Yeah okay it’s a bad time for dumb jokes, that’s fair.

Wei Wuxian flops down in the unoccupied bed, then, still fully clothed and with Chenqing tucked in his belt. He remembers at the last minute to halfheartedly kick his shoes off. The prospect of sleeping on something soft is strange and alien to him, after all this time. Not uncomfortable, but oddly discomfiting.

He plays off his own strangeness with some prolonged huffing and flopping, twisting to try different positions and make himself comfortable.

Wangji pays as little attention as possible to the squirming, huffing Wei Ying in his bed. (...so, most of his attention.)

He extinguishes the candles and draws the curtains within the room, stalling.

He lays down beside Wei Ying in the dark. This does interesting things to his pulse. 

“I’m surprised, Lan Wangji, you really are willing to get in bed with such a despicable weapon. You aren’t that worried about my Chenqing after all, then?”

I would let you do anything you like with me, he does not say. You can kill me however you like.

He has never been frightened of what Wei Ying’s cultivation might do him.

Sigh. 

“Lan Zhan,” he whispers into the dark minutes later. “I hurt you in the future, didn’t I.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I know I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. I’m sure I didn’t.” He has the urge to take Lan Zhan’s hand and squeeze it. He does not do that. “I don’t want to do that again, I really really don’t. You can go, Lan Zhan.”

"I will not leave."

Hopefully Lan Zhan has some nice dreams. One of them should probably get a good night's rest, and Wei Wuxian doesn't particularly intend to. If he has a nightmare, he might lash out accidentally; he can't be sure of himself. Better to meditate and hold tighter to the control he has over the resentment of Yiling Burial Mounds. Containment.

Besides, he couldn't sleep right now if he wanted to. Wei Wuxian's thoughts and feelings are buzzing too rapidly, flitting back and forth and filling his head like bees. Jiang Cheng, Shijie. The Stygian Tiger Seal. Wen Ning. Shijie.

Lan Zhan.

They are still buzzing by the time dawn breaks.

Jiang Cheng dreams. 

Wei Wuxian is holding him down and prying out his own teeth to shove into Jiang Cheng's mouth.  Wei Wuxian hollowing himself out until he's nothing more than a paper lantern painted with glowing red eyes.  Being back in the Cloud Recesses as a teenager, but everyone is being chased by their lanterns.

He wakes, and refuses to go back to sleep.  It would be best to not stay in bed and have to deal with anything else his mind comes up with.  

Wei Wuxian isn't immediately visible, so he goes looking.  

Oh, of course they are in the same bed.  Jiang Cheng makes a small noise that is possibly less annoyed than it is hurt, then stalks off to sit at the room's table. 

There isn't anywhere for him to go.  It would be monumentally stupid to go out.  Doing so would only get him captured, meaning he's trapped in the inn.  He's almost tempted to go down to the main room and demand wine then make Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian deal with a drunk Jiang Cheng first thing in the morning, but discards that thought almost immediately.

His swords could use polishing.  There's nothing else to do.  Jiang Cheng starts with Suibian, wishing that the sword would remain sealed.  It recognizes him and unsheathes, and he sets to work.

Wei Wuxian sits up a few minutes after he hears Jiang Cheng move around. He rubs his eyes and looks around; the room is still very dark. Lan Zhan is a still, soft silhouette beside him.

He creeps out of bed with great effort to be quiet, though he isn't entirely sure why he bothers. Back in the Xuanwu's Cave, Lan Zhan slept like a rock.

Wei Wuxian sprawls down beside his brother. "Jiang Cheng, you're doing my chores for me now?"

"No."

Jiang Cheng is sulking.  Instead of expounding on his answer, he continues polishing Suibian.

"I know that you won't use your sword again."

Jiang Cheng isn't sure why he's bothering to polish it, really.  It's useless.  He wasn't expecting that he'd be seen doing it.  Habit, he supposes, from all the times he'd maintain Chenqing in his brother's absence.  

"I know why."

Oh fuck.

His fist tightens around Chenqing. "H - Who told you? Did Wen Qing tell you?"

"No.  I wish she had.  I wish you had."

He's almost more upset about never finding out than he is about the transfer itself.  That had been.  How Dare he.  How dare Wei Wuxian lie and trick him into taking part in something that he must have known Jiang Cheng would never agree to.  But - a worming pain hidden beneath the anger agreed with Wei Wuxian.  Jiang Cheng was worthless.  Not clever, not persuasive, not skilled with art.  If he didn't have cultivation, he might as well not exist.

"I would have wanted to know.  All of those times I tried to push you to use your sword-"

What would Jiang Cheng have done, if he'd been told right afterwards?  Yelled, probably.  

No wonder Wei Wuxian hadn't wanted to tell him.

His own hand tightens on Suibian, enough to leave thin lines of blood from the exposed blade.  He doesn't notice.

Wei Wuxian notices. He hisses through his teeth and bats at Jiang Cheng's injured hand. "Ai, Jiang Cheng. You'll just have to clean the whole thing again, put that down. Come on."

"Don't get distracted," he huffs, but checks his hand.  The sword is reluctantly put on the table.

"Well?  Do you have anything else to say?  Or is your only point that I can't even clean a sword, let alone have the right to know about things?"

"Jiang Cheng. This doesn't have anything to do with you being incapable of anything, it never did. Your natural ability, it has nothing to do with that. It's about you having the right to live. If your leg had been cut off the exact same way and you'd been starving yourself to death the exact same way, of course I would have done the same thing! Nothing to do with thinking you're too short, that you're not good enough. You deserved to have your own golden core, the one you earned and worked for all your life, and I know that. I'm not the one who took that from you, Jiang Cheng, it was already gone and it was never coming back and you were dying."

"That's not the part that -" bothers him, he was going to say.  But of course it fucking bothers him.  "That's not what I was asking about."