#it's fuzzy

(yes good)

Nie Huaisang is shaking, trembling with rage, like every pent-up bit of helpless anger in him these last few years is bubbling up all at once and threatening to make him lose control.

He can feel the words bobbing to the surface, piling up behind his teeth--how could you let him go? How could you? He was ours, ours, mine. There's something vicious and selfish in Huaisang that hoards close the things he cares about, the people he cares about, ready to let his anger drive him to go down fighting when something happens to them, albeit in his own way.

Everything he hadn't been able to say as he mourned, alone, waiting for the only other person who would admit he cared to get out of fucking seclusion, is ready to spill out of him and splash across the floor of this unassuming Cloud Recesses hallway like stale blood. He's contemplating, distantly, whether it would stain those pristine white robes, that unmoved face, whether it would echo too far down these otherwise empty corridors and draw attention, whether da-ge and Xichen-ge would be displeased, whether he minds.

Lan Wangji takes a breath. "Huaisang--"

The sound of his own name is anything but emotionless, choked off on something like a quiet sob, and it's the last thing he expected. Huaisang's fists unclench in alarm as his stoic, ethereal Lan friend wavers and pitches forward.

"You're--" Huaisang catches Lan Wangji by the elbows, and catches a whiff of his breath at the same time. He darts a look around to make sure nobody's seen them yet--this he would mind an audience for. "You're drunk. Hanguang-Jun!"

Lan Wangji does not answer, just stares down at the ground. There's something morose in his blankness.

"Lan Wanji," Huaisang hisses, fury taking a backseat to concern but not completely forgotten. "What are you doing, getting drunk during a conference?"

A voice, many years old now, laughs and says, Without us, anyway! in the back of Huaisang's mind, and he shoves it away like a gnat.

Lan Wangji still doesn't answer, but there's moisture gathering in his eyes, and Huaisang lets out a breath. Okay. Okay. "Come on, then," he murmurs, and with another surreptitious glance at their surroundings, leads his drunken friend back to his own guest quarters for privacy.

It's easier than it should be to tug him along by the hand, to push him down on the bed. They barely get there by the time Lan Wangji starts crying. Not loudly, not at all, and if it was anyone else the quietness of it would be eerie, but Huaisang still feels compelled to make shushing noises as he pulls him unprotestingly against his shoulder.

"Alright, alright, shh, I've got you."

It's a strange thing to say, but all of this is strange. How many words have they said to one another to warrant being in a position like this? Lan Wangji has only said one to Huaisang in half a decade at least and it was his name. But even so, now he's got a stiff, damp bundle of white silk in his arms and he--he understands. He gets it. It feels right; they're not the only ones, but they might as well be.

"I'm still mad," he murmurs without heat as he pets hair he genuinely never expected to touch in his lifetime. It's probably true; he probably still is. It doesn't really matter, though, either way. "But you probably won't remember this anyway."

and i was like, what (bc idk if i dress provocatively nor do i care i'm simply living my life)

and he was like, you know, all the tight clothes and the velvet