Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Wei Ying stared at his brother as Jiang Wanyin’s features crumpled in an all too familiar knee jerk fury, but Lan Zhan’s husband was no raw child anymore and had two lifetimes of experience in heading off the oncoming eruption. He had Jiang Wanyin in a headlock almost before his younger brother got past the first few syllables of “Wei Wuxian!”

“HO- ly shit.” 

Lan Zhan wistfully noted that Wen Qing had not changed much except in the quality of her language, which did not bother Lan Zhan as much as one might have thought. She’d been elegantly deadly in her previous life and now she was every bit as deadly, just less elegant.

She pulled off her sunglasses, but did not actually try to physically intervene. “Wuxian, what the fuck?”

“That’s what I want to know!” Jiang Wanyin snarled.

“Sorry, Qing-jie.” Wei Ying flashed her his most charming smile, which she failed to be impressed by. “This is my foster brother.”

The expression on her face told Lan Zhan that she’d heard at least part of the same story he had, although perhaps couched more in Wei Ying’s Jiang apologism than Lan Zhan had ever tolerated. Wen Qing took a large and deep breath, letting serenity settle upon her like a veil. 

She narrowed her eyes at Jiang Wanyin. “Jiang Cheng?” It was hard to quantify her tone, but Lan Zhan could tell (as could Jiang Wanyin, evidently) that she knew about the core transfer and Wei Ying’s subsequent brush with being a homeless teenager. It did a lot to take the wind out of the struggling cultivator. 

“It’s my little name,” Jiang Wanyin groused. “He and A-jie are the only ones who use it anymore.”

Wen Qing nodded in acknowledgement of how cultivation society’s outdated naming conventions might have contributed to this incident. Then she clapped her hands together and smiled at them with entirely too many teeth. “Both of you go outside. Settle your shit within fifteen minutes,” she said with a bright, fake cheer. “Or so help me I will put you in a get-along shirt.”

Lan Zhan narrowed his eyes at her. He didn’t now what a ‘get along shirt’ was, but it sounded embarrassing. “Do not threaten my fiance.” He doubted she’d actually do anything, but he would start this association as he meant to go on; with impenetrable boundaries. 

“Fiance!?” Jiang Wanyin bellowed and then quailed as every single waiter in earshort turned to give him a look that suggested he’d just used the only free pass to disrupt the other tables that he’d get from this establishment.

“I don’t threaten,” Wen Qing replied primly and sat down and shot her boyfriend a look that indicated he was already standing on thin ice. “You’re down to fourteen minutes.”

Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes, blew Lan Zhan a kiss, and towed his little brother towards the back. “Come on, Cheng-cheng. You and me need to have a chat, I guess.” He looked over his shoulder back at Lan Zhan with an expression that begged him to put up with whatever posturing his found-family felt necessary. Lan Zhan nodded his acquiescence. 

“Should… should I go?” Wen Ning looked back and forth between Lan Zhan and his sister.   

Wen Qing gave Lan Zhan a look. “Do we both need to go?” she asked, more quietly than before. 

He’d heard Wei Ying speaking to her on the phone, discussing some of the particulars of their past. She was fascinated from a researcher’s viewpoint, but was also horrified personally. He and she had one small conversation where she acknowledged that she likely couldn’t cause him any physical harm, but that it wouldn’t stop her from trying if she needed to. 

“No,” he admitted. “They had a complicated relationship in the past as well. Circumstances are different now. I know that Wei Ying would like it if they were able to reconcile in this life, but you are both equally valuable to him.”

Jiang Wanyin didn’t seem to be nearly as deranged in this new incarnation seeing as he’d managed to enter and even maintain a romantic relationship. Wen Qing did a good job of hiding the fact that she was watching the side entrance closely for signs of either violence or the return of their absent lovers, but Lan Zhan had eons of observation when it came to the emotional entanglements of youngsters. She was worried. 

Still, she wasn’t the only one who breathed a sigh of relief when Wei Ying returned with a red-eyed and tired-looking Jiang Wanyin under his arm. They’d overshot their fifteen minutes, but Lan Zhan hadn’t been prepared to let Wen Qing actually enforce her arbitrary deadline unless he needed to for strategic purposes.

Wei Ying pressed a kiss to his cheek, which pleased Lan Zhan. He was only just becoming accustomed to how acceptable these easy displays of public affection had become. Every time Wei Ying kissed him, looped an arm around his waist, and -yes- even when he grabbed Lan Zhan’s ass in broad daylight it was a brand of ownership that he’d gone far too long without.  

“They have a ‘Benedict of the Hellbeast’ you’re gonna like,” Wei Ying turned his attention back to Jiang Wanyin, who was being accepted back into Wen Qing’s presence with body language not unlike not unlike that of a dog who’d just broken something. “It’s what Shijie always got when she came with us. It’s eggs benedict on a bed of spicy pork adobo instead of muffins.”

That and the mention of their sister perked Jiang Wanyin up slightly. “Yeah? Then do they got a beer menu?”

“The most pretentious craft drafts you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” Wei Ying said with a grin and handed over the drinks menu. 

Miraculously, they didn’t talk about it for the rest of brunch. Lan Zhan was able to enjoy the company of his fiance, a plate of sweet potato waffles dressed in blueberry sauce, and a ‘mango fizz’ that he tentatively wanted to try to recreate at home.

Unfortunately, the stay was not permanent. When the meal ended, Jiang Wanyin and Went Qing had a quiet word before she left him with a lingering kiss and exited the restaurant with her brother.

“I said we could get all the details out at our place after everyone got to eat,” Wei Ying admitted sheepishly, when Lan Zhan looked at him with questions in his face.

“Mn,” was all Lan Zhan could say. He didn’t have a better suggestion despite his instant reluctance to admit his old nemesis into their space. 

Jiang Wanyin kept his peace while they drove back to the apartment and even unbent so far as to tell Wei Ying that it was ‘a nice place, I guess’ which Lan Zhan took to mean that he found their apartment to be as comfortable and attractive as Lan Zhan himself found it to be the first time he visited. 

Their apartment had something of the same ambience of the Jingshi, back in Cloud Recesses. Unfortunately, Lan Zhan’s old house was now part of a World Heritage site and there were now regular tours that went through the front garden so he wasn’t able to live there anymore. 

Whether that was a subconscious action to decorate the apartment that way on Wei Ying’s part or not, Lan Zhan had felt instantly at home there and it had been a very long time since he’d bothered to take ownership of a particular space.

“Please have a seat,” Lan Zhan attempted to be a good host and indicated a spot on the couch where their guest might sit.

Jiang Wanyin started to, but the instinct left to him by his elder self flared and he stopped about halfway through sitting down on the couch. He narrowed his eyes at Lan Zhan and -deeply skeptical- asked, “Wait. What’s wrong with it?”

Wei Ying had been pouring glasses of water in the kitchen and came over to see, “Lan Zhan!” he hissed. 

“There is something wrong with it!” Jiang Wanyin flared.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Wei Ying insisted as he set down Jiang Wanyin’s water on a soft felt coaster that had appeared in the mail a few days ago. Lan Zhan had complicated feelings about them because, on the one hand, he liked them. On the other, Wei Ying had bought them by himself and Lan Zhan had developed intense feelings about Wei Ying buying things himself. 

Wei Ying should have everything he wanted, of course, but he should also receive them from his loving husband. Then, preferably, they could have sex about it. 

He did his best to remember that might be extreme if all Wei Ying wanted to do was to keep rings off the coffee table. They’d have to hammer that out the next time they arrived at the need for a negotiation talk. 

“You are so full of shit, you know that?” Jiang Wanyin complained, but took his water. “Is it the whole couch or just that spot? I will sit on the floor. Watch me!”

“It’s a long story,” Wei Ying sighed and pointed to a less objectionable spot on the sofa. Lan Zhan felt the entire thing was irrevocably tainted, but if this was an acceptable compromise for his future in-law then so be it.

To give him credit, Jiang Wanyin sat through the entire saga of Wei Ying’s time after they parted with only minimal interruption. Some elements of their story were sanitized in consideration of their audience. Wei Ying didn’t lie, exactly, but he didn’t tell the entire truth either. He just left gaps in his retelling and allowed his audience to fill them in without guidance.

(“You met online? What, like Tinder?” “Something like that.” “Oh, I get it. It was GRINDR.” Lan Zhan made a mental note to look up ‘grinder’ when he had a moment unobserved. This was probably going to be the official party line going forward.)

“So, you’re from the Lan sect,” Jiang Wanyin addressed him about halfway through Wei Ying’s story. Wei Ying had excused himself to the restroom, leaving them alone together. He, by that point, knew that Lan Zhan and Wei Ying were zhiji and had gone through a lengthy adjustment period.

Lan Zhan inclined his head in assent.

“Then why do I hate your ass?” He ground out through gritted teeth. “I don’t even know any Lans!”

“You and I knew each other in a previous life,” Lan Zhan blinked slowly in a way that he knew drove Jiang Wanyin’s elder self insane. The trait apparently persisted through reincarnation because a dark red flush started to creep up the man’s neck. “It was not an amicable relationship.”

“OB viously,” Jiang Wanyin seethed, but had to force himself to pull it together as Wei Ying returned. 

Wei Ying gave them both a suspicious look, but sat back down against Lan Zhan’s side. “Where did I leave off?” he asked the room at large.

“You sold some talisman designs to the Peacock,” Jiang Wanyin prodded him. “That where he’s been suddenly getting money? It’s been driving Mom nuts. A-Jie started depositing her dowry checks into a college fund for her future kid.”

Wei YIng made a face. “Is she still…” he trailed off and made a gesture that was perhaps meant to indicate some unspecified form of financial abuse. Lan Zhan never met Yu Ziyuan personally, but what he’d heard about her wasn’t complimentary. Her current incarnation was no more personable, it seemed. 

“Yeah,” Jiang Wanyin replied tersely. “She is.”

“Fuck,” Wei Ying muttered. “Shijie hasn’t said anything.”

“She texts dad and he just cuts a check from the public fund then transfers the balance from her trust,” Jiang Wanyin shrugged one shoulder. “He doesn’t need to clear reimbursements with the other trustees. There’s only about a year or so left before she gets the lump sum.”

“Ah, sorry, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying suddenly realized they’d been having half a conversation in front of him. “I didn’t mean to leave you out.”

“There have been irregularities with Jin-er-furen’s dowry?” Lan Zhan guessed. He was surprised it hadn’t been paid out in a lump sum to begin with, but it had been a very long time since anyone had discussed such a thing in his presence. He hadn't thought people still provided dowries, but cultivation society was notoriously old-fashioned in the uppermost echelons.

“It’s not technically a dowry,” Wei Ying explained. “They don’t call it that anyway. Shijie and Jiang Cheng received trust funds from the sect when they were little because they were candidates for marriage alliances and the sect's charter requires it. The trusts pay out when you either reach a certain level of core development or, in Shijie’s case, have either been married for five years or had a kid.”

There, his gaze slid guiltily towards Jiang Wanyin, who narrowed his eyes back.

“You know?” he asked, sotto voce and hunched forward, like someone could overhear.

“I guessed when she visited,” Wei Ying confirmed.

They nodded at each other, communing on some level Lan Zhan was not privy to, and that was the end of the subject.

“Anyway, Zixuan paid out my retroactive fees so I bought this place,” Wei Ying lied to his brother’s face. Lan Zhan did not care to explain why he’d purchased the property in Wei Ying’s name and their properties were about to become communal anyway so it hardly mattered. Whatever Wei Ying thought he needed to say to prevent an eventual explosion was what Lan Zhan would back up. 

He didn’t particularly want to be confronted with Jiang Wanyin’s particular brand of prudish propriety either. 

“I’m still night hunting though,” Wei Ying continued, “So even though we’d planned to meet face to face under controlled conditions we ended up running into one another on a hunt. It knocked me on my ass and now I have two lifetimes worth of memory.”

“Yeah?” Jiang Wanyin cocked an eyebrow, amused at them both. “Were you anybody I know of?”

Wei Ying wet his lips and looked at Lan Zhan, beseechingly. “Lan Zhan, help?”

Jiang Wanyin looked back and forth between them, suspicious once again. “What?” he asked.

Lan Zhan sighed and got out his hunter’s license, which he laid on the coffee table between them. Jiang Wanyin looked at it. Then he picked it up. Then he compared the picture to Lan Zhan’s face. 

“BullSHIT,” he said as he threw the card back at Lan Zhan, which was what Lan Zhan had anticipated as soon as he handed it over.

Rather that answer, Lan Zhan let his carefully controlled qi fully slip its leash. Wei Ying’s qi was brighter than it once had been, but it still had a darksome quantity to it that reminded Lan Zhan of a velvety evening in August. Lan Zhan’s qi, however, was blinding in its brightness and icily cold. If Wei Ying was the humid Summer darkness then Lan Zhan was high noon in the peak of Winter. He’d been titled long before his spiritual aura ever became visible, but ‘Hanguang-jun’ ended up suiting him very well.

Jiang Wanyin was struck silent, even once Lan Zhan pulled himself back within the boundary of his skin. 

“You…” he pointed a shaking finger that didn’t seem to be sure whether it wanted to be directed towards Wei Ying or Lan Zhan. “You!”

“Yeah,” Wei Ying agreed sadly. “Looks like history repeats itself.”

The strength cut away from Jiang Wanyin’s limbs and he sagged backwards, gone somewhere inside his head.

“Oh the bright side,” Wei Ying continued, with a smile that was only a little bit forced. “Jin Zixuan is fucking terrified of me now. It’s amazing.”

What was amazing was the fact that that shared tidbit seemed to rally Jiang Wanyin. He swallowed on what might have been a lump in his throat and asked, “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I can’t wait for you to see,” Wei Ying grinned and Jiang Wanyin found one to share.

“Alright, alright,” Jiang Wanyin scrubbed at his eyes. In this life he was a frustrated crier as well. Lan Zhan filed that knowledge away for future use. “You still haven’t explained what the fuck is wrong with the couch.”

“Oh, right,” Wei Ying winced. “So, I told you about Mo Ziyuan, right?”

About five minutes later, Lan Zhan found himself attempting to maneuver his end of the sofa around a corner in the stairwell as Jiang Wanyin angrily yelled, “PIVOT!” 

Wei Ying had given up on talking to either of them and was just filming at this point, laughing at them until he cried. 

Lan Zhan wasn’t sure what the joke was, but he looked forward to finding out. He was in too good of a mood now that the last lingering evidence of the home invasion was making its laborious way down to the curb. Wei Ying wanted to donate it, but if the couch couldn’t be maneuvered down the stairwell then he suspected that -for the first time in two lifetimes- that Jiang Wanyin would be his willing partner in crime and arrange for it to mysteriously break in half before it could be returned to the apartment.

He was already thinking of possible replacements.

All told, there were worse methods of getting his way.