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eleanorfenyxwrites · 5 months ago

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The Love You Give To Me Will Free Me

The Waves Are Rising and Rising extra scene #4

Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen have a very important conversation while Jin Guangyao sleeps off the shock of committing patricide (somewhere around chapters 15 and 16).

--//--

Jinlintai barely feels like less of a threat with Jin Guangshan gone. His death is… certainly a relief, Nie Mingjue is honest enough with himself to admit that, and that it had been so even before Jin Guangyao had told him about the man’s machinations against him. But it’s not like every problem in Lanling suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke when Jin Guangshan crumpled at the foot of the tower. He may have ordered the hit on Nie Mingjue, but as Jin Guangyao has made abundantly clear it’s not like he gets his own hands dirty. There’s still someone — probably many someones — in Jinlintai with the capacity and the motivation to kill him even with Jin Guangshan out of the picture.

He very nearly turns back. Maybe he shouldn’t leave Jin Guangyao alone, not when he’s in such a state, and not when he’s been wanting to get him out of Jinlintai anyway since that awful night he’d shown up in Qinghe beaten black and blue. Lan Xichen’s waiting for him though, anxious to hear news about Jin Guangyao without being able to go back himself lest someone decide to look too closely at how many times he steals into Jin Guangyao’s room, so with a huff he continues on his way. Quick, purposeful strides carry him through the public gardens and into the guest complex, his eyes darting around almost subconsciously to hunt every shadow for someone looking to catch him while weakened and with his guard down, Baxia still in Lan Xichen’s quarters on the sword rack next to Shuoyue.

“How is he?”

Lan Xichen is on him the moment he steps over the threshold, hovering anxiously with a hand curled into the trail of Nie Mingjue’s sleeve. Nie Mingjue pointedly slides the door shut again with his free hand and activates the privacy talismans plastered on every wall, and only then does he feel like he can relax (as much as one can relax after the events of the last 48 hours, i.e. barely at all).

“Still in shock I think, but we… talked.”

“You talked?” Lan Xichen presses. “About what?”

Nie Mingjue takes a deep breath and exhales slowly; where to fucking start?

“Mingjue-”

“I’m organising my thoughts!” He can’t help but attempt to defend himself, but the tension is rolling off Lan Xichen in waves and he seems nearly as close to snapping as Jin Guangyao had. Considering he’s not especially interested in having both of his lovers sobbing in his arms in the same night, he forces himself to marshall some sort of response that will assuage Lan Xichen’s fears long enough to come up with a more thorough explanation.

“He talked about what happened and then I told him I love him.”

Well. Lan Xichen at least doesn’t look like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin anymore. Instead, he goes deathly still, hand still clutched in Nie Mingjue’s sleeve, and only moves to blink once.

Twice.

“Hm. Apologies ge, I seem to have lost my train of thought. What did you say?”

Nie Mingjue squints at Lan Xichen for a long moment and then repeats, exactly as he’d said it the first time, “He talked about what happened and then I told him I love him.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes you did… actually say that. I see.”

Nie Mingjue squints at him a little harder and raises his free hand to press the back of his palm against his forehead, above his ribbon. He doesn’t feel clammy but his face has gone pale and Nie Mingjue presses his hand against his cheek next, starting to worry less about him bursting into tears and more about him collapsing in a dead faint, though he can’t possibly imagine why he’s reacting so strongly all of a sudden.

The touch at least seems to bring Lan Xichen back to himself and he sucks in a sharp gasp, eyes wide though he at least doesn’t try to step away and stand under his own power just yet. “You told him you love him?!”

“Yes, what’s the problem?!”

“What’s the– what’s the problem?!” Lan Xichen repeats, though with quite a bit more incredulity than Nie Mingjue had used. He finally lets go of his sleeve to step back and begin pacing, an anxious gesture he’s not sure he’s ever seen Lan Xichen unbend enough to allow himself, and especially not at such a brisk clip. “What’s the problem, he says, honestly,” he mutters to himself and Nie Mingjue gets the sense that somehow, somewhere, he might have maybe fucked up a little.

“A-Huan?”

“What did A-Yao say after you confessed to him?” Lan Xichen nearly demands, still pacing but meeting Nie Mingjue’s eyes each time his circuits put them face to face. “What did he do?”

“He-”

“No! Wait– Sorry, ge, I… start at the beginning. What exactly happened? He wasn’t speaking when I left, he barely seemed aware that I was present, how did you manage to escalate things so quickly?!”

Nie Mingjue grinds his teeth together and tells himself that Lan Xichen is just stressed out about Jin Guangyao (that much is painfully obvious) and that his own irritation is really the metal-on-metal screeching of Baxia in the back of his head returning with her proximity, not actually anger with Lan Xichen (that much is painfully true).

He sits down on the edge of the bed and rubs a thumb in firm circles between his brows to try to clear his mind enough to put the shocking revelations in order, one after the other, so he can give Lan Xichen the accurate account he wants.

“I went to his room,” he starts, eyes tracking Lan Xichen’s progress back and forth across the middle of the guest quarters (more spacious than Jin Guangyao’s single room, but he isn’t going to think about that too deeply at the moment), “and I think I scared him a bit by coming in but I got him calmed down. He sort of panicked afterwards though, I think? I asked how he was and he looked like he does when he’s afraid, and then he sort of… blurted.”

Lan Xichen pauses long enough in his pacing to pinch the bridge of his nose. “What did he say, Mingjue?”

I think Er-ge is lying about fuqin for me.

Nie Mingjue watches Lan Xichen carefully as he says, “He told me he killed Guangshan.”

Lan Xichen’s hand drops to his side but he doesn’t open his eyes, he stands there taking careful breaths for a few long moments and Nie Mingjue is pretty sure he hears a softly sighed, “Oh A-Yao,” before Lan Xichen resumes his pacing again with a wordless gesture for him to continue.

Which… answers that question, anyway. Lan Xichen hardly seems surprised, and it’s clear that he feels no need to discuss that any further. Nie Mingjue would feel a little bit better about this if that bothered him like it should, but… the rest of Jin Guangyao’s sobbed confession is still painfully fresh in the front of his mind and he just can’t bring himself to feel sorry that Jin Guangshan is gone, or that it was Jin Guangyao, of all of Jin Guangshan’s victims over the years, who managed to get his revenge.

He moves on without complaint. “Xichen, the things Guangshan said to him-”

Lan Xichen makes a pained noise in the back of his throat in the empty space where Nie Mingjue tries to find a succinct way to describe the creeping, gut-wrenching horror of it all.

“I believe you. A-Yao would never… not without reason-”

This is skirting a little too close to some of their old arguments for comfort.

“Right, well, anyway… He told me what it was Jin Guangshan said to him to… push him so far, both about him and his mother-” another vaguely pained noise from Lan Xichen; he still hasn’t stopped pacing “-and then I told him that I know it’s not the same as having ever earned his father’s approval but that I love him, and hopefully that counts for something.”

It has to count for something, doesn’t it? He knows Jin Guangyao feels something for him besides fear or contempt, and it feels like it could be love, so long as he looks at it with a healthy dose of wishful thinking. Besides, isn’t it for the best that they all know what’s going on? He’d said it to Jin Guangyao and he’d meant it — he thinks that the change in their relationship, even if it’s only his perception of it, is information that it’s important for Jin Guangyao to have no matter the circumstances. Sure these current circumstances are less than ideal, but if the previous two days have taught them anything it’s that even without an active war holding them all hostage life can be terrifyingly fleeting. He doesn’t want to wait for the perfect time because there’s probably going to be no such thing. They’re always going to have to worry about his health or the heavy duties that they all shoulder for their Sects, there’s probably never going to be enough time for them to truly get to enjoy any sort of… romantic bliss together in which he could find the most poetic moment to take Jin Guangyao’s face in his hands and hold him carefully in place, in his arms right where he belongs, to tell him that he loves him.

This way, at least, they can all move forward with the same information and work together on figuring out what to do about it, no different than when he’d presented his partners with the potential benefits of pursuing dual cultivation together. This is something that involves all of them, therefore Jin Guangyao deserves to have all the facts. It has to be better that way, without any secrets between them, doesn’t it?

Lan Xichen buries his face in both hands, finally standing still again, and the feeling that he might have, possibly, maybe fucked up a little bit threatens to intensify.

“A-Huan?”

“Oh dear gods and heavens above,” Lan Xichen says into his palms and if Nie Mingjue didn’t know any better he’d say it comes dangerously close to a whine. “Alright, now what did A-Yao say? What did he do?”

They’re back to where they started anyway, though he can’t quite figure out why Lan Xichen is reacting like he is. He’s never really seen him so visibly distraught, not even in the middle of a damn war and that was by far more stressful on the whole than this, wasn’t it?

“He didn’t really say anything about it,” Nie Mingjue shrugs; better to just press on. “I mean I didn’t expect him to, and I told him that so there’s really nothing to worry about. I just figured it was something he deserved to know. You do too, for that matter, so I guess this is me telling you. I love him, and although I think it’s been pretty damn obvious for most of our lives I’m in love with you, too.”

Nie Mingjue stays still but watches warily as Lan Xichen drops his hands from his face, steels himself with a deep breath in, and practically marches across the room to take his face in both hands.

Lan Xichen enunciates very calmly, very clearly, “Nie Mingjue. You have the worst timing in the entire world.”

Okay rude.

“Listen I know it wasn’t exactly ideal, but I think it’s a little harsh to call it the worst-”

“No! It is quite actually the worst, most ill-timed love confession I could possibly fathom!”

“Alright stop shaking me,” Nie Mingjue growls and bats Lan Xichen’s hands away from his face. Undeterred, Lan Xichen drops his hands to his shoulders to rattle him again, ignoring Nie Mingjue’s glare to try to get him to cut it out.

“How could you put this sort of burden on him now, Mingjue?!” Lan Xichen cries, and oh god is he on the verge of tears again? Nie Mingjue can’t stand to be the reason Lan Xichen is upset and here he’s apparently done it again so soon after everything else. “He’s… he needs our support, not the burden of our- our- feelings-”

Slightly baffled and feeling like he’s missed a few leaps in logic, Nie Mingjue asks, “Is loving him not supporting him?”

Lan Xichen straightens up so quickly it’s like he’s been struck with a discipline rod, his hands tight enough on Nie Mingjue’s shoulders to ache a little. He looks… stricken, and Nie Mingjue hurries to reach up and curl a hand around his wrist, rubbing circles into the thin skin over his thundering pulse with his thumb.

“A-Huan, I love you… is that a burden to you?”

“No!” God he really fucking hates making Lan Xichen cry, but it’s apparently unavoidable; his expression is so cracked open and raw it’s almost unbearable, but Nie Mingjue soldiers on.

“Do you think A-Yao wouldn’t… welcome it? What did he say to you when you told him?”

Lan Xichen blinks at him, uncomprehending.

“When I told him..?”

“That you love him. You don’t have to… spare my feelings or anything, I figured it out a long time ago, I know you’re in love with him.” In a sudden burst of horrible insight, Nie Mingjue sits a little straighter and demands, “Did he tell you this, that you’re a burden?”

Lan Xichen looks so viscerally offended Nie Mingjue nearly laughs. Nearly. “He would never!”

“Right, of course. Well so did he return the sentiment or no? Did you expect him to?”

“I have never… that is, some things are better left understood and not… stated.”

Nie Mingjue stares at Lan Xichen for a long moment, the two of them blinking as, he can only imagine, they both attempt to comprehend such entirely different approaches to the exact same issue. It’s sort of a novelty, actually; they’re usually so in-tune that now it’s a little jarring to realise there’s something so incredibly vital that they seem to fundamentally disagree on and he’d had no idea before now.

“You’ve never told A-Yao you love him.” It doesn’t come out like a question.

Lan Xichen shakes his head slowly and finally releases his death grip on Nie Mingjue’s shoulders. “I have nearly lost control of myself a few times, particularly in recent months, but no. Never.”

Nie Mingjue exhales slowly and rubs his thumb into his forehead again. Baxia’s muttering angrily in the back of his mind in words he can’t quite make out without listening harder, but his meridians all still feel more than a little raw for him to want to try to deepen his connection with her now of all times.

How in the hell has Lan Xichen never confessed his feelings to Jin Guangyao? Their behavior borders on indecent in public, what with their multitude of excuses to touch each other’s hands or arms, their soft diminutives for each other, the way they look at each other across crowded rooms and important negotiating tables… how could they not have done this bit already? How did they not do this years ago?!

Well shit.

“So… of the two of us…”

Lan Xichen covers his eyes with one trembling hand and Nie Mingjue can concede he sort of… maybe… deserves the despair that is so clearly on his behalf.

“You are the first to tell him your feelings, and you chose to do so on the eve of his act of patricide after an entire lifetime of wanting nothing more than to please his mother by honouring his father. Yes. As I have said — you have terrible timing.”

“Hm.” Nie Mingjue squints into the middle distance somewhere around the vicinity of Lan Xichen’s slender waist for a few moments, doing his best to see things from Lan Xichen’s perspective; Lan Xichen’s perspective that such confessions aren’t allowed, no matter how true they are.

“Hey-” Lan Xichen spreads his middle fingers to glare balefully at him from between them “-your feelings aren’t a burden, A-Huan. Not on me or anyone else.”

“That is… irrelevant to the conversation at hand. How was A-Yao when you left?”

Nie Mingjue grits his teeth against the urge to argue. He can see it in the set of Lan Xichen’s jaw that he’s going to dig his heels in and refuse to address the massive fucking elephant in the room that Nie Mingjue can guess at the cause of, and quite frankly he just doesn’t have the energy in him to argue the point. He swallows it down like he did the rage at learning Jin Guangyao had been meant to assassinate him (and the vindication he’d felt for years of paranoia being proven perfectly justified), and focuses on the topic Lan Xichen so desperately wants to discuss.

“I held him, kissed him a few times, and told him to get some rest. I put him back in bed myself, he should be asleep by now.”

Lan Xichen nods with a tired, “Mn,” as he rubs at his eyes with the tip of his forefinger and thumb, not quite pinching the bridge of his nose again but nearly there.

“I thought it would help him.”

Lan Xichen sighs and leans down, finally, to kiss his forehead. “I know. You are a wonderfully straightforward man, Mingjue. Would that we could all be so fortunate to have such freedom.”

“You could, nothing’s stopping you,” Nie Mingjue points out, perhaps slightly petulantly. He would certainly like it if everyone got very Nie about certain things, anyway, and he has a feeling it would take care of a lot of tension amongst the sects if everyone would just say what they mean and spar about things they don’t agree on. The winner walks away with their point made, the loser accepts defeat with grace, everybody moves on with a fresh slate.

(Alright, so it’s not nearly so easy as that, even within the Qinghe Nie, but it could be. Maybe. If, say, one day they succeed in rooting out evil wherever it appears and restoring justice to everyone equally-

(But there’s no such thing as equal justice in a system that devalues others simply because of how or when or where they were born and he sees that, he does, but it would just be so much easier if things were clear cut for everyone and they could rise or fall strictly on merit-)

“A-Jue,” Lan Xichen calls, and it sounds like it’s not the first time. Nie Mingjue glances up at him to find a tiny smile on his lips, though it’s far too sad for his liking. “We can’t. It doesn’t work that way, and you know that.”

“…Yes. I know.”

“Mn. I should… I think I should go check on A-Yao myself.”

Nie Mingjue grabs Lan Xichen’s wrist as he turns to go, stopping him with a firm grip that Lan Xichen, thankfully, doesn’t attempt to break.

“Don’t. The whole point of me going in the first place was to avoid suspicion. You were with him on the stairs, you took him back to his room, you did damage control for him all afternoon. If you go back now people might question your story, the depth of your relationship with him, or both. I could go because I haven’t seen him all day, but now we both have, and it’s not like Jinlintai is suddenly safe just because Jin Guangshan is dead.”

That was the wrong thing to say, he can see it immediately. Lan Xichen’s eyes widen and he darts a frantic glance at the door, though he still doesn’t pull out of Nie Mingjue’s grip.

“Did you lock his door?”

“What- from the outside? How would I even do that without just trapping him in?”

“Mingjue you are a cultivator,” Lan Xichen snaps, apparently reaching the ends of his seemingly boundless patience. Nie Mingjue doesn’t blame him; it’s been a rough couple of days for both of them. “I have to go check on him, he’s unprotected and there are still some people — powerful people — who don’t believe that he had nothing to do with Jin Guangshan’s fall-”

“Xichen-”

“I won’t trap him,” Lan Xichen says and when Nie Mingjue gets a glimpse of his eyes they’re strangely glassy, his gaze far away. His hand hangs limp in Nie Mingjue’s grip that he loosens guiltily, afraid of hurting him. “I can set a ward on the door; it will still open for him. It will open for him and no one else. I- It’s not the same, is it? It’s just to protect him, he can leave the moment he’s ready but no one can hurt him, or disturb him, but it’s just protection, it’s not the same-”

It would seem that Nie Mingjue is going to hold both of his crying partners in the same night whether he wants to or not. (Of course it’s not the holding them that’s the problem, it’s the tears that he doesn’t know how to stop, but, well. At least he can try.) He gets to his feet and loops his arms around Lan Xichen who doesn’t resist him at all, instead falling against his chest and hiding his face like a frightened child.

“It’s not the same as what?” he feels compelled to ask, unable to help but feel like he’s just barely missing some important clue about what all of this is about. He can’t treat the wound if he doesn’t know the source, but Lan Xichen is always the type to seem perfectly fine until he’s very abruptly not. Even Nie Minjgue has only seen him truly unwell a couple of times and both instances are from their childhood, so many years ago now.

And both instances were because of–

“He won’t be like her,” Lan Xichen whispers, and he sounds so miserable that Nie Mingjue’s eyes smart in immediate sympathy, even before the weight of what Lan Xichen is actually saying hits him square in the chest. “I won’t lock him away, I won’t force him to- to take responsibility for my actions, I won’t make him suffer for the sake of my feelings, A-Jue-”

Nie Mingjue presses a hand to the nape of Lan Xichen’s neck, careful to slide it under the curtain of his hair without touching the dangling tails of his ribbon with the ease of years of practice. Lan Xichen tucks closer and clings to either side of his waist with his hands curled into tight fists in Nie Mingjue’s outer robe, rucking it up over the top edge of his belt a bit to get a firm grip.

“Loving him does not make you your father. And you’re right — it’s not the same at all,” he tells him, the pieces finally slotting into place as he’s forcefully reminded of what the former Lan-zongzhu did to the one he loved, and how much it hurt Lan Xichen as a boy to see his own mother waste away and die in her seclusion — a horribly long death sentence that was, in many ways, crueler than what fate could have been hers without Qingheng-Jun’s intervention. Lan Xichen shudders but doesn’t protest, which he’ll take for a good sign.

“I only want to protect him, da-ge.”

“I know.”

Nie Mingjue takes a deep breath in and tries to think carefully about what he can possibly say that would comfort; he doesn’t have a great track record anyway, but tonight definitely doesn’t seem to be anywhere near his best attempts at fixing things. It would be so much handier if swinging his saber at every problem was actually an effective solution, but that’s sort of what got them here in the first place.

“Look — in an ideal world-” Nie Mingjue cuts himself off with a huff as far too many ‘ideal’ scenarios unfold to describe quickly. “A-Yao probably doesn’t even-” he cuts himself off again with an irritated snarl in the back of his throat. Why is this so fucking hard? And why is it so damn worth it?

He leans back enough to cup Lan Xichen’s face in both palms just as the other had done to him, and he forces Lan Xichen to really look at him, studying him closely until he sees some clarity return to his gaze.

“You are not your father. You do not love like him. How long have you spent loving me? Loving A-Yao? And alright so you haven’t said it to him but do you think he doesn’t know? Do you think it means any less to us to have your heart just because you do it quietly? You can’t hurt him by telling him what he already knows. Besides, he’s a hell of a lot stronger than I think you’re giving him credit for. He deserves to hear you say it.”

Lan Xichen studies him in silence for a few heartbeats before his shoulders slump ever so slightly, which might as well be the Lan equivalent of collapsing. His eyes drift shut and Nie Mingjue, on a whim, leans in to kiss just beneath both his brows, careful not to irritate the tender skin with his mustache. When he pulls away again Lan Xichen is smiling ever so slightly, the tiniest tilts at the corners of his mouth.

“So many years of careful misdirections between he and I and of course you smash through them all in a single evening,” he sighs, sounding far from angry. “A-Yao is strong, I know. He has survived so many things that would kill lesser men. But the fact remains that he isn’t at his best right now, and his physical safety is more important than an emotional discussion. There are dangerous people here who won’t hesitate to take advantage now that he no longer has Jin Guangshan’s protection, tenuous and unsatisfactory though it was. It only takes one lucky shot and we’ve lost him forever. I can’t… we promised we would be there for him, da-ge. We have to do something.”

Nie Mingjue takes a deep breath in, holds it, and brushes his thumbs idly against Lan Xichen’s cheekbones as he thinks it through. Jinlintai is currently abuzz with a quietly frantic sort of activity; there are funeral arrangements to be made, rituals to be performed, duties to exchange from father to son, guests to tend to, panic to keep from spreading — on his way to Jin Guangyao’s room he’d seen plenty of servants and messengers moving just slowly enough to avoid being accused of running on their way through the halls and gardens. Jinlintai never really sleeps but tonight it’s likely that the only ones who will be getting any meaningful sleep are the visiting sects.

It’s possible no one will notice either of them in the general vicinity of Jin Guangyao’s rooms again; it’s also possible that with so many people around they’re that much more likely to be noticed and questioned.

Baxia’s muttering in the back of his mind turns to snarling, angry at having to worry about appearances and having to bow and scrape to these other sect leaders and whatever unsavory things that they might have to say about the two of them protecting the man they’ve sworn an oath to, and quite frankly he can’t really find it in himself to disagree with her. If anyone wants to say anything they’re welcome to it, but if he’s so worried about gossip that he allows someone to hurt Jin Guangyao when he could’ve prevented it he’ll never forgive himself.

“Alright fuck this,” he growls and watches Lan Xichen’s eyes widen with surprise in the moment before Nie Mingjue releases him, grabs Baxia off the stand next to the bed, and sweeps towards the door all in the moments it takes Lan Xichen to gather his wits.

“Wait- A-Jue–”

“I’m going to go set the array and come back. You stay here.”

“But da-ge, your core, you shouldn’t–”

“Get out your guqin then and play Cleansing when I get back!” he snaps and yanks the door open, breaking the seal of the privacy talismans to stalk his way back through the gardens, Baxia practically purring on his back. He tunes out her bloodlust with slightly more ease than he does her idle rage as he retraces his steps through Jinlintai.

As expected, he passes plenty of servants scurrying around the place despite the hour, and more than once he’s certain he feels eyes trailing him as he makes his way through the complex; he never turns to see who it is. Let no one say that Nie Mingjue was spotted skulking through Jinlintai the night after Jin Guangshan’s murder. If anyone wishes to accuse him or call his actions into question then they can do it to his face, and he can face them knowing he held his head high and didn’t flinch from the idea of their petty gossip.

No one stops him. He passes through the courtyard nearest to Jin Guangyao’s room and the guards jogging through it on patrol must only be pretending to look busy as they don’t so much as pause as they pass him; that, or else they’ve been given orders not to care about who may be lurking near Jin Guangyao’s rooms, or to question after their purpose for being in the family complex in the middle of the night.

USELESS

Nie Mingjue doesn’t wince at the volume nor the vehemence of Baxia’s anger, but it’s a near thing considering she scrapes like a fistful of preserving salt along the raw edges of his meridians.

INCOM-

He throws up what he can only think of as a mental wall between himself and her formless presence, blunting his sense of the spiritual energy around him for the sake of preserving his hardwon sanity. It hardly matters; the garden is quiet around him after the guards leave the way he’d entered, and even with his spiritual senses dulled he’s confident that he would be able to hear the telltale signs of someone lying in wait. There’s only his breathing to be heard amongst the soft rustling of the plants in the breeze, only the crunch of the gravel path as he rounds the corner to find himself standing in front of Jin Guangyao’s room again. He lingers for a long moment or two, listening for any last potential for pursuit as well as steeling himself against the expectation of pain.

The array Lan Xichen had proposed is simple enough (he’s got the same one on his bath for heaven’s sake), and though he won’t admit it he does feel a little foolish for not having thought of it before. (In his defense, there’s a lot going on that’s clamoring for his limited attention and patience, and he’s really not supposed to be using his qi for anything anyway.) His palm glows red as he sketches the necessary characters in front of himself and, with a bracing inhale, shoves the finished array outwards to collide with the wooden door — and he promptly doubles over with a sharp exhale, his breath punched out of him by the force of his and Baxia’s combined energy scraping him raw from the inside out.

Well… perhaps if he gives Lan Xichen another reason to scold him he won’t work himself up into a miserable panic again.

It takes longer than he’d like to admit to be able to straighten up again, double check that the array will do what he wants it to do (and if he makes sure it has enough energy to glow faintly and warn off anyone who thinks of trying to break it, that’s his business), and turn on his heel to head back to Lan Xichen’s guest quarters. He moves slower this time, but his commitment to gathering as much information as possible about the state of Jinlintai is only rewarded once; as he passes from the private areas of the tower back towards the public, he pauses on the path to let Jin Zixuan through, flanked on either side by a small flock of handwringing elders. The new Jin-zongzhu looks exhausted already, his robes mussed and his face grim and unusually pale as he listens to whatever the nearest elder is muttering to him, hushed but visibly frantic. Their eyes meet for a heartbeat of a moment, just long enough for Nie Mingjue to offer him a nod and receive one in return before Jin Zixuan and his entourage disappear around the corner of the nearest building. He considers going after them, curious as to what all the entrenched snakes are whispering in the ear of their new, naïve leader, but he’s still fighting the urge to double over around his core so he leaves it for now in favour of delivering himself to Lan Xichen for a scolding and, hopefully, the soothing cool wash of his qi helping heal the damage of the poison and his cultivation.

“Mingjue!” Lan Xichen hisses and yanks him into his quarters when he arrives, putting some of that Lan arm strength to use. “Sit down and meditate.”

Even if it would get him anywhere to argue with Lan Xichen when he’s in this mood, he’s not exactly in a position to. He shuts the door behind himself, returns Baxia to the stand with Shuoyue, and settles in on the bed, legs crossed and his hands resting lightly on his knees.

“Be angry with me all you’d like, A-Huan, but at least A-Yao is safe.”

“You know very well that I won’t be content until you’re both safe. You should have let me go, particularly considering our conversation last night about how I feel about you actively worsening your health like this.”

“I know,” he murmurs as Lan Xichen begins plucking the familiar opening notes of Cleansing. “I’m sorry,” is easier to say than an explanation about hating the thought of his own weakness forcing Lan Xichen into doing something so painful to him as locking Jin Guangyao away, even if only temporarily.

“Yes, well… It is quite fortunate for you that I love you.”

Nie Mingjue cracks one eye open and smiles, slow like a sunrise, to see Lan Xichen focused far too intently on his guqin, the tips of his ears red enough that he can see it from halfway across the room.

“Oh?” Lan Xichen clears his throat and pointedly doesn’t look at him, save for a teasing, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glance through his lashes before he looks down at his hands again. “That is extremely good fortune, I agree.”

Nie Mingjue settles in to concentrate on the music, letting it wash through him and soothe the raw aching of his abused core.

In the lull between the first round of Cleansing and the next, he rouses himself enough to murmur, a little drowsily, “It’ll all work out, A-Huan, I promise. It’s better for us to know each other’s hearts and minds than not.”

“I hope you’re right, ge. Meditate.”

Nie Mingjue settles and lets Lan Xichen continue playing for him through the night. Lan Xichen finishes the last round somewhere around mid-morning and gets up to resume his pacing; he’s only made a few circuits of the room when the door bursts open and Jin Guangyao blurts out a frantic, “I love you!”

See? He’d said it would be fine!

#The Untamed Fanfic #The Waves Are Rising and Rising #3zun #Really more just #NieLan #but JGY's presence is very much There just through their discussion of him #Extra Scene #Emotionally fraught but ultimately healing conversations can of course only happen when one third of your polycule is in a bad way #They're so healthy

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