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Nie Huaisang sits alone on the throne. It’s quiet. No one else dares to enter the throne room right now.
His white mourning robes are light and soft, but he feels suffocated. It’s too much. The room is too empty without his brother’s presence, without Baxia vibrating in the stand, triggered into action by whatever angered the great Nie Mingjue at that moment in time.
His brother was always angry. Nie Huaisang feels tears prick behind his eyes. His brother died angry. His brother shouldn’t have died angry.
His brother shouldn’t have died at all.
Now, Nie Huasiang must be angry in his place. And he is.
Nie Huaisang is downright murderous.
He wants to be, at least. And he will be, once the grief passes. For now, though, his grief drowns him. Nothing else matters.
Nie Huaisang lets his head fall and closes his eyes. He thought he didn’t have any tears left. He doesn’t know where they were coming from.
The door at the end of the throne room opens, and then closes. It echoes in the silence. A single set of footsteps walk down the center of the hall.
They’re heavy and sharp, and in Nie Huasiang’s head he hears them as a cruel mockery of the way his brother walked. He can almost see Nie Mingjue storming into the throne room, Baxia strapped to his back, searching for his brother who’d skipped out on saber training yet again.
Nie Huaisang made his brother angry more often than not. He wonders if even a bit of him contributed. The guilt of the thought is more stifling than his robes.
It hurts.
Everything hurts.
It’s not fair.
“Nie Huaisang.”
If he’d been in his right mind, Nie Huaisang would’ve registered the footsteps for whose they were. He isn’t in his right mind, though, and hasn't been since he’d seen his brother in his last moments, so Jiang Cheng’s voice startles him.
“Nie Huasiang.” Jiang Cheng stands at the foot of the steps leading up to the throne, hands behind his back. His voice is softer than Huaisang’s heard it in a long time, since before the Sunshot Campaign, if he really thinks about it.
He doesn’t think about it. He can’t.
“I’m not taking audiences right now.” Nie Huaisang forces out, fingers gripping the arms of the throne so tight that his hands shake and his fingers turn white. He must do what his brother did, he must put up a wall. He can’t let anyone pass through it.
Not even his Jiang Cheng.
No, not his - Jiang Cheng has never been his.
“Not until after the official succession.”
Jiang Cheng shakes his head. “I’m not here for an official audience.” He pauses. “I’m here for you.”
Nie Huaisang takes a deep breath. Jiang Cheng can’t say that. He can’t say something like that. Not when he knows.
Not when Nie Huaisang’s been in love with him since the year they went to Cloud Recesses together. Not since the night he and Jiang Cheng had run out and left Wei Wuxian to take care of Lan Wangji, since they’d shared their first kiss behind a tree, awkward and chaste and drunk off their asses.
Not when Jiang Cheng had acted like it had never happened the next morning, whether intentionally or not, and it had changed Nie Huaisang’s life forever.
“I was a coward.” Jiang Cheng says after minutes of silence. Nie Huaisang still hasn’t given him permission to approach, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t push him. “I was scared.”
“Don’t.”
“Huaisang.” His voice goes impossibly softer. “Please.”
Nie Huaisang stays silent.
“I was going to propose,” Jiang Cheng holds his gaze. He has to be able to see how those words rip into Nie Huaisang. He has to. “But I didn’t want to drag you home to a ruined sect, to a Lotus Pier that was burned and broken, to people who had lost everything. We both had to heal. We both had duties to our sects, and those took priority to anything I felt. And your brother…”
Jiang Cheng pauses, likely gauging Nie Huaisang’s reaction at the mention of his recently deceased brother. Nie Huaisang doesn’t flinch, as strong as he can be in the face of his love. He keeps the wall up. Nie Huaisang doesn’t look away.
He’s stronger than people give him credit for.
The person who really knew how strong he is, the only person, is dead now.
“I didn’t want to take you from him. I couldn’t. I didn’t want you to be alone in Yunmeng.”
Neither of them had been alone after the war. Nie Huaisang had gone home with Nie Mingjue and rebuilt, and Jiang Cheng had done the same with Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian.
“We’re both alone now.”
Nie Huaisang’s head drops. Blood seeps out from under his fingertips with how the stone arms of the throne have scratched through the thin skin. It pools under his fingernails and leaves marks on the throne.
Long before Nie Huaisang lost his brother Jiang Cheng lost his sister, and his brother. Nie Huaisang had visited him, once, a few months after it happened, and had been received by a sect leader changed.
He’d barely recognized the anger, the betrayal, the grief that he’d seen in Jiang Cheng, so different from the man he fell in love with, the man he was still in love with, and so he’d gone back home and never returned unless for official business.
He couldn’t stand to see Jiang Cheng like that again.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t look angry now. He just looks tired.
“I’m not here to ask anything of you.” He says after Nie Huaisang stays silent. “I’m here to offer you something I never got. I’m here so you don’t have to be alone.”
Jiang Cheng’s body is a purple blur through Huaisang’s tears, but he can see that still, Jiang Cheng hasn’t come any closer. He stays at the foot of the steps.
“Did it mean anything to you?” Nie Huaisang asked, throat thick with the urge to cry again. It’s all too much. It’s too much right now. He hopes Jiang Cheng understands what he’s trying to say, because words are hard and he won’t be able to explain it.
“It meant everything.” Jiang Cheng says, and it might be the most sincere Nie Huaisang has ever heard him. “You mean everything.”
There had been one night after Nie Huaisang had fought his way into the war camp, to fight alongside his brother and his friends and the love of his life, to help and not wait alone at home like some maiden, that he had stayed with Jiang Cheng.
They’d talked. They drank tea. They remembered how easy things used to be, back when Cloud Recesses wasn’t destroyed and Lotus Pier not burned to the ground. They laughed, the first time Nie Huaisang remembered laughing in what felt like lifetimes.
Jiang Cheng had kissed him. Over, and over, and over.
Nie Huaisang had let him, had kissed him back, had let himself be undressed and led to bed. Had laid there after, listening to Jiang Cheng telling him how scared he was, how much pressure he felt, and what he wanted. What he wanted when everything was rebuilt.
How he wanted to marry.
It had felt like things went unsaid that night, but Nie Huaisang hadn’t wanted to pry for fear of answers he didn’t want to hear.
Instead he rose shortly before the sun, redressing and kissing Jiang Cheng’s cheek and sneaking back to his own tent.
They didn’t speak of it again.
“I’m not here for that,” Jiang Cheng repeats.
“Then what are you here for?” Nie Huaisang snaps back. “If not to take advantage of me while I’m down?”
“I would never.” Jiang Cheng’s voice takes back that edge it’s so famous for. “I would never.”
“No?”
“No.” Jiang Cheng shakes his head. His voice softens. “Huaisang…”
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to hear that from you.” Nie Huaisang admits. He cracks. His voice sounds small, smaller than it’s ever been. It doesn’t fill the throne room the way his brother’s did. “But I can’t…I can’t-”
“I know.” Jiang Cheng reassures him.
Nie Huaisang holds a hand out and Jiang Cheng wastes no time coming up the steps and taking it.
“I’m here for you. Whatever you need,” Jiang Cheng kneels before him, holding his hand. He reaches over and gently pries Nie Huasiang’s hand off the other arm of the throne and holds them. Blood smears on his hands. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t let go. “You don’t have to be alone.”
“We don’t have to be alone,” Nie Huaisang whispers. His lower lip trembles.
“Later.” Jiang Cheng promises him softly. “We’ll talk about this later. This is about you, right now. What do you need?”
Nie Huaisang can’t help the strangled breath he sucks in. He finally feels like he can admit it. What he truly wants.
“Da-ge,” Nie Huaisang falls forward, doubling over on the throne. It’s too big for him. It was perfect for his brother. He needs his brother. He can’t do this. His wall comes tumbling down.
Jiang Cheng squeezes his hands. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t move. He lets Nie Huaisang cry.
If anyone understands needing their older brother, it’s him.
Jiang Cheng rubs his thumbs over the back of Nie Huaisang’s hands as he cries.
He may not be his brother, but Jiang Cheng brings with him some of the comfort and safety that reminds Nie Huaisang of his brother. It scares him.
Nie Mingjue has already left. Nie Huaisang doesn’t want to get close to Jiang Cheng only to have him leave, too. But he can’t help it.
He can’t be alone.
He doesn’t know how long he cries. There is no time anymore. His fingers aren’t bleeding. He feels like he can breathe again.
“I’m sorry I can’t be him,” Jiang Cheng says once Nie Huaisang has calmed down, gasping wetly. He releases one of his hands to reach up and wipe his tears away. “I’m sorry I can’t bring him back.”
“Just don’t leave me.” Nie Huaisang begs weakly. “Not - not again. I don’t want to be alone right now. I can’t be alone- ”
Jiang Cheng presses a kiss to each set of knuckles before letting their joined hands rest on Nie Huaisang’s thighs. “You won’t be. Not with me.” His voice drops and he squeezes Nie Huaisang’s hands, watching as Nie Huaisang’s eyes fill with fresh tears. “Never with me.”
Nie Huaisang sits on the throne. He straightens up. Jiang Cheng smiles at him.
He is not alone.