hell, he may as well, Jiang Cheng thinks. He’s already dirty just being here. He kneels down and follows Wen Ning's directions, taking the second piece of potato and the third without saying anything at all.

He plants six more tiny eyes in tiny sockets of mud before Wen Ning says anything else.

“You don’t smile much anymore. You used to smile more.”

“Not much to smile about these days, is there?”

Wen Ning’s mouth flicks sideways sadly. “No. Not much.”

Jiang Cheng remembers that he’s talking to a man who has recently been deceased, exiled, hunted, and also lost nearly his entire family, so perhaps he knows something of sorrow. Jiang Cheng doesn’t feel guilty, not exactly, but he does feel...something. Something niggling and uncomfortable.

“But there are some things, aren’t there?” Wen Ning goes on, and Jiang Cheng stares at him as a smile turns up the corners of Wen Ning’s mouth. “I have my sister and you have yours. We both have a great friend—kind of like a brother—in Wei-gongzi. I have family to care for and you have a nephew on the way. Someone saved my life, in a way, and someone saved yours.”

Jiang Cheng laughs, despite himself. “Wen-gongzi, is that a joke? Yes, yes, you’re right, my thanks is long overdue. Thank you for saving my life.”

He makes an approximation of a deep bow, even though he is still kneeling in a potato patch. It comes out more like giving obeisance, which is, possibly, more appropriate anyway.

Wen Ning bobs his head, still smiling. “I’m glad you’ve used it well, Jiang-zongzhu.”

Has he? He’s helped his own sect recover, and he’s told himself that nothing else matters, but the truth is, he doesn’t want to help anyone else right now. It never works, and no one else even needs him, so why bother? Yanli managed to get herself married without his help. Wei Wuxian is determined to do whatever this is without his help. He’s been supportive! Sort of. But...maybe...maybe he hasn’t been a great brother. Fine, especially not to Wei Wuxian. Sure, he comes to visit this vile place sometimes, but he doesn’t know why. It’s stupid. He repudiated Wei Wuxian publicly; it’s dangerous to keep visiting. And he hates it, every inch of it, not because it’s ugly—which it is—but because Wei Wuxian chose it. He doesn’t understand why Wei Wuxian stays, why any of them stay, why Wen Qi…

“Why are you here?”

The question bursts out in an angry snap and Wen Ning looks puzzled.

“I’m planting potatoes. Wei-gongzi likes them better than turnips.”

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “I mean, why are you here? Here in Burial Mounds? Why did he save you? Why is it more important...”

He breaks off and looks away, angrily jabbing potato pieces into the ground until he realizes he’s doing it wrong, and Wen Ning is following his progress, adjusting the pieces and reburying them. Jiang Cheng slows down. It occurs to him that maybe they can’t afford to waste even a single piece. Gods, he can be an asshole sometimes.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and Wen Ning stops, rests his dirty hands on his knees and looks at Jiang Cheng with that wide-eyed innocent look he’s always had. In other people, it would make Jiang Cheng suspicious, but in Wen Ning, he thinks it’s exactly what it looks like. Even with the darker-than-they-should-be eyes, the whiter-than-it-should-be skin and the creepier-than-necessary black veins, Wen Ning still strikes Jiang Cheng as somehow unsullied by the world, as though the burdens the world has handed him were tokens he could accept and carry without breaking.

“When I was a boy, I trusted my sister. More than anyone. More than my parents. You know, it’s because she never lies, and parents do lie. Not to be mean or anything, just...because they’re adults, so they don’t think it counts. But a-jie never lies.”

“Ha!” Jiang Cheng huffs. “My brother lies all the time. I usually don’t even know why. He could just tell the truth.”

Wen Ning tips his head, a preternaturally agile tilt. “A-jie did lie to me, though. She said she would always protect me, and look what happened. She said she would take care of me, and we live in a graveyard. She said everything would be okay, and...it isn’t. I probably shouldn’t trust her anymore.”

“That’s not fair! Things happened. You know they did!”

Jiang Cheng is incensed. Maybe he’s not...maybe he doesn’t… He snorts irritably, collecting his thoughts. Maybe there’s nothing between them, but he knows Wen-guniang is honorable, and she has done everything to save her people, even to share their fate. She didn’t have to, but it was the right thing to do, and she chose it knowing she had other options, selfish options, as he is well aware. Whatever she’s done, it’s always been to protect the people she loves, even if it didn’t always seem like it at the time. If she lied to her brother, it was to save him, over and over again. She always had a reason! How could Wen Ning say he doesn’t trust her?

...oh.

His head whips around to glare at Wen Ning, but Wen Ning just smiles at him, that sweet, guileless smile, and goes back to planting potatoes. Jiang Cheng takes a handful with a huff, and they work in silence for a little longer.

“A-Cheng! What are you doing here?”

Wei Wuxian’s sunniest, happiest voice makes Jiang Cheng smile instinctively, and he doesn’t wipe it from his face like he usually does these days.

“Saving your life, apparently. I heard you were going to be forced to eat turnips,” Jiang Cheng whispers the word in mock horror, and immensely enjoys the surprise, suspicion, delight, and hope that cycle over his brother’s face in rapid succession.

“Oh? Uh...thank you.”

Wei Wuxian smiles tentatively at him, and rather than focusing on the fact that usually, these days, Wei Wuxian’s smiles are tight and wary, and that usually, these days, they fight with more rancor than teasing, and that usually, these days, Jiang Cheng never touches him if he can help it, Jiang Cheng pulls Wei Wuxian into a hug, a real hug, fitting together they way they always have, and he doesn’t let go until Wei Wuxian hugs him back. He’s too thin, Jiang Cheng thinks. Next time he visits, he’ll bring soup.

“A-Ning, what...what the hell is going on?” Wen Qing whispers to her brother, watching Wei Wuxian and his brother laugh and cry and hug like they’ve never seen each other before, and Wen Ning shrugs.

“A-jie, how could I know? We were just planting potatoes. Jiang-zongzhu must really like potatoes.”

Wen Qing looks suspiciously at her brother, but Wen Ning just smiles at her, that sweet, guileless smile everyone else thinks is innocent but which Wen Qing knows is always, always a precursor to Wen Ning getting his way. He trots away, probably off to find a-Yuan, and she sighs. Whatever it is this time, she hopes it doesn’t disrupt the planting schedule. They have mouths to feed.

She glances back at Jiang Ch...Jiang-zongzhu—you don't get to call him Jiang Cheng anymore, a mean voice reminds her—and to her surprise, he meets her eyes over Wei Wuxian’s back, a smile she’s never seen on his lips. It looks like...determination. Her stomach flops alarmingly, a betrayal of all her good sense. No, she thinks. That smile? That smile looks like the future calling, and it’s absolutely terrifying.

“A-Ning, get back here immediately!” she yells, heading in the direction he ran away. “What did you say?”