took some drabble/ficlet requests over on twitter, and I'm slowly working through them :D This was written for the prompt "Do you trust me?" | NMJ + JGY from utaoutauhito, and I basically never know how to turn off the angst (or the light XiYao hints).

Trust is a risky jump to take, to leap forward and believe that someone will catch you through it all, and it's a mistake that Jin Guangyao has made more times than he's proud of. He's a fool, an idiot, and—

"Do you trust me?" Lan Xichen had asked, before sending him off to join QingheNie, and he had been right then, and continued to be: because from that first time, Lan Xichen had extended equal, unquestioned trust back.

"Do you trust me?" Nie Mingjue asked, any time his military prowess was questioned before going into battle, and rarely was he wrong. But he was never as good off the battlefield, as Jin Guangyao learned, and the scar on his stomach reminds him not to put all his faith in one person.

And yet—

He tried, time and again, to repair what once was lost, for Lan Xichen's sake, and somewhat selfishly, for his own as well. He wanted to prove himself again, prove he was more than a moment of weakness, and he worked tirelessly to do what would make things right.

But…

"Do you trust me?" Nie Mingjue asked Lan Xichen, as he explained all the reasons they shouldn't trust Jin Guangyao.

"Do you trust me?" Nie Mingjue screamed at Nie Huaisang, after telling him where he was lacking.

"Do you trust me?" Nie Mingjue asked Jin Guangyao, before proving that he is not someone he can trust, because as always he is nothing more than the circumstances of his birth. And so he throws himself into music, daily trips to Qinghe, and—

"Do you trust me?" Jin Guangyao asks Lan Xichen before he vents his frustrations, his worries, all under the ridiculous assumption that no one would listen in on their conversation.

But Nie Mingjue trusted him once and never again, and his paranoia was the final straw- anger welled up and burned him alive, stoked by twisted music and his unwillingness to just fall in line and move on.