marlowemuses | Aftermath

He wasn't surprised that Jin Ling ran off with Wuxian. He was... numb. Very numb. The whole ordeal had been harrowing. The man he had been co-parenting their nephew with was not the man he thought he knew, the temple more in ruin than working order, and...it was all extremely overwhelming. He had no idea where Xichen wandered off to, though he was fairly certain it was to seclude himself.

So much death. It reminded him of Lotus Pier, and he had to suck in a breath to school himself. And then he heard a voice through the chaos of people rushing about, trying to make sense of what had happened. Walking over in measured steps, feeling the burn of his own wound stretching and cracking on his chest, he came to a stop before Huaisang. He wasn't certain what to make of it all but one thing was clear:

Nie Huaisang managed to avenge his family when Jiang Cheng could not.

His eyes slipped over to the wound on his friend's leg. It was still oozing. "Can you walk?" Carrying him was doing to make things more difficult and he could already feel the damp ooze from his chest.

"A little," Huaisang said, with a wince. He would dearly have liked to be carried, but he could see that Jiang Cheng was suffering, too, and Huaisang didn't want to make that worse. Jiang Cheng was going through enough right now.

Huaisang's wound wasn't severe, but it was deep enough to produce a quantity of blood, and to make walking very painful. He hadn't really thought about what he would do afterward when ~~he had stabbed himse~~ Su She had stabbed him.

"Maybe enough to get us over to an inn where we could clean up and bandage these injuries?" Huaisang suggested, biting his lip and giving his friend a worried look.

Cheng nodded wearily. He was in no condition to fly both of them, must less himself only, by sword to the Pier. Currently, it appeared that Qiren was 'in charge' of the clean up and reports here and for once, he would allow the old man to feel important on his territory. Cheng had little mood for dealing with the children. He offered his forearm to Huaisang. "Come on, let's go."

At the least, Cheng was more than capable of being a crutch to get Huaisang to the closest inn down the road. Disciples fluttered around them, worried and cautious but Cheng waved them off, telling them to assist the grandmaster first and then return home when they were no longer needed.

The inn keeper recognized Cheng immediately and nearly kowtowed before him. With as few words as possible, Cheng requested a room, medical supplies, food, and tea. The best room was set up for him and while some of the staff wanted to ask what had happened at the temple, the keeper shooed them all away, insisting that the two needed privacy and time. They were not highborn enough to demand attention from sect leaders.

Once ensconced in the room, Cheng helped Huaisang to the bed, carefully lifting the injured leg so it was elevated. "I'm going to need to get a better look at that wound."

Huaisang rose gingerly, accepting the assistance and leaning on his friend as they hobbled across the road to the inn. He added wine to the list of things they would need sent up to the room, but otherwise kept quiet and let Jiang Cheng handle it all.

Wincing as Jiang Cheng lifted his leg, Huaisang nodded, but also looked worried at him. "You're hurt worse than I am, Jiang-xiong," he said, worrying once the appellation was out of his mouth that it was too familiar for this situation, and that perhaps Jiang Cheng no longer wanted to be friends like that. But Jiang Cheng had helped him here and was caring for him, and he'd had no responsibility to do either. He could easily have foisted Huaisang off as someone else's problem. For that, Huaisang was immensely grateful. He didn't want to be in anyone else's company right now. "You first. Let me help clean and bandage your wound."

He had no energy to figure out who he wanted to be friends with, right now. Cheng was settled on the immediate task, which was to clean and dress wounds. "And what if your wound needs to be sewn? That should be addressed first."

He wasn't going to fight about it, though. The night had left him wrung out and learning the things he knew now had drained any fight he had left. When the food and wine and supplies arrived, Cheng was the one who manned the door, thanking the servents and then briskly shutting the door again once everything was inside. He had no time for questions or curiosities.

And he had no time for all these layers of robes, right now, either. Carefully stripping the outer two layers for now, he kept the innermost robe on. It was still torn and bloodied and his wound looked angry, but he has had worse and wasn't terribly concerned about it. He sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh and looked over to Huaisang. "But if it will ease your worries, you can see to mine, first."

Nodding gratefully, Huaisang reached for the medical supplies, grateful for Jiang Cheng's consideration in making sure that he doesn't need to move his injured leg in order to care for his friend. He leans forward, gently shifting the inner robe aside in order to clean the wound.

Huaisang hates injuries, and always feels a little sick when he has to see blood or pain, but he still actually paid attention in his training in the basics of being a field medic. That's something he can do, in an emergency, even though he doesn't ever want to have to do it. His hands quiver a tiny bit, but he tends the wound quickly and competently, reaching around Jiang Cheng to wind bandaging.

When he's done, he strips off his own two outer layers, letting them drape across the bed so he doesn't have to lift up to get them out from under himself. The last layer is a problem, however. His under-robe only covers his top half, and he has thin silk trousers over his legs. He considers the problem with a sigh, deciding whether to try getting the undergarment off, or to try to pull the hem high enough to show his thigh. Again he regrets his choice of location, but he hadn't been thinking. He just needed to create the distraction, to draw everyone's attention to him for that moment, in order to give his allies more opportunity to take control of the situation. "Let's just cut it off. I think that's easiest."

Cheng was quiet as he was treated, partially lost in his own thoughts, trying to digest and make sense of everything that had happened thus far. When Huaisang was done, he blinked back into the present, offering a kind smile in thanks. When looking to Huaisang's leg wound, he was all business trying to figure out the best way to deal with it. But he too was in agreement with the cutting--there was no good way around it in order to ensure there would be no infection.

It was a weird place for it to happen, too.

"I agree, unfortunately." Which needed the procurement of a small knife to slice away the silk. They could look for other pants later. He was careful in the cutting, lifting the blade up so that he wouldn't scratch at Huaisang's skin in the process. He wondered what Su She had planned for this wound. It was more on the outside of the thigh, Cheng imagined that if he was going to do true harm, it would be on the inside, closer to the large blood vessels. And if Su She had intended just a distraction... why?

He put a large pad down under Huaisang's leg and then brought up the cloth to start dripping water over it, cleaning up the dried blood. "Was it true?" A musing question that came out into the open as he carefully and gently tended to Huaisang's wound. "What he said?"

Huaisang watched him as he worked, grateful for the care and gentleness. Huaisang needed more gentle touches in his life. Once, he had been such a physical person, often hanging off of his friends and quick to give hugs, often brushing past courteous norms in order to offer affection. Now, he felt like it had been forever since he'd touched anyone. He had his people, in the Nie Sect, many of whom he trusted and cared about, but he wouldn't think of it as appropriate to hug any of them unless in rare, rare circumstances where one of them was upset and needed the reassurance.

"Which part, I suppose," Huaisang murmurs, though he can guess. "But yes, for the most part. Biased through his perspective--had no choice--" his nostrils flare with fury. Meng Yao had had 'no choice' but to murder his own child and a dozen others, to curse and torture people. "By the end, he was confessing honestly. Nothing significant was left out, as far as I know." He figures that last part covers Jiang Cheng's question if it was in regards to Meng Yao's accusation toward him. Yes. He'd known about the things Meng Yao confessed to.

"And," he started carefully, glancing up at Huaisang's face as he looked through the small medicine chest that had been provided form some poultice for the wound. It didn't look so deep that it needed sewing, but he knew it could fester quickly. "You did what you did to avenge Mingjue."

Which put Huaisang in a brighter light, according to Cheng. Because while he himself failed to avenge his parents' deaths, Huaisang succeeded in avenging Mingjue. Even if it took a decade to do so. Cheng would have never had that fortitude to do the same.

Huaisang hesitated. It was hard to overcome years of ingrained habit, knowing that the slightest slip could mean his death. If Meng Yao ever suspected that Huaisang was anything other than the helpless idiot he pretended to be, then he would be one more name on the long list of Meng Yao's former problems. But if he were to choose one person to confess to, one person he still trusted, Jiang Cheng was at the top of the list.

Hesitantly, he nodded a tiny bit.

"I needed him dead, but I wasn't satisfied with that alone. I needed him revealed. Imagine a tragic accident, and the Chief Cultivator mourned with the highest honors? I wouldn't endure it. Justice, to me, demanded that his crimes be known. Wei Wuxian deserved that. No, all of us deserved the truth."

He listened to all of that, digesting what Huaisang had declared. "Good." Cheng approved of it. "It would have been too easy to end him and be done, I'm sure. But making certain all knew the type of snake he was..." He sighed softly through his nose, dabbing at a bead of blood that seeped out of Huaisang's wound. "Mingjue was right and saw the deception before any of us did. And he paid for it. I'm sure it will be difficult for A-Ling to really comprehend all of it, but he will recover. You did well, Huaisang. More than what I could ever dream to accomplish for my own family's honor."

He had done enough tarnishing of that on his own. For now, he could carefully dress Huaisang's wound, ensuring the poultice would remain where it should be. Once done, he looked, up, resting a careful hand on the dressing. "Are you hungry?"

Surprised when he's given such easy approval, Huaisang stares at him, not sure if he can trust to that acceptance.

He nods when Jiang Cheng finishes and asks him that question, looking toward the food with interest. "Yes. Please. Food and tea would be nice. And then I think we could both use a drink or six."

Huaisang's eyes lingered on him, following Jiang Cheng's every movement. He wanted to soak up that approval, and wanted to offer his thanks, his apologies, and his admiration, but he couldn't help his impulse toward wariness. "You have accomplished much for your family's honor, Jiang Cheng. You rebuilt it from the ground up. Don't undervalue your own triumphs."

"I rebuilt because my people were innocent, not to restore the honor of my family. They didn't deserve to lose their homes and livelihoods and very lives because of what happened." Did he think the same of the Wen remnants? Not at first. It was several years after those events when he felt remorse.

He had made certain that food had been ordered and brought up. Tea was a given. And after a nasty glare to the staff, wine was also provided at this early hour. He moved everything towards the bed so it was within easy reach, making certain Huaisang was cared for first before Cheng nibbled on his meal.

Cheng really hadn't expected any sort of response to his approval. So few cared about his opinion and in his desperate battle to keep in some part of his nephew's life, sacrificed a lot in order to achieve that. And that included giving up this part of his lands. No matter. Huaisang's pity wasn't needed for his own ego--because what else could his words of comfort be?

"That's what honor is, Jiang Cheng," Huaisang pointed out gently. "It's not a matter of the prestige of your family name. That's precisely why you are different from Meng Yao." He still doesn't call him Jin Guangyao. It's a gesture of respect that he no longer has to perform toward that man. He knew him as Meng Yao back in the day, and called him only er-ge for years to help infantilize himself. Now, if he has to speak of him, Huaisang feels he only deserves the name he was born with. "He never acted with honor, but always toward the prestige of himself and his own name. You're an honorable man. You always have been."

Accepting the tea and food gratefully, Huaisang gives him a tentative smile. "It's part of why I ... never told you. And I'm sorry for that. I didn't want to risk bringing any trouble upon you and the Jiang Sect, and I ... I didn't think you'd approve of my methods. If you'd known five, ten years ago, you wouldn't have been willing to wait if that risked him being able to commit further crimes.

"I chose to pursue justice, but I don't know that my course was honorable." He and Mingjue were alike in their devotion to justice, though they went about it in very different ways. Mingjue wouldn't have waited, either. He hadn't, as far as Huaisang could tell, and that had gotten him killed.

Were Jiang Cheng in better spirits and not tired and numb from the unfolded events, he would have bickered with Huaisang about honor and fielty. But luckily, he was too wrung out to do so and let Huaisang speak.

When he came to the commentary as to why he never told Cheng, the other man couldn't help but look up with his brows furrowed. "I chased people, living people...harried and tortured them to death while trying to contain the ghost that was my brother. All because they wanted to emulate him. I find it hard to believe that was an honorable act." In fact, he knew it wasn't. But done was done and he couldn't take it back.

"It wasn't even justice."

There had been no closure, and now, he supposed, there was just enough closure to know that Wuxian would never speak to him again. Let's be brothers again in the next life. That was a pretty clear boundary, if you asked him.

"Emulated him by harnessing resentful energy, desecrating corpses, building armies of zombies ... ? That emulation? Jiang Cheng, I don't doubt that you judge yourself all the more harshly because of your grief and regrets, but demonic cultivators aren't exactly innocents. If we need to go through each example at a time, I guess we can, but I don't have a problem with you hunting and torturing the corrupt and power-mad. Are you going to tell me that a single one of those you killed was innocent and just going about their lives and they just sort of ... tripped into hoarding demonic power?" He judges Wei Wuxian a little bit differently, but not much. Wei Wuxian did good things, and Wei Wuxian did bad things. He was complicated, and he was one of Huaisang's dearest friends. He deserved to be exonerated of the crimes he hadn't committed, and Huaisang was glad that he was getting a second chance, but he also wasn't exactly an innocent.

"You might not have done it in the name of justice, and I know that the rumor mongerers like to paint you as some kind of vicious, crazed asshole going around whipping anyone with a red ribbon in their hair, but I don't think that you've done anything unjust, once one translates sense out of those rumors."

Huaisang took another bite and sighed. He didn't think that Jiang Cheng would believe him, and he was probably wasting his breath, but he still felt he had to say it.

No, Cheng did not believe him. But he did appreciate the sentiment. It was something that maybe his sister would have said at one time. "Better they do, it keeps my sect out of their sights."

Even if he lost his family, he still had his people and they were family in a way, too. "Guangshan suggested many times to merge my sect with his because we were so weak. It was why I conscripted as many as I could after Sunshot. And then Guangyao..." He didn't have the same ties as Huaisang did with the deceased sect leader, "wanted this place in exchange for me to still see Jin Ling. Land I could sacrifice. My people..." He couldn't and decided to eat half of what he had, at the very least. When wine arrived he poured for both of them, drinking his measure in one swallow and poured again, though he didn't slam the next cup.

"But I suppose that is in the past. And it is not likely to rise from the dead," he glanced over to Huaisang as if to question that part too.

Huaisang curls his lip in disdain at the suggestion of the Jiang sect being absorbed by the Jins, and disdain for Guangshan in particular.

Knocking back his first cup gratefully once Jiang Cheng had set that example, Huaisang held out his cup for a refill, then sat up indignantly at the prospect of any of the Jins rising from the dead. "They can stay dead," he said heatedly. "And good riddance to all of them. Nothing good ever came out of that sect but Jin Zixuan, and even with him--" He's about to say that maybe he'd just never seen the rot at the core, but Yanli's face flashes through his mind and he amends the sentence to the second thing that comes to mind. "Wouldn't it be ironic if he wasn't even Guangshan's? Poetic justice."

Despite all his loathing and rage, the suggestion that the Jins are bad to the core doesn't completely reflect his true feelings. Huaisang actually has a little more sympathy for Meng Yao than that. He knows how much he has in common with Meng Yao, and how easily he could have lived Meng Yao's life, if his own father had been a little less honorable. Mingjue had been the son of their father's first wife, but Huaisang had been the son of a concubine. If Huaisang had ended up in Meng Yao's situation, he's not certain that he would have turned out any different.

"Jin Ling's a good kid," Huaisang appends, realizing slightly too late that there was one other product of the Jin sect that matters here. "Between Zixuan and Yanli, he comes from good and honorable parents, and I think you should be proud of your influence on him."

He couldn't help but smile at the correction Huaisang had made. And his smile was warm and affectionate then, something that was true. "Good riddance to the bad ones," he said, lifting his cup. "And honor to those who were lost in the cull." A toast, of sorts. Zixuan was a bright peacock, but his sister saw good in him. And out of that was Jin Ling. He still wasn't certain if he had the best influence on his nephew, but he did the best he could while in grief and not far out of his own childhood.

The toast was also meant to put to bed the topic of the Jins, too. Cheng didn't want to dwell on them, not when he was bone tired and he was thinking Huaisang was the same. "Have you started thinking about what your next scheme will be?" he smirked a little, taking a bite of bamboo shoot. "Or do you think you should take time to process it all, first?"

Huaisang was glad to toast to that, glad to drink and eat more. He's grateful that Jiang Cheng didn't take any offense from Huaisang running his mouth. Being able to speak honestly with a friend for the first time in years has his tongue looser than is ideal, though maybe it's also the exhaustion and relief adding to that.

Furrowing his brow in surprise at the question, Huaisang frowned at the implication. His next scheme. That wasn't how he'd thought of it. It was a necessary task. Though he can somewhat understand the question. How will he spend his energy now that he's not being drained by his revenge plotting? The thought of any kind of project just makes him feel tired.

"I don't want to scheme. I don't want to do anything." Huaisang sighed wearily, draining his cup again. "I want to go to the theater and paint and ... there's aftermath to be dealt with, I suppose. It'll be nice to be able to run my sect without having to lean so heavily on my own ineptitude, without constantly letting Meng Yao get away with exploiting our resources and acting like I didn't notice. And those fucking towers he built, saying it was to protect the common people, as if it wasn't the same kind of power-grubbing land grab that Guangshan would have done." Huaisang fumes, temper rising as he remembers all the humiliation he swallowed as he agreed to obscene prices on his sect's trading with the Jin sect. "I'll help you protect Jin Ling and his sect's future, but I'll tear apart any remnant of Guangshan or Guangyao that's left in my territory."

He couldn't help but smile a little broader at that. "I knew you weren't some useless head shaker. Don't quite know why, but I knew you weren't. You always pretended to be some dolt in Gusu, but you did have tells that you were otherwise." He remembered the lantern paper, the bird that Huaisang had smuggled into classes, the other contraband Huaisang had snuck in without really any consequence. "And I would not fault you for ripping out those monstrosities. I would do so on my own but..." His hand waved towards the general direction of the temple. "It is mostly done by now, anyway."

Taking another sip of his wine, he rested his hand on Huaisang's forearm. "We all have been subjected to the abuse. At least we were aware of it." At least Huaisang and Cheng were aware that they had been played for fools. Xichen... well. Either he had been aware and refused to see or he had been blind to it all along. It was something neither of them had to worry about currently.

Once they both had their fill, Cheng stacked up the trays but kept the wine and tea close to them, taking in a sigh and looking at the bed. "It may be morning, but we were up all night with wounds." They needed sleep. ~~There was only one bed.~~ "Move over, if you can?"

"Mm, you misremember." Huaisang shakes his head. "But that's all right. Everyone misremembers, and I've been encouraging everyone to misremember. I wasn't pretending to be stupid in Gusu, nor for years after that. I was lazy, and I hated most of the things we were studying, and I was genuinely terrible at most of the six arts. That was all. Oh, and I like being spoiled." Huaisang shrugged, since all of that is still true. "That was all it took for most people to assume that I was stupid and useless. So then I just played into those assumptions. And ... avoided you." Jiang Cheng had been busy dealing with other things, which made it easier. "I've made an absolute art of weaponizing it for bureaucracy. I just misplace anything I don't want getting done, and my people get everything else done beautifully."

Nodding as Jiang Cheng suggests sharing the bed, Huaisang starts to scoot over, but winces when he tries to move his leg. "Just climb over me," he insists, sighing with resignation and dropping his head back against the pillow. "I'm so tired it feels like the room's spinning, but I ... I don't want to sleep. I don't want to dream." He'd already had nightmares aplenty before this, and the images from this night would bring all the more nightmares, he was sure. It was justice that Meng Yao should be trapped for a thousand years with the man he'd wronged most, but it felt crueller to abandon Mingjue to that fate, even if Huaisang didn't think it was possible to bring him back to his senses through the blur of rage and resentment that powered his spirit now. "More wine," he decided, a little desperately, anything to change the trajectory of his thoughts. "Please."

As Huaisang babbled, Cheng removed the guan from his hair and carefully crawled over the man's legs, even going as far as to shake his head slightly at the other's antics. "Whatever the reason, it worked in your favor," he said softly. The mention of sleep and Huaisang's insistence of more wine brought everything to the forefront again and silently, Cheng filled his cup and handed it over. He knew all too well that feeling. Many nights for the past thirteen years or so, he survived with those dreams and nightmares and he wasn't going to chide Huaisang from shying away from them. If he could get a restful sleep being drunk, then so be it.

"I know. But you still need some sort of rest in order to heal." He wasn't going to caution Huaisang any more than that as he poured out another measure for himself to nurse.

Huaisang shifted to sit up again once Jiang Cheng was settled into place. He gratefully accepted the cup, glad that Jiang Cheng poured for himself as well.

"Thank you for being here," Huaisang murmured, gazing into his wine. "For keeping me company. I don't feel like I deserve your friendship, when I haven't been in your life these past years, I haven't done anything to support you through your trials." He hadn't wanted to bring his own problems into Jiang Cheng's life, wanted to try and keep him safe as much as he could, to try and keep his finger on the pulse of whether any of Meng Yao's attention was shifting dangerously in the direction of the Jiang Sect. But all of that had meant that he hadn't been in Jiang Cheng's life. He'd acted like Xichen and Meng Yao were his best friends, like he'd forgotten Jiang Cheng existed. "So I'm ... grateful. That you're here when I need you."

Cheng didn't know what to say at first. Huaisang was thanking him? Him?! He sat there, staring out to the opposite wall. Finally, with a sigh, he downed his drink, still not certain if he would sleep well. "You didn't leave," he finally revealed, not wanting to see Huaisang's reaction at that.

"Everyone else has left or will be leaving. And you could as well-you have enough men to fetch for you. But you're here, so." Was he here because Huaisang wanted him here or because it was convenient? He didn't know. And, if the case was the latter, he didn't want to know, either. "I know you weren't around all those years-no one was. But you're here now and you didn't leave when I'm sure you can at any time you wish. So..."

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Monday: Back seized. Today: head cold. I'm batting 1000%

oh no! feel better!! i've missed you

<3 Trying! I can only ride so much in a given day and that at least helps.

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