Jiāng Chéng (zidian) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-02-01 00:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: jiang cheng, ₴ inactive: wei wuxian |
Log: Wei Wuxian & Jiang Cheng
He was reluctant to leave his sister’s side, but he was self-aware enough to know his presence was an overbearing one. Were it anyone else, he wouldn’t even care. But Yanli would always be a special case. He couldn’t bear to be the source of more stress for her. Which left him in search of a distraction. Something familiar.
The sign on the building said “Soups, Soups, Soups”. He squinted up at it for a long moment before he finally went inside to order and claim a corner table barely big enough for his food.
It had been a whirlwind of a week and his emotions were a tangled mess, but slurping from an oversized bowl put him in a semi-peaceful state. At least until the bell on the door jangled and he looked up to see his brother enter. He choked on a vegetable chunk and brought his napkin to his mouth. This large of a city and of course, Wei Wuxian still ended up in the same little shop. Jiang Cheng’s heart beat hard against his ribs, but only the wideness of his eyes gave away his anxiety as he stared at his brother.
It was a near-daily tradition for Wei Wuxian to come to “Soups, Soups, Soups” for lunch, to the point that in his nearly three months here, they knew him by name. A name they called out as soon as he entered, which had him waving to the workers near the back of the little restaurant and doing a sweep of the room.
When his eyes fell on Jiang Cheng, there was a mix of emotions immediately. At first instinct, he wanted to go to his brother, to immediately push himself into the narrative, to get the attention he sought. Jiang Cheng had been avoiding him since his arrival, since that conversation.
And Wei Wuxian had been-- as fine with that as he could be. It wasn’t in his genetic makeup to leave things alone, but he had gotten better about it with time. He knew Jiang Cheng well enough to know his brother would seek him out when he was ready. Maybe.
But now he was antsy and Jiang Cheng was right there and before he knew it, he was pulling up a chair to the little table and looking over the menu despite knowing exactly what he wanted. “What did you get? Their carrot ginger soup is very good.”
It startled Jiang Cheng to hear his brother’s name shouted joyfully. It had been many years since he witnessed Wei Wuxian welcomed into a space that way and it twisted the feeling in his gut even tighter. Of course, he wasn’t actually surprised that Wei Wuxian sat down at his table, even with as small as it was.
He stared across the table for a long moment and then heavily rolled his eyes.
“They called it Buddha’s Delight.” he grunted, raising his chopsticks to his mouth but not actually taking a bite. His dark eyes traveled away from his brother’s well-known face out over the room to the people behind the counter. “Did you rescue them from a resentful spirit or something?”
Wei Wuxian hummed a little happy response and gave the people behind the counter a thumbs up. It was always a better thing when Jiang Cheng just put up with him rather than pushing him away, and not starting a fight in the middle of a public restaurant was the first step!
Next step, maybe a little smile. Or going five minutes without an eyeroll.
He wouldn’t hold his breath for that last one, but he still made a show of unfolding a napkin on his little inch of the table and focusing on it while he talked. Easier than eye contact. “No, no. I’m just here a lot, there’s a waypoint nearby and I can come here on my lunch hour from the school.” He finally looked up and shot his brother a meaningful stare. “Everyone is very friendly here, Jiang Cheng. No judgements!”
“Maybe they are just too dim to judge well,” Jiang Cheng countered, raising one sharp eyebrow as he took a sip of his soup. He wasn’t doing any better on the eye contact though. It was safer to stare at a point just beyond Wei Wuxian’s shoulder or at the people coming and going through the door. It was less demeaning than staring into his soup, even if he deserved the guilt that bent his spine.
“What is this school?” He wasn’t sure why he was asking; he didn’t want to know. (He wanted to know everything, with an intensity that annoyed him.) It couldn’t be a cultivation school. The reason it couldn’t be a cultivation school made him frown down into his soup after all. “Is there more strange magic for you to learn here?”
Wei Wuxian’s mouth curved into one of his exaggerated frowns, almost immediately. He didn’t like anyone speaking badly of people who had been nice to him - people didn’t even have to be nice for him to not be a fan, truthfully - but he knew how Jiang Cheng was, and objecting wouldn’t do anything. But he could frown, and frown well.
He could also kill people with kindness, as he waited to answer Jiang Cheng while a bowl of soup was brought to the table and delivered with a smile and a spoon. Winter root soup, bright in color, like the grin and thanks Wei Wuxian offered the waiter. When he turned back to his brother, his smile was a little more diminished, and he just gave a shrug in return. “It’s a magic university, there’s a great deal to learn there but I teach Demonology.” He sounded too cheerful for this kind of conversation. “My studies at Lan Sect came in handy!”
Jiang Cheng watched his brother’s face curl into a frown out of the side of his eyes. Annoyance tangled up with shame in his gut. It hadn’t been a very good joke, but it had been a joke. His kind of sharp and dry one, anyway. He was angry more often than not but he was rarely disrespectful to strangers who were simply doing their jobs. But Wei Wuxian didn’t say anything about it, so Jiang Cheng didn’t say anything about it.
He choked on his soup instead.
“You’re teaching demonology?” A few nearby customers lifted their heads at his surprised outburst. He had the grace to look embarrassed and he lowered his voice to a confused whisper. “Have you lost your mind? What exactly do you plan to do when it starts corrupting your students?”
Wei Wuxian had heard Jiang Cheng raise his voice hundreds of times, and remained unphased, to the point of even cracking a grin in between bites of his soup. Wei Wuxian had a great many failings, but confidence wasn’t one of them.
“So worried, Jiang Cheng.” Wei Wuxian’s chin rose high to the air, “Not all demonology corrupts, when you do not have to rely on it, when you do not have anger and desperation inside of you. I teach a lot of knowledge and how to deal with spirits and exorcise demons, not as much my kind of demonic cultivation. Here, Demonic Cultivation is more like Necromancy, which someone else teaches.”
Not to be one to let an opportunity to tease pass him by, Wei Wuxian continued in a rush. “I could get you in that class, if you wanted.”
The explanation would have inspired more suspicion not too long ago. Everything to do with Wei Wuxian would’ve inspired more suspicion, blindly and fiercely, for many years. But Jiang Cheng knew all too well that his brother was capable of putting doubt into people’s heads with all the right words. Sometimes they still attacked him later, but they had doubts.
He stared at Wei Wuxian for a long moment before sighing and dropping his gaze to his soup. “I don’t know why you...can’t just…keep your head down for a little while. Must you ask for trouble in this strange place?” Sounding worried was not a part of the plan. Jiang Cheng sneered and stabbed his chopsticks into his soup. “Is it that you can’t live without the attention?”
It was a good thing Wei Wuxian was used to this. Sixteen years for him had been like a dream, like time had passed for him wherever he was but it had never felt that long. So this reminder, the tone of angry worry coming from his brother, was freshly familiar.
It almost made him feel good. At the very least, it made him feel better. He knew his charming voice wasn’t likely to work with Jiang Cheng at this point, so he leaned hard on reasonable.
Reasonable as he could be, anyway. “Jiang Cheng! I was here by myself for a while, I needed to work. I didn’t have Lan Zhan here to pay for all of my things,” That earned a little smirk. “Besides, the magic of so many people is a lot different than ours, and everyone should learn how to handle demons and spirits.”
Jiang Cheng couldn’t have stopped he’s eyes from rolling if he’d tried. Pay for all of my things. In his weaker moments lately, he was glad his brother had possessed Lan Zhan’s loyalty all those years. But in the aftermath of several weeks in relative solitude and Wei Wuxian’s self-satisfied little smirk, he kept that to himself.
“You have other skills,” he said dryly. “Not many, but one or two.” Nothing would make him pleased about demonology. Nothing would make him pleased about his brother staying tangled up in the dark arts. But he couldn’t argue that people needed basic knowledge about demons and spirits. He ate quietly for a moment, annoyed but strangely not angry. No doubt that would change soon. “What is Hanguang-Jun doing with his time?”
Wei Wuxian made a noise, one that bordered on a laugh, but not quite reaching to those heights. “I was very good at teaching the juniors! Even Jin Ling learned many things from me, you know.” He could only tease his brother so much, but each and every day he was ready and willing to stretch that a little. Maybe once they had been more settled, once things felt more comfortable and better, he would stretch that again.
But some days he really didn’t know if things could get better. Even now that they knew everything - knew that Wei Wuxian wasn’t responsible for so much evil that had been put in his direction, but still responsible for other things - there had been a great deal of anger and frustration that had manifested. Not all things could be fixed in this life, but it was in Jiang Cheng’s court when it came to moving on. “Lan Zhan is-- doing similar to what he is at home? Diplomacy, with the Outlander Affairs. I tried to get him to take a break but--” He shrugged, as if he was helpless. “He likes to stay busy.”
The amused sound Wei Wuxian made did something unsettling to Jiang Cheng’s emotions and he refused to even acknowledge it. He wrinkled his nose in offense instead.
“Jin Ling did not need whatever lessons you think you gave him.” That was probably a lie but he would argue it, with his chopsticks in the air just so, until Wei Wuxian let him have this or he got bored and changed the subject. That or he’d leave. He should leave. This moment was entirely too comfortable. He frowned and ate another bite of soup in a distracted way.
“It is probably for the best that he’s making connections.” Jiang Cheng sighed and pushed his bowl to the side. “For when you inevitably annoy someone willing to stab you.”
Wei Wuxian tshed into his soup as he brought his spoon to his mouth, which in turn made the soup blow a little off of the spoon and splash. He comically scowled across at Jiang Cheng before reaching out to clean it up with his napkin. “That isn’t true, it was good advice! Advice you could use.” Well, maybe not the fighting advice. Jiang Cheng would only judge that. He also wouldn’t do well with saying I’m sorry, so maybe it really was a wash.
But the digs paired together, with the reference to stabbing, and the thoughts of how things could have gone very differently if people had been more banded together made him frown.
His brother wasn’t wrong, that Lan Zhan had prevented him from being stabbed even more than he would have normally. But his hand still traveled to his side, where he bore a scar from years past. His expression softened into sadness, open and readable on his face. “Will that be you, A-Cheng?”
Wei Wuxian had always been a sharpshooter; Jiang Cheng probably should have seen the arrow coming. Unfortunately for him, he was too busy planning his escape. He inhaled sharply and his eyes closed. His mouth twisted into a complicated shape.
“Not if I can help it,” he said quietly. The chair made a loud noise as he pushed it back and stood. He still hadn’t figured out how these things worked here, but he pulled out some of the strange money they’d given him and left it on the table for the service staff. Hopefully it was enough. He got three steps away, without so much as a goodbye, before he turned and raised his hands to stiffly bow.
“Enjoy your lunch, Wei Wuxian.” He didn’t make eye contact and it came out sounding a little more like suck on an egg, Wei Wuxian but that was just the usual tone of his voice these days. It was something. Even if he didn’t know what. And had no intention of staying to figure it out.
Jiang Cheng turned quickly on a heel and left.
The sound that came after was something of a whine, as Wei Wuxian pushed out a harsh breath as Jiang Cheng had left. He knew he went too far, but sometimes he just couldn’t help it.
He could finish his food, though, not wanting to let good food go to waste just because his little brother was all too eager to run away from the force of life called Wei Wuxian.