Work Text:
Nie Huaisang didn’t have a choice, he really didn’t. He had a plan, and a back up and a back up to that, but he failed to plan for Wei Wuxian’s particular brand of chaos, and it nearly cost him everything.
He wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
He paces around the private garden that occupies a sheltered section of the grounds on the south side of his family compound, wearing a path around the carefully tended ring of maples. Occasionally, he plucks one of the reddening leaves, but it reminds him too much of blood, so he casts them aside and walks.
His back is to the concealed gate, but only two other people in Qinghe know of this particular refuge of Huaisang’s, and so he crouches down to examine a patch of spotted leaves on a small persimmon tree and waits for da-ge or Meng Yao to say what they need to say.
The person clears their throat.
“Huaisang?”
Huaisang stands and turns so quickly his feet get tangled in his robes, and he would have fallen face-first into the dirt, but Jiang Cheng is quick, and his arms are steady as they surround Huaisang and keep him upright.
Huaisang has spent the past month thinking just what he would say to Jiang Cheng when they were finally reunited. Sometimes it’s a bit of poetry. Sometimes it’s shouting and cursing. But now that he’s here, really here, all he can do is twist his hands in Jiang Cheng’s travel-stained robes and kiss him. He puts every last shred of anger and fear and desperate passion he has into the kiss, and Jiang Cheng takes everything Huaisang will give him.
Later, Huaisang will take time to acquaint himself with the newly-sharpened edges of his lover, but it’s enough now to know that he is alive and that the irresistible momentum of their desire brought them together again.