Work Text:
Jin Ling had stopped crying, which was new and different.
When Jiang Cheng, driven to the depths of paranoia and back and suffering through the most horrific discussion conference he’d ever even imagined because of how everyone congratulated him on the death of his final-but-for-one family member, went to go look for him, feeling his heart seize up with terror no matter how many times he reminded himself that he’d assigned at least three nursemaids and twice that number in guards both visible and hidden, he wasn’t expecting to find his old teacher, Lan Qiren, standing there holding him.
“The nursemaid you hired is useless,” the former Lan sect leader said when Jiang Cheng showed up. He didn’t seem embarrassed at all to be caught with a small infant, but rather looked as forbidding and stern as ever.
“What, all three of them?” Jiang Cheng said, edging closer and peering at Jin Ling – he’d assumed that Jin Ling had unexpectedly fallen asleep, since that seemed to be the only time he ever stopped crying, but in fact he was just sitting there in Lan Qiren’s arms looking around the world with a vaguely interested albeit mostly blind gaze.
“The senior one is using the junior two as personal maidservants, and she herself thinks she knows everything there is to know about children without any basis for that whatsoever,” Lan Qiren said. “You can do better.”
“You’d think so,” Jiang Cheng said, and felt bitterness fill his mouth. He had tried very hard to recruit people, but his sect was still rebuilding, and couldn’t offer the same level of comforts or money that others could. He secretly suspected that someone in Lanling Jin was deliberately hiring away any nursemaids with a good reputation in a deliberate attempt to have him fail to adequately provide care – the agreement they’d struck for Jiang Cheng to care for Jin Ling for the first few years of his life, inculcating him with the ways of the Jiang sect the way his mother would have if she’d lived, was null and void if he was found to not be doing a good job of it, and of course if the breach were on his side they wouldn’t be returning any of the concessions he’d given them for the privilege.
Still, he’d thought – hoped – that the current one was doing well enough. People said that babies cried a lot in the normal run of things…
“He’s remarkably calm with you,” he noted, and wondered if he’d overlooked something that had caused all those tears. If he’d failed, again, to protect one of his family members.
“Mm, I recognize the temperament, and know some tricks to deal with it.” Lan Qiren caught Jiang Cheng’s bemused look. “My nephew.”
Right, Lan Qiren had raised the Twin Jades, hadn’t he?
Wait. Did that mean…
“I can’t imagine Zewu-jun as a fussy baby,” he said probingly, and was rewarded when Lan Qiren shook his head. “…Hanguang-jun?”
Now that was one person he could imagine as being a fussy baby.
Remarkably effective, though. If Jin Ling could be half as competent and talented as Lan Wangji when he grew up, Jiang Cheng would be willing to endure all the wailing twice over.
Well.
Maybe not twice over.
“Wangji used to bite people,” Lan Qiren said musingly. Jiang Cheng felt a sharp, sudden burst of amusement, as if he were about to start giggling. He had no idea what to do with that feeling; he hadn’t laughed since before Jiang Yanli died. “It started before he had teeth, if I recall correctly. If the little Jin-gongzi starts to go the same way, you should do what you can to forestall it, if you can. It can become politically awkward.”
“Tell me Hanguang-jun bit someone important at a discussion conference,” Jiang Cheng said, nearly begging – that giggling feeling was getting stronger. It had been so long since he’d wanted to laugh that it was nearly intoxicating. “Someone really important – Sect Leader Jin, perhaps…”
Lan Qiren looked at him sidelong, making very clear that he knew that Jiang Cheng was going to laugh at his nephew and not being especially amused by the thought, but perhaps Jiang Cheng looked especially ragged and run-down or something because eventually he gave in and said, “Sect Leader Wen.”
A cackle broke free from Jiang Cheng’s lips, all involuntary, and when he tried to apologize for his rudeness, it turned into even more cackling, and then giggling, and then full-on belly laughter.
He couldn’t stop.
Lan Wangji, a round-cheeked red-faced baby like Jin Ling, biting Wen Ruohan…
“Struck the first blow in the Sunshot Campaign, did he?” Jiang Cheng wheezed, and even Lan Qiren smiled at that. “Amazing! Think I can get Jin Ling to do the same with Sect Leader Jin?”
“Undoubtedly it is possible.” Lan Qiren seemed to struggle briefly with himself, then added, voice dry, “Provided you wash his mouth out later.”
Jiang Cheng gave up and sat down right there on the ground, laughing so hard that at some point he started sobbing instead.
When he finally managed to get something of a hold himself, he looked up to see that Lan Qiren had taken a seat on the floor not far away from him, only he was not looking at him in the slightest. Instead, he was using his free hand to wind the end of his forehead ribbon around his fingers to Jin Ling’s evident fascination, holding it far enough away that Jin Ling’s attempts to snatch it and shove it into his mouth were unsuccessful. He appeared wholly absorbed in his task.
A mercy.
“I’ve let you see a joke,” Jiang Cheng said, voice rough as he wiped futilely at his cheeks. At least Lan Qiren was no longer officially Sect Leader Lan, although that didn’t actually make bursting into tears in front of an outsider from another sect any less embarrassing.
“I did much the same once,” Lan Qiren said in response, completely unexpectedly.
“You – did?” Jiang Cheng found himself glancing at his old teacher, who had never seemed anything less than composed unless he was angry, and had trouble even imagining it. “What, tears and everything? In front of an outsider?”
“Yes. In front of an outsider. And then I got drunk.”
Jiang Cheng tried to say something, possibly some joke along the lines of And here I thought alcohol was prohibited, but he mostly ended up just flapping his jaw like some sort of fish pulled out of water. He really couldn’t imagine it.
Lan Qiren did him the honor of not taking even a single look at him the entire time.
Finally, Jiang Cheng managed, with great effort, to actually speak, except the only thing that came out of his mouth was complete incoherence: “But – you? Why?”
“Because I had plans for my life that did not involve raising my brother’s children,” Lan Qiren said. “Or managing his sect, for that matter, but there was something about there being a child…”
He shook his head.
“I felt tremendous guilt for thinking so,” he added. “A child is a gift, not a burden.”
Except, of course, when the child was a burden. Deeply loved, as Lan Qiren so obviously loved his nephews, and in no way unwanted, and yet…and yet…
Jiang Cheng swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. “I understand,” he said.
“I thought you might.”
Jiang Cheng thought back to the rumors he had heard about the Lan sect – the public ones, and the private ones that his mother had once allowed him to overhear even though he was a bit too young. His father had returned from a discussion conference and, thinking Jiang Cheng asleep, commented absently that the Lan sect leader had not been there, that he was in seclusion, that Lan Qiren had acted in the role in his stead; yet again, his mother had drawled, it’s not really a surprise any more – it’s as consistent as the sunrise. One might think he never comes out at all…
There were still a few greybeards left in the Jiang sect, mostly ones that had gone off to retire outside or which had been out on some travel or another when the massacre had occurred. When Jiang Cheng had reestablished the Lotus Pier, they’d come back to him, and with them they had brought a wealth of knowledge that Jiang Cheng had never had a chance to learn from his father. They’d confirmed what he’d vaguely known or at least suspected: that Lan Qiren had been managing the sect in his brother’s absence for longer than Jiang Cheng had been alive, longer than Lan Xichen had been alive…that was a terribly long time.
A terribly long time to be carrying a burden for one’s brother.
(There were rumors – rumors that the former sect leader’s seclusion was not wholly voluntary, that it had been imposed upon him as the result of some wrongdoing…if so, then maybe the difficulties of suddenly finding oneself caring for a child left behind wasn’t the only thing that Lan Qiren understood.)
“You’re doing quite well,” Lan Qiren said, and Jiang Cheng looked at him. “The child is happy when he sees things that remind him of you, and your sect is thriving. Your parents would be proud of you.”
Other people had said that to him before, men and women who had reason to know his parents, but Jiang Cheng hadn’t believed them.
For some reason, though, this felt…different. It wasn’t because Lan Qiren had been his father’s peer, hadn’t been for any reason like that, but rather…
Jiang Cheng suddenly felt possessed by some sudden bit of daring, or maybe recklessness.
“And you, Teacher Lan?” he asked archly. “A teacher for a day, a father for a lifetime. If I were to ask you what do you think, what would you say?”
If he thought that the sudden question would throw Lan Qiren off his equilibrium, he was wrong – the other man simply pursed his lips and seemed to think about it for a moment, giving serious consideration to the question.
“I think, if you were to ask,” he said slowly, “that I would say – that I had no complaints.”
Jiang Cheng’s breath caught in his throat.
He felt his eyes burn.
He’d never been Wei Wuxian, had never been praised to the high heavens for genius; his only true talent had been his willingness to work hard, his determination and devotion. A compliment, to him, would only ring in his ears as empty flattery. But to know that there was one person out there, standing above him in a position of authority, who looked upon him and said that there was nothing wrong with him, that he was acceptable as he was, that he had no complaints –
At that point, Jin Ling made a complaining sound, making them both look down at him.
“He’s hungry,” Lan Qiren observed, and Jiang Cheng struggled to his feet.
“There’s goat milk,” he said. “For when the nursemaid isn’t available…can you – that is –”
Lan Qiren put Jin Ling into Jiang Cheng’s arms.
“Thank you,” Jiang Cheng said, and meant more than just that.
“Think nothing of it,” Lan Qiren said. He arranged his sleeves and swept out, his head held high.
After a moment or two, Jiang Cheng followed suit.
The rest of the conference was – better, somehow.
Not good, things would never really be good without his jiejie or his war-maddened never-quite-brother or even that sister-stealing Peacock that had loved his sister so much, without his father and mother to guide him and help him, but…better.