jiang cheng jiang cheng jiang cheng

love that he was given his mom's dope fancy snake jewelry and he was like "this is my Whole Aesthetic Now get ready for me to be the fanciest person in the room no matter what"

nie huaisang: you're not afraid of color. i like that in a man
jiang cheng: what are you ever saying

I do think the dynamic here is mostly

Nie Huaisang: *absently flirting*
Jiang Cheng: *squinting suspiciously*

Post-canon fic where JC is like "I figured you out" to NHS & NHS is like shit & JC is like "I just don't get where I fit into it all" & NHS like sorry what & JC's like "look I understand the whole time elaborate revenge thing, I get it, but how did all that flirting with me help"

Nie Huaisang:
Nie Huaisang: I'm afraid I just don't know

JC: you should be banned from saying that shit for the rest of your life
Huaisang: how cruel, Sect Leader Jiang, when there are still so many things I genuinely don't know!
JC: like fucking what
Huaisang: why you think I need a reason to flirt with you other than because it's fun

JC: well first of all, if that were true you'd be literally the only person to ever think that
Huaisang: untrue! That girl at the cultivation conference last month--
JC: FINE, the only person to think that for longer than the five minutes it takes me to scare them off

Huaisang: you COULD be nicer
JC: to you?
Huaisang: oh, no thank you, I wouldn't know what to do with that at all

JC: sorry, did you just remember that someone flirted with me for five minutes a month ago
Huaisang: don't flatter yourself, I remember everyone who flirts with anyone
JC: oh.

Huaisang: but yes, esp everyone who flirts with someone who, with Zewu Jun in seclusion & Hanguang Jun and the Yiling Patriarch wed--
JC: can you not. Call him that
Huaisang: but it's fun to see people flinch!
JC: I don't FLINCH
Huaisang: no, your jaw does something delighftul

Huaisang: my point is, you're now the very top of the desireable marriage list. The most beautiful Sect Leader available--
JC: I thought you told me not to flatter myself
Huaisang: yes, I meant allow me to do it

JC: wait, what about you, you're not married
Huaisang: really? I hadn't noticed
JC: shut up, I just mean--you're on there somewhere, right?
Huaisang: why would I put myself on a list I made?
JC: why wouldn't you?? You're a beautiful eligible Sect Leader
Huaisang: ah.

JC: and now that your whole plan is over you can stop pretending to be such an idiot in public and people will actually see that you're, like, stupid competent and observant and shit.
Huaisang: oh I was so right, I don't know how to deal with this at all

JC: what, so you're allowed to call me beautiful and tell me flirting with me is fun and talk about my delightful jaw but I'm not allowed to return the favor
Huaisang: I mean that's basically been our dynamic for, oh, twenty years, yes

JC: TWENTY YEARS?
Huaisang: well there's this year, and then the sixteen that comprise Hanguang-Jun's long winter of the soul—
JC: okay DEFINITELY do not call it that. fuck you. what about MY soul

Huaisang: sorry, did you have some reason to be upset at the Yiling Patriarch's demise? Some kind of familial affection?
JC:
JC: NOW who could stand to be a little nicer
Huaisang: oh i could be VERY nice to you, if you like
JC: ... can we get back to the twenty years part

Huaisang: you remember when we all got drunk in Cloud Recesses?
JC: how could I possibly forget? that's when Wei Wuxian's stupid crush started actually getting in my way, plus we got in so much trouble—
Huaisang: yes, yes. how much do you remember of the actually being drunk part

JC: ... barely any. it was the first time I had Emperor's Smile, and Wei Wuxian is always trying to drink everybody under the table. not that he can ANYMORE, with how small Mo Xuanyu's body is, but—
Huaisang: Mm
JC: ...sorry. what, um, what do you remember
Huaisang: everything :)

JC: what. does that mean. why are you smiling like that. what does that MEAN
Huaisang: :)
JC: HUAISANG
Huaisang: :)
JC: i fucking hate you

Huaisang: anyway EVER SINCE i have been languishing—
JC: no you haven't
Huaisang: yearning—
JC: no, you haven't
Huaisang: SICK WITH LOVE—
JC: NO YOU HAVE NOT
Huaisang: no, I haven't. I was, hm, occupied for most of that time. but i would quite like to kiss you again
JC:
JC: again

Huaisang: I mean, since you don't remember the first time.
JC: how kind
Huaisang: I feel quite sure I have improved my technique since I was sixteen
JC: been practicing, huh
Huaisang: I mean, it's been twenty years, i haven't been a MONK. surely you also—
JC: [furious silence]

Huaisang: Oh.
JC: don't say "oh" like that. fuck you. you should know, you're the one tracking how no one can even flirt with me for longer than five minutes
Huaisang: at OFFICIAL FUNCTIONS, for intended marriage! I assumed—at Lotus Pier, there was no one, no pretty friend—

JC: YOU'RE my pretty friend
Huaisang: that is simultaneously the nicest and saddest thing anyone has ever said to me

JC: Huaisang—
Huaisang: sorry, give me a moment, I am just reevaluating the sanity of everyone who has ever set foot in Lotus Pier
JC: for not throwing themselves at me?
Huaisang: for at least not making a valiant effort, before you speared them like fish w the lance of your gaze

JC, reluctantly: some of them did
Huaisang: oh?
JC: I turned down. some invitations. early on
Huaisang: may I ask why?
JC: hey didn't you say you wanted to kiss me like five minutes ago could we maybe revisit—
Huaisang: Jiang Cheng.

JC: [sighing] I didn't—I was raising A-Ling for Yanli. Not alone, obviously, splitting time with. Well. But I didn't like the idea of bringing someone into his life who wouldn't last.
Huaisang: and you knew it wouldn't last because...?
JC: because literally nothing ever has?

JC: anyway I guess word got around, because people stopped offering
Huaisang: cowards and fools, all of them
JC: as opposed to you, who's just been pretending to be both
Huaisang: of course
JC: and now?
Huaisang: hm?
JC: are you pretending?

Huaisang: what on earth would be the point?
JC: that's the same question I asked you at the very beginning of this conversation
Huaisang: well my answer is the same, i don't know
JC: you don't know if you're pretending?
Huaisang: no. because i don't know what you want

JC: what the fuck does that mean
Huaisang: if you don't want to kiss me, then yes, I'm pretending. Nothing happened that night in Cloud Recesses except I perhaps stared into your eyes in the moonlight too long, and you can return to Lotus Pier unsullied

JC: and. if I do want to kiss you
Huaisang: then no, I'm not pretending. And you were my first kiss &, to my guilty delight, I was your only one. And. I am quite fond of A-Ling. I have demonstrated that I shall at least remain your pretty friend for a span of twenty years, so—

[and then JC kisses him ] [fin]