Work Text:
Saṃsāra ・ cyclicality
The morning after a night spent together, Huaisang can almost believe that it was real. His heart is light, and the morning sun bathes his face in a comforting warmth.
Birds are singing. Huaisang’s arms are wrapped around a familiar figure, soft and relaxed from sleep. It’s almost like they’re back in Gusu, sixteen again, with scarcely an idea of what is to come. If he doesn’t open his eyes, he can almost believe that all they have waiting for them is another day of Lan Qiren’s classes. Maybe he can even answer one of the old man’s questions this time. Wouldn’t that be nice?
But Huaisang never will. The Cloud Recesses have burned to ash and Lan Qiren has been dead for years. Huaisang is sect leader now and the only one out of his former friends to still have his golden core.
Huaisang opens his eyes. He looks at the figure sleeping soundly beside him and, like every other time, the thought wells up from within his mind.
How did it all come to this?
Jiang-xiong’s face is soft, a far cry from the sharp, exhausted, feral expression he’d had when Huaisang had first seen him again. At the time, it had felt like a second chance. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Huaisang to relive his past and rectify his mistakes.
The strong become the weak. But they rise to become the strong again.
Cyclicality.
Huaisang has mulled over his decision to recruit Jiang-xiong for what feels like an eternity, turning the decision round and round so endlessly, it feels like the cycle of Saṃsāra.
Would he do it again?
Yes, he would. Again and again.
A thousand times over.
As long as it takes.
But they are no longer the boys they once were. Things have changed too much. Yes, Huaisang would scour the ends of the earth to recruit Jiang-xiong, again and again, as many times as he needs to. As many times as it takes.
And yes, just like Saṃsāra, the result each time will be the same.
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“You’re feeling guilty over me again, aren’t you,” comes a muffled voice from below. The irritation is still muted from sleep, annoyed but not poisonous. But as the alertness returns to Jiang Cheng’s expression, so do the shadows haunting his face. And as the shadows return, so does the Jiang Cheng that Huaisang once knew disappear.
“I’m not,” Huaisang lies, but he’s done it so often that he now knows the exact expression Jiang Cheng makes when he doesn’t believe him.
But Jiang Cheng doesn’t push it. Maybe the morning sun and birdsong are having the same magical effect on him?
When Jiang Cheng leans in for a kiss, Huaisang obligingly returns it. Jiang Cheng’s skin where it touches Huaisang’s is insistently warm, a concrete reminder of his existence. As they kiss, Huaisang leans into Jiang Cheng’s touch, and allows himself to believe that there is a space in those arms made just for him.
When Jiang Cheng eventually pulls away, Huaisang sighs, but lets him.
“My favourite,” he says, letting the words roll luxuriously off his tongue, enjoying the way those two simple words make the tips of Jiang Cheng’s ears turn bright red.
“You can’t expect me to believe that,” Jiang Cheng says. “I travel around the Unclean Realm. I have eyes and ears. Your reputation precedes you.”
“It’s the truth.” These words fall easily from Huaisang’s lips, because they’re true.
Jiang Cheng shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything further. A strange smile is on his face. It’s still jagged and hard, because this is Jiang Cheng, but there’s no mistaking it: it’s a smile. Maybe he can tell that Huaisang is telling the truth.
“Waking up next to you is reassuring,” Huaisang says, emboldened by the moment. Everything right now is just so perfect. They have a mountain’s worth of hard work ahead of them. But surely, it will all work out?
Huaisang takes Jiang Cheng’s hand in his own. “I wish I could do it forever.”
One beat.
And then another.
The world stutters to a halt, and for a moment, all Huaisang can hear is the twittering of a myna.
Then Jiang Cheng barks out a laugh. He doesn’t extract his hand from Huaisang’s grasp, but he averts his gaze, and that hurts Huaisang all the same.
“Cherish the time while it lasts, Sect Leader Nie.”
Of course. To Jiang-xiong, this is all just a partnership of convenience. They’re working together to fulfil their shared goal of taking revenge on Qishan Wen. Huaisang makes the plans, and as his weapon, Jiang Cheng executes them. They’re nowhere near toppling Qishan Wen now, but they’re making progress.
And once Qishan Wen falls…
“We can keep doing this,” Huaisang says, desperate. “We could get married. After this is all over.”
Jiang Cheng’s lips twitch. The rest of him follows up on it, first turning his head to give Huaisang a darkly humorous look, then pushing himself up and stepping off the bed. Jiang Cheng picks up his assassin’s garb from the floor and starts dressing himself, his pale skin swallowed up by layers and layers of black, and Huaisang feels him slipping away.
Huaisang follows him off the bed. He stands up and takes a step forward, reaching out, but as if on cue, Jiang Cheng takes another step away. Always, always, always. Jiang-xiong is always just a step out of his reach.
“Don’t joke.” Jiang-xiong’s voice is so flat. What is his expression trying to say? “After this is all over, marrying down is the last thing you should do. You need to build up your power and influence, make allies, establish Qinghe Nie as a bastion of strength. Have an heir.”
“I don’t care,” Huaisang says, more bravely than he feels. “I’ll do it.”
The expression on Jiang Cheng’s face morphs, into something familiar that Huaisang can’t immediately place. Then he recognises it and his heart twists around itself.
Jiang Cheng is the first to break eye contact, casting his gaze downwards and angling his feet away.
It’s time for him to leave on the mission that Huaisang gave him. He’s ready to go.
And what else can Huaisang do but let him?
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” is all Jiang Cheng says before he leaps out of the window.
Huaisang can make out the dark outline of his silhouette lingering, just for a moment, on the edge of his windowsill, hugging the outer wall of his quarters.
Then Huaisang blinks, and somehow, in that instant, Jiang Cheng has slipped away.