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“Do you regret it?”
Huaisang blinks. “Regret what?”
Wei Wuxian gestures down the long lines of his lounging form in a move that has Huaisang’s fingers twitching for a brush. Really, the man has angles that just begs to be painted.
“You know,” Wei Wuxian says. “Not taking the chance to get your brother back.”
Huaisang takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, before carefully letting it out. “It was impossible. His soul was in pieces.”
“And now?” We Wuxian throws his head back to swallow a mouthful of Emperor’s Smile straight from the jar. “Now it’s whole, sort of. And you know for sure now that the ritual works.”
Huaisang shakes his head, body swaying with the force of it. Or maybe he’s just really drunk. “No. No, I don’t think he’d like it.”
“Why not?” says Wei Wuxian. “Jin Guangyao is gone. The Nie sect is thriving. And by some miracle it looks like war’s unlikely to break out in the next generation or so. What’s not to like?”
Huaisang sighs and tilts his head back, feeling it hit the wood of the door behind him. His vision swims a little, but they’ve been sitting in front of the Hanshi drinking for a long while now. He has a good tolerance for alcohol, but matching Wei Wuxian drink for drink takes its toll.
“What do you want me to say, Wei-xiong?” he says, eyes closed. “That I’m not looking out for another vengeful man wanting to die so that I can resurrect my brother? Or that I am?”
“The truth, preferably.” The alcohol must be getting to Wei Wuxian too. He isn’t normally that blunt, despite what people assume. “That’s your specialty, isn’t it?”
Huaisang barks out a laugh. “Hah! Truth? Come now, Wei-xiong. You know better than that. Secrets. Sometimes even outright lies. Truth has never been my priority.”
“Hasn’t it?” Wei Wuxian hums, topping up Huaisang’s cup from his near empty jar. “I remember things a bit differently. In any case, if the last twenty or so years has taught us anything, it’s that the line between all those doesn’t always exist. Truth, lies, secrets… In the end what matters is whoever’s left standing.” Mo Xuanyu’s eyes gleam like a blade in the dark. “Isn’t that right, Nie-xiong?”
Huaisang lifts one eyelid to regard him and snorts. “Ah, how far we’ve come from those days of copying out lines! ‘Do not tell lies’...” he intones, in his best drunken imitation of Lan Qiren.
“Do not use frivolous words,” Wei Wuxian drawls.
“Do not flatter,”
“Do not fear the strong.”
“Do not bully the weak.”
“Do not indulge in debauchery!” Wei Wuxian salutes the air with his wine as he cheers, breaking the stillness of the Gusu night.
Huaisang shakes his head but clinks his cup with Wei Wuxian’s jar. “Do you think teacher Lan would make us copy lines again if he catches us drinking past curfew?”
Wei Wuxian grins. “Doesn’t matter. Lan Zhan’s still the one in charge of punishments. He’s especially enthusiastic about it when it comes to my- ahem -discipline.”
“How shameless.” says Huaisang dryly. “A whole generation of traumatised students arising from your combined reigns of terror.”
“Yes, yes, our love is vast and enduring,” says Wei Wuxian, waving his hand as if batting the topic away. “Just answer the question.”
“Hmm? What was it again?” Huaisang asks.
Wei Wuxian clicks his tongue. “Fine, if you’re going to be difficult about it. Just tell me this.” Wei Wuxian moves to sit cross-legged in front of him, grey eyes piercing him through.
That glint in his eyes, sharp edges barely sheathed. Huaisang doesn’t know how anyone that knew Wei Wuxian before could ever mistake him for anyone else, even in another body.
“Why me?” says Wei Wuxian.
Huaisang looks out into the night and sees nothing but shadows. “I didn’t choose you, not really. Mo Xuanyu did.”
“But you didn’t stop him.”
“No,” Huaisang says. “I didn’t stop him.”
“Why?”
Because of the desperate, manic look in Mo Xuanyu’s eyes. Because when Huaisang had looked into the mirror sometimes in those days, he had seen the same look in his eyes. And whatever qualms he’d had about providing a suicidal man with the means for his own self destruction, for sacrificing a person in his quest for vengeance, Huaisang had been desperate, and Mo Xuanyu had been willing.
And Nie Huaisang has never been a strong man, not like his brother had been.
But in the stillness of the Gusu night, jars of Emperor’s Smile strewn about them both, perched as they were in front of the Hanshi’s entrance and so, so conscious of the man secluding himself behind those doors, Huaisang says instead, “I couldn’t.”
Wei Wuxian stares at him for a long time.
"It just doesn’t seem fair to me, is all." He tops up Huaisang’s cup again before swigging back the rest of that jar.
"What doesn't?"
“You were the one to do all this work, and I’m the one that has this second chance at a family. Not you.”
Huaisang scoffs. “Well. If everyone had been playing fair in the first place, you wouldn’t have died, da-ge wouldn’t be dead, and xichen-ge wouldn't have had to…”
Lan Xichen wouldn’t have had to confront the evils of man while looking into the face of the man he loved. And he loved Jin Guangyao, didn't he? What else could it have been? To be faced with all that evidence of wrongdoing and still be prepared to forgive the man.
And no matter how long Huaisang sits here, waiting for Lan Xichen to… to do something , he knows that he won’t be afforded the same courtesy. At best he would be ignored. And at worst-
Well. At worst, Huaisang being here and accessible means that Lan Xichen won’t have to go through the Nie sect to get to him.
It would be a shame, though, if the worst were to happen. Huaisang hadn’t dared to hope that Wei Wuxian would be anything beyond cordial to him. It’s nice, sitting around and drinking like they had in their teenage days. And when he’s drunk enough to forget about the lingering ghosts of everything they’d lost in between, it’s even sort of fun.
At least, it would be if Wei Wuxian would stop being so uncharacteristically serious.
“You gave me all of this, sort of. Without even asking whether I wanted it or not.” Wei Wuxian says, slurring a little now.
“I didn’t. Mo Xuanyu did. And really? You’re talking to me about large unsolicited gifts?”
Wei Wuxian, the giant hypocrite, doesn’t acknowledge his extremely valid point. “What do I even do with it?”
“Whatever you want, Wei-xiong. Isn’t that your specialty?”
Wei Wuxian laughs, and that too, despite the change in pitch, is so unmistakably Wei Wuxian that it makes Huaisang grin reflexively. “Oh you know me, Nie-xiong. Wine, and someone warm for the cold nights. That's all I need.”
Huaisang clinks their drinks together in a toast, spilling most of it down his front. “What else could anybody need?”
“More wine, of course!” cries Wei Wuxian.
They’re in the middle of a truly raucous cheer when a tall figure in white comes walking down the path.
“Lan Zhan!” says Wei Wuxian, trying in vain to get to his feet. “Lan Zhan, did you bring more Emperor’s Smile?”
Lan Wangji shakes his head. “Time for bed, Wei Ying.”
“Aww no,” Wei Wuxian whines. “I wanted to keep Nie-xiong company for a little longer.”
“Nie-xiong is unwilling to face down the esteemed Hanguang-Jun for the honour of Wei Wuxian’s company,” he says dryly. “Besides, I think we’ve both had enough to drink tonight.”
Wei Wuxian pouts, but recovers quickly. “Lan Zhan, carry me!”
“Mn.”
Lan Wangji vanishes their empty jars into a qiankun pouch with an elegant sweep of his hand that Huaisang is much too drunk to follow. And then, with a nod at Huaisang (which he does his best to return, with minimal success) and Wei Wuxian in his arms, Lan Wangji walks home for the night, replying to his drunken husband’s endless chattering with indulgent hums.
The night feels so much quieter without Wei Wuxian, even with the insects taking up their chorus again. His breath is visible in little puffs and he spends a moment trying to shape them into the familiar cloud symbol of Gusu Lan with a clumsy application of qi while giggling to himself. He probably should reconsider waiting outside the Hanshi tonight, with how the air smells of frost, but the wooden post he finds himself half leaned on feels cool on his heated cheeks.
He tucks his hands into his sleeves. “Do you remember when we were young, Xichen-ge? And you and da-ge bought me those candies shaped like dragons?” Huaisang laughs softly to himself. “Da-ge tried to get the vendor to make one shaped into our beast symbol, and when he couldn’t, you both went to the kitchens and tried for hours to do it yourself. And then we had to eat all of the failed attempts!”
He watches the way that the flickering lantern light catches on shiny pebbles and glossy leaves, wondering how he would paint how they glow in the shadows.
He thinks of the locked door behind him and Lan Xichen with his blade. He thinks of the locked tombs and the saber hall, deep in Nie sect territory. He thinks of sticky hands full of candy, of a strong calloused hand in his, of laughing and laughing, and then crying.
“I miss him.” he says. “I miss him a lot.”
He doesn’t bother stopping the tears when they come. He closes his eyes and rests his head on the wooden post.
“Come out soon, Xichen-ge.” he says softly into the night. “I’m tired and it’s cold.”
Behind him, the Hanshi is silent.
…
..
.
When Huaisang wakes in the morning, eyes gritty and mouth sour, there is a thick white robe draped over him.
And though his head throbs and his heart aches with the weight of something he’s too scared to name, he tucks his nose into the collar and breathes in a lungful of jasmine.