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There’s something to be said about the beautiful tragedy of living long enough to see everyone you love either die or leave you. Nie Huaisang is a man given to taking pleasure in aesthetic, even if it’s not necessarily beautiful aesthetic. A well-kept facade, after all, is also something to be impressed by.
But tragedy can be beautiful and tragic simultaneously, and Nie Huaisang is - tragic. He doesn’t admit it to anyone else, of course. He can smile and flutter his fan and look at his disciples through his eyelashes and proclaim that no, of course, he really just has no idea how someone might cultivate with a sabre, it just seems so awfully difficult, doesn’t it? But that doesn’t change the fact that in the privacy of his (empty) rooms, in the echoing halls of his (his brother’s, his burden, not Huaisang’s) sect, he is his own haunted specter, looking for people in shadows and corners where they will never stand again.
Nie Huaisang’s brother is dead. His brother is dead. His brother is in seclusion. Nie Huaisang has lost every brother he has ever loved, has ever trusted, and they’d all scrabbled at each other’s throats in the end.
Does he regret using Er-ge to kill San-ge? No. Does he regret using Lan Xichen, a good, upstanding man, to kill Jin Guangyao, a man pushed to the brink by circumstance? No.
Does he regret using Lan Huan, the tragic hero of his own story, to kill the man he’d loved?
Maybe. Maybe he regrets that. But not enough to take it back.
He touches his own walls in his echoing sect as the drillmaster calls, up, hah, down, hah. They’re cultivators, after all, and they’ll train through the most looked-forward-to elopement since the - well, probably another Lan, anyway.
Lan Wangji - Lan Zhan, to his husband, but certainly not to Nie Huaisang, who hasn’t seen anyone who knows his birth name in years - is another person that Huaisang had lost. In a way, it’s less that he’d lost him and more than he’d never had him to begin with, for all that they’d fucked for ten years, and he’d decided it was kinder to attempt the impossible than to let Lan Wangji live his life in benighted misery, waiting for some night hunt or the other to finally be the thing to put him down.
Goes where the chaos is. Alright. Some of them have sects to run, Wangji, and murders to plot. Not everyone can run around trying to thrust their suicide wish on every passing fierce corpse.
“Nie-xiong!” Echoes across the courtyard, and Huaisang looks up with an affected flutter of his eyelashes. Why can’t Wei Ying ever see that he’s deep in his feelings? Why doesn’t he appreciate the distance that a good mope demands?
Wei Wuxian slings an arm around Nie Huaisang’s shoulders, familiar as when they were boys, and leans conspiratorially close. It would be something to be looked at if it weren’t common knowledge that he and his husband went at it rabidly, constantly, and with very little regard for the people within ear-shot. Anyone who sees him with Huaisang now will simply think that they are friends, and they will be right.
Wei Wuxian has absolutely no mind for politicking. In some ways, it’s an endearing trait of his. He desperately wants to think the best of everyone, and will attempt to cram people into the good person box until it becomes infinitely clear that they simply do not fit, and he is forced to put the good person box into the complicated situation box.
Wei Wuxian’s worldview is one that Nie Huaisang has, on occasion, wished that he could steal. It seems like a much less exhausting way to view the world. To forget, on occasion, the intricacies.
“Wei-xiong,” Huaisang says, snapping his fan out and smiling behind it. “How can this humble man assist you?”
“It’s less about what you can do for me,” Wei Wuxian says, keeping his voice low and his hand clutched in Nie Huaisang’s far sleeve, fingers anxiously fussing with the seam, “And more about what I think I can do for you.”
“Ah, Wei-xiong is too generous,” Huaisang says, dropping his face into something bland. He wonders what this is all about. He wonders if Wei Wuxian is going to give him a Talk, capital letters, about never, ever, ever sleeping with his husband again. “Is it a conversation for a private courtyard, perhaps?”
“I’d say so,” Wei Wuxian agrees, and Nie Huaisang doesn’t shake him off to lead the way. The property is rambling, for all that it’s a little austere, and Huaisang’s had plenty of time to make the scattered gardens look nice, what with all the free time he’s made for himself by making everyone believe he’s simply incapable of doing the duties that they’d tried to foist on him.
He hides behind his fan even as Wei Wuxian perches himself on a bench, watching him fuss his sleeves straight past his narrow wrists where his pulse beats through his incredibly fragile, vulnerable veins.
There are so few times that Wei Wuxian looks discomfited. Sometimes, Huaisang is glad that he’s never seen it - or, rather, seen it so rarely. He likes Wei Wuxian, for all that he thinks that he can be a little sweetly naive, and he’s seen first hand how badly rumors can tear someone apart from the inside. He knows how weary Wei Wuxian had been, leading up to his original death.
Huaisang pours the tea that a servant brings and offers the first cup to Wei Wuxian, as politeness dictates. “I believe congratulations are in order,” He says, pulling a smile onto his face. It’s not terribly ingenuine. He is, after all, very happy for his friends.
He just wishes he could also be happy. He wonders what there is left for him, without his brother. Brothers. Without the man who - can you call it love if you know there’s a deadline? Nie Huaisang doesn’t know. Maybe.
“And whyever would that be, Nie-xiong?” Wei Ying asks with the imitation of sweet, fluttering naivety. Huaisang almost wants to ask him to put it away, because he’s always been the one who’s better at acting, but he’s supposed to be acting more - normal. Trying, anyway, for all that he feels like he’s slithered into the wrong clothes and made a place to stay there. A snake in the grass.
“A little bird told me that someone has taken his bows,” Nie Huaisang snaps his fan closed and taps it on his chin, looking theatrically around before gasping sharply and gesturing at Wei Wuxian. “A little bird told me that you didn’t even ask your very best friend to stand witness.”
“My very best friend,” Wei Wuxian echoes, and Nie Huaisang smooths his face over like jade so his reaction to the way that Wei Ying shakes with soft laughter doesn’t show through. He supposes that when you don’t admit to favors like I gave a boy the option to do the impossible, and now you’re wearing his smile, the people you do them for don’t consider you their very, very closest friends.
He supposes that’s reasonable. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t ache, a little.
“And did you?” Huaisang asks, trying not to seem like he’s in too much of a hurry to get off the subject.
“I - did. But - about that, Nie-xiong, there was actually something that I wanted to ask you. Ah - regarding. That.”
Nie Huaisang stares at him, eyes fixed on the dangling red ribbon and absolutely nothing else. He tries not to think of what questions Wei Ying may have regarding his questionably-legal marriage. “Oh?”
Wei Wuxian is blushing, which is, frankly, agonizing to look at. He’s always been handsome, but he’s young and handsome in this body, coltish in a way that he’d never been before. It’s strange, seeing the fluid grace in his wrists, the mobility that Mo Xuanyu had cultivated with his preference for lighter blades to make up for his weaker core. “Well,” He says, drawing the word out. “I - that is, Lan Zhan and I, we had a question.”
Nie Huaisang blinks, slow-slow-slow, and folds his hands in his lap. He pastes on the smile that he’d borrowed from San-ge, way back, when they had still been friends and brothers and neither of them had known what the other was capable of.
He misses trusting people, in some ways. It’s very tiring to stand on tip-toe all the time.
“By all means,” Huaisang says, gesturing with his fan. “You know I’m always happy to help a friend.”
“Aah -” Wei Wuxian winces, which is not a promising start. “Well. It’s - complicated. I really wish I’d made Lan Zhan do this part, you know, because he’s just so much more convincing and clever than I am. He’d know how to phrase it.”
Nie Huaisang, who had grown up with Lan Wangji since very young childhood and then spent ten years fucking the burden of Wei Wuxian-induced-misery off his shoulders, would not ever call the man anything approach convincing. Intimidating, perhaps. He doubts that Lan Wangji could convince a cat out of a sack, though.
“If you just say it,” Huaisang says patiently, “We can figure out together how to improve the phrasing to make it less offensive to me.”
Wei Wuxian laughs. He does it beautifully, like he does many things. Nie Huaisang sips from his teacup and wishes he could just throw things without it seeming like he was going just absolutely batshit.
“Alright, but you have to promise you won’t be upset. Do you promise, Nie-xiong, this is terribly important. If you don’t promise I simply won’t tell you, and you’ll live in agony for the rest of your days.”
Huaisang’s mouth twitches up into a smile despite himself. Wei Wuxian has a charm that just does that. Frankly, it’s very fortunate that Lan Wangji has already done everything but actually fuck the man on a public road, because otherwise Wei Wuxian would have suitors out the door, Yiling Laozu or no.
“I promise,” He says, and offers his pinky to seal the oath. Wei Wuxian, looking delighted, takes and shakes it.
“We want you in our bed,” Wei Wuxian says all in a rush, and Nie Huaisang very nearly drops his teacup. The fact that he’s not in the middle of a sip is the only reason that he doesn’t dribble tea on his lap.
“Ah - Wei-xiong, I may have misheard you -?”
“No,” Wei Wuxian says, jaw jutting forward in a pout that had looked a lot less silly when he’d had a sharper jawline. It’s just cute, now, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “I said what I said, and you promised that you wouldn’t be upset.”
“I’m not upset,” Nie Huaisang says, because confusion and anger aren’t the same thing. “Simply impressed with how fast you move, Wei-xiong, that you can be so tired of the banalities of marriage after only two days. So quick to look to spice up your love life.”
“Our love life is very spicy,” Wei Wuxian says serenely, and sips his tea. Like he’s some sort of expert in the field of spicy sex lives, which Nie Huaisang is very, very certain that he is not. “But that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t like you in it.”
Nie Huaisang stares at him, frankly startled beyond measure. “Well.” He says, and snaps his fan open so he can hide behind it for a while, brows furrowing together. “Well, that’s very - flattering.”
“I’ve gone about it wrong,” Wei Wuxian says abruptly, and sets his teacup down so he can stand and - reach for Nie Huaisang’s hand, sweet fuck. Nie Huaisang delicately shifts it away to keep Wei Wuxian from hugging him, or something. “Please, wait, I - listen.”
“I’m listening,” Nie Huaisang says politely, because his brain is full of bees. Something adjacent to fizzing panic. Something like inhaling water and realizing, just a second too late, that water cannot be exhaled so easily.
“What I meant to say is - is.” He visibly struggles for rephrasing, and then shakes his head. “No, that’s what I meant to say.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Nie Huaisang says, stiffer than he means to sound. Wei Wuxian looks taken aback, a little, like he’s just - expecting Huaisang to fall into bed with them. With him and his new husband, just days after they’re properly married.
“Lan Zhan told me that -” He cuts off, looking a little embarrassed around the edges, like maybe he’s revealing too much, and Huaisang stares at him.
“He did? ” He says after a long, very startled moment of no thinking at all. It’s all very alarming. Nie Huaisang feels tremendously off-balance. He hates it. “He - what did he -?”
“Nothing persona - well, no, definitely some personal things, but nothing intimate.”
Nie Huaisang would like to argue that the knowing itself is tremendously intimate, because he’d gone through great pains to ensure that he and Lan Wangji had remained entirely unentangled, politically, for all that they’d been phenomenally, intimately, and creatively entangled physically.
“So,” Nie Huaisang puts his tea cup down, puts his fan into his sleeve, and folds his hands in his lap, lest Wei Wuxian continue trying to touch them. “Your husband tells you that he fucks another man while you’re dead, and you decide that you’d like to give it a round or two?”
Wei Wuxian blinks. “You fucked?”
Nie Huaisang steeples his fingers and thinks about all the choices that had led him to this point. He hates being the one to let cats out of their respective bags, so to speak. He likes keeping the beans in the basket. It is very hard to unspill rice.
“What were you talking about, again?” He asks, trying to keep the faint desperation out of his tone.
“I’m putting a pin in that thing about fucking,” Wei Wuxian threatens him seriously. “Don’t think I’m not. That’s pinned. But all Lan Zhan said is that you were his, um, closest confidant, and that he respected you, and I quote, ‘tremendously’, and that if I were open to, uh, further entanglements, he’d very much like to -”
“Entangle me?” Nie Huaisang says faintly, feeling a little bit like he’s having some sort of episode.
“Exactly! You’ve got it. So when he said ‘closest confidant’, what he meant was -”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Nie Huaisang says, which is probably the most honest thing he’s said in about thirteen years.
Wei Wuxian goes to touch his hand again, because of course he does, and Nie Huaisang dodges it by picking up his teacup and clutching it like a lifeline. Wei Wuxian settles for patting his shoulder a few times. “Well - well, still. You should come visit us. And -” He must see what Nie Huaisang’s face is doing, which means that he’s doing a fucking terrible job at moderating his expression, because Wei Wuxian is a lot of things - brilliant, beautiful, genius - but he is pretty fucking terrible at reading people. Wei Wuxian cuts off the end of the sentence and returns to his side of the garden.
“Maybe,” Nie Huaisang says in the sort of tone that always, always means not a fucking chance in hell.
“I’ll tell Lan Zhan to expect you,” Wei Wuxian returns in a tone that Nie Huaisang can read as if you break my husband’s heart, you’ll remember why the cultivation world feared me.
Wei Wuxian smiles his bright, pretty smile, which Nie Huaisang remembers from their shared boyhood, as he bids Nie Huaisang a very polite good evening and sweeps out, his robes swirling around him and his ribbon a blood-bright splash against the dreary stonework of the unclean realm.
He wears a white robe now, under all of his other layers, closest to his skin. Nie Huaisang thinks about that long, long after he should have fallen asleep.
◥✥◤
He ends up going to Gusu. He pretends it’s unrelated, but it’s not. There’s really no point in lying to anyone, because nobody actually cares much where he goes - Sect business tends to manage itself when you put a whole lot of effort into ensuring that it does so - so he’s just lying to himself about why he’s in Gusu, which is… pathetic? Moronic?
He does his due diligence in politeness, doesn’t really bother making up an excuse for his presence beyond oh, well, you know s that don’t answer anything before he goes to find Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. It’s terribly improper of a sect leader to go wandering off alone, but Nie Huaisang has very intentionally cultivated the image of The Worst Sect Leader There Has Ever Been, bar none, and as such he generally gets to ignore propriety and just do what he wants.
They’re in a field of rabbits, because of course they are. The sun is setting over the trees, because of course it is. The wind rustles in the grass and one of them is humming and it is all just so fucking idyllic, Nie Huaisang could lose his mind. They look like they’re out of a painting. Nie Huaisang has been invited here, has come by Wei Ying’s word, and yet it has never been more clear how deeply he does not belong.
Another thing that has been taken from him, he supposes, is his ease in belonging. Where does a man belong, if not within the halls of his sect, or in the arms of someone who possesses an affection for him, or with his family? So those are two concepts that have been stolen from Nie Huaisang - comfort and belonging. He really wonders why he hasn’t just up and died by now, from all the drama in his soul.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says quietly, and the humming stops. They both turn to look at Nie Huaisang, loitering at the edge of their meadow. He offers them a bow from there, unwilling to intrude on the space that they’ve carved out for themselves. Story of his life, really.
“Ah, Nie-xiong,” Wei Wuxian stands with a rustle of robes. He’s in soft dove grey today, only lightly layered, with white underneath. He looks - he looks. Nie Huaisang looks away. “You came. Here, come sit, let us bury you in rabbits until you stop looking so sad.”
“No, thank you,” Huaisang says, folding his hands behind his back. “I cultivate this air of misery so people don’t try to seduce me into their marriage beds, you understand.”
“I don’t understand,” Wei Wuxian replies, a quiver of laughter at the edge of his voice. “It’s very sexy and mysterious of you.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, soft and long-suffering. He has a way of giving an eyeroll a tone. Nie Huaisang has always appreciated his economy of language.
“Alright, alright, I’m being good. Come on, Huaisang, don’t you want to sit?”
He doesn’t, but he goes anyway, trying to avoid stepping on any flowers or grass or rabbits. He tries not to look at Lan Wangji too directly, because looking at him is a little bit like looking at the sun. It aches to see him somewhere underneath Nie Huaisang’s breastbone, like a knife that you can’t pull out or you’ll simply bleed to death.
“It’s good to see you,” Lan Wangji says quietly, keeping his eyes trained on the rabbits in his lap. He’s stroking slowly along their backs, one at a time. Nie Huaisang watches the ground so he doesn’t have to watch Lan Wangji’s beautiful, fine-boned fingers.
The thing is. Nie Huaisang has been in love with Lan Wangji since he was very small. He imagines that it’s the product of growing up with someone and having very few other people to trust. Of course, he can imagine whatever he’d like, but the simple practicality of it works out like so: he is, was, and will be, in love with Lan Wangji, and Lan Wangji has the fated sort of love with Wei Wuxian that proverbs are written about.
At the core of love, Nie Huaisang supposes, is wanting what’s best for someone, even if that comes at the price of one’s own personal feelings. Particularly when one’s own personal feelings are, for all intents and purposes, more or less irrelevant to the loved one in question.
So Nie Huaisang had brought Wei Wuxian back - not purely for Lan Wangji, of course, they’d both had their parts to play in the orchestration of his vengeance, but partially - and dropped him, tied in a bow, into Lan Wangji’s lap. He has given them every possible happy ending that he can manage, outside of literally raising the thirteen-years dead. He doesn’t know what else they - he - can want from him.
He’s been silent for too long, thinking. He clears his throat. “You too,” He says, and Lan Wangji looks up with a cocked eyebrow like he can just tell the lie tastes like ashes in Huaisang’s mouth. Whatever. He sits and puts his hands out for a rabbit to hold.
Wei Wuxian puts one into his lap obediently.
“What do you want?” Nie Huaisang asks, and he really doesn’t mean for it to sound so awfully tired, but Lan Wangji barely blinks.
“You,” He says, like it’s just that simple.
Huaisang turns to look at Wei Wuxian, who shrugs. “It’s really not that complicated.” Wei Wuxian tells him, but at least he sounds a little sympathetic. “I’d say, actually, about as straightforward as it’s possible for anything to be.”
“Me,” Huaisang says. “In your - bed?”
“Yes,” Lan Wangji says, voice entirely placid. “And anywhere else you’d have us, if you’re amenable.”
If he’s amenable. Nie Huaisang is pretty sure he's had this dream before, and it usually ends with someone pouring blood out of their eyes.
“But why,” Huaisang has to consciously pay attention to not petting the rabbit too hard, because if it leaves him, he’s going to have a nervous break in the middle of this very nice, very pretty field, under the sunset. “I thought it was just - you were just sad, it was just -”
“Stress relief?” Lan Wangji asks sardonically. “You think I simply could not survive without sex?”
Lan Wangji is probably the strongest-willed person that Nie Huaisang has ever met. In retrospect, that does seem like a sort of stupid thing to think.
“He does like sex,” Wei Wuxian reassures Huaisang soothingly, and then Nie Huaisang is forced to snap, “I know he does!” and it’s all just very embarrassing.
“And you!” Huaisang doesn’t have a fan out, so he doesn’t actually point, but he makes it emphatically clear that he is gesturing in tone at Wei Wuxian. “How are you alright with this? This is your husband. This is your - your fated person. What the fuck?”
Wei Wuxian blinks once, very quickly, and says, “Well, Huaisang, that’s awfully close-minded of you, isn’t it -?” And teeters from side-to-side like he’s told an amazing joke. Nie Huaisang actually sort of wants to hit him. He makes sure to school his face into blankness so Lan Wangji doesn’t want to kill him for hitting his husband across the mouth.
“I know,” Lan Wangji says. He doesn’t sound sympathetic, really, but there’s something vaguely commiserating in his tone. “He’s like that all the time.”
Nie Huaisang heaves a weary sigh and strokes the rabbit along its back, thumbing so, so softly at its little rabbit shoulder blades. He thinks about how fragile rabbits are. How sometimes, they’ll get scared and kick so hard to get free that they’ll break their own spines and die that way.
“Alright,” He says, and gently sets the rabbit down so he can stand and brush his robes off. Lan Wangji looks at him, gold eyes bright and sharp.
“Alright?” He asks, something fierce and hopeful in him.
“Sure,” Nie Huaisang says, affecting indifference in his tone and the way he rolls his head. It’s nothing like when he’d dress up nicely and intentionally, when he’d let his hair slip carefully out of its style in sly attempts to draw Lan Wangji’s attention. He’s decided to be a you get what you get sort of man.
Lan Wangji and, in fact, Wei Wuxian, both seem to want what they can get. The trip back to Lan Zhan’s little house, which has a name, because of course it does, is very rapid and very quiet.
“Would you like a bath?” Wei Wuxian asks politely when they’re all inside and their shoes are off and the doors are closed. He’s putting talismans up - for warmth, it looks like, and for silence. Nie Huaisang feels hot under his robes, uncomfortable and anxious under his collar. He feels like a teenager again.
“Yes, please,” He says, even though it is very strange to bathe in someone’s home without having sex with them beforehand. He does his best not to care, though, and starts taking his robes off.
Wei Wuxian, fiend for touch that he is, immediately comes over and starts working on the ties with him. It does not actually accelerate the process, but it’s sort of intimate in a friendly, sweet way that Huaisang finds - surprisingly appealing. He’s trying to decide what he’s supposed to take from all this. He wonders how much he’s allowed to like them afterwards.
Wei Wuxian starts taking his hair down with careful, nimble fingers, drawing Huaisang’s hair piece off and then collecting all of the pins that keep his braids in place. He hands them to Lan Wangji, who transfers them to somewhere. Huaisang’s hair falls in soft curls around his face where the braids have made their impression, and Lan Wangji smooths his fingers along the length of one, pulling it taut and letting it spring back softly.
“Handsome,” Wei Wuxian comments, pushing Huaisang’s hair back away from his face, and Lan Wangji makes a mm noise that could be taken any which way.
Nie Huaisang lets out a short breath, drops his inner robe, and shrugs both of them off so he can go heat up the bath water and take off his pants in peace. Of course, there is no peace in knowing Wei Wuxian, so of course he follows and sits on the edge of the tub, and of course he trails his fingers in the water to test the warmth. Huaisang has never had an especially competitive friendship with Wei Wuxian, so he doesn’t play around with who should or shouldn’t be naked in whoever’s quarters. He’s emotionally wrung-out. He just wants a bath.
“Can I -?” He begins, and Wei Wuxian nods very seriously.
“I’d just like to wash your hair,” He says, awfully earnest.
“How selfless of you,” Nie Huaisang says, and takes one step further behind the privacy screen to step out of his pants. They’re about to be naked together, he reasons with himself. They’re going to see him anyway. He steps carefully into the bath and shudders at how warm it is, after the cool mountain air of Gusu.
Wei Wuxian actually does wash his hair. He also helps him wash everywhere else, like he’s some sort of bath servant instead someone that Nie Huaisang is planning on having sex with in the very near future. He’s having such a strange evening.
Lan Wangji settles by Nie Huaisang’s head while Wei Wuxian carefully turns his hands over and runs a cloth in between every one of his fingers, up his wrist, along the inside of his forearm where he’s ticklishly sensitive. Huaisang turns to look at Lan Wangji and opens his mouth to say- something, he doesn’t know what he’s going to say, naked in Lan Wangji’s home- and Lan Wangji kisses him instead, soft and lingering like he’s interested in relearning the shape of Huaisang’s mouth.
He jolts, a little, and reaches fitfully for Lan Wangji’s shoulder before he remembers himself and his wet hands and drops them back down to his sides. Wei Wuxian hums a pleased little noise and strokes the cloth down Nie Huaisang’s ribs, not doing anything particularly useful at all. Huaisang actually doesn’t care anymore. He’s very busy with Lan Wangji’s tongue in his mouth, hot and wet and open. He exhales a little hah when they part and Lan Wangji looks unbearably smug, hovering over him like that.
“My turn,” Wei Wuxian says cheerfully, and Nie Huaisang doesn’t even have time to think a wait what before Wei Wuxian’s kissing him, too. He’s a fun, sweet kisser, darting his tongue up against Huaisang’s bottom lip and making him chase before pressing him harder into the rim of the tub and biting his lip hard enough to make Huaisang’s hips jolt up.
“Ah -” Nie Huaisang says, and Wei Wuxian makes a soft sound in return, all air and no consonants.
“Up, up, come on,” Wei Wuxian pulls him upright and Lan Wangji supports him when he wobbles. They keep him between them as they pat him dry, swapping him off to kiss him, and he is so, so very naked and they are tremendously dressed.
“Bed,” Lan Wangji says, and then he just - picks Nie Huaisang up, just like that. And drops him on the bed. Nie Huaisang stares at him and Lan Wangji stares back.
“I know, right?” Wei Wuxian says cheerfully, climbing into the bed by Huaisang’s head and stoking the weight of his wet hair back from his face. “Very rude, but in a sexy way.”
“Yeah,” Nie Huaisang sighs, and then yelps when Lan Wangji flips him onto his belly and bites a mean kiss into the top of his spine. “Oh - ow, I’m delicate!”
“You sound like me,” Wei Wuxian says, deeply amused, and curls his fingers around Nie Huaisang’s jaw. He can feel the pressure of Wei Ying’s fingers when he swallows. It’s - it is certainly something. “I’m always telling him I’m delicate, but he never listens.”
“You are not,” Lan Wangji says patiently into the thin skin between Nie Huaisang’s shoulder blades, and then bites him again, hard enough to bruise. It aches in a way that makes Huaisang want to come all over himself, which would be very embarrassing.
“Ah - Wangji, don’t -”
“I want to,” Lan Wangji says stubbornly, and scrapes his teeth down, lower, along the curve of Nie Huaisang’s spine. He garbles out a noise that makes Wei Wuxian laugh and press a thumb to the corner of his mouth, sweet and sympathetic.
“So mean, our er-gege is,” He says in a whisper, and catches the moan that trembles out of Nie Huaisang in the palm of his hand. “He wants to mark you all over, you know? You wear those lovely high robes, you’d be able to feel it all the time.”
Lan Wangji sucks a mark into his tailbone and presses the edges of his teeth to it, mean and stinging, and Nie Huaisang feels a little bit like he’s going to die.
“Or your wrists,” Wei Wuxian says conversationally, gathering Nie Huaisang’s hands into his own and tracing his fingers over the thin skin that covers blood and bone. “They’d show there, wouldn’t they, if we marked you here?” He presses his fingertips into Nie Huaisang’s pulse point like he’s trying to put his fingerprints on him, trying to mark him as something indelibly theirs.
“Yes,” Nie Huaisang gasps, and realizes all in a rush that oh, they’re not just looking to fuck him, they’re looking to keep him. Lan Wangji spreads his thighs with both hands and licks into him, wet and proprietary, and Nie Huaisang keens, high and helpless.
“Oh, very nice,” Wei Wuxian says appreciatively, and gathers all of Huaisang’s hair in one hand so he can watch the tension down the line of his spine. He’s still wearing clothes, they’re both still in their robes, and Nie Huaisang’s trembling so hard he might go insane. He can feel the way that he’s squeezing around Lan Wangji’s tongue - tight, tight, it has to be too tight to be comfortable, Nie Huaisang hasn’t been fucked in years - and Lan Wangji pulls out just long enough to lave over him, hot and wet, and then press his tongue back inside.
“Oh, fuck,” Nie Huaisang gasps, elbows threatening to buckle, and Wei Wuxian catches him before he can bounce his nose off the bed. “Oh, oh - oh - he’s, it’s so -”
“Good,” Wei Wuxian agrees, and strokes his thumb along Nie Huaisang’s bottom lip. “Is he opening you up so well? Getting you all wet?”
Nie Huaisang makes a fragile little noise, scrambling for a hand-hold on Wei Wuxian’s body, and Wei Wuxian bends down to kiss him. He’s not teasing anymore - he kisses with the rhythm of Lan Wangji’s tongue, catches the noises that Huaisang makes and swallows them whole. He’s smiling against Nie Huaisang’s mouth like there’s nowhere he’d rather be than where he is.
“I want him to fuck you,” Wei Wuxian tells Huaisang sweetly, and Lan Zhan hums a noise into - into Huaisang that makes him sob and shove back into the pressure of his tongue. “He’s so big, Nie-xiong, and you’re so little. You’re so delicate, aren’t you?” He squeezes Nie Huaisang’s wrists, gentle reminder, and Nie Huaisang doesn’t really think of himself as small but he might be, for them. He could be.
“Oil,” Lan Wangji says, dragging his teeth back up to the arch of Nie Huaisang’s spine so he can bite another mark into the small of his back, where he’ll feel it any time he sits. Lan Wangji is a bastard.
“Needy,” Wei Wuxian sighs, and fumbles it into Lan Wangji’s hands, nearly tipping it across Nie Huaisang’s back in his haste. Lan Wangji starts with two fingers, and he’s not even - it’s not so much stretching as just pushing oil into him, like all he wants is for Huaisang to be wet-wet-wet, and wow, fuck, he feels - it’s very - wet. “He likes it, er-gege, the way you’re doing it. He likes that. He’s going to come.”
“Not,” Huisang slurs into the pillow of Wei Wuxian’s thigh, and bites him when Wei Wuxian strokes his hair soothingly. He laughs with bright surprise and he’s so fucking beautiful that Nie Huaisang has to squeeze his eyes shut against it, like maybe Lan Wangji isn’t the only person in the room who’s like looking into the sun.
“You can, you know,” Wei Wuxian says casually, and starts fighting himself free of his layers. In between every one, he slips his fingers into Nie Huaisang’s mouth, like he’s trying to distract him from the sensation of oil spilling out of him to slick his thighs, or he’s just trying to feel the soft heat of his mouth. “Come. We’ll make you come again.”
Nie Huaisang strangles a series of vowels out around Wei Wuxian’s fingers and shakes his head, more dubious than disagreeing. Wei Wuxian hooks his fingers against Nie Huaisang’s tongue with a considering sound and says, like he’s shrugging, “We’ll see!”
The blunt head of Lan Wangji’s cock bumps against Huaisang’s hole and it’s so slick it just slips up his back, bumping against his tailbone and then back down to slip between his thighs, and it’s so fucking hot that it’s agonizing. He makes a noise that absolutely is not begging around Wei Wuxian’s fingers, high and helpless, and Lan Wangji makes a dark noise of agreement that sends a sweeping heat down the arch of Huaisang’s spine.
“Fuck him, er-gege,” Wei Wuxian says, voice light and casual, and holds Nie Huaisang still while Lan Wangji presses in, in, in. He is - impossibly big. Nie Huaisang knows that he’s taken this before, knows it must be possible, but it feels - so much - it’s so -
He darts a hand down his belly and takes himself in hand, shoving his forehead up against Wei Wuxian’s hipbone so he doesn’t have to watch anyone’s face while he comes at barely a touch, clenching so tight that Lan Wangji goes still with a harsh little breath. He gasps out his orgasm with high little ah-ah-ah s that, if he were any more present in his brain, Huaisang would absolutely be embarrassed about.
“Good,” Wei Wuxian says, pushing his hand into the tangle of Nie Huaisang’s hair and tugging, just gently, to encourage him up. “Good, here, I’m gonna - let me fuck your mouth, yeah, open up, there’s a good boy.” Nie Huaisang curls his tongue around Wei Wuxian’s cock and lets him move his head where he wants, lets him fuck up into him at the same time that Lan Wangji does and jostle him from both ends.
“Lan - ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian gasps, and arches forward, and they’re - kissing over Nie Huaisang’s head, while they fuck him, and ah- it’s too early for him to get hard again by far, but Lan Zhan’s staying still and grinding into him somewhere and he’s so, so sensitive. He whimpers a noise around Wei Wuxian’s cock that comes out wet and helpless. He feels - pinned. Owned.
Wanted, which is the most fucking embarrassing thing in the world.
He clenches intentionally around Lan Wangji’s cock and Lan Wangji snarls and takes him by the hips for leverage, pounds into him like he’s planning on marking Nie Huaisang up everywhere, inside and out.
Wei Wuxian is loud with his cock in Nie Huaisang’s mouth, which is for the best, because Nie Huaisang is equally loud with Lan Wangji’s dick in his ass. At least this way, he can’t beg.
“I’m - ah, I’m gonna -” Wei Wuxian stutters, and Nie Huaisang hums an encouraging noise and presses close, far enough that Wei Wuxian’s cock bumps against the entrance to his throat and he has to suppress a gag. “Oh, shit.” Wei Wuxian yelps, high, when he feels it, and then comes down Nie Huaisang’s throat with a series of sharp, jerking thrusts that knock him back into Lan Wangji’s cock.
“So easy,” Lan Wangji says, sounding like he’s rolling his eyes, and then drags Nie Huaisang off of Wei Wuxian’s lap so he can manhandle him onto his side, lift one of his thighs onto his shoulders for leverage. The angle is fucking unreal like this, and Huaisang feels broken open with how - how much. It’s so much.
“Mean,” Wei Wuxian rasps, curling up next to Nie Huaisang and lacing their fingers together. “Fuck, you’re beautiful. Is he gonna make you come again, baobei? It looks like he is, ah, you’re so pretty -”
Nie Huaisang twists and comes with a sob that feels like it’s being yanked out of him, squeezing Wei Wuxian’s hand so tight it has to ache. Lan Wanji fucks him through it, shoves his thigh up a little higher, testing the limits of even his flexibility, and then pounds into him hard enough to make the bed rattle.
He can hear the fucked-out little noises he’s making, the bitten-off little uh! uh! uh! s that Lan Wangji forces out of his mouth and he clenches helplessly at the too-much ache of it, the way that Lan Wangji is just - it’s -
“Please come,” Nie Huaisang gasps, clutching for Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and pressing his fingernails in. “Please, please, fuck, it’s too much -”
“No,” Lan Wangji says, gritted-out, but he shoves deep and grinds there like he’s trying to make a space for himself inside Nie Huaisang’s body, bends double and bites the crook of his shoulder hard enough to make Huaisang keen.
“Fuck! ” He sobs, and he doesn’t think it’s actually an orgasm but it feels like one, it’s so like one, he’s trying to get air back and he can’t because it feels like Lan Wangji’s taking up all the space inside him.
“Pull out, er-gege, you’re going to murder him,” Wei Wuxian strokes Nie Huaisang’s hair away from his panting mouth, holds him steady as Lan Wangji pulls out with a slick, embarrassing noise. They lean to kiss each other, first, sweet and affectionate, and then down to kiss Nie Huaisang, one after the other.
Nie Huaisang squints his eyes open begrudgingly, rubbing his face on the sheets so he doesn’t have to admit to himself that he’d been crying.
“So cute,” Wei Wuxian coos, and rubs his thumbs into Nie Huaisang’s scalp. “Are you comfortable, or should we move you again?”
“I’m fine,” Nie Huaisang says automatically, and then, “No, I’m comfortable.” He squirms up the bed, deciding that if either of them wants him to take a bath they’re going to have to carry him into it and do it themselves. “If - anywhere else I’d like to have you is ‘everywhere’, would that be- ?”
Lan Wangji smiles with his whole mouth and Wei Wuxian presses a kiss, lingering, to Nie Huaisang’s hairline. “That’d be perfect,” Wei Ying says, and curls his fingers into Nie Huaisang’s hair to kiss him again and again.