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By the time Lan Xichen comes out of seclusion, Nie Huaisang is Chief Cultivator, and he walks with a cane. It’s almost enough to make him turn around and walk right back into the hanshi.
A fucking cane.
He isn’t even forty. But apparently the Headshaker routine was just not pathetic enough to allay suspicions.
*
It’s eerie, watching him work the meetings - he still flutters and whines, shakes his head. He flits like a bird between oh, I don’t know, it’s just too complicated, maybe we’d better not, and oh, that’s such a good idea, Fu-Zongshu, I mean I don’t really get it but it sounds wonderful - you’ll be in charge of it, won’t you? And Rong-Zongzhu, you send someone to help! Since it’s so important.
Discarding things he doesn’t approve of, flattering Sect Leaders proposing useful measures while making them do most of the work and forcing them to cooperate with a rival who’ll keep them honest. It’s all very…deft.
He just announces things that Jin Guangyao would have spent hours or weeks maneuvering, and blithely tramples anyone who doesn’t agree. Somehow, Nie Huaisang’s chatter and neat redirection grind through the entire agenda with two hours to spare, which Lan Xichen has never seen happen at a Cultivation Conference before.
*
The last item involves a strange curse that’s been popping up, but no one knows much about it - cultivators torn from their living bodies, trapped in mirrors or nearby animals or tumbled on the winds for days. Most of the cultivators affected have been restored after a few days, provided their insensate bodies are cared for in the meantime. Of the four probable victims who haven’t survived, three fell from their swords, and one - a Yunmeng Jiang disciple, swimming since before she could walk - drowned.
Not all of them were restored whole, though. A woman cast into a fish lost the power of speech, could only gasp and gurgle, communicating her experience largely through gesture and painting. A Zhou disciple who landed in a nearby mirror forgot his own name and the faces of his family; an Ouyang disciple trapped in a different mirror was convinced after that moving too fast would shatter him into dozens of pieces. The ones on the winds were disoriented and sometimes spiritually shredded, their qi and even their cores badly disturbed. Some struggled to concentrate or remember where they were from minute to minute, or lost their sense of balance, or shuddered in agony at any brush of breeze.
Lan Xichen volunteers that Inquiry has been unable to reach their spirits; hopefully it means they have returned to the cycle properly, despite the strangeness and suddenness of their deaths. Sect Leader Yu has suggestions for particularly strong energy infusions that might help pull the spirits back to their rightful bodies, almost like Zidian’s ghost-expulsion effect in reverse, and everyone has an opinion on that.
But no one knows whether it is a curse created by an unknown wicked cultivator, or some kind of failed possession, a gui evicting the rightful inhabitant of a body but unable to replace it, or some even stranger spiritual creature or effect. What little signs they’ve found so far - sudden vertigo, bleeding under the fingernails, thin bar-like shadows on the ground - could mean almost anything, and the arguments start going in circles.
“Uhg! How do you all make a mystery curse boring, I really don’t know! If you learn anything interesting, tell me tomorrow. I’m going to get a drink! Jiang-xiong, help me up -”
Nie Huaisang gropes Jiang Wanyin’s shoulder shamelessly before getting his cane under him, and somehow manages to flounce out of the hall while hobbling. Just like that, the meeting is dismissed for the day.
*
Yunmeng Jiang is hosting. Lan Xichen finds an out of the way pier and breathes deeply. He’d thought, when he left seclusion, that he might never want to be alone again, but the crowd of the conference is - more. Than he expected. He just wants a moment alone.
He doesn’t get it.
He can hear Nie Huaisang coming, the soft syncopated thunk thunk thunk of his cane. The foot of it must be padded, because it doesn’t make much noise on solid floors, but hollow space between the wood and the water creates a distinct echo.
“Er-ge -”
Lan Xichen turns and gives Nie Huaisang his blandest smile.
“Can I help you, Excellency?”
Nie Huaisang’s face falls. His cheeks are flushed and he’s slightly out of breath. It suits him.
“I just - wanted to ask how you are.”
“The Lan Clan is always available to assist our Chief Cultivator.”
“That’s not -”
“If there’s nothing else you require of me, I’ll retire now.” He turns and walks away, making the best of his long legs to go faster than Nie Huaisang can comfortably without running, even before he started pretending to use that damn cane.
“Wait, please -”
Thunkthunkthunk -
There’s a sudden crash and bright wordless cry of pain, because Nie Huaisang truly is shameless. Lan Xichen imagines he can feel Nie Huaisang’s eyes on his back, his hand yanking on his robes like he did when they were children, chasing along - Lan Xichen had always stopped, always turned, waited or simply carried him, if Mingjue didn’t beat him to scooping his brother up onto his shoulders.
He expects Nie Huaisang to call for him again, Er-ge, Er-ge help, Er-ge please -
He’s heard it so many times, it rings in his ears. Nie Huaisang doesn’t voice it this time, though. Lan Xichen doesn’t turn around. Even he can learn, eventually.
*
The last day of the conference, Nie Huaisang catches him alone again, after breakfast.
“Zewu-Jun.”
It sounds very wrong, in Nie Huaisang’s voice. He’s <i>never</i> called Lan Xichen by his title before. Lan Xichen thought the formality would feel, if not like victory, at least like relief. He reminds himself that the only thing he’s lost is another lie.
“Excellency.”
“I wanted to ask if the Lan have tried playing Inquiry for the spirits that are - displaced, while the bodies are safeguarded.”
Lan Xichen shakes his head. “The spirits are neither dead nor dying - it’s unlikely to work.”
“But have you tried?”
“Once.”
“Right, well, if I want to try again, do I have your permission to ask for a Lan Cultivator to attempt to contact the next victim?”
“The Lan are always available to assist you, Excellency.”
Nie Huaisang’s face twists, then turns simpering.
“If it’s too much trouble, you could just teach someone else the song. We know you don’t mind doing that, don’t we, Zewu-Jun?”
Lan Xichen feels his stomach drop. Facing Huaisang was a mistake. He’ll never not be responsible - and Huaisang will never let him forget it, and Lan Xichen can’t even argue that he should.
“...Er-ge?” The sweet rotten-fruit smile has fallen off Huaisang’s face. Lan Xichen looks at the ground as though he might find it there. His head swims, and the ground seems too close and too far away - oh, there’s blood - little red drops on the ground, although he isn’t sure where from -
He looks back at Nie Huaisang, even as he wavers on his feet. If Nie Huaisang is hurt - Lan Xichen can’t see a wound on him, but he looks distressed, why is he -
No, wait, it’s probably another trick -
But the blood -
“Er-ge!”
Nie Huaisang surges forward and then stumbles; reflexively Lan Xichen reaches to catch him, but Nie Huaisang isn’t throwing himself into Lan Xichen’s arms this time, he’s pushing him -
Lan Xichen stumbles backwards, and he feels something tear under his skin. He keeps trying to reach for Nie Huaisang, drifting closer even as his arms fail to obey him. Nie Huaisang sprawls on the ground where Lan Xichen had been standing, narrow bars of shadow slicing through him in a grid that looks almost like an array, but stark and simplified, or like a scatter of yarrow sticks. His face is almost perfectly bisected into light and dark, twisted in pain before suddenly going slack.
A-Sang! Lan Xichen tries to call out to him but he can’t, his throat doesn’t answer, he can only strain forward -
He feels like he’s falling, like he stumbled into a slick-sided pit and can’t stop himself, rushing and then slamming to a disorienting stop.
He blinks his eyes and looks up at - himself.
“Er-ge?” asks Lan Xichen’s own face, crumpled in worry and confusion.
“I - “ He tries to stand and a skewer of fire stabs through his leg. Lan Xichen lets himself collapse again, breathing shallowly through it rather than make any noise of complaint.
“What happened?” he asks, when his voice is steadier. Only it’s - not his voice. It’s Huaisang’s.
He feels strong hands lifting him up, turning him so that he can sit comfortably and lean some weight back on his hands. He can’t remember the last time someone carried or moved him like this.
Is that really what his chin looks like from below? It’s really far too much chin. Someone should have told him.
Also his leg hurts, but then those same strong hands are working the muscles around the pain, and the pressure is a deep relief.
“We were both displaced. Only we sort of - caught each other, I think.”
Lan Xichen stares down at his own hand on his - on - that’s Nie Huaisang’s leg. His hands move without his awareness, oozing blood from under the fingernails, leaving dark droplets on Nie Huaisang’s grey trousers.
“Your clothes -”
“Don’t worry about that,” Nie Huaisang murmurs. “I’m sorry you’re - stuck with me.”
It hurts. Lan Xichen really doesn’t need to whine.
“What happened?”
“Er-ge - the - the curse -”
“No, to your leg, I thought -” he cuts himself off before he can reveal his own uncharitable assumptions.
“....Er-ge. I was stabbed in Yunping. You were there.”
“Oh. But - I mean -”
Nie Huaisang hisses. It sounds extremely strange in Lan Xichen’s mouth.
“Yes, I did it to myself, but I was in a panic and I must have hit an important meridian because it didn’t heal right, okay?”
Lan Xichen wonders what he’s supposed to do with that.
“Look, I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me. I’d do it again.”
Lan Xichen knew that. He did. But it’s different from hearing it so baldly, when he’s still in pain.
“I’d like to go home, now,” he announces.
Nie Huaisang gingerly withdraws Lan Xichen’s hands from his leg.
“We should probably study the -”
“And we can do that in the Cloud Recesses.”
“...okay.” Nie Huaisang tries to hand him the cane even as he reaches for Nie Huaisang’s saber.
Hhhhhmmmmmmnnnnnnoooo…
It’s not a voice, exactly, more like a feeling, a warm growly warning like a yawning lion, shivering up the bones of his arm and settling in his chest.
Yes, actually, he thinks sternly as he pulls a thread of energy gingerly from Huaisang’s golden core and tries to bid the saber to hover steadily for him, only to feel like he’s shoved his hand directly into a thornbush.
HOWDAREYOUHOWDAREYOUHOWDAREYOUHOWDA-
The sudden surge of anger is so foreign, and yet it feels good even as it burns him, it feels right, feels like taking off a pair of too-tight boots he’s worn for years. It echoes up and down his bones, and Lan Xichen takes deep, shuddering breaths, savoring all the rough, vicious edges of the saber’s anger more the more clearly he can feel it. It settles snugly in his heart like a bird in a nest. How dare you try to use me, I am not your saber to wield -
Ah. Hmm. This...might be a problem.
“Er-ge? Are you -”
Huaisang can’t seem to bring himself to say okay. At least he has some sense of farce.
“Your saber can...tell I’m not you. It seems to view me as....presumptuous.”
“Uhg, of course he does. Suanni, you useless pigsticker, this is already a mess -” Huaisang mutters, and he wraps Lan Xichen’s hand around his saber’s hilt. Lan Xichen can feel the squeeze like an echo of a fan swatting a dog, or his Uncle’s hand cuffing the back of his head once when he was small, when he’d muttered something uncomplimentary about Jin Guangshan under his breath at a banquet.
“I can give you back Shuoyue -”
“I don’t think your core has enough strength to keep her in the sky,” Lan Xichen murmurs, because mumbling is not befitting of a Sect Leader or a Lan, but he looks away while he says it. He’s also not sure he could balance all the way back to the Cloud Recesses, not on Huaisang’s bad leg.
“Oh, hmm, that’s definitely true,” Huaisang agrees, seemingly unconcerned, unoffended by it. “She seems like she’ll tolerate me, though. If you will.”
That’s the question, isn’t it?
He’s tired and hurt and more helpless than he’s been in years, and he wants to go home, and Huaisang -
(howdareyou)
Huaisang tried to push him out of the way. He might be losing pieces of himself at that very moment, otherwise. Lan Xichen makes himself meet his own eyes. His face isn’t practiced at Husiang’s style of concealment; Huaisang’s nervous, hopeful expression makes him look horribly young, younger than Lan Xichen can remember feeling in - ever, maybe. Slowly, Lan Xichen nods.
“Okay,” Huaisang murmurs, handing him the cane successfully, this time. “Hold on tight. I’m going to need that, when we fix this.” Then he gathers Lan Xichen in a careful embrace that doesn’t jostle the hurt leg at all.
Lan Xichen tucks Huiasang’s face against his own neck as they rise smoothly into the sky, shuddering as too many feelings slosh back and forth in his chest.
When we fix this.
Some hurts don’t heal clean. But Lan Xichen grips the cane like a lifeline, and chooses to believe him.