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The stench of defeat is overwhelming - not only have they not succeeded at pushing the front forward on this day, but the amount of bodies littering the ground is evidence enough that they will eventually have to retreat even further, regroup and come up with a new strategy that doesn’t have them charging blindly into the Wens’ chokehold.
This particular decision wasn’t his alone, and yet Nie Mingjue feels the guilt over its fallout weighing down his very bones, as he drags himself to his feet, Baxia serving him as a temporary makeshift cane, before he orders his Qi back to work, to keep his battered frame upright. The time to settle down and feel the ache of every single one of his injuries will come much later. Before that...
“Zonghui, walk with me,” he orders, and his lieutenant is immediately at his side, knowing better than to offer his own arm as support, but hovering with an almost motherly care anyway.
One needs only one’s eyes to understand that the casualties far outnumber the wounded this time around, and Zonghui keeps a grim tally of those in Nie colors, distributing those of their men still capable of walking to round up the corpses, to be properly buried later.
Nie Mingjue is singularly focused on the hill overlooking the field of carnage, where he can already see smoke rising, people congregating, tents being fixed or erected anew... They’re safe here, for now.
Flashes of white break up the morbid scenery here and there, like snowflakes on mud - the Lan Sect members are mostly alive, he’s relieved to see, dashing to and fro among the bodies, searching for those lucky enough to survive, ready to offer their superior healing skills to ease any and all suffering. Lan Xichen is nowhere to be seen, and the same can be said for his brother, but Nie Mingjue doesn’t doubt that he’s going to find both safe and sound in the heart of the war camp, not a speck of dirt on either of them...
Very much out of the blue, he feels a wayward tug at his Qi, unsettled as it is, and his fingers itch around Baxia’s hilt. Something’s not right. Someone.
“Zonghui,” he barks, “round up our people. Sect Leader Jiang and Young Master Jin are to wait for me to return, before beginning any talks. Go.”
Zonghui knows him better than to demand explanations, and Nie Mingjue doesn’t give him the time to speak up, anyway, before resolutely marching off, to follow that incessant gut feeling of sudden, urgent worry.
He sincerely wishes he didn’t know what it means - certainly wishes he didn’t experience it quite so often this past year spent at war.
They’re barely into their teens, Lan Xichen and him, and they’re playing what they like to call an advanced version of hide and seek, in the forests surrounding Gusu - one has a certain amount of time to run and hide, and the other must find them, not by looking, not by listening for the snapping of branches among the trees, but by simply standing still, and searching for the telltale thrum of the other one’s Qi.
Nie Mingjue is thirteen years old, every bit the aspiring Sect Leader, Baxia still a bit too long for him, and ostensibly, he hates the game - it requires him to be calm, and to concentrate, both things he’s vastly uncomfortable with. But on the other hand, Lan Xichen reminds him, it’s also very good practice, Mingjue-xiong, we must learn how to sense the Qi of others, as well as our own...
So there’s that, and there’s also the opportunity to see Lan Xichen - because he is Lan Xichen now, even though Nie Mingjue will not stop calling him A-Huan for quite some time to come - laughing, unguarded, overjoyed, when Nie Mingjue actually succeeds at finding him, and snatching him before he can run away.
Nie Mingjue is thirteen, and it will be some time yet before he will come to understand what that tickling flutter in his heart when he concentrates on Lan Xichen’s Qi even means - some time yet before he will start looking back on these games with an almost painful fondness, wishing for the ability to freeze time.
Those games are forgotten now, but the ability to recognize the very particular lilt of Lan Xichen’s Qi remains, like muscle memory at this point, almost as easy as breathing - and this time, his oldest friend is in pain.
His injuries dismissed, Nie Mingjue marches resolutely away from the bustle of the camp, away from the healers and the fleeting peace of mind, and back into the battlefield - it’s quiet now, save for the songs of rest the Lans’ qins are beginning to sing for the deceased, and the first white-robed cultivator Nie Mingjue comes across, he startles by asking him very sharply for the whereabouts of his Sect Leader.
All that serves to do is make the poor man worried, and Nie Mingjue leaves him be, and presses on.
A-Huan, come on, this isn’t fun anymore! The second I find you, I swear...!
He sees the unmistakable figure then, far off, almost too far, and his feet carry him over there lightning-quick. He would recognize Lan Xichen anywhere, even if he weren’t dressed in his overly fancy robes and headdress, and the relief at the sight of him is palpable.
“Xichen,” he breathes out, “there you are...”
But then he sees the rest, sees the reason why Lan Xichen is crouching as if he’s defending something, tense and unresponsive, and he understands why his friend’s Qi feels so discordant.
The boy in Lan Xichen’s arms is younger than his brother, younger than Nie Mingjue’s brother, a child with a sword, nothing more - he’s also dying, it’s immediately obvious judging by the amount of blood gushing out of the wound on his stomach, but it’s also immediately obvious that Lan Xichen has a hard time coming to terms with that.
“You’re going to be alright,” he mutters, a thin, unwavering line of blue connecting his fingertips to the boy’s forehead, “we’ll get you a proper healer, you’ll be fine, I promise...”
“Sect Leader,” the boy whimpers, his eyes frantic, “I don’t... it’s too much. It hurts too much.”
“Shh,” Lan Xichen’s voice somehow breaks on that one sound, “it’s going to be alright.”
“Xichen,” Nie Mingjue drops to his knees, and Lan Xichen actually flinches - his face wasn’t visible up until now, but he’s ashen, almost as white as his robes, and tears are brimming in his red-rimmed eyes.
Yet, he looks almost ferocious still, ready to strike for a second, before he recognizes Mingjue, and his face falls, his composure cracks.
“I don’t...” he breathes out, and doesn’t need to finish the sentence for Nie Mingjue to understand - he doesn’t know what to do.
“Sect Leader,” the boy pleads, and his face is all but devoid of life at this point - Nie Mingjue hates that he knows the look, but know it he does. What this poor soul requires, the only thing they can give him now, is a swift end to his suffering.
He needs only cover Lan Xichen’s hand with his own, to communicate his intent - the man’s eyes flicker from Nie Mingjue’s face, to that point of connection between them, and he scrunches them shut, steeling himself. The first tears roll down his cheeks, and Nie Mingjue feels a roar of anger somewhere deep within himself, demanding absolute annihilation to anything and everything that might ever put such a look on Lan Xichen’s face - he can’t be sure if it’s Baxia or his own heart speaking.
“Lan Yilong,” Lan Xichen says then, and it’s as if he’s transformed - the grief is curbed, hidden away, and he is every inch the man in charge of these soldiers’ lives, for better or for worse. The boy hears it, too, and it helps enough for his eyes to focus, one last time.
“Thank you,” Xichen tells him, his hands shaking only a little bit as he reaches for his sword, “you are young, and you do not deserve this death, but know this - when this war is over, I will go to your mother and sister, and I will tell them that their son and brother died a hero. That this war could not have been won without his sacrifice. I will tell them you loved them, and I will make sure your sister attends her qin lessons, and the next song of Inquiry you hear will be hers.”
“Thank you,” the boy weeps, “thank you, Sect Leader, I-”
Shuoyue strikes true, quiet and quick, and the boy only huffs, as if in relief, before all tension leaves his body, and he goes still and limp in Lan Xichen’s hold - his lips are trembling as he reaches forth to close the boy’s eyes, and he hangs his head briefly, going through the incredible ordeal of keeping his emotions in check.
Nie Mingjue realizes he’s too late to offer his comfort only after he does it, after his hand lands heavy on Lan Xichen’s shoulder, and the beginnings of his words of reassurance meet with nothing more than a distant, empty look.
As if in a daze, Lan Xichen rises to his feet, and Nie Mingjue does the same, much more clumsily - a little ways away, people in both Lan and Nie colors are already hurrying over, to take the body away, and he only has a couple of seconds to try and establish... something, some sort of connection, to let Lan Xichen know...
“I’m alright,” his friend does his work for him, and his smile might just rank among the worst things Nie Mingjue has seen today - lifeless, bitter, barely a smile at all. “Thank you for finding me. Let’s get back to camp. I imagine everyone is waiting for us already.”
“Xichen, wait-”
But before he can do any more, can utilize all of his very limited repertoire of comforting things to say in a situation like this, Lan Xichen turns away from him, and marches back towards camp on his own, Nie Mingjue left chasing after him, the only indication that his friend is very much not alright being the tears he probably doesn’t even realize are still trickling down his usually so pristine face, and the pale blue of his robe stained an unforgiving, deep shade of someone else’s blood.
The reality of the immediate fallout of the battle keeps them apart for hours after that - oh, they spend the first couple of them in the same room, poring over maps and coming up with a new strategy with the others, but that doesn’t really give them time enough to talk, and just when Nie Mingjue starts hoping he might be able to get a moment to speak to Lan Xichen in private, the issues of their respective sects pull them in opposite directions yet again.
He listens to the grim tally of names to pray for, and checks in with those who are still alive, and eats only because Zonghui forces him to, and peels his armor and robes off layer by layer, washing himself only because his wounds and sore muscles demand it - it is only after he makes sure that the watch roster for the night is divvied up fairly, and all letters that need sending are sent, that Nie Mingjue finally leaves his tent behind, and heads over to the Lans’ side of the sprawling encampment.
He’s not entirely sure what he’s hoping to find, or what he’s going to say, but the idea of leaving Lan Xichen to his own devices after... that, is unthinkable, his own exhaustion be damned.
It is only for his position alone that the Lan allow him through - it’s past their usual bedtime, after all, but Nie Mingjue knows that if he’s having trouble finding rest tonight, Lan Xichen isn’t faring much better.
“Mingjue- xiong! What can I do for you?”
...Right. So worse than he thought.
Lan Xichen is sitting behind a low table, and motions for Nie Mingjue to do the same - it doesn’t take an expert to tell that he hasn’t really changed or cleaned up all day long, only discarded the top layer of his blood-stained robe, maybe combed his hair back into place. A bath has been drawn in the corner, a Sect Leader’s luxury, but it waits ignored. There’s a kettle of tea in front of him that’s not steaming anymore, and an incense burner that is, the slow swirl of its smoke somehow a warmer sight than Lan Xichen’s smile.
“Shall I play for you?” he inclines his head, “is Baxia agitated again?”
“No, I... It’s fine. I didn’t come here for that.”
“Oh. Then what’s troubling you?”
Gods damn him, he’s not the best at this - he’s often remarked that things would be so much easier if people just said what they were thinking at all times. He knows Lan Xichen is not alright, Lan Xichen himself knows that, but as things are, they’ve got to dance around the issue until they unearth it completely, lest he say something wrong, and upsets his friend even further.
You’re troubling me, he wants to say. I don’t want you to be sad. I don’t want you to have to know what it’s like, taking a good man’s life because you don’t have a choice about it. Because it’s the right choice.
“What was his name?” he says instead, as gently as he possibly can, “the boy? You said it, but I forgot.”
Lan Xichen’s face freezes, and it’s not a pretty sight - he appears almost angry for a flicker of a moment.
“Lan Yilong,” he murmurs, hanging his head, “his name was Yilong.”
“Mm,” Nie Mingjue nods, “and his age?”
The hurt is palpable in Lan Xichen’s eyes then - why are you making me do this? Nie Mingjue, as in everything else, perseveres, holding his gaze steadily, calmly.
“He was seventeen years old.”
Not too young to brandish a sword to protect his sect, then - certainly much too young to die doing it.
“You did what you had to do,” Nie Mingjue says evenly, and there, there it is - a disbelief in Lan Xichen’s glare, almost like he’s seeing him for the first time, almost enough to make Nie Mingjue apologize on the spot. He grits his teeth through it, instead.
“What I had to do,” Lan Xichen repeats, lifelessly, quietly.
“Yes. He was already on his way, Xichen, you spared him yet more suffering-”
“And what does it matter? What does it matter to his mother, or his ten-year-old sister?”
Lan Xichen doesn’t shout those words - he never shouts - but he’s beginning to shake with the emotions hidden behind them, and Nie Mingjue suddenly sorely wishes there weren’t a flimsy tea table and a world of distance between them.
“What does it matter, if he doesn’t get to come home with the rest of us? What I was supposed to do was protect him. Make sure he never left Cloud Recesses in the first place. Ordered him to stay in camp, when... When...”
It is a testament to the exhaustion of both of them, that Lan Xichen lets him see him cry twice in the same day, and that Nie Mingjue forgoes all propriety to cross that distance separating them at that, after all - fuck finding the right words, he’s horrible at that anyway. What Lan Xichen needs is comfort, simple as that, and Nie Mingjue can only hope he still remembers how to offer it.
“I’m sorry,” he exhales, reaching to clasp Lan Xichen’s shoulder, not yet entirely sure he won’t be pushed away, or that he should be initiating physical contact at all, “he didn’t deserve that. You didn’t- there is nothing else you could have done, right choice or not.”
Lan Xichen doesn’t flinch away from the touch this time, but he still presses his face into the back of his hand, turning away, weeping quietly - each step of this is an entirely new undertaking, Nie Mingjue navigating unknown terrain here. But at the end of the day, this is Xichen, his Xichen, his A-Huan, whom he’s known since they were children without titles or swords, whose Qi, whose very heartbeat, he knows almost as intimately as his own. They’ve grown up together, from boyhood to now, carrying the same weight of an entire sect on their shoulders, and maybe that’s exactly it - although Nie Mingjue is no philosopher, no grand speaker, he has the unique position of understanding exactly what Lan Xichen is experiencing.
“We have a responsibility to our people,” he says softly, shuffling for a more comfortable position by Lan Xichen’s side, one that will still allow them to be close, “they look to us for guidance, even in death. And it’s fucking impossible sometimes, to give it.”
That bit of irreverent cursing has Lan Xichen sniffing around a weak chuckle, and his eyes are like dark pools of liquid amber in the muted light of the lanterns inside the tent, the tears giving them an almost unnatural glow.
“That’s what I mean when I say you did what you had to do, Xichen,” Nie Mingjue squeezes the man’s arm ever so gently, “as Sect Leader, you did the right thing for your disciple. His name will not be forgotten, and his sacrifice will mean something. As for right now, when it’s just you and me... I know it’s just words, and I know they don’t make any of this any less horrible, and... I’m here.”
As previously stated, he’s not the grandest, most florid speaker, never has been and never will be, but perhaps Lan Xichen really isn’t in need of grand speeches right now. Maybe all he needs is for Nie Mingjue’s hand to travel to his own, to close over his fingers cold as ice, and for the closeness of Nie Mingjue’s shoulder to lean on. Quite literally - all leftover composure seems to leave him at once, and he slumps to the side, as if collapsing under the weight of everything he’s been carrying, and Nie Mingjue is there to catch him, of course he is.
Wartime has a way of hardening people, yes, but also of exposing weaknesses one thought he’d done away with a long time ago - there’s simply no getting used to seeing people dying for no discernible reason, and this particular campaign shows no signs of stopping. Nie Mingjue spends most of his nights chasing sleep that never comes, or simply forgoing it completely in favor of revising strategies and ordering surprise strikes here, overseeing mobilizations there... Emotional as this particular encounter is, it also feels like the first time he’s properly stopped in a long while.
It’s usually Lan Xichen who finds him late into the night and reminds him to take some time to himself, forces him to sit down and close his eyes while he plays his xiao to calm the ceaseless, guttural growling of resentful hunger thrumming in Nie Mingjue’s saber and soul alike - it feels, if not good, then at least right, for their roles to be reversed just this once.
There’s a wet spot on Nie Mingjue’s shoulder where Lan Xichen has wept into the fabric of his robe, and that fragile little detail, that too he will take to his grave - this tenderness between them is only allowed every now and then, only when they’re certain they’re alone, only when their world can shrink to just the two of them.
“Xichen,” Nie Mingjue murmurs into Lan Xichen’s hair, “A-Huan.”
Lan Xichen huffs out a shuddering exhale at that, and lets Nie Mingjue raise his hand to his mouth - it is to see that his knuckles are bruised, scraped and bloodied, but Nie Mingjue kisses them gently anyway.
“You need rest,” he murmurs against them, and Lan Xichen scoffs lightly.
“So do you,” he points out, his voice hoarse.
He turns his hand so that he may cup Nie Mingjue’s face, thumb brushing along the sharp line of his cheekbone, and this time, his smile hides nothing - it’s simply that, a small curve to his lips, tired but genuine. Not a Sect Leader, but Xichen as he allows only Nie Mingjue to see him.
“Thank you for coming here,” he sighs, “but it’s very late.”
“Mm, you’re right. And my tent is very far.”
For a moment, he’s almost certain he’s overstepped, misjudged epically, but then Lan Xichen is smiling some more, even as he’s wiping at his still-wet cheeks.
“I would like it if you stayed,” he confirms, “I sorely need a bath...”
“I already had mine,” Nie Mingjue smirks, “I’ll just... meditate in the meantime. Do my best not to look.”
They both know he’s only teasing, to get one more smile out of Lan Xichen, and when he succeeds, he’s more than content to keep his word - Lan Xichen uses his shoulder to push himself up to his feet, not before pressing the softest kiss to Nie Mingjue’s brow, and then he goes about disrobing for his now no doubt lukewarm bath, while Nie Mingjue loses his own heavy overcoat, and settles on the other side of the tent, closer to the bed, and closes his eyes.
His own exhaustion, coupled with the leftover scent of incense in the air, claims control over his senses, and he thinks Xichen would be proud of him, because he actually succeeds at calming himself - almost enough to fall asleep where he sits, in fact.
It’s impossible to discern how much time has passed when he hears the bed creak, but all the candles in the tent have been extinguished, plunging it into a quiet darkness, and Lan Xichen is wearing nothing but a simple silken sleeping robe, his hair now completely loose from the confines of his bun and complicated headdress, cascading freely down his shoulders and back, and his hand is warm and soft when Nie Mingjue takes it, lets him pull him closer.
It’s been a good long while since either of them slept in a proper, comfortable bed, and will be a long time still before they’re allowed that luxury again, but they make do - Nie Mingjue opens his arms for Lan Xichen to curl into, bury his face into the crook of them, into Mingjue’s chest, and he hears and feels him exhale heavily, raggedly, some tension leaving his body yet.
There’s no telling if they will get an hour or six, of resting like this, before their reality comes hauling them back to their feet, and so they must make the best of what little time they do have. Other nights, their roles will be reversed, the scorching, potent thrum of fury coursing through Nie Mingjue’s veins will be too strong, too loud to ignore, and Lan Xichen will hold him in turn, help him unwind and settle down enough to breathe, at least. Other nights, this kind of closeness will not be enough, and they will seek out more, more, with their hands and mouths and tongues, as urgent as they are devoted, and those, too, will leave them feeling a little bit better, a little bit like they just might be able to keep going.
But right now, Nie Mingjue strokes Lan Xichen’s back slowly, gently, letting the repetitive movement of it lull them both to sleep, and it’s more than enough - more than you deserve, a quiet voice seeks to remind him. Certainly more than most will get today, more than the dead ever dared hope for... But that guilt, that, too, grows quieter around Xichen.
“Thank you,” he hears him mutter sleepily, alongside other, more muddled words he doesn’t catch, and he turns his head to press a kiss to his hair.
Before sleep fully claims him, Nie Mingjue succeeds at finding that elusive quiet spot of his Qi, that one that’s been reserved for Lan Xichen, and Lan Xichen only, ever since they were children, and he lets it call out to its counterpart, nothing but a quiet whisper, a thirteen-year-old boy tugging at a sleeve of pale blue Gusu silk, not really hoping for a reaction beyond the briefest flash of his friend’s grin, before they both have to stand straight and pretend like they didn’t just spend the entire afternoon running around the forest.
It doesn’t matter how far you go, A-Huan, I’ll always end up finding you!
Lan Xichen smiles into the folds of Nie Mingjue’s robes, he can feel him smiling, and pulls himself closer, hands snug against Nie Mingjue’s chest, and he thinks he can hear the echo of their laughter from years ago, can still smell the fresh scent of pine resin in Xichen’s hair.
I’ll always end up finding you.
They’ve grown up from children lost to games, to men fighting a war, but there’s something reassuring about having done that side by side. Nie Mingjue knows today was not the last day they’ve had to count their dead, and it will be a long time still before they get to come home and pray for all of them in peace, but...
He will die before he lets Lan Xichen become just another casualty of all of this, in body or in soul.
I’ll always end up finding you.
Just for that one night, Nie Mingjue gets to fall asleep with the man he loves in his arms, their hearts settling into a similar rhythm, their Qi melding together like two very different streams forming a single river, and that, too, has not changed since they were children. That, too, he hopes will never change.