no place like you

by Nena

Content warnings: mild profanity

Lotus Pier is ashes, and Jiang Cheng has inhaled them.

Even now, in the mountains of Qinghe, these ashes swirl around in his lungs, choke him. The clean, cool air of the Unclean Realm does nothing to soothe him; the burble and laugh of the waterfall only makes him think of calmer waters, deep blue with red and black swimming beside him, purple and pink waiting on the dock. Yet it is inevitable that he sees those same waters turn thick with blood.

He wants to fall into the river before him, and open his eyes to days long gone. In the cold air, he can admit it: he died the day that Lotus Pier burned, and then a little more when he lost his core.

Images rise unbidden: A-niang’s hand on his cheek before she pushed him away — his own hands around Wei Wuxian’s throat —

He’s being dragged down ⁠—

He blinks. He blinks, and he’s back in the Unclean Realm, clutching onto green and gold robes threatening to be swept down a tempestuous river.

Something stings at Jiang Cheng’s eyes. Maybe it’s the chill of the mountain air. Maybe it’s a spray of water from the river. He rubs at the robes roughly, stops only when he sees green and gold begin to tear. Some of the stains cling to his fingertips and he stares, rubs them back into the fabric with a scowl. The robes have darkened from the water, so he can’t tell if the blood has gone or not.

Does it ever really go? Down the river? From his skin?

The more he scrubs, actually, the more the stain seems to spread.

He’s never had to wash clothes before. The robes in his hands are greedy, drinking up water with no sign of stopping, growing heavier and heavier in his hands. He doesn’t want to put them down in the grass, so he swings his legs into the water and drapes the robes across his knees.

Spreading, it’s spreading.

It’s all Nie Huaisang’s fault.

Jiang Cheng had been fine with plain black robes; they hid bloodstains well, and he considered a dip in the river with them on to be good enough. But now that he’s in the Unclean Realm, Nie Huaisang has gifted him QingheNie robes and somehow, somehow getting blood on them feels like a call to a day he doesn’t want Nie Huaisang to remember.

(Jiang Cheng also does not want to think about losing brothers.)

So he’s here, listlessly scrubbing at the deep red. Tries to breathe as if he hasn’t stopped smelling blood and fire since that day — and he catches the vague scent of Nie Huaisang.

He looks across the stream, past the trees. He can hear Nie Huaisang swinging his saber through the air. Nie Huaisang wields Qiuniu more like a brush — his lines are clean and elegant. But the ink that Qiuniu spills is red, thick, and sluggish.

Nie Huaisang appears from behind a thicket. Jiang Cheng watches the strike flow from shoulder to elbow to wrist to saber. Nie Huaisang pivots and aims a sharp kick at the air.

Jiang Cheng would kill for even a damn dog-chewed core even now. Nie Huaisang had never let anyone pity him for his level of cultivation, and Jiang Cheng hadn’t. He only had felt envy for Huaisang, actually. The young master of QingheNie had seemed so carefree, even if Jiang Cheng had seen moments where the fan and the mask were both gone, leaving only trembling, alcohol-laced whispers under Gusu’s stars.

So no, he hadn’t pitied Nie Huaisang.

“Jiang Cheng,” Nie Huaisang calls. “Is that you?”

He nods.

Nie Huaisang hops from stone to stone until he makes his way across the river. Nie Huaisang wears his hair tied up now; Jiang Cheng watches it sway with each step. Nie Huaisang comes to a stop once he’s next to Jiang Cheng, gaze flitting to the robes in Jiang Cheng’s lap.

Nie Huaisang smiles. Jiang Cheng thinks about baring his own teeth, decides against it.

“I told you about this place,” Nie Huaisang says, “and you came here only to wash clothes?”

“What else can I do?” He thinks about dragging Huaisang down to his level, snarling at him, pushing him down and bringing him down in the dirt where Jiang Cheng is. He decides against it. Huaisang stays where he is, looking down at him.

“Plenty of things,” Nie Huaisang smiles, “with those hands of yours. I’m surprised you remembered this. Did you just want to see me?”

“As if I even know where you are half the time,” Jiang Cheng mutters. He shouldn’t begrudge Nie Huaisang his secrets. But sometimes Sect Leader Nie seems more shadow than man. And to be tied to a shadow — it’s being tied to nothing, reminds him that he is nothing, has nothing —

Frustrated, Jiang Cheng looks down at the robes clenched in his hands.

“My palms were softer than these robes, once.” Nie Huaisang says suddenly, shows his calluses and scars to Jiang Cheng ruefully. Jiang Cheng has a stupid thought: he’s close enough for me to touch him.

Pull him down, pull him down, pull him down — why?!

Is it only when you lose something that you realize how much you miss it? An arm around your shoulder? A hand on your face? A-jie and A-Xian, gone — did he use to touch Nie Huaisang? He definitely can’t now. Has he lost him already? Can you miss someone next to you?

Jiang Cheng’s head is damn near spinning. It’s only worsened by Nie Huaisang sitting down next to him, shucking off his muddy boots and putting his feet in the water.

Jiang Cheng stares at the blisters and sores while Nie Huaisang pointedly looks at some imaginary bird flitting through the branches.

And he touches, before he can think about it. Cool water pools around his hand (don’t think of Yunmeng) and then his fingers close around Nie Huaisang’s ankle. The damp foot is drawn out so Jiang Cheng can examine the red marks. “What happened? Have you put any salve on these?”

“I do,” Nie Huaisang whines. “It doesn’t help.”

He pulls the foot in his lap to scrutinize the wounds. “What, do your boots not fit?”

A mouth is a mouth, a hand is a hand, a foot is a foot, but now, all of them together, the composite of Nie Huaisang -- having him so close is making Jiang Cheng feel, somehow, overwhelmed. He’s hyper-focused on marred skin under his hands, on the mouth near him mumbling, “It’s fine, it’s fine.”

“Fucking useless,” Jiang Cheng spits. “Can’t you take care of yourself?”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes narrow. “Concerned, are you?”

No, Jiang Cheng does not pity Nie Huaisang his position. Even if others see the Headshaker and laugh at him, Jiang Cheng is seeing this: scars seething and sabers swinging. He sees the side of Nie Huaisang that has warped and changed.

Jiang Cheng thinks he may be the only one who can see that change, who knows what this boy was before.

“If you die, then what?” Jiang Cheng says.

“Why do you ask?” Nie Huaisang mocks. “It doesn’t affect you. You’ll go back to the way you were.”

“If it didn’t matter, I have no reason to be here,” Jiang Cheng says. Nie Huaisang’s foot is still in his lap, over the robes. It feels like it means something — QingheNie’s colors darkened under the limb of it's never-meant-to-be sect leader⁠. This round-faced, red-marked, hair pulled up and eyes sunken in sect leader is being held by a never-will-be-sect-leader. They sit so close, as if they’re not living in worlds apart.

Can he still hold onto who he was meant to be? It’s even more fragile than the bone in his hands. Nie Huaisang pulls backs, gives a petulant nudge against Jiang Cheng’s thigh.

Neither of them say anything more. He can see how Nie Huaisang’s lips are pursed, like he’s holding back words that would spread through skin like poison. He probably is.

Jiang Cheng can’t help but remember a time he had tumbled down one of Gusu’s green hills and twisted his ankle. He had been hissing and holding it gingerly as Nie Huaisang meandered down to him. Nie Huaisang had actually stumbled, and Jiang Cheng ended up shouting in concern as if he wasn’t the injured one.

But once Nie Huaisang had reached him, hadn’t he held his ankle so delicately? Slim fingers opening some ache inside of him afresh, as gracefully as if they were opening a fan —

Jiang Cheng finds the words do you remember on the tip of his tongue. Before he says it, though, Nie Huaisang speaks.

“That festival in Caiyi,” Nie Huaisang says, “would be around now, if it’s even happening. I wanted to go dancing with you. But you were always so worried about what people might think of you.”

His gaze flickers like firelight. “With nobody around, do you still worry?”

That had been the good thing — one of the many good things — about Wei Wuxian. He had always freely acted and Jiang Cheng had the excuse of following to look after him, until — well —

“I can’t dance,” Jiang Cheng says. “I don’t know how.”

Nie Huaisang looks at him.

“I can’t dance,” Jiang Cheng repeats, and Nie Huaisang smiles. He used to have such round, soft looking cheeks, but with his tired face now, his smile sits like a slash instead of a curve.

“It’s like fighting,” Nie Huaisang explains. “But your weapons are your expressions, all the things you don’t say out loud. But your body speaks.”

He gets up, gives a little twirl. Jiang Cheng thinks Nie Huaisang must really miss his days of finery. He asks, “So what did you say with -- that?” He doesn’t dare mime the twirl, but waves his hand vaguely.

Nie Huaisang thinks about it. “I don’t know.”

“What says ‘fuck this’?” Jiang Cheng doesn’t know why he’s humoring Nie Huaisang — maybe his mind is still stuck on Wei Wuxian. Stuck on back then.

“Hm, I don’t know, but — maybe this,” Nie Huaisang gives a defeated looking flail. His hand trails by Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t know why — he never seems to know why anymore, never wants time to think because no, no — takes it.

Is he so desperate to connect, to reach back, that he’s doing this?

Nie Huaisang’s lips part in shock as Jiang Cheng pulls him close. He puts his hands on Nie Huaisang’s hips; Nie Huaisang’s hands find a home on his shoulders.

“We can dance now,” Jiang Cheng says.

Nie Huaisang gives a faint smile, and ducks his head.

Jiang Cheng actually has no idea how to dance, but he lets Nie Huaisang maneuver him even as he grumbles, as if he hadn’t begun this.

Nie Huaisang isn’t looking at him, his attention safely turned to the parallel lines of their arms. There’s a small tilt to his lips, though, and Jiang Cheng looks at the sweep of his eyelashes, the cheekbones starting to push through sunken skin.

How can he look at Nie Huaisang without seeing everything they’ve lost? How can he look at Nie Huaisang without seeing a world fractured? A laughing boy amongst green hills and white clouds; a quiet man with a long ponytail and longer face, drawn back into the shadows.

Who does he really know?

Golden eyes look up at him. Jiang Cheng’s breath catches.

When their gazes meet, they both break into stuttering, awkward chuckles. It loosens Jiang Cheng’s tongue; perhaps that laugh drags him back to alcohol-laced nights, where their bodies became heavy but their burdens lightened.

“I wanted to take you to Yunmeng,” Jiang Cheng says. “But there’s nothing for you to see now.”

“Ah,” Nie Huaisang says, “I always imagined it when you and Wei-xiong told me stories. It sounded so beautiful.”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how to reply. It was beautiful. It was everything. Past, present, and his future — all crumbled away.

He can only step away from Nie Huaisang and sit heavily down by the river. Again, he starts trying to scrub at the robes.

“The blood won’t go,” Nie Huaisang murmurs. It takes a moment for his words to register, but once they do, Jiang Cheng turns to him furiously.

“Then why give me these? Why wait so long to tell me?”

Nie Huaisang looks at him, lips parting in what seems like surprise. “Ah... I was just thinking. But — it will. Please excuse me.”

Jiang Cheng feels sick. He lets go of the robes, and they both watch the river take green and gold away, away, away.

Nie Huaisang says, “We can’t afford to throw things carelessly.”

“Someone will find it and use it,” Jiang Cheng says. “I’ll stay in what I have.”

“Filthy,” Nie Huaisang sighs. He frowns. “I think I see the robes caught on a rock — I’m going to get them.”

“Why? Don’t. You can’t swim. I’ll go,” Jiang Cheng says.

“I’ll go,” Nie Huaisang says sharply, and so Jiang Cheng wades behind him stubbornly as they start to make their way through rushing currents.

The sun is setting. And as it descends, so does Nie Huaisang — he slips, just as Jiang Cheng knew he would. Jiang Cheng curses as he moves to catch him, but all that happens is that they both fall into the river.

For a moment, there is a body against Jiang Cheng, and then there is only the rush of water, loud in his ears, and it’s wrong, because Lotus Pier is calm, it’s supposed to be calm — fire and ash and smoke and screaming and it’s in his mouth and Wei Wuxian is pulling him into the water and — Nie Huaisang, where is Nie Huaisang —

Nie Huaisang’s hand grabs his.

Jiang Cheng grasps tightly, grits his teeth, and pulls. They both collapse onto the bank, and the soaking wet sect leader falls in his arms, gasping and shivering.

“Still don’t know how to swim,” Jiang Cheng states. He wants to say fucking idiot, wants to push Nie Huaisang’s hair out of his eyes, wants to, maybe, apologize for the loss of a gift.

There had been something in Nie Huaisang’s gaze when he had looked out at the river, but it’s gone now.

Nie Huaisang shudders. “Let’s go back.”

He holds the crook of Jiang Cheng’s arm as they set off, and chuckles thinly. “Those clean robes would’ve been useful now.”

“Apologies,” Jiang Cheng replies.

“Ah, it’s fine,” Nie Huaisang says.

They don’t say anything more as the sun sinks into complete darkness.

---

They create a trail of grass and mud that leads to to Nie Huaisang’s chamber. Still, Nie Huaisang says nothing, only hands him another set of green and gold robes.

“To sleep in,” he says. “Your robes are fine otherwise.”

Jiang Cheng nods, and accepts them. Nie Huaisang’s hair has dried in waves; he has taken down his ponytail, and his hair ripples down his back.

Jiang Cheng thinks he would lose himself in that black water.

Nie Huaisang turns away, and so does Jiang Cheng. He feels his face heat up as he hears damp robes fall to the floor, and clears his throat.

“I’ll go—”

“No,” Nie Huaisang says, so sharply that Jiang Cheng almost turns around. He stops himself at the last moment, his cheeks burning at the thought of Nie Huaisang’s bare skin.

A cold hand comes to touch him, and he turns to look into a tired, drawn face.

Nie Huaisang says, “Stay.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Jiang Cheng says, even as he feels something curl around his insides. Like a dragon, he thinks, slowly exhaling fire, filling his empty chest.

Nie Huaisang tilts his head, his gaze expectant. His hand finds Jiang Cheng’s, and his fingers are so, so cold. As cold as his grip is, it’s also firm. Unyielding.

Can Jiang Cheng really disobey?

“Baby,” Jiang Cheng mutters, and squeezes his hand.

“Change, will you?” Nie Huaisang smiles now, turns to go comb through his tangled hair as Jiang Cheng becomes clothed in gold and green.

Waves become still waters, but Jiang Cheng still feels like he’s tumbling helplessly when Nie Huaisang takes him to the bed.

They’re laying next to each other, stiff and untouching, and Jiang Cheng’s mind drifts to when Wei Wuxian had first come to live with him, how his brother had gone running off in the night.

He reaches out and takes a hold of Nie Huaisang’s wrist.

“What?” Nie Huaisang says, voice soft.

“Come here,” Jiang Cheng mutters, and draws Nie Huaisang into his arms. “Let’s stay like this.”

“My hands,” Nie Huaisang mumbles; they’re trapped between his chest and Jiang Cheng’s.

Jiang Cheng can’t help thinking that Nie Huaisang could reach right through his chest. There’s no core to block his path. He could take Jiang Cheng’s heart in his hands right now.

Instead, Nie Huaisang adjusts them both so that he can hold onto Jiang Cheng’s hands instead, folds his cold fingers into their spaces.

Hand in hand, the only things keeping their hearts from each other — yet it still feels like a lifeline.

It’s cold in Qinghe, but Jiang Cheng feels so warm.

---

Jiang Cheng falls asleep; the man carries a weariness that goes deeper than bone.

Nie Huaisang finds himself rather glad, in a vicarious way, that Jiang Cheng can still sleep at night. He dares not flatter himself that Jiang Cheng can sleep well because of his own presence; at the same time, his mind replays images of the dark circles often seen under Jiang Cheng’s eyes.

Nie Huaisang can’t sleep. He studies the face next to him, and wonders if he can say that he knows who this is. Their world is like cracked glass; everything is distorted, and Nie Huaisang feels so disconnected from the man beside him and yet so overwhelmed by him. There is a swell in his soul that he cannot put a name to.

He thinks that they were like pearls on a necklace: himself, Wei Wuxian in the middle, always, and then Jiang Cheng. The string broke and Wei Wuxian slipped out first, and then they all scattered.

But together, they had been so beautiful.

You and I always just a few steps apart, Jiang Cheng, Nie Huaisang mourns. He doesn’t have the luxury of wishing this day would never end.

Everything ends -- they’re blood running down a river, and they’ll split paths soon enough. This war is a merciless current.

Qiuniu’s spirit will swallow him if the Wens don’t.

A tiny hope: if he dies tonight, if he never wakes up, he hopes that it’s while he’s still in Jiang Cheng’s arms. And he hopes he dreams of Gusu.

I’ll never be close to you again, Nie Huaisang thinks. You’re everywhere but at my side, Jiang Cheng. I don’t want you behind me, waiting. In front of me, watching. I just want you next to me like this.

And why? Why haven’t I learned that there’s nothing I can do to end this loneliness? If I could, if you would have me, you would have been a dream in my hands -- but now, am I holding a nightmare or is this just reality? All we ever were -- were we just as empty as we so desperately hoped we weren’t?

His hands are still entwined within Jiang Cheng’s. Their hands are pressed against their chests and Nie Huaisang thinks the pounding of his rabbit heart only can echo in the space where Jiang Cheng’s core was once.

And yet there’s a steady heartbeat answering him back.

He never wanted them to come together like this. He never wanted to be Sect Leader. He never wanted to bow to anyone, only wanted to live his life, and he never wanted to lose his brother.

Nie Huaisang maneuvers his hands free to press his knuckles against his trembling eyelids. He has no time for wishes and daydreams. He has no time to paint with anything but blood and here he is, doing what?

Nie Mingjue had once told him he was more dream than anything else. “Always dreaming,” he scoffed, poking his brother’s head. “If everything’s up here, what’s the rest of you for?”

How many pieces of himself does Nie Huaisang have to keep letting go of? Even if he doesn’t need them, can’t he keep them?

When he has to let go of Jiang Cheng, he’ll have to let go of his days amongst the clouds, of loving someone, of holding someone.

He’ll have no one.

Shakily, slowly Nie Huaisang encircles Jiang Cheng in his arms. He holds Jiang Cheng the way he had been held earlier, and hopes his heartbeat is enough of a lullaby. Jiang Cheng’s breathing is quiet, stuttering.

The ache that Nie Huaisang feels is nearly unbearable.

For tonight, he has Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng, who let him rattle about the past even though each word must have cut like a knife. But Nie Huaisang has nobody to talk to, and Jiang Cheng has nobody to listen to. Never once today had Jiang Cheng told him to shut up, a phrase he had flung so freely at his talkative brother.

Still, Nie Huaisang can’t shake the feeling that it’s too late, that this is going to make it worse for both of them.

The sun will rise soon. This night will end. The moon may keep hanging in the daylight, translucent against pale blue, but it will only be for a moment. The sun chases it all away.

The blood, though, will stay. The blood always stays.