Work Text:
Wen Qing was never particularly enthused about this date.
The thing is – well, mainly, the thing is Wei Ying. More specifically, the thing is that Wei Ying is worried about her. He thinks she's too focused on her practice, thinks she's working herself too close to the bone; and, because he is Wei Ying, he expresses his concern by being an unrelenting nuisance about it. A charming nuisance, but an impossible one.
(The other thing, the part she's trying not to look at, is that sometimes she wonders if he's right. She spent so, so long just trying to survive Wen Ruohan, so long saving up her money and counting out the days until Wen Ning turned eighteen. She hung her whole life between the poles of those two numbers, and she kept everything else locked down in solid iron until she could get herself and her brother free. She's not sure she remembers how to live without keeping that grim count. Her work is the only other thing that she remembers how to want.)
Anyway: Jiang Cheng asked her to dinner when they both happened to be at Wei Ying's at the same time. By this, Wen Qing means that she was picking up a platter that she'd left at Wei Ying's apartment. Jiang Cheng was in his hallway for unclear reasons, looking as if he'd been stuffed and mounted; and Wei Ying had been giving her an encouraging thumbs-up from the kitchen. (She's not sure whether to suspect opportunism, mild conspiracy, or unsettling and elaborate conspiracy.) If she'd said no, well – she's not sure Wei Ying would have pestered her about Jiang Cheng in particular, but nonetheless, pestering. Rising to near-fatal levels.
And Jiang Cheng's alright-looking. It's just that, well, generally statuesque means tall and dignified, not that he actually stands there like a statue.
Thus: she finds herself in a lovely restaurant full of soft warm light. Her shoes pinch just a little and she's wearing a dress that's just a little tighter at the seams than it was when she bought it, and she's listening to Jiang Cheng talk about work. It's the same family publishing house that Wei Ying conspicuously and silently does not work in, but Jiang Cheng talks about his authors with a kind of stern pride that shows little flashes of warmth underneath. Real, deep warmth.
(And, well: she remembers back at college. Wei Ying helped her with a lot back then, even during the long slow collapse of his relationship with his parents. There was a professor who wanted to fail Wen Ning when he couldn't make it to class, and another professor – in a different year – who wanted to dock her ten points because she had turned in her final paper by email instead of in person, because she'd been waiting outside of Wen Ning's surgery. And there had been the miserable grinding process of the restraining order against Wen Chao. They'd held each other together, she and her brother and Wei Ying, but it wasn't just them. She's pretty sure that some of the phone calls Wei Ying made were to Jiang Cheng, to get him to call a friend in law. There were twenty-dollar bills that popped up in odd corners of their apartment, bills that bought pizza and coffee in difficult weeks. And she knows that at least once, Jiang Cheng showed up to yell at the assistant dean. She remembers all of that, and probably she always will. But if Jiang Cheng remembers at all, he gave no hint of it in Wei Ying's scuffed-up hallway.)
So, between one thing and another, she's more kindly disposed to Jiang Cheng than she would be to most men who spent a first date talking about his team's sales numbers. But on the other hand: he's still talking about his team's sales numbers on this date.
They're just finishing up the soup when her phone buzzes. “Excuse me, I have to take this,” she says, with a quick glance his way, and then she looks at the screen and feels the old familiar fear seizing up around her heart.
“I have to go,” she says, letting her spoon clatter into the bowl. “My brother's in the hospital.”
Jiang Cheng's eyebrows snap down. “Of course,” he says, sounding grim, and her good opinion drops by entire fathoms. As if she'd ever use this as an excuse.
“My apologies,” she says coolly, settling her napkin on the table with a slow deliberate movement of her hand. When she needed to be calm she always used to think about her hands.
“What?” Jiang Cheng says. “Why are you apologizing? He's your brother. Go. We can reschedule. Why are you even still here?”
Her jaw drops a few millimeters before she gets it under control. “Thank you,” she says, fumbling for her purse. When she lifts her head, Jiang Cheng is standing by her chair, holding out her coat.
“Thank you,” she says again, sliding into it. His breath is a brief warmth on the back of her neck; the brush of his hands is impersonal, which is good because that's all the touch she can stand right now. “I'll call.”
“Go on, go,” he says. “I'll take care of the bill, go.”
“I was going to –”
“You can Venmo me, for God's sake. You have your car, right?”
“I do, yes,” she says. She bites her lip; her gut is a strangled mess, which is strange alongside the familiarity of the fear. But all she knows is that Wen Ning is in the hospital, and that means that every second matters, and there are none to spare to think. “I'll call,” she says again, and breaks for the door. She's very practiced at the fastest pace she can politely move.
--
2am that night finds her collapsing at last into her own bed, leaving her nice dress a crumpled puddle in the middle of the floor. Wen Ning is fine, most likely: low blood sugar and too much sun, that's all, but he'd been so dizzy for a while, and that's been such a danger sign before. But he's all right. He will be fine.
It's true, but it only does so much to ratchet down the tension that's cranked tight through her shoulders.
She pulls the blanket up around her shoulders and, for reasons she chooses not to examine, pulls out her phone. Pulls up Jiang Cheng's number.
Wen Ning's all right, she types out. In overnight for observation, but he'll be home tomorrow. Thank God for good insurance, but she doesn't type that part. (She hates insurance companies so, so much.) Thank you for understanding.
The answers come in seconds later: a short terse good, and then, of course. She sets her phone on the nightstand, closes her eyes, and is just starting to successfully slow her breathing when she hears it buzz again.
From Jiang Cheng: she has cute ears. Even as she's watching the typing bubble pops up, and then, flashing up one-two-three: Shit, wrong conversation. Ignore that. Forget it.
In the dim light of the screen, she reaches up to trace the lobe of her ear. Her smile sits unsteady and fragile on her mouth.
Carefully, she types out: I won't. I'll need to check my schedule, but I think I can do the same time next week. I'll let you know in the morning.
The bubble hovers for a long time, but the message she gets is one just one word: done.
She thinks she might be able to translate his bluntness pretty well, soon.