#i say while smacking my own hypercritical tendencies over the head with a folding chair

[curiosity-killed]

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

part 1 | part 2 |  part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12 | part 13 | part 14 | part 15 | part 16 | part 17 | part 18

The office still looks the same. In the space between blinks or in looking up from the desk, he keeps expecting to see Uncle Jiang behind the desk instead of Jiang Cheng. The dissonance leaves him a little unsteady, like he has to blink away the afterimage to see the present. He doesn’t mention it. No sense troubling shijie and Jiang Cheng with it. It’s not the only ghost lingering in his periphery anyway. “Yu Bujue can take over the upper level cultivation lessons,” Jiang Cheng says, “and Cao Xingtao is strong enough to take over the sword lessons.” He hates this, this calm delineation of his own weaknesses. These have been his duties since he was fifteen, since he passed half their own teachers and stepped fully into his role as Head Disciple. He’s supposed to be the one training their disciples, running them through their paces and building them back up stronger. He hunches a little into his shoulders, fiddling with Chenqing’s tassel. He doesn’t have room to object, he knows. He’s the one who told them how useless he was. They’re only doing what’s right, taking care of Yunmeng Jiang.

“Rumors are going to start if your da-shixiong is passing off all his work,” he points out.

This is why it would be easier if he just left. If he passed out of Lotus Pier in the night, he could just disappear into the shadows, let the resentment dissolve him into ash. Everyone the world around knows how inconsistent and capricious he is now. Sure, there’d be plenty to say about his own character, but at least it wouldn’t come back on Lotus Pier. At least they wouldn’t have to deal with his own shortcomings. “You said you had some ideas about defensive arrays,” Jiang Cheng says. “Defense is a higher priority than teaching a couple lessons.” Wei Wuxian stills, studying his brother. He can’t seriously be suggesting Wei Wuxian use demonic cultivation here in his own home. It was one thing during the war; Jiang Cheng has always been pragmatic, strategic in his own way. They were fighting a war and Wei Wuxian was a weapon, no matter how unsightly or unorthodox. No one looked too hard at the blood on a blade as long as it was pointed in the right direction. “You’d have demonic cultivation in Lotus Pier?” he asks carefully. Jiang Cheng catches his eye and shrugs, uncomfortable, as he looks away. “The old defenses weren’t strong enough. I promised I’d never let anyone take Lotus Pier again. So,” he says. He clears his throat. “Anyway, if our Head Disciple is the grandmaster of a whole cultivation path, it’d be dumb not to use it.” Something warm and unfamiliar uncurls in Wei Wuxian’s chest, more comforting than any embrace. He swallows and gives a short nod instead of saying any of the ridiculous things that press against the back of his throat. “Don’t do any dumb shit, I mean,” Jiang Cheng adds brusquely, “and tell me what you’re doing so it doesn’t backfire and kick your ass.” He laughs, and shakes his head. He’s had his ass thoroughly kicked by resentful energy, and he knows it would flatten Jiang Cheng if it wanted to. Still, he’s — touched by the trust. “Alright,” he agrees. “You could also teach some of the classes that don’t require as much spiritual energy,” shijie says. “The early classes on meditation and the talisman courses. It might help with rumors, and it could help stabilize your qi as well.” She sits primly on the third side of the desk, hands folded neatly in her lap and expression solemn. He forgets, some times, that she was there for all the war too. It’s easy to do when the marks of violence are so much starker on Jiang Cheng and the rest of them. He’s grown used to seeing his brother steeped in blood, grown familiar with the cold flat look in his eyes when he kills someone. Shijie isn’t half so obvious. She still smiles for them, still mothers them with that soft love she’s wielded for nearly as long as he remembers. Her scars are subtler, tucked in the tight frown she wears now as she contemplates their next steps and the quiet tears he’s caught her shedding a few times when she doesn’t realize he’s passing by. He and Jiang Cheng were out killing men on the frontline, but she followed in their aftermath, trying to hold together the wounded and dying. He wrinkles his nose, releasing Chenqing. Across the desk, Jiang Cheng’s expression is equally doubtful. “Meditation?” he says. “Shijie, I got kicked out of our meditation classes more than anyone in the history of Yunmeng Jiang.” A smile quirks at the corners of her lips, but the look she turns to him isn’t the fond exasperation he expects. There’s something knowing, something tinged with sadness, instead. “You meditated during the war,” she points out gently. This time, he’s the one to look away. He’s been trying to keep everything tucked away since he came back. It’s one thing for them to know he doesn’t have a golden core anymore, but he will not tell them about the Burial Mounds, about the resentful energy still spooled in the marrow of his bones. It lies quiescent and idle as long as his own emotions aren’t drawing on it, and he can stop that either through white-knuckled control or through the hazy buffer of liquor. He couldn’t afford to loosen his grip during the war, so he’d meditated to fine tune and strengthen his grip. Now, though — now he doesn’t want to have control over it. He doesn’t want to have to spend his every hour painfully conscious of the resentment that moves through him, alive and vicious and waiting. “Alright,” he agrees reluctantly. “Fine.” There’s a small quiet after his concession before shijie reaches out and gives his wrist a squeeze. He glances up to see her offering him a softer smile, reassurance. Releasing his wrist, she turns back to the papers laid out on Jiang Cheng’s desk. “Outside of Lotus Pier, there are still challenges from the other sects,” she points out. “Jin Guangshan’s frothing at the mouth to get that amulet,” Jiang Cheng agrees. Immediately, Wei Wuxian’s hackles rise, hand tightening around Chenqing’s neck. “He can’t have it,” he says flatly. “I’ll destroy it before he can touch it.” He doesn’t know how to explain the amulet to them. It and Chenqing were made of the yin iron sword just the same, but they’re wholly different beasts. Chenqing is his. She hums under his skin, a needling purr, hungry and ready at his call. The amulet is…different. Other. It’s more the sword than anything else and it still retains that presence. He can wield it, use it, but it’s borrowed power. It remembers what it was like to unmake him, and its teeth trace lovingly against the tender skin of his neck. It remembers their promise, their bargain. It waits. “Of course,” Jiang Cheng says, waving off his answer like it was obvious from the start. “But the fact remains the Jin Sect came out of the war nearly unscathed. They’re strong enough to take us down with one hand behind their back. And it’s not like you made a lot of friends in the war who’ll stand up to stop them.” Wei Wuxian purses his lips, annoyed that Jiang Cheng isn’t wrong. “We need alliances,” shijie says. Jiang Cheng sighs, presses a thumb into the ridge of his eye socket like he’s warding off a headache. Wei Wuxian sympathizes. He’d rather fight another legion of cultivators than wade through the tangled net of politics. “Lanling Jin’s already wrapped everything so well around them with Gusu Lan and Qinghe Nie,” Jiang Cheng says. “We should’ve petitioned for Wei Wuxian to be granted sworn brotherhood, too, I guess.” “Me?” Wei Wuxian asks, startled. “But you’re the sect leader, it would’ve made more sense for you.” The look Jiang Cheng shoots him is scathing. “Who took Nightless City?” he snaps back. “We weren’t winning the war till you came. Three months of skirmishes didn’t give us much in the way of victory.” He subsides at that, feeling strangely chastised by the praise. Shijie frowns, her lips pressing together in thought. “It won’t hold the political strength of a sworn allegiance,” she says, “but you were both close with Nie Huaisang before the war. Chifeng-zun has always cared deeply for him. Perhaps you could rekindle that friendship. He could visit Lotus Pier for a time.” Sourness rolls unsteady deep in stomach at the mention of Huaisang. The three of them spent childhood summers together, towed back and forth between Qinghe and Yunmeng depending on the year. He remembers dunking Jiang Cheng under the lake water and Huaisang squealing when they teamed up to drag him into the water. He remembers laying on his belly, feet waving in the air, beside Huaisang as they painted mountains and clouds and each other. He can’t remember the last time he lifted a brush to paint anything but talismans, to create anything but ruin. The last time he saw Huaisang, he’d flinched away, shuddered up a fearful barrier between him and his old childhood friend. Guilt is an uneasy squeeze under his ribs. “And a-Xian,” shijie says, turning to him, “you should talk to Lan Wangji.” He balks, recoiling. “Lan Zhan?” he demands. “What— why?” He hasn’t spoken to Lan Zhan since the war, since the fall of Nightless City. There’s no point to it anymore, he thinks and stubbornly ignores the way his heart twists. Shijie looks at him with endless patience. “I thought you two were close friends and confidants,” she says and doesn’t give him a chance to protest. “He was dedicated in helping you during the war.” “To exorcise the evil out me,” he scoffs, looking away. “So I should tell him everything so that the great Hanguang-jun can come save this feeble man from my own wickedness?” Bitterness scrapes across his tongue, sour speckling his throat. He once thought Lan Zhan was his equal, his match. Now, he thinks of his scowl, his voice coming hard and reproachful and all the times he said that he was committing evil, practicing wicked tricks that would leave him burnt and ruined.    Telling him he has no core, that he is broken in a way no song of healing or clarity can remedy— No. Wei Wuxian knows he wouldn’t be able to stop there. If he let Lan Zhan close enough to tell him that, it would all spill out of him, all this bad blood clotted up in his heart. He would drain himself dry, and there would be nothing left when Lan Zhan inevitably recoiled, horrified and disgusted, and turned his back. He won’t do it. He can’t. He’s too selfish. He can’t have Lan Zhan’s friendship the way he once did, but he’s not strong enough to end it for Lan Zhan, to provide him this easy justification for walking away. He can’t bear to see those dark eyes wide with pity, not for him. He’d rather be hated than pitied. Rather bite back than open up his tender underbelly.