How about "admit it, you had fun today" mingcheng?
Ikea
This does not only fill the ask prompt, but also the Ikea prompt on the MDZS Bingo.
Nie Mingjue pinches the bridge of his nose. He feels like at this point succumbing to a fit of rage would be the easiest, but he doesn’t want to yell. Not yet, anyway.
“Absolutely not,” he says, his voice tightly controlled, not for the first time and Jiang Cheng hums.
“Mingjue,” he says and Nie Mingjue has to take a deep breath so that he doesn’t lose it right then and there.
“Wanyin,” he gives back, because two can play that game.
“It fits perfectly,” Jiang Cheng tells him for at least the third time in the last five minutes and that’s it.
Nie Mingjue has had enough.
“Just fitting is not enough!” he says, and when a few heads turn their direction, he realizes that he’s speaking way too loudly, but he doesn’t care. He will not allow this. “There is no way in hell we are going to put this monstrosity into our bedroom! Do you even know how much dust there is in the bedroom? This has open shelves, which are bound to gather all the dust! Plus, it’s shiny white, that thing is not coming within ten miles of our bedroom!” he rages, feeling better now that he finally says what he really thinks.
He only realizes belatedly that Jiang Cheng is smiling at him.
“What?” Nie Mingjue snaps out and crosses his arms in front of his chest.
“You said ‘our’ and ‘we’,” Jiang Cheng says with a dopey smile on his face and Nie Mingjue immediately deflates, his anger absolutely useless when faced with Jiang Cheng’s happiness.
“Of course I did,” Nie Mingjue gives back, still trying to maintain his frown, because his point stands. “It’s our apartment.”
“It is,” Jiang Cheng softly says and takes a tiny step closer to Nie Mingjue.
He doesn’t outright demand a hug or any physical contact, because he never does, despite Nie Mingjue telling him again and again that it’s okay, and so Nie Mingjue takes the hint and pulls Jiang Cheng into his side. Jiang Cheng perfectly fits under his arm and Nie Mingjue wants to do this forever.
“So, the closet?” Jiang Cheng asks after a minute and Nie Mingjue fights the urge to retreat his arm.
“It’s not even a closet,” he hotly says. “It doesn’t even have doors!”
He only realizes that Jiang Cheng is teasing him when he chuckles lowly and Nie Mingjue loves him so much, it threatens to swallow him whole sometimes.
“Can we please just move on and choose something sensible for the bedroom?” Nie Mingjue asks with a sigh and fights his knee-jerk reaction when Jiang Cheng looks at another totally impractical piece of furniture.
“You’re better doing this on purpose,” Nie Mingjue grumbles and pulls Jiang Cheng along, away from the way too stylish and way too impractical pieces.
“And what if I’m not?” Jiang Cheng asks, following obediently along and Nie Mingjue can see the glint in his eyes, so he knows that Jiang Cheng is just playing with him.
“Because your own apartment is furnished in very sturdy, very sensible, very useful pieces. None of this nonsense you would find here.”
“My mother’s interior designer chose my furniture.”
“Then maybe I should go shopping with him,” Nie Mingjue sighs out and then scrubs a hand down his face. “Tell me again why we can’t just take your closet with us?”
They are moving together into a new apartment at the end of the month, and Nie Mingjue would love to do nothing more than skip all of this. They should just take whatever they like from their own apartments and make it fit somehow. Hell, Nie Mingjue has spent so little time in his own apartment in the last half year that he doesn’t even remember how his bedroom looks. He’s perfectly happy with Jiang Cheng’s furniture.
“Because we want to start building our life together and taking old pieces with us would just ruin the whole fun of that,” Jiang Cheng gives back, with the patience of a saint, because Nie Mingjue has asked this question a lot in the past three hours.
“We can take some old pieces? I mean we already have a completely new kitchen, and most of the living-room, so why not bring something familiar with us for the bedroom?”
“Because you’re just trying to get out of this and I am not having it,” Jiang Cheng shoots back, clearly enjoying this much more than he should and Nie Mingjue knows that he has already lost.
“I want something warm, something sturdy and big. None of this,” he waves a hand at the furniture around him.
“So you just want to go somewhere else,” Jiang Cheng says, trying to hide the fact that he’s laughing at Nie Mingjue.
“I hate Ikea,” Nie Mingjue agrees with feeling and Jiang Cheng bursts out laughing.
He has to laugh so hard that he bends over, trying to steady himself on Nie Mingjue’s arm, and Nie Mingjue would be annoyed, if he wasn’t so happy to see Jiang Cheng like this.
It had taken him a while to be this free around Nie Mingjue when they first got together.
“I love you,” Nie Mingjue says, meaning it with every fibre of his being and Jiang Cheng rights himself to narrow his eyes at Nie Mingjue.
“You better not be proposing in a goddamn fucking Ikea of all places,” he hisses and not for the first time Nie Mingjue wonders if Jiang Cheng did find the ring he’s hiding at home.
“Please,” Nie Mingjue huffs out. “I would rather propose to you in a bathroom than this hellhole.”
“Please don’t do that either,” Jiang Cheng says and pats Nie Mingjue’s arm.
“The bathroom or the proposing?” Nie Mingjue asks, because he can’t help himself.
They did not have a serious talk about marriage yet, after all, and while Nie Mingjue is reasonably sure that Jiang Cheng would say yes to him, there’s always a little bit of doubt.
“The bathroom, you idiot,” Jiang Cheng immediately says and moves in for a short kiss. “I’d love to get proposed to.”
“Hopefully not by some stranger,” Nie Mingjue grumbles, but he slides his hand in Jiang Cheng’s back pocket and keeps him close, brushing his lips over the faint blush on his cheeks.
“You’re a complete moron if you believe there ever could be anyone for me but you, my soul,” Jiang Cheng gives back and leans against Nie Mingjue.
Instead of answering Nie Mingjue only presses a lingering kiss to Jiang Cheng’s hair and then they stand like complete idiots around for a minute or maybe even three.
“Wanna go somewhere else?” Jiang Cheng asks after a while.
“Gods, yes,” Nie Mingjue wholeheartedly agrees and Jiang Cheng chuckles.
“I mean another store, not home,” he teases him and Nie Mingjue rolls his eyes.
“We’re not going home before we have decided on a stupid closet. We’re also not going to have sex until our bedroom is complete,” he adds as an afterthought, whispering the words into Jiang Cheng’s ears and he can feel him shudder.
“That’s so mean, we have a perfectly functioning bedroom in my apartment,” Jiang Cheng whines and Nie Mingjue shrugs.
“No closet, no sex,” he decides and then walks away from Jiang Cheng, leaving him to scramble after him.
“You’re so mean to me.”
“And you like it that way.”
Jiang Cheng’s telling silence is answer enough for Nie Mingjue, who smiles as he makes his way out of Ikea as fast as he can.
They do end up at another store where they find a closet exactly as Nie Mingjue likes it, and even though Jiang Cheng puts up a token protest simply to be difficult, they end up buying it. Jiang Cheng is glowing with happiness when they leave the store.
“Can we please go home now?” Jiang Cheng asks after they paid and Nie Mingjue raises an eyebrow at him.
“If you think we’re having sex tonight you’re mistaken, your Ikea trip sucked all the energy out of me,” he says and while it’s meant as a joke, it’s not completely wrong.
Today has been exhausting and Nie Mingjue is honestly not in the mood for anything more than cuddling.
Jiang Cheng flushes a bit, like he always does when Nie Mingjue speaks so bluntly about sex in public, but he doesn’t complain as he laces their fingers together.
“Honestly, I just want to cuddle on the couch,” Jiang Cheng says, sounding drained himself.
“I can get behind that,” Nie Mingjue agrees and drags Jiang Cheng off to their car.
The ride home is silent and they don’t exchange any words when they change out of their street clothes either and it’s only when they are cuddled up on the couch, Jiang Cheng in Nie Mingjue’s arms and his head on his chest that Jiang Cheng speaks again.
“Admit it, you had fun today,” he says and Nie Mingjue hums in consideration. “Don’t even pretend,” Jiang Cheng says with a light slap to Nie Mingjue’s stomach and Nie Mingjue sighs.
“I hated every second I spent in Ikea,” Nie Mingjue starts, “but I had fun today because we were shopping for our apartment.”
“You’re such a sap,” Jiang Cheng sighs, but he also snuggles closer to Nie Mingjue, so he knows he’s happy about it.
“I would go to Ikea a thousand times if it would make you happy,” Nie Mingjue tells him and it’s not even a lie.
He can endure white and horribly impractical furniture as long as it makes Jiang Cheng laugh like today.
“Mh, it only makes fun if I go with you,” Jiang Cheng mumbles, clearly already sleepy and Nie Mingjue slides them deeper on the couch.
They are just a little bit too old to spend an entire night on the couch like this, but for now that’s okay.
He’ll make sure they get to bed eventually.
“I love you,” Jiang Cheng whispers, apparently his last conscious thought and Nie Mingjue wonders if proposing at breakfast the next day would be too soon.
Since you want cute juniors, how about Juniors enjoying a free snow day or summer day?
Let’s do summer!
Jingyi mopes the whole time about how hot it is the whole time. Sizhui does not know what weather is and it doesn’t hurt him. A Ling is slowly dying from the heat.
Zizhen is somehow not tired and tells the others to stop moping because he wants to go out and do something!
They probably argue about it for a while before Sizhui tells them to shut up and put the names in a hat.
Someone (cough it was zizhen cough) suggested they go to the zoo bc he wants to see animals
Ljy is down, jl groans and has to be dragged there, and lsz is the one who gets lunch and water and sunscreen, a yi! it’s good for you!
Zizhen is sparkly eyed and super excited the whole time. #OuyangZizhenAppreciationSquad
They’re all whipped for him.
The second they arrive, jingyi points at a peacock and points at jin ling. “I’ve connected the dots.”
“You didn’t connect SHIT.”
Zizhen coos over every animal in the zoo, bc he LOVES animals.
They split up midway because Sizhui wants to stay at the bunny exhibit for a good half hour. Jin Ling stays with him, not bc he likes the bunnies (tho they are cute), but because he is staring holes at the groundhogs the next exhibit over.
Jingyi and Zizhen run around the whole zoo in about an hour.
Zizhen’s favorite was the turtle exhibit, and Jingyi almost died when they saw a kangaroo.
They did have a meet point planned, but ljy and oyzz may or may not have gotten distracted by the mini-aquarium and forgot to shown up.
Meanwhile Jin Ling and Sizhui are frantically searching for the other two in the indoor bird area.
JL is convinced that they accidentally joined a cult again and Sizhui is worried because they probably forgot to reapply sunscreen!! Plus, Jingyi never stays off his phone for more than an hour!!
Dw, they’re just trying to pet the alligators!
They finally find each other again in the reptile section, and Sizhui lightly scolds Zizhen and Jingyi while a Ling smiles at their pain.
The last places that they haven’t been to are the area for cats and the giraffes. Zizhen laughs at Jingyi’s shortness for five minutes straight.
A Ling doesn’t like big cats (like tigers, lions) for some reason. The Lans once again wonder if he’s secretly a furry while Zizhen coos at the tiger cubs.
The Aftermath: Sizhui is once again emotionally drained, Jingyi is tired out by the zoo, and flops into bed as soon as they get home, Jin Ling goes back to internally gay monologuing and questioning his life choices, while Zizhen posts all the shitty photos he took of them onto Instagram.
yes this was kinda a crack post what else do you expect of me it’s 1 AM
I read the latest chapter for Same River Twice and it was so good! I was pretty sad about LXC and JC though.... But I'm also surprised NHS didn't catch on to the fact that NMJ said Lan Wangji instead of Lan Zhan, considering LWJ shouldn't be old enough to have his courtesy name yet!
Listen, when you’re four years old and trying to both scheme your way to a better future and match-make, you’re not going to notice if someone gets called the name you’re most familiar with them going by, even if it is a few years too early
at this rate NMJ is going to end up giving everyone ideas for future names, he’s so bad at this...
Since you're opening up ficlet requests again, can I get Nie brothers + happiness?
Ah-Sang is a newborn and the ladies giggle with his father’s indulgent look as he calms down without fail whenever his older brother would hold his tiny hand. For his baby self, happiness was something as simple as the presence of his brother. Well, that, and milk, toys, and the pretty trinket on his mother’s hair.
(Or so the story goes. It’s not as if he can remember anything from that age. He believes it though as his glistening eyes carefully stitch a right torso.)
Nie Huaisang is nine and has sneaked out of his saber training once more. He’s in the middle of deciding between the bamboo shots design and the flying cranes fans when he is grabbed at the scruff of his neck by familiar hands. There was a lot of scolding and fake crying on his part. When he retires that same night, there on his bed was a crane-designed fan. For nine-year-old Nie Huaisang, happiness was something as simple as a gift from his older brother. Well, that, and fans, and garments, and beautiful tea sets.
(The crane fan has long been lost from either his younger self’s absent mindedness or when the Wens attacked their home, he’s not certain. His memories fly by as he shakily stitches a leg.)
Nie Huaisang is in the Cloud Recesses trying to avoid his studies and fools around. They run through the nearby towns, sometimes sleep past the designated time, and he keeps the record on bets on how many rules a certain someone has broken. But then their grades are released and he is subjected to a fierce round of shouts from the Qinghe Nie sect leader. When it’s time for the other to leave, he gets a pat on the head and a hug. For teenager Nie Huaisang, happiness was something as simple as a fierce scolding followed by a fiercer hug from his older brother. Well, that, and cancelled finals, juicy gossip, and carefree days.
(There is silence in the halls of the Nie family home and cold seeps through its empty spaces. He pats the newly stitched body with him as if seeking for a reminiscent warmth. The dead body offers none.)
Sect Leader Nie knew what happiness was. It was a lot of things varying from his age range but a constant one was of somebody that’s now already gone. For this Nie Huaisang who was forced to grow up too soon despite being protected from the war because now his protector was gone, happiness was something as simple as revenge.
Ah-Sang promises justice without limits and seeks his rightful retribution. He’s not certain if this was ‘happiness’, but he has to relearn the word’s meaning now that the emotion’s focal point is six feet under the ground.
I love your latest comic! Wen Qing's outfit is so cool! I wish I had it too! Wen Ning's design is really good too, I never thought of him wearing glasses in modern aus, but it suits him really well! Also the blue and white band aids were a nice touch too! Did they come from Lan Wangji?
thank u so much! i loved designing wen qing <3
(there’s a reason for the glasses just u wait ahsfkjhasf)
also yes on the band-aids! wen ning got a lil scratch on his face and wei wuxian screamed in total fear of wen qing’s wrath and so ofc lan wangji came and tried to help.
Can you please do the Acrobat Selfie pose with Wangxian? Because WWX would totally do that! Or meng yao with nie mingjue? A selfie to comfort LXC of their tense brotherhood? Or maybe nie huaisang with nie mingjue because he's shameless with his brother who spoils him? Any one of those will do I just think it's hilarious.
I'm fairly certain I read every single fic on this blog. It took me all of yesterday afternoon and all of today and it's 10pm. My eyes feels dry and I have a headache so I took breaks to rest my eyes but I COULDN'T STOP READING. Because your writing is JUST THAT GOOD. I LOVE IT!. Although I avoided some angsty ones cause I'm a softie. My favorite ones are tied between Sangcheng completing courting traditions, WWX reincarnated as a goat, NMJ/WWX/LWJ arranged marriage and anything with Madame Yu.
