Nie Huaisang peers down into the coffin, and Nie Mingjue peers back.

"Well, now." Nie Huaisang cannot help his sigh, a resentful and rueful thing, but he is, at least, mindful to muffle it enough that it does not carry too far across the too-still night. "This is not ideal, is it?"

Nie Mingjue blinks, the drag of his eyelids slow, stilted. There is little recognition in his eyes, but that almost comes as no surprise. Nie Huaisang doubts he would recognise himself, either, were he in his brother’s place.

"I suppose it’s not fair of me to expect you to deny your nature," Nie Huaisang reasons on Nie Mingjue’s behalf. He rolls up his sleeves, then holds out his arms, hands upturned, forearms a brace. "Come on, then."

Nie Mingjue has the strength to raise himself, but not the balance, not with how stiff his corpse is. That is what Nie Huaisang is for.

His brother’s palms are clammy cold and oily with rot where they wrap around him. Nie Huaisang feels his bones creak as Nie Mingjue clamps down, and he bites at the inside of his cheek to stifle his groaned complaint until the taste of his spit turns coppery. He can already see the bruises blooming on his skin when he lets his eyes slip shut for a beat to indulge in the picture of them.

Oh well.

It is a long walk from Yunping to Qinghe, and one that is made all the longer by the fact that they can only travel at night.

Nie Huaisang talks little, the first night. It is not for any lack of things to say; he has years and years worth of loneliness to regale Nie Mingjue with, after all. But it is— difficult, to speak aloud and be met with no answer. Nie Mingjue was hardly ever verbose, but now Nie Huaisang must see the sight of his brother’s jaw shifting around nothing, his tongue still, and be expected to survive both it and the silence.

He regains his composure, though, as time stretches on. It is not long at all before he’s emboldened once again, steeled against the bitter blade of this fateful outcome, just one more amongst innumerable others.

"I can’t even take you home," he says, with coolly enforced casualness. "You know that, don’t you? Even if I ripped up every threshold in The Unclean Realm, the bagua will stop you. The Stone Castles can’t shelter you, either, nor can the Sabre Halls." He thinks he can allow himself this: this one moment of leniency, of ruinous and rancid weakness. Nie Huaisang exhales in a rush, then sucks in a shuddering breath. "You couldn’t have met with a more unfortunate fate, could you, Da-ge?"

Nie Mingjue’s footsteps shuffle, stutter, stall. Nie Huaisang inclines his head over his shoulder, and holds out the lantern, arm bent at his side, to illuminate the path at his back. When he has ensured his brother yet remains upright, and there are no obstructions on the dirt road to prove senselessly difficult, he straightens, shakes out his hands, and resumes his meandering wander.

"I will think of something," Nie Huaisang promises, though he knows it’s a promise made more to himself than it actually is any pledge to Nie Mingjue. They are long past that point, now, where such a thing could matter, will ever hope to matter again.

Nie Huaisang’s impatience does, inevitably and eventually, circle back to punish them. He foregoes guaranteed shelter for the sake of progress, and all he gains is dirt beneath his nails and panic rattling within the cage of his ribs as he and Nie Mingjue try to dig out a hole in the soil large enough for him to cover his brother’s body over before proper daybreak.

"What am I to do with you?" he asks himself, the Heavens, and Nie Mingjue, all for the sake of a distraction from the ache in his hands and the bruises forming on his knees. "We can’t go on like this."

It’s a terrible amalgamation of all the things he truly wants to say; the things he is still yet to find words for. It’s no less true an expression and exasperation, though, and it is enough, apparently, to give Nie Mingjue pause.

Nie Huaisang doesn’t look at him, too busy with the more pressing need to tear the earth apart, until his brother’s shaking hand sets itself around his throat, fingers a snug fit beneath the jut of his jaw. He whips his head up and stares at his brother, seeing his own wide-eyed visage reflected back in the lifeless, milky pools of Nie Mingjue’s death-blind eyes.

"We can’t be sure that will work," Nie Huaisang answers, with great and grave reluctance. Nie Mingjue deserves that honesty from him. Nie Mingjue deserves more, and better, and everything, and what he got and gets and what Nie Huaisang gives, now, is not enough.

Nie Mingjue lowers his hand; back to his side, first, and then down, further, back into the earth.

The first night after they’ve crossed the provincial border, Nie Huaisang wakes late into the dark, and Nie Mingjue is gone. He’s hardly surprised, but the absence of shock fails to stem the tide of the twice-over grief that follows the discovery.

It is for the best. For now, it is for the best. With time, it may change, but until then, this is what they’ve been given, and so this is what they must content themselves with having.