#hello I am impossibly depressed today so of course it's 'kill my favourite characters' time

[ibijau]

A lot can happen in ten years

post canon, warning for major character death

The first year is spent in seclusion, partly because Lan Xichen cannot face the world, not after realising how much of his life has been built upon a lie. Aside from the handful of people present in that temple, on that night, nobody knows how much responsibility he bears in the events that have transpired. If anything, his choice to chase after Jin Guangyao appears to balance out his long complicity in the public’s eye.

The second year, that seclusion is partly lifted. Lan Xichen rarely leaves the Cloud Recesses. There are better people than him to cleanse monsters or supervise juniors on a Night Hunt. As for himself, he is still uncomfortable with the world. Even for conferences, he sends his uncle, his brother at worst. There are many faces he cannot bear to see yet. There is one face he doubts he’ll ever bear to see again.

The third year, there is a party to celebrate Lan Wangji’s adoption of a child, the daughter of cousins who died on a Night Hunt. She’s a sweet little toddler a little younger than one, and the source of Lan Xichen’s first true smiles in years. The party, however, nearly sends him in a panic, especially when he finds himself face to face with Nie Huaisang. But the other man only smiles at him and congratulates him on the addition to their family, before drifting away to chat with someone else.

The fourth year, Lan Sizhui gets married, the cause for another party. Nie Huaisang, once again, has to be invited. Lan Xichen dreads it less this time. Nie Huaisang spends a good part of the celebration joking with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, as if nothing had changed in the twenty years since they first met. Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang exchange a few words, more than they did last time. It’s still easy to mindlessly chat with Nie Huaisang, though Lan Xichen cannot feel fully at peace until his guest has left.

The fifth year, Lan Xichen starts attending conferences in person again. He feels all eyes on him, some judging, other pitying. Most are merely curious as to what he will do now. And what Lan Xichen does is much the same as he’s ever done: listen to others, try to be impartial, consider things carefully before giving his opinion, supporting what he deems right. He refuses to let what happened change him.

The sixth year, Lan Qiren starts mentioning something he hasn’t in a long while: the idea that Lan Xichen should marry, and produce an heir. He used to have many reasons to refuse that obligation, none of them good. A little selfishness he allowed himself. But the main reason he avoided his duty no longer holds him the way it used to do, and so before too long, Lan Xichen gives in. He is married before the year is over, to a lively young woman from Baling Ouyang, sister to one of Lan Sizhui’s close friends. Nie Huaisang is here at the wedding, of course, and congratulates Lan Xichen with such warmth that it feels sincere. 

The seventh year, Lan Xichen’s wife gives him a son, a beautiful baby boy. Lan Xichen, who had given up on happiness, finds himself happy at last.

The eighth year, twin girls join their family. Nie Huaisang, at their hundredth day’s celebration, teases Lan Xichen and asks how many children he’s planning to have. Lan Xichen returns the question, to which Nie Huaisang only laughs and proclaims that sort of a life isn’t for him. Still, he dotes on the baby girls so much that Lan Xichen wonders how much longer his old friend will resist before getting a family of his own.

By the ninth year, Lan Xichen feels once more at peace. It is a feeling he had forgotten.

As the tenth year starts, Lan Xichen’s wife tells him that she is with child again. She leaves with Lan Xi and the twins, heading for Baling to tell her family the good news. Lan Xichen misses them all dearly, but enjoys the chance for a little quiet. It is important to him to live with his wife and children, to give the little ones the family he was denied, but it makes it difficult to find time to work on his cultivation. A sacrifice he gladly does.

Still, it is good to have silence for once. The day after his wife and children have left, Lan Xichen puts some incense to burn and decides to meditate. Before a full shichen has passed, a knock on the door disturbs him. He would ignore it, but it is getting quite late by then, and if anyone looks for him at such a time, it has to be important.

Or shocking more than important, in this case.

When he opens the door, Lan Xichen finds Nie Huaisang smiling at him.

“Er-ge, let’s have a chat,” he asks, pushing his way into the Hanshi, just as he used to do once. “It has been so long since I’ve been here.”

“A decade I think,” Lan Xichen mumbles, confused, while closing the door.

“Already! Ah, and what a decade it has been, right? You’ve made yourself busy, Er-ge, haven’t you?”

Lan Xichen nods, his heart beating harder than it should. Last time Nie Huaisang came to the Hanshi… it was before everything, before Wei Wuxian’s return. It was another life.

“Ten years is an awful long time,” Nie Huaisang says, sitting down, inviting Lan Xichen to do the same, as if he were the host. “But I’m patient, when I want something. And I want something, Er-ge. Can you guess what?”

“Huaisang, we can’t anymore,” Lan Xichen replies, his body tensing to the point of near pain. “I’m married now.”

This earns him an unkind smirk.

“Er-ge, you value yourself too much,” Nie Huaisang sneers. “If I wanted that, I’d have it long ago. I did consider it in fact. It would have been quite funny. But then I heard your uncle was getting in touch with a number of matchmakers. I thought this would be funnier still if you ten years could be so similar to his, before losing it all. A wife, a family, to hide you're a cut-sleeve who fell for the wrong man… Just like San-ge. "

"You're here to kill me," Lan Xichen realises. 

He tries to stand up, but his body is too tense for movement, as if he has been turned to rock, while his heart beats so fast it makes him nearly dizzy. 

"The incense," Nie Huaisang simply says, taking out a dagger from his sleeve. "I'm not stupid enough to challenge you."

Lan Xichen immediately recognises it, though he has only ever seen it once, when Qin Su stabbed herself with it, so many years ago.

"I have children," Lan Xichen begs.

"Which is more than my Da-ge ever got," Nie Huaisang lightly notes, moving to kneel behind Lan Xichen. It could pass for a lover's embrace. "He would have made a wonderful father, I think. He was like a father to me after all, better than the real one." 

With some effort, Nie Huaisang pries open Lan Xichen's right hand and forces him to hold the dagger. 

"Da-ge wouldn't want this," Lan Xichen hisses, the incense's effect making it hard to even talk now. 

"We'll never know what he'd want," Nie Huaisang snaps, guiding Lan Xichen’s stiff arm and hand to his throat. "But you had what you deserved. Ten years of thinking you got away with it, the same as A-Yao did. And then, at last, guilt caught up with you and you couldn't beat it anymore. Because you know San-ge couldn't have done it without you, and I know it too."

Nie Huaisang laughs lightly, sounding almost the same he had as a boy. 

"You'll leave a very touching letter to explain this," he whispers into Lan Xichen's ear. "I've always been good at that. So goodbye, Er-ge. And don't worry… I'll be here to help Wangji when you're gone, should he need it." 

Lan Xichen tries to fight, to shout, but the paralysing incense has taken hold too well. He is unable to resist when Nie Huaisang forces him to slit his own throat. 

Nie Huaisang watches him bleed to death quickly, letting go of Lan Xichen's body when it goes limp. As he stands again, he is careful not to step in blood, and puts a letter well in view, so it won't be missed by whoever finds the body. As a precaution, he gathers the ashes of that special incense he had a corrupt servant put in place, and burns some ordinary one so the scene is complete. 

It is a work of art. Nie Huaisang is almost sorry nobody will know this new masterpiece is his as well. 

But at last, Nie Mingjue is avenged, and Nie Huaisang is free.