Thread by @10thmusemoon

[#MDZS - CW: body dysphoria]

Mo Xuanyu burns in the sun.

This is not uncommon, or surprising. The Jin, with their creamy complexions and delicate figures, are not known for laboring under the sun.

Only sect leader Jin, the latest, is known for enjoying resting beneath its rays.

His cheeks turn a warm pink in the heat and settle to a light brown by end of day.

But Mo Xuanyu-

Mo Xuanyu burns in the sun.

Pale skin turns red and peels as easily as an overripe persimmon. On long days outside, his body will itch and blister and lead to dizzy spells.

The first time Wei Wuxian faints in the heat he laughs as his husband applies a cooling salve to his neck and back.

The second time, he sits so still in the cold spring that there are no ripples.

His gaze stays glued to the opposite shore and does little else.

His husband keeps a vigilant watch, afraid that he'll fall asleep and drown if he looks away for even a moment.

Lan Wangji is always looking at him.

Even during those long years apart, the ghost of his image haunted him from his peripheral.

He never turned his head quickly enough to catch it.

When he sought echoes of those features in the faces of strangers, they could never come close.

In moments of desperate longing he would return to familiar locations and overlay scenes from his memories to be able to have him again, even for just a moment.

To have him again, to be able to hold him and press kisses down his back and on his knuckles, to discover him a new, is like a prayer answered.

It does not matter to him what form he takes, Wei Ying is Wei Ying.
Lan Wangji will love him anyway. All the more for returning to him

But-

But Mo Xuanyu burns in the sun.

Among the sins that Wei Wuxian counts against him, this is one of the most grievous.

He will always be grateful for his sacrifice, for the chance to see through his eyes the faces that he loves so dearly.

Mo Xuanyu's too small hands fit neatly in A-Yuan's large ones. They are just long enough to play a dizi with ease but not strong enough to train with a blade for hours.

This small body can be carried so easily by his husband, can bend in so many marvelous ways, and takes all day to recover from a hangover.

This body, in moments of pure unadulterated joy, does not instinctively turn to either side to share it.

It does not seek that which it has never had.

This weak golden core allows him cultivate again but he cannot race across the skies.

He cannot heal his own injuries.

Wei Wuxian, the head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang, once shrugged off errant arrows from his little shidis with nothing more than a laugh.

Wei Wuxian, husband and cultivation partner to the illustrious Hanguang Jun, cannot even heal irritated skin.

That is a skill that is second nature to the disciples of Yunmeng Jiang, though hardly necessary for anyone used to summers at Lotus Pier.

The third time Wei Wuxian faints in the sun, it is on his way to a cultivation conference in the Unclean Realm.

His silence goes beyond the hour his husband spends circulating qi through his system.

Wei Wuxian does not notice the stares from other sects, nor the way they whisper to one another about the sound of his silence.

He does not notice the searching gaze from Yunmeng Jiang.

[to be continued when I get home!]

I want y'all to know this whole fic was inspired by a tumblr gif set by @ mushroomwriter in the yungmeng shuangjie tag

look at them LOOK at them and tell me who else, alive, knows each other like this

at.tumblr.com/mushroomwriter…

Sect Leader Jiang hates these conferences.

If he wanted to hear people disagree and complain about every minor decision he would talk to the matchmakers again.

The food is rarely to his tastes and the rooms are always too cold.

The Jin are ostentatious, the Nie's too utilitarian, and Gusu Lan is too quiet.

The food never tastes right and the people tip toe around him as if he will start whipping people in the middle of the street.

He is watched like a tiger in the middle of a market, the threat is implied by his mere presence.

His reputation is hard earned.

When they had nothing but ashes and mud, when the vultures were circling above Yunmeng Jiang, and their back was to the flames, they had Sandu Sengshou.

Rooster, pig, and snake.

The war hero that no one must ever make the mistake to anger or offend.

A man who could kill his brother, a demon in his own right, is capable of anything.

The Yungmeng Jiang were protected by the reputation of a man known for his cruelty and whip and had little else.

In the settling dust of the war, when Jiang Cheng had nothing else, when his life had gone into up in flames around him, he had this:

The last gifts from his parents, Sandu and Zidian.

The last remnant of his sister, Jin Ling.

And a dizi.

[ CONTENT WARNING: suicide ideation ]
You can skip the next tweet

In those early years, the only thing that kept him alive was the obligation to his sect and to his nephew.

But on the nights where Jin Ling’s absence felt like a hollowing of the soul, when every time he closed his eyes he felt the discipline whip, when the last memories of his family alll covered in their own blood haunted him, obligation felt like a noose.

Yunmeng Jiang had Sandu Shengshou and little else.

If you ask Sect Leader Jiang, he would say that amounted to very little.

If you asked a Jiang disciple, they would say that’s all they needed.

Who else but Sect Leader Jiang embodied their the ways of Yumeng Jiang so clearly?

Who else could have taken mud and ashes and raised a sect so strong?

Who else would haven taken in street orphans and misfits and given them a home to call their own?

What other sect leader would have waded in the mud and labored along side them during the scarce years?

Who else had the unrestrained strength of their rivers in their blood?

Who else could have done the impossible, if not a man birthed in the very waters he protects.

If you ask the elders whose lakes sit at the edge of Lotus Pier, who remember a time before the ashes when laughter would echo across the water, they would tell you this:

The people of Yunmeng Jiang do not love lightly.

Whether it be people or places, once that seed is planted, you’ll have an easier time drinking the river than uprooting it.

What could be considered impossible in the face of such devotion?

That is the Yunmeng Jiang way.

And that is a son of the Yunmeng Jiang.

The terror of one land is a hero at home.

When is a monster not a monster?

When you are the reason it has become so mangled.

The people of Yunmeng Jiang understand this the most for they are the only ones who survived the war with two terrors to their name.

But the passage of time softens the blows of war.

Yunmeng Jiang, once isolated as a consequence of having nothing to offer, is self sufficient in a way no other sect claim.

For this reason, there is always someone trying to corner sect leader Jiang at these conferences.

There is always a trade contract to be negotiated or a someone’s cousin or disciple to meet.

For reasons sect leader Jiang can’t quite parse, the smaller sects have stopped throwing every woman of marrying age at him and have started introducing him to cultivators of various renown.

He is mildly offended at the implication that he would want their castoffs when his own disciples are so highly skilled.

His second in command has perfected the art of diversion in these instances and Jiang Cheng has become intimately familiar with the isolated corners of every sect.

So when Hanguang Jun’s husband disappears and misses dinner, he has some ideas of where to look.

Not that he searching for him or anything, but if anyone /were/ to ask him, there are directions he could point to.

Such as the training ground behind the stables.

It just so happens that his post dinner walk has taken him in such a direction.

The food Nie Huaisang provided was too rich and made such a stroll necessary.

It has nothing to do with Jin Ling sneaking away with his friends or Wei Wuxian’s absence.

It’s a digestive walk, practically medically mandated for a cultivator that cares about being in peak condition.

Danger lurks around every corner, it would be embarrassing to not perform well in a battle simply because food didn’t sit well in his stomach.
Jiang Cheng is in the middle of creating a new nightly regimen to torment-/train/- his new disciples with when he comes across Wei Wuxian

Jiang Cheng looks at one of the most dangerous men alive, the scourge of the cultivation world, and the first thought that comes to mind weighs heavily on his heart.

/He looks like Jin Ling./

Here is the thing about about the Yunmeng Jiang, a trait every child of the lake shares, they will always seek comfort in water.

When a Jiang disciple marries out or leaves, it is not uncommon to find them staring longingly into ponds or streams.

When Jin Ling was young and had to return to Carp Tower after months spent in Lotus Pier, his disappearance would often cause a havoc among his caretakers.

More often than not, he could be found wading in the lotus pond or sitting at its edge.

Once, when he was still a toddler and throwing a tantrum about being left behind, Jiang Cheng found him asleep in the stables next to the horse's trough.

The sight was so achingly sweet that he took the time to commit it to memory before carrying him away.

As Jin Ling's chubby little hands grasped against his robe, sleeves still wet from /the horses water/, he felt like he could finally breathe.

For the first time in years, something slotted into place.

It took a moment to realize what it was.

/Relief./

When Jin Ling finally leaves him, or when Jiang Cheng dies, whichever comes first, he will still have the water.

Jiang Cheng has failed in so many things, has let countless of people down, but he was able to give him this.

The one thing that no one can take that from him.

It was an old fear, he wasn't sure that he would take to it in the same way, the Jin are different.

They don't share their ways.

He will never forget his shijie's shamefaced confession before his naming day.

"A-cheng, they wouldn't let me in water. /He wasn't born in the water."/

It had stunned him into silence.

It didn't seem feasible that any child of Jiang Yanli wouldn't be born in the water.

Even his own mother, raised in the mountains where it is too cold to swim, made certain to have water births.

When Wei Ying came to them as a half starved thing, he couldn't swim but would still float on his back for hours until he could.

Raised along the heirs of Yunmeng Jiang, it wasn't long before he swimming as strongly as any of them.

The happiest moments of Jiang Cheng's life were spent in the lakes of Lotus Pier.

His father had taught him how to swim, and Jiang Cheng had taught Wei Ying.

It should have been Jiang Yanli who taught her son how to swim, how to dive off a dock without making a splash, and go for lengths without breaking the surface.

Instead he got Jiang Cheng.

He had taught countless shidis how to swim, it wasn't difficult.

But could a man so devoid of affection teach Jin Ling to find safety and security in the currents. To love it?

He wasn't sure.

It felt like the final betrayal to his family's memories if he should fail in this.

Jin Ling learned to swim before he learned to walk.

In the little yellow outfits that made him stick out like a sore thumb, his shijie's beautiful little boy was every bit of Yungmeng Jiang as any of them.

And beneath the moonlight, sitting next to what passes for a pond in the Unclean Realm, Wei Wuxian looks like Jin Ling.

His face holds the same delicate softness that Jin Zixuan's had, his eyes brows furrow in the same way as Jin Guanyao's did when someone showed up with an unexpected guest.

It's barely noticeable, but at some point, Mo Xuanyu had broken his nose.

It's in a different spot from the one in his memories.

During their second Dragon Boat Festival together, before the development of their golden cores, Wei Ying had stolen the poisonous paper animals from Jiang Cheng's wrist and tripped in his attempt to get away.

He had smashed his face into a food stall run by their shixiong's sister and bled all over his festival robes.

Jiang Cheng kept an arm around him as their shixiong's elder sister flagged someone down to take them back home.

To try to calm a crying Wei Ying, the younger of the sisters tried to give him three sticks of wrapped tanghulu that Jiang Cheng ended up tucking into his sleeves for later.

Back then, food always cheered Wei Ying up.

By the time his shixiong found them, with /their/ shijie trailing behind, his crying had deescalated to just hiccups.

Thinking back on it, he remembers Wei Ying being more upset about the sullied robes than from the actual pain.

Things between them right now...they're not good.

They're also not horrible.

But the bar is very, /very/ low, right now.

And Wei Wuxian has been quiet all day.

He hasn't moved from where he is sitting with his knees pulled next to his chin and arms crossed.

There's no indication that he's heard Jiang Cheng approach, but at his age, he knows better.

He should leave.

He should turn around and tell one of his disciples to go tell Jin Ling to tell The Boy to have Hanguang Jun come collect his husband.

But-

Right now, sitting alone in the Unclean Realm, Wei Wuxian looks like Jin Ling /when he wants to cry/.

And he has never been able to walk away from his nephew when he's worn that expression.

It seems he's just as defenseless to it when his- when Wei Wuxian wears it as well.

It's the same face, that's all.

Wordlessly, he shuffles over and sits a little more than an arms length away.

He doesn't look over, instead choosing to stare out into the pond and pretend like he isn't hyper aware of the weight of his qiankun pouch.

It's a cloudy night, and in the time that they sit there in silence, the light of the moon is blocked and darkness blankets over them.

The sound of the grasshoppers and the leaves shifting in the wind is almost meditative.

He startles when Wei Wuxian's voice breaks the silence.

"Mo Xuanyu burns in the sun."

It's not what he expected.

He can't say with any definitive confidence what he thought Wei Wuxian would say, but it's not that.

He grunts in the affirmative. "The peacock was a tomato during those first few summers."

Before he formed his golden core and was suddenly too good to be trailing after their sister.

Somehow, this was a misstep, Wei Wuxian grip on himself tightens.

This too, is familiar.

He used to hold himself so fiercely that he would leave bruises on his arms.

Concerned, Jiang Cheng had asked his shijie why he did that, couldn't he see he was hurting himself?

Back then, it felt like she had all the answers.

He knows now, she was just child trying to fill in the gaps in their lives.

She brought him into a hug with one hand and ran her hand through his hair with the other.

He remembers that the look on her face was /so sad./

"A-Cheng, A-Ying was alone for a very long time. He didn't have anyone to hold him or to hug him when he was sad or scared. So he holds himself."

And that was the saddest thing Jiang Cheng had /ever/ heard.

And he had /just/ lost his dogs.

"So we have to hold him then, right?"

She pressed a kiss to his forehead and he felt her nod against him.

Shijie never wanted to let them see her cry.

Overnight, they implemented a secret rule.

If Wei Ying was sad, you had to hold him. If he was happy, you had to hold him too.

They still shared a room back then, so when he had nightmares, Jiang Cheng would make his way over to his bed and hug him until he stopped shaking.

He had nightmares a lot.

More often than not, Jiang Cheng would wake up in his bed.

But the bruises disappeared.

He's so wrapped up in his own head that he almost misses the choked whisper that comes next.

What he hears is so preposterous that he almost asks Wei Wuxian to repeat himself.

"What if- this body- Mo Xuanyu- what if-" he rushes the last part, as if the somehow the speed of it might keep it from being true. "/-what if it can't swim?/"

/It/. Not /I./

Something separate from himself.

Something /not/ Wei Wuxian.

And Jiang Cheng-

He can't accept that.

Because that would imply-

That would mean-

He can't even finish the thought.

He kept a dizi for over a decade to avoid thinking /that/.

Here are some objective truths of the world:

The sun will rise every day.
The seasons will change.
Sect leader Jiang loves his nephew.
Wei Ying swims.

In the event that any of these stop being true, it's a sign of something calamitous. Something unspeakable.

It takes all his will power to keep looking straight ahead.

There's only one answer here.

"Then learn."

Wei Wuxian's bark of laughter catches even him by suprise.

Of course, of course.

Jiang Cheng makes it sound so /easy/, so simple.

He's always been like this, no time for frivolities, cutting straight to the point.

He nearly drove their teachers mad insisting that it was senseless to use so many metaphors, waste so many lines, just to say "Let's get married," all the while blushing and stammering at the mere thought of it.

Even now, Jiang Cheng is still Jiang Cheng.

It's a comforting thought.

Wei Wuxian woke up in a different world, in a body that often feels stretched too tight, too misaligned.

But Jiang Cheng is Jiang Cheng.

It makes his heart hurt.

He misses him.

From his perspective, it wasn't that long ago that he had his shidi.

It wasn't that long ago, that shijie-

That-

It hasn't been that long, that's all.

It's just-

Sometimes, when he's alone, it feels like a chasm is opening up in his chest.

Like he is still lying on that mountain with Wen Qing's hands re-arranging him and hollowing him out.

And if he stops to think about it, to truly analyze what any of it means, he'll start screaming and never stop.

/He can't do that./

It would scare Lan Zhan. He'd be /sad/.

Lan Zhan has spent enough of his life being sad about Wei Wuxian.

He won't add to it.

And this /thing/ going on with- with the body.

He wouldn't understand it.

Lan Zhan loves Wei Ying /so/ much, he could have been reborn as Little Apple and Lan Zhan wouldn't love him any less.

And A-Yuan, oh his little A-Yuan, his little radish.

The only evidence that he still had a heart, at the end of it all.

If anyone had bothered to ask, he would have sworn it stopped beating alongside his shijie's.

After night, he felt more like one of his own corpse puppets than an actual person.

Maybe that was when he died.

And this thing that he is now-

It came back wrong.

Maybe it's not Wei Wuxian.

How would they know?

How /could/ they know?

Lan Zhan, his A-Yuan, they have now spent more time with the body than they ever had with Wei Wuxian.

In another 20 years, this is how they'll remember him.

In a body that burns in the sun.

Heat starts to pool behind his- the- Mo Xuanyu's eyes.

It's a strange sensation.

Back then, after becoming part of the Jiangs, he didn't cry often.

The body cries /so much/.

Is this him? Or is it the final vestiges of Mo Xuanyu mourning him.

He doesn't know.

How would he know?

The silence has stretched long enough, Jiang Cheng can hear Wei Wuxian's breathing pick up next to him.

Whatever this is, it has him treading on unsteady ground.

He's rattled by it.

If Jiang Cheng closes his eyes, he can still picture that little boy in the bed across the room, trying to keep silent, shaking in the night.

Shijie, does the rule still apply after death? Yours and his?

Does his husband know how /often/ Wei Wuxian needs to be held?

/How would he know? /

Only the Jiang saw what he was before the rule and has been operating at a deficit of affection for the majority of his life.

Surely death has only amplified it.

In this moment, little more than an arm length away, he has never felt further away from Wei Ying.

The distance feels insurmountable, impossible even.

Here are some objective truths of the world:

Sandu Shengshou is a war hero.
Jiang Cheng is a coward.
Jiang Cheng loves his nephew.
Wei Ying is Wei Ying.

Here is the thing about the Yunmeng Jiang:

They do not love lightly.
Whether it be people or places, once that seed is planted in their hearts, you’ll have an easier time drinking the river than uprooting it.

What could be considered impossible in the face of such devotion?

That is the Yunmeng Jiang way.

And Jiang Cheng is a son of the Yunmeng Jiang.

Jiang Cheng steels himself with a breath.

He is a coward, a man devoid of affection, but he has experience building something from mud and ashes.

A familiar shudder next him has him turning his head on instinct, seeking what always used to be there.

His shixiong.

The clouds above them finally clear and there, under the moonlight in the Unclean Realm, is Wei Ying.

The sight of him makes his heart hurt.

Jiang Cheng is struck by the realization that /he misses him./

He missed him /so/ much.

It gives him the courage to finally speak the words he's been wanting to say since that night hunt on Dafan Mountain and again at that time at inn.

"Wei Ying," his voice cracks and his shixiong, conditioned by a lifetime of taking care of his shidi, immediately turns to face him at the first sign of distress.

"Come to Lotus Pier. Come home."

He swallows back a sob because the next part is important, he needs to get it out before he loses his courage.

Jiang Cheng can, at the very least, give him this.

Maybe he's the only person who can.

"I'll teach you. If you can't, I'll teach you. Again."

The words haven't left his mouth before Wei Ying is scrambling over to wrap his arms around him.

And oh, /oh/.

Jiang Cheng has always been the stupider of the two.

How could he have forgotten?

How could he have missed something so important?

Jiang Cheng always held Jin Ling when he was sad.

He made sure to hold him when he was happy too.

Though he threatens to break his legs, he has never once hit him.

Jin Ling has never feared his touch nor wanted for it.

Jiang Cheng could count on one hand how many times Jiang Fengmian had held him and still have fingers left over.

His mother had done so significantly more, though she was unaccustomed to such easy affection.

But if he initiated, she always reciprocated.

Such easy physicality, the gentleness of it, just wasn't the way of the Yu.

But his siblings?

There weren't enough lotus pods in all of piers to calculate that.

But no one who knew that had been alive to remind him.

Until now.

The Twin Prides of Yunmeng had always been mirror images, more alike than one would initially think.

And in many ways, they never stopped being those boys in the dark.

They stay holding each other until they both stop shaking.

Wei Ying is the first pull away, he croaks out an "Okay. Okay." before taking another moment to compose himself.

He has to look away before he starts back up again. Otherwise, they'll be here all night and there is still a discussion conference going on.

He never thought he would have this.

After Guanyin Temple it had felt impossible.

He should have known better.

Speaking of, there was one thing he's been dying to ask.

"Back then, on the mountain and in the inn, how did you know?" the /It was me/ goes unsaid.

Jiang Cheng had spent, combined, a handful of moments before immediately clocking him.

He hears a familiar snort of disbelief behind him, maybe wetter than it would normally be, and a rustling of fabric.

Wei Wuxian peeks over his shoulder to look up at his shidi.

Jiang Cheng is giving that lopsided smile that Madam Yu always said would stick.

His answer is so simple, so Jiang Cheng, he doesn't know what he expected.

"In what life wouldn't I know you? You move like my brother."

Wei Wuxian's jaw hangs open as he watches Jiang Cheng retreat into the night.

When he finally recovers from his shock and looks down, there is a bao wrapped in fabric with clarity bell catching the moonlight.

Here is the thing about the Yunmeng Jiang, an objective truth of the world:

The waters will always welcome them home.

// END

If you stuck around for this long, thank you! It really wasn't suppose to be this long ;_; I just have a lot of feelings about siblings, I am the JC in my situation.

If you're just starting, here is the top of the thread!

https://twitter.com/10thmusemoon/status/1624245328634613760?s=20

it's cleaned up and posted on ao3 now!
archiveofourown.org/works/44951845