Chapter Text
Jiang Cheng opens his eyes to a scene that cannot be. It is not far from where he should be – his quarters have changed since becoming a sect leader and the room he finds himself in, a room he hasn't used since childhood, is only a few turns from where he usually spends his nights. But that is not the impossibility. That there are three dogs curled nearby, all dozing, that is an aspect of it. Dogs are not fully forbidden in Lotus Pier, although Fairy is the only one to get close to where he is now in recent memory. These dogs in particular, however, cannot be here. Even if they had not been sent away by his father, they would no longer be so young, so exactly as he remembers them being.
This is a dream. Nothing but a dream could bring him back to this time, the time before the great sadnesses and happinesses of his life. It is, however, a strange dream. One that feels much like a present. He can feel the sticky Yunmeng air – on his skin, in his lungs – and the itchy fur of the dogs around him. Dreams are meant to lack substance, and this moment is almost too full.
Even so, he never doubts that this is the dream, instead of the longer life he remembers living. The painful clarity of so much he experienced overrules any thoughts to the contrary. He also never considers attempting to wake – why leave a dream of what was that is not focused on any of the worst times? He may as well enjoy the reprieve from his now.
He spends an endless time dwelling on what, in that moment, feels like an ending. He remembers before waking here, remembers the pounding of his head, remembers blaming it on too many hours spent with annoying minor sect leaders (and not at all on imagined encounters with his former shidi). The headache hit a new intensity just as he laid down for the night. In his memory, the time spent lying in that darkness stretches unnaturally. The throbbing at his temples simultaneously an eternity of sharp pain and the breath just before it pulses. He remembers thinking how impossible it would be to fall asleep, and then the bliss of darkness.
Jasmine (or perhaps Princess?) whuffs softly in sleep and wriggles closer, seeming to find fault in whatever his body is doing while his mind is racing. He freezes, which only sets the other two in wriggling motion, all three pressing tighter against him. One (Little Love?) smears her nose along his arm before licking it clean again. He finds himself laughing, which quickly turns into sharp, gasping breaths. He is not sure how long he lays there in the dark, mind whirling on how things should be, but eventually, somehow, he falls asleep inside this dream.
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The morning dawns as a morning should, except that he is still in a time and place he cannot be. It is difficult, to live as a child – it is not as if he had an abundance of people to consult on difficult decisions as an adult, as a sect leader to a sect clawing itself back to respectability, but surrounded by people whose opinions he values and unable to even pose the question… They don't have the context, and, if they did, would only think it a child's fancy (or particularly creative nightmare). His sister is there, but she's so young. He's certain she can't have been this young before, even as he knows that's ridiculous – but he finds himself seeing her not from the perspective of younger brother, but of one who will yet outlive her. Outlive her and so many of his own sect. She's younger than his nephew, younger than her son. And even if she weren't, how could he begin to speak with her of the horrible things that have happened? The war’s impact on his family and sect were difficult to swallow even as he lived the years leading up to it, and attempting to explain anything about Wei Wuxian…
Wei Wuxian, so much at the heart of so much of his family's pain, but somehow not known to them yet. Would it be an improvement to lose him altogether? To leave him on the streets of Yiling, to let his fate untwine itself from that of the Yunmeng Jiang, the fate of Jiang Cheng's family (Wei Wuxian's family, for all that it burns Jiang Cheng to think so). And even if it would be, could Jiang Cheng, as a child, somehow orchestrate it? Keep his father from leaving, help his mother win the argument to leave Wei Wuxian to some other savior?
In the end, he can't truly say he decides on a course so much as he gives into what felt like inevitability. 'I'll distract father,' he thinks, more than once. 'Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be soon enough, and he won't leave for Yiling and then he won't find Wei Ying.' But the tomorrows blur together until the uncomfortably quiet Wei Ying arrives and Jiang Cheng's dogs are sent away again. Things go much as they did in the waking world, but not for quite the same reasons. The loss of the dogs does not cut as deep, but he still loses his temper at the tangle that is Wei Wuxian. Still searches in the forest with a-jie and promises to protect Wei Ying in the future, fully knowing how fruitless it will be.
Once or twice he asks his siblings about dreaming, and waking. A-jie laughs and tells him dreams can be important, but that he should not worry so much about them. Wei Ying laughs, too, if he asks him in front of a-jie, and tells long stories about being chased by dream fish through the markets. When he asks at night, though, just the two of them in the darkness, Wei Ying does not laugh. He tells Jiang Cheng the dreams are only dreams, and “shijie says not to worry” and to focus on sleep (which is a ridiculous thing for Wei Ying to suggest, but pointing that out just leads to a night-time wrestling match that gets both of them into trouble).
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Living his childhood again is equal parts bitter and sweet. He never quite manages to let go of the reality that was losing everything, and that experience casts a shadow over it all.
It's strange. If he thinks on it, any day that has passed in this repeated time seems farther away than what he lived before he found himself back in his childhood bed. But what dream lasts this long? What dream is this intricate and detailed? It's an odd puzzle, but far less important than living out his day-to-day.
In any case – time passes, as it does, and in what seems like no time at all they are preparing for the journey to Cloud Recesses.
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The peacock is, unbelievably, somehow worse than Jiang Cheng remembered. A-jie married this man?
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His foresight means Jiang Cheng manages to keep their invitation on hand, and the Yunmeng Jiang group is able to enter Gusu without difficulty or delay, which already puts the lectures off to a better start than last time.
Even so, Wei Wuxian complains that he still hasn't had an opportunity to try the famed Emperor's Smile, and a-jie still looks worried, but settling into their quarters proves a good enough distraction for all of them.
Jiang Cheng offers to fetch food for everyone when dinnertime approaches – it's as good an excuse as any to use later when he forgets to be confused about the layout here. The Lans keep things fairly contained, but he remembers making a few wrong turnings before he fully got his bearings.
He's nearly to the kitchen when, from somewhere behind him, he hears, "Jiang Wanyin." For just a moment, as he turns, he sees Hanguang-jun – Hanguang-jun as he was before this dream, outside this repeated experience – and then it is only Lan Wangji, the Lan Wangji they met in this now.
It takes him a few seconds to speak, as Lan Wangji watches with his usual flat expression. "Lan Wangji."
Lan Wangji continues to stare at him, silently, as always finding him wanting. Jiang Cheng starts to bristle, despite himself – this is not the Hanguang-jun who has years of Wei-Wuxian-related ammunition for the judgement in his eyes, but he can feel his own face falling into a familiar scowl. Before Jiang Cheng can discover what he will say in this moment, Lan Wangji inclines his head and walks away.
Jiang Cheng stands, watching him go, for long enough that Wei Wuxian catches up, laughing over whatever trouble he's instigated now. Noticing Jiang Cheng's mood, Wei Wuxian drapes himself over Jiang Cheng's shoulders. "Aiya, Jiang Cheng, why are you just standing around like this?" he says, jostling Jiang Cheng into motion. "Shijie is waiting, come on, come on."
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He still doesn't get to present his gift to Lan Qiren before the Wens arrive and disrupt the ceremony.
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It happens again and again, Lan Wangji appearing at odd moments when Jiang Cheng is alone. The first few times mimic the first – Lan Wangji greets him, pins him with his stare just long enough that Jiang Cheng nearly demands what he wants, and then leaves. But the fifth or sixth time, the second jade of Lan appears to decide he is tired of simply being mysteriously uncommunicative.
After offering his usual greeting, Lan Wangji's lips press together briefly and he asks, “What happened to you?”
Jiang Cheng checks his robes self-consciously (because Wei Wuxian simply could not be trusted), and then directs a frown at Lan Wangji. “Nothing happened. I didn’t miss a lecture, did I?”
“Where are you?”
Why would Lan Wangji choose this time for riddles? Jiang Cheng doesn’t remember Lan Wangji participating in any of Wei Wuxian’s trouble before, but there’s always a first time. He takes an obvious look around before answering. “Cloud Recesses.”
"Why are you here?" is the immediate next question.
Jiang Cheng feels his mouth drop open, and he snaps back, "I was invited! Why shouldn't I be here!"
Lan Wangji's eyes narrow, but a group of other visiting disciples arrives at just that moment and Jiang Cheng takes advantage of the excuse to walk away.
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Wei Wuxian makes a fool of himself at the lecture the next day. As expected.
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On his way to see a-jie for dinner, he crosses the path of a Lan disciple. The disciple looks strangely familiar, but Jiang Cheng is not quite able to place him before the disciple bows.
Jiang Cheng takes a quick look around, verifying he's the intended target, before bowing back.
As they straighten, the disciple says, "Sect Leader Jiang," and Jiang Cheng becomes aware of a ringing in his ears.
"What did you call me?" he asks, shaking his head once in an attempt to clear it.
"Sect Leader Jiang." The disciple pauses before continuing. "Why will you not return home?"
There are both too many and absolutely no answers to that question. Which home? Why is this boy asking him such a thing? What would make him call him by that title?
The ringing grows louder, and louder, and he closes his eyes against it. When he opens them, the disciple is gone… and he is no longer in the Cloud Recesses.