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It took Mo Xuanyu a while to notice the guy, but to be fair it was a busy night and Mo Xuanyu had to bust ass at the bar to keep up with drink orders. Eventually things slowed down enough for Mo Xuanyu to get a second to take a breather and that was when Mo Xuanyu noticed the guy watching him. He should have noticed him sooner, and that was on Mo Xuanyu for getting complacent about being watched because there were always people watching the bartender.
“Fuck,” Mo Xuanyu muttered, and ducked down to mess with the towels and stuff under the bar so that he could collect himself. He recognized that soft face, and it was too much to hope that Mo Xuanyu hadn’t been recognized even under the eyeliner and the heavy contour and highlight changing his cheekbones and nose. Mo Xuanyu had never once been that lucky in his life, and he highly doubted it was going to start now. So what was he doing here, in some no name shady gay club?
The question became ‘Is This A Coincidence Or Has Mo Xuanyu Been Tracked For Some Reason’.
Mo Xuanyu took a second to calm himself and then stood back up. The man had come up to the bar and was now standing directly in front of him.
“Fuck!” Mo Xuanyu yelped. He absolutely should have expected that, but Mo Xuanyu had always been kind of jumpy. “Sect Leader Nie, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”
The sect leader looked amused and took a seat. “Sect leader? Who’s that? Do I look like a sect leader?”
Mo Xuanyu rolled his eyes. Of course Nie Huaisang wasn’t going to show up to a bar like the one Mo Xuanyu was working at in full regalia. He actually blended in quite nicely in his skinny jeans, and he wasn’t carrying his saber – not that he ever did anyway. But the thing that stood out was the oversized leather jacket he was wearing. It wasn’t Nie Huaisang’s style at all and made him look like a cheerleader wearing her linebacker boyfriend’s varsity jacket.
“So this is where you’ve been,” Nie Huaisang said, looking around the bar. His signature fan was missing too, though Mo Xuanyu had a hunch that it wasn’t far away and was actually just tucked up into his jacket sleeve.
“It keeps me under the radar,” Mo Xuanyu muttered, feeling judged despite Nie Huaisang’s placid expression.
Nie Huaisang hummed in acknowledgment, tracing a finger absentmindedly along the bartop. “Yes, I’d heard about the…unpleasantness.”
Mo Xuanyu’s insides froze, and he couldn’t stop the bitter laugh that bubbled up. “Too much to ask for it to be kept quiet I guess.”
“Well, when one of Jin Guangshan’s illegitimate children gets thrown out, people are bound to say all kinds of things. It comes with the territory of being a Jin, I suppose, having salacious gossip follow you around.” Nie Huaisang said.
Mo Xuanyu knew what had been screamed at him as he was kicked out of the Jin estate, and then at Mo manor when they’d had him dragged out by mental health services. He wasn’t particularly interested in hearing what of that managed to get out to other people.
“You aren’t actually in love with him, are you?” Nie Huaisang asked, propping his chin on his hand and staring up at Mo Xuanyu with curious eyes. Talk about just ripping the bandage off, Mo Xuanyu thought hysterically.
It wasn’t love when you showed up to a new place as a teen and everyone there was awful to you, even your father, and the only person who seemed to give any fucks was older than you by like a decade and asked how you were with gentle smiles and let you in on his secrets because he knows that this was just between us, right, A-Yu? With distance and an adult’s perspective, Mo Xuanyu could see that. His half-brother had never really cared about him. He’d just been a pawn in some sick game he hadn’t known the rules to. That didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt. Whatever Nie Huaisang saw on Mo Xuanyu’s face, it seemed to be enough.
“Not sure if that makes what I’m about to ask you easier or harder, to be honest,” Nie Huaisang said.
“What do you want from me, Sect Leader Nie? Why are you here?” Mo Xuanyu asked, voice strangled. He could hardly hear himself over the sounds of the bar around them and his heart pounding in his ears.
“You know, my brother and your brother used to be very close,” Nie Huaisang said, giving Mo Xuanyu slight smile. He was fidgeting with the collar of his leather jacket now.
The panic was still rising in his blood, but Mo Xuanyu couldn’t stop the undignified snort that escaped him in response to that statement. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
How on earth could somebody look at the mess that had been the relationship between Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao and say they were “very close” with a straight face? The sheer audacity of this man.
“That doesn’t answer my question, Sect Leader Nie. I’m at work, you know. I have other things to be doing right now and you’ve already crossed a line.”
Nie Huaisang’s smile did not falter. Instead, he beckoned Mo Xuanyu closer like he was going to share a secret. Mo Xuanyu hesitated but eventually leaned forward a little, and Nie Huaisang met him in the middle. This close, he could smell the faint traces of a cologne that didn’t suit Nie Huaisang at all, too rough for the soft-seeming sect leader.
“I’m looking to get some revenge and I think you can help me. What do you say, Mo Xuanyu? Want to fuck some people over?”
His grin was sharp, sharp enough to hurt someone, and Mo Xuanyu could see a too bright gleam in Nie Huaisang’s eyes that he recognized from the mirror in his own low moments. He knew what Nie Huaisang wanted from him now, but oh, it was so tempting. The anger that Mo Xuanyu had tried so hard to bury under therapy and prescription pills was screaming now that it had been recognized, throwing itself at the cage of Mo Xuanyu’s heart. It was desperate to escape and hurt someone, anyone, even himself in the process. All Mo Xuanyu had to do was let it.
Mo Xuanyu didn’t break eye contact, ignoring the way resentful energy started to swirl at the corner of his vision in response to the howl inside Mo Xuanyu’s chest. He reached under the bar with shaking hands and grabbed an empty glass and slammed it down in front of Nie Huaisang before filling it with whiskey. Nie Huaisang broke the staring contest, blinking at the drink in front of him in surprise.
“I get off in three hours. We’ll talk then,” Mo Xuanyu said.
Mo Xuanyu went to the bathroom after his shift was over and washed his face clean, scrubbing off the makeup violently and leaving his skin red and tender after. It made him look young. Young and easily led and defenseless, only two of which were true Mo Xuanyu thought with a bitter mental laugh. There wasn’t a point to the makeup anymore tonight, anyway. He’d been found and caught, despite his paranoia and all the precautions he’d taken. If Jin Guangyao came after him now then Mo Xuanyu was too tired to care.
But Mo Xuanyu would put money down on Nie Huaisang checking the place for spies before he’d dared to set foot in the bar, so probably his location was still safe. Mo Xuanyu was starting to think Nie Huaisang had been vastly underestimated by the cultivation world in general and Jin Guangyao in particular.
Nie Huaisang has taken over a table by the time Mo Xuanyu exited the bathroom, one of the corner booths in the back away from most everyone. Good for hooking up or, apparently, discussing revenge against your dead brother’s sworn-brother. He ducked behind the bar quickly and grabbed a few beers – it felt like this was going to be a conversation that Mo Xuanyu wanted to be drunk for.
Mo Xuanyu sat down across from Nie Huaisang and takes a long swig from one of the beer bottles. Nie Huaisang had barely touched the whiskey Mo Xuanyu poured for him hours ago. Mo Xuanyu raised an eyebrow at him, questioning.
“What’s the matter, whiskey not your drink?” he asked.
Nie Huaisang’s pretty mouth twisted sadly for just a moment, before he gave Mo Xuanyu a rueful smile.
“Ah, no. I prefer wine, actually. Whiskey was always my brother’s drink,” he said, something haunted behind his eyes. He touched the sleeve of his leather jacket lightly before he reached out to the whiskey glass, lifted it to his lips, and then downed it all in one go.
Mo Xuanyu’s eyebrows went up to his hairline. Yeah, he could see the whole picture now. Whiskey was Nie Mingjue’s drink, and Mo Xuanyu would bet the proverbial farm that it was Nie Mingjue’s leather jacket doused in Nie Mingjue’s cologne that Nie Huaisang was wearing. To meet him, maybe the one man who knew exactly what was kept in Jin Guangyao’s hidden treasure room.
“So. Revenge, huh?” Mo Xuanyu asked, taking another drink of his beer.
“I want you to tell me everything you know about your brother,” Nie Huaisang said sweetly, the mad gleam back in his eyes.
So Mo Xuanyu talked, cut himself open and laid himself bare. It felt good to talk about all the shit he’d had to do under Jin Guangyao’s watchful gaze, trying to help piece together Wei Wuxian’s scribblings and reverse-engineer his awful brilliance. How his father had been impatient, wanting miracles that Mo Xuanyu and Xue Yang just couldn’t produce even with all of Koi Tower’s resources, miracles that Wei Wuxian had accomplished alone and starving and desperate. The many, many dead bodies. The specific dead body Nie Huaisang actually cared about. Jin Guangyao’s secret treasure room and everything he kept in it. The paranoia that everyone and anyone could turn against you, even the person you were working with most closely. Especially him, because he was unpredictable at best and murderous at the slightest inconvenience. That Mo Xuanyu thought he knew who started the whispers behind his back and couldn’t forget because his stupid fucking memory couldn’t forget anything and they just got louder and louder until they became screams and Mo Xuanyu was unceremoniously kicked out. How his mother’s family hated cultivators in general and everything about Mo Xuanyu in particular because they’d heard why he came back to them with his tail between his legs and had him committed instead of welcoming him back, and how he’d had to play along to eventually get out.
“I hate them, I hate them all so much,” Mo Xuanyu said. It was hard to breathe through the anger. “They treated me like shit. Do you know how bad it is when a serial killer is the only one out of the bunch that you actually respect? At least Xue Yang was honest!”
He pressed his forehead to the table. Tears were starting to leak out of the corners of his eyes and he didn’t want Nie Huaisang to see it.
“Jin Guangyao was never honest with me. He never cared,” Mo Xuanyu’s voice was shaking. “I bet he was just waiting to get rid of me from the moment our father brought me to the estate. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Fuck!”
Mo Xuanyu nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt the gentle hand on his head, petting his hair. When was the last time anyone had touched him with kindness? Not since he’d left Koi Tower and even that was tainted now.
“I know, I know,” Nie Huaisang said, soft as anything. “He doesn’t love, he’s incapable of it.”
Something in Mo Xuanyu broke.
“I hope he chokes and dies. I hope he fucking rots,” Mo Xuanyu hissed, his fists clenching tight enough that he could feel the nails breaking skin. He could feel the resentful energy being pulled to him. It made him feel powerful. Like he could tear them all apart, like Wei Wuxian had done. Mo Xuanyu knew better, he wasn’t actually that strong but oh, he wanted.
“We could…do something about that,” Nie Huaisang said, his sweet voice blending seamlessly with the whispers of resentful energy in Mo Xuanyu’s head. Mo Xuanyu looked up, shocked.
“How? He’s too well protected, personally and politically. You know that, or you would have done it yourself as soon as you knew what he did to your brother,” Mo Xuanyu said.
Nie Huaisang hummed in acknowledgment, but he was smiling indulgently at Mo Xuanyu. “That was before I had you,” he said in a sing-song tone, and tapped Mo Xuanyu’s nose with the fan he’d pulled out from his jacket sleeve. “You and that lovely brain of yours.”
Oh. So it wasn’t just information on Jin Guangyao that Nie Huaisang wanted him for. He wanted everything Mo Xuanyu had learned while working in Koi Tower. That was…That was fine. Mo Xuanyu was used to being used.
“What are we going to do?” Mo Xuanyu asked, trying to calm and center himself. He doubted Nie Huaisang could faze him, after the things he’d seen in Koi Tower’s basements, but the serene smile didn’t reach Nie Huaisang’s eyes and that wasn’t exactly comforting.
Nie Huaisang got up and joined Mo Xuanyu on his side of the booth. He put an arm around Mo Xuanyu’s shoulders like they were old friends and leaned in close.
“We,” he whispered in Mo Xuanyu’s ear. “are going to bring back the Yiling Patriarch.”