#its always a good time to doodle da-ge | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

i-like-plan-m · 3 years

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If youre still taking prompts!! Someone releases the diary of the yiling patriarch to the masses, and it becomes something like a diary of anne frank equivalent. Opinions are changed.

Instead of being oblivious about his feelings, wwx knows that he likes lwj but never does anything about it bc he’s accepted that lwj will never like him back or that he’ll never be good enough to for him. (more in next ch!)

[Posted to Ao3: weariness follows, and the infinite ache]

Necessity, they said, was the mother of invention.

Nie Huaisang disagreed. Genius was the root of invention, and his friend had been proof of that. Necessity was the mother of revenge. Of retribution.

Da-ge would have said justice.

Da-ge was not here anymore.

Nie Huaisang was all alone now, left with nothing but a role that had been meant for great men like his father and brother.

His father, assassinated by a man so evil he’d barely been human by the end of the war.

His brother, murdered by a monster of a different making. One they’d trusted, let into their home and treated like family. One who still smiled at Nie Huaisang and thought him too blind to see the looming, broad-shouldered shadow that stalked its killer’s steps.

His brother’s spirit always felt closest when Jin Guangyao was near. Even death could not stop Nie Mingjue’s overprotective hovering, it seemed. Somehow that hurt worse.

Necessity was the mother of revenge and genius the root of invention, whether that meant talismans or planning the downfall of a monster. Nie Huaisang was not a genius.

But Wei Wuxian had been. Before his own brutal death, anyway. Even when sequestered away in a place of nightmares, he’d been constantly creating.

Creating, and inventing, and filling dozens of notebooks with his usual disorganized ramblings. The notebooks had been seized by the Jins after the siege of the Burial Mounds. They didn’t notice when a handful went missing from their stores, snuck out of Lanling by a resentful servant with light fingers and a grudge against Jin Guangyao. He’d been easily bought off by a stranger in the city who’d never shown his face.

“He really was a genius,” Nie Huaisang mused, flipping through one of his dead friend’s journals in the solitude of his own personal library.

A scoff. “Demonic cultivation is demonic cultivation.”

“Not all of it is demonic,” he argued. “Just parts of it.”

He looked at the contents and reconsidered. “Actually, most of it is about farming and child raising and Lan Wangji. No wonder the Jins were so pissed.” Their treasure had turned out to be worthless, after all.

This particular journal of Wei Wuxian’s had six pages straight of complaints about Wen Qing bullying him into sleeping and eating. Lan Wangji was mentioned no less than eighty seven times. There were rabbits and a child planted next to radishes and dozens of lotus roots doodled all over the pages. A few lines of writing had been lazily scratched out-- by the looks of it, Wei Wuxian had started writing all his characters upside down and backwards. It was right before the whining about Wen Qing stabbing him to make him sleep, which suddenly made a lot more sense.

Nie Huaisang now owned eight of Wei Wuxian’s journals, relics of a young man who’d thrown his own life away for Wens, of all things. No surprise. He’d always had his own sense of justice.

“Justice?” His brother’s voice was full of incredulous disbelief. “A-Sang, he killed thousands.”

Nie Huaisang’s mouth twisted stubbornly. “They attacked him first,” he muttered.

“Oh, that’s what you’re going with? ‘They started it’?”

“Well, they did.”

The only response was Nie Mingjue grumbling under his breath. The familiarity of it made Nie Huaisang smile, but it was the contents of the next page that made him laugh aloud.

I don’t know why I keep wishing Lan Zhan was here. He’d hate this place. Just think: all the resentful energy everywhere, and Hanguang-Jun farming with the rest of us! Haha can you imagine?

Ah. Trouble is, I can imagine. He was my soulmate. Or at least I thought so.

> That’s gay.

Wen Qing!! Stop it!! Get your own journal!!

> You left it open on top of my medicines. You are clearly at fault.

You--!! I didn’t leave it there, I dropped it there when you STABBED ME with your damned needles!

> Don’t get all defensive just because I saw your love letters to Lan Wangji.

LOVE LETTERS?! You are the WORST, and I can’t believe-- wait, why am I writing this when I can just come yell at you instead?

> I dare you :)

(Don’t do it, Wei-gongzi!)

WEN NING, YOU TOO?! BETRAYAL ON ALL SIDES

“At least he had them, this time around,” Nie Huaisang said with a tired sigh. “What a terrible place to live.”

“Stop sympathizing with the enemy.”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said blithely. “Besides, he’s not the enemy. He’s dead.” For now.

“What do you mean, for now?” Nie Mingjue asked warily.

“Just some thoughts, da-ge, nothing to worry about.” He subtly tucked another journal under his cushion so it was out of sight. That one had been far more illuminating. Something for later-- for the beginning of the endgame.

A long silence while he read, and then... “You haven’t painted anything in months.”

“I’m too busy for those things.”

“You love those things.”

“I love you more.” Nie Huaisang paused, staring hard at the blurry page in front of him. “There’s no joy in anything anymore.”

“That can’t be true.”

“It is,” he snapped, abruptly furious. “How can I care about painting when you’re dead? How can I remember what happiness is when I’m all alone?”

“You aren’t all alone.”

“You are dead!” Nie Huaisang screamed, flinging the journal aside and shooting to his feet. His face was wet and his breath trembling, tears burning in his throat. “You left me. You are gone, and now I have no one. Not a single soul left in this god forsaken world; no one cares about me! I’m left with no family but your sworn brothers-- one who killed you, and the other who handed him the weapon to do it!” He whirled around to throw his brush against the wall, leaving a smear of black ink. “You are dead, and I am not, and there’s nothing I can do about it except kill the man who killed you.”

Silence. And then…

“S-Sect Leader?” A hesitant knock at the door. “Are you alright? Who are you talking to?”

Nie Huaisang swiped his eyes clear of tears and found an empty room. His heart lurched as reality returned. As the pain and grief and despair found him again.

“Just to myself, I guess,” he said distantly, unable to tear his eyes away from the place he’d imagined his brother to be. A ghost or a memory, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter either way. His brother was gone.

“I’m fine. Leave me.”

“Yes, Sect Leader.” Soft footsteps leading away, and then he was left with ringing silence and a hollow room.

“He’s gone,” Nie Huaisang repeated shakily. A reminder he needed, as much as it hurt to say aloud. “Da-ge is dead.”

He stared into the candle’s flame until his eyes burned. His brother was dead and he was alone. There was little he could do about it… except get revenge for his brother’s soul.

Nie Huaisang was not a genius. He was something better, something that would make his complex plans succeed: he was Nie Mingjue’s beloved little brother, whom no one considered a threat. They would never see him coming, would never realize his role or ruthlessness until his revenge was complete.

Jin Guangyao would die for his crimes. Nie Huaisang would make sure of it.

He sat back down. Took a breath before digging out the most important journal, and started taking notes. Nie Huaisang plotted with meticulous care long into the night, until his eyes drifted shut against his will. He staggered to his bed, sleep-drunk and heartsore, and collapsed onto it, too numb to bother dragging the blankets up the bed.

He was on the verge of sleep when the blankets draped gently over his body. “Thank you, da-ge,” he said sleepily, and drifted off as a hand brushed the hair from his face with utmost care.

#angst ahead!#nie huaisang #nie brothers #nie mingjue #grief #loss #canon compliant #mostly #my fics #my writing #the untamed #mdzs #prompts #asks #anon

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