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The first time he saw Lan Wangji after Nightless City was three years later and, thankfully, not at a formal affair. It was at an inn in northeastern Yunmeng, where Jiang Cheng was pausing for a meal after a night hunt before heading back to Lotus Pier. He was alone, no entourage of Lans.

The flare of anger Jiang Cheng felt just looking at him caught him a little by surprise.

“Well,” he said, voice grating over his throat. “Look who it is. The great Hanguang-jun gracing us with his presence.”

Lan Wangji neither looked up nor turned toward him. It was as though Jiang Cheng were not present and had not spoken at all,

It’d been three years, but time slipped away and for a moment he could hear the devastated Wei Ying! ringing in his ears. The flare of anger turned into a flame, and he walked with slow, deliberate steps to stand over Lan Wangji. Looking him over. All in white, not even a trace of blue.

“And what brings Lan-er-gongzi to Yunmeng,” he said.

Lan Wangji looked up slowly. When he met Jiang Cheng’s eyes, his expression was one of complete and utter disdain. You are beneath my notice, it said. You are beneath me.

Jiang Cheng’s lips tightened.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” Lan Wangji said. He set down his cup of tea and stood. He did not bow, but turned toward the door, folding one arm behind his back.

Jiang Cheng stepped into his path. “I asked you a question.”

“You are not entitled to my answer.”

A snarl built up in Jiang Cheng’s throat and he swallowed it back down. “Three years of seclusion, I heard,” he said. “I can only imagine why Hanguang-jun would choose to remove himself so completely from society, for such a span of time.”

Lan Wangji’s expression somehow got even chillier. “You may believe as you choose.”

Jiang Cheng’s lip curled. “If you came to Yunmeng looking for something,” he said, “you’re not going to find it here.”

Something deadly entered Lan Wangji’s eyes and Jiang Cheng tensed, almost ready for bared steel he’d have to deflect.

“No,” Lan Wangji said, gaze falling back into cold indifference that still somehow managed to feel like it was pinning Jiang Cheng to the floor. “It seems there is nothing here worth my time.”

On his finger, Zidian crackled. Jiang Cheng’s mouth spasmed. I didn’t kill him, he wanted to snap. He killed his own damn self. But it didn’t matter, did it. Lan Wangji blamed him. Like Jiang Cheng had done something wrong. Like Wei Wuxian hadn’t deserved to die.

Jiang Cheng felt briefly sick.

“Get out of my sight,” he said.

Gladly, said Lan Wangji’s face. He stepped around Jiang Cheng and strode out. He stood still, breathing hard, intestines in knots.

Then turned on his heel. “We’re leaving,” he said to the disciples clustered near the doorway, all of them looking studiedly somewhere else. Suddenly he didn’t want to be here anymore. He wanted the safety and sanctuary that was Lotus Pier. He wanted to shake off the profound, frozen contempt in Lan Wangji’s eyes, and stop thinking about the things it brought up.

What right do you have to judge me? What fucking right?

The second time he saw Lan Wangji after Nightless City was in Lanling City. He was there visiting Jin Ling (four years old, willful and emotional and absolutely perfect), but when Jin Ling was removed by his nurse he retreated to the city rather than deal with the retainers who always seemed to be perfectly pleasant and never quite seemed to mean it.

He didn’t trust anyone in Koi Tower, with the exception of Jin Guangyao who did seem to legitimately care about Jin Ling. Perhaps that was unfair. Jiang Cheng had decided that ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ didn’t particularly matter, in the subject of what he was willing to deal with and when it came to Jin Ling’s safety.

He was perusing a stall of toys with no particular intent of buying anything (none of these were good enough, not for the heir to Jin Sect) when he ran into Lan Wangji. Saw him, rather, walking down the street with his perfect poise in his perfect whites and his perfectly blank expression. Jiang Cheng’s jaw clenched just looking at him.

He’d heard a great deal about Lan Wangji over the past year. It seemed he was everywhere. Anywhere there was a ghost or demon to be found, there also was Hanguang-jun, swooping in with his white robes to save the day. The murmurs about his conduct at the Pledge Conference had been thoroughly silenced. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, he was a model of respectability and nobility.

Jiang Cheng knew better. And he didn’t think Lan Wangji’s zeal was entirely about protecting the weak, either.

Lan Wangji’s gaze swept over him, paused for a moment, and then moved on, as though he were a not-very-interesting detail of the scenery. Again Jiang Cheng felt that surge of hot rage that was almost like nausea.

“Lan-er-gongzi,” he said. “What a surprise.”

Lan Wangji paused, but didn’t turn toward him. His face didn’t so much as twitch.

Jiang Cheng took a step toward him. “I didn’t see you at last month’s Cultivation Conference.”

“I was not there.”

“Too busy?”

Lan Wangji regarded him with cold, unblinking eyes. “I had no reason to attend.”

“No?” Jiang Cheng’s lip curled. “Hanguang-jun considers the affairs of the sects beneath him?” That stare continued. Jiang Cheng held it, refusing to move, refusing to give way. His fingers curled around Sandu, tightening until his knuckles whitened. “I hear he has been keeping himself occupied,” he went on. “One could think he was looking for something.”

Lan Wangji turned away from him again, moving to walk on. Jiang Cheng raised his voice.

“What are you looking for, Hanguang-jun? Or should I say who?”

Lan Wangji paused. Then turned, very slowly. Right arm folded behind his back, left holding Bichen. The street around them had cleared, people giving them a wide berth. His gaze was searing, but Jiang Cheng held it.

Then, without a word, he simply turned and walked away.

Jiang Cheng didn’t quite gape after him. He wanted to, but he didn’t. His hands clenched into fists. You bastard, he thought savagely. You high and mighty, stiff-necked bastard. His stomach burned with sick humiliation and rage.

He stalked back toward Koi Tower, needing something to take his mind off Lan Wangji and the weight of his stare. The cold indifference. The lofty scorn.

It wasn’t your sister, he wanted to scream. He wasn’t your brother. Who do you think you are?

You still have your brother. You still have your uncle. What do I have, Hanguang-jun? A nephew who will grow up without his mother and father. Because of him, because of the man you can’t let go of, because of Wei Wuxian.

He’s gone, and he’d better not come back, because if he does I’ll destroy whatever’s left.

His chest hurt.

Go and die, he’d screamed.

There was a hole in his heart he couldn’t examine too closely, next to the one shaped like Yanli. Two spaces carved out, side by side.

One of them belonged there. The other he wanted gone.

The third time he saw Lan Wangji after Nightless City was in the Cloud Recesses, at a Cultivation Conference.

It had been a terrible day. Not to start with, necessarily, or not any worse than the usual bullshit that came along with a Cultivation Conference, but then someone mentioned that they were coming up on the fifth anniversary of the Pledge Conference and the battle at Nightless City, and were there plans for any sort of commemorative event, in honor of the cultivators fallen there and celebration of the defeat of the Yiling Patriarch?

The silence that followed was profound. Several people turned their heads to look at him. Jiang Cheng’s stomach started to burn and he set his cup down slightly too hard. No, he wanted to say. No, absolutely not.

He lost track of some of the conversation. The look on Lan Xichen’s face was one of discomfort and Jin Guangyao made some speech about how a celebration would be inappropriate but it would be fitting, surely, to honor the dead-

Someone asked his opinion and Jiang Cheng couldn’t remember what he’d said. He suspected it might have been rude. As long as it wasn’t unforgivably rude it’d probably be fine. There were some good things about having a reputation.

He knew his way around the Cloud Recesses, still, well enough to make his way toward the stream, wanting to just be - away. It hadn’t been so long ago that he’d been here not as a sect leader but as a guest disciple, sitting in Orchid Room as Lan Qiren talked-

A-jie just a few seats over, and at his back-

Jiang Cheng slammed the door shut on memories. He hated being here. There were ghosts everywhere, worse even than Lotus Pier, somehow, because this, his heart said, was where it had all started, where everything had begun to go horribly wrong, and he only hadn’t realized it until later. Sometimes it seemed like from the moment Wen Chao walked into the Orchid Room, everything that had come after was inevitable.

The sound of a guqin broke into his spiraling thoughts, and he stopped dead. Turned slowly toward it, the burning in his stomach getting stronger. He could see a glimmer of white through the trees, down by the running water.

Jiang Cheng swallowed hard. You, he thought. Again. You. It’s always you.

He should turn around and leave. Walk away.

He was already walking toward him.

“Lan-er-gongzi,” he said, raising his voice over the music. “An interesting place to practice.”

Lan Wangji did not turn, though he did stop playing, hand landing on the strings to still them. He said nothing.

“I didn’t see you at dinner,” Jiang Cheng said. “Once again, you seem to be adept at avoiding social occasions.”

“My attendance was not required.”

Jiang Cheng laughed, short and sharp. “The great Hanguang-jun,” he said. “Still too good for earthly affairs.”

Lan Wangji said nothing. He stood, however, and picked up his guqin.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” he said, and began to walk by him.

“Five years,” Jiang Cheng said. “When are you going to stop wearing white?”

Lan Wangji fell still, but he did not so much as glance in Jiang Cheng’s direction. “When I choose to.”

Jiang Cheng snorted. “That’s some kind of answer.”

“I am not obligated to answer to you.”

“No,” Jiang Cheng said. “Apparently you’re not obligated to answer to anyone. I’ve noticed no one seems to be talking about what you did. Defending the Yiling Patriarch’s lair. What were you trying to protect? It’s not like there was anything left.”

(Was there?)

Lan Wangji did turn toward him, then, and stared at him unblinking, but said nothing. Jiang Cheng held his ground, refusing to fidget.

“Well?”

“Are you finished?”

Jiang Cheng flushed, his face and the back of his neck getting hot. What came out of his mouth was, “how dare you mourn him.”

Lan Wangji’s face got even colder.

“He was a monster,” Jiang Cheng said. “A murderer.”

Colder still. “Who,” he said, abruptly.

Jiang Cheng jerked. “What do you mean, who?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes bored into him. “You haven’t said his name.”

Jiang Cheng stumbled over that a little, but he realized that he hadn’t, had he? He hadn’t thought he’d been avoiding it. Hadn’t meant to. But when he opened his mouth to spit out Wei Wuxian it got caught on the back of his tongue. Like saying it would mean something. Would summon his ghost.

No, not his ghost. Just memories of the years and years and years that name had meant something else and he didn’t want those, didn’t want those to get tangled up with what came after even though they already were. Like if he didn’t say it then Wei Wuxian, his shixiong, would be a different person than the Yiling Patriarch.

Jiang Cheng gritted his teeth and said, “Wei Wuxian was a monster and a murderer.”

He had seen Lan Wangji’s anger before. He’d thought he knew the shape of it. It seemed he did not. The pure fury that flared in Lan Wangji’s eyes made him want to take a step back, which was why he didn’t, holding his ground and curling his fist around Sandu, thinking go on, do it, attack me. Let’s see what happens.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” he said, voice cold, “you are fortunate.”

“Oh?” Jiang Cheng said. “Tell me how I’m fortunate, Lan-er-gongzi.”

Lan Wangji’s gaze was perfectly steady. “That you did not follow Wei Ying.”

The air left Jiang Cheng’s lungs. He stared at Lan Wangji, who turned, slowly, and began to walk away.

“Maybe you should have let him pull you down with him,” he said, and almost didn’t recognize his own voice for the ugliness in it. “They’d have made you a hero. More of one.”

“Like you,” Lan Wangji said, without looking back. Jiang Cheng flinched.

“Yes,” he made himself say. “Like me. He deserved to die. I’m just sorry I didn’t actually put Sandu through his chest.”

For a moment, Lan Wangji was very still. Again Jiang Cheng felt like he was poised on the edge of something (the edge of that cliff), a storm building and he wanted it to break.

It dissipated. Lan Wangji said nothing further, walking away, unhurried, never looking back.

Jiang Cheng’s shoulders heaved. There was something lodged in his chest, something too big to fit there. Huge and overwhelming and he didn’t even know what it was, if it was grief or rage or guilt or something of all of them.

He was looking down at Wei Wuxian’s face. Jiang Cheng, he said, little more than a sigh, and his eyes closed. He was kneeling with a-jie in his arms, rocking back and forth, sounds half sobs and half screams tearing their way out of his throat.

He was walking away from the cliff’s edge with his entire world in ruins around him.

Jiang Cheng stood there at the edge of the stream and couldn’t decide who he hated most at the moment: Wei Wuxian or Lan Wangji.

Or himself.

The fourth time…

The fourth time.

He’d been following word of a demonic cultivator raising corpses near Yiling. Between the location and the case itself Jiang Cheng’s mood was already bad, his temper already on edge. It was the eve of Wei Wuxian’s birthday, and he couldn’t stop thinking about that fact. And no one was admitting to knowing anything.

When Lan Wangji walked into the teahouse, he almost got up and left. When Lan Wangji saw him, he looked like he was about to turn and leave himself, but then he turned pointedly away and took his seat without so much as a nod of greeting.

It was rude and petty and not at all a surprise.

Jiang Cheng wondered if Lan Wangji knew what day it was. Probably. Maybe that was why he was here. Reminiscing.

His anger bubbled like water starting to bubble, as reliable as ever. He drained his cup of liquor and signaled for another bottle.

Lan Wangji. Hanguang-fucking-jun. Always turning up like a ghost in his funeral whites with his self-righteous posturing. So noble. So perfect.

Jiang Cheng considered drinking straight out of the bottle, but he still had enough dignity to stop himself. Barely.

Lan-er-gongzi. What did he know? It wasn’t his family. Wasn’t his sect, his parents, his sister-

(His brother. Gods above, his brother, bright and smiling and full of life and gone.)

The stories about the Yiling Patriarch had grown. They were bigger than the man, now. Jiang Cheng couldn’t listen to them without wanting to wrap Zidian around someone’s throat.

When he found Wei Wuxian, or whatever was left of him-

He’d finished the second bottle, and was beginning to feel it.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” his head disciple said.

“I’m fine,” he said, his eyes fixing on Lan Wangji. Stand up, he willed him. Come over. Let’s do this. Fight me.

But of course Hanguang-jun didn’t move. Just sat there, eyes forward, looking through everyone in the room as though it was all beneath his notice.

Jiang Cheng got himself a third bottle.

How dare he just sit there. Had he heard something? Was he here for the same reason as Jiang Cheng? No, that wasn’t a question - of course he was. Following the same traces, and what did he think he was going to do if he found what he was looking for, did he think he could reunite with Wei Wuxian, delusional idiot if he did.

The only thing he was likely to find was a dangerous ghost that would rip out his throat and it would serve him fucking right.

Lan Wangji stood, laid some money on the table, and walked slowly, evenly, toward the stairs. He did not glance in Jiang Cheng’s direction. He did not greet him. He passed by not five chi from his table and it was as though he wasn’t there.

Jiang Cheng gritted his teeth so hard it hurt.

He stood. He could feel his sect watching him.

“Stay here,” he said to them, and followed Lan Wangji up the stairs. He felt a little unsteady, and genuinely wasn’t sure if it was his anger like a second heartbeat in his stomach or the liquor.

At the top of the stairs he stopped. Lan Wangji had paused down the hallway.

“Lan-er-gongzi,” Jiang Cheng said.

He did not respond. Jiang Cheng took a step toward him.

“Night-hunting in Yiling?” he said. “You are a long way from Gusu.”

Still nothing.

“You aren’t needed here,” Jiang Cheng said. “I am already dealing with the matter.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji said. Just the one syllable, not even a word, but Jiang Cheng’s hackles still rose. You bastard, he thought. You self-righteous, presumptuous-

“Lan Clan has such a reputation for their good manners,” Jiang Cheng snapped. “Have Lan-er-gongzi’s failed him? Perhaps as a result of bad associations.”

Lan Wangji glanced back, briefly. His gaze was searing. Then he turned his back once again, saying nothing.

“I don’t want to see you still here tomorrow,” Jiang Cheng pressed on. “This is Yunmeng Jiang territory. Go back to Jiangnan and do your hunting there.”

Lan Wangji was still for a moment longer, then began to walk again. Jiang Cheng took two quick steps after him and grabbed his arm.

“Did you hear me?”

Lan Wangji stopped. He turned, slowly.

“Let go of me,” he said coldly. Jiang Cheng sneered.

“Right,” he said. “You don’t like to be touched.”

Lan Wangji’s arm tensed in his grip, but he said nothing.

“You would’ve let him touch you,” Jiang Cheng said, snarled, his mouth running away with him. “You wanted him to, didn’t you. I used to think you hated him but that wasn’t true at all. The perfect Hanguang-jun, pining after the Yiling Patriarch.” He barked a laugh.

“Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Wangji said. “Watch your words.”

“My words,” Jiang Cheng said. “Here’s some words for you, Lan Zhan. You missed your chance. Wei Wuxian is dead. He’s never going to touch you.” He took a step forward, crowding into his space, and said, vicious, “and you’re going to die alone, hung up on a dead man-”

Lan Wangji’s eyes were fixed past him, over his shoulder, like he wasn’t there. Like everything he was saying was the buzzing of an insect. Jiang Cheng sucked in a breath.

“Don’t ignore me,” he snarled, and he couldn’t hit him, couldn’t draw his sword on him or whip him with Zidian, and the only thing he could think to do was grab Lan Wangji’s robes, yank him forward, and smash his lips against his.

The moment after he did it he thought he’s going to kill me, and the moment after that registered that Lan Wangji’s mouth was warm and surprisingly soft, and the moment after that Lan Wangji - responded.

If that was the right word for it.

It was graceless and rough and it didn’t feel good, exactly, but it was something and Jiang Cheng grabbed for the front of Lan Wangji’s robes, dragging him closer. He was pretty sure a kiss was supposed to be something different than this, something - nicer.

This wasn’t nice. It wasn’t sweet. It was like a fight that one of them was going to lose, and Jiang Cheng was determined that it wasn’t going to be him.

Then Lan Wangji pulled back, or tried; Jiang Cheng tightened his grip in his robes.

“Damn you,” he said roughly, but that wasn’t strong enough. “Fuck you.”

There was something dark and bitter and furious in Lan Wangji’s eyes and Jiang Cheng thought maybe he wouldn’t have seen it if they hadn’t been this close. “Jiang Wanyin,” he said, voice low enough it almost vibrated in Jiang Cheng’s chest.

Get away from me, Jiang Cheng thought, which wouldn’t have made any sense as he was the one who had come up here to begin with. “I hate you,” he said instead.

“Yes,” Lan Wangji said.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then both glanced down the hall toward the stairs.

“Do you know what day it is,” Jiang Cheng said, without really meaning to. There was a flash of feeling across Lan Wangji’s eyes, very briefly. Pain and on its heels anger.

“What day is it,” he said, voice flat, and Jiang Cheng could hear the challenge in it again just like when he’d said you haven’t said his name.

He swallowed hard. “You do,” he said, taking shelter in the anger again, hot and real and safe. “You know. Is that why you’re here? Chasing memories? Or a ghost.”

“Aren’t you?”

Jiang Cheng’s breath hitched, something catching and lodging in his chest. Fury and misery warred in him too close to pull apart.

Angrily, wretchedly, he kissed Lan Wangji again, and this time neither of them pulled away.

Somehow, they ended up in Lan Wangji’s room.

Somehow, they ended up on Lan Wangji’s room’s bed, which hadn’t been part of Jiang Cheng’s plans, but then he didn’t think he’d had plans at all. He was pretty sure he was drunk. He was pretty sure Lan Wangji wasn’t.

He was quite sure that he was currently pinning Lan Wangji down on his back, which was likely only the case because Lan Wangji was letting him, but he wasn’t going to think about that right now, or possibly ever, because he wasn’t going to think about this.

‘This’ being the fact that he had his tongue in Lan Wangji’s mouth and Lan Wangji’s fingers were digging into his shoulders hard enough to bruise, and Jiang Cheng had one hand under Lan Wangji’s robes but not quite down his pants. He was dimly aware that this might be one of the worst ideas he’d ever had, and was making the concerted decision to not care.

Sometimes it felt like a lot of his life was just bad ideas. In the grand scheme of things-

He pulled back. “I hate you,” he said again, because it felt like he needed to. “You know that, right? Out of everyone still alive-”

Lan Wangji moved, abruptly, flipping them over and pinning Jiang Cheng down and he was strong, which, it wasn’t like Jiang Cheng hadn’t known that but it was different when he was looming over you with his hands around your wrists.

“I don’t care,” he said, his voice quiet but hard. “Your hatred is meaningless.”

Jiang Cheng twisted his wrists free and grabbed for Lan Wangji’s hips, slamming their bodies together. His breathing was short and his chest felt like it was in a vice and he needed-

Something. He wasn’t even sure what.

“This,” he said, “is as close as you’re ever going to get to what you wanted.”

Lan Wangji’s nostrils flared but his body drove down against Jiang Cheng’s hard enough that it almost hurt, like he was trying to press him through the mattress and into the floor. “A poor substitute,” he said, and that went through him like a knife, hitting something deep and vital.

He moved one hand from Lan Wangji’s hip to his hair, grabbed a handful, and dragged his head down to savage his mouth. Lan Wangji bit his tongue. Jiang Cheng sunk his teeth into his lip. Their bodies ground together, clumsy and rough and then Lan Wangji’s hand was between them and shoving his hand down Jiang Cheng’s pants, grabbing his cock. Jiang Cheng let out a garbled, ridiculous noise, his body jerking involuntarily.

“That’s it,” he managed to force out. “Just imagine I’m someone else, if you can, does it help-”

He felt Lan Wangji shudder, his hand tightening painfully, his eyes closing for a split second. Jiang Cheng’s mouth twisted in a triumphant and nasty-feeling smile but it only lasted a second before Lan Wangji let go of him altogether in favor of wedging his leg between Jiang Cheng’s legs and grinding it against him so hard it almost hurt. His head thudded back against the bed and it felt like he almost choked on his tongue, but he just tightened his grip in Lan Wangji’s hair.

“Bastard,” he said, voice strangled.

Lan Wangji bit the side of his neck. Jiang Cheng yanked on his hair. The two of them grappled against each other, bodies heaving and graceless and whatever he’d imagined sex would be like, it wasn’t this.

I hate you, he thought, and kept thinking it as he flipped them over again and shed his layers of robes, as he grabbed Lan Wangji’s cock and started jerking him off. Jiang Cheng’s breaths came in gasping near sobs and he squeezed his eyes closed.

When Lan Wangji spilled in his hand it was with a great shuddering gasp like he’d been stabbed in the gut, and when Lan Wangji pinned Jiang Cheng to the mattress, hands around his wrists, and used nothing but his leg to make Jiang Cheng come, it felt like a punishment.

Afterwards, Jiang Cheng just lay there in a limp heap of sweat, exhausted and a little stunned. Also sticky. Also pretty sure he was already crying or about to start.

He didn’t look in Lan Wangji’s direction.

“This was a mistake,” Lan Wangji said at length.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Get out,” Lan Wangji said.

“Gladly,” Jiang Cheng said, though when he stumbled to his feet his legs felt a little wobbly. There was a weird pit in his stomach. When he glanced over at Lan Wangji his eyes were closed and he was holding very still.

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. In silence, he cleaned himself off, rearranged his hair, put his robes back on, and headed for the door.

“Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Wangji said. He stopped and pressed his lips together.

“What.”

“I could not pretend you are anyone else. He was always your better.”

Jiang Cheng’s throat closed for a moment. He pushed past it and said, nastily, “I guess you’ll never know if that’s true of everything,” and left, closing the door too hard behind him.

He just stood there, still, for a long time, wrenched out of shape. They’d been such a pair, the two of them. Lan Zhan and Wei Ying, so much greater, so much better than everybody else. Twin heroes. Ha. Not that anyone remembered that now.

Hanguang-jun, paragon of morality and righteousness.

His chest was full of poison. His throat was full of grief. And he was still a little drunk.

Jiang Cheng went to his room, sat down on his bed, put his face in his hands, and cried until he couldn’t breathe.

He didn’t see Lan Wangji again for quite a while. It’d been seven years since Wei Wuxian’s death, and there was still no sign of his return - and Jiang Cheng was looking. But nothing. No sign of him. Followers of his path, more fools meddling with demonic cultivation, and he dealt with them when he found them.

But however many times he lashed them with Zidian, no familiar ghost came forth.

Jin Ling was seven, moody and brattish, and split his time between Lotus Pier and Jinlintai. Jiang Cheng mostly felt like he had no idea what he was doing. He could hear himself shouting too much but Jin Ling was reckless and defiant and never listened and Jiang Cheng didn’t know how to make him. He wanted him to be strong but he also wanted him to be safe and every time Jin Ling cried or threw a tantrum all he could think was a-jie would know what to do, a-jie would do this better, a-jie, I miss you.

He was on his way back from Jinlintai when he heard about a water ghost causing some trouble in a small town, and detoured that way. Technically it wasn’t anything worth his time, but he went anyway, because Jin Ling had cried when he’d told him he had to leave.

Maybe I should bring him back to Yunmeng, Jiang Cheng said.

He needs to spend time here, too, Jin Guangyao said, not unkindly. I understand your desire to keep him close, Sect Leader Jiang, but it is Lanling where he will be Sect Leader someday.

He was right, and Jiang Cheng still wanted to grab him and take him back home. He needed the distraction to keep himself from turning around, going back, and snatching him out from under Lianfang-zun’s nose.

Of course, it turned out someone had already heard about the same disturbance and come. Of course. There he was, all in white, Bichen at his side and arm folded behind his back as he spoke quietly to a villager. Fear not, guniang, Jiang Cheng imagined him saying. I, the great Hanguang-jun, have come to save you.

His shoulders locked up. “Lan-er-gongzi,” Jiang Cheng said, his voice icy.

The villager’s head swiveled toward him immediately; Lan Wangji paused and did not look at him at all.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” he said.

“I heard about some trouble in this area,” Jiang Cheng said. “I suppose that’s why you’re here.”

“Yes.”

“Fortunate for us all that you are so attentive,” Jiang Cheng said, “and have such an abundance of time.”

Lan Wangji did turn his head, slowly. His eyes were opaque. “I go where I am needed.”

“You go where you please,” Jiang Cheng sneered. The woman to whom Lan Wangji had been speaking took a step back.

“Sect Leader, Hanguang-jun,” she said, bowing hurriedly. “I’ll take my leave-”

“No need,” Lan Wangji said, turning back toward her. “I have nothing further to say to him.”

“Is that so,” Jiang Cheng said. “Where you’re needed, Hanguang-jun. Is that really it? Or do you choose where to go based on what you hope you’ll find there?”

Lan Wangji was quiet. The villager bowed once again. “I beg your pardon,” she said, “I must return home now,” and nearly ran off.

“The only thing here is a water ghost,” Jiang Cheng said. “Beneath your august notice, surely.”

“And yours. The water ghost has been dealt with.” Lan Wangji’s polite bow somehow felt like a rude gesture. “Good afternoon, Sect Leader.”

Jiang Cheng wanted to scream. He gritted his teeth. Have you heard anything, he wanted to ask. Whispers, rumors, anything, but of course if Lan Wangji had he would be there, not here. “Were you hoping for something more than an ordinary restless ghost?”

Some slight tension crept into the line of his mouth. Jiang Cheng took a step forward.

“What do you think happens if you do find him, hm?” he asked. He could hear how vicious his own voice came out. How angry. He didn’t even try to rein it in. “What do you think is going to be left of him?”

Lan Wangji’s gaze turned searing for just a moment before it shuttered. “It is not relevant.”

“You don’t think so?” Jiang Cheng said. “You don’t think it might be relevant to consider what death might’ve made of a man who was half made of resentful energy when he died?”

Lan Wangji didn’t so much as blink. “Are you frightened, Jiang Wanyin?”

Jiang Cheng didn’t let himself flinch. “You’re a sentimental fool.”

Lan Wangji’s eyes narrowed just a hair, and Jiang Cheng fought the urge to lean forward.

“That’s not all it is, though,” he said. “Is it. You feel like you failed. Like you should have done more.”

The way Lan Wangji tensed was minute, but he still saw it, because he was looking for it. For the way his left hand clenched around Bichen and his shoulder twitched like he was about to move his right hand from behind his back, maybe to draw it.

“You’re right,” Jiang Cheng said, taking another step closer. “You should’ve stopped him sooner.” Lan Wangji jerked very slightly, and Jiang Cheng pressed forward. “Or I should have.”

Lan Wangji’s expression tightened. Go on, Jiang Cheng thought. Do your worst.

But all he did was turn away. Jiang Cheng’s face spasmed. A snarl caught in his throat. Rage built in his chest, hot and searing and sick.

“Your family must be so proud,” Jiang Cheng fired at his back. “It’s a miracle you’ve managed to keep your reputation. How much did Zewu-jun have to lie to pull that off?”

Lan Wangji stopped.

He had crossed a line, and he knew it. But he couldn’t back down now. Couldn’t stop now. His mouth was going without him. “It isn’t enough to dishonor your own name, you would sully his as well-”

Lan Wangji turned and very suddenly was standing extremely close, eyes glacially furious, and Jiang Cheng broke off.

“Jiang Wanyin,” he said. “You go too far.”

Jiang Cheng snorted. “What are you going to do, Hanguang-jun,” he said. “Strike me down where I stand?”

Lan Wangji’s gaze raked over him from head to toe, assessing and then dismissing him. “No,” he said. “You wouldn’t be worthy of it.”

Jiang Cheng’s mouth twisted, his stomach hot with sudden shame that joined the anger. “As though you are qualified to judge me. I know what you are.”

“Do you.”

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said. “Nothing but a man grieving something he never had. It’s pathetic.”

“As opposed,” Lan Wangji said, his voice somehow even colder, “to a man grieving something he threw away.”

That stole his voice. He didn’t recover it soon enough to stop Lan Wangji before he was far enough away that he would’ve had to shout, and Jiang Cheng still had enough dignity to avoid shouting at Hanguang-jun’s back in the middle of the street.

There was only one inn in town. It was too late to fly the rest of the distance back to Lotus Pier, unless he wanted to end up going in the dark. He had hoped that Lan Wangji might leave, but it appeared he hadn’t.

They sat at opposite sides of the room and resolutely ignored each other. Jiang Cheng could feel several people giving him nervous glances and ignored those, too. He ate quickly and retreated to his room, pouring himself a cup of tea only to just stare at it as it cooled.

Who did he think he was, anyway? Acting like - like-

He was always your better.

The cup shattered when it hit the wall. Jiang Cheng stared at it, his chest heaving, his stomach burning. How could he, how could he.

(How could you.)

Someone knocked on his door.

“What,” Jiang Cheng snapped. There was no immediate response, and after a moment he stood and stalked over, yanking it open.

He and Lan Wangji stared at each other. Jiang Cheng’s jaw worked.

“What do you want,” he ground out.

Lan Wangji drew in a quiet breath. A brief expression of consternation crossed his face, like he wasn’t sure how to answer that question either. Jiang Cheng just stared at him, refusing to help, a mixture of things too complicated to name seething in him, climbing up the back of his throat like bile.

“What do you,” Lan Wangji said, finally.

I don’t know, was the honest answer. I don’t have the first fucking clue. He should slam the door in Lan Wangji’s face. The last thing he wanted right now was to keep looking at him, let alone talk to him. For some reason he didn’t.

Lan Wangji’s eyes went to the shards of cup on the floor. The puddle of tea. Jiang Cheng felt his face getting hot.

“Say what you came to say or get lost so I can get on with my evening,” he snapped.

His face hardened, then relaxed. That hint of hesitation again, and then he stepped forward. Lan Wangji had just enough height on him to look down his nose with that perfect, searing disdain. Jiang Cheng planted his feet and held his ground, tension gathering in his chest.

“How,” Lan Wangji said, “are you all that is left?”

Jiang Cheng’s body seized momentarily and he just managed to keep himself steady. “Left of what,” he said, but he knew, because he’d thought it himself, in Lotus Pier, awake in the middle of the night and too aware of the fact that of all his family-

Wei Wuxian wasn’t your family.

It wasn’t a convincing lie even in his head.

Jin Ling. There was Jin Ling, young and fragile and Jiang Cheng was doing his best with him but always aware of the murmur underneath everything that said not enough not enough not enough.

“Whose fault is that,” Jiang Cheng said.

They stared at each other again. Lan Wangji took a sharp breath in and then planted a hand against Jiang Cheng’s chest and shoved him back. It wasn’t backed by more than ordinary strength but it caught him enough by surprise that he stumbled two steps back. Lan Wangji crossed the threshold and slid the door shut.

Oh, Jiang Cheng thought. He didn’t move, and neither did Lan Wangji, still standing with his hand on the door like he was thinking about walking out again. Jiang Cheng squared his shoulders.

“Well?” he said. “What are you waiting for?”

Lan Wangji dropped his hand from the door. His steps in Jiang Cheng’s direction weren’t quite a stalk. But they weren’t far from it. This time it was his hand in Jiang Cheng’s hair, dragging his head down.

Jiang Cheng’s stomach clenched and he grabbed onto the front of Lan Wangji’s robes like he needed the hold to balance. He jerked when Lan Wangji bit his lip, a spasm that went through his whole body, but only pulled him closer.

“Why,” Lan Wangji said, and there was something almost terrifyingly raw in his voice, just for a moment. “Why you?”

Just unlucky, I guess, Jiang Cheng thought, but he wasn’t sure enough of what Lan Wangji meant to say it, and anyway Lan Wangji didn’t really seem to want his answer, not if the way he smashed their mouths together was any indication. Urgent and angry and Jiang Cheng tightened his grip on Lan Wangji’s clothes and dragged him further into the room. Some small sensible voice asked what are you doing but he ignored it.

What did it matter? Of all the mistakes he’d made in his life-

It wasn’t like this was the worst.

Lan Wangji broke away and Jiang Cheng took a sharp breath. “Is this what you want?” he asked, rough and hoarse. “Is this what you came looking for?”

“No,” Lan Wangji said, but Jiang Cheng didn’t think it was really an answer to the question. He kissed him again, fists knotted in white robes, stomach burning, chasing - something. Something.

Lan Wangji backed him up against the bed and pushed him down onto it. Jiang Cheng started to shove himself back up only to be stopped by Lan Wangji’s hands on his shoulders, his head bent looking down at him. There was something terrible in the way he stared at Jiang Cheng like he could pull something out of him. Like he was going to try.

Jiang Cheng’s stomach clenched in nervous anticipation. Lan Wangji’s expression flickered and he fell still again.

Jiang Cheng set his jaw and glared up at him. “Hanguang-jun,” he said nastily. “Such a perfect gentleman. You-”

Lan Wangji lowered himself to his knees beside the bed and Jiang Cheng’s voice died, strangled on the way out of his throat. He gaped at him like an idiot, stomach suddenly full of eels. He didn’t pull himself together enough to say anything before Lan Wangji’s hands were undoing his belt and pulling open his robes, motions slow and deliberate and somehow still strangely impersonal. Finally Jiang Cheng managed to shake himself and grab Lan Wangji’s hands.

“I can undress myself,” he said, voice a little uneven.

Lan Wangji raised his eyes to Jiang Cheng’s and said, “you are capable.”

Jiang Cheng could feel his face getting hot. He was starting to feel unbearably exposed, half undressed while Lan Wangji was still wearing all his clothes. His grip on Lan Wangji’s wrists tightened.

“Why don’t you take off your own robes,” Jiang Cheng said. Lan Wangji stiffened.

“No.”

“Why,” Jiang Cheng said, lip curling, “are you that ugly underneath?”

Lan Wangji twitched, his jaw tightening. “Let go of me,” he said.

Jiang Cheng let go, and then was furious with himself for doing it. He opened his mouth, but whatever he’d meant to say - he didn’t really know - he choked on it when Lan Wangji palmed his cock through his underthings.

“What are you doing,” he said stupidly, and Lan Wangji’s glance up at him conveyed eloquently how stupid indeed that question was. He could feel his face getting hot and what he thought was you don’t even want me, why are you here, I’m not-

But he didn’t push him away, or tell him to stop. He closed his eyes and sunk his teeth into his lower lip so he didn’t make a sound. The quiet felt suffocating but it seemed like speaking would be worse. His whole body flashed hot and then cold, his throat closed, a fist-sized lump in his chest.

Lan Wangji pulled his hand away from his hardening cock and went back to stripping him, and Jiang Cheng didn’t pull away and didn’t pull away and didn’t, and he was on the edge of the bed with Hanguang-jun kneeling between his legs and looking up at him, all the air gone from his lungs.

His head spun. For a dizzy moment he felt like he wasn’t in his body, was somehow outside of it, looking at himself and thinking what the fuck are you doing, Jiang Wanyin.

Then Lan Wangji said, “don’t move,” and took him in his mouth.

The strangled sound he made would have been embarrassing, if he’d thought about it, but Jiang Cheng barely registered it. He grabbed onto the blankets and pulled like they were hair, his thoughts going exquisitely blank for one beautiful moment. He couldn’t look. He couldn’t look away from Lan Wangji’s lowered eyelashes masking his eyes like there was ever anything there to hide, bent down in some kind of supplication but that wasn’t how it felt, that wasn’t-

He wasn’t going to last. One of his hands, unbidden, moved to the back of Lan Wangji’s head - he stiffened immediately and Jiang Cheng yanked it away. Lan Wangji’s mouth was hot, wet, and it felt like Jiang Cheng was going to explode; his name was on the back of his tongue but he didn’t speak it, bit down on it until he tasted blood.

Help me, he thought, but didn’t know who he was asking or what kind of help he wanted.

It shouldn’t be you, said a nasty, vicious voice that sounded a little like his mother and a little like himself. It’s not supposed to be you.

Lan Wangji sucked, noisily and so hard it hurt, and the seal in Jiang Cheng’s chest broke. He cried out, loudly. Lan Wangji’s hands moved to his hips, holding him down as he moved his head up and down and Jiang Cheng’s back arched like a bow.

“I,” he heard himself say, “I, I-”

Then he was gone, and so was Lan Wangji’s mouth. He came into empty air, staring wide-eyed at Lan Wangji, his lips bright pink but his eyes hard and frozen.

The brief relief of release was overwhelmed by shame and a miserable sort of loss. He was suddenly acutely aware of his nakedness, and dragged his robes hurriedly around himself.

What was this supposed to be, Jiang Cheng thought, dazed. Penance? Revenge?

Lan Wangji stood up and Jiang Cheng reached out and grabbed his arm. “No you don’t,” he said, voice breathless and rough. “No, you don’t get to do that.”

“You have no say in what I do,” Lan Wangji said. Jiang Cheng’s fist tightened in his clothes and he levered himself clumsily to his feet.

“You came here,” he said. “You came to me. What do you want, Lan Wangji? What are you looking for?”

For just a moment - just a second - a fissure opened in his expression. A flash of loss that felt like a sword wound, that made Jiang Cheng want to jerk away and stumble back, that made him want to scream. No, he thought desperately. No, you don’t get to-

Then it was gone.

“I don’t want anything from you.”

Jiang Cheng sneered. “Sure,” he said, lip curling. “Keep telling yourself that, Hanguang-jun. But you came to me. Lie to yourself if you want. But don’t expect me to believe it.”

He let go and shoved him toward the door, turning his back to fumble the rest of his clothes back on. He didn’t turn around until he heard the door close.

He went over to the window and stuck his head outside, taking a deep breath of the night air. He felt sick, and lonely, and confused. How are you all that is left? Lan Wangji asked, and Jiang Cheng heard the echo in it of everything he’d ever feared of not good enough, not enough, never enough.

Jiang Cheng squeezed his eyes closed and hunched his shoulders against the ghosts at his back.

Sometimes Jiang Cheng felt like he was marking years by Jin Ling’s age. His nephew was ten years old: a-jie had been dead for ten years, Wei Wuxian had been dead for ten years. At least it made it easy to remember. As if he could forget.

He met the boy who was rumored to be Lan Wangji’s son - and what woman, Jiang Cheng wondered, could he have possibly made him with - when he accompanied Zewu-jun to Jinlintai. He was older than Jin Ling by perhaps three years. Quiet. Well-behaved. Naturally.

His courtesy name was Sizhui. Hearing it, Jiang Cheng had felt the bitterest urge to laugh.

“Your brother declined to come again?” Jiang Cheng said to Zewu-jun, who gave him a long, searching gaze.

“Yes,” he said after a few moments. “Did you have something you wished to speak with him about, Sect Leader Jiang?”

He suddenly could not look Zewu-jun in the eye. “No,” he said. “It was only an observation.”

“Mm,” Zewu-jun said, and it was milder, and came with a small smile, but it still reminded Jiang Cheng excruciatingly of his younger brother. He excused himself, perhaps somewhat less than gracefully.

It felt vaguely unfair that Lan Wangji could choose to avoid these things in all their frustrating glory. His privilege, that there was someone else to shoulder the burden of leading Lan Sect, so he could spend his time gallivanting across the countryside.

Jiang Cheng wondered where he was right now. What he was doing.

Ensconced in a gilded guest room, he woke from a familiar nightmare of Lotus Pier burning. He was ankle-deep in blood, and he could hear a-jie calling his name - a-Cheng! a-Cheng! - but her voice was getting further and further away. Jin Ling was crying somewhere, the wordless howls of his toddlerhood.

In front of him, Wei Wuxian, on his knees, hands soaked in blood stretched out toward him.

“Jiang Cheng,” he said, soft and gentle, the way he had at the cliff’s edge, and then blood started spilling from his mouth, blood that turned into black smoke that spread out to swallow everything whole-

He wondered if Lan Wangji had good dreams. If Jiang Cheng did, he never seemed to remember them.

It was a mystery to Jiang Cheng how Lan Wangji managed to be everywhere, and all too often in the same places that Jiang Cheng was. Like he was following Jiang Cheng, even though he knew that wasn’t what it was - they were just walking the same paths. Looking for the same patterns. Hunting the same monster.

Jiang Cheng couldn’t think of anyone still alive that he hated as much.

This time he wasn’t alone - was accompanied by a gaggle of Lan juniors clustered around him like ducklings and all staring at him with wide eyes. He ignored them, eyes pinned on Lan Wangji.

“You again,” he said.

Lan Wangji just looked at him for several long, unblinking moments. Jiang Cheng glanced at the juniors and then made a disgusted noise. “So you’re dragging children on your wild goose chase now?”

Another moment of staring, and then Lan Wangji turned to his followers and said, “sit down. Get yourselves food.”

There was a chorus of yes, Hanguang-juns, and they dispersed, though a few with glances back at Jiang Cheng that were a mixture of shocked and horrified. Jiang Cheng kept his focus on Lan Wangji, lip twitching like it was about to curl.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” he said, empty of feeling as ever. A snarl clawed at the inside of Jiang Cheng’s chest.

“Hanguang-jun,” he said. “Always an honor.”

“Mn,” Lan Wangji said. Jiang Cheng took two steps closer to him, locking eyes and refusing to look away.

In the end Lan Wangji turned away first, but somehow it didn’t feel like a victory. Jiang Cheng could feel the juniors staring while trying to pretend they weren’t and wondered what they saw. What they knew. What rumors they’d heard.

Sandu Shengshou killed the Yiling Patriarch at Nightless City!

He ordered dinner to his room.

Jiang Cheng didn’t so much decide to go to Lan Wangji as he ended up at his door, standing outside it with his jaw set and thinking don’t. Don’t do it.

He knocked. Lan Wangji opened the door and looked at him with his icy face and glacial eyes.

Then he stepped back without a word.

Jiang Cheng stepped in and barely waited for the door to close before he grabbed Lan Wangji and shoved him up against the wall. He didn’t say anything, just smashed his lips against his. Why you, he thought, why is it always you, even as he stuck his tongue in Lan Wangji’s mouth, pinning him with the full length of his body.

Lan Wangji lunged forward, grabbed him and flipped them around, his arm across Jiang Cheng’s chest. His kiss was rough, all tongue and teeth and aggression; Jiang Cheng’s body lurched toward him, grinding against him, or trying, hands groping for fistfuls of his robe.

Pulling away from his mouth, Lan Wangji dropped his mouth to Jiang Cheng’s shoulder and bit down. He let out a shout, too loud, his face immediately blazing with heat.

“Fuck,” he said. “That hurt,” but it wasn’t exactly a protest. The ache rippled out from his shoulder, and he dragged Lan Wangji toward him and returned the favor, at the base of his neck. Lan Wangji didn’t yell. Just took a short, sharp breath, his body shuddering briefly.

Jiang Cheng pulled back, sucking in his own harsh breaths. Lan Wangji’s hand plunged down between them, grinding it against his cock through his robes. Jiang Cheng’s eyes closed and he let out a strangled, incoherent, and thoroughly embarrassing noise. He moved to do the same, to grab Lan Wangji’s cock through his clothes, rubbing the heel of his hand roughly against him. He heard his breathing hitch and get faster and felt an obscure, unreasonable sort of triumph.

He caught it out of the corner of his eye and stopped dead.

On white robes, the red of blood stood out, vivid and savage. A small stain, but it had bled through, and Jiang Cheng stared at it and suddenly felt a little sick.

He shoved Lan Wangji back, hard. “What is that,” he said, pointing. Lan Wangji said nothing, just stared at him, and Jiang Cheng set his jaw and said, “did you get yourself injured night-hunting?”

Lan Wangji’s lips thinned slightly. “It was minor.”

“I’m not getting your blood on my robes,” Jiang Cheng said hotly. “Take them off.”

Lan Wangji’s expression went cooler, somehow. “No.”

Jiang Cheng gritted his teeth. “I’m going to help, you ass,” he snarled. Lan Wangji didn’t move, and Jiang Cheng took a stalking step toward him, crowding into his space, and said, “who else is going to? You don’t have anyone else.”

Something crumpled, for just a split second, in Lan Wangji’s eyes. Then they were ice again.

But he stepped back and began removing his robes. Folding them carefully, neatly, despite the bloodstains. Jiang Cheng’s eyes went to the four lines of scratches along his ribs, shallow but bleeding freely; his own side stung looking at them.

“Were you going to say something?” he asked.

“No.”

Jiang Cheng hissed out through his teeth and looked around for a towel. “Sit down,” he said. “Those need bandaging. Do you have the supplies?” There was a hard ball of - something, not exactly desire, in his stomach, but he could handle it. Why do you care, murmured a quiet voice, but he ignored it.

“Yes,” Lan Wangji said after a moment, and there was something there, about Lan Wangji having what he needed to tend this and doing nothing, that twisted in his stomach like a knife.

He found a towel, and brought over the pot of water to wet it. Lan Wangji had only stripped his inner robe down to the waist, but it was more than Jiang Cheng had seen of his bare skin before.

There was a brand, he saw, on the left side of his chest. A familiar shape.

His heart lurched and his stomach turned over. He pressed his teeth together and crouched down to wipe the blood away. Lan Wangji did not so much as flinch. Of course he didn’t.

Why did Lan Wangji have a Wen brand on his chest?

Who had put it there?

Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything as he bandaged the scratches. Didn’t comment on why he’d let them go untreated, and Lan Wangji didn’t ask why he was helping; Lan Wangji didn’t look at him and Jiang Cheng didn’t try to meet his eyes.

It felt like someone had tied a knot in his intestines.

When he finished, he moved back, and stood. That brand, on the tip of his tongue. It matches his.

“There,” he said roughly. “It’s done.”

Lan Wangji’s eyes were directed downward. When he looked up it was slowly, his face an impossible blank.

“Sect Leader Jiang,” he said, level and even, “I will never forgive you.”

Jiang Cheng jerked. “I don’t want your forgiveness,” he snapped. “I don’t care about it.”

Lan Wangji stood, slowly, and turned, reaching for his robes; for the first time Jiang Cheng saw his back, only partially covered by the fall of his hair. He just stopped himself from startling at the mass of scar tissue, overlapping, and he couldn’t see what was under Lan Wangji’s hair but he was absolutely certain it wasn’t unblemished skin.

Lan Wangji fell still for a split second, as though realizing that he’d shown something he hadn’t meant to, and then resumed his methodical, silent dressing.

“What happened to your back,” Jiang Cheng asked, blunt and harsh, because he knew what whip marks looked like and he didn’t have to think too hard about what might have earned Lan Wangji such a punishment. Lan Wangji stiffened, but he didn’t draw on his robe any faster.

The scarring was vicious and extensive. His back must have been beaten to a pulp to leave marks like that. He would have been in agony.

Three years of seclusion, he remembered. How much of that was just spent healing?

Jiang Cheng hated the pang of sympathy and shoved it away, hard. Lan Wangji had brought it on himself. He was probably proud.

(Guilt and shame squirmed their way up Jiang Cheng’s throat and he swallowed both back down.)

“Was it worth it?” he blurted out, and then wanted to cringe. The tangle of emotions in his voice was excruciating and he didn’t know what he wanted to hear, didn’t know what would be worse, yes or no.

Lan Wangji fell very still. “What,” he said, and Jiang Cheng could pretend he thought Lan Wangji hadn’t heard, or could drop the subject, but that would feel like backing down.

“Defending him,” Jiang Cheng said. “Trying to save him. Standing against your sect. Was it worth-” He broke off, choking on the words, because he was starting to hear something urgent there, some kind of need and he barely knew what it was for.

“Yes,” Lan Wangji said. Like it was that simple. That easy. No hesitation or doubt, and sure, he had the luxury of that, what had Wei Wuxian done to him, what had Wei Wuxian cost him, what were a few scars against - everything.

Why did he get to have that certainty? That clarity?

Lan Wangji finished dressing and turned. His eyes were fathomless and cold. “Was it worth it?” he asked, an echo of Jiang Cheng’s question. “Are you happy, Jiang Wanyin, with what you did and did not do?”

No, howled Jiang Cheng’s heart. No. But what was I supposed to do? What else could I have done?

“Yes,” he spat.

Lan Wangji’s gaze was sharp as a blade. “Go,” he said, a command, and Jiang Cheng wanted to snarl, wanted to break eye contact and slink away like a kicked dog. Wanted to grab Lan Wangji and shake him and say, how, how do you do it. Say, you didn’t save him either.

“How long are you going to grieve, Hanguang-jun?” he asked. “Forever?”

Lan Wangji said nothing, and Jiang Cheng felt suddenly petty and small and wretched.

He left standing straight and tall and perfectly composed, but he felt like a cur, some kind of pathetic stray skulking along with its belly to the ground.

He sat at the table and stared at one of the walls. “There was nothing else I could have done,” he said to it, but of course it didn’t answer.

Jiang Cheng didn’t mean for it to happen again.

Leaning against a wall with his pants around his knees, his hand around his cock and Lan Wangji’s both, he could admit that what he meant to happen clearly mattered very little, and always had.

It was possible that there was something broken in him.

Maybe that was why everyone always left.

It was late.

It was very late, and Hanguang-jun was standing in the courtyard of Lotus Pier, alone. He could sympathize with the look of extreme consternation that had been on Zhong Jia’s face when she’d knocked on his door and woken him from, for once, a decent sleep.

What the fuck was he doing here?

“What are you doing here,” Jiang Cheng asked. His voice was harsh and angry and too loud. There was, he saw, a blurriness in Lan Wangji’s eyes, heavy-lidded, like he was concussed or maybe drunk.

“I don’t know,” he said. Jiang Cheng stared at him.

“You don’t know,” he said. “You just happened to wander into Lotus Pier at random, then?” Lan Wangji stared at him, mute, and Jiang Cheng’s lip curled. “Well. Welcome, Hanguang-jun. We of the Jiang Sect are honored by your august presence.” He could hear the bitterness dripping from his words and didn’t care. Lan Wangji didn’t sway, but he took a step closer.

“Show me,” he said.

Jiang Cheng set his jaw. “Show you what,” he said.

“This was his home.”

He didn’t have to give a name. Between the two of them, there was only one he. Jiang Cheng clenched his teeth until his jaw started to hurt.

“Operative word being was,” Jiang Cheng said. “I’m not here to give you a tour of Wei Wuxian’s old haunts. If that’s what you want-”

“His room,” Lan Wangji interrupted. Jiang Cheng stared at him, his thoughts momentarily blank.

“You showed up here,” Jiang Cheng said, “in the middle of the night, to ask me to show you Wei Wuxian’s old room?”

“Yes,” Lan Wangji said. Was he drunk? No, he couldn’t be.

“It’s been fifteen years. It’s gone,” Jiang Cheng said. “I locked and sealed it.”

“Show me,” Lan Wangji said again. Jiang Cheng took a breath through his nose. No, he wanted to say. Absolutely not.

He turned on his heel and marched across the courtyard, not bothering to look back to see if Lan Wangji was following.

Jiang Cheng stopped in front of a familiar door. It was sealed, forbidden to everyone in Lotus Pier, and no one even dared to mention its existence, or why it was forbidden. Lan Wangji drew up next to him and stared at the door like he might be able to see through it, like Wei Wuxian might be behind it.

Jiang Cheng broke the seal and opened the door.

“There,” he said. “Go ahead. Look. I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of it.”

Lan Wangji stepped inside. Jiang Cheng’s stomach twisted.

He didn’t mean to follow him, but he did, stepping through the door after him and closing it behind him. The air felt still and close. The room itself felt like a ghost. A hollow shell, a body without a soul.

Lan Wangji walked further into it, slowly, almost like he was sleepwalking.

“Is it what you expected?” Jiang Cheng asked, his voice scraping over his throat. Lan Wangji said nothing, and Jiang Cheng stepped jerkily toward him, hands clenching into fists. “What did you think you’d find here?”

Lan Wangji turned slowly. He stared at Jiang Cheng, the look on his face-

“Did you ever love him,” Lan Wangji said, and Jiang Cheng almost choked on his own spit.

“What kind of a question is that,” he said hoarsely.

“Did you?”

Jiang Cheng held in the urge to snarl, but only barely. He felt sick. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “After everything he did-”

“Jiang Wanyin.”

“Why?” Jiang Cheng demanded. “Why do you want to know? Why do you care? Lan Wangji, Hanguang-jun-”

“Answer the question.”

Something in Jiang Cheng’s chest snapped like a bowstring. “What do you think? He was my-”

He broke off. My brother. My best friend. He was going to be my right hand. He was going to stay with me forever.

Fifteen years. Why did it still hurt so badly? When would it stop? He stared at Lan Wangji, chest heaving like he’d fought a battle. “Damn you,” he whispered.

Lan Wangji’s expression flickered. Barely.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t sure which of them moved first. They crashed together, tearing at each others’ clothes. Lan Wangji’s mouth was hot and tasted like liquor; he sank his teeth into Jiang Cheng’s lip until he felt skin break and tasted blood; Jiang Cheng grabbed onto Lan Wangji’s hair close to his scalp and pulled. It was vicious, and brutal, and tears sprang to Jiang Cheng’s eyes but he didn’t care. It didn’t feel good but it felt right.

He bore Lan Wangji back against the wall, slamming his back against it and pinning him there; Lan Wangji’s fingers dug into his arms hard enough to bruise. Jiang Cheng felt himself shake, pulse pounding low in his stomach. It felt like he was riding a runaway horse, or maybe being dragged along by one.

“Did you think,” he said, “this would be a balm for your grief? Did you think you’d find some kind of comfort-”

“Shut up,” Lan Wangji said, and there it was, the rare intensity of feeling he’d last heard fifteen years ago when he’d cried out Wei Ying!, and Jiang Cheng split open, an egg hatching something hideous and blackened and rotten.

“There is nothing here for you,” Jiang Cheng said. “There is nothing in the world that is going to help you as long as you keep clinging to a memory, living in the past. Look at yourself! It’s pathetic.” His mouth tasted like bile.

“Look at yourself,” Lan Wangji said, low and too quiet. Jiang Cheng’s throat closed.

He didn’t know what else to do, so he kissed Lan Wangji again, savage and desperate and trying to forget, clumsy and furious.

He let Lan Wangji nearly throw him down on the bed - Wei Wuxian’s bed - still half-in and half-out of his clothes. He stretched out over Jiang Cheng, who reached up and dug his fingers into his back, the map of scar tissue there, and it somehow felt unfair that Lan Wangji had those and Jiang Cheng had nothing, no trace of the shreds Wei Wuxian had made of his soul.

He drove his hips up to grind against Lan Wangji’s and said, “do it, then,” his voice barely sounding like his own.

The sound Lan Wangji made was harsh and sounded like a mix between despair and anger, his body pushing down; the shock of friction sent a spike of sensation up his cock and into his stomach. His groan strangled in his throat.

“Do what,” Lan Wangji said.

Jiang Cheng swallowed convulsively several times before he said, “fuck me. If you can manage it.”

Lan Wangji inhaled sharply. His face twitched and after a moment he pulled back and flipped him bodily to his stomach. Jiang Cheng’s face blazed but he held back any noise of protest and just squirmed the rest of the way out of his robes, or at least enough. He was breathing quick and harsh and shallow.

He could feel the calluses from Lan Wangji’s guqin playing in his touch, hand spanning Jiang Cheng’s hip, and he tensed, bracing himself, his hands clenching into fists.

He felt the calluses on his fingers again when they thrust up into him, too. He had the feeling that there should be some kind of - something to make this easier, but maybe not and he wasn’t going to ask. He just sank his teeth into the inside of his cheek and took it, what’s a little pain, what does it matter. Lan Wangji’s breathing sounded unsteady.

“Come on,” Jiang Cheng ground out, his body twitching, forcing himself to push his hips up toward Lan Wangji’s hand. “Get it over with.”

He felt Lan Wangji’s shudder in the twitch of his fingers, and for a fraction of a second there was almost something good again, but then he pulled them out and it was the blunt head of his cock against him instead.

Was Lan Wangji shaking?

Was that a hitch in his breathing like he was on the verge of tears?

No. Surely not. Not Hanguang-jun.

Lan Wangji pushed into him and Jiang Cheng was grateful, briefly, that he couldn’t see his face. Jiang Cheng’s eyes squeezed closed and he pressed his face into the mattress so the sound he made was safely muffled. It hurt, burned, and Jiang Cheng thought dizzily people do this for fun? but he couldn’t tell him to stop now. His body clenched and Lan Wangji lurched forward with a quiet, guttural sound that Jiang Cheng heard himself echo.

The thought floated across his mind: Lan Wangji is fucking you, in Wei Wuxian’s bedroom, on Wei Wuxian’s bed, look at yourself indeed-

Lan Wangji pulled out and thrust roughly back in, and then again, deeper every time. Rough and rhythmless and it felt like he was chasing something, or trying to purge something, and Jiang Cheng wondered if it was working. His fingers dug into Jiang Cheng’s hips and his next thrust hit something inside him that almost felt good, that made his body jump and tense. Lan Wangji’s hand planted between his shoulder blades and pushed down, but for a split second his touch almost felt gentle.

He wanted this. He needed it. He was barely hard but that didn’t seem to matter.

Stop. Keep going. I don’t want to think, I don’t want to exist, I don’t know how to-

Lan Wangji’s pace quickened, hips pumping as Jiang Cheng’s body gave, saying nothing though his breathing grew harsher and louder. His hand moved from Jiang Cheng’s back to brace next to him, body bending over him so Jiang Cheng could feel his breath on his back. There was something building in his gut but it wasn’t an orgasm, was something else, an aching yearning desperation for something he couldn’t name. There were tears leaking from his eyes but they weren’t because of the pain.

He thought he could feel wetness on his back,

I hate you, Jiang Cheng thought, and wasn’t sure who he meant. Lan Wangji or himself or the ghost between them, always between them, dead but never gone.

When Lan Wangji came it was with a sound like a sob. He was still inside him, pressed against him like he was trying to get closer, when he reached around and started jerking Jiang Cheng off; his orgasm felt wrenched out of him like a limb popping out of its socket.

After a few moments of silence Lan Wangji pulled away and rolled to his back. Jiang Cheng stayed where he was, limp and boneless and sticky. And bereft. When he turned his head he saw that there were tracks of tears down Lan Wangji’s cheeks.

He said nothing, because he could feel them on his own, too.

There were crude figures carved in the wood, he saw. Kissing.

“Was it good for you,” he said. His voice shook. Lan Wangji didn’t answer.

Jiang Cheng closed his eyes. His chest felt full of thorns. He wanted someone to hold him, but there was no one who would. No one left.

Did you ever love him?

He swallowed back a sob and thought, in the quiet of his own mind, lying next to the only other living person who might understand, I miss you.

Fifteen years. How long would it take for that to stop?

Maybe another fifteen. Maybe the rest of his life. Maybe forever.

This room was like a memorial to when they’d been happy, once. There was nothing here now other than bitterness and hate.

When he looked at Lan Wangji again his eyes were closed, seemingly asleep. Jiang Cheng rose slowly, dressed, and left him there. In the safety of his room he washed up, mechanically, and pulled out Chenqing and stared at it like it might give him some answers.

He was always your better.

How are you all that’s left?

Did you ever love him?

Jiang Cheng buried his face in his hands. There is nothing for you here, he’d spat in Lan Wangji’s face; sometimes he wondered if there was anything for him, either.

In the morning, Lan Wangji was gone.

Somehow Jiang Cheng knew he’d see him again soon.