make a wish on my love

by Sofia

Content warnings: light violence, descriptions of dissociation and depersonalisation

Killing on command has a way of merging months into days into hours. Time for Jiang Cheng is measured by when the mission starts, when he secures the kill, when he reports back. As a routine it’s solid and comforting in its certainty.

And if he wakes, cold light pulling at his eyes, with a dull ache in his chest, the raw of an unhealed wound yet months later...well. His mask is iron, and the pain is forged from fire; it’s always there, and so it never is.

---

It’s dark in the Unclean Realm when he returns, one day, trailing blood. People are buzzing around him, medics trying to slow him down as he drags himself across the outer courtyard. Jiang Cheng doesn’t know why their faces look so desperate. It doesn’t occur to him to mind it, the visceral life slipping from the wound in his gut; like oil from the machine. It can always be replaced. They never come close enough to touch him so he ignores them, focusing instead on climbing up the stairs.

Even leaning on his sword to keep him upright it takes Jiang Cheng too long. Every press of his sword into the stone jars the exhausted muscles in his arm and the medics never stop their endless chatter, keeping up with even his slowest pace. By the time he reaches the doors Jiang Cheng is scowling and his face is wet with tears or sweat or both.

Jiang Cheng feels more than sees when Nie Huaisang runs towards him from where light seeps through the open doors of the hall. As he approaches, Jiang Cheng’s legs finally give out; he falls to his knees just as Nie Huaisang’s hands close around his shoulders and then slide up to settle along his jaw. As Nie Huaisang drops to kneel in front of him, Jiang Cheng finally looks up. Nie Huaisang is frowning, the sharp edges of him softened in worry, his hands more gentle than what they usually allow between them. Jiang Cheng’s skin feels numb and the touch is alien, no different than the fleeting pressure of the night air around them.

More, all this care is unearned, undeserved. Jiang Cheng rasps out; “I failed.” At Huaisang’s questioning expression he adds, “The mission, I failed it. That Wen bastard’s not dead.”

It’s surreal; there’s no tightening of features in anger, a sanding down of the performance of care. Huaisang’s face becomes, amazingly, more concerned, twisting visibly now, the dusk of his lips thinning into a tight line.

“Who cares,” Huaisang says, an almost-whisper, “you’re bleeding.”

For the first time in days, their eyes meet. All the feeling returns to Jiang Cheng in a wave, shaking his spine with its intensity. Suddenly, Nie Huaisang’s concern is unbearable; he needs, desperately, a distraction. He needs something corporeal to cling to, something to drown out the reality that’s taken hold of his bones, the yawning abyss of sense memory. Jiang Cheng closes his eyes, takes a breath, calms the shaking of his body. His sword drops to the floor as he finally lets go, his fingers stiff from how hard they’ve been wrapped around the hilt. Never opening his eyes, he trails his fingers up Nie Huaisang’s chest, until Jiang Cheng’s thumb rests on the hollow of his throat.

Jiang Cheng feels Nie Huaisang take a sharp breath as he leans forward and presses their lips together. It quietens his mind almost immediately, like his body filters out the insistent hum of his mind to focus on the buzzing beneath his skin. Nie Huaisang is pliant, then desperate; his hands slide up to grip Jiang Cheng’s hair, and he presses himself forward. Then he must push too far, and Jiang Cheng can’t hold back a wince as the wound in his stomach protests the movement. Nie Huaisang pulls back immediately. He’s frowning still and it makes him look younger, confused and helpless.

“You need to let the medics look at that.” Nie Huaisang’s voice is insistent, but he kisses back eagerly when Jiang Cheng leans back in to distract him.

It works for a few more minutes, until Nie Huaisang pushes forward again and Jiang Cheng’s entire body twitches. Nie Huaisang doesn’t pull back as quickly this time, leaning back just enough so that Jiang Cheng’s body can curl up around his wound.

Then, Nie Huaisang whispers, so quietly that it’s almost no more than a breath; “A-Cheng”, and the buzzing serenity of Jiang Cheng’s mind is shattered.

“Don’t call me that,” Jiang Cheng says, a hiss in the silence that’s grown around them. Nie Huaisang flinches but doesn’t open his eyes, pulling back into a posture that’s eerily perfect if not for the way his breathing is still heavy. After a few moments, when Jiang Cheng has dragged himself upright again, Nie Huaisang opens his eyes.

“Just go.” His voice has taken on its usual cool, efficient tone, and he doesn’t look in Jiang Cheng’s direction again. Jiang Cheng waits no longer than a breath before he turns to stubbornly drag himself inside.

---

Sometimes he wakes up and it’s like the skies clearing. Jiang Cheng can feel, for the first time in years, the same clarity of mind that used to drive him when he was a child. Some restless determination to just keep going; focus on his cultivation, do what’s right for his family, be the perfect son. Then he remembers how he failed, in all of this, and the fog rises again.

“It’s not healthy,” Huaisang says when he sees that clarity in his eyes, “to live in the past.”

For Huaisang, the past is only a curiosity, not a refuge. In his least charitable moments, Jiang Cheng despises him, if only for this. For the way Huaisang lives entirely in the present, pointed unerringly at some vision of a future goal. Twined together, long nights of wordless comfort, and Jiang Cheng pities him; the memories lost, the endless stretch of nebulous future.

Maybe, he thinks, this is why it hurts so much, the full force of Huaisang’s concern on him. It pushes him out into a present he can’t live with and a future he can’t imagine. Or maybe, Jiang Cheng thinks in the harsh light of the midday sun, it’s the way that concern is so fleeting.

---

Huaisang’s face never lost its boyish charm. That’s the worst part of seeing his gaze look through you, cataloguing all your faults.

There’s only a distant coolness in Huaisang’s voice when he says, “Pay attention,” having moved elegantly through drills with the ease of someone who doesn’t have to feel the full weight of his sword pulling at the muscles in his shoulder.

Jiang Cheng turns his glare from the ground, up towards where Nie Huaisang is standing over him, sabre not quite making contact with his throat. Even when they’d been young Nie Huaisang had always been small, and always the worst of them at any sort of sparring, the first to drop his sword and back away. It’s only these last few months that Jiang Cheng has had to get intimately acquainted with how it feels to look up at him. Worse, Nie Huaisang always looks self-satisfied whenever Jiang Cheng ends up on his back when they spar, like he’s remembering the exact same scene in reverse.

“Easy for you to say,” Jiang Cheng finally gets out, when his breathing has slowed enough for him to speak, “you can’t even feel how heavy your Qiuniu really is.”

Nie Huaisang only smiles in response before stepping back and nodding towards where Jiang Cheng’s sword has fallen a short distance away from them. Dutifully, Jiang Cheng pushes himself to stand, though it takes him a couple of stilted motions.

It takes an embarrassingly short amount of time for Jiang Cheng to be disarmed again. This time, Nie Huaisang only frowns.

“Jiang-xiong,” he says, as he lowers the tip of his sabre to rest against the ground. Qiuniu is almost the same size as Sandu was, small for a sabre and looking delicate, unused to battle; in his periphery, Jiang Cheng can see his own faint reflection in the unmarred steel. He must become distracted by the way the light bounces in thin stars from its surface, because Nie Huaisang’s frown only deepens.

“You’re not listening to me, are you?” there’s the faint sound of metal against ground and Jiang Cheng looks up, blinking to clear the blur of his vision. Nie Huaisang has closed the distance between them, and he leans over to grasp Jiang Cheng’s forearm to pull him up.

Nie Huaisang’s voice is quiet when he says, “Jiang Cheng, you haven’t been this uncoordinated in months.” He pauses for a moment then continues, timid, “Is it—” he looks down to Jiang Cheng’s chest and then back up, not quite meeting his eyes. “Is it your core again?”

Jiang Cheng can’t help but laugh; it’s not a happy sound, cut off by a cough that works its way up his throat. “It’s always my core, Huaisang.” But, now that he’s been given reason to focus on it, he can feel the empty pain is stronger today, straining its way up from his stomach and spreading around his chest. His sword arm tired faster than usual, Jiang Cheng realises suddenly, and he can feel that fresh pain gnawing at the edge of his mind.

There’s silence between them for a moment, and Jiang Cheng watches the way Nie Huaisang’s frown grows only deeper. Then, he turns back to Jiang Cheng, pulling him up from where his body has started to slouch forward again.

“Come on Jiang-xiong,” Nie Huaisang has a teasing note in his voice, one that’s become increasingly rare in the last few months, “you wouldn’t embarrass your old friend by collapsing out here just from some light sparring, would you?” He doesn’t wait for a reply and guides him back inside, keeping his hand on Jiang Cheng’s elbow the entire time.

---

It’s not long before Jiang Cheng finds he’s been led to Nie Huaisang’s quarters. As always, it’s messy, papers and books and brushes spreading out from a small table in a puddle of chaos. There’s light gauze draping the window, a surrounding elegance at odds with the disorder of everything within it. Nie Huaisang lets him go and moves across the room, throwing Qiuniu carelessly in the direction of the table to rest on a pile of open books. Jiang Cheng watches the arch of his back as he stretches, clasping his hands behind him and turning briefly from one side to the other.

When he reaches the window, Nie Huaisang stops and turns, leaning back against the wall. “What did you mean,” he says, “when you said it’s always your core?”

Jiang Cheng turns to close the door, using the cover as a chance to take a breath before he replies.

“What if I don’t want to talk about it.” He turns back to face Nie Huaisang, pushing himself off the doorframe to cross the room; now he’s had some time to recover, his movements are steady again.

“Jiang-xiong,” It’s been a while since Nie Huaisang has used this particular register of petulant whine, but it hasn’t lost its potency through lack of use, “How can you tell me something like that without an explanation! I’ll die of worry, and it will be your fault.”

“Oh no.” Jiang Cheng says, monotone, “Then who’ll bother me with stupid questions?” He takes the playful tone of conversation as the offered truce that it is. Nie Huaisang won’t back down so easily, but he won’t push now, saving his interrogation until some later time when Jiang Cheng’s defences are down and his questioning is more likely to succeed.

They’re almost standing chest to chest; Nie Huaisang would have to tilt his head back to meet Jiang Cheng’s eyes, but he watches his own hands as they come up to rest against Jiang Cheng’s chest instead. Even that light pressure makes the empty ache in his ribcage push forward, like it’s hungry for the energy resting just on the other side of his skin. Jiang Cheng ignores it, as he always does.

“Huaisang—” Jiang Cheng starts, but he’s cut short by the way Nie Huaisang pushes his hands up towards his neck and pulls him down. He holds himself on his toes, meeting in a middle that’s a true compromise of mild discomfort for them both. Nie Huaisang’s lips are parted like he’s going to say something they both will regret, so Jiang Cheng closes the small distance between them and kisses him.

They’re gentle, maybe more so than they’ve ever been with each other, but there’s a growing tension in the way Nie Huaisang leans into him. Jiang Cheng brings his hand up to support his weight against the wall, feeling the silky gauze bunch up around them as he pushes Nie Huaisang backwards. Then, Nie Huaisang pulls on the hair loose around Jiang Cheng’s shoulders, hard and sharp.

“Don’t try to distract me.” Nie Huaisang’s tone is verging on anger, but Jiang Cheng can tell it’s not entirely directed at him. “A-Cheng,” when Jiang Cheng jerks backwards, Nie Huaisang pulls on his hair again to make him stand still, “A-Cheng you need to let me take care of you.”

“Why should I?” Jiang Cheng says, voice tight and hurt. “And don’t call me that.” he adds, slapping Nie Huaisang’s hand out of his hair and turning away to leave. He’s stopped short by the sound of Nie Huaisang’s laughter, high and breathless, without humour.

“Don’t forget, Jiang Cheng, who it was that saved you.” Nie Huaisang moves quickly, when he wants to; he grabs hold of Jiang Cheng’s bicep, vice like. “And don’t forget your place. You’re paying me a debt.”

There’s a long-silenced sympathy making itself heard, a part of Jiang Cheng that knows Nie Huaisang is lashing out because he’s hurt. A much more powerful instinct screams for him to get away, to protect himself from the way Nie Huaisang’s words are chosen to lodge in Jiang Cheng’s heart. Jiang Cheng raises his hand and places it on Nie Huaisang’s wrist, pressing until the bones creak; only this dislodges the tight grip digging into the flesh of his arm, even through the heavy fabric of the Nie sect robes.

They’d stopped in the middle of the room, halfway to the door, and Jiang Cheng moves forward too quickly for Nie Huaisang to stop him again. Just before he reaches the doorframe, Jiang Cheng pauses to look back over his shoulder. Nie Huaisang looks lost and scared, no careful mask of indifference to shield his emotions.

“Jiang Cheng,” Nie Huaisang says, voice shaking and so openly hopeful it makes Jiang Cheng’s heart hurt to hear it, “If you leave me now, don’t come back.”

It’s always an empty threat, every time Nie Huaisang says it; a last, childish tactic to inspire guilt, or fear, or regret. With Jiang Cheng, it’s useless and he only huffs out a laugh before he opens the door.

“Worry about yourself first, Huaisang.” Jiang Cheng says as he walks out. He doesn’t need to turn around to check Nie Huaisang’s reaction; the door slams shut behind him hard enough to shake the walls.