“I was wondering when you’d be up. I was about to go begging for scraps.”

Nie Huaisang sits with his chin propped up on one raised knee. He had been paging through a book, and he lifts his gaze to Jiang Cheng in the doorway without raising his head from its slight tilt toward the table surface. Jiang Cheng bears a tray on one arm, and hesitates on the threshold before crossing the room to join Nie Huaisang at the table.

“You said you wanted privacy.”

“You were a perfect gentleman.” Jiang Cheng had barked muffled demands for confirmation that Nie Huaisang was decent before he would open the door. “Now, I haven’t eaten all day, so come sit.”

Jiang Cheng must be hungry too; he sets the dishes out with brisk efficiency. Nie Huaisang helpfully lifts his book off of the table surface for him. “How are things downstairs?”

He spares Nie Huaisang a glance as he ladles fish soup into bowls. “Quiet. Your disciples are keeping to themselves.”

Nie Huaisang accepts his serving without comment. Any other night, one would expect modest revelry from disciples in an inn whose sect leader is keeping to himself, but the group he brought here are all seniors, most of whom knew da-ge, even if they were young when he died. They also remember the following long years, when it wasn’t uncommon for one or two of them to escort Nie Huaisang on strange outings according to his eccentric whims. Some of their number have spent considerable amounts of time in Yunping, dressed in plainclothes and staying in less comfortable lodgings than these.

He’s so hungry he’s almost nauseous, though he’s also faint in a way only food will alleviate, so Nie Huaisang picks at plain rice and blows cooling breaths over spoonfuls of broth. This keeps him from having to make conversation with Jiang Cheng, who also sets into his meal in a businesslike fashion, though he keeps giving Nie Huaisang scrutinizing looks. He’s not much more put-together than he was when Jiang Cheng went downstairs, though he feels more in control of himself. Thankfully, the atmosphere is that of the amiable lull of a meal shared by hungry people. Of course, it can’t last. Eventually Jiang Cheng’s expression shifts to his stern politician's face. “Do you want to discuss terms?”

“Oh, the tariffs? I don’t care. I’ll pay you what you want, interest included. I’ll take care of it when I get home.”

Jiang Cheng makes a noncommittal yet pissy grunt and picks up his cup of the very watered-down wine. “How did the ceremony go?”

Nie Huaisang turns a cabbage leaf over this way and that, staring into its folds like they contain hidden pearls. “Successful, I think? I never know how to judge these things.”

“How did a-Ling conduct himself?”

“He was very grown-up.” Now it’s Nie Huaisang’s turn to level a pointed stare across the table. “You know, Jiang-xiong, I hate to pry—”

“Do you? That’s news to me.”

“—but are the two of you avoiding each other for some reason?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, best of luck. I'm sure it’s nothing that can’t blow over.” Jiang Cheng offers him nothing but irritated silence in response, and Nie Huaisang adds, “You should try being the one to cave in, whatever it is. I think Jin Ling would be so surprised he’d drop the whole thing.”

“If I’d like Nie-zongzhu's sage advice, I’ll be sure to ask.”

“Da-ge was proud too, but I could usually wait him out.” He doesn’t know why he’s talking about da-ge again, unprompted, when it casts a chill over the room. “You know, I did appreciate it, when you came to give your condolences after the funeral. I had other things on my mind, so I never thanked you properly.”

Jiang Cheng is quiet for some time. “It wasn’t until I was in Qinghe listening to people call you the sect leader that I could believe he was dead. ”

“Faster for you than me, then.”

Maybe Nie Huaisang is bringing da-ge up because Jiang Cheng actually knew him. The two of them were never close, but Jiang Cheng can at least remember what it felt like to be around him, and that’s what matters, isn’t it? Not the lines of someone’s face, or any of the other small details time eats away, but the way they made you feel. It’s the only thing that lasts.

Jiang Cheng looks at him with an expression scraped bare of polite pretense. “Did you already know, back then?”

He doesn’t specify what he’s referring to, but Nie Huaisang knows. What else?

“Yes.” A shiver passes through Nie Huaisang’s chest at his boldness in admitting such a thing, even in such vague terms.

Ever since da-ge died, Nie Huaisang has had to give himself his own stern talking-tos, and there are a few rules he’s come up with, to keep this collapsing house of his standing for as long as necessary. He leaves nothing in writing; any information that needs collecting he must hear in person, with no record left to incriminate him. He doesn’t hint at his true intentions in conversation with anyone; if the First Jade of Lan was in Jin Guangyao’s pocket for free, there is no one who can’t be bought off with money. He keeps his social life ephemeral; he doesn’t socialize with his disciples or retainers more than is necessary, and he never goes to bed with anyone he can’t afford to cut out of his life without warning. Everything he’s done with Jiang Cheng since the discussion conference has flown in the face of these strictures, and it’s time to bring himself back in hand. It’s just that—who else could possibly come close to understanding? Jiang Cheng has also nurtured rage in the name of loss. If Nie Huaisang must answer to someone, it’s hard to think of a more potentially sympathetic figure.

“I don’t understand how you waited so long. I would’ve killed him.”

“I didn’t want him dead. I wanted him in shreds.” Nie Huaisang sets his chopsticks down. Jiang Cheng swallows. “And he had da-ge, and I needed to get him back.”

“I guess you got what you wanted.”

He tucks his hands into his sleeves to keep them warm. “I guess I did. Did you?”

Jiang Cheng’s mouth twists. “I didn’t want anything.”

“Then what was all that, ah, vigorous interrogation for? Seems like a lot of effort to go to for nothing.”

“You think you have the right to lecture me? Considering the things you’ve done?”

“Oh, this isn’t a lecture. We’re just talking, aren’t we? And, well, it doesn’t matter anymore, does it. It’s over.”

Nie Huaisang’s arms are prickled with gooseflesh, and as he speaks he leaves the table to pick up one of the robes from his set of travelling clothes—looser, more comfortable, and plainer than anything he’d wear for a public appearance—and pulls his arms through the sleeves. Through the corner of his eye he can see Jiang Cheng watching him dress. He feels especially uncoordinated.

He’s not blind to the fact that, by all indications, it would take very little effort to get Jiang Cheng’s clothes off again, since Jiang Cheng got what he came for, assuming that was to take his frustrations out on Nie Huaisang, and seems to be at a loss for what to do next. The main thing holding Nie Huaisang back is his own uncertainty about where they stand with one another.

They are friends, after all. He’s particularly aware of it, having recently realized just how few others he could be said to have. It’s not something he’d prefer to do away with over something as mundane as sex. But he does want to know the lay of the land, just so he can understand the situation accordingly. “What was it you wanted to say to me, before I left?”

“What?” Jiang Cheng’s attempt to pretend like he doesn’t know what Nie Huaisang is talking about is winsome.

“After I put you to bed. Don’t you remember?”

“Are you asking so you can mock me again?”

Nie Huaisang huffs and returns to the table, not bothering to mess around with belts. “You make me sound so mean. Humour me, will you?”

“I was going to ask if you’d stay the night. With me.”

“Ah.” Nie Huaisang’s mouth forms a gentle moue of surprise.

“That’s all you have to say?”

“What would you like me to say?”

“How should I know? You wanted to know, and I told you.”

Of course Nie Huaisang wasn’t going to stay! This is why he’d cut Jiang Cheng off at the time; he didn’t want to have to end their evening on a bad note! Jiang Cheng isn’t thinking very clearly about this if he, of all people, is overlooking the limitations of public acceptability. He doesn’t understand what Jiang Cheng thinks could have happened next; it doesn’t matter whether they liked it.

Nie Huaisang drums his fingertips on the table and asks, as cold and flat as he can manage: “Did you think we could be like Wei Wuxian and Hanguang-jun? I’ll never be able to go home with you, you know. I’ve got my own people to think about.”

“I’m not a fucking idiot.”

“Your sect might have something to say about it even if I could. I don’t think I’m the kind of girl your mother would’ve liked.”

Jiang Cheng’s face hardens with a rapidity that takes Nie Huaisang by surprise. “Don’t talk about my mother like you know what she would’ve wanted.”

He puts his hands up in repentance, but Jiang Cheng continues to stare at him like Nie Huaisang is one of those poor souls hauled back to Lotus Pier for wearing black with red too often, or maybe just like he thinks Nie Huaisang is insulting him on purpose. As though every word is pried from his mouth like a rotten tooth, Jiang Cheng adds, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to waste my time any further waiting for you to get bored and move on to someone more—experienced—”

“Experienced? When did I say anything about that?” Nie Huaisang blinks. Hadn’t Jiang Cheng said something out of the blue last time about his performance not meeting Nie Huaisang’s standards? He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, as it was only one of an onslaught of bizarre proclamations that Jiang Cheng had laid out on Nie Huaisang’s breakfast table, but Nie Huaisang thinks of it now, and a horrible picture begins to take shape.

Heedless of Nie Huaisang’s dismay, Jiang Cheng forges onward: “I’ve never done this before. As you know.”

Shouldn’t they be beyond this kind of foolishness, considering the things they’ve done? They’ve long since outgrown adolescent tug-of-wars over kisses and stolen nights. Had Jiang Cheng spent the weeks after his visit to the Unclean Realms brooding over everything he had done or said, yet ignoring the things that actually mattered—what is Nie Huaisang thinking, of course he did. And to such inaccurate ends!

It wasn’t that Nie Huaisang didn’t like Jiang Cheng’s eagerness. He liked that too much, in fact.

“This kind of thing isn’t like cultivation! You don’t have to put in training first!”

“Then what is it? What don’t I—” Jiang Cheng laughs mirthlessly and then bites his tongue.

Jiang Cheng can’t seem to make his mind up about what Nie Huaisang is. He puts aside his resentment and suspicion for as long as there’s a possibility Nie Huaisang will give him what he wants, and then trots it back out as soon as Nie Huaisang withholds anything from him. If it’s going to be like this—the two of them hashing things out in a meeting that’s not unlike any of the political conferences they’ve both attended, just with more mutual embarrassment—he wants Jiang Cheng to look at him without flinching. Do you believe it all now, Jiang Cheng? Am I just as bad as you feared? Do you feel stupid for not realizing sooner?

Nie Huaisang’s hands fall into his lap to fidget with the fabric of his robes. The texture of the embroidery between his fingers is familiar in a way nothing else is in this strange room or exhausting conversation. “It really doesn’t have anything to do with you. Even if we could, I’m just not that kind of person.”

“Not—what kind of person?”

Someone who could love you, or even just sustain being an object of affection. Who can be touched in a way that’s simple. Jiang Cheng is a singular piece of work, but he deserves that. It’s not as though he doesn’t have it in him to be devoted. And yet, for all that he wants to feel Jiang Cheng's censure, it’s tempting to let him believe, for a few moments more, that the version of Nie Huaisang that he wanted to invite to bed actually exists.

“Anyway, you worry too much, you really do. It was good!” Nie Huaisang regrets saying it immediately; he’s undone all of the talking-out-of-it he got through earlier in the conversation, all because he got duped into tending to Jiang Cheng’s easily bruised pride. He adds, “And we can still be friends,” in an attempt to bolster his previous case.

Jiang Cheng looks at him like there’s some kind of secret code in his words, though Nie Huaisang means exactly what he said. He wants it to work out that way.

“Is this how you usually are with your friends?”

“Why does it matter? I like you. I’ve always liked you.” Something in Nie Huaisang’s chest goes limp, like a sigh with no breath behind it.

That’s the trouble, isn’t it? He does. It’d be easier if he didn’t. He never wants to end up like Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen, mixing up friendship and lust and devotion until it destroyed them both. He doesn’t want anyone to mean so much, to shackle him so thoroughly.

“Can I tell you something, if you promise not to spread it around?”

“What is it?”

“I mean it, Jiang-xiong, I need you to swear an oath to keep it to yourself.”

“That depends on what it is.”

“I’m not going to tell you until you do!”

Jiang Cheng’s jaw clenches, but he says, “Fine, I swear. What is it?”

Nie Huaisang feels lightheaded with queasy anticipation. “There’s another reason why we can’t… well. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around.”

“You’re—you’re dying?” Jiang Cheng braces his elbow on the table.

He didn’t know he’d made up his mind until he’d started talking, but he needs to see it through. To speak it into being real. If da-ge could see him now, what would he think? Would he be disgusted? I’m sorry, Nie Huaisang thinks of saying once again. Can you forgive me for this, too? He’s not even sure what he's asking for, but he feels it with desperation.

“Oh no, no, nothing like that.” He regrets the loss of his fan, for something to hide behind. “It’s not anything bad, I just… I never wanted to be the sect leader, Jiang-xiong, you know that. And now that… I’m sure someone else could do a better job.” Nie Huaisang’s not sure that’s true, but he has to believe it, otherwise he’ll never let himself go.

Jiang Cheng has moved from concern to outraged confusion. “You don’t even have an heir.”

Nie Huaisang makes an impatient and offended sound. “I’m not that stupid! I’ll find someone.”

“Where are you going?”

“There are lots of places.”

“Is someone—” Jiang Cheng frowns. “After you?”

That makes him laugh out loud. “No, no. Do I have to be in danger to go—to go?”

What’s there to say to a man like this? Jiang Cheng knows who he is. Back when they were both just heirs who thought themselves a lifetime away from inheritance, Jiang Cheng was already looking his destiny in the face, while Nie Huaisang did everything he could to hide from it. Jiang Cheng was disciplined and eager, talented and hardworking: the kind of son any man should’ve been grateful to have. Even when he had to take his father’s place far too young, like da-ge had, it suited him: Jiang-zongzhu, tall and brave and full of righteous fury.

Nie Huaisang is very patient, and can exercise self-control when it matters, but it’s very difficult to think that anything matters very much anymore. There are things he must do, of course: he has a list of responsibilities he doesn’t trust anyone else with, but at the end of that list there is an end, and Nie Huaisang doesn’t think that he wants to die, really. That in itself feels like a revelation. He wants freedom from consequences, which he believed for a long time meant death; he’s not sure that’s true anymore, nor does he believe there’s anywhere in the world where one can simply exist outside of life’s uglier demands, but there are places he’s never seen, where the people have never seen him, and he longs to find them. “Anyway. I just thought you should know.”

Jiang Cheng’s lip curls. “How nice for you.”

“What?”

“You get to leave, while the rest of us have to stay?”

“I don’t get to do anything. I’m running away. You could, too.”

Instead of rising to the bait and calling Nie Huaisang a coward and a good-for-nothing, et cetera, Jiang Cheng looks at Nie Huaisang as though he’s speaking a foreign language.

“Don’t worry, Jiang Cheng, I understand. That’s not the sort of person you are, either.”

Has Jiang Cheng ever, in his life, made a choice for no reason other than because it would make him happy? It’s difficult for Nie Huaisang to fathom, having never gone without self-indulgence, but he begins to feel as though he’s been kicked in the chest.

This is why Jiang Cheng has clung to whatever it is they’ve had. Why he was willing to come back on Nie Huaisang’s invitation, despite how the earlier rejection surely stung his pride. It’s not just that they had some fun together, but Nie Huaisang may have unwittingly given Jiang Cheng something he’d been going without for a very long time.

If Jiang Cheng’s parents had survived the war, would he eventually have extended himself enough leniency to enjoy a silly, youthful romance or two, or gone travelling, or had whatever other frivolous allowances he could justify? Ah, but Nie Huaisang can’t start going down that road now; it just goes on and on. If da-ge were still alive, would Nie Huaisang have been able to continue evading marriage indefinitely, all while spending far too much time at Lotus Pier than could be respectably explained? Or—he’s really going to start laughing soon, and then Jiang Cheng will look at him like he’s insane—if Nie Huaisang had been Nie-guniang, would they have been betrothed at a young age? It’s not even that he wants that. It’s just so desperately unfair: the people they’ve lost, and the things they’ve had to go without.

They finished the last of the food long ago, and neither of them have moved towards having any more of the wine. Nie Huaisang doesn’t feel much desire to drink, considering how maudlin he got the last time he had alcohol. There’s nothing keeping Jiang Cheng here beyond their conversation.

“It’s still raining, isn’t it?” Nie Huaisang hesitates, waiting to see if his sense will return to him. No such luck. “Why don’t you stay the night. Just to sleep,” he adds, hastily. “So my disciples don’t see that you stayed late. You can leave as soon as it’s light out.”

He just wants a little more time. It’s nothing more complex than that. He doesn’t want to beg.

✥

Nie Huaisang leaves all of his robes on, which shouldn’t seem odd, since they’re practically sleeping clothes already. He arranges himself on the far side of the bed as nonchalantly as possible while keeping Jiang Cheng in the edges of his vision. Jiang Cheng strips perfunctorily, but Nie Huaisang is mesmerized by the deep violet undershirt and pants he settles on. When Jiang Cheng looks up and they meet eye contact, Nie Huaisang doesn’t pretend not to have been caught. For his part, Jiang Cheng is hot around the neck, but he has a determined set to his mouth, and he doesn’t shy away.

It’s not as if Nie Huaisang doesn’t want it. He’s holding himself back from trying to get Jiang Cheng out of his ridiculous underclothes by force of will. If he doesn’t scavenge some morsels here and there, there’s no way he’ll make it through the night.

He pointedly turns away to rest his cheek on his forearm and let his eyes roam the room. “Get the lights, will you, please? I’m tired.”

After some requisite reluctant grumbling, Jiang Cheng snuffs out the candles with a wave of his hand, and then gets on the bed. Nie Huaisang doesn’t need light to sense that Jiang Cheng’s holding himself like a beached fish, but he doesn't know what to do with his limbs either. As soon as he felt the weight of another body on the mattress, his mind plummeted down a well of desire. As his eyes adjust, he recognizes the shadowy outline of Jiang Cheng resolutely staring at the ceiling.

In this new, hushed silence, the rain sounds from the roof are audible once again. Nie Huaisang listens past it for the rhythm of Jiang Cheng’s breathing. It’s juvenile to be so self-conscious about sharing a bed, but Nie Huaisang must have been a juvenile the last time he’d been in a position like this for the purpose of sleep. He grew up a spoiled young master with rooms of his own, even while everyone he knew was sleeping in battlefield tents, and he never goes night hunting. One of the only occasions he can remember was when he let Jiang Cheng pass out in his dormitory at the Cloud Recesses, after they’d tumbled into Nie Huaisang’s bunk, inebriated and incandescent with their own daring. Nie Huaisang had been conscious of Jiang Cheng’s close body, but that hadn’t meant much; he spent his youth as a would-be connoisseur of men, with an expansive—though untested—palate. Nie Huaisang doesn’t remember watching Jiang Cheng’s silhouette in the darkness, or monitoring his own breath for any catches that might draw Jiang Cheng's notice.

From the careful stillness on the other side of the bed, he thinks that sleep may be eluding Jiang Cheng as well. He’s probably being responsible about it and meditating, or something. If Nie Huaisang was the slightest bit more shameless, he would roll close enough to nestle against Jiang Cheng’s back and pass it off as nocturnal tossing and turning.

✥

Judging by the quality of the light, he wakes early. Jiang Cheng shifted in the night to face Nie Huaisang, and there’s an arm strewn across the sheet between them. He is very handsome. Nie Huaisang has always known this, but it’s different at such close range.

His dreams were shadowy and hardly lingered upon waking, but he knows from the warm restlessness under his skin that they were spring dreams—unsurprising, given the tenor of his thoughts before falling asleep. He thinks he remembers hands all over him and an inquisitive mouth to match. In the dream, it hadn’t made him afraid.

A faint cough comes from the other side of the wall, and Nie Huaisang realizes that, though this is a strange room, there are familiar people all around; he rented out the majority of the top floor, and up and down the hall are his disciples and retainers. It may be early, but Nie Huaisang’s early and the early of people who actually perform their morning calisthenics are not the same, and a tableau unfolds before his eyes in which Jiang Cheng is spared the fate of risking a late departure from Nie Huaisang’s rooms only to make a much more incriminating walk-of-shame past most of Qinghe Nie’s senior disciples as they break their fasts downstairs. Nie Huaisang doesn’t think any of them would try and confront him, and in any case he’s done a lot of brazen things over the years himself, but he’s not so cruel as to put Jiang Cheng through that if he can avoid it.

He should just wake him up now and preempt the situation. That’s the sensible option. Nie Huaisang practically told him last night that he would, if not in so many words. But Jiang Cheng’s eyelids are twitching with restless dreams, and there's a little crease between his eyebrows, even in sleep, which Nie Huaisang itches to smooth out with the pad of his thumb, and Nie Huaisang is sufficiently selfish to savour this for as long as he can.

Nie Huaisang pulls the edge of his sleeve slowly from where it’s caught under Jiang Cheng’s arm, careful not to jostle him into waking. With similar caution, he steps off of the bed and makes his way to the door. Sliding it open is a delicate piece of work, but Nie Huaisang has been evading curfew since he was old enough to have one, and he slips into the hall without crisis.

He is acutely aware, as he tiptoes down the hall in sleeping clothes and socked feet, that this is one of the most ridiculous things he’s done in recent months, which is a testament either to settling down in his old age or to how exposure to Jiang Cheng makes him lose all sense.

At the other end of the hall, he knocks a quiet but firm pattern on the head disciple’s door until Nie Zhuoyue appears in the open doorway, red-eyed but alert. “Sect Leader?”

Nie Huaisang affects a combination of listless and careworn; it doesn’t require much acting. “I didn’t sleep very well, so it’s going to be a bit of a slow morning. Tell the disciples not to rush to pack up, will you?”

After a short exchange over whether Nie Huaisang wants breakfast sent up (yes) or needs any sleeping tonics (not at the moment, but he allows himself to be bullied into taking a few back with him anyway), Nie Huaisang retreats to his rooms, though he has to pause with a hand on the door-pull to collect himself for a silent entry. Once inside, he makes for his personal effects. By the time Jiang Cheng wakes up, Nie Huaisang will be dressed and packing his things to leave. This is a solid plan that lasts just long enough for him to believe it will work.

“I thought you'd left.”

Nie Huaisang turns around; Jiang Cheng’s voice is dampened by sleep and he’s sitting upright, but his hair is mussed, his cheeks are flushed and pillow-creased, and Nie Huaisang’s stupid, stupid immediate thought is that he looked almost exactly this way when they’d been kissing in Nie Huaisang's bedroom. Unlike then, Jiang Cheng’s eyes are sharp. Of course he isn’t going to sleep in; he's the sort who would get up at Gusu Lan hours just to prove they're no better than him. Nie Huaisang himself must look just as dishevelled as he had the previous night and worse, seeing as he’s been caught on his way back from creeping down the hall like a child stealing from the kitchens.

“I wasn’t gone long.”

“How was I supposed to know you were coming back?”

Nie Huaisang lets his fresh robes fall from his hands and comes to sit on the edge of the bed. He looks at Jiang Cheng over his shoulder. “What would you have done if I hadn’t?”

Jiang Cheng’s jaw is typically intractable. There have been times when Nie Huaisang has thought of Jiang Cheng as a pathetic fool for his naked expressions, but now he feels as though maintaining eye contact with Jiang Cheng would reflect back—something; not the same look, but another he’d rather keep to himself.

“Gone to Qinghe and demanded answers.”

Nie Huaisang’s palm is damp where he grips the edge of the mattress. He tucks his calves under himself and twists to face Jiang Cheng properly. “What if they weren’t to your liking?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Fair enough. I did mean what I said last night, though.”

“You didn’t say you didn’t want to.”

Very annoying, that Jiang Cheng is completely correct: Nie Huaisang does want to. Terribly, in fact. And if not now, when? Never again? What a waste, when they’re here with a slim margin of uninterrupted daylight left before they return to their homes and sects to play the parts of their father's sons, no matter how miserable it may make them.

Nie Huaisang has spent this whole time thinking that Jiang Cheng is the one out of his depth, but Nie Huaisang doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore either. He lost hold of the thread some time ago, and it’s all knotted up around his feet.

He takes Jiang Cheng’s chin between his forefinger and thumb and tilts it slightly upwards. Serious, now. “If we do this, it’s going to go the way I want, you understand?”