"I don't think my Wei Wuxian cares how either of you can be better for me."

His brain does a 180 like he's been shown an interesting math problem.

Oh. A bunch of things slot together in his head.

What makes doms insecure. Other him isn't here, other him is staying away, other him is holding borders. Other Jiang Cheng doesn't like what other him did or is doing but he's going with it and coming up with more plans. Other Jiang Cheng was upset about him calling him the wrong thing when he thought he was other him, and not just in a lashing him for disrespect way.

"Of course he cares, Sect Leader Jiang!" He maybe usually wouldn't say exactly that or exactly like that. But, subspace. ...Oh, is that why other Jiang Cheng hasn't been punishing him. That is exactly the kind of thing Jiang Cheng would not notice he was thinking, if he thought Wei Wuxian might get disobedient about punishment and didn't know what he would do. (Of course other Jiang Cheng can jump twelve feet and could overpower him easily even if he didn't have Zidian. But come to think did other Jiang Cheng ever get to asking him what power use he has? Maybe other Jiang Cheng thinks he can do all sorts of things.)

"I'm not going to make things difficult for you just because you can't call someone to come hold me down, Sandu Shengshou. - Other me won't either." (He doesn't especially have doubts about that as he says it. There's definitely all sorts of things he would do if he could and doms couldn't stop him, but 'trying to not let Jiang Cheng hit him when it would obviously make Jiang Cheng feel better' isn't one of them, why would he do that.) "He's not trying to just not be yours just because he has to hold borders against Jin Guangshan." And probably other people but that's the one he knows and one he and at least his Jiang Cheng can agree on some negative opinions of. 

Unfortunately belatedly it occurs to him there's a caveat to that. Which he doesn't want to say, he doesn't think that'll help at all. But it would definitely be worse if it comes up when other Jiang Cheng is actually around other him. Eyes-not-to-the-floor. "Ah, if you want him not able to get up for a few days, he might give you trouble. It's not you, Sandu Shengshou! It's the holding borders."

If he were home, he would get such a lecture now, and lines he would not have a great time sitting at his desk for. At the moment he feels like he has absolutely no idea how to tell if other Jiang Cheng is going to throw him across the room, or completely ignore what he's doing until Cleansing Day or whatever, or come up with another new way of telling him off. He hopes it's not that one. Or maybe really bury him in mud. But since he can't tell there's no point in worrying about it! At some point other Jiang Cheng will do something, or it'll become Cleansing Day, or other Jiang Cheng will want to deal with him before he takes him to see other him. Or he can ask other him when he gets there.

Anyway obviously the solution to the real problem here is to use combining two worlds' power systems to solve whatever is causing other him to have to hold borders, and then other Jiang Cheng can do as much as he wants to. And knock other him into subspace and crying on his floor until he feels reassured enough and - well, as secure as Jiang Cheng can get. (...He can predict that other him's Lan Zhan is not going to like this plan (his Lan Zhan is also not going to like this plan). But they have brothers and places they belong to too, they'll get it.)

No one could claim that he was inadequate compared to Wei Wuxian if they could see this.  Jiang Cheng would have expected to feel better about that, given the insinuations that have somehow only managed to increase after Wei Wuxian's departure, but it turns out there is a difference between wanting to be stronger and wanting others to be weaker.  When Wei Wuxian goes limp, he keeps hugging;  Whenever his Wei Wuxian tried to hug him and he didn't react Jiang Cheng did want to keep being hugged and was just too proud to admit it.  Presumably the same is true the opposite way around.


He listens to Wei Wuxian.  At first it's normal enough.  Jiang Cheng doesn't really believe that his Wei Wuxian cares.  Certainly not enough to not abandon and replace him, because that's what his Wei Wuxian did do and actions speak louder than words.  (He wonders if this Wei Wuxian will change his mind after they meet.  His Wei Wuxian will say something proving how bad Jiang Cheng is.  Then two worlds' Jiang Chengs will be abandoned.)

Then it gets into baffling.  Why would he want to hold other Wei Wuxian down?  That makes no sense if taken literally.  Hold him to his duties, like hitching an oxen to the plow, then? 

-No.  This is more of that bizarre insistence about punishment.

"Look.  Just.  Shut the fuck up, Wei Wuxian.  I have no idea what you're talking about.  You have no idea what you're talking about.  There is some kind of difference between our cultures or families that is making you think-"

Jiang Cheng tries to figure out why other him would bother whipping Wei Wuxian the way that Mother did. 

Though he doesn't pull away, his body tenses up and his free arm gestures in sharp agitated motion.  "Do people where you're from enjoy hurting their close friends and family?  It's not like I've never laughed when Wei Wuxian fell on his face when trying to show off, and it's fun to wrestle and hit each other and spar.  And I liked watching Wen Chao die, when Wei Wuxian decided to draw it out, but allies are different from enemies!  It would be one thing if it was serving a purpose, but if Wei Wuxian were going to change his behavior over being whipped it would have happened when Mother tried."

He can see a possibility clearly.  A version of Father who had asserted just a bit more authority, or perhaps a Mother who was allowed to be even more absent.  A Jiang Cheng who, therefore, had never seen how utterly useless trying to punish Wei Wuxian with physical beatings could be.  If so, he feels a little sick.  He always wanted Mother to stop.  Apparently that wouldn't have done any good, if that meant that Jiang Cheng had never learned how it didn't help and just did it himself.  It would be a logical experiment to try, but Jiang Cheng still kind of wants to punch that hypothetical other him about it. 

(Of course, back when he was being whipped regularly Wei Wuxian had never left the Jiang Sect to live in the Burial Mounds with a bunch of Wen-dogs.  He used to carry his sword and not do demonic cultivation.  Was this all Jiang Cheng's fault for not reining him in in the way everyone else considered best?)

He notices the food, which is starting to get cold again.  "Can we just eat now, Wei Wuxian?  I'm hungry, and I'm not going to go find you anything else to eat if our food isn't good enough for you."

Being hugged when he goes limp is nice. (If Wei Wuxian could hear Jiang Cheng's thoughts about inadequacy he would be baffled and kind of offended, but he cannot.)

Flinch. (Eyes not on the floor, eyes: not on the floor, eyes not on the floor). Right. Shut up. Of course he should do that, of course he should have done that - he couldn't even get responding to formal apologies right, he should have learned his lesson from that and not made other Jiang Cheng deal with him more and have to hug him, he's already worse than trouble to other House Jiang and here he is being more trouble to other Jiang Cheng, he already had to go and bother other Jiang Cheng by asking for more things, and now here he was opening his mouth some more instead of not doing that. (It can be kind of a problem sometimes when doms order him to shut his mouth and it's hard to tell if he's supposed to acknowledge or apologize or not do that, but. He got the point. He is going to: shut up.) 

Wei Wuxian doesn't pull away either. If Jiang Cheng is paying the right kind of attention when he gestures, he might notice that Wei Wuxian - kind of flinches again, just a little, muscle reflex, and kind of something like braces a little, and - doesn't flinch away at all. (Is other Jiang Cheng going to finally hit him? It's going to hurt. He wants other Jiang Cheng to finally hit him. He deserves for other Jiang Cheng to hit him.

Flinch. (Or maybe it's still the same one and just more of it). Wei Wuxian knows that's not a question. It's like when the doms ask 'do you think that was appropriate behavior'. Nope, being confused about that is not the problem he has. Obviously no one is going to like having a submissive they have to deal with over and over again (and again). It's not like there are positives! (Beating him personally might sometimes make Jiang Cheng feel better but it's not because he wants to have to do it) (-And if Wei Wuxian was behaving himself and Jiang Cheng wanted to hit him to feel better anyway, he could just do that; he's not the married kind of submissive but he's still of the household.)

It's not fair how he has to be a secret so other Jiang Cheng can't just get one of the - ?disciples - to whip him. He knows that's still using the resources of - the Jiang Sect - even if other Jiang Cheng mostly didn't have to bother personally.

He's kind of glad his Jiang Cheng doesn't laugh when he falls on his face.

Wei Wuxian is absolutely aware that there are exceptions to 'do not hit a dom, we are very and officially serious about this, let alone your dom'. He has personally had self defense training. He's been to Cloud Recesses. Obviously army and police and bodyguard submissives hit doms all the time or that wouldn't work very well. And if you've got both subs and doms training they might hit each other and if one of them is yours it'd be dumb to just train with everyone you don't live with (not that doms never do dumb things). Doms and subs both carry swords here and fight monsters, he knows that already. And even more obviously you can hit your dom if they tell you to - some doms like that sort of thing!

It is still really hard to fit into his head other Jiang Cheng just casually mentioning that other Jiang Cheng and other him hit each other - and other Jiang Cheng is calling it fun! (- He has never gotten the impression that his Jiang Cheng is the kind of dom who likes that-sort-of-thing).

...They let submissives torture doms to death here? (Yes, he also knows submissives can have that line of work, at least where he's from, but he doesn't think other Jiang Cheng is saying other him had that line of work). 

They let submissives decide to torture doms to death here?!?

...Is that supposed to be more humiliation for the dom? 

And, with a war on other Wen Chao managed to get himself into something that gets doms tortured to death. And get caught. And not even something High Master Wen could get him out of. There's a point for this world. Good decision making, other him. 

...oh, oh fuck, did other Wen Chao try to rape other him. - He cannot think about that now, he is going to put it away somewhere and think about it not now.

...And with that sequence of sentences in his head he has completely failed to keep track of what other Jiang Cheng was actually saying to him. Aside from how much trouble it is to have to keep punishing him all the time. He got that one.

He looks down. Not at the floor. On the bright side since he was told to shut up other Jiang Cheng is probably not going to ask him what he just said.

He thinks he's supposed to acknowledge, now. "This one apologizes, Sect Leader Jiang. I'm very grateful for your provision, Sandu Shengshou, and for the food of the Jiang sect." Subdued again, quiet. He doesn't pull away, or think of it, but he'll follow immediately if or when other Jiang Cheng lets him go.

Jiang Cheng has been trying his best to be gentle, and Wei Wuxian is still flinching?  He's frustrated, and can't even snap about it because it will make Wei Wuxian flinch more.  He hasn't- well, okay, he pulled him off of a roof before he knew that other Wei Wuxian wasn't his Wei Wuxian.  And tied him up with Zidian for questioning.  Jiang Cheng thinks it over and still decides that those were warranted. 

He picks up on how shocked Wei Wuxian is by whatever he'd said.  Probably the part about how local Wei Wuxian tortured a man to death.  Is there a Wen Chao in the other world?  Would other Wei Wuxian have heard of him?  It does sound bad without context.  Jiang Cheng will let the local Wei Wuxian explain, because he doesn't want to talk about Wen Chao when they're about to eat.

Right.  Formality.  Because secreting away the doppelganger of the notorious Yiling Patriarch is the sort of thing that requires the same etiquette as banquets.  "It is of no concern.  The Jiang Sect is honored to offer hospitality to our guest." 

He walks back to the table and proceeds to turn his attention to it's contents.  With the same grace he had been trained for handling formal dinners in the main hall of Lotus Pier, he begins serving the food.  Each one is described - cooking style, expected flavors - all in the solemn tones that Lan Qiren would approve of.

It is not the kind of foods they serve at cultivation conferences.  There is the ever-present rice, along with skewers of meat, lotus root cooked two different ways, dumplings, a local flatbread wrapped around vegetables, half of a baked sweet potato, and a skewer each of tanghulu set aside for last. 

Oh no, etiquette, he didn't mean to cause more etiquette. He will be really good at etiquette and then other Jiang Cheng will like him better. Why is subspace like this. But it sounds like he got the etiquette something like right, and other Jiang Cheng - isn't pleased or happy with him or anything, he can tell that other Jiang Cheng is definitely not happy with him. But other Jiang Cheng is maybe less mad at him literally right now, maybe thinks he did something sort of right.

"This one knows that House Jiang recognizes and gives honor for hospitality." Honestly his Jiang Cheng would probably say that standing at a wall for the next hour instead of getting lunch would serve him right. But that's not how etiquette locutions work, and of course his Jiang Cheng would agree that someone hosting or sheltering submissive of his household should give them food in generality. 

He sits at the table when other Jiang Cheng does. Sitting at the table makes it much easier not to look at the floor, since the table is in between him and the floor now. (Unless that means he's now not supposed to look at the table, but he's really not sure how to look down and not the table if he's sitting at it). 

He's confused for a moment - if much more mundanely than the previous being confused. Then - oh is this one of the places where doms do the food serving to... show their ownership of the household and its provision, right. (...oh, ah fuck, did other Jiang Cheng think he was being presumptuous before - no he can't have, even if however they do things here would still have a problem with other Jiang Cheng slapping him at that point, other Jiang Cheng would definitely have done something.)

...Also a place where you have to describe all the food. He is immediately glad they don't have that custom at home, because then he would have to sit through it every single formal dinner and that would be so boring (and also he inevitably would not succeed in sitting through it at at least his usual rate) and also formal dinners would be even longer.

But right now this is alien and/or sort of historical food, so right now this is awesome. He listens raptly and tries to notice if the cooking methods sound like the historical kinds he knows about and if any of them sound like they involve some power use and if there are any alien flavors (...would he be able to taste alien flavors? No Wei Ying, this is not a good time to propose a chemical experiment.)

(His eyes light up at the tanghulu. He starts reaching a hand out, but very quickly snatches it back before it's gone halfway. He eyes the alien lotus root with interest. But everything else looks really good too!) (Yes he did keep getting himself left without dinner and/or lunch and/or breakfast at music camp.)

He is paying a lot of attention to whether and when other Jiang Cheng starts eating and whether there's anything that seems like a signal that he's allowed to and supposed to start eating.

Wei Wuxian caused etiquette and now he has to deal with etiquette.

Jiang Cheng would not bother describing foods to someone who already knew them.  He's doing it because this Wei Wuxian is foreign.  Jiang Cheng knows how much recipes and foods change between places even within China.  That, and it's something that he can talk about as they eat, since this Wei Wuxian doesn't seem interested in endlessly spilling his every thought like Jiang Cheng is used to his Wei Wuxian doing. He also wouldn't usually bother serving the dishes - there is an expectation that guests will serve themselves what they want - but Jiang Cheng tells himself he's doing it because he's hungry and getting impatient.  If he doesn't put the food into Wei Wuxian's bowl for him, Wei Wuxian is going to find some new thing to do instead of just eating already.

The foods he picked out were many of his Wei Wuxian's favorites.  His brother's tastes tend towards relatively simple flavor profiles dominated by a single strong flavor - most often spicy.  Jiang Cheng prefers more complex dishes, but given that these weren't made by his Wei Wuxian and therefore aren't just bowls of straight chili oil, he's fine with eating them for a meal or two.  Any local Yunmeng dish is better than the food everywhere else.

The individual bowls aren't meant to hold all of the food for the meal at once; they'll need to clear space in them as they go.  Jiang Cheng demonstrates and can nudge Wei Wuxian as necessary.  He can tell that Wei Wuxian is trying to be polite.  Even though it makes no sense.  Since when is any Wei Wuxian ever polite when he doesn't have to be?  It figures he'd pick the one time where he legitimately doesn't know how to be properly formal. 

No... this makes sense.  Wei Wuxian always loved a challenge.  It's when Wei Wuxian is bored that he acts out.  Being immersed in unfamiliar formal guidelines is exactly the sort of thing he'd try to solve as a puzzle.  This makes Jiang Cheng relax.  He continues treating it like an important banquet.

The food is sadly non-magical.  Things are grilled, steamed, fried, or baked. 

Jiang Cheng is paying close attention to Wei Wuxian's reactions, very much wanting to know what he thinks of the food, and imperfectly hiding this curiosity.

It would have surprised Wei Wuxian if other Jiang Cheng had just described all the food to him for his benefit, but he might have figured out that was happening. It is not going to occur to Wei Wuxian at all that other Jiang Cheng might be high etiquette describing all the food for his benefit.

He will in fact start eating as soon as he gets any indication that he may do that. (Not at all a sure bet that whatever he takes as indication is the right indication, but he's not going to get more than that to go on by waiting. Unless he waits enough for the indication to be 'other Jiang Cheng snapping at him,' but other Jiang Cheng was not at all unclear about his current feelings about Wei Wuxian-caused delays in eating; that is definitely not the side to err on here.) (Other Jiang Cheng didn't have any objections to how he started eating yesterday, but that was not high etiquette and other Jiang Cheng still though he was other him at the time; he can't just go on that). He wants to get it right; he doesn't want other Jiang Cheng to be mad at him.

He sneaks a few glances at other Jiang Cheng. It at least feels like either he got it right or other Jiang Cheng is giving him some 'being from another universe' etiquette leeway. Or maybe he got it completely wrong and other Jiang Cheng is just not going to give any indication of it until later. 

Wei Wuxian is absolutely someone who would pile more food into his bowl than would strictly fit in it (he would also totally eat anything that fell on the table, it's not like he's wasting food!) but he wouldn't do that now even if other Jiang Cheng wasn't serving. He is responsive to nudges (or, as responsive to nudges as someone trying very hard to be but also from another universe can be.) He is ending up in a kind of weird cross between 'copying whatever other Jiang Cheng is doing' and 'what he would normally do at a high etiquette lunch', because there's no reason the latter would carry over, but he has no basis for guessing which things other Jiang Cheng is doing are different between doms and subs here and if he just copies exactly he is almost definitely going to land in presumption.

Mundanely cooked food is fine by him, though he's still going to wonder if they are, for instance, using any of the cool local artifacts to for instance have stoves, or if they're sticking to fires.

Wei Wuxian is not generally a picky eater and with a few exceptions not very likely to object to most food that is put in front of him (or for that matter not put in front of him). (Some exceptions include 'the kind of food served at the Lan sect', but it's not like he doesn't eat it, he just makes faces and elaborate complaints and tries to sneak in chilis). He goes into the food with the enthusiasm of someone who had fruits for breakfast and has spent a bunch of the time since on a biochemistry rollercoaster and is not sure whether or not he's going to be getting dinner. (Or breakfast tomorrow, or.) Meat skewers! Dumplings! Alternate universe historical lotus root, he wants to try that!

Then he takes a bite of the food and it turns out to be delicious, and no Wei Ying putting two dumplings in your mouth at once is not how you get more of the delicious food it's how you get less of the delicious food. And other Jiang Cheng won't like him better.

Other Jiang Cheng is looking at him, he doesn't think just in an 'assessing his etiquette' way but he's not sure what way it is. Should he ask? At home he'd sometimes try asking - he knows the answer to 'should he bother his dom with speak-before-you're-even-spoken-to questions when he doesn't need to and hasn't been told to or given permission' is 'no', just, that's one of those things where sometimes it works better to do it anyway, even if his Jiang Cheng's hand strap gets involved in the process. But he doesn't know other Jiang Cheng like he knows his, and he is not exactly having a good record of asking things here. He'll wait, at least. 

Other Jiang Cheng is also relaxing - he can tell, even without too much sneaking glances, even with the high etiquette. It's nice. That's good. Probably because he is now actually doing what other Jiang Cheng wanted him to do and also told him to do, and not running his mouth in every direction. 

He is going to continue doing that. (He is going to try to continue doing that.)

(Lotus root number two! And the first one again to compare. And the second one again. These meat skewers are great.)

Jiang Cheng doesn’t intend to clarify that explaining food isn’t normal.  Perhaps other Wei Wuxian can be pleasantly surprised if he ever finds himself attending a local formal banquet.  He does offer minor corrections here and there.  If Wei Wuxian is focusing on this Jiang Cheng wants to encourage it.  Etiquette is a good skill to have.

When Wei Wuxian clearly likes the food, he preens just slightly.  “Yunmeng cuisine is the best food in the empire, and the markets near Lotus Pier have the best cooks manning them.”

For all that he is hungry and his insistence towards eating, Jiang Cheng eats slowly.  It is an etiquette violation to eat with one’s mouth full, and filling the silence alone takes a lot of talking.  Therefore, it’s clearly Wei Wuxian’s turn to say something so Jiang Cheng can catch up before his food gets cold again.  But what would get Wei Wuxian talking?  How about magic, since it seems that is something both Wei Wuxian share an interest in.  

“You seemed knowledgeable on gifts and your world’s power use.  What can you personally do with it?”