openmisc | Pagan/Huaisang

Somewhere beautiful. He knows just the place.

He leads Pagan through his personal garden and then through a few winding corridors, up and up through the Impure Realm fortress and into his personal aviary. He unlocks the golden gates leading into the aviary, pausing to listen to the songs of his birds before leading Pagan inside.

Pagan follows dutifully, pleased to know that the spot is inside. His father and brother had, when asked the same question, given Pagan an eyeroll and brought him to the same spot on the mountain.

He hears the birdsongs and smiles, delighted. "Ah, A-Song. What a surprise."

"I thought you would be pleased," he says, stepping into the high-ceiled space. He'd filled it with plants and indoor trees that climb towards the ceiling, a little indoor pond, a few large, gilded cages for his more delicate or fragile birds. He sits down on a simple wooden bench by a few of his cages, content to listen to his birds chirp and chatter away for a while.

He loves the sound of the birds. He loves the way they look. And more than that, he loves that way Huaisang looks at those damn birds. He's all but forgotten about him, and Pagan enjoys it. This is Huaisang at his best, at his most authentic. There's something - perfect about it.

"Tell me about them," he says, sitting down beside Huaisang.

He glances at Pagan, his expression warm and genuinely happy, and then starts to talk all about his precious birds. There are some that have been with him for years, caught by his own hands, and of course there are the ones that were presented as gifts. He loves them all the same, his eyes sparkling as he points them out within the trees.

"And then we have the birds I hatched. I don't have many, just a handful," he explains, though he looks like a proud papa.

"You hatched them, did you?" he laughs, impressed. "I - well, that's quite an accomplishment." And he sounds genuinely pleased by it.

"What of the one I gifted you? How is he?"

"He's doing well," Nie Huaisang says, standing back up and walking to the cage with his present from the Min Sect Leader. He opens the little door and whistles softly, the bird hopping out and onto his fingers with a few more gentle calls and coaxes.

"Come see."

"He already adores you," he laughs, but of course the bird does. Of course that's what Huaisang would do.

Pagan walks up beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

The bird sings a little to Nie Huaisang and Huaisang whistles back to him, smiling as it hops along his hand and up along his arm. "We like to sing together. He has the more beautiful voice, of course."

He tries to guide the bird back into the cage with a few more whistles, eventually getting him back there and shutting the door gentle. "He really is a gem."

Pagan looks down at him then, the way that he lights up, cheeks a little flushed and eyes alight, when he talks about the birds. When he whistles, how much they have come to trust him. Something in him warms, stirs, aches all in the span of a second.

This is the Huaisang he had been trying to coax out. Not the man who greeted him with tired eyes and an expression of exhaustion, but this man, the one who likes his fucking birds.

Pagan's reminded of Ishwari, of the way she looked when it came to her plants. The sweet smelling shrubs that surrounded their house were her labor of love and he was obsessed with them now. He doesn't say anything, but he does lean down to kiss him.

Nie Huaisang has a good sense of what people are going to do before they do it. He's never going to be taken by surprise again by someone's intentions, he's never going to be naive and helpless and foolish ever again -- he'd swore to himself that he wouldn't trust. It's self-preservation, it's trying to protect himself and his clan, and he's usually fairly successful.

But he doesn't expect Pagan to suddenly lean down and press his lips to his. His hand goes up in surprise, his eyes wide and just a hair worried. He pulls back with a frown.

Pagan smiles when he pulls away but doesn't press his luck. "My apologies, A-Sang," he mutters. "You're lovely when you're like this. How could I resist?"

He can't remember the last time he'd allowed himself to be with someone that wasn't a whore at a brothel. He can't remember the last time someone'd showed any interest in him, not with Da-ge's watchful eye and definitely not with this act he's created.

And Min Pagan...he'd been with Da-ge, hadn't he? He must just miss his brother.

He shakes his head softly, with a small, apologetic smile of his own. "You flatter me, Gan-ge," he tells him. "But you don't want to kiss the Headshaker. People will talk."

Pagan scoffs. "I am not kissing the Headshaker. I see you, stupid man."

He waves a hand at him, at the birds. "This is you. This is where you belong."

He follows where Min Pagan vaguely gestures, the aviary he’s built, the private sanctuary. The only place he can even be himself anymore, truly himself and not wearing one mask or another.

He doesn’t like this. His automatic reaction is to shy away again, to deny, deny, deny, even if he might want this. Even if it feels nice to be seen.

“Head in the clouds,” he says, turning away from him. He reaches for the fan at his belt. “Thinking of silly things like birds and paper.”

"Things that matter," he says firmly, narrowing his eyes. If anything, this is important. This, Pagan knows, is the most important fucking thing he can pass on to him.

"Do you think them insignificant?" he scowls. "Do you think them unnecessary to the entire culture of our people? Our lives may be bought and sold in blood and war, but we are more than that. You are more than that. You are the reminder of what we came from and what we should be."

Nie Huaisang stops with the fan almost up to his face. Those words echo what his Da-ge used to say, although not so eloquently and with less importance on what he loved. He and their father fought with sabers so that Nie Huaisang could be a gentleman and pursue the arts. It was a luxury that he could afford because Nie Mingjue bore the heavy burden of the Nie Clan.

He turns with cold, narrowed eyes, everything falling away all at once. He's cold, tired, even a little older that way. He frowns at Min Pagan and snaps his fan shut. "I'm Nie, my ancestor was a butcher. This only ever brought shame to my brother and my father."

"And my father called me his daughter until I was thirteen," he tells him, seeing that coldness, that gray, in his face and in his eyes.

"I have great respect for your father and your brother. I fought alongside them. But they never had what you have, Nie Huaisang. Your ancestor was a butcher and mine was a fucking abyss. We don't have to be the way our fathers raised us to be."

"And what is it that I have?"

A small golden core and a weak arm? Those were the only things that mattered in the end. It's what the Nie disciples most feared. His brother had been the strongest man in the world before he died - and in a world of war it was the only thing that people cared about.

He meets his eyes, those lovely eyes, and shakes his head. "You have an eye for beautiful things, an appreciation for the world that we need. There is much beyond the boundaries of what we know. The savages that live out beyond our borders admire beauty in all things." He reaches forward to grasp his hands. "I would show you, if you would see."

Nie Huaisang nearly yanks his hands back out of Pagan's hands, so unused to the touch that it's hard to stomach the sudden intimacy. But he doesn't, because he can still be rational, still be clever when he needs to. He looks down at Pagan's hands and then back up at him, not sure whether to be confused or angry or something else entirely.

"What do you mean? You'd have me come with you back to your home?"

"You are more clever than the others," he tells him. "They lie to you about the borders, about what's beyond. You should see it for yourself."

He takes his hands away. Pagan Min doesn't suffer guests. Not really. They can come to visit diplomatically, but he doesn't invite the others. Not since Ishwari. Not since Lakshmana.

He can't deny that the offer is tempting. No one goes to the borders, not unless they've been disgraced or exiled, and even then it's rare. And he knows about Min Pagan's refusal to open the doors to his home to banquets or conferences - even diplomatic visits are measured and careful.

"They could do without me for a while," he says, surprising himself. He'd been ready to say 'no', tuck tail and run now. Even this moment could spoil is careful plans.

"Good. Then make your plans. You need to open your mind, Xiao Nie, or you will become just like them."

He gives him a bow and then turns to leave him there in the aviary.

Nie Huaisang stares for a long moment after Min Pagan leaves him. He doesn't know, he couldn't possibly know, and yet --

He stays in his aviary for a while after that, only unburdening himself of the conversation - and the kiss - when he feels like he can face his disciples and his advisors without looking like he's seen a ghost. He breezes through the Impure Realm like a man unbothered, but it couldn't be furthest from the truth.

He can't stop thinking about Min Pagan, and his extraordinary offer. Would it be so terrible if he traveled for just a few weeks? He's done it so many times before, why would this be any different? It shouldn't be. Traveling has never been an issue, it shouldn't be now, but Pagan's words...become just like them.

Become just like them.

He finds Min Pagan in the guest wing of the fortress that evening.

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