Chapter Text
There is a slightly pitiful balloon shaped like a dog tied to a chair at Jiang Cheng’s kitchen table, the breeze, which is weak for February, trying to tug it out of the bay window that Jiang Yanli has just opened.
Underneath the balloon is a basket of petunias, a plate of lotus buns, and a neat pile of the cards he had accumulated in the time he’d been in hospital. There are more than he would expect, though he had set his expectations at one, maybe two.
“We didn’t think you’d want us to make a scene,” Jiang Yanli says anxiously. “It just looks a bit sad now.”
“It’s lovely, jie,” he tells her, and she makes that face again like she’s scared if she blinks he’ll vanish like smoke. “I’m just tired.”
“Okay!” Her voice is a little too bright, and her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Like I said, if you need anything-”
He stops listening to her, letting his attention drift to the room around him with her voice a pleasant background hum. He doesn’t remember this place at all, though he remembers he had been thinking about moving. That was sixteen years ago now. This unfamiliar place should feel as much like home to him as his sister does, but he’s not even sure where the bathroom is.
It’s a nice apartment. There are photos and letters and reminders (ironic) pinned to his fridge with little dog-shaped magnets, blankets on the back of the sofa, and a TV larger than the tiny box he remembers watching animal rescue shows on every afternoon.
There is also a bright yellow hoodie far too small for him slung over the back of a chair, which his sister had immediately picked up and said she would return to Jin Ling. Jiang Cheng has seen photos of his nephew- many, in fact, it seems like the old Jiang Cheng had, in a moment of rare prophecy, taken photos like he was going to forget who the kid was- but has no real concept of him as a person. He had only been in hospital for a little over a week, so he can’t exactly fault him, but the fact that his nephew has yet to make himself known doesn’t seem to bode as well for their relationship as the virtual shrine to the kid.
“A-Cheng?” His sister’s voice comes back to him then like the sun through clouds, so gentle it nearly brings tears to his eyes. “A-Cheng, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, shaking himself out of his reverie. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“Don’t apologise,” she hurries to say. “I know you’re having a hard time focusing, the doctor said it’s fairly common and-”
She stops rambling at the overwhelmed look on his face and places a hand on his cheek, her eyes suddenly soft and sad again.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she tells him. “A-Cheng, when I got that call from the hospital…”
“I know,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.”
He remembers her red eyes and pale face when he first woke up, Wei Wuxian’s slight tan because he’d flown all the way back from some vacation masquerading as a work outing when he’d heard the news, the way Huaisang had burst into tears just at the sight of him, not his usual dramatic wailing when he wanted something, but a quiet heartache that he couldn’t seem to contain.
Maybe it’s the sixteen extra years starting to show in their faces, but he could swear that the sight of him is hurting them.
“I’ll leave you to rest,” she says. “Remember you can call me for anything, and Nie Huaisang only lives a few minutes away so if you need help with something, or just some company? And-”
There’s a large thud from the other side of the small flat, and Jiang Cheng nearly jumps out of his skin, feeling those tears of frustration behind his eyes again. It feels like his head will never go back to normal.
The thud is followed seconds later by a heavy ball of fur that is warmer and more real than anything he’s encountered since he woke up.
“This is Princess,” Yanli says delightedly, putting her hands in the thick fur of the huge dog in the doorway. “She’s a husky, she’s five, and she’s legally registered as an emotional support animal, so you can bring her anywhere with you. When we realised you didn’t remember her, we thought she could be a surprise.”
“I have a dog,” he says softly, and buries his face in her fur. She puts a heavy paw on his knee, but doesn’t move away, and some of the fog in his head seems to lift. “Hi, puppy.”
His sister smiles at him, her expression less worried, probably because this is the first genuine smile she’s got out of him.
“I don’t know how to look after her,” he says, scratching her ears. “I don’t remember any of it.”
“That’s okay,” Yanli says, clearly sensing the slight panic growing in his voice. “You keep a very meticulous list for when someone else is dog-sitting. We left it on your kitchen counter. You’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” Jiang Cheng says vaguely. His attention is drifting again. It’s like she’s speaking to him through a thick layer of fog.
“Good.” His sister kneels down in front of Princess and holds her furry face in her hands. “You look after him, okay, Princess? Don’t forget he buys all your food.”
Her tail thumps against the floor, and she ruffles her ears.
“Good girl,” she says. "I have to pick up A-Ling now."
She kisses Jiang Cheng’s cheek, gently squeezes his uninjured shoulder, and leaves him.
He doesn’t take it personally. She’s taken too much time off work already for him, gone out of her way to be at his side at every moment when Wei Wuxian is keeping a strange distance and taking half their group with him.
Things have changed around him, irreversibly so, but his sister’s love (and her soup recipe) will never.
He finds her cookbook in the kitchen, propped up like a showpiece on the counter, and her face smiling at him from the cover is almost as comforting as the real thing. He’s briefly intensely, irrationally, terrified that her soup recipe will be in there, that it won’t be their thing anymore, but a scan of the contents confirms she’s kept at least one thing sacred.
Princess pads after him as he slowly makes his way to the bathroom, a surprisingly large affair with a well-polished bathtub and a shower with more buttons than he knows what to do with, but his attention is taken by his reflection in the large mirror over the sink.
It’s like looking at a different person. The injuries to his face are minor and healing, just a yellowing bruise around his eye, a thin cut across his nose, and an ugly purple bruise on his cheekbone. At least it’s in his colour, though he can’t fault Nie Huaisang for crying. He looks awful.
It’s not the injuries that are catching his attention though. It’s how thin he is, how pale his face looks. His hair has long since grown out of the sharp cut he’s used to, and now it hangs loosely around his shoulders, dull and thin.
Some part of him, Jiang Cheng concludes, was dying long before the accident. He just doesn’t know why.
After splashing some cold water on his face, he goes to bed in an unfamiliar room. It’s not particularly homely, with not much that reminds him of himself beyond purple covers and a lotus print framed on the wall, but it’s leagues ahead of a hospital bed or the ratty cot in his old apartment.
Now that he has his phone back, force of habit has him scrolling through old texts, searching for something that will tell him who he is. He’s never been able to sleep without spending hours mindlessly flipping through apps, and it seems like this isn’t a habit he’s broken in the years he’s missing.
Before he can get to that, there are dozens he never read.
[ From: Huaisang]
2:43am
hey could you please let me know when you’re home safe
you left your hoodie you can come pick it up tomorrow if you want
how slow are you driving
jiang cheng there are no kids in your car you do not have to go at snail speed
call me
4:59am
please be okay
[From: A-Ling :)]
3:06am
sorry for yelling
i didn’t mean it
i can’t sleep
mom’s worried about you
5:18am
we’re on our way to the hospital now
please don’t make fun of me if you see these before i get there
[From: Wei Wuxian]
6:37am
i love you so much i’m sorry for everything just please don’t die
fuck you probably deleted my number
It’s the last one that pierces through the fog in his brain and makes him actually think. The last thing he remembers about Wei Wuxian before the accident is an old memory now, but it feels just days old. His brother, laughing so hard his cheeks were pink and there were tears in his eyes, just because Jiang Cheng had lost a bet that he would never speak to Lan Wangji.
Wei Wuxian is married to him now, and these texts don’t look like a matter of a lost bet. No one has told him they’d been fighting in the storm of information thrown at him these last few days, but the fact that Wei Wuxian thinks he must have deleted his number is sobering. Wei Wuxian has never been concerned about their fights once in his life. He laughs every time Jiang Cheng gets wound up. If he genuinely believes he’s done wrong, their relationship must be in pieces, because he’s always the first to tell Jiang Cheng to settle down, that it’s nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Still, his number is still here, saved to Jiang Cheng’s phone with a backlog of thousands of texts, so there must be something left there. Enough to bring Wei Wuxian across the country to his bedside as he clung to life.
There’s a headache unfurling in the back of his skull like a lotus, sharp edges poking into the soft tissue and the bone. He can’t think straight when he’s like this anymore, and he doesn’t want his siblings because they’re lying to him about this, and if even Wei Wuxian isn’t a guarantee anymore, he has no idea what’s a lie. There’s nothing for him here but the release of sleep.
When he drifts into a thick sleep, Princess curled up on his legs at the end of the bed, he dreams of nothing at all.
November 5th, 2029 (100 days before the accident)
“I’m not going home,” Jin Ling says, his skinny arms folded over his chest.
“Yes, you are,” Jiang Cheng says tiredly, taking his plate from him. “Your parents are worried sick.”
“It’s a fucking miracle they noticed I wasn’t home,” Jin Ling snaps.
“Hey! Language.”
“I get that from you,” his nephew points out, picking something out from between his teeth. “You’re such a hypocrite.”
“And you have no respect for your elders,” Jiang Cheng grumbles. “A-Ling, you can’t just stay here.”
“Why not? You got someone else coming over?” His tone is sharp. “Some poor girl you’ve tricked into thinking you’re a total catch?”
“That’s enough!” Jiang Cheng cuts him off sharply, and sees the brief flicker of regret in Jin Ling’s eyes.
There must be a gene for taking an insult too far and immediately regretting it, and it clearly lies dormant in the Jiang family. Jiang Cheng sees himself in every scowl, and feels nothing but sympathy because he knows his nephew is burning up on the inside.
“Sorry,” Jin Ling says hesitantly. “I can go to Zizhen’s if you actually have someone coming over.”
It’s both a peace offering and a jab. Jin Ling knows full well Jiang Cheng doesn’t have anyone coming over and he’s playing that up, but also signalling that his bad mood isn’t really directed at his uncle.
“I don’t,” he says evenly. “Do you want me to have to deal with your mom crying down the phone?”
Jin Ling hesitates.
“That’s what I thought,” Jiang Cheng says. “Now stop being a brat and go and tell her you didn’t mean any of it.”
“I did, though,” Jin Ling says, but he sounds resigned now. “I meant all of it.”
“I know,” he replies. “Don’t you get tired of being this pissy?”
“You’d know,” Jin Ling huffs, then picks up his rucksack and stomps off without saying goodbye.
-
Jiang Cheng wakes to the sound of someone in his house.
It’s darker now, the sky a dark blue through the window by his bed, and he’s tangled the comforter in his legs enough that it’s difficult to free himself with only one working arm. He’s coated with sweat, and it stinks.
There’s a click of a door somewhere in the apartment, and he freezes like a deer in the headlights, wondering if someone has been breaking into his unoccupied apartment whilst he recovered.
“Jiang Cheng?” A familiar voice calls softly, and Princess sits up, ears pricked forward. “Shout if you’re not dead, okay?”
Princess jumps off the bed and lops away through the door, her claws clicking on the floorboards. He misses the weight of her almost immediately.
“Hi, baby,” Nie Huaisang says in his hall, and Jiang Cheng is struck by a brief moment of all-consuming confusion and shock before realising he’s talking to the dog. “Are you happy your dad came back? Yeah, me too.”
“Huaisang?” Jiang Cheng calls. His voice is scratchy from sleep and the tube that has been in his throat. “That you?”
The bedroom door flies open, and he winces at the light as Huaisang stands in the doorway, a small silhouette against buttery yellow light.
“It’s the middle of the night,” Jiang Cheng croaks.
“It’s 7pm. What are you, a Lan?” Huaisang says. “Your sister sent me over when she realised you might not know how your oven works. I think she thought you’d just starve overnight.”
“I can look after myself,” he murmurs, rubbing his head. “You didn’t need to come.”
“Shut up, Jiang Cheng,” Huaisang says, with a surprising amount of venom, though he’s still gentle. “So rude to me! I only came to help.”
Jiang Cheng swings his legs over to the side of the bed and starts to move to get up, hoping that Huaisang understands his lack of further insults as an apology.
He finds Huaisang in the kitchen five minutes later when he’s coaxed his stiff joints into cooperating. His friend is bent over the counter, hair brushing his cheekbones as he scours a scrap of paper he seems to have procured. There’s something awfully familiar about seeing him like this, like he belongs in this house as much as the furniture.
“Your sister gave me a recipe she’s been trying out,” he says. “It’s not your beloved soup, but it’s the kind of stuff da-ge would give me when I was little. Said it would get my strength up.”
Jiang Cheng blinks at him.
“Yeah, I know, fat lot of good it did me,” Huaisang huffs, turning his back on Jiang Cheng to go through the pantry. His shoulders look tense.
“You pulled through when you had pneumonia,” Jiang Cheng says idly.
“Oh, yeah.” Huaisang turns back to face him, a small smile playing on his lips. “I’d almost forgotten that.”
“You nearly died,” he remembers, and feels a tug at his heartstrings he hadn’t been expecting.
“You know I love pulling that card, but you are barely out of the ICU,” Huaisang says. “You can be needy for a bit, I’ll indulge you.”
Huaisang holds his gaze for a long moment, looks like he wants to say something else. Then he blinks hard and turns the stove on.
Jiang Cheng wants to say something too, because a quiet Huaisang is a rare Huaisang and it usually means something is wrong.
He doesn’t know how to voice that though, because their relationship isn’t really like that , so he just rests his elbows on the cool granite of the breakfast bar and watches him cook.
He seems good at it these days, Jiang Cheng notices. The Huaisang he knows could barely make toast, and would complain a good deal before even doing that. Now, he’s moving like it’s second nature, pulling his chin length hair into a tiny ponytail to keep it out of the pot he’s adding spices to with a strangely practiced ease for someone who could barely locate a spice rack in his own kitchen.
It should be comforting, the smell of food cooking and his best friend in his kitchen, but it makes him feel distant. He knows that there is a version of him that has grown up with them, and he’s probably just as competent and comfortable as they are, but right now he feels like a child trailing after them and struggling to keep up.
Still, when Huaisang puts a bowl of piping hot vegetable stew down in front of him, he can’t help but feel a little better.
“This is good,” he says after taking a sip, a feeble attempt to bridge the strange gap between them. “My sister will probably ask you to move in here at this rate.”
Huaisang laughs, and the realness of it sparks warmth in his chest, but it’s doused in moments at the slightest flicker of something else in his expression.
Jiang Cheng supposes he was asleep for the worst of it, but his accident must have been difficult for his people. If there’s one thing he has faith in, it’s that his siblings love him, even if they might love each other just a little more. He still grew up with them. He’s still something to them.
Huaisang sits across from him at the table eating vegetable stew with him, even though he hates vegetables. It reminds him of the warmth of sharing dinners with his siblings, and school lunches with Wen Qing and Wen Ning back when they were all kids and the biggest problem in their lives was homework. Those days are even further in the past than he remembers, but the same old people are still knocking around the same old town, and he knows how they hate to lose people. Wei Wuxian had cried for weeks when their parents died, and he barely even liked them, not that they talk about that.
He wants to ask Huaisang more, find out where everyone is these days, and maybe ask if he knows anything about why Wei Wuxian thinks he hates him, but for once he is understanding why the Lans like to eat in silence. There’s a comfortable silence between them, like this is the most normal thing in the world, even though it’s all wrong.
When he’s nearly finished, Princess rests her head on his thigh and stares up at him with huge, pleading eyes not unlike Huaisang’s.
“She wants some,” Huaisang says when Jiang Cheng stares at her blankly. “You always feed her scraps. I keep telling you she’s gonna get fat.”
“She’s fine,” Jiang Cheng replies, the defensiveness coming so naturally it surprises him. “It’s healthy anyway, right?”
“I mean, I made it for you ,” Huaisang says, though there’s affection dripping from his voice. “But who can resist that face?”
Jiang Cheng ignores him and leans down to let Princess eat a few morsels from his hand, smiling a little when her tail wags. The fog in his head feels just a little clearer now.
When he looks back up, taking a moment to breathe through the rush of blood to his head, Huaisang is watching him. Looking at him properly, an arm’s length across the table and in the soft light of the kitchen, he looks tired. It’s easier now, away from the haze of drugs and sleep, to see how much older he is. His face is a little sharper, and Jiang Cheng can see that his ears are pierced, although he’s not wearing any earrings. There’s a small white scar on his chin.
“What are you looking at?” It comes out a little more snappy than he means it to, but he stands by it.
“Nothing,” Huaisang says quickly, looking about as shamefaced as he ever gets, which is not very. “Just glad you’re okay.”
“I don’t feel okay,” he complains, resting his head in his hands at an angle where he can still see Huaisang's mouth, but Huaisang can’t see his face. “God, Huaisang, I don’t know anything. ”
“You’ll remember,” Huaisang says, like there’s no question about it. “Give yourself time, Jiang Cheng.”
“When have I ever been patient?”
“Plenty,” Huaisang replies easily. “You grew up. So did I.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not like that anymore,” Jiang Cheng snaps. He’s aware his temper is irrational and unwarranted, but he can’t stop it rising anymore than he could stop the tides. “You may as well just say goodbye, because that guy died in the accident.”
Huaisang’s face changes so suddenly that it’s like a cloud passing over the sun. He picks up their two bowls, so fast that Princess gets a little skittish, and stalks back to the sink where he dumps them in with the pot and utensils.
“Huaisang,” Jiang Cheng says hesitantly. “Nie Huaisang.”
“What?” Huaisang says tightly, scrubbing at a bowl like he’s imagining it’s Jiang Cheng’s face.
“Sorry for scaring you,” he says quietly, because that has to be what this is. Huaisang doesn’t behave like this, ever. He usually meets Jiang Cheng’s rants with laughter. “Obviously I didn’t mean to.”
Huaisang lets out a slightly hysterical sounding laugh.
“Stop laughing,” he demands. “I don’t know what’s so funny.”
“Nothing’s funny.” Huaisang clears his throat and turns back to face him. “I don’t react to things like a normal human, remember?”
This isn’t strictly untrue, Huaisang has always been something of an enigma, reacting to everything that life threw at them as teenagers with either boredom or a strange and cold fury, but the laughing is new. Jiang Cheng wants to ask him if he’s okay.
Instead, he says, “You should go home.”
“Kicking me out into the night,” Huaisang sighs, though he’s clearly playing with him again. “So sad, Jiang Cheng. So cruel.”
“Stop it,” he replies, with considerably less venom. “Don’t do that.”
“I know, I know,” he says. “I’ll go. Your sister is sending a groceries delivery for tomorrow, so you won’t need me anymore.”
“Oh,” he says, feeling oddly hurt by that. He’ll put it down to the brain damage, he tells himself, as if he hasn’t always felt rejection like a knife in his gut. “You don’t have to just abandon me.”
“I would never,” Huaisang says, his face softening immediately. “Sorry. I’m being catty, you know how I am.”
Not quite ready to concede, Jiang Cheng makes a little grunt of acknowledgement.
“If you just want to hang out, call me.” Huaisang shrugs a little hopelessly.
Jiang Cheng will give him credit for this- he is trying. His phone has been going off most of the afternoon with texts from his siblings and friends, but they had all dropped off after a few messages went unseen. He supposes Huaisang must have reassured them he’s fine, or there would be an ambulance outside by now knowing them.
He thinks about that for a while as he retreats to the living room to watch TV. There’s a rerun of some old drama he used to watch with his sister after school on, and it’s comforting to watch something he remembers well, something that hasn’t changed almost beyond recognition in the missing years.
Halfway through a season finale, his phone lights up.
[From: Wei Wuxian]
hey it’s your big bro >:P
i’m coming over for lunch tomorrow
lan zhan reminded me of some stuff i should tell you
He stares at those messages until his eyes start to hurt and the words blur.
[From: Wei Wuxian]
also i really missed you
lmao i can SEE you reading these
jiang cheeeeeeng
[From: Jiang Cheng]
ok
see you then
The ticks turn blue immediately, so his brother was clearly waiting for a reply. When he doesn’t start typing immediately, for good measure he adds:
[From: Jiang Cheng]
annoying little shit
The text is read immediately again and a reply comes almost as fast.
[From: Wei Wuxian]
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:DDD
see you then!!
Wei Wuxian seems delighted to hear from him. He wonders if their fight is a one-sided thing, if he’s been frosting his brother out over nothing and leaving him to flounder, or if Wei Wuxian feels so bad and so worried that he’s just excited by a return to the status quo. He’ll ask him tomorrow.
Despite his attempt to turn in for the night at 7pm, it’s now almost a reasonable hour for a person his age to go to bed, so he heads back to his bedroom, the bed still unmade from where Huaisang had dragged him out of it.
There’s an old looking t-shirt and boxers on the floor which he supposes must be his pyjamas, kicked off where he had left them the morning before his accident, assuming he’d be back that night. He had crashed his car at 2am and never made it.
Once he’s wearing them, he settles down into his bed, trying to soothe the aching muscles from the most movement he’s made in days. He had tried to brush his hair as well, but with his left arm still sore enough that he can’t lift it further than his chest, it had been a poor attempt. He’ll have to let it tangle until he gets his mobility back.
Frankly, it’s a miracle he didn’t lose a limb completely, based on what he’s heard. Lan Xichen had let it slip when he’d stopped by to visit that in the first few hours after the accident, the doctors had encouraged Jiang Yanli to get the rest of their family there as fast as possible, in case goodbyes needed to be said. He isn’t sure what she would have replied to that, because their oddball group of friends is really all he has anymore.
How this has even happened is a mystery to him. He’s a good driver, he knows he is. They had found no alcohol in his system, and the road he’d been on was a quiet one. To careen off it into a tree is, quite frankly, out of character.
Though he supposes he has no idea what’s in character for him anymore. Perhaps he does do reckless things now, though he can’t imagine what might have triggered that change when he’s normally painfully stubborn about every aspect of his habits.
It’s easy to get back to sleep, even though he still feels like a live wire. The sheer exhaustion of the last few days wins out easily, and he slips into strange, feverish dreams.
In blurry snapshots that he only remembers in passing when the morning rolls around, he dreams of Wei Wuxian yelling at him that he isn’t his brother anymore, but his voice sounds wrong, and sometimes Lan Wangji is beside him, then gone again in a blink. He dreams of holding a baby, but when he looks down it’s just an empty bundle of cloth. He dreams he nearly drops it. He dreams of Huaisang in the passenger seat of his car, telling him he’s about to have an accident and crying.
He wakes up.
It’s bright outside, the kind of cold light that always comes with February mornings, and he realises he’s slept in until 11am. If he’s entirely honest, he could have slept longer, but Wei Wuxian will be over soon and he refuses to look like a mess in front of him.
Or at least, not a complete mess. He still can’t brush his hair, and he’s not mobile enough to get into any clothes that aren’t loose and comfortable, which has never really been his style but so be it.
This is how Jiang Cheng ends up greeting his brother at the front door in an old Angry Birds t-shirt and sweatpants.
“Oh my god,” Wei Wuxian says immediately, scrambling to dig his phone out of his pocket. “Let me take a photo please .”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t really have the energy or coordination to fight him off, so he just stands there scowling uselessly whilst Wei Wuxian snaps pictures.
“Lan Jingyi is going to be thrilled, ” Wei Wuxian says delightedly. “He got you that t-shirt as a joke last year.”
“Lan Jingyi is..?” Jiang Cheng presses, because he’s never heard that name before and he thinks he would remember someone who tries to give him Angry Birds merchandise. “He’s not your son, right?”
“No, that’s A-Yuan, my little turnip!”
“Isn’t he sixteen?” Jiang Cheng struggles to remember what Yanli had told him the day before.
“He’s a baby ,” Wei Wuxian says emphatically. “A tiny little baby. Lan Jingyi is his best friend, he’s Xichen-ge’s kid. He crashes over here sometimes when his dad is busy.”
“Single dad?” Jiang Cheng asks, mentally redrawing the ever more complicated family tree in his head.
“Ah, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says, holding up his rucksack and smiling, although he looks a little uncomfortable. “That’s just one of many conversations we need to have.”
His brother passes him and flops down onto the couch. It’s immediately obvious that this is where he always sits when he comes here.
Jiang Cheng isn’t sure what he usually does, so he sits in the armchair closest to him and watches his face for cues, but Wei Wuxian gives nothing away, just his usual sunny smile.
“You’re looking better,” his brother tells him, uncharacteristically gentle, and it makes his chest ache like his ribs are breaking all over again, because this is all fake now his memories are gone. Then, “Jiang Cheng, stop staring at me like that.”
“You thought I deleted your number,” he murmurs, and feels like he might burst into tears again. “You did something and now I hate you.”
“Do you hate me, Jiang Cheng?” Wei Wuxian’s voice is perfectly calm, but his face betrays him.
“No,” Jiang Cheng whispers, and his voice cracks. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I know.” Wei Wuxian is out of his seat in an instant, kneeling beside the armchair with a hand on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder like there’s nothing wrong between them at all. “I know, it’s okay.”
“We were doing well,” he says uselessly, because Wei Wuxian has ironically always had a horrible memory, and he might not even know what Jiang Cheng remembers of them. “Since mom and dad died, we were better .”
“Ah, see? Something’s stuck.” His brother pats his back. “That’s what the family therapist told us. Our parents pitted us against each other, and we got on better with them gone.”
The use of past tense doesn’t escape him, but he makes a little noise of understanding anyway.
“We went to family therapy?”
“Jiejie made us,” Wei Wuxian hums. “She was pregnant, remember? She didn’t want poor A-Ling growing up in a fractured family.”
Jiang Cheng remembers. He had cried at the news. She had told him the baby was about the size of a strawberry already. It’s hard to imagine that the kid now owns the large hoodie he’d found on his couch.
He hopes he and Wei Wuxian kept their shit together long enough for Jin Ling to grow up happy. He knows all too well what it’s like to grow up trying to hold the cracks together in a fracturing family.
“He’s a good kid,” Wei Wuxian says, clearly sensing what he’s thinking about. “He’s had a hard time, and he can be….well, abrasive would be putting it lightly, but he loves you. He cried for hours when we knew it was serious.”
“I forgot him,” Jiang Cheng murmurs. “He’s my nephew and I forgot him.”
“Not totally,” Wei Wuxian tells him. “You didn’t sit next to me on the couch. Why not?”
“Uh,” Jiang Cheng says eloquently, because he just sat down here because it felt right. “I just didn’t.”
“Nuh uh,” his brother says, looking awfully smug. “You didn’t sit here because it’s Jin Ling’s spot.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not! Muscle memory. You knew.” Wei Wuxian nods solemnly like he’s an expert in this, but Jiang Cheng remembers enough to know he flunked out of Psych 101 because he was skipping it to bother Lan Wangji.
“Oh,” he says instead, and Wei Wuxian looks a little disappointed at the lack of a fight.
Which brings him back to this:
“What were you so sorry for?”
“Jiang Cheng, it’s stupid,” he says, looking tired. “Can’t we count this as a fresh start?”
“No!” Jiang Cheng half shouts, and his brother startles. Princess comes over to sit on his feet, which is probably what stops him from leaping up and hurting himself or Wei Wuxian or both. “No, it’s not a fresh start. I’m still stuck here in a life I don’t understand, and none of you will tell me anything!”
“We’re looking after you, didi,” Wei Wuxian says softly. “It’s just what the doctors advised. We can’t just spring sixteen years on you in a few days. And they weren’t easy years, y’know?”
“Huaisang seems upset,” he says uselessly.
“Is that what’s bothering you? He’s upset because you nearly died , Jiang Cheng. He’s still your best friend after all this time, you know. Other than me, obviously.”
He stops short as the last syllable leaves his mouth, because they both know that’s not true anymore, even if he doesn’t remember why.
Besides, he feels like there’s more to it than this.
“I just want to fix it all,” he says tiredly. “I want to know why people hate me. I want to remember what to cook when Jin Ling comes round.”
“He likes tofu stir fry,” Wei Wuxian offers. “And he’ll appreciate you finding out.”
They sit in silence for a while. Jiang Cheng picks the skin around his fingernails raw, sometimes stopping to scratch Princess behind the ears. Wei Wuxian plays with his phone, sending texts back and forth with someone he assumes is Lan Wangji or maybe his son.
“Do you want me to tell you something?” Wei Wuxian asks eventually. “A story or something smaller?”
Jiang Cheng looks at him questioningly.
“Feels like a good place to start,” Wei Wuxian offers. “I tour with my music now. It’s, uh, pretty popular.”
He’s being bashful. One of the few things Jiang Cheng had been dimly aware of in the time between waking up and coming home was that his brother had abandoned a huge performance to be at his side. There had been whispers about refunds and statements, all shot down by Wei Wuxian because this is more important.
“Was this an excuse to humble brag?” Jiang Cheng asks, because the congratulations is stuck in his throat.
“Haha,” Wei Wuxian says. “I just thought you’d want to know what your dear big brother was up to.”
“What about me?”
“I won’t lie to you, I don’t understand what you do,” he says. “It’s an office job. 9-5. Good pay, I assume, if you’re managing the rent here.”
It’s a little crushing. He had been slightly clinging onto the idea that he might have made something of himself now, be working in some way that helps people or be ridiculously successful.
As always, he is stunningly mediocre next to his siblings. Their names are known all over the country. If anyone knows he exists at all, it’s just as their nameless brother.
The silence must stretch on a little too long, because Wei Wuxian takes his hand and squeezes it.
“Don’t get so hung up on work, didi,” he says gently. “You have a good life.”
“I don’t talk to you and I spend all my time with four kids!” Jiang Cheng snaps. “I’m not married, I live alone, apparently I need a service dog- ”
“Emotional support dog,” Wei Wuxian corrects instinctively, like this is helpful. “You had a rough patch.”
“And you’re not going to explain the reason-”
“There wasn’t a reason, Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian looks exasperated. “Sometimes shit just happens! Since when have you ever told me what goes on in your head?”
“You’re still being secretive,” he says stiffly, because he’s starting to think he might be wrong and he can’t bring himself to admit it out loud.
“Trust me,” Wei Wuxian says, still holding his calm expression. He must have been working on that, because they’d normally be at each other’s throats by now. “We’re catching you up. In time. That’s actually what I came to talk to you about.”
“What,” he says flatly, no inflection.
“We thought, if you’re ready, we could have like a housewarming party for you.”
Jiang Cheng makes an alarmed expression.
“Just a little one! To get you accustomed to everyone and back in the group. It would just be a few people, and all you’d have to do is say the word, we’d all leave.”
“Who?” Jiang Cheng narrows his eyes.
“Uh,” Wei Wuxian counts on his fingers. “You, me, jiejie, and we’d both have to bring our kids, Xichen would bring his boy too, and they won’t come without Ouyang Zizhen, that’s their friend. Huaisang, obviously, and his brother would come too. Wen Qing and Wen Ning.”
“Twelve people,” he mulls over.
“Is that okay?” Wei Wuxian asks. “Now I say it, it sounds like a lot. And I would have invited Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen too, but they’re out of town. We can FaceTime them in, if you wanted?”
He just stares at his brother as he rambles.
“I am just now realising this is insane,” Wei Wuxian finishes. “Jiang Cheng, I’m sorry.”
It’s then, looking at his sad eyes and his tired face, that Jiang Cheng realises what this is. His brother is desperately scrambling to redeem himself for a wrongdoing that in Jiang Cheng’s mind, hasn’t even happened. He’s still trying to do right by him.
He doesn’t want it. He wants to hold onto that anger, let the fire keep him warm until it burns him up, then blame it all on his brother. It’s how he’s always done it, and the familiarity is almost comforting.
More importantly, though, he wants to know the truth. And he doesn’t want to upset his sister, or even Huaisang, any further. So he compromises.
“Okay,” he says, and Wei Wuxian’s face lights up. “We can have the party or whatever. But if anything happens it’s your fault.”
“Yes! My fault. All my fault.” Wei Wuxian nods like a bobblehead. “I’ll set it up.”
“One thing, though,” Jiang Cheng interrupts, because he’s not letting Wei Wuxian have this completely. “I want to meet Jin Ling first. Properly, not at a party.”
“You can do that,” Wei Wuxian says enthusiastically. “Text him. You could invite him tomorrow, it’s Saturday, so he’s not at school. I know he’s not texted you, but he really misses you.”
“You seem very sure of yourself,” Jiang Cheng says, picking at his skin again.
“Jiejie told me.” He snaps his fingers. “A-Ling has been in a terrible mood, she said. Cried his eyes out when we got the news.”
“Did you?” He’s not sure what possesses him to ask, but he needs to know.
“Oh, didi,” Wei Wuxian sighs, smiling ruefully. “All the way home on the plane. They must have thought I was mad.”
“Oh,” Jiang Cheng says, because he hadn’t really prepared a response to that. “Okay.”
“Right,” Wei Wuxian says, looking a little disappointed. “Do you want me to go?”
Not at all , he thinks. Please never leave me.
“Sure,” he says. “Whatever.”
“Okay,” Wei Wuxian says softly. He reaches over and squeezes Jiang Cheng’s wrist gently, like he’s not sure he’ll be allowed a hug. Jiang Cheng isn’t sure what he’d do if he tried.
He leaves, and takes all the warmth and comfort with him.