Jiang Cheng feels like shit when he opens his eyes. His head feels like it could crack right open at any moment, his thoughts feel like they are all wrapped in cotton, his nose is stuffed and when a cough rattles his entire body, he knows that he’s fucked.
He hasn’t been this sick in ages.
Jiang Cheng still forces himself out of bed, because he guesses a tea could not hurt and he also has to call his father to let him know that he’s not going to come to work today.
Tea first though, because Jiang Cheng is not even sure if he can speak with how much his throat is hurting on top of everything else.
He carefully drinks his tea hoping that it will at least make it a little bit better, but when another coughing fit hits him he realizes that it’s futile. It doesn’t help at all that his whole body is hurting and Jiang Cheng desperately wants to go back to bed.
So he gets out his phone and dials his father’s number.
“What is it this early in the morning?” Jiang Fengmian snaps at him once he picks up and Jiang Cheng shrinks back in on himself.
“I’m sick,” he whispers, his voice barely more than a scratch. “I can’t come in today.”
There’s a telling silence on the other end of the line and Jiang Cheng closes his eyes.
He knows what’s coming.
“Is it bad enough to warrant a trip to the hospital?” Jiang Fengmian demands to know and Jiang Cheng shakes his head before he remembers that his father can’t see.
“No,” he admits, because he doesn’t quite feel shitty enough for that.
Not yet.
“Then I expect you at work in an hour,” his father tells him and before Jiang Cheng can say anything else he already hung up on him.
“Of course,” Jiang Cheng still bitterly whispers and tries his best not to think about that one time Wei Wuxian called in sick because of a hangover and his father did not only give him the day off but he also drove there to see how his precious A-Ying was doing.
Jiang Cheng really should have expected this, if he’s being honest, but it still hurts. It hurts even worse when he forces himself to get ready, because his body is barely even cooperating with him and Jiang Cheng thinks it might be better if he takes a didi to work instead of driving himself, because that simply doesn’t seem safe.
It’s one of the longest days he’s ever had.
~*~*~
Jiang Cheng is blowing his nose for the fifteenth time in ten minutes when Nie Mingjue comes into his office and immediately stops dead in his tracks.
“Are you sick?” he asks and there’s an accusing undertone to his voice that immediately makes Jiang Cheng straighten up.
“Of course not,” he wheezes out, his voice scratchy as hell and it probably doesn’t help his case that he’s wrecked by a coughing fit a second later.
“What the fuck are you doing here if you are sick?” Nie Mingjue wants to know, but Jiang Cheng is too busy not to die to answer him.
Once the coughing stopped he reaches for his mug of tea only to realize that it’s empty. It’s enough to bring tears to Jiang Cheng’s eyes.
“Drink this,” Nie Mingjue says and hands him a water bottle.
It’s not what Jiang Cheng wants but it’s better than nothing, he’s sure of it, so he takes it and gulps it all down.
“Wanyin, seriously, what are you doing here if you are this sick?” Nie Mingjue asks again and this time he sounds a little bit softer.
Soft enough that Jiang Cheng answers him.
“It’s not so bad, and I know—it’s not bad enough to go to the hospital.”
“So? It’s obviously bad enough to stay in bed,” Nie Mingjue shoots back and Jiang Cheng shrinks into himself.
“Right,” he scoffs and regrets it a second later when he has to cough again.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You do know that you have sick days, right?” Nie Mingjue says as he carefully puts one of his big, warm hands on Jiang Cheng’s back. “You really shouldn’t be here. Are you burning up?”
Before Jiang Cheng can answer him, Nie Mingjue already put the hand to Jiang Cheng’s forehead and going by the unhappy face Nie Mingjue makes, Jiang Cheng can guess the answer.
“Really, Wanyin, you should be at home.”
“Lan Qiren—” Jiang Cheng starts but Nie Mingjue doesn’t let him finish.
“Will drive you home personally, I’m sure of it.”
“Sure,” Jiang Cheng sarcastically says. “He won’t even allow me to take the day off, I know it. I’ve—made my mistakes in the past and I know better now.”
Nie Mingjue doesn’t seem at all happy with that statement and before Jiang Cheng can think to defend himself further, Nie Mingjue already reached for the phone.
Jiang Cheng wants to stop him, but Nie Mingjue gives him a look that makes him freeze in his motions and so it’s not long before Lan Qiren is on the line.
“Wanyin, what can I do for you?” Lan Qiren asks and Jiang Cheng wants to tell him that it’s nothing, Nie Mingjue speaks up.
“It’s Nie Mingjue,” he says and there’s a beat of silence on the other end of the line.
“Mingjue? Is everything alright? Where is Wanyin?”
“He’s right here, but he’s sick. I think he’s burning up on top of having the worst cough I have ever heard and he’s barely visible behind his stack of tissues,” Nie Mingjue tells him and Jiang Cheng channels his most accusing look to throw at him.
Nie Mingjue seems entirely unimpressed.
“What is he doing here then?” Lan Qiren wants to know and Nie Mingjue sighs.
“I’m guessing his father didn’t let him have sick days back when he was still working for him.”
Nie Mingjue is keeping eye contact with Jiang Cheng as he says it but it’s too much for him, so Jiang Cheng averts his eyes, probably only proving Nie Mingjue right.
“That—” Lan Qiren cuts himself off and Jiang Cheng wonders if this is as close as Lan Qiren ever gets to swearing. “Mingjue, be a good boy and take him home, okay? Don’t leave him alone until he feels better.”
“No problem,” Nie Mingjue gives back and promptly hangs up on Lan Qiren after saying his thanks. “You heard the man. We’re going home.”
“There’s no reason for you to miss work as well,” Jiang Cheng mutters, as he gets to his feet to gather his things.
Everything spins for a moment and when he can see clearly again, he’s back in his chair.
“Yeah, right, because leaving you alone seems like a good idea right now,” Nie Mingjue mutters and helps Jiang Cheng to gather his things.
“I’m not a burden,” Jiang Cheng presses out because the thought that Nie Mingjue would think of him as such makes him sick to his stomach.
“No, you are not,” Nie Mingjue immediately agrees. “But you deserve someone who takes care of you, so let me be that person, alright?” he adds, more softly this time and Jiang Cheng is helpless against that so he only nods.
“Okay. Come here then,” Nie Mingjue says and helps him up, keeping a steadying hand on his arm. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can,” Jiang Cheng bites out and even manages something that doesn’t look like a drunk stagger.
Nie Mingjue very wisely keeps silent at that and Jiang Cheng is pretty sure he’s spacing out during the drive because suddenly the car is already coming to a stop.
Jiang Cheng blinks a few times as he stars outside the window and then he turns towards Nie Mingjue.
“That’s not my house.”
“No. It’s mine,” he says as if it’s the most normal thing in the world and before Jiang Cheng can protest, Nie Mingjue got out of the car.
“Come on, now,” he says as he opens the door for Jiang Cheng but when he gets out of it, everything goes dark around him.
Jiang Cheng comes back to as Nie Mingjue opens the door to his house and Jiang Cheng is ashamed to find that Nie Mingjue is carrying him bridal style.
“I’m sorry,” Jiang Cheng whispers and hides his face in Nie Mingjue’s shoulder. “I don’t mean to be a bother.”
“You are not,” Nie Mingjue promises him and Jiang Cheng is pretty sure that he feels how Nie Mingjue presses a kiss to his head.
He decides not to think about this for now, because it makes his head hurt and his chest feel tight and it really doesn’t help his overall condition right now.
Nie Mingjue brings him straight into the bedroom where he puts Jiang Cheng carefully down on the bed.
“I’ll get you some sleeping clothes and then you’ll take a nap while I make you soup,” he tells Jiang Cheng but before he can turn around to do just that, Jiang Cheng catches his hand.
“You really don’t have to do that,” he tells him. “I’m fine on my own, you just have to bring me home. I don’t want to steal your time.”
“Wanyin,” Nie Mingjue says and removes his hand from Jiang Cheng’s, only to cup his cheek with it. “You are not a bother. You’re not stealing my time. I want to take care of you, okay? You deserve it.”
Jiang Cheng wants to argue against that, because he really doesn’t deserve anything, but Nie Mingjue continues to look at him with this soft look on his face and Jiang Cheng is helpless against that.
“Why are you doing this?” Jiang Cheng eventually whispers, turning his face more into Nie Mingjue’s hand.
Nie Mingjue lets out a long sigh and shakes his head.
“I knew you didn’t notice my flirting, but ouch, Wanyin,” he says, a teasing note to his voice and going by how his headache intensifies, Jiang Cheng guesses that he’s turning bright red in the face.
“But I’m nothing special. You really shouldn’t be flirting with me.”
“You’re pretty special to me,” Nie Mingjue immediately gives back and there is no hesitation at all in his voice. “Now, are you going to continue to be difficult or can I get you some more comfortable clothes now?”
Jiang Cheng’s heart does something funny when he realizes that he’s going to wear Nie Mingjue’s clothes and going by the look on Nie Mingjue’s face, he knows it.
“Let me take care of you,” Nie Mingjue still says, as if Jiang Cheng has any reason left to argue against it.
“Okay,” he whispers and is rewarded by a smile for that.
“And once you feel better, let me take you out on a date, too,” Nie Mingjue says as he rummages around in his drawer for some clothes.
Jiang Cheng can still hardly wrap his mind around the fact that someone like Nie Mingjue would want to do that, would willingly spend time with him, but when Nie Mingjue turns towards him with a raised eyebrow, Jiang Cheng is quick to nod.
“I would like that.”
(Jiang Cheng is torn between healing as fast as possible so they can go on that date and healing as slow as possible so that Nie Mingjue dotes a bit longer on him. He’s very pleasantly surprised to find that Nie Mingjue never really stops doting on him, sick or not.)
Hello! So this is day 3 of @vassar177‘s 12 days of Mingcheng and the prompt from today is Revenge and I hope you enjoy it! As always, stay safe and healthy!
There were many things in life that Jiang Cheng didn't understand. For example, he didn't understand what was going on in his brother's head when he fell in love with Lan Wangji, he didn't understand why Wangji fell in love with him right back and he didn't understand why would ever target Nie Mingjue of all people. There were so many other people to be kidnapped and yet, they chose to kidnap Nie Mingjue and put a target on their backs like the idiots they were.
So, as Nie Huaisang entered the hospital with his brother, Jiang Cheng swore that whoever made this to his husband was going to suffer so much that death would be more appealing than life when he was finished with them. He took a deep breath and turned around, knowing that his men were going to protect both his husband and his brother-in-law from anyone that tried to harm them, because he needed a plan and he wasn't going to get one standing in the middle of the hospital. His brother, Wei Wuxian, was waiting for him at the entrance of the building and drove them to their older sister's house.
Their sister, Jiang Yanli, was the most dangerous person that had ever stepped on Earth, their mother included, and though she was retired, nobody dared to come at her and those she loved for fear of retaliation. Not only from her side, but from his clan and their brother's clan too. Everybody knew that messing with them ment trouble and, usually, death too.
That being, he wasn't surprised to find not only Yanli, but her husband too already waiting for them with fire in their eyes. Though their marriage had been arranged, they were the only relationship that he actually looked up to. With a kiss on her cheek and a shake of hand with him, they focused on business.
"Do we know who did this?" Wei Wuxian asked once while they were sitting in Jin Zixuan's office.
"The Wen Clan." Jin Zixuan said and Jiang Cheng ignored the snarky laugh that left his brother's lip. Their brother-in-law, though his face suggested otherwise, was no idiot and he could be as terrifying as his brother, Jin Guangyao, if he so wished. "They wanted to destabilize the Nie clan and given that you and Nie-zongzhu aren't married yet, they may have thought that the Jiang wasn't going to intervene."
"Fools." Jiang Cheng said, biting his back teeth with enough force to make them hurt. "Who, specifically, did this, Zixuan?" His voice was deep with anger and hatred for the person that had done all they did with his husband. Though they were not married yet, it was no secret that their clans protected each other more fiercely than with their own people. "Answer me, Zixuan." He growled when the man did nothing, but looked from him to his sister. Temperance and patience were not things he needed right now.
"Wen Chao." He said after a long sigh. "He ordered the kidnapping and, according to my informations, he was the main person to torture Nie-zongzhu."
"I'll never not be amazed by how you discover those things." Wei Wuxian said, blinking at him before smirking at the blush that spread on his cheeks. Jiang Cheng understood, he really did, because their brother-in-law had nothing to do with his father's illegal business, he had long stepped out of that position in favor of taking care of his family, and still knew more about the underground world than many of them. Still, right now, he needed the information and not Wei Wuxian's amazement about them.
"What else?" He took in a deep breath, hands clenching and unclenching over his thighs. "I need a plan and, if it was that fucker called Wen Chao that put Mingjue on that hospital bed, I want his bones crushing beneath my feet as quickly as possible."
" We need a plan, A-Cheng, we." Jiang Yanli said, stepping away from her husband's chair and kneeling in front of him. "But, first, we need to calm down, all of us, and focus on how to get our revenge without harming innocents and protect those who were already hurt." He knew that she was right, she was always right, but it hadn't been her to find Nie Mingjue hanging from that ceiling, beaten and bleeding as if he was nothing more than meat ready to be cut. It hadn't been Zixuan or Wuxian, though he was there with him, it had been him and that image wasn't going to leave his nightmares for long years.
"Jie..." He stared at her, trying to hold the anger burning inside him and not break down right there and then. "I want him broken, Jie. Broken to a point that not even the gods will recognize his soul when I'm finished with him."
"And we are going to give that to you, but first we need to calm down and think on our next steps. Do you understand that, didi?" She said, caressing his knees and staring deep in his eyes. He could see all the anger swirling under the surface, the desire to hurt those that had hurt Mingjue - and those, him - that way burning as brightly as it was on him too. It was that and the fact that both Zixuan and Wuxian shared the same desire that made him take a deep breath and unclench his fists. She was right, he needed to calm down.
After Nie Mingjue had disappeared, Nie Huaisang called him to ask if they were together as there were times that they would ditch their bodyguards to spend some time together. But that day both his nephews were spending time with him and, for more that he loved Mingjue, he would never ignore them for him. The call had scared him because his husband would never worry his younger brother like that.
By the time they found him, the fuckers that kidnapped him were already gone and had left him to bleed to death in a room of an abandoned building. Thinking now, it made sense why there was so little guards to guard Mingjue, if it was really Wen Chao that did it, then the idiot must have thought that nobody was going serarching for him and that he had time to keep torturing until he was dead. Jiang Cheng had been so afraid when he entered the room and saw him hanging from the ceiling, unresponsive to everything and covered in blood and bruises. Gods, there had been so much blood and he looked so small after they finally brought him down that, for a moment, he feared that he was going to break if they added too much pressure.
He was vaguely aware of a glass of water being pressed against his hands and how violently they were shaking, too lost in the memories from earlier. Nie Mingjue was no small man, but seeing him on that stretcher, looking so pale and fragile, had made his insides burn and maybe it hadn't been only anger that was eating him from the inside out. Of course it hadn't been only anger, it never was only anger, didn't he know that already? Didn't Mingjue tell him that already?
Still, he wanted revenge, he wanted to be able to sleep that night knowing that nobody else would ever again dare to touch those he loved. But Jie was right and he couldn't just go shooting left and right until everyone was dead and risk harming those that had nothing to do with the issue, as if the consequences didn't matter. There were so many things at risk, so many things that could go wrong and the only thing that Jiang Cheng wanted to do was return all the pain that Wen Chao caused.
At some point of the night, between imagining hurting Wen Chao in multiple ways and planning what they actually could do, his phone lit up with Nie Huaisang's photo and he ignored the way that his heart skipped a beat over the possibility of bad news. When they arrived at the hospital, the doctors had taken Nie Mingjue to the operating room immediately and he had no idea how long it would take for him to be okay again. That was the reason he answered so quickly when his phone lit up.
"How is he?" Jiang Cheng said the moment the line connected.
" He is fine, Jiang-xiong. The cirurgy just ended and they transferred him to a room. You can come visit him if you want to. "Nie Huaisang said and he sounded so tired. " Please, Jiang-xiong, come see him. I need to talk to you too."
"I'm already on my way. Don't worry." He said, getting up and reaching for his coat on the back of his seat. "Don't leave his side, please."
" Didn't even think about it." With that they hung up and Jiang Cheng turned to look at the others.
"Mingjue got out of the operation room. They transferred him to a room and Huaisang said that I could go there to see him." He took a deep breath, pocketing his phone and looking at each one of them. "Thank you for everything."
"Wait, A-Cheng, I will go with you." Wei Wuxian got up, too, reaching out for his coat.
"I don't think you can enter, Wei Wuxian." He stopped, looking as both Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan too stood.
"For as much as I care for Nie-zongzhu, I'm not going for him. I'm going there to support you." He said, stepping forward and opening his arms.
"We all are, A-Cheng." Jiang Yanli said, hugging him along Wei Wuxian in a tight grip. They all headed to the hospital and, if he was being honest, he was happy that they went with him because when he finally saw the state Nie Mingjue was in, he doubted that he would be able to go home in one piece.
Nie Mingjue was laid down in the hospital bed with a tube down his throat and mostly covered in white bandages, but it was the parts without the covering that truly scared him. There were purple bruises everywhere that he looked and the anger was coming back full force now. Carefully, he reached out for the hand without the IV and stroked it gently, looking at his face and taking deep breaths.
"You came." Nie Huaisang said, opening the room's door with a cup and his usual fan in one hand. His hair was up in a messy bun, his bangs all messed up from all the times they probably were pushed back in his anxiety and his robes were in disarray. "Have you even eaten anything, Jiang-xiong?"
"I'm not hungry, Huaisang." Jiang Cheng sighed, not daring to look away from Mingjue's face for a single moment, afraid that he might break if he did so.
"Funny that you seem to think that I care." He flicked his ear with his fan, dropping a box of dumplings on his lap. "I will eat with you, ok?" Pulling the other chair in the room, he sat by his side and opened the box. "Just one, alright? For Da-ge."
"What did you want to tell me, Huaisang?" He sighed, though he did grab a dumpling.
"After we eat." After that he didn't talk anymore and Jiang Cheng had to satisfy himself with the food he was given instead of the answers he wanted. "Do you know who did this?" Nie Huaisang said after they finished each one dumpling.
"Wen Chao." He said, fidgeting with the transparent wrapper.
"I was afraid you would say that." He said, looking at his own hands. "We have a deal."
"You and Wen Chao?" He said, eyes aflame and disbelief written all over his face. Nie Huaisang and Wen Chao? He couldn't believe it, he despised him as much as he and Wei Wuxian did. It made no sense!
"What? No. Hell, no! The Wens and the Nies as whole." He turned to him, eyebrows furrowed. "We made a deal, some months ago, but it's not revealed yet. So I can't tell the exact details."
"Does that mean that I can't go after Wen Chao?" His mouth was close with so much force that the grinding of his teeth could be heard.
"That means that I know why he did what he did and that the deal doesn't protect him by any means." The empty look that he had been carrying for all the time they had been eating was now replaced by a hateful and vindictive one. "He wanted to impress his father and once only Wen Ruohan and his oldest son knew about the deal, the grasshopper brain probably didn't know that harming anyone under the protection of the Nies would cause immediate break of the agreement, which means that the person affect by it can and should nominate someone to avenge them in the same measure and manner."
"What are you trying to say, Huaisang?" He sighed, putting his head between his hands. Hell, that night was going to be long, so, so, long.
"Da-ge is in no condition to nomeate someone to 'return the favor' Wen Chao did, so, as his little brother, I'm telling, Jiang Cheng and my future brother-in-law, the Wens will not touch you or anybody that helps you if you were to avenge my brother's torture." Nie Huaisang took a deep breath, biting another dumpling and not looking at him. "In the same measure and manner, obviously."
"I see. Thank you for your input." Jiang Cheng nodded, face impassive as he reclined back on his chair, the anger that had been sitting on the end of his stomach fully awakened now.
"Thank me by eating another dumpling." He nudged another one near him and this time he took it without much fight, if much he ate it with renewed force, already thinking of what he would do once he had his hands around Wen Chao's neck. Once he was finished with it, he stood up and held Nie Mingjue's hand once more, bending down to carefully kiss his forehead.
"Stay strong, my soul, I'll back in no time." Jiang Cheng whispered against it, taking a deep breath before turning around. "Thank you for everything, A-Sang. And, don't worry, my men will be working with yours to protect both you and Mingjue." Huaisang nodded, smiling at him in a way that he knew was grateful before urging him away, telling him that he had important businesses to deal with out of the hospital.
"And, remember, Jiang-xiong, I don't know anything." He winked before closing the door.
Jiang Cheng smiled at that, before straightening his coat and shaking his shoulders. Nie Huaisang may say that he doesn't know many things and maybe it was true, but there was one thing that he had said that was totally right. He had business out of the hospital and that business involved one Wen Chao and karma being a bitch.
Overheard at the Stables of Koi Tower - 12 Days of Mingcheng
Prompt: Pure. Read on AO3 here.
The barest dusting of snow started to fall as Nie Mingjue crossed the yard, returning to the stables after dinner. It was a rare occasion, but they had no guests, no foreign dignitaries that night at Koi Tower, and so all he needed to do that night was do a final check on the horses, then he could actually prop up his feet and read for a while.
A puff of steam escaped the door to greet him as he entered - the smell too familiar to be bothersome anymore. He walked through the stables and checked each stall with an idle eye. At the end, he turned to slip out the back toward his own quarter – a simple servants’ house for the stablemaster, – when his ear caught on the sound of a voice.
Surprised, Nie Mingjue turned his head, angling his ear toward the sound, trying to make it out a little better. Definitely a voice. A deep murmur. He took a few steps in that direction.
His eye caught on a light then, out of place in the stables, which were almost cavernously dark after dinner on a winter night. The light flickered against a wooden door frame leading toward the dog pins. The dogs bedded down in a little area tucked away in the stables - Nie Mingjue likely wouldn’t have even noticed the bare flicker of light if he hadn’t heard the voice.
Nie Mingjue was not alarmed, he was more than capable of handling a run-of-the-mill rogue. Still, his pulse sped up in anticipation. His hand grasped instinctively for a sword that was not there. He stepped closer, making his steps quiet as the snow outside.
Who was the man speaking to?
“- it’s just, why did he have to go off and get into trouble anyway?” the man griped, tone surly. Dripping with exasperation. “He’s always making trouble! And then everyone else has to go around and clean up after him.”
Very slowly, Nie Mingjue poked his head around the open entryway to peek at the dog pins and the source of the voice. The man was turned away from him. He relaxed, releasing his breath. His hand lowered from where it had come to rest on his belt.
Then his lips twitched when he realized that the man was alone and talking to, well, the dogs.
“So now I have to - what? Drop everything and become a damn servant? Just to go chasing him down?” the man, in servant's robes like Nie Mingjue, huffed out a weary sigh and slumped against the wall.
He was sitting on a little mound of straw, right by the rails of the dog pin. The three dogs were watching him, comically enthralled by his diatribe. Their eyes did twitch over toward Nie Mingjue and his head in the entryway, but they showed him absolutely no interest otherwise. Usually the dogs liked him well enough - he might have been a little injured if he wasn’t so amused.
“I’m just - He just -” The kid seemed to work himself up, almost stuttering with frustration. “I - I’m worried about him, Princess!” In spite of his obvious fury, the kid set a hand down very gently on top of one of the dog’s heads and rubbed between her eyes. Her tongue lolled out in happiness. “I hate this. I’m worried about him! Damn it. Why is he such a fucking disaster?”
Nie Mingjue was bewildered. Had this kid… named the dog… Princess?
He had no idea what this kid was in his stables venting about, but it was almost unbearably endearing. Too pure for words. He wanted to laugh. But he also was loathe to disturb the moment. Something about it clenched painfully around his heart. He saw his brother before him, talking to his songbirds or making up whimsical stories for random people they passed on the road. It was difficult to tell the kid’s age, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the servant in front of him was around Huaisang’s age.
“He’s just - there’s no trace,” the kid’s voice tipped further toward despair. It was obvious now that his fury before had been fueled by concern. Whoever this missing disaster of a person was, he was clearly missed dearly. “We can’t find anything anywhere. Wen Qionglin and I have looked all over, talked to everyone.”
Now A-Ning was someone Nie Mingjue knew. The personal servant for First Young Master Jin Zixuan, a well-respected person among the servants himself, even if he was incurably shy and underconfident. Nie Mingjye didn’t know him very well, but he liked him well enough. To imagine him getting along with or assisting the fiery kid before him though, well, that was curious. Maybe A-Ning was a little less timid than Nie Mingjue had believed.
“Love, you won’t believe it.” The younger man took his hand off of his so-called Princess’ head and placed it under the chin of the next dog, giving a vigorous rub. Nie Mingjue clamped a hand over his mouth and ducked out of the doorframe, leaning back against the wall to ground himself as he tried to laugh silently into his hand. “Jin Zixun runs a whole secret fighting ring in Lanling City! And that utter dick caught us down there and forced Wen Qionglin to fight. I totally thought he was going to get his ass kicked. I was legitimately worried for his life. But Wen Qionglin destroyed that guy. You should have seen it. It was - it was - well, I’ve never felt more glad that a guy was on my side before that, not the other way around.”
Nie Mingjue couldn’t help it. He snorted, then clasped the hand around his mouth tighter.
“What was that?” the kid gasped.
Nie Mingjue tried to edge, quiet as a mouse, along the wall and away. Honestly, he didn’t even know why. He was the stablemaster. This was where he belonged, not that kid. But for some reason, he got a feeling that if he caught the kid in the act, he’d be embarrassed and wouldn’t come back. And for some reason, Nie Mingjue didn’t like the idea of depriving that kid of his nighttime debrief with Princess and Love.
“Oh, well, right, you all will know if someone else is around before I do. And you would tell me, right? Wouldn’t you, Jasmine?” he said, at last, and Nie Mingjue slumped back against the wall, blowing out a breath.
Jasmine, Princess and Love, then. Nie Mingjue grinned in the dark.
“Anyway, I’m glad you’re all here. I don’t know what I’d do without you, really,” the kid said, sounding a little melancholy, entirely too lonely. Nie Mingjue’s smile dimmed with sympathy. Loneliness - that was a thing he knew. Having no one’s company but your own to keep. “I - I mean, I know I sound like a crazy person. Maybe I am. You hear that, Wei Wuxian? You’ve finally fucking driven me crazy. Are you happy now?”
Wei Wuxian… now that sounded familiar. Another house servant, he guessed. Nie Mingjue couldn’t conjure an image in his head of the man.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you all really want,” the kid griped, sounding falsely put-upon, teasing. Nie Mingjue heard a little shuffling around, and he crept closer again, poking his head around in time to spot the kid pulling scraps of bread out from his robes.
Dinner scraps.
Nie Mingjue scowled. He had half a mind to - no, damn. He wasn’t going to scare off this kid, was he? He made him think too much of Nie Huaisang, panged too much of his own loneliness, stirred up the desire in him to share his troubles with another, a desire he thought had burned out long ago. Nie Mingjue didn’t want to be the person to take this one comfort away from him.
Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes and ducked his head back out, realizing that he was going to have to monitor this kid’s visits now, see how often he was coming to talk to the dogs and determine if he needed to scale back on their food, all because Nie Mingjue was too damn tender-hearted to kick him out.
Jiang Cheng is watching Nie Huaisang and Nie Mingjue very carefully. They move around each other like they always do—Nie Mingjue fretting about Nie Huaisang like usually—and Jiang Cheng supposes there is nothing unusual about it, at least not when it comes to those two.
It’s just that lately he gets the feeling that something is off, and he guesses it might be Nie Mingjue.
Jiang Cheng already grilled Nie Huaisang and he’s reasonably sure that he got truthful answers out of him, so the strangeness must come from Nie Mingjue.
Not that Jiang Cheng can pinpoint what exactly has changed or what makes him even think that something is off in the first place, but he’s willing to trust his instinct here.
He must have gotten lost in his thoughts because suddenly Nie Huaisang is about to leave and yelling over to him.
“Jiang Cheng, I’m gone now, you’ll be alright?”
“Of course I’ll be alright,” Jiang Cheng says, affronted on Nie Mingjue’s behalf and with another whirlwind of movement Nie Huaisang is out of the door.
Jiang Cheng cherishes the silence that settles over the apartment and he melts back into the couch.
“Are you okay?” Nie Mingjue asks, putting his hand to Jiang Cheng’s shoulder and looking very earnestly at him.
Jiang Cheng smiles at him, because he’s always okay when he’s alone with Nie Mingjue but then he remembers that strange feeling from before.
“I’m good,” he says and that is enough to make Nie Mingjue move away from him again. Except that this time Jiang Cheng calls him back. “Mingjue?”
“Mh? What is it?”
“Are you okay?” Jiang Cheng asks, his voice soft since he’s trying for unthreatening here, and he’s not at all prepared for the deer in headlights expression Nie Mingjue throws him.
“What?” he mutters and Jiang Cheng leans forward.
“I’m asking if you are okay.”
Nie Mingjue blinks a few times and he only answers Jiang Cheng after he turned away from him.
“Of course I’m okay, I’m good, I’m perfect, why wouldn’t I be,” he rambles and all kinds of alarm bells go off in Jiang Cheng’s brain. “I need to go—” he points towards the bedroom and before Jiang Cheng can even react to that, Nie Mingjue flees the living-room.
“What the fuck,” Jiang Cheng mutters, but he’s not about to let Nie Mingjue get away with this, so he gives him a minute to compose himself and then he follows.
“Mingjue?” he calls out as he carefully knocks on the door. There’s no answer, so Jiang Cheng lets himself in.
He was not at all prepared to find Nie Mingjue sitting on the floor, his back to the bed and his head in his hands.
“Mingjue?” Jiang Cheng says again, though this time there’s a thread of panic in his voice.
He was just asking a question! He didn’t mean to make Nie Mingjue have a breakdown!
“What’s going on?” Jiang Cheng carefully asks as he kneels in front of Nie Mingjue, putting his hand to his knee.
“Nothing,” Nie Mingjue gives back, but his voice sounds choked up and Jiang Cheng is not at all surprised to see that he’s crying.
“This doesn’t look like nothing,” Jiang Cheng softly says and sits down more comfortably, keeping his hand on Nie Mingjue at all times. “Why don’t you tell me what’s happening right now.”
“I’m okay,” Nie Mingjue still tries and Jiang Cheng huffs out a laugh.
“That is so obviously a lie that I’m not even going to pretend to believe it. Tell me what’s going on or I’ll have to call Huaisang back.”
“No!” Nie Mingjue almost yells out, his head flying up. “Don’t—don’t do that. I already take up too much of his time. You don’t have to bother him.”
“Now that’s an interesting choice of words,” Jiang Cheng muses. “Why would you think it would be a bother to Huaisang to come home to take care of his brother, who he loves very much?”
Jiang Cheng’s heart clenches painfully in his chest when Nie Mingjue only scoffs bitterly at that.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jiang Cheng wants to know and he’s not as gentle as he probably should be about this, but the notion that Nie Huaisang doesn’t love his brother and wouldn’t do anything for him is really preposterous to Jiang Cheng.
“It’s alright,” Nie Mingjue tries but Jiang Cheng is not having it.
“Mingjue, it’s obviously not alright! Just tell me what’s going on, okay?”
Nie Mingjue works his jaw a few times before he lets out a long breath.
“How long have Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu been together now?” he asks and it comes so out of left field that it takes Jiang Cheng a while to answer.
“About half a year now?” he answers and Nie Mingjue nods.
“I haven’t met him yet,” he then admits, his voice barely audible. “Huaisang always comes up with excuses. And I mean I get it, I’m overbearing enough, it’s understandable that Huaisang wants to keep that for himself but I think maybe he’s afraid of bringing him home? Huaisang knows I’m gay, so this can’t be what he worries about so it has to be my temper, right? He probably doesn’t want to introduce us because he fears that Mo Xuanyu will get scared and then I would have ruined another good thing for him, but—”
“Alright, shut the fuck up,” Jiang Cheng snaps, absolutely fed up with the way Nie Mingjue is talking about himself at the moment.
Nie Mingjue blinks at him in surprise and Jiang Cheng shakes his head.
“What are you even talking about? You’re not overbearing, your temper is nothing to be feared of and you didn’t ruin a single thing for Huaisang!” he hotly tells Nie Mingjue who immediately shakes his head.
“Of course I have. Time and time again. I yelled so often at him, and I forced him to stay in university and I mean—he comes over less and less. Sometimes I don’t see him for weeks. Today was the first day in almost two months that he came over and he barely texts. I get that he’s taking this chance to get away from me but—”
“Mingjue, I swear to the gods, shut up. None of that is true,” Jiang Cheng says as he gets his phone out.
No one has ever loved Nie Mingjue more than Nie Huaisang does—and vice versa—and even though Jiang Cheng suspects that there might be some misunderstandings between them, he cannot fathom that Nie Mingjue might be right with what he’s saying.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Huaisang to clear this up, what else,” Jiang Cheng snaps and it’s only a second before Nie Huaisang picks up.
“Jiang Cheng? Is everything alright?”
“Listen, Huaisang, I’m going to need an honest answer from you. Why did you not introduce Xuanyu to Mingjue yet?”
There’s a long silence on the other end of the line.
“Are you still at da-ge’s?”
“Yes. He’s having a little break-down because he thinks he ruined your life and that you are not introducing Xuanyu because you fear that Mingjue is going to run him off. So, honesty, Huaisang, please.”
“Hey,” Nie Mingjue says, his voice still choked up and it seems to startle Nie Huaisang out of his surprise.
“Da-ge, that’s not true!” he cries out.
“It’s okay if it is, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue says and Jiang Cheng has never heard him sound this defeated. “It’s alright if you—resent me, or want nothing to do with me anymore. I know I haven’t been the best da-ge since our parents died and I’m sorry for that. I just—it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay, because it’s not even true,” Nie Huaisang says and just by his voice Jiang Cheng can tell that he’s already crying too. “You’re the best da-ge there is! It’s just—”
He hesitates and Jiang Cheng wants to reach through the phone and strangle him, because it seems like that pause is crushing Nie Mingjue’s heart.
“I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you,” Nie Huaisang whispers and Nie Mingjue closes his eyes.
“I never meant to put that much pressure on you,” he says and Jiang Cheng wants to shake him because he’s reasonably sure that that is not what Nie Huaisang meant, but they have to talk this out for themselves.
“No, that’s not—gods, da-ge, I know you love me, no matter what. You never made me feel like that would change, no matter what I do, but this is scary, okay? If I introduce Xuanyu to you and you don’t like him then I’ll have to break up with him and I don’t want to because I love him.”
“It doesn’t matter if I like him or not, he’s your boyfriend,” Nie Mingjue gives back, clearly confused now.
“Of course it matters! You’re the most important person to me, if you don’t like him, then he can’t be my boyfriend, that’s just how it is,” Nie Huaisang stubbornly gives back.
“Huaisang, if you love him, I’m going to like him just because of that,” Nie Mingjue softly says and Nie Huaisang sobs.
“Huaisang, why have you stopped coming over so often?” Jiang Cheng asks, trying to clear another thing up that’s certainly only a misunderstanding between them.
“I want da-ge to have his own life! He sacrificed so much for me when our parents died and he never did what he wanted, only ever did what was best for me and I want him to have hobbies and have friends over and live his own life and maybe go back to university or something. I just don’t want to keep him trapped anymore,” Nie Huaisang says, clearly still crying and Nie Mingjue takes the phone out of Jiang Cheng’s hand.
“Di-di, you never trapped me. I sacrificed a few things, yes, but I was never unhappy with my choices. And I like that you come over at all times of the day, I want you to still think of this apartment as your home!”
“Da-ge!” Nie Huaisang wails and fresh tears run down Nie Mingjue’s cheeks.
“Just come back home, alright? I miss you,” he admits and Jiang Cheng can almost imagine how Nie Huaisang’s hair flies with how hard he must be nodding.
“I’ll come over tomorrow and I’ll bring Xuanyu, I promise, I promise, da-ge, I want you two to meet!”
“Okay,” Nie Mingjue softly agrees and after a few more words he says goodbye to Nie Huaisang.
“There,” Jiang Cheng says with a nod, because even though it hurt to watch, he’s glad he made them talk about it.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Nie Mingjue says as he scrubs a hand over his face.
“I’m not,” Jiang Cheng says. “I’m just glad you could clear it up.”
“How did you know something was up?” Nie Mingjue wants to know after a moment and Jiang Cheng shrugs.
“I’ve known you both for years. Your dynamic got weird in the last few weeks and I was just concerned.”
“I’m sorry you had to get involved,” Nie Mingjue mutters but Jiang Cheng catches his hand in his and squeezes.
“I want to be involved,” he tells him and is not prepared for the intense look Nie Mingjue throws him.
“How involved?” he asks and Jiang Cheng goes red in the face.
“I mean, I have been flirting with you these past few weeks, but I guess it’s understandable that you didn’t notice,” he admits and he’s glad to see a smile back on Nie Mingjue’s face at that.
“Involved enough to meet Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu as my boyfriend tomorrow, then?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng lets out a surprised laugh.
“Sure, if you think that’s a good idea. Today was kinda emotionally charged, I don’t want you to do anything you might regret later.”
“Do you think I’m overbearing? Unnecessarily meddling in your stuff? Hovering too much?” Nie Mingjue asks and now that he mentions it, Jiang Cheng realizes that he pulled away from Jiang Cheng over the last few weeks as well.
“Is that what you think I think about you? Have you been worried about this as well?”
“Yeah,” Nie Mingjue nods and threads their fingers together. “It’s why I stopped my flirting.”
“You’re such an idiot,” Jiang Cheng affectionately says and rests their foreheads together. “You’re none of the things you just mentioned and I enjoy you being involved in my life.”
“So I’m meeting Huaisang’s boyfriend tomorrow and he’s meeting mine, yes?” Nie Mingjue clarifies and Jiang Cheng huffs out a laugh.
“Sure. Let’s do that,” he agrees.
(It’s unclear what Nie Huaisang is more surprised about; how much Nie Mingjue immediately likes Mo Xuanyu or to see Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng be grossly affectionate with each other. He’s happy about both, though.)
We did it folks! With this fic, Mingcheng is now officially my most written for ship with 133 fics in total 🎉🎉🎉
Happy New Year('s Eve), for a better 2022 and even more Mingcheng events/fics!
Jiang Cheng sits in the waiting room of the hospital, his head in his hands and praying to all the gods he knows that Wei Wuxian is not actually that badly hurt.
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath and leans back in the chair, staring at the ceiling and wondering if it’s a good thing that he didn’t hear anything yet, or if it’s a bad thing.
He isn’t even sure what happened. Wei Wuxian called him out of the ambulance and babbled something about a car crash. Jiang Cheng really hopes that it was due to the pain meds that he was nearly incoherent and not because of a headwound, but knowing Wei Wuxian it could be either.
The inactivity is getting to Jiang Cheng—he was never good at just sitting around and waiting—and so he gets up and starts to pace the waiting room, even though it changes exactly nothing.
It makes him feel a little bit better, though.
While he paces he lets his eyes wander through the room, taking note of all the other people that are waiting. There are not actually that many—Jiang Cheng guesses that’s because it’s the middle of the goddamn night and only emergencies are happening right now—but there are still a few people around.
Jiang Cheng’s eyes get caught on a guy who is just staring into nothing, his hands firmly clasped in front of him and tears running down his cheeks.
He doesn’t seem to be doing too well and Jiang Cheng walks over to him before he can change his mind.
“Hey there,” he awkwardly starts as he sits down next to the guy. “You doing okay?” he asks, though he can guess the answer.
The guy doesn’t even react to him until Jiang Cheng puts a hand to his tightly clasped hands. Jiang Cheng spots a little bit of blood on them and he urges the guy to let go.
“Did someone look at this?” he asks and finally the guy looks at him.
“It’s nothing,” he says with a rough voice, but the tears don’t stop falling and Jiang Cheng fights the urge to hug him.
“Let me see, okay?” he gently asks and the guy uncurls his hands enough for Jiang Cheng to see that he split his knuckle, but that it’s really nothing serious.
“Jiang Cheng,” Jiang Cheng introduces himself and the guy blinks at him a few moments before he responds.
“Nie Mingjue.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jiang Cheng says with a wry smile. “Though this is probably not the best of places to meet. Who are you waiting for?” he asks next and wishes he shut his big damn mouth when the tears on Nie Mingjue’s face come faster.
“My brother,” he whispers. “He was—someone attacked him.” He pauses for a moment. “A hate crime. He is gay and he looks the part too and someone apparently took offence,” Nie Mingjue says and Jiang Cheng curses under his breath.
“Fuck. Did you get this punching the guy?” he asks with a nod towards Nie Mingjue’s hand.
“Yeah,” he mutters and looks down at the small injury. “Knocked him right out. By the time the police came he was already yelling again, though. Don’t know where he is now. Probably here somewhere too.”
“That sucks. How’s your brother doing?” Jiang Cheng wants to know though he winces when he remembers where they are.
This is the emergency waiting room after all.
“They don’t tell. He’s in the OR right now. I think the knife grazed his lungs or something? I’m not sure.”
“Okay. Well, I can tell you he’s in good hands here.”
At that Nie Mingjue looks at him strangely and Jiang Cheng shrugs.
“My brother is very accident prone,” he tells him. “I’ve been here a lot. Most of the people working here know me and they are all doing a wonderful job.”
“Are you waiting for your brother, too?”
“Yeah. He had a car accident, apparently. Can’t say that it’s his first but it’s the first one that send him to the ER and I don’t know how he’s doing yet. I keep telling myself that no news is good news, right?”
“Probably,” Nie Mingjue agrees and then stares back at the door where the doctors normally come through to tell the waiting people how their loved ones are doing.
“The wait is always the worst,” Jiang Cheng mutters and settles in next to Nie Mingjue.
“It is,” he agrees and then they fall silent, though neither moves away.
Jiang Cheng might have dozed a little bit so he startles when Wen Qing comes out.
“Wanyin,” she snaps, clearly already over her night shift and he shoots up and fights the urge to salute.
“How is he doing?”
“Wei Wuxian is an idiot, that’s how he’s doing. Couldn’t safe his remaining braincell,” she mutters, rolling her eyes and Jiang Cheng slumps in relief.
If she jokes like this it can’t be too bad.
“Broken leg and a concussion, three broken ribs one of which did some internal damage and a sprained wrist. We’re keeping him for observation for now, because of the internal bleeding. Surprisingly enough the accident wasn’t his fault and the police will be back tomorrow to question him.”
“Okay,” Jiang Cheng whispers. “But he’s not in any danger right now?”
“Would I be talking to you if he were?” Wen Qing demands to know and Jiang Cheng shakes his head. “Exactly. Now go the fuck home, you look like shit.”
Jiang Cheng looks down on himself and notices for the first time that he’s still wearing his pyjamas.
“You don’t look better,” he gives back without thinking and shrinks back under her murderous glare.
“Fuck you, too,” she says and turns around to leave.
“Wait,” he calls after her, aware that she might just kill him for it, but she does stop and she does turn back around to him.
“He’s waiting for news of his brother. Nie—” Jiang Cheng trails off and expectantly looks at Nie Mingjue.
“Nie Huaisang,” he supplies and Jiang Cheng turns back to Wen Qing.
“He was attacked and is in the OR. Do you know anything?”
“No,” Wen Qing admits but her face softens a bit when she looks at Nie Mingjue. “I can check, though.”
“Thank you,” Jiang Cheng says, mostly to her back because she leaves almost immediately and then he sits back down next to Nie Mingjue.
“You can go home now,” Nie Mingjue says. “Your brother is fine.”
“My brother is a walking safety hazard,” Jiang Cheng shoots back. “And we don’t know how your brother is doing yet. I’m waiting with you.”
“Thank you,” Nie Mingjue whispers and leans close enough to press their shoulders together.
“Sure thing,” Jiang Cheng says and settles in for a long wait.
Despite their worries they are both fast asleep when Wen Qing comes back to them.
“Nie Mingjue,” Jiang Cheng says and pokes Nie Mingjue until he wakes up.
He does so with a start, and wildly looks around.
“What? What is it?” he frantically says but Wen Qing smiles at him and so Jiang Cheng knows that it can’t be that bad.
“Your brother is in his room now. The operation was a success and after a bit of physical therapy there will be no lasting damage. He’s fine,” she tells Nie Mingjue, more kindly than Jiang Cheng has ever seen her and Nie Mingjue starts to cry again.
“Thank the gods,” he whispers, his face buried in his hands and Jiang Cheng puts his arm around him.
“Thank you,” Jiang Cheng tells Wen Qing, who nods tiredly and then leaves them after a well meaning “Go home and get some rest now.”
Jiang Cheng lets Nie Mingjue cry out his relief a little bit longer before he nudges him.
“We should do what she said and go home now. We need some rest. We won’t be allowed to see them until tomorrow anyway.”
“You’re right,” Nie Mingjue says, his voice still rough from crying but he looks like a huge burden fell off him. “Thank you for staying with me.”
“Sure thing,” Jiang Cheng gives back and gets up, stretching until his joints crack.
Nie Mingjue is a bit slow to follow but soon enough they are out of the hospital and go their separate ways.
~*~*~
Jiang Cheng is embarrassed by his own stupidity, but he keeps a tight grip on the bouquet in his hand and walks up to the information.
“I’m here to see Nie Huaisang?” he asks Qin Su on the other side who raises an eyebrow at him.
“Visiting someone else before seeing your own brother? How very unlike of you,” she says as she puts her chin to her hand. “What’s going on here?”
It seems like she only notices the flowers then because suddenly she perks up.
“Oh?”
“Do not say a word,” Jiang Cheng hisses, the sleep-deprivation still making him cranky. “Just tell me where he is.”
“Of course, of course,” she agrees and pulls up his room number.
“Thank you,” Jiang Cheng says, hoping to all the gods that she won’t tell everyone immediately and then he’s off.
He doesn’t know why he’s bringing flowers for Nie Mingjue and he doesn’t know if the other man even wants to see him again, but Jiang Cheng thinks he has to try.
He’s not normally someone to enjoy the company of others—no matter the circumstances—but despite the worry and fear for their brother’s, yesterday was kind of nice.
Jiang Cheng just wants to see Nie Mingjue again and maybe ask him out too and he thinks if he doesn’t do it now, he probably never will. Mostly because he has no way of finding Nie Mingjue again.
When he reaches Nie Huaisang’s room, he timidly knocks and waits for the whispered “Come in” before he pushes the door open.
“You’re not my brother,” Nie Huaisang whispers, clearly still absolutely exhausted and Jiang Cheng cringes.
“No, I’m not. How are you doing?” he asks and Nie Huaisang frowns at him.
“Who are you?”
“Oh. Jiang Cheng. I—waited with your brother in the ER last night,” he tells him, fiddling with the flowers.
“And now you wanna do what?” Nie Huaisang asks, eyeing Jiang Cheng warily and he remembers what even got Nie Huaisang into the hospital in the first place.
“I’m not—I wanted to ask your brother out?” he unsurely says and then startles when his phone chimes with text notifications in quick succession.
There’s a guy in my room.
He’s huge.
And scary.
Help?
“Fuck,” Jiang Cheng whispers, remembering that Nie Mingjue said the guy who attacked Nie Huaisang is most likely also in this hospital.
“What?”
“I have to go,” Jiang Cheng frantically says. “My brother is here too and he says there’s someone in his room and he’s also very gay,” Jiang Cheng explains, all kinds of horror scenarios running through his head already.
He doesn’t wait for Nie Huaisang’s reply and simply runs off, skidding down halls, despite the outraged calls of the nurses.
Jiang Cheng almost misses Wei Wuxian’s door in his haste, but he makes it just before he hits the doorframe and when he bursts into the room he immediately points the flowers at the intruder as if they were a weapon.
“Who the fuck are you and what do you want?” he yells and freezes completely when he takes in Nie Mingjue’s surprised face. “Oh,” Jiang Cheng says and lowers the flowers. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Nie Mingjue awkwardly says and waves at him.
“You’re not here to hurt my brother,” Jiang Cheng dumbly says and Nie Mingjue shakes his head.
“No, I’m not.”
“What is going on here?” Wei Wuxian demands to know. “Who is this and why is he threatening me?”
“I wasn’t threatening you!” Nie Mingjue exclaims and Wei Wuxian flails in his bed.
“You come in here, all huge and scary and then you scowl at me. What about that doesn’t sound threatening to you? I’m just a poor boy, bound to this bed, there’s nothing I can do to you!”
“I was asking for your brother!” Nie Mingjue yells right back at him and Jiang Cheng is left staring at them.
“Well, what do you want from him? Chengcheng can kick your ass, so don’t even try anything!”
“Don’t call me Chengcheng,” Jiang Cheng says out of reflex and manages to get their attention back. “What are you doing here?” he asks Nie Mingjue, who looks bashful all of a sudden.
“Looking for you,” he admits and then his eyes fall on the flowers in Jiang Cheng’s hands. “How nice of you to bring flowers to your brother.”
“They are not for him,” Jiang Cheng says and sticks the bouquet out towards Nie Mingjue again.
“What? For me?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, finding his footing again.
“No, they are for Miss Li next door. She’s pushing ninety, but I hear she’s going to be very spry after her hip replacement. I wanted to ask her out for a date,” he sarcastically says and while Wei Wuxian stares between them, his mouth hanging open, Nie Mingjue blushes.
“A date?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng shrugs.
“I mean, yesterday was nice. Well, except for the part where we were both out of our minds with worry for our brothers, but, you know,” Jiang Cheng rambles.
“I know,” Nie Mingjue agrees and takes a step closer to Jiang Cheng. “I did come here looking for you,” he then admits and takes the flowers out of Jiang Cheng’s hand. “I don’t have flowers for you, though.”
“Well, seems like you have to treat me to lunch then, to make up for it,” Jiang Cheng says, overly aware of Wei Wuxian furiously typing away on his phone.
“Seems like it,” Nie Mingjue agrees with a smile. “Give me your phone,” he then demands and holds out his hand. “You’re not getting away from me again.”
“What a horrible fate for me,” Jiang Cheng jokes and hands his phone to Nie Mingjue, decidedly not noticing the myriad of messages in their siblings group chat.
Nie Mingjue is quick to type in his number and hands the phone back to Jiang Cheng.
“I have to go back to my brother now, but come and find me before you leave?”
“Maybe you should tell your brother that it was a false alarm,” Jiang Cheng says with a wince, remembering what state he had left in. “Tell him my brother was not actually attacked.”
“Did you see him?”
“I was looking for you,” Jiang Cheng admits and now Wei Wuxian pouts.
“Bros before hoes, Chengcheng, what happened to bros before hoes?”
“That concept died with you calling me Chengcheng,” Jiang Cheng shoots back and Wei Wuxian makes a face at him, while Nie Mingjue moves towards the door.
“I already sent myself a message from your phone, so don’t think you can skip out on me,” Nie Mingjue says, right before he leaves to see how his brother is doing.
Jiang Cheng stares after him with a stupid smile on his face and he only comes out of it when Wei Wuxian throws his pillow at him.
“That’s gross,” he declares and Jiang Cheng sighs as he picks it up.
“Would it kill you to behave like an adult for once in your life?” he asks, but he can’t get the dopey smile out of his face.
Nie Mingjue wants to see him again as well.
Jiang Cheng barely listens to Wei Wuxian’s mindless chatter and complaints, his mind still firmly fixed on the fact that Nie Mingjue wants to treat him to lunch.
Jiang Cheng can’t wait for it.
(Wei Wuxian is discharged much earlier than Nie Huaisang, but Jiang Cheng keeps on visiting Nie Huaisang because he’s fun to be around as well. Nie Mingjue almost cries the first time he sees them shit talking a show together, because apparently it was important to him that they get along. Lunch—of course—turns into dinners and breakfasts and all kinds of meals and when Wei Wuxian lands himself in the ER again seven months later, Nie Mingjue is right there by Jiang Cheng’s side to wait with him.)
Jiang Cheng silently sighs into his glass as he looks around the table. His family still looks the same, and if he’s being honest, he probably shouldn’t be surprised by that. It’s only been five months since he was invited to family dinner—since he saw any of them—so of course they still look the same.
He just guesses he expected more change, since he change pretty significantly over the last year.
But even despite that no one so much as asked him how he’s doing lately, so Jiang Cheng suspects that they are pretty mad at him or that something big is going to happen as soon as the food arrives.
He’s not mistaken, because as soon as the first course is served his father levels him with a look.
“Jiang Wanyin,” he starts and Jiang Cheng hurries to take at least one bite of his food.
It is delicious after all.
“Can you imagine my surprise when HR called me this morning?” his father says and Jiang Cheng snorts into his plate.
“Not really,” he gives back. “Because they will have called you two months ago, when I quit. You only bring this up now for maximum drama potential,” he easily gives back and enjoys the surprised silence at the table.
“What is the meaning of this?” Yu Ziyuan hisses and even Wei Wuxian speaks up.
“Come on, Chengcheng, that’s bullshit. There’s no way you quit. What would you even do?”
“Something else,” he tells him. “I quit two months ago and I am working at a new place. But thank you for noticing,” he icily tells Wei Wuxian whose eyes go big.
“That is absolutely inacceptable. You are the heir of our company, of course you’re working with us. Who is even going to employ you?”
“Funny how you treat the heir then,” Jiang Cheng says with a sigh and Jiang Fengmian slams his hand on the table.
“Show some respect, boy. You will be grateful for the job you have at my company.”
“Had, father,” Jiang Cheng corrects him and moves his arm away when Jiang Yanli moves to pat it.
“Come on, A-Cheng, don’t be like this,” she softly says, clearly not wanting them to fight, but Jiang Cheng is so over this.
“What do they pay you? We’ll pay you more. There’s no way you’ll get the same position anywhere else,” Yu Ziyuan hisses, clearly set on getting Jiang Cheng back to their company and Jiang Cheng laughs in her face.
“For that you would have to pay me in the first place,” he tells them, much to everyone’s surprise it seems.
Everyone’s but his father’s, of course.
“What is that supposed to mean? They pay such good wages!” Wei Wuxian cries out and Jiang Cheng scoffs again.
“For you, maybe. And mother, even if I were employed as a janitor, I would have a better position than in your company, where father let’s me work as an intern. Still, I might add. I have been doing the same useless things there since summer vacations during school.”
“People have to work their way up, there will be no exception for you,” Jiang Fengmian loftily says and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.
“Sure. Those exceptions are only for Wei Wuxian who gets to work as head of invention straight off the bat. I, on the other hand, didn’t even get paid. Father covered my rent, and gave me the bare minimum for essentials such as food. For everything else—clothes, electronics—I had to come to him directly to beg for him to pay those things for me. Hell, I didn’t even have healthcare.”
Yu Ziyuan turns towards her husband who shrugs, clearly unrepentant.
“He’s a child. He doesn’t know how to handle money. It’s better if someone supervises him.”
“But Wei Wuxian gets to throw his money out of the window with both hands, since he gets a real wage, right?” Jiang Cheng asks with a shake of his head and he pulls out his phone.
“What are you doing? Dinner is not over yet,” Yu Ziyuan hisses and once upon a time Jiang Cheng would have cowered before her ire, but not anymore.
“It is for me,” he says and dials Nie Mingjue’s number.
“My heart,” he greets as he picks up. “Is it time?”
“My soul,” Jiang Cheng warmly gives back. “Yes. Can you come pick me up?”
“Of course. That bad?”
“Worse,” Jiang Cheng admits and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I’ll be there as soon as possible,” Nie Mingjue promises him.
“Drive safely. I love you.”
“I love you, too. See you soon.”
Jiang Cheng packs his phone away with a small smile and when he looks back at the table everyone is staring at him.
“Now we’re getting to the heart of the issue,” his father says. “That girl is clearly putting the wrong ideas into your head.”
“Guy, father, seeing as I am gay and came out to all of you several years back,” Jiang Cheng tells them, so absolutely done with the entirety of this evening.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were dating?” Jiang Yanli asks and Jiang Cheng turns towards her.
“Because you don’t listen. I did tell you I’m dating. I even told you I’m engaged, not that it seems to have stuck with you,” he easily says, enjoying how everyone seems shocked.
“You don’t have our approval,” Yu Ziyuan hisses and Jiang Cheng smiles at her.
“Mother, I am long past needing your approval for anything.”
“Tell me where you work and what the conditions are,” she demands, clearly not caring about what he said.
“The hell I will,” he shoots back. “But as for the conditions; I have healthcare, they pay a pretty staggeringly amount of money and I get to be a supervisor.”
“And no doubt ruining the company in the process,” Jiang Fengmian whispers under his breath and Jiang Cheng laughs.
“Sure, if you want to believe that,” he tells him and is pretty proud of himself.
Once upon a time this would have crushed him, but these days, he can only laugh about his family and their absolute derision for him.
He found a better family anyway, and they love him in a way this family never did before.
“Anyway, I’ll get going then,” he says as he stands up.
“Jiang Cheng, you’re being really rude and selfish,” Wei Wuxian suddenly says, and it’s so surprising and so mindboggling insane coming from him that Jiang Cheng freezes.
“Excuse me?”
“You can’t just come in here and decide all these major things for yourself! You are so goddamn selfish and you don’t even care.”
“No, I don’t. Because for the first time in my life I am standing up for myself. And please, Wei Wuxian, tell me, where in my life have I been selfish?” he asks but of course he’s only met with silence.
“The only selfish one around here is you, because you throw a tantrum every time something doesn’t go your way.”
“Is this still about the dogs, Jiang Wanyin? When will you ever stop with that?” Jiang Fengmian asks and Jiang Cheng turns towards him.
“It is not, actually, about the dogs, but since we’re at that topic: I’m going to get one, later this month, so you might want to stop barging in unannounced,” he tells Wei Wuxian, who goes pale.
“As selfish as it is of Wei Wuxian to have rabbits? You all remember that I’m allergic, right?”
“Please. A little sniffle can hardly be called allergic,” Yu Ziyuan sneers and Jiang Cheng shakes his head.
“I have a little sniffle right now, just because of all the rabbit hair on Wei Wuxian’s clothes. When he drapes himself all over me, despite me telling him not to do that anymore, my throat constricts, making it hard to breathe. Wei Wuxian broke into my apartment a few months back and slept in my bed—for whatever reasons—and when I went to bed that night I had an anaphylactic shock. I had to go to the hospital for emergency treatment and since then I carry an epi pen with me wherever I go.”
“I didn’t know that,” Jiang Yanli says and Jiang Cheng regards her with something akin to pity.
“Of course you don’t. You know nothing about me,” he says, pulling on his jacket.
Nie Mingjue should be there any minute now.
“None of you do. Father was too busy hating me to learn anything about me while mother is too busy comparing me to Wei Wuxian to even notice me. Wei Wuxian only thinks about his own amusement and doesn’t care about anything but a good laugh, no matter how hurtful his comments are, and of course, Lan Wangji. And you, Yanli, you’re too busy trying to keep the peace and taking Wei Wuxian’s side to even remember that I am your brother, too.”
“That’s not fair,” Wei Wuxian says. “You think my jokes are funny.”
“Of course that’s the only thing you care about. No matter that I told you numerous times that your jokes are in bad taste and hurtful.”
“You’re just being sensitive,” Wei Wuxian sniffs and Jiang Cheng really had enough of this now.
“I’ll be going now,” he says. “My ride should be here any minute now.”
“A-Cheng, I know you,” Jiang Yanli says, tears in her eyes. “Of course I know you.”
“Do you? What’s my favourite soup?” he asks, even though he damn well knows she won’t know the answer to that.
She opens her mouth but before she can answer he interjects.
“And it’s not the same one Wei Wuxian loves,” he tells her, which shuts her up immediately.
“Why did you never say that you don’t like that soup?” she whispers when she finds her voice again and Jiang Cheng laughs.
“I did. I do, every time I come over for dinner. You make his favourite soup and I ask you to make a different one. You pat my head or my arm and tell me you’ll make that next time, but for now we’ll eat this. Rinse and repeat. You never remember it. It’s as if I don’t even exist next to Wei Wuxian.”
“A-Cheng,” she breathes out, her tears spilling over, but even that doesn’t mean a lot to Jiang Cheng anymore.
“But it doesn’t matter. I found someone who sees me, who values me for who I am. He and his family and friends are better to me than you could ever be.”
“You don’t even have friends,” Wei Wuxian mutters, clearly pissed and Jiang Cheng only sadly shakes his head.
“If it makes you feel better to believe that,” he tells him and then smiles when the doorbell rings. “That’ll be my ride.”
“Let me see this person who poisoned you,” Yu Ziyuan declares and walks right past Jiang Cheng, who readily makes space for her.
She yanks the door open, only to completely freeze when she comes face to face with Nie Mingjue.
“My heart, ready to go?” Nie Mingjue asks, leaning to the side to look past her and everyone seems too shocked for words.
His family holds Nie Mingjue in high regards, and neither Jiang Fengmian nor Yu Ziyuan failed to bring him up as an example Jiang Cheng should follow.
Well, he did more than that.
“I’m absolutely done,” Jiang Cheng agrees and takes Nie Mingjue’s hand. “Thank you for coming to get me,” he says and Nie Mingjue smiles before he leans in to kiss his forehead.
“Always,” he promises and they leave the Jiang house without a look back.
It’s very freeing to leave his family behind like that.
“So, how bad was it? Truly?” Nie Mingjue asks once they are in the car and Jiang Cheng shrugs.
“For them? Pretty bad, I guess. For me? Not so much. It was surprisingly good to tell them what I really think.”
“I’m very proud of you for that.”
“I know you’re proud of me,” Jiang Cheng says, though the sentiment still makes him blush.
He’s only slowly getting used to someone being proud of him, and his personal accomplishments, no matter how small they might be.
“Xuanyu called and said he and Huaisang have dinner, if you need it,” Nie Mingjue tells him and Jiang Cheng laughs, happy and free.
“He’s a worry-wart,” he fondly says but nods. “Sure, I can eat. I didn’t get to before father dropped the first bomb of the evening.”
“Shame. You said the food is good.”
“Not as good as Xuanyu’s,” Jiang Cheng says and gets his phone out to tell Xuanyu that they are on the way.
“I love you,” Nie Mingjue says and it sparks the same warm feeling inside of Jiang Cheng like always.
He hopes he never gets used to that.
“I love you, too.”
(No matter how often Nie Mingjue says it, the feeling stays the same and Jiang Cheng likes it that way. They do get the dog and relish their suddenly Wei Wuxian free life. Jiang Cheng does inform his family of his wedding, but only afterwards and only by sending the newspaper article to them. Jiang Cheng rejects a promotion in Lan Qiren’s company, because working as a supervisor is exactly what Jiang Cheng always wanted to do and he thrives in that job. It’s a happy end for him all around.)
Jiang Cheng is scowling into his breakfast, his mind still on the problem one of his co-workers brought to him late yesterday afternoon. The solution to it should be obvious, Jiang Cheng thinks, but he can’t quite put his finger to it and it kept him awake for a good portion of the night.
“Fucking hell,” he mutters, reading through the mail yet again, drinking his coffee on the side.
“If you keep frowning like that, your face will get stuck that way,” Wei Wuxian says and pokes Jiang Cheng’s brow before he can move away.
“Stop that,” Jiang Cheng snaps and slaps Wei Wuxian’s hand away when he moves in to do it again.
“Aw, Chengcheng, you shouldn’t always be this angry,” Wei Wuxian laughs and Jiang Cheng throws him a glare.
“I’ll be as angry as I want to be,” he tells him before he thrusts his phone into Wei Wuxian’s face. “Look at this. Is this something you fucked up?” he demands to know then and finds amusement in the way Wei Wuxian goes cross-eyed, trying to read the mail.
“I might?” he unsurely asks once he’s done and Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow at him.
“You better think about this again, because if you fucked it up, it’s your duty to clean up your mess,” Jiang Cheng says, going back to drinking his coffee, feeling a lot better now that he might have hoisted the problem off to someone else.
“But solving problems is your duty,” Wei Wuxian whines and Jiang Cheng almost chokes on his coffee.
“No. Solving problems anyone but you caused is my duty. Solving your problems is no longer my duty and I refuse to do it.”
Wei Wuxian just looks at him for a long moment, and his silence unnerves Jiang Cheng almost more than anything else so far.
“When did you get so bitter and angry?” Wei Wuxian finally asks lowly and Jiang Cheng shrugs.
“Maybe when you kept unloading all of your bullshit onto me and expected me to somehow deal with it. I dealt with it, now you deal with this,” he says with a pointed look towards the phone.
“Jiang Cheng, if you keep going like this, no one will ever—” Wei Wuxian trails off with a wince.
“What, love me?” Jiang Cheng bitterly asks because doesn’t he know it.
And it’s not like this is the first time Wei Wuxian said that to him either, so he doesn’t know why he even hesitated now.
“Yeah. I know that Mingjue-ge has been coming around a lot but he won’t for much longer if you don’t change. You think he likes getting scowled at all the time? You think he likes how you snap at him and everyone around you whenever you open your mouth? He might tolerate it for now but if you don’t change then he’ll leave you alone sooner than you can imagine,” Wei Wuxian says and Jiang Cheng has to clench his teeth he’s so angry with him.
“Well, then maybe you should leave me alone as well, if you find it so hard to be around me,” he hisses at Wei Wuxian and stands up, his coffee now forgotten.
“You make it hard to be around you,” Wei Wuxian argues and shakes his head, apparently truly saddened. “I don’t want to fight with you every time we talk and yet here we are.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” Jiang Cheng spits out. “You just think it should be fair for you to say whatever you fucking want with no regards to the repercussions and for everyone else to simply accept it. Well, I’m not about to do that and I am not Yanli, who indulges you to the point of insanity. If you say stupid shit, you have to bear the consequences.”
“Don’t try to push this on me now,” Wei Wuxian says, still the same sad look on his face and Jiang Cheng’s skin crawls when he realizes that Wei Wuxian is pitying him.
The audacity.
“Do not talk to me for the rest of the week,” Jiang Cheng tells him, dipping into that endless anger inside of him and before Wei Wuxian can react to that, he turns around and leaves him, coffee, problem and all.
Jiang Cheng is tired of dealing with his bullshit and if Wei Wuxian thinks that Jiang Cheng is going to change for him then he’s thoroughly mistaken.
Jiang Cheng is not going to change for anyone, and especially not only so that Wei Wuxian can get away with every hurtful comment he makes.
He hides himself away in his office, forwarding the mail to Wei Wuxian so he remembers to deal with it and for proof that Jiang Cheng took actions on the matter and then he buries himself in his other work.
Despite all of that, somehow Wei Wuxian managed to get under his skin anyway, because Jiang Cheng can still hear him whisper in the back of his head how no one is going to love him, how even Nie Mingjue is going to walk away from him and at that Jiang Cheng’s mouth twists bitterly.
It’s not like there’s anything Nie Mingjue could walk away from to start with because they are friends and nothing more, Jiang Cheng reminds himself.
No matter how much he would like for things to be different.
Jiang Cheng resolutely pushes those thoughts away and gets back to his work, because it’s not like pondering over this is going to change anything. And since there is nothing he can do about the Nie Mingjue situation, he might as well get back to his real work.
So Jiang Cheng does just that, right until someone drops some food onto his table, right in front of him.
It startles Jiang Cheng out of his concentration and when he glares at whoever it is who dare to interrupt him, his heart skips a beat when he sees Nie Mingjue.
“No need to look at me like you’re going to skin me alive,” Nie Mingjue says and simply sits down in front if Jiang Cheng, without waiting to be invited, clearly unbothered by Jiang Cheng’s ire. “I brought you lunch.”
“It’s not yet—” Jiang Cheng trails off when his eyes fall on the clock.
“Do go on,” Nie Mingjue says with a shit-eating grin and Jiang Cheng grumbles, but he does minimize all of his windows.
“What did you bring me this time?” Jiang Cheng snaps, still a little bit startled and mostly annoyed that Nie Mingjue managed to sneak up on him like that.
“Your favourite, of course,” Nie Mingjue says, and unpacks the food. “Like always.”
That brings Jiang Cheng up short, because Nie Mingjue has been coming over a lot lately, and he has been feeding Jiang Cheng and generally been taking care of him.
“What are you doing?” Jiang Cheng asks, and it makes Nie Mingjue freeze in his motions.
For a split second Jiang Cheng thinks that Nie Mingjue is going to say something stupid, like ‘distributing food’ or something, but in the end he only sighs and sits back down, the food only partially unpacked.
“Well,” he starts with a little chuckle. “Saying I’m courting you is too out-dated, so let’s not call it that,” Nie Mingjue then says and Jiang Cheng’s heart skips a beat. “But saying I’m only flirting is also stupid, because we’ve long passed that stage and you didn’t pick up on it. Seducing you would imply I’m only in it for the sex, which is also not true, though of course I want that as well.”
Jiang Cheng is pretty sure he blushes furiously at that, but he tries to hide it with a scowl, which only makes Nie Mingjue smile.
“I guess we could say I’m trying to date you. Not that I’m having much success, it seems, if you have to ask,” he finishes with a little wink and Jiang Cheng grinds his teeth, Wei Wuxian’s voice still in his head, as unwelcome as ever.
“I’m not going to change,” he presses out, unable to meet Nie Mingjue’s eyes over this. “I’m not going to magically transform into a nicer person even if you manage to date me. What you see is what you get and if you think that I’m going to change for you, you’re thoroughly mistaken.”
It’s hard saying it, because dating Nie Mingjue is the only thing Jiang Cheng really wants to do, but it needs to be said. Jiang Cheng thinks having this for however short and then losing it because he failed to change like Nie Mingjue expects might be worse, so it’s probably better to manage his expectations before that happens.
“Why would I want you to change?” Nie Mingjue asks and puts his hand on the table, his intention clear, but Jiang Cheng can’t bring himself to take it.
Not yet.
“I was informed I’m too angry and too snappish to ever be loved,” he manages to get out and is surprised at the immediate anger that is visible on Nie Mingjue’s face.
“Who dares to say that?” he demands to know but he deflates when the answer comes to him. “Wei Wuxian,” he breathes out and Jiang Cheng shrugs.
“Well, is he wrong, though?” he asks, even though it hurts and Nie Mingjue balls his hand into a fist.
“Yes, he’s fucking wrong. Your anger is not something to change. It’s part of you. If someone likes you then they also like your anger. There is not one thing without the other. It’s who you are, and that is perfectly alright with me.”
“Yeah, right,” Jiang Cheng scoffs out but Nie Mingjue shakes his head.
“It’s like with Wei Wuxian’s stupidly, obnoxious laugh. It’s a part of him. If you don’t like his laugh, you don’t like him. But if you like him, then you also like—or at least tolerate—his laugh.”
“You hate his laugh,” Jiang Cheng says, a small smile on his face.
“Yes. And I—well, hate is a strong word but I don’t like Wei Wuxian. For numerous reasons, actually, but that laugh of his is certainly one of them. But still, it’s a part of him.”
“So my anger—”
“Is just something that belongs to you. I actually enjoy how short and rude you are to people, especially those you don’t like. I think it’s hot. And if we’re going to complain about temper—who am I to say anything about that, really?”
“Your temper isn’t that bad,” Jiang Cheng immediately complains and Nie Mingjue smiles at him.
“And your anger isn’t either,” he shoots back, effectively shutting Jiang Cheng up. “Is this—do you have any more concerns?” Nie Mingjue then asks and Jiang Cheng sighs.
“You’re not playing with me, right? This is not just some game to you?” he wants to know, even though he almost feels sick with anticipation.
“It would have to be a pretty long game, seeing as I’ve been flirting with you for at last a couple of years now,” Nie Mingjue gives back, and puts his open hand back on the table.
“I’m not very good at picking up on that,” Jiang Cheng admits and Nie Mingjue snorts.
“No shit. It’s why I changed to a more direct approach,” he gives back with a meaningful glance at the food between them. “Now the only question is if it’s working.”
“It is,” Jiang Cheng decides and puts his hand into Nie Mingjue’s, who immediately threads their fingers together. “As long as you are aware of what you’re getting.”
“You,” Nie Mingjue says without missing a beat. “Anger, scowl, fierce temper and all. And I wouldn’t want to change a single thing about that.”
“You’re a goddamn sap,” Jiang Cheng hisses, but he’s pretty sure he can’t hide how pleased he is by Nie Mingjue’s words.
“If it makes you blush like this, then always,” Nie Mingjue gives back, and kisses Jiang Cheng’s knuckles. “Now let’s eat or it will go even colder than it no doubt already has.”
Jiang Cheng nods and helps Nie Mingjue unpack before they both dig into their respective lunches.
They are almost done when Jiang Cheng hesitates over a bite, the doubt still somehow niggling away at his brain.
“Just—mean it, okay?” he whispers, keeping his eyes on his food but he still notices how Nie Mingjue looks up at him.
“With all my heart,” Nie Mingjue promises and Jiang Cheng nods.
That’s enough to take a chance, he decides.
(And it’s so much more than that. Nie Mingjue’s honest appreciation of everything Jiang Cheng—including his anger—goes a long, long way to make Jiang Cheng that much more comfortable in his own skin and by the time they marry, Jiang Cheng managed to be honest with both his siblings and stand his ground about his own feelings and how their behaviour makes him feel most of the time. Nie Mingjue couldn’t love his proud, fierce, angry heart any more than he already does.)
