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When Jiang Cheng finds Nie Mingjue at their favourite pavilion, just staring out at the water he instantly knows that something is wrong.
“What’s bothering you, my soul?” he asks as he drapes himself over Nie Mingjue’s back.
“Nothing,” Nie Mingjue gives back but his voice is solemn and by now Jiang Cheng knows his husband’s thinking voice so he also knows that something definitely is up.
But it seems as if Nie Mingjue is not yet ready to talk about.
“If you find that there is something the matter you’ll tell me, though, right?” he can’t help but to ask even though their relationship has always been founded on open communication.
“Sure,” Nie Mingjue says as he brings his arms up to tightly grip onto Jiang Cheng’s arm. “I’ll tell you then.”
“Alright,” Jiang Cheng whispers as he noses at Nie Mingjue’s temple.
For now that is really all he can ask Nie Mingjue to do. So far he has always brought things to Jiang Cheng eventually, it’s just that sometimes he needs a little while to turn things over in his own mind before he’s ready to voice them out loud and Jiang Cheng is fine with that.
They wouldn’t have stayed together for decades at this point if that weren’t the case.
“You wanna be alone?” Jiang Cheng eventually asks and lets out a startled laugh when Nie Mingjue pulls him over his shoulder into his lap.
“No,” Nie Mingjue says and arranges Jiang Cheng to his own liking until he’s sitting with his back to Nie Mingjue’s chest.
“I see,” Jiang Cheng laughs out and leans his head back on Nie Mingjue’s shoulder. “What a hardship for me.”
“Thought so,” Nie Mingjue gives back and drops a kiss to Jiang Cheng’s cheek. “You don’t have anywhere to be, do you?” he then belatedly asks and Jiang Cheng shakes his head.
“No. I had to sit in on a meeting this morning but I am free now and I doubt that anyone is going to bother us here.”
The disciples all know not to bother them at this particular pavilion and so far only an extreme emergency could warrant an interruption to their time together.
And Jiang Cheng trained the current Sect Leader too well for that to happen. His own role is that as an advisor, just like Nie Mingjue is to his grandson in Qinghe but they live in a time of peace now. The matters usually don’t get more serious than bickering over trade routes.
“Then stay here,” Nie Mingjue says, his arms tightening just slightly around Jiang Cheng’s middle and there’s a melancholy to his voice that makes Jiang Cheng frown.
“Are you unhappy, my soul?” he can’t help but to ask, even though Nie Mingjue has said he doesn’t want to talk about it yet but now Jiang Cheng worries.
Spending immortality with just one person can get a bit much, they were aware of those dangers, but Jiang Cheng hopes that this isn’t about that. He wouldn’t know what to do if Nie Mingjue told him he tired of him already.
“Stop that,” Nie Mingjue chides him and pinches his side, making Jiang Cheng flinch.
“I haven’t even done anything,” Jiang Cheng protests even as Nie Mingjue immediately shakes his head.
“You’re worrying even though there’s no need to. I love you. That’s not going to change, ever. So stop that line of thought right now.”
Jiang Cheng narrows his eyes at him.
“Can you read minds? Is that a new power you developed?” he wants to know and Nie Mingjue huffs.
“I just know you too well. I know how you think. And I am telling you that there’s no reason to worry. I’m not going to tire of you.”
“That’s so creepy,” Jiang Cheng mutters even as his worry is put to rest for now by Nie Mingjue’s reassuring words. “But alright.”
“Good,” Nie Mingjue nods and then falls silent, his gaze drawn back to the waters in front of them and Jiang Cheng matches him.
His soul will eventually come out with whatever is bothering him and until then Jiang Cheng will stay right by his side.
~*~*~
“My soul, it’s been days now,” Jiang Cheng says when he finds Nie Mingjue at the pavilion again. “And by now other people started to worry, too. Do you even know how many concerned disciples came up to me today to ask what’s wrong with you?”
“It’s nothing,” Nie Mingjue waves him off but Jiang Cheng has had enough.
He’s not joking about the disciples; on the way over to Nie Mingjue alone he was stopped seven times. And it’s grating on him a bit, especially since he can’t even give them an honest answer.
“It’s clearly something,” Jiang Cheng says as he sits down next to Nie Mingjue. “Are you bored, is that it? Do we need to go for a while?”
“What? No, I love it here,” Nie Mingjue gives back and his answer is immediate enough that Jiang Cheng believes him. Still.
“You can love it here and still feel stifled. It’s okay if we need to go out for night hunts more frequently. But you have to say that. I can’t read minds, unlike some other people here.”
“I keep telling you, I can’t read minds either. I just can read your mind,” Nie Mingjue sighs out and then reaches out to take Jiang Cheng’s hand in his. “I don’t need to go out. I am actually enjoying the fact that we don’t have to go out anymore.”
“But something is bothering you. It’s bothering you enough that it has the entirety of Lotus Pier worried, me included. What can I do to make it better?” Jiang Cheng asks and cups Nie Mingjue’s cheek in his hand. “Come on, tell me,” he cajoles when Nie Mingjue still stays stubbornly silent.
“Do we have to go to Qinghe then? Do you need a change of scenery? Or a change from me? Am I bothering you?” Jiang Cheng asks, mostly to get a reaction out of Nie Mingjue because he knows that the last two are definitely not it.
“Will you finally stop that,” Nie Mingjue huffs out and interlocks their fingers. “You know I could never tire of you. I didn’t cultivate to immortality with you to get tired of you barely a century later.”
“Alright,” Jiang Cheng nods. “Then what? Because it is something, I know that, don’t even try to deny it. Just tell me already.”
Jiang Cheng stares Nie Mingjue down until he finally sighs.
“Fine,” Nie Mingjue whispers and breaks eye contact. “It’s just—we’re not going to grow old together,” he finally says and it’s surprising enough that it makes Jiang Cheng speechless.
“We’re immortal,” Jiang Cheng gives back, still a bit flabbergasted. “We’re not going to grow old together because we’re going to stay together forever, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Nie Mingjue immediately gives back and Jiang Cheng is relieved that at least that is not one of his concerns.
“See, this is why I didn’t want to talk about this,” Nie Mingjue grumbles. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“I’m sorry for pushing,” Jiang Cheng says and he feels honestly bad. He knows that Nie Mingjue sometimes needs to ruminate over things before he can say them out loud and now he pushed him into doing it prematurely.
“But now you’ve got me curious,” he then adds and Nie Mingjue sighs.
“I know, but I need to sort through my thoughts for a moment.”
“Okay, I’ll just sit here and be silent for a change,” Jiang Cheng immediately says and it brings a smile out and that is really all that counts.
It takes Nie Mingjue a while before he speaks again but Jiang Cheng continues to stay silent and simply enjoys sitting with him.
“I didn’t think I would ever grow old,” Nie Mingjue finally says out of the blue and Jiang Cheng turns towards him again. “I thought I would die long before that, you know.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Those days weren’t the best ones, because Jiang Cheng had worried so much for Nie Mingjue as well, seeing how frequent the qi-deviations were at that time.
But they did find a solution for them eventually, promising Nie Mingjue at least a normal life that would not get cut short through that. The fact that they cultivated to immortality two years later is only an unexpected but welcome bonus.
“But then you found the solution and suddenly that was a possibility for me. Growing old, together with you.”
“But?” Jiang Cheng wants to know because he’s sure there’s a but to come.
“But then we cultivated to immortality and now that is gone again,” Nie Mingjue sighs out.
“The growing old part?” Jiang Cheng asks for clarification and frowns when Nie Mingjue nods.
“We’re not going to grow old, together or otherwise. I was looking forward to aging together, you know, but now we will never have that.”
“Aging together?”
“I was looking forward to teasing you about your wrinkles and pointing out new ones to you. I was excited to see your hair turn grey. But we won’t get that.”
Nie Mingjue seems honestly sad about that and Jiang Cheng doesn’t understand.
“But we can have that, my soul, did you forget that?” he wants to know and going by the surprised look he gets Nie Mingjue really did forget about that.
“Silly,” Jiang Cheng chides him. “We cultivated to immortality. It should be easy to figure out how to age despite that.”
“What if we have to seal our cultivation for that?”
“Then we do it. We can unseal it once you get on my nerves, complaining about your back pain and how you’re no longer able to do things only a twenty-year-old can do,” Jiang Cheng teases him. “And then we go back to being young and spry for a while. We have time, my soul. We have all the time in the world.”
“You would do that?” Nie Mingjue whispers out and he seems honestly shocked.
“Of course I would,” Jiang Cheng immediately replies. “Now that you mentioned it, I kinda see what you mean. Seeing you with grey hair would be a special kind of pleasure,” Jiang Cheng says, his voice all soft and he playfully tugs on one of Nie Mingjue’s strands. “And I bet you would look amazing with laughter lines, too.”
Jiang Cheng moves his hand so he can caress the corner of Nie Mingjue’s eyes.
“Knowing that we grow old together after everything we went through would mean a whole lot actually.”
“Yeah,” Nie Mingjue agrees, his gaze softening when he meets Jiang Cheng’s eyes. “I didn’t think it would happen, and then suddenly there was that possibility and then it was gone again. I just—I would like to grow old with you, at least once.”
“Then let’s do it,” Jiang Cheng decides. “We can probably figure out how to keep aging despite our cultivation and how to reverse it, too. Maybe we can reverse it quite a bit and be teenage lovers,” he teases Nie Mingjue, who laughs.
“Would you really want to be a teenager again, though?” he asks and Jiang Cheng is quick to shake his head.
“Hell no,” he gives back. “But for you I would,” he then adds. “And once the world changes enough we might have to anyway.”
“True,” Nie Mingjue breathes out, leaning in for a kiss. “But first I’d like to age together with you.”
“Wish granted,” Jiang Cheng mumbles against his lips before he deepens the kiss.
They will have to figure out just how exactly they can manage this but Jiang Cheng doesn’t doubt for a second that between them they will find a way. They have figured out more impossible things after all and this seems easy in comparison.
Especially now that Jiang Cheng really does want to see Nie Mingjue with grey hair. It’s a good motivator.