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“Die!” The child calls out. “A-Die, look!”
Huaisang looks up from his letter to see his son dripping mud onto the floor of his office. He smiles helplessly through his headache, sighing. “What is this? A slime monster? Tell me, ghoul! How did you get through my guards!”
The boy giggles. “Not a slime monster!”
“Are you sure,” Nie Huaisang asks, feigning a confused look. “Surely you cannot be my son? Oh no, my son is a good, clean boy!”
“A-Dieeee!” The child rolls his eyes. “Fuqin, A-Die is being silly again.”
“Hmm.”
A rustle of silk. Huaisang turns his head and sees a tall figure in white, striding over to the child at the door. He looks the child over carefully, going as far as to take out a talisman and pasting it on the child’s chest. Huaisang can see from behind his desk that the paper is blank.
“What do you think, husband?” he says folding his hands under his chin, blinking a wave of dizziness away. “Should we get a spirit net?”
A hum. “Unsure,” he says. The child squawks and more talisman papers are pulled out, held at the ready as he retreats back to the desk. “I will protect Huaisang.”
“Fuqin, no!”
The child circles the desk, still dripping mud, and barrels straight into Huaisang’s legs. Huaisang catches him reflexively by the shoulders but knows his expensive brocade robes are done for.
“A-Die! I just wanted to show you this!”
The child holds out his dirty cupped hands to Huaisang’s face.
“Oh? What’s this?” Huaisang peers inside the little cave made by the child’s closed palm. “A frog?”
“Mm! From the pond! Can we keep it A-Die?”
“I don’t know, I don’t think it would be very happy out of the water.”
“It can live in my bath!” says the child. “It’s only little, so it won’t take up much room.”
“In your bath, you say,” Huaisang pulls out a handkerchief to wipe the worst of the muck from the child’s face, his hand slightly shaking. “And what will you feed it?”
“I’ll catch some flies! Lots and lots.”
“It’ll need to eat every day.”
“I’ll catch some every day!”
“What about your lessons then?”
“I’ll… I’ll do the lessons at night!”
“Oho! But I thought night time was guqin time.”
“Um! I-!” The child hesitates, then turns to the other man in the room. “Fuqin, can I keep it?”
Huaisang cuffs him gently on the head. “Oi, what is this.”
“Please, Fuqin,” the child pouts, ignoring Huaisang entirely.
But the man only hums, patting him gently on the head. “If your Die says so.”
Huaisang raises an eyebrow at him. “Only if I say so, hm? And that sword you got him last month? Did you wait for my say so then?”
The man blinks, unconcerned. “It was a gift. Not for training.”
“Uhuh,” says Huaisang. “And the horse?”
“For your stables, not for him.”
“Sure,” Huaisang grins. “And the qiankun pouch full of tanghulu is also for me.”
The man brings his face in close, dropping a kiss onto Huaisang’s cheek. “If husband would like some sweets, he needs only to say so.”
“Hmm,” Huaisang nuzzles their noses together, hand rising to cup a cheek. “This one’s husband dotes on him so.”
The man closes his eyes, smiling ever so slightly. “And yet. This one’s husband repays him by disfiguring his face. So cruel. This one must retire from the shame.”
Huaisang laughs, patting his cheek again with his muddy hand. “Baths for everyone, I think.” He leans up and presses a kiss against that warm mouth, ignoring the “ew, gross!” coming from the muddy child in his lap. “Carry me?” he says. “My legs are numb from sitting too long.”
“A-Die is spoiled!” cries the child.
“No more than you are, you little rascal!” says Huaisang, pinching a cheek. “Now let’s go before we stain the wall hangings too!”
Huaisang is lifted into a warm chest, and he settles in shamelessly, looping his arms around his husband’s neck with a sigh. He closes his eyes as a wave of dizziness comes over him again, nuzzling his face into white robes. He doesn’t try to fight it, having learnt his lesson from last time.
He presses his ear against that warm chest, straining his sense to listen. For long moments he hears nothing, until suddenly, as if just reminded, the heart inside beats in a steady rhythm again.
“Come on, Fuqin!”
Huaisang smiles at the child blankly before tucking his head into his husband’s neck. “You’re not them,” he whispers. “You can pretend, but no matter what you do, it doesn’t change that fact. You’re not them, and it’s just not the same.”
The arms around him tighten, and Huaisang can feel bruises forming on his shoulder and thighs where the hands grip.
“Maybe so,” his husband replies in Lan Wangji’s voice. “But they are not here. We are.”
Nie Huaisang takes in a careful breath as his head spins.
“We are here, and we love you.”
Nie Huaisang exhales carefully, swallowing down the bile that threatens to rise up, stinging his throat.
“We love you. When you waited, in need. When no one would come. We did. We came and loved you when no one would.”
“Stay? A-Die, would you stay?”
“Stay. Stay where you are safe and loved.”
Nie Huaisang closes his eyes.