Chapter Text
Two years later
Nie Huaisang is wordless. Lan Xichen has made him wordless, and it makes him feel quite smug, under the lust.
Nie Huaisang has already come, but they learned late last year that under the right circumstances, if Lan Xichen keeps fucking him just so and doesn’t let up for a moment, he can drive Nie Huaisang to a second orgasm, and Lan Xichen is feeling greedy tonight.
Nie Huaisang’s head is thrown back, his eyes clenched shut and his fingernails digging ruts into Lan Xichen’s back. He’s grunting with every thrust, wretched, desperate noises, and Lan Xichen grins into the skin under his jaw and comes, shoving into Nie Huaisang’s body a final time as he shakes.
As Lan Xichen suspected would be the case, his orgasm is what it takes to shove Nie Huaisang over his second peak. He goes utterly silent as it takes him, every tendon in his neck standing forth, and then relaxing back into his skin as he sags under Lan Xichen.
Lan Xichen stays where he is, letting the weight of his body pin Nie Huaisang to the mattress as he drizzles kisses at random over Nie Huaisang’s neck and jaw. Nie Huaisang’s leg is still hitched up around Lan Xichen’s waist, and he feels warm and comfortable, the familiar scents of jasmine and sweat filling his nose to perfection.
“Merciless,” Nie Huaisang finally murmurs, once he has enough breath to form the word. He’s smiling tiredly up at Lan Xichen, and Lan Xichen smirks back before taking his mouth in a kiss.
The necessary angle shifts him slightly, and his half-hard cock drags where it’s still nestled inside Nie Huaisang’s body. Nie Huaisang lets out a gorgeous, overwhelmed sigh, and Lan Xichen stills, suddenly filled with the desire to see if he can wring a third orgasm out of the man beneath him.
Nie Huaisang whimpers softly, and wraps an arm around Lan Xichen’s shoulders, as though he’s considering allowing him to try.
In the end, Lan Xichen takes another kiss as toll and slides out of Nie Huaisang, rolling to the side with a deep, contented sigh. Nie Huaisang straightens his leg with a wince, rocking his hips up to stretch them and then settling back into the sheets and pillows.
To Lan Xichen’s surprise, Nie Huaisang only takes a moment to compose himself before swinging his legs off the bed and standing. “Going already?” Lan Xichen asks, propping himself up on his elbows to watch Nie Huaisang rustle through his clothing. Sometimes they part right away after the act is over, but lately they’ve been staying later and later, talking or kissing or just sharing space.
Nie Huaisang smiles at him. “Not yet,” he says. He locates his outer robe and reaches into one sleeve, his body still gloriously, distractedly naked. “I have something for you,” he says, looking suddenly nervous. “I was going to give it to you first, but, well, you pounced on me.”
Lan Xichen doesn’t quibble with his phrasing. It’s true, anyway. They haven’t been able to see each other in almost two months, and Nie Huaisang is only in the Cloud Recesses now because he’d pretended very hard that he’d gotten lost on the way to Moling, and been very vague about what business he could possibly have had in Moling to begin with.
They’ve been lovers a long time, by this point, but Lan Xichen’s hunger for Nie Huaisang’s body has never abated, his lust for Nie Huaisang’s miles of soft, smooth skin and easy laughter and experience in seemingly everything two people could do together in bed. So yes, he’d pounced on Nie Huaisang when they were alone. Nie Huaisang hadn’t seemed to mind, regardless.
Now, Lan Xichen sits up properly, bringing his knees under him on the bed as Nie Huaisang removes an object from his qiankun sleeve—a fan, Lan Xichen sees, as Nie Huaisang clambers back onto the bed to kneel opposite him. Nie Huaisang offers him the fan, blushing slightly and still looking uncharacteristically nervous. Lan Xichen takes it carefully and opens it.
He recognizes Nie Huaisang’s work at once; he’s seen enough of it over the many years of their acquaintance to know it at a glance. The fan is beautifully painted, every detail done to perfection. Pictured on its face is a pool of water, peaceful and still, with new-budded trees and thick moss surrounding it, and the remains of cracking, melting ice around its banks. Atop it all rests a moon just barely out of new, a sliver barely wide enough to be seen resting between the folds of the parchment.
It’s beautiful, and priceless, and Lan Xichen feels his heart drop, because there is only one reason Nie Huaisang would have made this for him.
“Huaisang,” Lan Xichen rasps, and he feels more than sees Nie Huaisang go still opposite him. “Is this...” He swallows. “Is this a declaration?”
He forces himself to look up from the fan to Nie Huaisang’s face. The other man looks stricken. He always has been good at reading people, and Lan Xichen knows he isn’t hiding his horror well regardless. “I’m sorry, er-ge,” Nie Huaisang says. His voice sounds hollow. “We never have to discuss it again.”
“Huaisang, I’m, I’m sorry,” Lan Xichen says, “but I can’t... I can’t reciprocate. Not after A-Yao.”
The diminutive slips out before he can catch himself, and he sees it land on Nie Huaisang like a blow. “I understand,” Nie Huaisang says, swallowing hard. “My apologies for distressing you.”
He stands and begins dressing himself, fetching his inner robe from where it had landed on the floor when Lan Xichen had torn it off his body and tossed it aside, barely an hour ago. Lan Xichen watches him, somewhat at a loss. Guilt and shame swirl in his belly, where five minutes ago there had only been contentment and the banked coals of desire.
“Huaisang,” Lan Xichen says, when Nie Huaisang has shaken his outer robe into position and pulled it on. “Huaisang, we can’t... I can’t... We need to stop, now,” he says, stumbling over the words from his desire for them not to be true. “We can’t keep this affair going. I can’t see you anymore.”
Nie Huaisang laughs, his voice still hollow. “I knew the risks,” he says, tying his belt with an angry motion. “I understand.”
“Then why?” Lan Xichen asks. “This, us, was supposed to be about comfort only, comfort for our shared losses. Why complicate it?” Why take yourself from me, when you could have let me keep you as we were?
Nie Huaisang rubs his hands over his face and groans into his palms. “Because, at the start of all this, I promised not to keep information from you,” he says. “Because once I realized I loved you, I knew it would change things, and I promised not to keep things from you that you needed to know.” He laughs, a little wildly. “I knew you wouldn’t feel the same. I had thought—”
He cuts himself off abruptly, and Lan Xichen rises higher on his knees with the need to know what would have come next. “What did you think?” Nie Huaisang shakes his head, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, and Lan Xichen insists, “Huaisang, what did you think?” It’s suddenly very important that Lan Xichen knows the answer to that question. “You promised not to keep things from me.”
Nie Huaisang shakes his head again, a sharp, angry motion more like a dog breaking the neck of its prey than a negation, and when he speaks, his voice is trembling. “I had thought that we had reached something approaching friendship, over the past few years,” he says. “I had thought I meant slightly more to you than just a reminder of our da-ge.” He laughs again, shaking his head. “Fuck, I’ve been such a fool.”
Horrified, Lan Xichen says, “Huaisang, I’m sorry, I’ve given you the wrong impression—”
Nie Huaisang holds up a hand. “Er-ge, please,” he begs. “Please, just, just don’t say any more.” There are tears in his eyes, and that more than his words stops Lan Xichen’s tongue.
Nie Huaisang steps into his boots. His braids are in disarray, but it’s late, and no one will see him on his way to the rooms he’s been given for the night. He straightens, bows to Lan Xichen, and says, his head still lowered, “Thank you for your hospitality, er-ge.” Then he turns on his heels and leaves Lan Xichen’s rooms.
Lan Xichen looks down at the fan still sitting in his lap, and then sets it aside quickly, so his tears won’t smudge the paintwork.
********
Nie Huaisang has left by the time Lan Xichen leaves his room for breakfast the next morning.
“He said he made his farewells to you last night, as he needed to be on the road early,” Lan Wangji tells him. His eyes—so different from Lan Xichen’s own, the only real difference in their faces—narrow slightly as he scrutinizes Lan Xichen. “Did he not?”
Lan Xichen swallows. “He did.” Not even a lie, as much as he wishes it was. “Thank you, Wangji.”
His younger brother nods, apparently appeased, and applies himself to his own breakfast; Lan Xichen, feeling somewhat as though the world has become less steady under his feet, kneels at the table and follows suit. Wei Wuxian will not be seen for hours yet, Lan Xichen knows, and so it’s just the two of them taking food together. Lan Xichen tries to savor his younger brother’s presence, and he does; he just also finds himself missing another presence at the table.
It’s ridiculous, he tells himself firmly. He does not love Nie Huaisang; he knows what love feels like, felt it for a decade and a half, and what he feels for Nie Huaisang is nothing like it. It’s for the best they end their affair now, so Nie Huaisang can get over him, and they can get back to a level of affectionate friendship.
For all his logic, Lan Xichen still feels like, every time he takes a step, the ground may collapse under him, and swallow him whole.
He makes it a fortnight. Two weeks of trying to stay as steady as he can on his feet, of his heart and his hands aching for Nie Huaisang, and berating himself for his lack of ability to self-soothe, as though he were a child and Nie Huaisang a comfort item, a child’s blanket or toy. It’s been years since he learned the truth about Jin Guangyao and his hand in Nie Mingjue’s death; he ought to be able to comfort himself by now.
Two slow, dragging weeks, and then he hears a knock on the door of the Frost Room and opens it to find Lan Wangji, carrying a tray with tea.
“Xiongzhang,” Lan Wangji says. “May I come in?”
Lan Xichen lets his younger brother in, of course, and Lan Wangji busies himself setting up the tea service. Resigning himself to his fate, Lan Xichen kneels opposite him and accepts the first cup of tea gratefully.
“Xiongzhang,” Lan Wangji says again, once they’ve both taken their first sips. “Are you well?”
Lan Xichen sighs. He’s never been able to hide from his younger brother, he reflects ruefully. For all Lan Wangji barely emotes where others can see him, he’s always been remarkably quick to pick up on his older brother’s moods.
“Well enough,” Lan Xichen says, which feels like a lie as he says it. “Why do you ask?”
Lan Wangji’s eyes, light enough to be almost clear but not a bit less piercing for it, regard him steadily. “You’ve seemed...distressed, ever since Sect Leader Nie left,” he says. “I was...concerned, that something happened between the two of you.” Lan Xichen sighs. Lan Wangji’s gaze sharpens. “Xiongzhang, if he did something to you—”
“He didn’t,” Lan Xichen says automatically, and then shakes his head with a mirthless laugh. “Not exactly.”
Lan Wangji sits still and continues to regard him; Lan Xichen commits himself. “Huaisang and I have... We’ve been having an affair,” he forces himself to say, taking a sip of tea so he doesn’t have to look at his younger brother’s face. “For some time now.”
Lan Wangji is silent enough that Lan Xichen starts to panic slightly, but when he says, “What sort of affair?” his voice is steady.
Lan Xichen looks at him. Lan Wangji looks surprised, to be sure, but not condemnatory, and Lan Xichen feels a weight come off his shoulders.
“A physical affair,” he says. “At least, it was meant to be only physical, but...”
“But you developed feelings for him?” Lan Wangji supplies.
Lan Xichen shakes his head. “The other way around,” he tells his younger brother. “He confessed to me while he was here, and I told him I couldn’t return his feelings, so we ended it.”
Lan Wangji nods slowly, taking this in. “And yet you are conflicted?”
Lan Xichen looks down at his half-empty cup. His fingers fidget on its smooth, ceramic rim. “I hurt him,” he says quietly. “Badly. It...weighs on me.”
“Mn.”
It’s thoughtful, and Lan Xichen looks up to find Lan Wangji looking at him speculatively. “What is it?” he asks. “Speak freely, Wangji.”
Lan Wangji hesitates only briefly before saying, “I did not know of your affair before now, but now that I do...” He thinks for a moment, and Lan Xichen waits. “I wonder why you would say you do not have feelings for him,” Lan Wangji finally says.
Lan Xichen blinks at him. “Because I don’t.”
“Mn.” Lan Wangji takes a sip of his tea.
Even someone less fluent in the way Lan Wangji speaks would know what that meant. “You believe I do?”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji confirms.
Lan Xichen shakes his head. “Wangji, I... I have loved, before. I have felt love, romantic love, before. I know what it feels like.”
Lan Wangji nods slowly. “Jin Guangyao.”
Lan Xichen swallows hard, feeling his face heat. But he knows he needn’t worry about losing face here, with just his beloved younger brother to hear him, so he presses on. “I remember clearly what that felt like.” It had felt like yearning, like butterflies in his stomach, blushing when they touched and missing that same touch when it ended. “What I feel towards Huaisang is nothing like that.”
Lan Wangji considers this, pouring them both fresh cups from the teapot. “What I feel for Wei Ying,” he says slowly, “and what he feels for me... They are not the same. Not in every detail. And yet, both are love.”
Lan Xichen considers this. “You’re saying that I could be in love again, and have it feel different, but be no less the same emotion?” he asks, to clarify. The concept is somewhat foreign to him, but Lan Wangji undoubtedly has more experience in the realm of romantic love than Lan Xichen does, and he is willing to be convinced.
Lan Wangji nods. “Xiongzhang, how do you feel, regarding Sect Leader Nie, now?”
Lan Xichen takes stock of himself. “Like the ground is less firm beneath me,” he confesses. “Like the very foundations of the earth are less secure. I feel as though something I had once taken for granted, like gravity, has been upended, and no one but me seems to notice.”
“I wonder if that is due to the revelation of his feelings, or to his absence,” Lan Wangji observes, taking a sip of his tea.
Trust his reticent, taciturn younger brother to knock him silly with just a few words, Lan Xichen reflects, his mind swirling. “I had thought the former,” he says slowly. “But... It might be the latter, instead.”
“Mn.” Lan Wangji takes a moment to gather his words, and then says, “To feel as though someone is the very foundation you stand on, the earth that keeps you upright, and that being without them makes you unsteady... I would call that love, if I felt that way for someone.”
Put that way, Lan Xichen has no defense against the conclusion Lan Wangji is inexorably leading him to. It’s so obvious, laid out in his younger brother’s careful, methodical fashion.
If Lan Wangji is right, then Lan Xichen has been in love with Nie Huaisang for quite some time, and simply not noticed.
He laughs, quietly and softly. “I... I really thought I couldn’t love Huaisang,” he murmurs, to himself more than to Lan Wangji. “Not after Jin Guangyao.”
“Because you loved Jin Guangyao but were entirely wrong as to his character,” Lan Wangji says, “or because Sect Leader Nie killed Jin Guangyao?”
Lan Xichen reels, shocked at the other meaning to his words his brother has come up with. “The former,” he says urgently. He knows he can trust Nie Huaisang—Nie Huaisang is one of the few people in the world he knows he can trust, in an ironic twist of fate. Of the other two, one of them is sitting opposite him.
His mind returns to him the memory of how his last conversation with Nie Huaisang had ended. “Do you—Could he have thought I meant the latter?” That would be awful, terrible, unforgivable of Lan Xichen, but it would also explain Nie Huaisang’s reaction.
There’s no way for Lan Wangji to know he said the same words to Nie Huaisang, of course, but true to form, his younger brother seems to understand him anyway. “If it were me,” Lan Wangji says, thinking through it, “and Wei Ying were somewhere, alone, under the impression that not only did I not return his love, but that I was repelled by his love, that I considered his past actions as preventing me from ever returning his feelings...”
Lan Xichen leans forward, his hands tight on the table. “Go on, Wangji.”
Lan Wangji meets his eyes dead on and says, “I would be on my sword, this moment, on my way to him.”
Shufu would be appalled, Lan Xichen thinks proudly, and stands. “Make my excuses to shufu,” he says.
Lan Wangji nods. “Good luck, xiongzhang.”
“Thank you, Wangji.”
In a moment Lan Xichen is at the window. In another, he has stepped through it, onto his sword, and taken off, in the direction of Qinghe.
********
Nie Mingjue had given Lan Xichen free passage through Qinghe and the Impure Realm, and Nie Huaisang had never revoked it, so no one stops Lan Xichen, but even so, he could not hope to fly over the whole region without being noticed, not even in the dark of night. So it’s no surprise, when he touches down outside of Nie Huaisang’s residence four days after leaving the Cloud Recesses, that Nie Huaisang is outside, waiting for him.
“Er-ge, what’s happened?” Nie Huaisang says urgently, when Shuoyue is back in its sheath. “Has something gone wrong? Are the Cloud Recesses under attack?”
He looks awful, Lan Xichen observes, with more than a single pang of guilt. Even considering that it’s nearly the middle of the night, he looks far too pale and tired. He’s tied his hair back, and it makes the hollows of his cheeks look more apparent, as though he’s lost weight in the three weeks since Lan Xichen has seen him.
How Lan Xichen had ever thought he didn’t love this man, he will never know. It’s so obvious, in the way Lan Xichen wants to take him into his arms and shelter him, protect him from anything that could make him look like this.
Then Nie Huaisang’s words sink into his brain. “Nothing’s wrong,” Lan Xichen says. It hadn’t occurred to him that of course that would be Nie Huaisang’s first thought, upon another sect leader descending on him this late, without warning. He’d been preoccupied with other considerations.
“Nothing’s happened,” Lan Xichen says, and then, “But also, something has.”
Nie Huaisang frowns worriedly and shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”
Lan Xichen has had four days to think about what to say, and in the end, he’d decided that using his words had been what had gone wrong the last time, and that actions were the better choice. He steps forward, pulls Nie Huaisang towards him, and kisses him.
He feels Nie Huaisang’s gasp of shock, and then a hand on his chest, pushing him back. “Er-ge, please don’t,” Nie Huaisang murmurs, stepping back and looking furtively around them, as though worried someone had seen them.
Fuck. Words it is, then.
“I’m sorry,” Lan Xichen says sorrowfully. “I’m so sorry, Huaisang, I didn’t recognize it. It’s nothing like before, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the same thing, Wangji said so and he was right. Gravity’s disappeared, and it’s because of you. I can barely stand upright, because of you.”
He realizes he’s babbling when Nie Huaisang frowns again. “Er-ge, you’re not being coherent. How long were you flying?” he says with concern. The back of his hand presses coolly against Lan Xichen’s forehead.
Lan Xichen sighs. He really is not very good at this at all. He’ll have to apologize to Wei Wuxian, later, for his reaction to his declaration in the Guanyin temple all those years ago.
He takes Nie Huaisang’s hand from his forehead and gathers up the other one as well, bringing them to his mouth. He presses a kiss to each, then puts Nie Huaisang’s knuckles to his forehead, and then straightens and says, “Huaisang, I love you.”
Huaisang takes a sharp inward breath, his eyes going wide. “I love you, Huaisang,” Lan Xichen says again, urgently. “I’m sorry I said I didn’t, I was, I was so stupid about it all. Forgive me.”
There are tears welled up along Nie Huaisang’s lower eyelids. He shuts his eyes briefly and shakes his head. “Er-ge, you don’t have to do this,” he says. His voice is trembling, and once again Lan Xichen wants to shelter him, protect him, keep him safe from ever feeling this sad again. “I didn’t mean what I said before, I know you do care about me, you don’t have to—”
His words cut off abruptly when Lan Xichen lifts one of the hands he’s still holding and presses Nie Huaisang’s fingers to the fabric of his forehead ribbon.
In all their years of being lovers, Nie Huaisang has never touched his forehead ribbon, not even accidentally, not even when Lan Xichen has been too eager to remember to take it off first. He’s always been very careful about not going near that part of Lan Xichen’s forehead.
Nie Huaisang knows what the forehead ribbon means, and he knows that Lan Xichen would never allow him to touch it if he didn’t absolutely, down-to-his-bones mean it. Lan Xichen watches his eyes go wide, and spares a moment to hope that this, at least, will work to convince him.
Nie Huaisang stares at where his fingers are resting against the white cloth. Lan Xichen can feel their heat through the thickness of the ribbon, the pressure as he gently drags his fingers to the front, where the clouds run above Lan Xichen’s eyes. His thumb traces carefully over the embroidery there.
Nie Huaisang bursts into tears, and Lan Xichen gives into his urges and pulls him into his embrace.
Lan Xichen had been flying for four days straight, with fewer pauses for food and rest than he’d really needed, and, now that the confession is over, it starts to tell on him. Once they make it inside Nie Huaisang’s residence, Nie Huaisang shoves a steamed bun down his throat, follows it with half a pot of tea, and puts him to bed.
Lan Xichen wakes before the dawn. His head is pillowed on Nie Huaisang’s hip; Nie Huaisang’s hand is tracing meaningless patterns against the back of his bare shoulder and, when Lan Xichen looks up, his forehead ribbon is wrapped around his other hand, his thumb once again rubbing lightly against the embroidered clouds.
No one warned Lan Xichen, when he was given his forehead ribbon, how erotic the sight of his fated person touching it would be. He swallows hard, and the sound alerts Nie Huaisang to his waking.
“Good morning,” Nie Huaisang murmurs, the fingers on Lan Xichen’s shoulder not stopping their movements.
“I think we should marry,” Lan Xichen blurts out. “Make our bows.”
Nie Huaisang blinks down at him, startled. “What, now?”
“No, not now.” Lan Xichen rearranges himself so he’s on his stomach, propped up on his elbows to look at Nie Huaisang. “I’d like Wangji to be here. But soon, as soon as he can get here.”
Nie Huaisang considers this, looking at the hand tangled around the white forehead ribbon. “I didn’t think you’d want to,” he murmurs.
“That’s why I think we should,” Lan Xichen says. Nie Huaisang opens his mouth, and Lan Xichen cuts him off before he can object. “It’s part of why I think we should,” he corrects himself. “Aside from the more traditional reasons.”
“Love, and suchlike,” Nie Huaisang says, not quite mocking, but a little disbelieving.
“Just so,” Lan Xichen confirms.
Nie Huaisang slithers down the pillows to rest on his side, elbow propping up his head. It’s reminiscent of the way he’d looked when they started their affair properly, back in Lotus Pier, and Lan Xichen rolls onto his flank to mirror him.
Nie Huaisang reaches out to cup Lan Xichen’s face, with the hand holding his forehead ribbon. Lan Xichen can feel the cloth slip against his cheek. “It might be confusing for people,” Nie Huaisang murmurs. “Since we’re both sect leaders in our own right. If we hold a wedding, I mean.”
Lan Xichen gives this the consideration it’s due. “Well,” he says slowly, “if my younger brother can make his bows in the woods, with no one around to see but his spouse, I don’t see why we can’t make our bows with just my brother and his husband to see. In your ancestral hall, maybe, so da-ge can be there too.”
Nie Huaisang strokes his cheek with his thumb. He bites his lip, and then murmurs, confessionally, “I would like that.”
Lan Xichen catches his hand and presses a kiss to his palm, half-covered by white ribbon. “Then we’ll do it,” he says. “I’ll write to Wangji today and tell him to come as quickly as possible.”
“Your uncle?”
Lan Xichen shakes his head. “I’ll break the news to him when we get back to the Cloud Recesses,” he says. “I can’t leave the sect without both him and Wangji, and, frankly, he’d only fret unless I present it to him as a done deal.”
Nie Huaisang snorts. “Wei-xiong is still weighing on his mind, then?”
“Heavily,” Lan Xichen confirms, “although I think he’s slowly wearing down shufu’s contempt, with time and relatively good behavior. The juniors adore him.”
“Oh, succession is going to be a nightmare for the next generation, speaking of juniors,” Nie Huaisang says, sounding a little too pleased at the notion. “If you and I never produce heirs of our own bodies, and Jiang Wanyin probably won’t either...”
“We’ll just have to cultivate to immortality,” Lan Xichen says, amused. “And never retire. Then it’ll never be a problem.”
Nie Huaisang shudders. “I never wanted to be sect leader to begin with,” he says frankly, “let alone be sect leader for eternity. You can stay head of Gusu-Lan, and when there’s a likely Nie cousin ready for the job, I’ll retire and come be your kept man.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Lan Xichen says.
Nie Huaisang smiles at him. It’s a bit like looking directly into a bright star, but Lan Xichen doesn’t mind. Nie Huaisang sobers slightly. “It won’t be easy,” he murmurs. “We won’t be able to see each other any more often than we already do. Like it or not, we both have sects to run.”
Lan Xichen nods. “That’s what the bows are for,” he says. “So that even when we’re apart, we’re connected.”
Nie Huaisang smiles again, looking slightly stunned this time. “Who knew the First Jade could be such a romantic?”
“It runs in my family,” Lan Xichen says. “Have I ever told you the story of my parents?” His long journey and short sleep is catching up with him again, and the words come out slightly slurred.
Nie Huaisang shakes his head. “Tell me tonight,” he says, shuffling forward to kiss Lan Xichen on the forehead. “For now, get some more sleep. You need it. I’ll arrange for breakfast to be brought here when you wake up.”
Lan Xichen clutches at him, his eyelids already drooping. “Stay,” he mumbles.
He feels the huff of laughter against his forehead. “I will, Huan-ge,” Nie Huaisang murmurs. “I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.”
And he is.