#i'm sorry wwx is just such a diva

[nillegible]

[ @marsdiogenes this one is for you! It’s only a piece of the fic I was trying to write you, but I think I’ve given up on it. I hope you like it! (It’s WangSang-ish?) ]

Zewu Jun always sends Hanguang Jun to Qinghe in his place, unless there’s a Cultivation Conference that necessitates the presence of Sect Leader Lan. And Nie Huaisang does not begrudge his Er-ge for being too much of a coward to return to the place where he had watched his brother die.

(Okay he does, a little. Huaisang still lives here. He still walks down the same corridors that Da-ge had run through, crazed and murderous. He sometimes stands in silence where Ma Ziyuan’s blood had pooled around his crumpled body, one of the several Nie cultivators who had died in da-ge’s rampage, mistaken for Jin Guangyao in Da-ge’s final moments. Huaisang still crosses the courtyard where his Da-ge had. Where he had…

So he does begrudge Er-ge, a little.)

But Lan Wangji comes in his place and truly there’s little difference between the Jades to set one above the other but age, so Hanguang Jun is welcomed with the courtesy owed a Sect Leader whenever he arrives on Lan business. It’s Huaisang’s own fault for knocking on Lan Wangji’s door after curfew, holding jars of wine.

That even the very first time he’d done this, Lan Wangji had just looked at him, really looked at him, then let him inside without protest is depressing. It implies that Nie Huaisang is more unravelled than he realized. But Nie Huaisang is grateful for the company, even if it’s out of pity.

Lan Wangji does not provide much conversation, and he’s not initially the best company, silently sipping his tea while Huaisang drinks his wine. It’s not an apathetic silence though, there’s a shared grief, a shared fury that’s so present that Nie Huaisang should probably bring it cups for its own share of the wine next time.

Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the loneliness that is barely alleviated by these occasional meetings, maybe Nie Huaisang is just petty enough to want his guest to wallow in the same kind of grief that he is, so Nie Huaisang says, “Jiang-xiong refuses to even speak his name.”

If it works, Huaisang does not know because Lan Wangji’s face doesn’t change.

“Did you love him?” Lan Wangji asks, and Nie Huaisang nearly chokes. It wasn’t like that, it was the Second Jade of Lan that Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian had both ogled appreciatively, had crushed on from a distance, and yet.

He doesn’t know if Lan Wangji is so incredibly perceptive, or if he’s so much a fool that he cannot imagine anyone not being in love with Wei Wuxian.

Nie Huaisang remembers laughing grey eyes on a boy who was more alive than anyone else he had ever known, who would bring emperor’s smile into the Cloud Recesses defiantly, and spend the whole time he was drunk talking about a certain unsmiling Lan while Nie Huaisang giggled.

Yes, of course I loved him, he could say. Was it possible to meet him and not fall halfway in love?

No, he could say. If I loved him, I’d be broken like you.

Nie Huaisang regrets many things, but not checking in with his friends Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian after the war is one of his greatest.

He doesn’t answer for the longest time, cannot, because Lan Wangji does not like lies, and Nie Huaisang does not know the truth himself. He takes another sip of wine.

“To watch with your own eyes your beloved be trampled and ridiculed, yet be unable to do anything,” Nie Huaisang recites instead. He knows that Lan Wangji knows the line. Nie Huaisang had lent him the books himself. Lan Wangji nods, accepting the not-answer. It’s not Wei Wuxian, but his brother’s dying, broken body that Nie Huaisang thinks of as he closes his eyes against the weight of memory. Of failure.

The soft lips that press against his are an acceptable distraction, though Nie Huaisang makes a poor substitute for Wei Wuxian.

The dead are gone though, and it’s up to them to take what solace they can, from whoever is left alive. Nie Huaisang blinks up at those liquid gold eyes as he’s pulled into Lan Wangji’s lap, reaches up to trace the familiar line of Lan Wangji’s jaw as he leans down for another kiss.

Nie Huaisang is not the man Lan Wangji wants, but he’s the one he gets. Isn’t this love? Nie Huaisang wonders, clinging to the warmth of him. I want you to stay forever, is that not enough?

#mars #wangsang #wangsangxian #i'm sorry wwx is just such a diva #I couldn't leave him out XD