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vassar177 · 2 years

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Coming Out (kinda)

Read on Ao3.

~~~

“I think there’s something we need to talk about.”

Jiang Cheng can actually feel his heart skip a beat. He’s lucky he hadn’t picked the plate up from the sink yet because he for sure would have dropped it, but that’s not even worth thinking about at the moment. The first coherent thought to actually make it through the chaos that has overtaken his mind is – He knows.

And isn’t that some shit?

It’s the thing Jiang Cheng feared most when he agreed to move in, that Nie Mingjue would find out he wasn’t normal; that he was lying to Nie Mingjue for the past year and a half. He had thought that he was handling it well, or as well as he could have given the circumstance of cohabiting with another living being.

But Jiang Cheng has always failed at the things most important, so that Nie Mingjue found out is not too surprising in the grand scheme of things.

What is surprising – is the deep, nauseating fear and dread Jiang Cheng feels as he dries his hands and walks over towards the dining room table to sit down, subconsciously wiping his hands on his pants once again before locking them together in his lap.

“Jiang Cheng.”

It was bound to happen sooner or later, he rationalizes. He’s been getting sloppy, letting things slip here and there over the course of their relationship. Too used to Nie Mingjue’s trusting nature, he’s taken advantage of it; he’s relied on his own difficult personality to fill in the gaps for all of the little facets of himself that can’t be brushed aside as mere idiosyncrasies.

He’s gotten too comfortable.

That’s really what it comes down to. Jiang Cheng has gotten so comfortable with Nie Mingjue and their relationship that things about himself he would normally never allow to see the light of day – things about himself that he didn’t even know existed – have managed to crawl their way up and out from where he has buried them for so long, and he’s scared.

He’s scared of losing the only person that he has been able to feel this comfortable with; that he has allowed past most of his walls; that has taken every barb and bite and sting in stride without entirely putting him down. That the only person who has been willing to actually work with him and listen to the words he isn’t saying as much as the ones he does, will simply get up and walk away.

He’s scared of losing Nie Mingjue, but it’s an inevitability that Jiang Cheng should have been prepared for. That’s how all his other relationships ended, after all. Their kind simply isn’t meant to mingle with the rest of society his mother had warned, and he had chosen not to listen to her. So who can he blame but himself? It’s his fault for lying.

“Jiang Cheng.”

Jiang Cheng feels a slight stinging sensation on his hand and looks down. His cuticles are bleeding. That’s great. Lovely even.

Nie Mingjue is constantly telling him not to pick at his nails, it’s a habit that’s been particularly hard to break for him, although he’d been doing well recently. For this stupid habit to rear its ugly head back in right before Nie Mingjue is likely to break up with him is amazing. He almost scoffs at the sheer hilarity of his failures popping up once again at a crucial moment.

“Jiang Cheng, listen to me.” He looks up.

The corners of Nie Mingjue’s mouth are turned down and his eyebrows are pulled forward. He hesitates for a moment, pauses to think of something to say before ultimately deciding against it. Instead, he places his hands on the table, palms up, and raises an eyebrow in invitation.

Jiang Cheng hesitates for a moment but places his hands on top of Nie Mingjue’s. Some of the tension in his body releases, but he still isn’t excited for what’s about to come. He tries to focus on the points of contact between them, to focus on the soothing sensation of Nie Mignjue’s thumbs slowly stroking the back of his hands.

“So, I have something to tell you.”

Jiang Cheng avoids eye contact and continues to zero in on their hands, squeezing a bit to let Nie Mingjue know that he is listening, despite his inability to look the other in the eye.

“I think it’s something that you’ve already picked up on, but I figured we should actually sit down and have a talk about it.”

Here it comes, he thinks.

“So,” Nie Mingjue begins again, a slight tremor shaking his voice.

Jiang Cheng takes a deep breath.

“I’m a werewolf.”

And there it is, Nie Mingjue hates him and wants to break up because he’s a dirty liar- wait. Jiang Cheng blinks a few times before he raises his head.

“As I said, you’ve probably already noticed. I know I haven’t been the best at hiding it and Huaisang is always making those jokes, so I shouldn’t be surprised that you found out-”

Nie Mingjue is rambling, which is something to note on its own considering how confident and straightforward the man usually is, but Jiang Cheng can’t even really appreciate how cute he looks when flustered because he’s still hung up on the fact that his boyfriend just came out as a wolf.

“-And since you’ve been avoiding me recently I figured that it was because you were angry at me for never coming clean so I didn’t want to just let it fester anymore.”

A fucking werewolf. The word echoes in his head as certain things begin to fall into place.

Like Nie Mingjue’s obsession with scent- Jiang Cheng’s in particular.

And how his eyes sometimes reflect at night (Jiang Cheng thought he was just seeing things).

Also that time Jiang Cheng walked in on him eating raw chopped meat with a spoon like ice cream.

And – oh my god – his fucking chocolate allergy.

The laugh that escapes from Jiang Cheng is so strong it shakes his entire body.

Nie Mingjue’s ramblings cut short and Jiang Cheng can feel him flinch as he tries to retract his hands. Jiang Cheng doesn’t let him, gripping tighter as he begins to calm down. “No,” he wheezes, “it’s not like that. Just- just give me a moment.”

It takes several moments, but Nie Mingjue is as patient, as loyal (Jiang Cheng chokes back another laugh) as always.

Finally settling down, Jiang Cheng removes one hand to wipe away the tears that have run down his face before placing it back in the other’s grasp.

“Nie Mingjue,” he starts. “Mingjue. Ge, I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at the situation because I thought you were about to break up with me.”

Nie Mingjue opens his mouth to interrupt but Jiang Cheng continues. “I thought you were going to break up with me because you found out I was a vampire.”

Jiang Cheng watches as Nie Mingjue’s metaphorical operating system displays a 404 error in his eyes, mouth dropping open in shock and confusion as his teeth- canines peak through just underneath his lip and Jiang Cheng is hit by another round of giggles.

They break their handhold fully this time, but only so Nie Mingjue can place his head in his own as the realization of how dumb they’ve both been fully hits him.

He’s probably reliving his own little mental montage of Not Quite Human Jiang Cheng Moments that he just brushed aside because he was too worried trying to hide his own identity.

Like Jiang Cheng’s obsession with applying sunscreen.

And how he’s almost always cold (low blood pressure was his main excuse).

Also that time Nie Mingjue walked in on him casually lifting the couch with one hand, which would be utterly impossible for a human of his stature, but since Nie Mingjue is also inhumanly strong, it never even blipped his radar.

And –

“You have fangs,” Nie Mingjue mumbles, the words muffled behind his hands.

Jiang Cheng snorts, “So do you.”

“So do I,” he groans out in embarrassment, the sound of the ‘I’ extending in shame.

Jiang Cheng leans back and crosses his arms, he hasn’t laughed that hard in years. At this point, he’s fairly certain Nie Mingjue has no intentions of breaking up with him, so he lets all the tension he’s built up over the course of the past few months leave his system.

He jumps a bit when Nie Mingjue’s head shoots up, a look of clarity crossing his face. He speaks as if he’s discovered the secret to the universe, “That explains the biting kink.”

Jiang Cheng’s leg acts faster than his brain, shooting out to kick the other in the shin. “I don’t want to hear if from-” he begins but cuts himself short as his own revelation begins to take shape. “Hey, if you’re a werewolf, does that mean you can shift at will?”

Confusion filters across Nie Mingjue’s face again, but the smirk on Jiang Cheng’s face must make him wary, cautious. “Yeah, why?”

Jiang Cheng’s smile stretches wider at the new information; excitement building.

“Can you show me your ears?”

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

They do not end up breaking up, and Nie Mingjue does give in and shift for Jiang Cheng. The smile on his face when he sees how fluffy Nie Mingjue is makes it worth it. Also, he gives really good head pats and that is.

That’s day three of Twelve Days of Mingcheng with the prompt Cryptid! This fulfills an anonymous prompts for “one of them being a cryptid” (sorry I changed it a little!) and for @shakespearean-ginger who requested “werewolves au” I believe!

Hope you enjoyed it!

Another note: cryptids are a thing in the universe; they're noT super common, but they're not unheard of either. It's about 10% of the population. Some people are okay with having their nature known, others not so much. Vampires are particularly known for keeping to themselves (they self-sustain for the most part; werewolves are slightly more integrated into society. All in all, Nie Huiasang figured it out in their second month of dating.

#mingcheng #12domc21 #jiang cheng #nie mingjue #tried to write

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! Would be awesome if you continued the nmj&wwx sworn brothers fic! I'm not good at giving plot prompts, but I really would just love to see your take on nmj's character, and how he would interact with wwx. I found it interesting that wwx in the untamed was really respectful of nmj when they met, not like how he was in Cloud Recesses. I wanted to see more of how they might interact if they had closer relationship. (Of course also hoping that changes things for the better!)

sequel to this

Wei Wuxian hated to admit it, but being Nie Mingjue’s sworn brother made a world of difference.

People looked him in the eye now, no matter what sort of atrocities were ascribed to him; there was still fear in their gazes, but now it was more like respect – and even more like confidence. He hadn’t realized how many people looked at him as a child, lashing out wildly in all directions, maddened like a rabid dog in his search for vengeance, nor how relieved they would be to know that his sins could be answered for by someone universally viewed as capable enough to keep him down.

It wasn’t just that most people would put money on Baxia against just about everything else – Wei Wuxian counted himself among that crowd – but also, just…Nie Mingjue.

Nie Mingjue was a stern man, short in both temper and speech, but he was straightforward and decisive. He had listened to Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng lay out the benefits of their position, taken an evening to consider, and accepted promptly the next morning; the ceremony had been held at a convenient moment a few days after that, and then he’d invited them both to dinner – Wei Wuxian, as his new brother, and Jiang Cheng as the brother of his brother.

At first, Wei Wuxian couldn’t quite put his finger on what changed after that – it was similar to the way Nie Mingjue had treated them both before, when he was their general and they his lieutenants, but also significantly different. He was still harsh, still fiercely opinionated, still straightforward as ever, as generous in words of discipline as he was sparse in words of praise; was it only that his eyes were softer? That he sometimes felt free to put his hand on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder? That he listened to him, was open to interruptions no matter what time of day or night, asked him for meaningless favors and did them for him in return?

“It almost reminds me of shijie,” Wei Wuxian told Jiang Cheng. “If she were as tall and strong as a bear, and a lot more willing to correct me…almost like Madame Yu, but not as bitter. Yet there’s something of Uncle Jiang there as well: he trusts me to do things, but he’s also there to keep an eye on it – not in an offensive way, you know? Just there in case something goes wrong…it’s very reassuring, somehow. Like having a mountain at your back, keeping you steady.”

“You’re an idiot,” Jiang Cheng said. “All that – you’re just saying he’s acting like he’s your big brother.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him.

Jiang Cheng’s cheeks were red and his eyes averted. “Don’t you know you’re just the same to me?” he muttered, and shoved Wei Wuxian’s shoulder briefly before fleeing, and Wei Wuxian felt a glow of warmth that filled his entire body from head to toe that kept him floating through the next week.

He’s never had a da-ge before, which was probably why he was so slow on the uptake. Nie Mingjue doesn’t so much as blink an eye when Wei Wuxian started calling him that – warily at first, like a bit of mischief that he could play off as a joke if he was rejected, and then quickly enough with confidence, smug and arrogant the way he’d been before the war started, when he’d still had the Jiang sect to hold up the sky for him no matter what he did.

After all, who would dare get in his face with Chifeng-zun at his back?

Nie Huaisang’s frivolity suddenly made a great deal more sense. He was just spoiled!

Jiang Cheng benefited as well, which he wouldn’t have necessarily expected but perhaps should have. Wei Wuxian came across them talking, late one night, and sits in a tree to listen the quiet stories they shared – the burden of being Sect Leader, of needing to honor one’s ancestors and keep their traditions alive while also preserving the lives that had been entrusted to them in this lifetime; the crushing emptiness of realizing that the task for which your entire life has been a preparation had suddenly arrived and there was no one else for it but you; the need for vengeance against those who had robbed you of your parents and childhood all in one go.

Even the struggles Wei Wuxian hadn’t known anything about: the lack of respect from elders who thought they knew better because they still saw you as a child, the need to play politics with small sect leaders eager to take advantage of weakness now to benefit later, the isolating realization that almost everyone you met wanted something from you.

“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian said to Nie Mingjue, after, his face solemn in a way it rarely was. “He’s holding up a corner of the world, all by himself, and I didn’t know how to help him.”

Nie Mingjue nodded; he didn’t shrug things off the way Wei Wuxian did, always took things that were meant to be serious as seriously – it had been such a shock when Lan Xichen had mentioned off-handedly that he was only seven years older than they were; he’d been Sect Leader for as long as Wei Wuxian could remember. If someone told Wei Wuxian that Nie Mingjue had been carved from stone rather than born, he would have believed it, excepting only that his heart could not have been stone.

“It’s something I can do, so I did,” he said, meaning that it was nothing when it was everything. “Perhaps one day you’ll tell me what it is that I can do for you.”

Caught, Wei Wuxian gaped, then tried to turn it into a joke, but Nie Mingjue just patted him on the shoulder and went his own way.

He never pressed, never asked, just accepted things as they were. As long as Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation was used for righteousness and killing Wens, Nie Mingjue would let him keep any other secrets he might have, pursue any aims, let him do as he liked.

And yet it was that permissiveness that led Wei Wuxian to start to wonder if maybe he should tell Nie Mignjue what he’d done, the choices he’d make, the sacrifices – he didn’t think Nie Mingjue would judge him harshly for it. He might even understand it, especially when the only thing that made the man smile were Nie Huaisang’s occasional letters complaining about having to do all the paperwork back at the Unclean Realm where he was safe.

He still wasn’t sure, though, so he didn’t, holding himself back, and then one evening not long after he had finished forging the Stygian Tiger seal – Jiang Cheng had banished him to Nie Mingjue’s side at once upon realizing the appalling power of it, knowing as well as Wei Wuxian did that the cultivation world would be terrified if they didn’t believe it was firmly under control – Nie Mingjue told him about how his father had died. Not the part that everyone knew, his saber sabotaged, broken during a night hunt, the spiritual effect rebounding on him to drive him six months later into a qi deviation long before his time; but why the sabers were so important to the Nie clan.

The foremost mission of the Qinghe Nie was to suppress evil wherever they found it: to uphold justice and abhor that which stood against it, to strike fearlessly against it no matter what they faced, whether wind or lightning. But such a mission required blood to be spilled, blood and blood again – like the executioner who took upon himself the duty of sending criminals onwards, allowing the rest of the community to sleep untroubled, those who took on such a duty invariably became targets of resentful energy, the final vengeance of the evil they slaughtered to save the innocent.

Invariably, there were times – times of war, as there was now – when it was necessary to wield violence in pursuit of righteousness. For the Nie, unlike other sects, violence was a virtue, and it could not be purged through a retreat from the world, the application of countless treasures and cleansing rituals inaccessible to most; their philosophy did not allow them to close their eyes and ears to injustice.

And so they did not rest. They killed in the name of justice and righteousness, killed and killed again; they cultivated their sabers as spiritual weapons, letting them absorb the resentful energy from beasts and monsters in order to better defeat evil that other sects could not, and at last cultivated the saber spirits, rich in resentful energy of their own but devoted only to defeating evil. The saber spirits were nourished by the cultivation of their chosen master, their resentful energy filtered and cleansed and purified, but that process was a burden, sparking the infamously short tempers of the Nie clan, with both temper and saber spirit held tightly in check only by their iron discipline.

The Nie sect leaders, who bore on their shoulders not only their own karma but that of those who followed them – their lives were a sacrifice, always balanced on the edge of a blade: the need to always control the saber spirit, to appease it and tame it, made them more susceptible than most to qi deviation, and absent one of them breaking the seal of cultivation or some accident, that would be how they would die.

Wei Wuxian touched the Stygian Tiger seal, hidden beneath his clothing in its two halves: he’d only used it once so far, causing a gigantic massacre that had taken down an army nearly entirely on his own. As soon as that had finished, he’d known that the seal was too much for him, even after he’d broken it in two to weaken it – it obeyed any master that would have it, so full of resentful energy that it needed only the barest excuse to break free to kill without discrimination. His demonic cultivation used resentful energy the way a Nie saber spirit did, his soul directly exposed to human evil, not merely animal; he risked possession, corruption, or worse, and only his skill and his determination was enough to control it – that he’d thought was enough to control it, until he’d made the seal.

The seal pulsed angrily under his hand, seething with resentment, hungry for blood, and then unexpectedly there was a response: Baxia, held in Nie Mingjue’s hands to be sharpened, gave a pulse as well, fierce and unyielding spiritual energy rippling out from it like a rock dropped into a lake, and for the first time the seal went quiet, as if momentarily cowed.

“Has my cultivation affected my temperament?” Wei Wuxian asked, considering the possibility seriously for the first time. Lan Wangji had told him several times that demonic cultivation harmed both the body and the heart, but he’d disregarded it – he felt fine, he didn’t frenzy; so what if he was angry? Wouldn’t anyone be, after suffering as he had? How could Lan Wangji ever understand?

(If Wei Wuxian thought about it too long, he might think that Lan Wangji would understand, could understand, did, but that thought was too painful to tolerate. In his heart, he still hoped that Lan Wangji would live untouched by the pain of the world, even if he knew that it was far too late for that.)

“Yes,” Nie Mingjue said simply, and his unshakable simplicity was more troubling than a thousand of Lan Wangji’s pleas. “My Nie clan sacrifices the second half of our lives for the power to make a difference in the first; I find that trade worthwhile, but it is all for nothing if we do not control ourselves. That it is easier for us to become monsters is all the more reason for us to always put righteousness first, personal interest second; our instincts will lie to us, inflame us, and we must be unyielding and strict, trusting in tradition and law to guide us where our instincts will fail us. If you persist in your path, you will need be twice as cautious as you were before: quicker to anger is quicker to act – but once the act is done, it cannot be taken back. Whether that is a sacrifice you are willing to make remains up to you.”

Wei Wuxian’s breath caught in his throat like a sob.

Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow, he’d tell Nie Mingjue everything, and get his advice on what to do.

That night, they received word of a temporary gap in the Wens’ defenses in Yangquan, an opportunity to destroy one of their stockpile while the guard was changing; the source of the information was Lan Xichen, who they all trusted. The opportunity was limited by time and the need for secrecy: Nie Mingjue took a small detachment of Nie cultivators to launch a night attack, with Wei Wuxian following at a distance to capture anyone who ran into the forest to escape Nie blades.

He waited patiently in a tree, Chenqing spinning idly in his hands, his mind more than halfway thinking of ways to refine the compass of evil he’d been working on; he wouldn’t let them escape.

He waited, but nothing happened.

No one came running.

The Stygian Tiger Seal abruptly pulsed again, suddenly active in a way it hadn’t been since Baxia had suppressed it, and a pit formed in Wei Wuxian’s stomach. He stood up at once and abandoned his position, rushing forward – and yet he was still too late.

Yangquan was a trap. Wen Ruohan himself had been there, with all his most trusted soldiers, vastly outnumbering Nie Mingjue’s small force; they had been easily overwhelmed.

Watching from a tree not far from the brightly lit center camp, Wei Wuxian bit his fingers until they bled to keep from screaming: he wouldn’t be able to bear it if he had to do this again, to stand by as a mute witness while the Wen-dogs laughed triumphantly over the bodies of those he knew and loved. The Stygian Tiger Seal was hot under his clothing, resentful, wanting to kill, and he wanted to use it – but the first time had come so desperately close to going out of his control that he didn’t know if he could risk it.

What if he lost control? What if he killed those he wanted to save?

Wei Wuxian was accustomed to arrogance, to confidence, to recklessness even – but Nie Mingjue’s warning was so fresh in his ears that for what might be the first time in his life, he wavered, hesitated.

He had just about decided that he would use the seal, and damn the consequences, when someone in the Wen sect dragged Nie Mingjue forward: he had been very badly beaten, his body twisted in unnatural ways and his head cut open, blood blinding him and Baxia nowhere in sight, but against all odds he was still standing – it was almost a desecration in Wei Wuxian’s eyes to see the Wen cultivators put their hands on him the way they had put their hands on Uncle Jiang, on Madame Yu, on all those Jiang cultivators he’d lost at the Lotus Pier.

The way they had hurt Jiang Cheng, so badly that it still haunted his shidi’s nightmares, a hurt so bad that the only way out was for Wei Wuxian to –

He couldn’t let it happen again.

He didn’t have another golden core to sacrifice. If they were going to execute Nie Mingjue right now, in front of him, he would –

“Take them all back to the Nightless City,” someone ordered, instead, and Wei Wuxian’s fingers, which had wrapped around the Stygian Tiger Seal without him noticing, abruptly relaxed in relief. There was still time to make a decision about whether or not to use the seal, or to see if he could rescue Nie Mingjue and the others without it.

The entire troop moved out.

Wei Wuxian followed.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #nie mingjue #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics #this is the one #this is basically a fic already #guess we'll see if I get more prompts #i like the idea of Wei Wuxian having an overprotective big brother #I also like writing out my version of the Nie saber spirits #this should really just be a fic #Anonymous

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