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Nie Huaisang woke up one day with the shadow of a snake on his arm. It was small and thin, thinner than his finger and just long enough to wrap once around his forearm, and its edges were fuzzy, as if it was cast from the light of a candle across the room. When Nie Huaisang tried to touch it, he felt nothing except his own bare flesh, but the little snake seemed to like to chase his finger and would chase it around his forearm, over his shoulder, over his chest, and even to his thigh, following the path Nie Huaisang wrote on his skin.
“How adorable,” Nie Huaisang said. “Where did you come from, little one?”
The snake couldn’t lift its head, flat as it lay against Nie Huaisang’s skin, but it lapped its tongue at him, slithered to the crook of his neck, and curled in on itself, as if to sleep.
-
Jiang Wanyin frowned when he saw it. “Are you sure you don’t want to get rid of that,” he said.
“What? No!” said Wei Wuxian. He and Nie Huaisang sat on the couch, facing each other, Wei Wuxian thoroughly enjoying turning Nie Huaisang’s hand over and under, over and under, as the little snake crawled in circles from his palm to the back of his hand, like they’re playing hide and seek. “How could you say something so cruel? Look at it, it’s so cute.”
“You have no idea what it even is. For all we know it could be a curse, or an omen.”
“Da-ge and Er-ge say it’s neither,” said Huaisang. He looked over himself when he woke and, from what he could tell using his limited magic skills, there was no trace of resentment on his body. But he asked his brother and Xichen-ge anyway just to be sure. The snake stayed curled along his wrist the whole time but its head swayed restlessly side to side under their piercing gaze. In the end, neither of them could sense any negative energy either. Just the contrary, actually. “In fact, they said it was quite the opposite -- that whatever it is, it seems to love me very much.”
Wei Wuxian choked out a laugh and sent a strange look at Jiang Wanyin over Huaisang’s head. Curious, Nie Huaisang turned around, but Jiang Wanyin was merely drinking a glass of water on the dining table, looking just slightly more annoyed than usual.
“Really, Nie-xiong?” said Wei Wuxian. “That much was obvious, at least.”
-
Unlike Wei Wuxian, Nie Huaisang is actually not all that oblivious. Observing people was a habit he developed early on. As a child, he was quiet and unathletic but not unfriendly, preferring to sit at a distance and watch as the other children played, even though he got along with all of them well and was happy enough in their company. He notices things with a painter’s eye, miniscule details that would escape even the gaze of a hawk: the way Jin Zixuan would blink three times in rapid succession whenever Jiang Yanli enters the room; the small flex of Lan Wangji’s fingers whenever Wei Wuxian’s hair grazed the angle of his shoulder; the slight softening of Nie Mingjue’s brows as Lan Xichen wraps his arms around his waist. He likes to file these scenes in the back of his mind and pull them out at the end of the day to draw in charcoal, impressing upon blank paper these signs of affection, only, he thinks, detached from the context, and from reality. Beautiful in isolation.
So he also notices how Jiang Wanyin treats him gently, talks to him with an uncharacteristically soft voice, hovers beneath the stairs as if readying his arms in case Nie Huaisang trips, preens whenever Nie Huaisang expresses any sort of praise towards him or his work.
From these things he can infer that Jiang Wanyin holds some significant level of affection towards him. But even so, Nie Huaisang knows that acts of affection do not necessarily equate to love. A kiss may as well be an act of love as it is of lust, or of playful flirtation, or of manipulation, or of deceit, or of the desire for validation, or of hatred, or of a bitter mix of all of these, and you would be none the wiser until after you’ve drank it and realized it was actually gasoline.
Wei Wuxian certainly seems to think Jiang Wanyin is in love with him, and Jiang Wanyin’s reactions seem to affirm it to some extent, but still, Nie Huaisang wonders whether one day they will surprise him in his studio apartment room with all their mutual friends sitting at his couch like an intervention, and tell him it was all just an elaborate joke and that he is actually quite the bore and that his art is insufferable and they are all filing restraining orders against him, actually, right this second.
“Occam’s razor, child,” his mind tells him, in his mother’s voice, the soft comfort that it provides.
He waves away the thought and looks at himself in the mirror, lets the towel pool at his feet so that he is completely naked. There is nothing remarkable in his physical appearance that Jiang Wanyin should find special. His facial features are delicate but nothing special. His body is skinny -- bony, even, to an extent where his brother often comments on how he should eat more. He cocks his head to the side, discerning eyes sliding down the angles of his limbs, of the lack of curve in his ass, of the skin that covers his knobby knees. If Jiang Wanyin is in fact attracted to him, Nie Huaisang thinks he would likely change his mind if he saw him bare.
The snake in his skin peeks out from his inner thigh, and then crawls to the back of his knees.
Nie Huaisang laughs. “What are you so shy for? Surely you’ve seen enough of my body to not be surprised?”
Still, Nie Huaisang puts on a pair of loose boxers and a t-shirt, and lies on his bed with his knees bent so that he can see the snake dance along his thighs. Creatures like these are simple to understand. They operate on pure energy, and anyone with a decent cultivation base, like Da-ge or Er-ge or even Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin, can see the entirety of their intent. If they say it loves Nie Huaisang, then it loves Nie Huaisang, and that’s the end of that.
-
Truth be told, Nie Huaisang has loved Jiang Wanyin for far longer than he’d care to admit. He never attempted to hide it, but since no one called him out on it he’d just assumed that no one cared.
Jiang Wanyin points to Huaisang’s cheek, where the snake has chosen to rest, with the straw of his coffee. “You really like that thing, huh?”
“It’s harmless,” Nie Huaisang says.
“That’s not what I asked, but sure.”
Nie Huaisang looks at him, confused at the sudden uptick in his tone. “Well, yes. I suppose it makes me happy a little bit.”
“Just a little bit?”
“Why? What are you going on about, Jiang-xiong?”
“Nothing, nothing, just-” He brings both hands to his face, breathing heavily into his palms. For a moment Nie Huaisang was afraid he was going into a nervous breakdown in the middle of this Starbucks, but when Jiang Wanyin recollects himself, he seems to be having a hard time controlling his expression. “I’m glad that you’re happy.”
After that, Jiang Wanyin insists on accompanying him home, even though his apartment is at the opposite end of the city. It bewildered Nie Huaisang, because Jiang Wanyin has never done so before, and during rush hour, no less. The trains were packed. Jiang Wanyin had to cage Nie Huaisang against the door to keep him from other commuters going in and out of the stations, Huaisang just near enough and tall enough to smell the cologne at the crook of his neck, slightly faded but still retaining that animalic, cardamom note.
Nie Huaisang can’t feel his shadowy companion against his skin, but in the glass door’s reflection, he can see it running around in happy little circles just beneath his collar.
It is dark by the time they arrive at Nie Huaisang’s station. The fifteen-minute walk to his apartment complex is usually dark and quiet, but tonight, the streetlamps seem to glow an ethereal glow.
“This city is so strange,” Nie Huaisang says.
Jiang Wanyin hums. “Good-strange or bad-strange?”
He pauses. “Good-strange.”
-
Out of sheer politeness, he invites Jiang Wanyin inside. It is nighttime, after all. Jiang Wanyin makes them dinner from Nie Huaisang’s well-stocked pantry, and after that, they watch a movie. They’ve dimmed the lights for that cinema feel, but with Jiang Wanyin sitting mere inches next to him, Nie Huaisang finds it difficult to keep his thoughts in order. Yet perhaps the day was more tiring than he’d anticipated, because he falls asleep at the movie’s climax.
He wakes up in his own bed, still in his jeans, and Jiang Wanyin sleeping curled in his uncomfortably tiny couch.
-
“Is this your mom?” Jiang Wanyin asks him.
Nie Huaisang hums, glancing at the photobook in his lap. At the top left is a picture of him, likely only a few months old, pressed against his mother’s cheek, his mother grinning in the way he remembers so dearly, her nose scrunched and the laugh lines at the corners of her mouth deepening.
Everyone says he looks like her.
“She’s beautiful,” Jiang Wanyin says.
-
Each table in this cafe can only seat four, and with the five of them, Nie Huaisang decides to sit at an adjacent table for two. He waves them off with his order and pulls out his sketchbook and a pencil, letting himself melt into the soothing monotony of people gently talking and of silverware scraping against plastic platters, and he begins to sketch.
He is surprised when Jiang Wanyin sits at the chair in front of him. Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji file into the table across the aisle, placing their bags on the vacant seat that Nie Huaisang assumed was Jiang Wanyin’s.
“What are you drawing?” he says, as he hands Nie Huaisang his sandwich.
Nie Huaisang looks down at his work. Truthfully, he let his hand wander around , trusting his intuition on the final result. Upon closer inspection he realizes he recognizes the form it’s starting to take shape.
He looks up at Jiang Wanyin and says, “You.”
-
His snake starts fading away. These things always do in the end -- a sign that, whatever it is, it has achieved its purpose and is bidding him goodbye.
-
Wei Wuxian knocks on his door one day and invites him to hang out. Even though he knew Wei Wuxian wouldn’t mind, Nie Huaisang felt it was too impolite to say no.
They end up in an old playground where they used to play as children, a can of beer in each hand, sitting side by side on an old swing that looks rusty enough to collapse if a mild breeze blows past, but barely even bends under their combined weight. Wei Wuxian talks about his and Lan Wangji’s bedroom activities, which Nie Huaisang humors, because he’s the only person other than Wen Qing who is unfazed, and the only person, period, who wouldn’t attempt bodily harm, at hearing Wei Wuxian’s escapades.
After a brief pause, Wei Wuxian suddenly says, “A-Cheng is really happy these past months.”
Nie Huaisang considers this for a moment. Is it a trap? Or just an observation? He and Wei Wuxian are -- not really best friends any more, it’s been so long since they’ve been like that towards each other, but Nie Huaisang knows enough about Wei Wuxian’s thought patterns that he’s not discounting the possibility that there’s some form of threat beneath his words.
He looks at Wei Wuxian’s face, and sees that he is smiling softly.
“Is he?” he ends up saying. “I’m glad for him.”
“He loves you a lot.” Wei Wuxian watches Nie Huaisang choke on his beer, and continues. “And you love him a lot as well.”
“You’re really pulling out the heavy-hitters today, Wei-xiong.”
“I wouldn’t know. Pulling out is not really in my vocabulary these days.”
Nie Huaisang gives him an unimpressed look, to which he returns a wide, insufferable grin, and takes another long swig of his drink. He gives a loud, contented sigh, and says, “Honestly, you of all people should know I’m not really in-tune to this romance stuff, Lan Zhan notwithstanding, but even I can see that you’re all lovey-dovey with each other. It’s really cute. I can feel myself going pre-diabetic just thinking about it. Just last night I saw A-Cheng fall off the couch because you sent him a heart emoji. I just, kind of...”
Under normal circumstances, Nie Huaisang’s mind would have assumed the worst at how Wei Wuxian cut off his sentence. He would have readied himself for a shovel talk, or for Wei Wuxian to say that he’s not good enough for Jiang Wanyin, or some other passive-aggressive, backhanded compliment. Every muscle in his body is urging him to run away, change the topic, anything, anything at all that will keep him from baring his heart with all honesty.
But at this point, having spent so much time with Jiang Wanyin, having seen nothing in his eyes or heard in his voice or felt from his touch of anything other than genuine affection, he realizes to do so would be stupid. And if anything, stupid is more of Wei Wuxian’s schtick than it is Nie Huaisang’s.
“Jiang-xiong shouldn’t have a reason to love me so much,” he says. “I’m useless.”
And Wei Wuxian looks at him in the eye and says, “Nie-xiong, that’s really so stupid.”
-
They go to a bar, and it’s horrible, because Wei Wuxian texts Jiang Wanyin halfway through, and he arrives when both Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian are inside the bathroom, Huaisang holding Wei Wuxian’s hair while he vomits his tequila over the toilet, not even having the luxury to be slightly tipsy when Jiang Wanyin walks in and looks at both of them disapprovingly.
“It’s a Monday,” Jiang Wanyin says.
“It was Wei-xiong’s idea,” says Nie Huaisang. “And I work on commission.”
Huaisang tries to help Jiang Wanyin lift him to the back of his car, but ends up carrying just the weight of his feet. When he straightens himself, he starts to feel the last few shots of vodka that Wei Wuxian pushed into his hands, and struggles a little to find the latch with which to buckle his seatbelt. In a few minutes, he is completely drunk, and cannot help but stare at Jiang Wanyin’s profile as it is illuminated by the strangely soothing city lights. From the corner of his eye he can see his reflection on the windshield, rather plain, in comparison to Jiang Wanyin’s, except for the shadow of his snake, sitting unmoving on his cheek except for the lapping of its tongue at the rise of his cheekbone.
“A-Cheng,” Nie Huaisang slurs, and oh, how handsome he looks with the tips of his ears so red.
“Thanks,” Jiang Wanyin croaks. Did Nie Huaisang say that out loud? “Yeah, you did.”
Nie Huaisang hums, and then they are silent for several more minutes.
“A-Cheng,” he says again. “I am drunk.”
“I can see that.”
“When we get home,” he says. “You can do anything you want.”
From this angle, Nie Huaisang can see the exact depth at which Jiang Wanyin’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. But he says nothing, so Nie Huaisang repeats himself.
“I heard you,” Jiang Wanyin says, voice tight. “I’m not touching you when you’re drunk, Huaisang.”
“I won’t mind.”
“Huaisang-”
“I’ll do anything you want. Just- Just-” He’s vaguely aware of something wet on his cheeks, but he wipes it away, deeming it unimportant. “Just don’t leave me.”
They run over a speed bump, rattling Nie Huaisang’s head and causing Wei Wuxian in the back seat to nearly fall to the floor. Jiang Wanyin pulls over to the side and clenches and then unclenches at the steering wheel. He looks at Nie Huaisang, eyes piercing, reaches over, and wipes the tears streaming in ugly blobs down his cheeks. “Never.”
He takes a deep breath, turns to the back, and calls out, “You alright in there?”
“No,” Wei Wuxian says.
“Good,” he says, restarting the engine. “Cause this is all your fucking fault.”
-
When Nie Huaisang wakes, he realizes three things in this order: that he remembers everything, that he has no hangover to speak of, and that Jiang Wanyin is sitting on his uncomfortably tiny couch, glaring at two steaming cups of coffee on the coffee table.
Nie Huaisang is still in last night’s clothes, breath reeking of alcohol, hair disheveled, but Jiang Wanyin tells him to sit down on the opposite end of the couch, so he does.
Jiang Wanyin opens his mouth, but Nie Huaisang, unable to bear it, speaks first.
“I’ve loved you for as long as I remember.”
-
Jiang Wanyin takes him to the highest point of the city, atop the tower with the glass floors, at the tip of the spire that is only accessible by a steel staircase. He has their fingers entwined as he leads him past people in fancy outfits that likely cost more than Nie Huaisang’s entire life savings, past building’s security that do not even glancing at their direction, past doors that should be locked but open with the touch of Jiang Wanyin’s fingers. They stand atop that spire like angels on the head of the pin, and Jiang Wanyin beckons him to look.
The city lights glimmer once, and rise, like fireflies, surrounding both of them in a soothing, ethereal glow.
Jiang Wanyin reaches out to Nie Huaisang’s cheek and traces the faint, almost unnoticeable shadow of the snake with the tip of his thumb.
“I don’t know you hadn’t figured it out,” he says, frowning. “I guess it’s Their attempt at matchmaking.”
“Their?” Nie Huaisang says, breathless.
The lights vibrate.
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Jiang Wanyin says. “Self-satisfied asshole.”
And he drags Nie Huaisang in for a kiss.