Chapter Text
The spell was supposed to show Mingjue the place where his brother’s soul had become trapped, so it came as a surprise when instead, his own bedroom appeared on the bronze mirror.
Except it couldn’t be his room. For one thing, the place in the mirror was in the dark, as if it were night there, whereas Mingjue was currently bathed in the golden light of early morning. For another, there was something wrong about the room in the mirror, details that did not quite fit with the real thing.
The presence of a few beautiful painted fan gave him hope that, one way or another, that place was truly linked to his brother.
Noticing that the bed in the mirror room was occupied, Mingjue came closer. That was how he discovered that one of the occupants was (or looked like) his brother, currently plastered against the chest of…
“Xichen?” he cried out in surprise.
But that, as well, was impossible. His husband was in their office, taking care of sect business to give Mingjue the chance to try this spell in peace.
More importantly, the Huaisang in the mirror was tenderly holding this Xichen look-alike at the waist, in an almost laughable display of affection. In truth, and for reasons he had never shared, Huaisang had taken a strong dislike to Xichen around the time of the Sunshot Campaign and always avoided him. Mingjue had tried to question him, but his brother had been more slippery than an eel when the mood struck him.
Mingjue was about to end the spell, since it had obviously failed, but the Xichen in the mirror room opened his eyes, as if he had heard his name called, and cried out in shock as he looked towards Mingjue.
“You ! How?"
So it appeared that he was visible to the inhabitants of this mirror room and, judging by the horror on mirror-Xichen’s face, his presence was not particularly welcome. It hurt, in some indescribable way, to bring that reaction even in a false version of his husband.
“I was looking for Huaisang,” Mingjue explained.
The fear in mirror-Xichen’s expression only increased. He pulled Huaisang closer against him, wrapping his arms around him, in a way not unlike what the real Xichen did when Mingjue became overcome with everything that had happened to him.
“Mingjue, please,” mirror-Xichen begged. “I don’t know how you can be here, Wei Wuxian said… it doesn’t matter. Please, don’t do this to your brother. He’s only now starting to recover.”
“Recover? From dying?”
Mirror-Xichen’s eyes widened in shock, his grasp on Huaisang tightening so much that the younger man sleepily protested it. Mirror-Xichen had to relax his grip, looking down at him with unbearable affection that made Mingjue uneasy with how similar to his husband this mirror creation acted.
“Mingjue, you’re the one who died,” mirror-Xichen calmly said. “You had a Qi deviation, don’t you remember?”
“No, that’s… that’s him,” Mingjue protested. “He had a Qi deviation in Yi-City, he… I’d sent him away, I left him on his own and he died.”
Recognition dawned on mirror-Xichen’s eyes who gasped.
“So his ritual had really worked,” he mumbled, looking at Huaisang with an anguished expression. “I thought… I hoped it had been an illusion. But he did it. He really saved you.”
“Saved me?”
Mirror-Xichen closed his eyes for a second, lifting his head and taking a deep breath, just like the real one did whenever he needed to calm his thoughts. With great care, he extricated himself from Huaisang’s hold so he could leave the bed. Mingjue, who had seen his husband nude more times than he could count, found himself looking away from this other version of him even though mirror-Xichen had pants and a loosely attached top on him. There was an intimacy there that Mingjue felt he had no right to, that belonged to this other Xichen and Huaisang, of all people.
“Huaisang told me about what happened in… in the place where you are,” mirror-Xichen explained. “But here, things went differently. Here you were murdered before we could marry, although… we did not know at first that it was a murder, not for years. Huaisang is the one who found out and made sure you were avenged. Then he decided that it wasn’t enough, that he had to find a way to keep you alive… and here you are. Your brother is a stubborn man and what he wants, he gets.”
“The two of you…”
Mirror-Xichen looked down.
“Your mother did not want to lose the alliance. We married as soon as the mourning period was over.”
That certainly sounded like something Mingjue’s mother would have demanded. She had not always been an unkind woman, he remembered the days before his father took a second spouse, but… there was no denying she had grown bitter over the years. If he had died, she would have suffered and wanted everyone to suffer with her.
“I missed you,” mirror-Xichen whispered, refusing to meet his eyes. “I never stopped missing you. I always wondered if you’d hate me for finding happiness again, and like this…”
Feeling struck by realisation, Mingjue’s eyes went from the man who wasn’t his husband to the sleeping shape of his brother.
It was so deeply unpleasant for Mingjue to think of Xichen, his husband, the love of his life, in the arms of another, even after being told it had happened because in the mirror world, they had never gotten a chance to marry. He could not imagine what it must have been like for Huaisang, all these years. Suddenly, it made sense why he had always avoided Xichen, why he was so often gone from the Unclean Realm.
“Do you hate me, Mingjue?” mirror-Xichen insisted, finally looking at him again. “For loving him too?”
The question surprised him. His first thought was that yes, he would hate Xichen for this, for taking his little brother to bed after he was gone, for betraying him.
But this was not his Xichen, and he was not that man’s Mingjue. Who was he to judge that man in the mirror? He did not like the idea of Xichen smiling at another man, and it made him gag to think of anyone touching his husband, but…
His eyes went again to Huaisang, looking more peaceful in his sleep than Mingjue had seen him since long before the war, and thought of the way he’d been holding on to mirror-Xichen when he had never been one to let close to him, when he tended to shun to touch of others. He remembered that last, cold hug between them after he’d been forced to exile Huaisang for crimes he refused to deny. And yet he’d been so relaxed in the arms of his… his husband, apparently.
“Is he happy?”
The question appeared to surprise mirror-Xichen, who turned to look at Huaisang as well, concern showing on his face.
“We are getting there again, I think,” he replied with some hesitation. “It has been… difficult. The things he did here to avenge you, the ones he did in your world to save you, they took their toll on him. He is just starting to recover. But we’ve been happy together before, the two of us, and we will be again as he continues healing.”
Mingjue nodded, satisfied with that answer. He did not think his brother had ever been happy, except perhaps while he studied in the Cloud Recesses. Once he returned there had always been something off with his smiles, especially after the war.
“Are you happy, Xichen?”
To this, there was no hesitation. The man in the mirror nodded right away, fighting a smile.
“He’s impossible, but I wouldn’t trade what we have.”
A pain of pain and betrayal shot through Mingjue’s heart at that easy admission, but…
They had managed to decipher some of the notes Huaisang had left behind. He knew what his brother had been trying to do when he died, the way he’d looked for ways to prevent Qi deviations and how he had experimented on himself. Mingjue had thought it had been fear for his own life, but he now wondered if this, too, had been for his sake instead.
Mingjue might not like the way things were in that mirror world, but his brother deserved to be loved, deserved the fondness in that other Xichen’s voice and eyes.
“I’d never hate either of you for being happy,” Mingjue said at last. “Not even like this.”
The man in the mirror smiled at him, clearly relieved, as if being hated by Mingjue had really hung heavy on his mind. It soothed some of Mingjue’s discomfort that his good opinion would still matter, even if he had apparently left that Xichen’s life years before.
“I will let you be,” Mingjue sighed. “I just… we’d figured there was something wrong with Huaisang’s soul, it seemed to be gone, I was worried… I’m glad he’s fine. I’m glad he’s happy.”
“Will you ever… return?” Mirror-Xichen asked, looking conflicted.
Mingjue shook his head. He knew what he needed to know. He was glad for those two men in the mirror world, but the idea of seeing his husband staring so lovingly at another man was too unpleasant.
“Take care of him for me,” he demanded. “I’ve done a poor job of it, so I’m counting on you.”
He watched mirror-Xichen nod solemnly, and ended the spell, making the image on the bronze mirror disappear.
For a long while Mingjue stared into nothingness, still unsure how to feel about this conversation, how to go on with his day after learning so much at once.
In the end, he carefully put down the mirror back where it belonged, and left the room to seek his husband’s company. They probably had work to do, they always did, but it would have to wait. Right then, Mingjue needed to be at Xichen’s side, and to be reminded that here, in this kinder world, they would always have each other.