Chapter Text
Something is wrong.
It shows in the slump of Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, in the flippant way he drinks and shirks his duties, in the way he brushes off A-Jie’s gentle, but probing, questions. Jiang Cheng isn’t an idiot, he knows somethings been wrong since he and Lan Wangji finally found Wei Wuxian after those absent months, (long months, months where he wondered if his desperation for revenge, for his golden core, had killed his brother). But at the time he couldn’t afford to show weakness, at the time Wei Wuxian was powerful, a force that could turn the tide, that could give people a reason to follow a sect that had been reduced to two children and a ghost.
Jiang Cheng had hoped, foolishly, that after the war Wei Wuxian would go back to normal , would laugh and clap him on the back and hug A-Jie like she deserved and needed. He had hoped that the darkness in Wei Wuxian’s eyes was the same as his, just a young man coming to terms with a war, not something permanent, something unfixable. But it's been months and Wei Wuxian is still distant and brooding, and Jiang Cheng is lost.
A voice in the back of his head, that sounds like an amalgamation of his mother at her most disapproving and his father at his most distant, says it's his fault. He knew something wasn't right but yet again he did not attempt the impossible and scale the wall that Wei Wuxian had built between him. Yet again he has proved himself lesser, unable to be both a brother and a leader, a general and someone who cares. He wishes (desperately, always desperately) that his parents were here, he could handle his father's dismissal as long as the man could reach out to Wei Wuxian and just fix him , he would shoulder his mother's scorn for one more hug, one more look that told him that she loved him, despite his defects.
But they are gone, with only him and Yanli to carry on their legacy.
--
Jiang Cheng has holed himself up in the newly built Sect Leader’s office, with the intent of trudging through paperwork that he only half understands, when a gentle knock on the door causes him to jolt up.
“Enter,” he calls cautiously, hoping it’s someone he’ll be able to tolerate. A moment after his call Jiang Yanli lets herself quietly into the room.
“A-Jie!” Jiang Cheng exclaims, “Is everything ok? Do you need anything? Is something wrong?”
Jiang Yanli snorts, soft and a little undignified, “Am I not allowed to visit my brother while he works? Now that A-Cheng is Sect Leader must I schedule appointments in order to see how he is doing?”
Jiang Cheng flushes with embarrassment and maybe a little shame, “A-Jie you know I am always free to talk to you, there will never be a time where anyone else comes before you, whether I’m Sect Leader or not.” His words end with a little huff, that makes him feel less like a dignified Sect Leader and more like an eighteen year old getting teased by his older sister.
Jiang Yanli’s face breaks into an indulgent smile “Oh A-Cheng I know, I am simply teasing you.” She makes her way to his desk and peers over his shoulder at the scrolls on his desk, frowning slightly. The furrough of her brow highlights dark smudges under her eyes that speak of late nights and skipped meals, the kind of things that make Jiang Cheng wish she would let him be the older sibling for a little, just so he could provide even the smallest amount of comfort.
Jiang Cheng might’ve kept his sister far from the actual fighting but he couldn't keep her out of the camps and the kitchens and the hospitals or away from the horrors of war that exist beyond the battlefield. He remembers nights, both before and after Wei Wuxian returned to them, where he and his sister would huddle close, like they would when they were children and their parents' fights were rare and startling rather than simply being a constant. He knows that she shares his night terrors, has heard her wake with screams and whimpers and knows that she has done the same with him.
Even after they returned to their burnt out home and began the lengthy process of rebuilding, she would come to his tent or him to hers, and they would sit side by side until exhaustion claimed them. Jiang Cheng also knows that most of the nights she doesn't come to him she goes to Wei Wuxian, knows that she worries about him, that she tries to reach him, tries to understand what happened in those lonely months.
He’s never told her. And Jiang Cheng thinks he never will.
“A-Jie,” Jiang Cheng prompts carefully, “How is,” he pauses, “how is Wei Wuxian? I know that I should reach out to him but I just do not really know how to anymore.”
Jiang Yanli smiles softly at him, but her eyes are proud, and she reaches out and places her dainty hand on his shoulder. “Oh A-Cheng,” she murmurs, “you are really growing up right in front of my eyes aren’t you.” She reaches up and gently pinches his cheek, in a way he would call motherly, if his mother had been anyone other than Yu Ziyuan. “Soon you won't even need me to make you soup anymore.”
“A-Jie!!” Jiang Cheng whines, in an impressive imitation of Wei Wuxian at his most childish, “Of course I will always need you! Don’t read into it that much, all I want is for that idiot Wei Wuxian to start pulling his own weight before the rebuilding is finished! Which will be when I am old and grey at the pace we are going.”
Jiang Yanli smiles in that way that says I know you’re lying but I will let it go for now because I am the best sister anyone could ask for ever before she adopts a more somber expression.
“I’m not going to lie, A-Cheng, A-Xian is not doing well. I’ve been offering to stay with him at night, to help with nightmares, but he brushes me off everytime. He gives all kinds of excuses, but I think it’s because he’s scared.”
“Scared of what?” Jiang Cheng exclaims, “it can’t be you A-Jie, he loves you.” Jiang Yanli frowns, and rubs her eyes tiredly, “No, he is not scared of me, he is scared of hurting me. I think his night terrors are violent, the kind where he would lash out at anything around him. Back when we were still in tents I would come to see him in the morning and his area would be destroyed.” She pauses and sighs, sounding too old for her 26 years of age, “I’m just,” she pauses, searching for words, “A-Cheng I’m worried about him, he’s hiding something from us, and it's something big, something important and I’m afraid it won’t end well for any of us if we don’t find out what it is.”
Although Jiang Cheng has known for a while that something is up with Wei Wuxian, having his sister confirm it solidifies it into something real. He wishes, selfishly, that things could just be normal. He’s so tired of everything going wrong and being wrong. His brother is supposed to be happy, truly happy, not the mask he puts on when Jiang Cheng runs into him while working. His sister is supposed to finally be relaxing after months of her living in tents only minutes away from battlefields, not stewing in anxiety while one brother works himself to the bone and the other one avoids her. Jiang Cheng is supposed to know what he’s doing, he’s supposed to be a good Sect Leader, he’s not supposed to be slogging through paperwork he only halfway understands, while he leads disciples that he has only truly known during wartime.
He misses his sect brothers and sisters, the easy conversation and warm atmosphere, where he was just another disciple, despite being the sect heir. Now he is Sect Leader, years before he should be, and he leads unfamiliar men and women, most of which are double, even triple his age. He has cobbled together one of the Four Great Sects with the remains of his family, an odd assortment of rogue cultivators and members of Sects that had been absorbed and destroyed by the Wens.
If the Yunmeng Jiang Sect had been quietly mocked for their acceptance of disciples from any background before, they would be a laughingstock now, with their fleet of commoners and rogues, led by their child general.
But right here, with his sister by his side, he cannot find it in himself to be nostalgic for time long past. Although they have lost much in the past year, his family lives on, his sister still breathes and maybe, one day, his brother will laugh freely again.
“A-Jie,” Jiang Cheng says, turning towards his sister, “What should we do ?”