Work Text:
Jiang Cheng's phone keeps beeping insistently. He glances at the screen, sees Wei Wuxian's name popping up with each new text message, and resolutely ignores them. He has very little left of his assignment to do: fix the alignment, add a page count, double check the references are all there. Despite the cascade of notifications, he manages to focus and mail the document to his lecturer.
It's a Thursday evening, the day before an extended weekend. With this homework done, he finally relaxes in his chair, sliding down the seat bonelessly. For the first time in a while, he doesn't have any pressing matters to attend to for college or otherwise.
The phone continues to beep.
Jiang Cheng sighs. He'd explicitly told Wei Wuxian he would be busy until nine pm, but did his brother listen?
He writes back,
'I'm done now'
'I'll be right there'
A quick look at the texts above reveals Lan Wangji's name a tad too many times. Jiang Cheng immediately closes the application. He doesn't have the patience for his brother's lovesickness right now, especially since he knows he won't escape it entirely—Wei Wuxian will no doubt repeat everything verbally once he joins him on Discord.
Briefly, he hovers, undecided between a peaceful evening and a few hours of competitive Overwatch with unnecessary commentary on the side.
Any sane person would pick Untitled Goose Game instead—hell, even Spider Solitaire—yet he finds himself logging into his Battle.net account by reflex. An event is going on in the game right now too, so he bargains with himself over the promise of potential lootboxes. He's tired of hearing Wei Wuxian brag how many cosmetic items he has for his characters.
As soon as the game enters the menu, an invitation pops up on the screen:
JOIN IMBABY’S GROUP?
[ImBaby]: check ur phone!!
[ImBaby]: no voice today, im w lz on discord
To [ImBaby]: whatever let's queue up
Jiang Cheng waits for a few seconds, but they remain in the menus.
To [ImBaby]: comp?
At least one minute later, Wei Wuxian replies,
[ImBaby]: check ur phone bro!!
Looks like Jiang Cheng isn't getting out of this. He unlocks his phone with a careless swipe of his finger, mildly annoyed. Why did Wei Wuxian insist on playing tonight if he was going to be talking elsewhere anyway?
The text messages are a mess of emoticons and abbreviations. Somehow, only through years of knowing Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng figures out what his brother is so excited about: Lan Wangji now has a copy of Overwatch too, but no experience with games whatsoever… and he will be joining them tonight once his game finishes installing.
Jiang Cheng looks blankly at the floor, tired beyond measure. A quick noise alerts him that someone has joined their group. Someone called Blue.
How creative.
Well, he'll play a few games, if out of morbid curiosity. He won't be having a good time if Lan Wangji is a real, proper noob. Everyday the weight on Jiang Cheng's back increases as he struggles to carry his teams to victory. Tonight, it already hurts, and they haven’t even started yet.
[zidian]: hello lan wangji
[zidian]: have fun
[Blue]: Thank you.
Sigh.
Wei Wuxian finally queues them up, but for quickplay instead. Jiang Cheng selects tank and proceeds to zone out, mindlessly browsing the hero gallery as they wait. It's very quiet with Wei Wuxian busy on another channel. He declines the invitation to join them; perhaps if he stays away, they can get their shit together faster and stop dancing around one another so infuriatingly.
It's not a dance Jiang Cheng cares to know anyway.
Their first couple of matches are a breeze. They get a couple of new players on the enemy too, people who are unused to having an experienced Winston land in their faces. Lan Wangji plays Soldier 76, one of the friendliest heroes for new players, and Wei Wuxian sticks to him as Mercy the entire time. Even just watching them in game is enough to make Jiang Cheng roll his eyes every couple of minutes.
[zidian]: mercy stop going for risky rezzes
[zidian]: arent you masters
[ImBaby]: :3c
[Blue]: I apologize, I do not know the controls well.
[Blue]: I am dying very often.
[Blue]: There are many things happening on the screen in this game.
[ImBaby]: thats ok! ure lvl 3!
Jiang Cheng sighs deeply. How did Wei Wuxian rope this dude into playing an online first person shooter anyway?!
[zidian]: its fine, it takes time
After a while, Jiang Cheng resigns himself to playing Winston without his brother's aid. They get decent other healers, thankfully, else he would have quit the game night entirely. It starts to get worse over time, as the matchmaking system starts picking enemies closer to the two brothers’ levels. Lan Wangji’s struggle becomes more than obvious.
One particular match on Horizon Lunar Colony drives him nuts though.
He manages to coordinate with their other dps player to dive the enemy backline, only to turn around and find the rest of his team is dead, taken out by the enemy Doomfist and Sombra.
It goes like this for three minutes. None of their pushes work, the objective is still untouched, and this is the worst map in the game. He is done.
Winston (zidian): I need healing!
Winston (zidian): I need healing!
Winston (zidian): I need healing!
[ImBaby]: ure at full hp u jerk
[ImBaby]: stop spamming
[zidian]: dmg boost me and we fry them
[ImBaby]: soldier has visor, ill dmg boost him
Jiang Cheng stares at the screen, resigned. They lost the last two matches and this third one seems like it will complete the set. He stops pushing for the attack, staying with the team instead. The enemy Sombra greets them from the highground, invisible. She effectively disabled their team again and again this game. Their Roadhog player gave her so many free EMPs Jiang Cheng doesn't want to think about it anymore.
'Mess with the best and die like the rest!'
Yeah, thanks, Sombra.
When there are fifteen seconds left, Jiang Cheng makes his hero sit down as he waits for the match to end.
'Hello!' says Sombra. '¿Qué tal?’
She uncloaks next to him and sits down too.
As DEFEAT flashes across Jiang Cheng's screen, the Sombra player types in match chat,
[Birdie]: aww winston I feel bad now
[Birdie]: I hope your friend likes ow!
He doesn't respond.
They lose the next match too, and the next. It gets to a point where Jiang Cheng puts on some background music and takes out an article he meant to check out (some interesting news about his hometown), and immerses himself in it like a filthy casual player.
No in-game footsteps, they die like men.
Eventually, the Sombra player reappears.
They're on Lijiang Tower this time, Night Market. Winston waits on the point, peeking around a corner. The enemies are coming from the edge of the map, blissfully unaware of his plans. If he times it right, he could throw them off with his ultimate ability and get a bunch of environmental kills. The anticipation builds as he hears them approaching—
Any moment now—
HACKED flashes across his screen in red.
"No!" Jiang Cheng yells out-loud.
His hero's health bar depletes rapidly when the entire enemy team is focusing on him and, unable to use any of his abilities, he is eliminated within a few seconds.
[Birdie]: ah, I just realized it's you again
[Birdie]: sorry <3
[zidian]: .___.
[Birdie]: :'(
He spends the rest of the match making Sombra's life hard, interrupting her hacks and focusing her with vengeance. They still lose, but at least the game goes into a third round and overtime before the enemies finally get the objective. The game of cat and mouse felt almost fun too, if Jiang Cheng thinks about it honestly. It was a lot more entertaining to chase Sombra and disable her than to partake in the slow training of Lan Wangji in the realm of WASD and hand-eye-mouse coordination.
Next, on Havana, he is pleasantly surprised to see Birdie is on his team this time around.
[Birdie]: hey zidian!! I'll help you win this time!!
[zidian]: I can win by myself
[Birdie]: my experience says differently
[Birdie]: nevertheless I gotchu!
Jiang Cheng stares at the chat window morosely. If this had happened at the beginning of the night, he may have reacted more caustically. As it is, he's mellowed out after seeing Lan Wangji die from his own Helix Rockets one too many times. He wanted to play competitive, but this extended weekend looks like it's going to be third-wheeling his brother in quickplay.
In spawn, Soldier 76 and Mercy are spamming hello's to each other. Lan Wangji only has two voice lines, between which he alternates, while Wei Wuxian showcases his Mercy emotes and says, 'Your guardian angel!' 'Your guardian angel!' 'Your guardian angel!' endlessly.
It's sickeningly sweet.
[Birdie]: monkey come to VC
[Birdie]: they wont be able to stop us if i make callouts
Reluctantly, only out of his desire for cohesive teamwork, Jiang Cheng joins the team voice channel.
"YES!" Birdie exclaims as soon as he connects. "I'm so sorry, Winston, but we'll get them! Your friend Soldier will get a 4k, I promise."
Birdie has the voice of a youthful young man, perhaps around Jiang Cheng's age. Hopefully. He sounds much more pleasant than the caricature Jiang Cheng was creating in his mind.
He doesn't talk back, but Birdie doesn't comment on it.
Before the doors to their spawns open, he sees Wei Wuxian has typed something in their group's chat.
[ImBaby]: hahaha making friends im so happy for u!
[ImBaby]: we should ask sombra to join us
[ImBaby]: perfect positioning and good aim
[Blue]: The player eliminated me many times. They are very skilled.
[ImBaby]: aww lan zhan agrees!
After one minute and a half, with the payload already reaching the first checkpoint, Jiang Cheng finds himself agreeing as well.
"Genji one, no dash," Birdie says.
A moment later, Jiang Cheng locates the enemy player and eliminates them.
"Nice," Birdie cheers. "I have EMP, let's combo, Soldier."
"He's not in voice," Jiang Cheng replies gruffly. His voice sounds weird to him all of a sudden, despite the many times he's spoken in Overwatch over the years..
"Ah,” Birdie says very eloquently, perhaps surprised at hearing him talk. “We'll just go in ourselves then," he muses. "Jump in when I tell you; I'll focus the Zen."
"Ok."
The enemy doesn't know what hit them when they bring the fight to them at the next checkpoint. Soldier does use his Tactical Visor—perhaps Wei Wuxian is actually teaching him how to play the game and not just flirting shamelessly on Discord.
The killfeed lights up, then Athena's robotic voice announces: Team Kill.
In match chat, a couple of people commend Lan Wangji for his play.
Jiang Cheng scoffs. After Sombra set all that up and took out the priority target, too!
"It's like I'm actually invisible, huh," Birdie sighs.
"Do you play competitive?" Jiang Cheng asks.
"Nah, too stressful. I'm just here to hack people."
There's a slight pause, during which the two teams have another fight. It's heavily one-sided for Jiang Cheng's team and they win easily. There's just a couple more meters to go before they will reach the final objective.
"Why? Do you want to group up?" The smile in Birdie's voice is very, very clear. "Ah, your friend's way ahead of you!"
[Birdie] was invited to the group.
[Birdie] joined the group.
[Birdie]: hello!! thanks for the invite
[ImBaby]: hi sombra!!!
[Birdie]: congrats on the play of the game, soldier
[Birdie]: great timing!
[Blue]: Hello. Thank you. I pressed q.
Birdie laughs loudly in the group voice channel.
[Birdie]: yes thats how you win in ow
[Birdie]: everyone presses q at the same time
After that, they play for another hour. The added communication does wonders for Jiang Cheng, and he feels like he's playing properly again, as a main tank should. Birdie's shot calls are good and concise, leading them to another set of victories.
At some point, Lan Wangji excuses himself, saying he has missed his bedtime a long time ago and should retreat. Wei Wuxian doesn't stick around either, and they leave together around half past eleven pm.
"Long past his bedtime?" Birdie wonders, puzzled. "Who goes to bed before midnight?"
"Responsible people, I guess," Jiang Cheng responds. "Are you going too?"
Birdie hmms absently. "I'd play a few more games, if you want."
"Great. Quickplay?"
"Actually… what do you say about some duels?"
Jiang Cheng wordlessly sets up a custom game as he listens to Birdie continue talking.
"I'm kind of tired, but if I leave I'm afraid we won't group up again," Birdie says. "You know, players you have a great match with, add to your friend list then never interact with again?"
"Yeah." Jiang Cheng's 270 Overwatch friends are mostly people he has lost contact with after less than a week. He sees their usernames pop up, remembers the victories they had together, but never asks them to play again.
It seems this is a universal experience in the game.
"Widow 1v1?" Birdie suggests slyly.
Jiang Cheng laughs to himself. Many Widows ask him for 1v1's after he harasses them with Winston, so he's grown to be a decent sniper too.
"You're on!"
Ding!
Eliminated by Birdie
Ding!
Eliminated by Birdie
Ding!
Eliminated by Birdie
Nevermind.
"Hey, hey, hey, what the fuck? I didn't even see you!"
"Loud heels, sweetheart. Heard you coming from a mile away," Birdie chuckles.
"Are you sure you're not interested in competitive? Your aim is incredible!" Jiang Cheng says. He's not even feeling bitter about his loss, because Birdie's skills are beyond expectations.
"I don't know… Maybe, if you help me with placements this weekend," he trails off lightly.
"I usually play with my brother, he's a D.va main; today he was just clowning around on Mercy,” Jiang Cheng breathes out quickly, before Birdie can change his mind. "We could use a dps.”
And if the dps is as good as Birdie, they will skyrocket through the ranks.
"Alright, we can try. What's your name? I'm Huaisang," Birdie says.
"I'm Wanyin.”
“Nice to meet you! I’m curious to see you play with a good team, not gonna lie,” Birdie—Huaisang says.
“Even a bad player can shine with a good team,” Jiang Cheng retorts.
“Sure, can’t argue with that. More duels?”
“Only if you tell me your secrets.”
“That’s unlockable only after 10 h of playing together. Can’t give away trade secrets like that,” Huaisang laughs.
“In that case—” Jiang Cheng starts the next game. He is not going to lose with a score of 0 again.
While the map loads, Jiang Cheng right clicks on Huaisang’s username and sends him a friend request. One moment later, a message pops up at the bottom of the chat:
[Birdie] started playing Overwatch.