Chapter Text
“Everything,” came the answer, and it felt like a death knell come to quake his bones. The word echoed across a gilded courtyard and into his bones. He was left bare and breaking, before that word, before the swirling anguish in Lan Xichen’s eyes.
The man who had killed him remembered it all. Jin Guangyao didn’t know whether to rage or cry at that.
He wanted to shrink back in this quiet courtyard, wanted to run until he couldn’t be found. He wanted to snap and snarl, but not at his brother, never his brother. The beast beneath his skin could not hurt this man.
There was a memory of sharp steel through his chest, and he flinched even as he drew himself proud and unbreakable.
Lan Xichen just raised gentle hands, trembling hands, and pulled him close.
“We cannot live that again,” the man said, muffled and broken into the strands of Jin Guangyao’s hair. The words were quiet and fragile as the flutter of gilded wings.
Jin Guangyao heard them in the marrow of his soul. He took a breath, let it press at his skin. Here in this gilded courtyard he felt like he could break apart, if Lan Xichen moved his fingers too roughly.
He wanted to be broken in those hands. Fine gold robes hung from his shoulders but he felt so very small among unbroken walls and without coffin wood around him.
He felt proud, too, for the way his hands did not shake.
He felt the sting of a sword and chose to push past it. Worse things had been carved into his life, and by worse men. For all his sins and victories, Jin Guangyao had never wanted to hurt this man.
How could he now, when Lan Xichen knew his all and held him with gentle hands?
“You cannot kill him again,” Lan Xichen said later, laying strong fingers across the strings of Jin Guangyao’s zither. Silence filled a gentle room like poison spread over a wound, but he could only feel healing.
Through hell and fury and a thousand slings of fate, Jin Guangyao had used his bones and beastly mind to keep Lan Xichen safe.
He couldn’t stop now, not when those eyes were sad, and not when those hands were so gentle. They had been gentle all his life, from the careful fingers not flinching away from his stigma in the brothel to soft ones cradling his face now.
They had been gentle too, when they drove a sword through his chest.
Lan Xichen had seen his all, now, with no masks and mirrors. Lan Xichen was still here, standing before him and holding Jin Guangyao’s jaw like it was a precious thing.
Those hands felt so very warm, touching his skin. The beast beneath was so calm, with those hands to tame it.
Jin Guangyao could do nothing to drive the man away.
After a long moment, fraught and taut between them, he pushed the zither away. Lan Xichen lifted his shaking fingers to warm lips and kissed them until they were still and calm.
Jin Guangyao had never felt more fragile, for all his furious skill.
Then Lan Xichen leaned in to him, and he breathed in warm air like he was drowning and only Lan Xichen’s lips could give him life.
He had not thought to win this. He had not thought it could be his. He had not thought anything gentle could ever be his, though he had coveted it so.
Now he had won it, and no force in the world could keep it from him again.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
In the space of his own rooms, where no one tread and he could stand alone and vicious, Jin Guangyao stripped off silk robes and looked down.
He did not care for what he saw, but it did not surprise him. Standing proud and dark across his skin was a swirling tattoo of blackened energy, driven bruise deep and painful. It stained his chest a terrible shade, the swirls of ink and blood screaming of resentful energy.
It was a curse mark, and he stared at it with eyes unseeing.
Jin Guangyao had never seen these lines of ink before, but they were familiar as the strokes of Wei Wuxian’s brush. He imagined that the bottom of Nie Mingjue's foot bore a similar mark, drawn in the stiff ink of blood.
He imagined his brother’s foot would fit well, over the mark on his chest.
This is how they were tied together; bound and broken by that one moment above the stairs, by that first act of violence. Jin Guangyao looked around his gilded room and took in none of its splendor, skin bare to the air and so very cold.
Sunlight streamed in to set the polished floor aflame and glimmering, but he could not see any of it.
If this is how the curse was forged, they would never be unbound.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
Long ago, when he first felt bruises press purple and painful into his skin, Jin Guangyao had sworn to kill every man that threw him down elegant marble stairs. He would feel their fates crumble beneath his hands and claim their deaths as his own, he sworn. He would end them with a smile, he swore.
He would own what they once had and feel no regrets. The first three times he killed Nie Mingjue, he felt such regret.
Now by Lan Xichen’s request, he collared the beast in his skin and killed no men.
A week passed and he did nothing. Lan Xichen did not leave his side, guard and moonlit guardian with gentle hands. Jin Guangyao was grateful for the warmth, even as he chafed at it. His covetous soul never wanted to part from Lan Xichen, never wanted to step away from strong shoulders and the kindest eyes in all the world.
But the man had seen his past and all his masks. There was a frightening vulnerability, in the way Lan Xichen looked at him with knowing eyes.
Why was the man still here? Why was Jin Guangyao not dead again on his brother’s sword?
He didn’t know, and that made the beast in his skin writhe and fight. It wanted to protect all he had worked for and the good he had accomplished.
It wanted to kill, for his pride and safety. But he had made a promise, over the strings of a deadly zither.
Jin Guangyao had never cared about honesty, but for Lan Xichen and the future he had lived and hated, he would try.
Perhaps this time, his drive would earn him recognition without murder. Perhaps this time, with Lan Xichen at his side and understanding, Jin Guangyao could walk unstained.
Hope was a deadly poison, but he drank from it now.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
The next time Nie Mingjue asked after the notes of his zither, with sharp eyes and a gruff voice, Jin Guangyao just smiled a polite smile.
“Lan Xichen will play for you, I am sure,” he said, and refused to lift the instrument. There was a sheen of dust laying over it, collected from two weeks’ neglect.
He had ordered the servants not to touch it, for he wanted Lan Xichen to be able to see.
With a coiling rage looming from a strong jaw, Nie Mingjue had never looked more suspicious. But Jin Guangyao just smiled and stepped away.
His brother would not believe him. The inked mark on his chest spoke that truth all too clearly, just as it whispered of a death that could never be undone. But it didn’t matter, in the end.
Jin Guangyao knew how to change fate, and he would mold his until it bent to his will.
His zither grew dust. His plans lay unattended and rearranged. He stopped Xue Yang’s experiments too, with sharp words and polite smiles.
There was no need to replicate the majesty of Wei Wuxian, not when Jin Guangyao knew how to get him back. He knew what Xue Yang would cost him and his careful plots; no boy was worth that price, not even if they shared the same inner monsters.
He stopped the experiments and apologized under the weight of his father’s anger. He planned a death, but it was not Nie Mingjue’s.
He had promised Lan Xichen to keep their brother alive, and so he would do so.
Each night he returned to gentle hands and desperate kisses. Lan Xichen stripped him so carefully, in the space of gilded rooms. Worshipful lips pressed into a spot just below his ribs, beneath the span of the curse mark.
The man lingered there, each night, and they could both feel the sword hovering between them.
Then Jin Guangyao would pull Lan Xichen up and kiss him into distraction. He had craved this for so long, and it made everything worth the price.
The beast beneath his skin was so calm, when Lan Xichen looked at him with dark eyes and touched him with gentle hands.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
“I have never trusted you, snake.”
A warm breeze was collecting across his hands, but it did nothing to stop the chill of these words. It didn’t stop the fury of Nie Mingjue’s glare either, the way it burned through his skin.
Jin Guangyao just sighed and shaped his eyes into sadness.
The words stung, but they were unsurprising. His sworn brother said such things often and would for many years to come; even longer now that Jin Guangyao might let that warrior’s heart beat on.
He moved a piece across the polished wood sitting between them, let his eyes fix on the game before them.
Better to look distracted and wounded than give away something.
“But you’ve stopped the experiments, haven’t you?”
Jin Guangyao froze, hand poised above the game between them for a heartbeat too long and a second too short. Nie Mingjue, with all his general’s intelligence, caught the slip.
The wind brushed between them now and Jin Guangyao only felt the beginnings of cold. His mind was racing like a sword slithering through the night and the fangs he might need to let strike.
But Nie Mingjue just looked furious and sharply confused, as if expecting this to be a part of some greater plan.
“You have, then. What are you trying to pull?”
Jin Guangyao looked down and away, let his gaze catch on the silk of his brother’s fine robes and the wide set of his shoulders. He had taken great comfort in those shoulders, once, and greater lust.
Now they made him nervous and poisonous.
It was a rare day that they were alone together. Lan Xichen had moved to Jin Guangyao’s side and stayed firm, a burr he would never want to be rid of.
Somedays, Jin Guangyao couldn’t believe he could reach out and touch the man in all his moon-spun glory. Somedays, he couldn’t believe he wasn’t dead and devoured inside a coffin.
Those days were the worst.
“I’m trying to do the right thing, brother.” The words were quiet and tired. He had no energy to make them pleading, and even if he had, Nie Mingjue would believe exhaustion more easily.
Ever had Jin Guangyao tried to manipulate him, and ever had he failed. Nie Mingjue did not trust him; that stung more than it should in the space over a game of strategy.
“Why? Why would you decide to act the part of good after all this time?”
He wanted to snarl and bare sharp teeth, at the anger in Nie Mingjue’s voice. Again, the man made assumptions. Again, he was not believed.
Jin Guangyao would reach the end of his patience, one day. He hoped Lan Xichen stood beside him to stop his blade when the time came.
“Maybe because it has been genuine this entire time,” he said, with more bite than he had intended.
And Nie Mingjue, through narrowed eyes and the body of a god of war, said nothing in response.
All he did was scoff, the sound was loud with mocking. It was loud with thought too.
A week later, the man spoke quick words in his defense. A week after that, he approached Xue Yang and shook him down, checking him over for traces of dark energy.
The man found nothing recent, Jin Guangyao knew, but he stared at the mad glint in Xue Yang’s eyes and made a note to watch for revenge.
A week after that, Nie Mingjue shamed Jin Guangshan, before court and noble cultivators alike. His brother’s words were sharp and tireless, before the Sect Leader.
They were brutal too, and all Jin Guangyao could do was watch, standing at the side and helpless with delight.
Only a Sect Leader could do this, and none before had the guts. He couldn’t help the shifting of his robes, even as his face stayed calm and concerned.
Nie Mingjue looked straight at Jin Guangyao and scoffed again. The insults did not stop. Neither did the relentless fury.
For once in his many lives, Jin Guangyao didn’t know what to think.
For long weeks, the Venerated Triad settled into a routine, three stars learning to rotate together again. Nie Mingjue was suspicious and Jin Guangyao felt the beast in his blood boil and writhe that the man was still alive but—
But they were in a fragile equilibrium, and with Lan Xichen pressing a warm hand into his back and keeping him far from the stairs, Jin Guangyao swallowed the bitter pill of acceptance.
It was a peace that was made to break.
It all fell apart like shattering cups, like the tea that fell from Nie Mingjue’s strong fingers and made them weak.
Jin Guangyao had never seen anything he wanted less, than to watch the man die again. He raced forward, pressing steady hands to too-warm skin. Corpse dust collected at the base of an elegant cup and told him everything he needed to know.
Nie Mingjue would die and Jin Guangyao hadn’t killed him. Nie Mingjue would die because he hadn’t watched Xue Yang closely enough. He had trained the boy too well and been distracted from the revenge boiling in petty eyes.
Now he would pay the price again. Nie Mingjue would die and he would wake above the stairs and—
He blinked awake at the top of the stairs.
After the success lingering on his tongue, he couldn’t bear this, couldn’t bear it again. He had worked hard to keep this at bay, he had tamed so much of the fury in his veins, the learned hate. He had respected this man, once so very long ago.
Then he had watched Nie Mingjue stand in his defense, with sharp eyes and never-ending suspicion.
Jin Guangyao hadn’t wanted his brother to die, just as he didn’t want to fall again. Not a third time at by this man’s kick, not a third time broken and bruised by rage.
He couldn’t bear that again.
“No,” slipped from his mouth before he could stop it, before he could snap his teeth closed. It was such a small noise, so quiet and so very fragile.
He hadn’t meant to say it into the painful space above the stairs. The beast under his skin rioted at his cracking mask, at every pain that had caused.
And Nie Mingjue faltered. That strong leg stopped, and stronger fingers gripped him by the front of his robes and held him fast.
Jin Guangyao stood on the top of those long stairs with their fine marble and was held in the hands of the man he had killed three times.
He had never spoken in this moment before. He had never spoken at the top of the stairs before, or at their painful end. Always, he had dusted himself off and smiled away the bruises and plotted bloody murder.
He had never thought a single word would be enough.
He had never thought to call out before.
He had—
He had never thought Nie Mingjue could be stopped.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
He played it all out again, but this time it felt so much more precious. He moved as he knew would shape the way Nie Mingjue thought, in learned patterns from the last successful life.
Lan Xichen stood at his side, closer than ever, with fingers pressed into his back and a gentle smile etched into his face.
Sometimes, on the bad days, the man’s smile was weak and trembling. Jin Guangyao felt a similar weakness, but the lack of bruises in his skin gave him the strength to sooth it away.
He felt so very unstoppable.
“You and Xichen are changed.”
It was a statement, spoke quiet as if Jin Guangyao were fragile. Nie Mingjue was not gentle, had never been gentle or had the space in warrior’s bones.
But the man had been cautious, since Jin Guangyao had broken down above the stairs. The warrior did not rage, when he spoke. Nie Mingjue didn’t snap and snarl at all his plans, either.
The watchtowers went forward with Nie Clan approval and watching eyes, but no harsh words. When Jin Guangyao had stopped the experiments of Xue Yang, Nie Mingjue had looked on with a general’s eyes and said nothing.
The man had seen past Jin Guangyao’s mask and seen the breakable creature that dwelled inside. Nie Mingjue had decided that creature was not evil.
Jin Guangyao had never felt more vulnerable.
His brother was still rage and fury, but with each passing day he could see that calm into a controlled storm. Lan Xichen’s playing helped too, loud and powerful with skill. It made the man’s qi gentle and the beginnings of painful deaths fade to deadly memories.
Jin Guangyao never wanted to touch a zither again.
“People change, brother.” It sounded hollow to his own ears, but it was truth as he had never spoken before.
He had sworn to kill every man that pushed him down the stairs. He had failed.
But this Nie Mingjue had never given him such bruises. Jin Guangyao didn’t need to kill the mountainous man before him, and he had never felt such relief.
“Men change. Snakes do not.” The words were harsh, but their tone was thoughtful, sharp as a sword but not nearly so menacing.
The man was looking at him with eyes that burned and broke him. He spoke through a tight throat and all the layers of his masks, and spoke quietly.
“Maybe I am a man after all, brother.”
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
Time passed easily, with three lifetimes’ skill at manipulation. All Jin Guangyao had to do was ensure the best future, make the right movements, and destroy the right people.
That had ever been something he excelled at. He passed a stack of notes to Xue Yang with modifications but no hesitation, watched clever eyes gleam at the chance at a dark ritual. He felt no regret, after the last life.
Wei Wuxian was the more valuable cultivator, after all, and Lan Wangji’s happiness was Lan Xichen’s, too.
No one but him could kill Nie Mingjue.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
There was no sunlight to glimmer on the stairs, in this precious moment. Even the moon was dim, hidden away by clouds and soft memories, hidden and kind.
Jin Guangyao stood at the top of the stairs and smiled. It was a small thing, neither sharp nor soft, neither polite nor angry. It was truthful, and it felt strange to let on his lips.
But he had won, at last. He never had to fall down the stairs again.
There was no one here to watch him stare down, no servants and no disciples to wonder at his vigil. The night was cool, the moon was dim, and so the steps of Koi Tower were abandoned to sleepy gate guards and Jin Guangyao.
It meant there was no one to see the warm hand that wrapped around his waist, strong fingers settling over his robes gentle as a kiss.
There was no one to see, and so Jin Guangyao relaxed into Lan Xichen’s embrace.
They stood there, for a careful moment, looking over stairs that had hurt them so.
But he never had to fall down again, as the vanished mark on his chest proved.
A voice like water and moonlight spoke beside him, and spoke quiet words.
“I wish I could have met your mother.”
It was nothing Jin Guangyao had expected to hear, in the space above the stairs. His mother had never been spoken of in Koi Tower, by unspoken order of his father.
It was a good thing the man would die soon.
“Why?”
It was the only word he could manage, the only sound that would break free. For all his masks, he could wear none of them here. Warm fingers were curled around his wrist and searing love into him.
He would never grow used to this, even as he coveted it.
“She must have been an amazing woman, to raise you.”
The words made his smile crack and fracture away, made all his masks vanish into the light of the moon. He was bare, with Lan Xichen standing at his side.
He thought of her ugly obsession, of her pathetic waiting. He thought of the gentle hands that had stroked his hair, of graceful fingers across a zither.
He thought of her doomed love and spoke.
“Yes. Yes, she was.”