#coming to terms with it has been hard as I’ve untangled the webs of lies and realized how much had been projection and definitely not okay

[rachel-bot-unni]

Healing is not linear. Growth is not linear. It is a constant wave filled with highs and lows, ups and downs, good moments and bad moments, easy days and hard ones. There will be moments of brightness and laughter followed by seclusion and sadness. There will be times where you may go from giggles to tears, and back again. There will be days where you can barely manage to get up in the morning… but, there are also days where you may wake up before your alarm and smile.

Remind yourself of that fact, and remember to cut yourself some slack. Healing takes time, and no one can rush the process. Remember to treat yourself kindly, love yourself fully, and trust that you will make it through.

[folderolsfollies]

title: Three Can Keep A Secret (If Two Of Them Are Dead) pairing: Sangyao summary: I just wanted to let my stupid murder twinks have a nice day and plan a fake-date.  (discussion of sexual assault - if you want to skip it go from the paragraph ““You’ve been talking to Xiao Xingchen,” to “Nie Huaisang thankfully gets the hint”)

Meng Yao has had enough.

Hasn’t he worked harder than anyone he knows, learnt enough to be the equal of spoiled children who could spend their children at tutoring programs and not second jobs, hadn’t he lied and schemed and shoveled shit so that his father, his biological father, would even deign to look his way? After all that, is he not owed - everything, really - but at the very least something? And if he can’t get his reward, can he not at least get his revenge?

He calls his oldest friend, and lets it ring all the way through as it goes to voicemail. When he calls again. Nie Huaisang picks up on the second ring.

“Sorry Yao-ge, figured if it wasn’t important you’d leave a voicemail and if it was important you’d just call again,” Nie Huaisang explains, with the edge of a laugh trilling his voice, not sorry at all. “So tell me, why have you made me suffer through an actual phone call instead of texting me like a civilized human being who’s joined the 21st century?”

“I want to bring my father down,” Meng Yao says, and then hastily snaps his mouth shut. There’s something about Nie Huaisang which makes him speak too hastily, allow too much of his real emotions, real anger out. The wild shriek of laughter Nie Huaisang is emitting right now isn’t helping with that.

“Hell yeah, love a scheme,” says Nie Huaisang comfortably, and from the muffled thud it sounds like he’s settling in.

“Nie Huaisang, are you putting your feet on the table?” Meng Yao says. Meng Yao is not a mom friend. Lan Xichen is a mom friend. Meng Yao is cool. And, if he is continuing to indulge in wild hypotheticals, Nie Huasiang is a jock.

“So mean to your rescuer, Yao-ge! Do you want my help or not?” Nie Huaisang says.

“I could ask Xichen instead,” says Meng Yao, annoyed, and winces. He’s definitely off his game.

“Lan Xichen will tell you to hug it out,” Nie Huaisang points out, “that’s why you didn’t call him, you called me: your meanest friend. Now tell didi what happened.”

Meng Yao opens his mouth. Then he closes it. Nie Huaisang is the last person on the planet that would judge him for familial related hysterics. But he’s not quite at the point where he can untangle the web of hatred and obligation and trampled love that he feels whenever his father is around and present it for public consumption. He’s not even at the point where he thinks he can try.  “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he says, and if his voice is low, at least it doesn’t shake.

“Sure, whatever. I’m assuming that you already have a plan in place?” Nie Huaisang instantly says, cheerily.

“You’re just agreeing to this?” Meng Yao says, shaking his head. “People will take advantage of that, you know,” he says, and the words come out with the solicitous edge that he always feels compelled to adopt with Nie Huaisang. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that Nie Huaisang will say, “But it’s not people, it’s you”, and then Meng Yao will say --

“I mean maybe I’d say something if it were Zixuan you were targeting, maybe, but Jin Guangshan? You don’t need to sell me on a revenge plan against him, Yao-ge,” Nie Huaisang says breezily, like it’s that easy. And maybe to him, it is. “Also I’m agreeing to hear you out, not to get involved in anything, by the way, you’ll need to bribe me for that.”

“I already bribe you,” Meng Yao points out, and smiles reflexively, as if it could soften the words over the phone.

“That’s great, then! You already know what works on me!” Nie Huaisang says.

Meng Yao sighs, but he’s smiling, and it's a real one this time. “He’s having a charity gala in a few weeks, and I’m going to be there, as an organizer. I’m allowed a plus one.” He knows this for certain, because he wrote the invitation code.

“Yao-ge, are you going to bring someone shocking?” Nie Huaisang says, all conspiratorial glee and instant understanding.

“Yes,” says Meng Yao, swallowing, trying not to think about what led him here after he worked so hard to gain his father’s favor, or about the way Nie Huaisang’s voice dipped low on his name.

“So you want someone male, to activate his old-man homophobia, and frivolous enough that he can’t even say this is some sort of business strategy. I’ve got a couple of candidates,” Nie Huaisang muses, and Meng Yao can hear his smile through the phone. “How about, oh, Wei Wuxian? He’s always my personal choice when I need a chaos agent.”

“Lan Wangji would kill me,” Meng Yao replies automatically. If he halted that slow-moving daytime soap opera any more, he thinks Lan Wangji would just be the first in a very long line. He briefly mulls over the merits of seducing Wei Wuxian just to stop having to look at their insufferable pining gazes.  “Huaisang…”

“Well, how about Xiao Xingchen, then? He’d be nice enough to agree, he’d probably think he was taking a principled stand against bigotry,” Nie Huaisang says, in his best butter-won’t-melt voice.

Here’s the thing. Meng Yao knows exactly what Nie Huaisang is doing right now. And still he finds himself saying “Huaisang… I don’t want Xiao Xingchen,” because then Nie Huaisang will laugh and say -

“Oh, you want me, gege? Now what will I get for that?”

A small part of Meng Yao, still, after everything he knows about Nie Huaisang, wants to say “Anything.” And in truth, there is little that he would not give to Nie Huaisang. Meng Yao sometimes feels like it’s Nie Huaisang’s knowledge of this fact that is the only reason that Meng Yao still gets to set the terms.

“First of all: exposure.” Meng Yao says crisply, relaxing into details. “It will be well attended. Madame Yu will be there, and you can get an introduction that doesn’t need to go through her children.”

“And?” Nie Huaisang says.

“It’s minimal work. We go in, get photographed, and get out. We really just need to be seen for this to work.” Meng Yao lists off.

“And?” Nie Huaisang says, and he’s definitely fucking with Meng Yao now, but what he doesn’t know is that Meng Yao also has an ace up his sleeve.

Meng Yao pauses for full dramatic effect and then pulls out his trump card. “And it’s a masquerade.”

“Meng Yao,” whoops Nie Huaisang, delighted as a child, “why didn’t you lead with that?”

“I led with the opportunity to inflict social repercussions on a known missing stair in the community,” Meng Yao says virtuously, “at great cost to my own career in the company.”

“You’ve been talking to Xiao Xingchen,” Nie Huaisang snorts, and maybe that easy understanding that sometimes bodies need to get buried is why Meng Yao only wants one person on his arm for this. “If you really wanted to expose him properly, there has got to be a woman willing to go on record against him.”

Meng Yao feels three bright stabs of pain in his palm, and realizes that he’s clenched his fist hard enough for the nails to bite in. He relaxes every individual finger.  “That won’t work,” he says, calmly. Always calmly. “He’ll get a slap in the wrist and those women’s lives will be ruined for nothing.” And so will his, he thinks.

Nie Huaisang thankfully gets the hint and changes the subject. “Whereas this way, you get a cozy, sympathetic interview in GLAD magazine about how some people can’t keep up with the times, and some exposure that you can use with more liberal companies. Bold move, A-Yao!”

Meng Yao really can’t help himself. “I think Lan Wangji would agree.” Lan Xichen won’t stick his neck out for Meng Yao against the Jins, but Lan Wangji’s sense of virtue can be played like a fiddle. And as Lan Wangji goes, so goes the nation, apparently. Meng Yao thinks he can play this just fine.

Nie Huaisang is laughing approvingly. “You’re my favorite, Yao-ge,” he says, because, Meng Yao reminds himself, he’s a flighty child who says that to anyone who made him happy for more than five seconds, and Meng Yao is just stupid enough to still want it.

“So I’m going for provocative but in a way that appeals to subscribers to the New Yorker,” Nie Huaisang muses. “I’m very good at being a good-for-nothing piece of arm candy, you called the right guy.”

“That’s not true, Nie Huaisang, you know that,” Meng Yao says, because Nie Huaisang’s inexplicable urge to constantly downplay his own intelligence is one of the most baffling things about him.  

Nie Huaisang just hums and doesn’t answer. “Well, I’m in, if I have the time,” and then he adds, because he’s still Nie Huaisang, “and maybe you’ll owe me a favor!”

Meng Yao lets himself think for a beat about Nie Huaisang owing him that sort of favor - flushed cheeks, tangled hair - and then sighs mildly. “I suppose.”

“I’m going to take advantage of that,” Nie Huaisang says, and the phone clicks off.