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“Sit,” says Nie Huaisang. “Stay still. Don’t you dare move.”
Lan Wangji sits.
Nie Huaisang bustles around the inn, emanating ire with deft flicks of his wrists as he rolls back his sleeves. He is silent as he gathers a small washbasin and a few washcloths from various places around their inn room, the air growing thicker and thicker with tension in the quiet.
Wangji shifts slightly on the bed and Nie Huaisang whips his head around to eye him balefully. Lan Wangji stills.
Nie Huaisang gazes at him, eyes narrowed, for a few long seconds before grunting and turning away again.
Wangji sighs. It is rare for his lover to be so angry. He can count on one hand the previous times he had seen Nie Huaisang like this with fingers to spare. And Wangji is far from the type to make him angry for his own amusement.
But there is something so incandescent, so magnetic in Nie Huaisang’s fury that Wangji can’t help but be drawn in to watch. It reminds him of a flower blooming cold, like viewing a firework show without the overwhelming noise. Every little movement is so controlled, every breath precise in a way that occupies the entire space of the room.
Lan Wangji had heard of the rumours, unavoidable even as forbidden as they are in Cloud Recesses, whispers that the late Nie-zongzhu’s second wife had not been from any of the respectable cultivation families, but instead a mere courtesan. A dancer. Wangji himself had never given them much thought, but when he watches Nie Huaisang like this he is reminded of the tales that were told about how Nie Fengrong had fallen fast and hard for the late Nie-furen when she had danced for him while masked, believes it in a way he would not be able to explain, if anyone asked.
The stillness of Nie Huaisang’s face. The careful way he moves his robes out of the way to sit. How he sets the items in his arms down one by one, laying them out almost like items in a tea ceremony without making a sound. Lan Wangji is entranced by the performance.
Nie Huaisang takes up one of the washcloths and dips it into the water basin, holding his sleeve out of the way. Then he reaches up, tugs Wangji’s robes open at the neck, and presses the damp cloth to the laceration high on Wangji’s collarbone. His fingers are careful, the cloth soft and gentle on the wound. The water slowly turns a pinkish colour as he dips the washcloth in and out.
And throughout it all his face remains impassive, the fine lines of his features still as a painting. But at this distance it is clear that the stillness is just a veneer. Wangji can see the turbulence in Nie Huaisang’s eyes, the sharp fear behind it as he traces over the edges of Wangji’s wound.
“One breath closer,” Nie Huaisang mutters. “One breath and it would have torn your throat out.”
“It did not,” Wangji replies, and that piercing gaze whips to lock onto Wangji’s eyes.
“ Shut up ,” Nie Huaisang hisses through his teeth, the white rows bared and exposing the raw fury beneath the impassive mask. “You almost died . You-”
Nie Huaisang breaks off, closing his eyes.
“You just… Why are you so…”
Wangji waits for him to find the words, but it seems like they are out of reach for Nie Huaisang, the man eventually shaking his head and sighing in resignation.
“Never mind,” he says, turning away. “I’ll just… just…”
Lan Wangji cannot let him leave that way, cannot bear the thought of Nie Huaisang locking his heart against Wangji once more. He takes hold of Nie Huaisang’s fingers as it falls from his chest and pulls him in.
Nie Huaisang turns back to him, a startled yelp caught on his throat, and Lan Wangji leans down to press a kiss to his knuckles.
“I am sorry,” he says, his free hand falling to sit on the curve of Nie Huaisang’s waist.
About worrying him, about getting injured. About the fight that had left them not speaking to each other for months. Wangji cannot even remember the reason for it now, but the sharpness of the words and the bitter taste in his mouth when he had watched Nie Huaisang walk away from him, those he remembers clearly.
“I did not want to hurt you,” says Wangji, his gaze fixed on his lover’s face. “But I have. I am sorry, Nie Huaisang.”
Nie Huaisang avoids his eyes, holding very still, and Wangji feels a brief jolt of blinding fear. Does his lover not believe him?
“Huaisang,” He ducks down to meet his gaze again.
“...Stupid,” Nie Huaisang mutters. “What did you grab at me for.”
Wangji relaxes at the gruff tone. “Huaisang was too far away.”
He curls an arm around the other man and ignores the twinge of pain from his wound to pull him into his lap. Nie Huaisang lets him, looking down at him from his now heightened position with an impassive expression.
Wangji almost shivers at the picture he makes, perched there on his thighs. Nie Huaisang’s figure is backlit by the lamplight, casting Wangji’s body in shadow. He seems more like a dream than a living and breathing figure in this light, his lines and angles simultaneously softened and defined. A painting at close range, bold strokes of a brush with frayed ends.
The solid weight of him pins Wangji down like a good blanket, and he hums in contentment at the feeling, his hands running down Nie Huaisang’s legs and up to his hips. He leans up and presses his mouth onto the notch in between Nie Huaisang’s collarbones.
“I am sorry,” he mutters into the skin there, laying down a kiss in the wake of the words. “It was my fault.”
A sigh, then Nie Huaisang moves finally. “It wasn’t,” he says, hands running through Wangji’s hair. Wangji can feel them tremble slightly as they work to smooth out the strands. “I said some things that were… I’m sorry too.”
Wangji nuzzles his nose past the layers of fabric that covers Nie Huaisang’s chest and presses in against the warmth of his skin. He can feel the flutter of Nie Huaisang’s heartbeat against his eyelashes, soft, a little fast from anger and exertion.
“Never again,” says Nie Huaisang, voice thick and tight. He clutches onto the back of Wangji’s robes as if Wangji would disappear if he were to let go.
Wangji strokes a hand over his lover’s back soothingly. “Never again.”