the blood on your hands (fills the hollowness of my heart)

by Kei

Content warnings: some graphic depictions of blood and injuries; suicidal character; depictions of violence; self-harm

The teahouse Jiang Cheng sits in is almost empty, a rundown shabby place that looks like it could be out of business if not for two burly-looking villagemen whispering to each other in the corner and the owner bustling about, casting nervous glances his way as he went around cleaning tables. There are no other workers, and silence is prevalent. Well, it is to be expected, he thinks - there are barely any people in the outskirts of Yiling after all. It has been years, but only this factor has seemingly remained unchanged.

He brings the teacup to his lips, sipping what only registers as hot water in his mind that could no longer experience simple pleasures in life. All food tastes bland, all landscapes look faded, he can’t distinguish properly between what is soft and warm and what is hard and cold and god he wishes to be enveloped by a comforting darkness. A comforting darkness that he cannot find under his cloak every time he pulls it down over his eyes to rest.

Jiang Cheng knows he is being watched. He keeps the teacup down, and waits, resting his chin on his palm, his gaze sharp under the hooded cloak. He feels no ill will, no killing intent for now - so he can only assume that whoever it is only wants to talk to him. Or maybe they are observing, but who is left now that the remaining great sects have stronger bonds and everyone who has wronged them is dead?

If he closes his eyes and breathes just right, his own sect is included among them, led by his parents. If he does that, undoubtedly they are smiling in his memories, savouring the same joy they all are.

He doesn’t dwell on it longer, a sour snort nearly leaving him at his own naivete. There is blood on his hands now - blood that can never be washed and blood that he sees every time he looks at his own palms - so naturally, what right does he have to keep living in the past now that he has no more purpose? There is nothing to be done, nothing to be achieved, only a raw, dull pain eating away at his insides to be felt. It rises from the depths of his stomach, flowing in his veins like blood to his extremities, and he feels his entire body blacken from the inside out. He downs the remaining tea in one gulp.

He catches two cultivators flutter past, one dressed entirely in white and the other entirely in black, the combination making him think of his own brother and his beloved. It is not them, and he doesn’t care enough for rogue cultivators. It’s not a world he can move freely in now that he is just a common mortal, as much as he longs for it. Or, longed for it, maybe now he just wants to cut any attachments.

Jiang Cheng absently taps the side of his teacup, demeanour calm when the one 'spying' on him finally walks into the teahouse and sits to the table next to his, a tall, cloaked and hooded figure. Maybe they had given up on waiting for him to come out. Maybe it just took them long to confirm he is the one they are looking for. It appears to be a man, sitting diagonally across to him, from the posture and stature.

“We have a job for you.” The person whispers leisurely, voice muffled ever so slightly and volume no higher than a whisper.

“I don’t care.” He gestures for another cup of tea, briefly wondering if he needs to eat. He can't really tell anymore.

“I assure you, you will be interested in this person.”

His light storm coloured irises finally move to look at that cloaked person, gaze intense yet disinterested at the same time. “Is that so.” He offers as way of response, looking down at his own table again.

The man doesn’t reply as the owner serves Jiang Cheng another cup of tea, waiting until after Jiang Cheng has nodded in thanks and picked the cup up.

“The beast tamer. We want him taken out.”

Jiang Cheng wants to fling the boiling hot liquid on the person’s face. He really does - badly - but he knows the person here is a mere messenger and all he will do is make things harder in the long run. He has grown to consider this before he acts on them.

He takes a sip, but this time the taste registers somewhat as he lets the tea swirl in his mouth before saying another word to this audacious person who wants his Nie Huaisang dead. It is bitter, quite bitter, hot, uncomfortable on his tongue. He keeps burning himself in situations he shouldn’t.

“Ah, I see, and who here is we?”

“My master and the remaining members of our sect.” There is no hesitation in the answer, the man undoubtedly feeling that Jiang Cheng is interested and will respond favourably. “That man ruined our clan, even though we were only trying to survive. We were mere pawns - that too is putting it nicely. In the end, we were collateral damage that monster didn’t even spare a single glance to after the deed.”

Jiang Cheng feels a vein on his forehead throb. All this person has done so far was to be careful about being followed and to not take the name of the target - but with this, hasn’t he thrown caution to the wind? Only one person in the cultivation world would be described in this sort of way at this time - sure, Qinghe Nie is suddenly a force to be reckoned with, but can people really stop making him seem like some sort of evil creature? The guy in question was actually a nervous wreck, but they make him out to be this ruthless demon - surely people don't change like that in a matter of years.

He sneers at the recollection, putting his cup down and looking at the person, a hostile sort of arrogance in the depth of his eyes. “I see, quite the history. No wonder you want him out of the way. Any specifics? Time, location… reward?”

“My master believes you are capable enough to figure out the details of how and when. As for the reward - just know you will not have anything to want for when the deed is done.”

“Nothing to want for, huh?” He can’t help the incredulous bark of laughter that he breaks into. “That is some confidence you all have, believing yourselves capable of giving me all I could want.” Jiang Cheng stands up, the legs of the chair dragging against the wooden floor sharply with the force, slapping some money on the table in one smooth motion. It is only then that he stares down the man at the other table.

“You plan to get rid of me, don’t you?” His eyes are narrow, but that contemptuous smile remains, “Your conceit makes you believe that I will undoubtedly take this job - and you can just get rid of me afterwards. Easy. Everyone hates that man after all, and you have heard all about how we parted ways on bad terms on the battlefield all those years ago.” His tone is mocking, and the man makes to stand up, undoubtedly enraged at what he feels is an insult to his master and to them - but Jiang Cheng is faster.

Furniture clatters as Jiang Cheng’s boot meets the man’s chest, kicking him down before he even has a chance to stand, the flimsy chair breaking under his weight. He really doesn’t care for being on ‘equal grounds’ or ‘honour’ or anything of the sort now, especially when this person looks like a low-ranking cultivator who may overpower him if given any leeway.

“You-” He starts, hood knocked back and glare visible, but his words only end up as hisses as Jiang Cheng grinds down on his chest, left foot holding him down on the ground.

“Me?” He sneers, contempt dripping in bucket loads from his expression. “That’s right, you sought me out, and thought you knew what I wanted when I don’t know myself.” The man grabs at his ankle, trying to pry him off. “Your sect truly is pitiful, lacking the resolve to stand and fight and the power to survive even if you allied with evil.” He tuts in mock pity, but there is an increase in the force he is applying on the man’s chest instead.

He hacks out, struggling, and Jiang Cheng notices him trying to scramble for the knife he undoubtedly has hidden on his waist with the other hand. He stomps down on his wrist with his right foot once he sees him grab the handle, and the man screams out in pain. The blade clatters against the floor, slipping from where it was held between two of his fingers.

“Guess what,” He leans down, lifting his leg to stomp on the man once again - except on his throat this time, “If you seek revenge, take it yourself. All misfortune is a result of your own incompetence. If you still haven’t learnt that through these years, all that is left is for you to die like a dog.”

Jiang Cheng lets him go with a scornful click of his tongue, the man curling up in a fetal position and coughing his lungs out, spit dribbling from the corner of his mouth. He uses the tip of his foot to kick up the knife, grabbing it midair. It is of decent quality, the handle even has engravings on it.

“I’m keeping this. Pleasure doing business with you.” He says nonchalantly, walking up to the owner of the teahouse who is cowering in a corner. He flinches when Jiang Cheng gives him the knife, politely giving him instructions to sell it to make up for the damage he and his ‘friend’ here have inflicted. A confused acknowledgment follows, and Jiang Cheng takes his leave.

---

Nie Huaisang doesn’t remember the last time he was able to have a good night’s sleep - probably long, long before now, long before any of this. He thinks that, but knows that he had allowed himself a moment’s reprieve when he had been with the person he had ruined with his own two hands. He had allowed himself to come closer, and then taken away that right multiple times by his own actions and his own will. He thinks back, mulls over it all, and finds himself digging his nails into his neck, scratching and squeezing and failing, wanting to choke himself but being unable to do so, settling for inflicting meaningless pain.

It is going to be another long, sleepless night in a series of long, sleepless nights. His hands fall back down, and he cleans them of the faint traces of blood under the fingernails, robotically picking up the brush he had dropped some time ago once more.

If only he could shed an amount of blood equal to his past mistakes and wipe them clean with it. If he could, Nie Huaisang would bleed away all his sins, clean the blood on that man's hands with his own. It is all on him in the first place.

His strokes are neat and his calligraphy beautiful with elegant and dainty characters, his brush moving late into the silent night with a candle as his only companion, the ink tinged with red and dying embers in his gaze. He wonders, now that Qinghe is victorious and there is a shaky kind of peace in the region - he wonders - what really is he needed for here? He pauses while making corrections in a report.

Oh, that’s right. He is the only one left. That’s all. There really isn’t much else of a reason. He is here because he needs to be. Da-ge would say that it is his duty, and that one should do whatever is within one’s power or one is a waste of space.

Not that Da-ge is here to reprimand him.

(“I only want you to be able to protect yourself… in the event that I cannot do it for you.”)

Nie Huaisang smiles savagely to himself at the thought, clutching the brush ever so slightly harder before forcing himself to loosen his hold on it for fear that the document would be ruined. He has to keep up appearances now that there is no one to rely on. Just until he is freed from this labour - only up until the one of his making can exact revenge on him. That is all he wants.

He sighs, putting the brush down, blowing to dry the new ink and rolling up the scroll. Peering into nothingness for a bit, his gaze seems to search in the darkness of his chambers - looking for something that isn’t there, something he doesn’t expect to find but craves nonetheless. A moment later, he taps a corner of the desk, sliding his fingers forward to reveal a hidden wooden board affixed underneath, a tiny compartment not fit to be called quite a drawer. He picks up the solitary letter in it.

What is the point of success when all that has ever mattered is gone?

The letter is addressed to Jiang Cheng, an age old relic from when he was a student at Gusu. He had never sent it out. It can barely even be considered a letter in the first place - all he had ever penned down were feelings of a fleeting summer and a transient heartache. The one proof of humanity he has remaining after everything is over. This proof is currently being illuminated by the lone candle.

Who is left to bear this burden alongside him - this burden he never wanted, this burden he has added onto little by little, a mountain of regrets - when his shoulders were never made for this?

Engrossed in meaningless thoughts and scenarios he recognises as fruitless, hope against hope, ashes and dust in the corner of a destroyed heart, he holds the letter against the flickering flame and sets the last vestiges of what could have been to fire.

It doesn’t take long for the thin object to disappear as he drops it, leaving barely a smidge of ash as it goes. Nie Huaisang lets himself fall back on the backrest, his head resting against the top of the low back. He stares into nothingness again, closing his eyes only when he feels the corners of his vision start to turn dark. Sleep overtakes him, offering solace from tiredness that doesn’t even allow him to get up and go to bed, facing skywards to a heaven that pays no heed to their mortal sufferings.

He waits, waits all these years, and even now continues to wait for the man who will offer him release.

---

A chill sweeps across the room, quiet but noticeable, and Nie Huaisang finds himself thinking, ah.

Finally.

He has a thin blade held against - who he now recognises as - Jiang Cheng’s throat, all but pressing underneath his adam’s apple, the concealed hairpin having been the only usable thing within immediate reach when he had jolted awake to the presence of someone in the room. Falling asleep at his desk at least meant he wouldn’t be caught completely unawares. Jiang Cheng, on his part, has a dagger held to Nie Huaisang’s throat - the tip at the base of his jaw, so sharp he will cut himself on it if he only clenches his jaw and it makes the tiniest contact with his skin. A deadlock. He can’t remember who drew their weapon first - he thinks it was him, as that is the most logical reaction when one finds someone unannounced in one’s room in the dead of the night, sneaking in when one is asleep - but the fact that Jiang Cheng had a dagger ready to be used on him gave him hope.

In a move he does not predict, Jiang Cheng draws away first. “Your instinct has improved. Better reaction time too.” He says coolly, unaffected, as though to him Nie Huaisang’s blade was a mockery of a weapon and could not do any harm. As though now - after all Nie Huaisang had already done - now he won’t be able to hurt him.

What is a little more pain at this point to a man who has burnt himself against the sun and risen back up from the ashes?

What does pain matter when it is by Nie Huaisang’s hands, now that he has already hurt him beyond words and beyond actions - hurt him long over the threshold of respect and trust? Compared to what he has already put him through, this must be nothing.

Nie Huaisang presses without thinking or wanting to, bitterness welling inside of him at his line of thought, his grip tightening on his blade. It is only when he breaks through skin and pricks blood that he lets his hand drop. What is he doing? It is him who wants to be on that side of the edge. He looks up, trying to make out the expression in Jiang Cheng's eyes under the cover of the dark.

Jiang Cheng does not flinch, he realises. He just stands there, a stable force, letting whatever it was that Nie Huaisang was going through wash over him. Unwavering.

He feels bitter. So, so bitter. He only knows that he craves release and now that release is finally here he does not know what to do with himself. What was the point? Why was he trying to do something in the first place? He's not making any sense to himself. Bitter. Extremely bitter.

"You found your way back." He says, lightly, a softness in his voice he didn't know he had left in himself. He takes a second to muse on it before smiling resignedly and continuing, "Now, do it quickly, will you? I don't want anyone to intrude and ruin this night."

Our last night together.

There really are too few words in the world to correctly capture how he feels with this man in front of him again. He doesn't want to have to search for all the usable ones and to despair and suffocate because there's really no way to express himself right now if he doesn't know how.

"You're awfully talkative for someone who took no security measures before going to bed." Jiang Cheng says bluntly, and in the darkness he sees him cross his arms. Contrary to Nie Huaisang's own, his posture is relaxed and the gesture is almost… casual. For some reason, something as simple as that is incredibly nostalgic, and he is overwhelmed by the urge to have those arms around him.

"Let's just say I knew you'd want to drop in one of these days."

"I've been here enough times. Even if you didn't leave the goddamn window open for me, I would've... found my way back, as you put it."

There he goes, mocking him. "What are you trying to say?"

"What are you trying to do?"

"I'm not the one who snuck into someone else's room with no footsteps and no presence, A-" He pauses, the flow of his sentence cut off abruptly as his mind suddenly decides he doesn't know how to refer to him anymore. Does he just say his name? 'Jiang Cheng'? Will that do? Does he call him Jiang-Xiong? Wanyin-Xiong?

"Sect Leader Nie, call me as you please."

Ah. And so their distance is emphasised yet again. He suppresses old memories that sting just the same now, memories of Jiang Cheng putting distance between himself and ‘Sect Leader Nie,’ memories of an aching pain in his heart similar yet unlike the pain he had felt crawling on the ground to his brother’s corpse to cradle his unmoving body in his arms, blood and tears mixing together on his cheek to form a fire of revenge and hatred he carefully shielded from going out in his heart.

(“We’ve already kissed and slept together, what do you mean by ‘Sect Leader Nie’?”)

“Then, Jiang-xiong.” The moon peeks out from behind the clouds, illuminating them for a matter of seconds, and Nie Huaisang catches Jiang Cheng tighten his jaw at his address. Is it the Jiang surname, he wonders; a surname he no longer considers himself worthy of?

Or is it the person who is addressing him as such?

“I ask again, please do what you are here for, and get it done with.” Really, Nie Huaisang is patient, but he does not want to be kept waiting anymore. This is enough. He doesn’t want to be here anymore.

“You’re trying to get me to take your life.” Comes the response, matter-of-factly, his head turned in the direction of the window. “You’re making things easy.”

He hates how self-assured the statement is. What does he know? Why is he here now, then?

“Oh, is that so. Did you simply miss me then, Jiang-Xiong?” He wants to stab something, he wants to scream, he wants to laugh. “Well, no matter-” He takes Jiang Cheng’s hand in his, his right hand with the dagger in it - without a hollow zidian keeping it warm - and positions the blade to his throat, smiling up at Jiang Cheng as he holds his single hand in both of his own. “-We can just do what needs to be done together, then.”

He hears Jiang Cheng inhale sharply, too lost in the sensation of the cold metal on his warm skin to even register what an assassin making himself noticeable meant. Too lost in rejoicing the fact that it is finally the end, after so long, after so agonisingly long spent without his brother or his brother-in-arms at the feet of the Wen-dogs and on the burning battlefield afterwards.

There is a pause wherein neither of them move beyond that, and a gentle breeze blows, Nie Huaisang’s long, loose hair lightly fluttering at his waist - the clouds moving yet again because of the wind - his mouth split into a crazed smile, his eyes wide and blank and his lips hauntingly pale and the expression as a whole of one who had seen hell and wanted to go back to it.

And then, Jiang Cheng whimpers, and Huaisang grabs his hand tighter and presses closer.

“Huaisang-”

“Come! It should be simple, right? You’ve done plenty of this before, right?” And who was it who lead him to do all that in the first place, though? “It should be easy, if it’s you. Quick and clean and nice… maybe merciful if you so wish.”

A moment of struggle, Nie Huaisang’s breathy pants of excitement, and there is blood. He feels like he is floating and he feels like he is drunk and then warm liquid trickles down the side of his neck and into his collar and he feels - he suddenly feels nothing anymore.

There is no pain. There is none of the sweetness that pain offers and all of a sudden he feels horror as he forces his eyes to focus and sees Jiang Cheng clutching the sharp end of the blade with his previously free hand, his arm behind Nie Huaisang’s head and standing sideways next to him in some sort of a half embrace.

“Wha..?” He starts, the mad smile slipping off his face, and Jiang Cheng takes advantage of that moment of confusion to yank his wrist sideways and pry the dagger out of their grip with the leverage. It falls to the ground, rattling, and Nie Huaisang looks at his hands blankly. He feels hot and cold at the same time, and tastes salt, his cheeks damp and eyes overflowing with the same pain his heart perpetually bleeds with.

He sinks to the ground, robes unable to hide his thin body from shaking, his gaze unfocused and his hands clawing at his neck over and over again to find a wound. He finally acknowledges that he finds none, and looks up at Jiang Cheng, lost and despairing and his eyes begging for death. He looks like a child who has no idea what to do anymore, bewildered in the middle of a gathering with no one familiar left around him. Alone.

Jiang Cheng kneels beside him and gently pries away Nie Huaisang’s trembling hands from his throat, holding them in his. Nie Huaisang looks first at their entwined hands and then at Jiang Cheng, unaware of the tears trickling down his wide unseeing eyes and only of the warmth he feels where their skin joined. It is wet and warm and oh if Nie Huaisang could, he would wash all the blood on Jiang Cheng’s hands with his own - and yet, and yet…

("Don't leave me.")

This blood is not his. It is again shed for him, shed in his place, like that time Jiang Cheng risked his life for him. “Please, A-Cheng,” He whispers brokenly, no sobs leaving his wracked body as he brings his head down to rest against their hands, his forehead nuzzling the source of warmth as though he was kowtowing to the ground, “Please… what am I to do? What do I do? Tell me… what do I do?”

He doesn’t realise it but he has started wailing by the end of his sentence, his words the pained howl of an injured and starved beast. His throat burns and his insides want to stop labouring for a man who has no wish to live, and yet he feels strangely at ease. It wouldn’t be so bad, for these to be his last moments - spent letting things out for once, the vague comfort of letting go wrapped around him in the manner Jiang Cheng embraced him in that moment.

He cries and screams until his throat is raw and his head throbs, and Jiang Cheng says nothing, only rubbing his back soothingly, one of his hands gently and patiently stroking his hair. It is only when he has calmed down enough after expending all of his energy that he realises they are not on the floor near his desk anymore but on his bed. Jiang Cheng must have helped him over - or did he carry him? He doesn’t care, maybe they just found their way there together, maybe they just found their way in this position, his head laying on his companion’s chest as they embraced and he offered what little solace he could, maybe they just found their way back to what was in the memories of their bodies.

(“Qinghe will always be your home.”)

“A-Cheng…” He whispers, closing his eyes to rest them for a bit. His eyelids feel heavy. “Why are you here?”

“You’re still going to ask that?” Comes the response, murmured through silken sheets and a deep warmth where loneliness ended and wistfulness began. “I was asked to assassinate you.”

“Then-” His eyes fly open and he coughs, the volume he starts at not favourable for his throat, and going back to whispering, “Then… why didn’t you?”

He feels the soft press of something on his forehead, it’s familiar but isn’t at the same time, but it makes him relax enough to shut his eyes again. “I never said I took the job. I’m only here to warn you… You must go back to taking the proper precautions again, they’ll find someone else. Someone deadlier than I.”

So Jiang Cheng says, and Nie Huaisang lets out an abrupt giggle, tired and raspy. “There’s no one like that, A-Cheng. Oh, A-Cheng, I really would have it that way.”

“What way?” A shift in their weights on the bed, and Nie Huaisang is gently laid on his side. He keeps his hold around Jiang Cheng’s waist, stubbornly clinging onto him still, feeling like he will drown if he doesn’t hold on.

“I would... like to die by your hands.” His eyes flutter open, and he cannot see well in the dark but he makes out Jiang Cheng’s throat and part of his collarbone peeking from within his collar. “It has to be you, it can be no one else.”

Jiang Cheng sighs. He senses pain in his voice when he next speaks, and it hurts him too, “You can’t do that.”

He snuggles closer to Jiang Cheng, and neither of them say anything for some time. He wants water.

“Mountains do not bow,” Nie Huaisang says softly, at length, his eyelashes brushing against Jiang Cheng's skin, the evasive smell of blood metallic in his nostrils. “Qinghe... is a mountain. I forced it to bow for far too long - and now there is nothing else for me to do.”

“You are free now,” Says Jiang Cheng by way of response, a pronounced pain in his words, “You have no need to bow to anyone now, so live on your own as you wish to live.”

(At least he has a sect to go back to. What are his troubles compared to Jiang Cheng’s?)

How could he say that, nonetheless? Live on his own? There is no one else now, so of course he knows he only has himself to live with. But of course, that is the worst part. He doesn’t want to live with himself, for who can stand spending their entire life with a person they loath?

He closes his eyes, burying his face into the crook of Jiang Cheng's neck, lightly kissing the cut he gave him himself mere moments ago - “I will rather die now that I have no way to serve my home.”

Nie Huaisang says that, but they both know that is not it. He is only living to serve Qinghe now. If he wasn’t, he would have taken his own life. But he cannot do that.

As he said, it can only be Jiang Cheng who frees him - it cannot be anyone else.

“Then live for Qinghe.”

He falls asleep soon after, and he does not dream tonight. He sleeps, and sleeps, and all is well for one night.

---

The next day, he wakes up in his bed alone, and there are no signs of a storm passing through his room. There is nothing out of order, there is no blood on his robes or his hands or his face - ah, seems like his face has been wiped clean as well - and even his hairpin is sheathed and placed neatly upon his bedside table. His neck is still littered with those now-familiar scratches. His throat is sore, though, and his eyes are puffy, his head aching. Maybe he got a drink before sleeping.

He never sleeps in his bed anymore, but for the sake of not speaking a bittersweet dream into existence, he decides he must have been tired enough yesternight to use his bed. He strokes the empty sheets beside him, and thinks - it really is too big for him.

It really is too big for him, and yet perfect for the memories that stayed in the records of cool silken sheets and wooden bed posts. Those memories with him, with feather-light kisses and heated fingertips and tangled limbs of yearning and temporary comfort - never to come back now.

Oh, A-Cheng, weapon of my own making, my one biggest mistake…

He gets out of bed, running a hand through his long, luscious hair as he does so, the sensation of calloused fingers on his temple and gentle hands on his body burnt into his skin, stamped into his entrails. He feels no presence, but he knows - he knows he will not get his dearest wish. He should have ended this with his own hands when he had the chance. He thinks he should have tied up all those loose ends when he could have, and he apologises to his brother once more.

(“You shouldn’t be a coward. You have nothing to be afraid of.”)

...please end my suffering.

Another day, and safe in the knowledge that he is receiving a compassion he does not deserve and a watchful gaze he is unworthy of - Nie Huaisang begins anew.