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Nie Huaisang is very smart. He’s also a little bit of a bastard. Luckily for all involved, he’s mostly interested in surrounding himself with pretty things.
This turns out fine, most of the time. It means that Wei Wuxian can drag them out to explore some obscure shop in the middle of What The Fuck This Exists? street, and Nie Huaisang will inevitably find something to make it worth their while.
So. Usually fine.
Except that today, Nie Huaisang looks Very interested in a swath of purple silk, and look—Jiang Cheng might not be on Wei Wuxian’s and Nie Huaisang’s level of smarts, but he’s not stupid. He knows that Nie Huaisang had his contact saved as “🍆 man” for the three goddamn years it took for Jiang Cheng to get into his phone and change it to something more palatable.
And, lest there be any doubt of Jiang Cheng’s incoming torment, Nie Huaisang summons Wei Wuxian to inspect the silk—and then he whispers something to Wei Wuxian, who barks out a laugh and then swallows it. Which can only mean mischief is in the air.
“Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says, “come here for a moment?”
“Fuck off,” is Jiang Cheng’s eloquent reply.
Wei Wuxian wrinkles his nose, but he lets it drop. Jiang Cheng squints at Nie Huaisang, trying to figure out where, exactly, this situation is going.
He doesn’t find out that night, or the night after that. But three nights later, just when Jiang Cheng is ready to put all of this behind him, he’s rudely awoken by his phone’s stupid, aggravating ringtone at—yes, of course!—2:00am.
He answers the phone. “What the fuck.”
Nie Huaisang replies with a perfunctory, “Open the door already!!” and then hangs up.
This is a good thing, because Jiang Cheng has been asleep for approximately twenty minutes, and if he starts yelling he Will get a headache from hell. Which obviously isn’t ideal. Sourly, Jiang Cheng lets Nie Huaisang inside.
“About time,” Nie Huaisang says, package in hand.
Jiang Cheng stares at the package suspiciously. He doesn’t bother with a response; he refuses to engage in casual conversation while wearing an old pair of boxers and a t-shirt he turned into a tank with a pair of scissors a few years back.
Nie Huaisang, who is not similarly undressed, also says nothing.
In fact, Nie Huaisang appears to have forgotten what words are. He’s just… staring at Jiang Cheng, mouth parted ever so slightly. And he’s not saying anything.
As the fog of sleep lifts, Jiang Cheng realizes that Yeah, He’s Standing Here In His Underwear, but he refuses to be self-conscious about it, damn it. It’s not his fault that Nie Huaisang showed up without warning in the middle of the night.
Speaking of…
“Why?”
Nie Huaisang blinks, but he catches on, thanks to Jiang Cheng’s sharp tone. “Oh,” he says. “I have. A Thing. For you.”
That cannot possibly have come out right, so Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow in lieu of response.
Nie Huaisang scowls—doesn’t even give Jiang Cheng the courtesy of blushing—and waves the package in his face. “The Thing.”
“You say that like it’s supposed to mean something to me,” Jiang Cheng says, ignoring the package—which appears to be wrapped in butcher paper and twine—and trying to divine what’s going on in the shadows on Nie Huaisang’s face.
“Just open it,” Nie Huaisang says, revealing nothing as he shoves the package in question into Jiang Cheng’s chest and stalking past him into the living room.
The Thing is square and soft, squishing half-pleasantly into Jiang Cheng’s hand (butcher paper does not squish well), but as curious as he is, he doesn’t open it, because some people try to sleep every now and then.
“I know that,” Nie Huaisang says, tugging off his boots and tucking his feet beneath him on the couch. “Just open it.”
And look, it’s 2:00am, Jiang Cheng is desperate for sleep, and the only light on in his apartment is in his bedroom—and even that’s just a lamp. Everything about this situation is reminding Jiang Cheng of how tired he is, of how comfortable he was before Nie Huaisang called and woke him up, and has Jiang Cheng mentioned that he’s tired?
Because if he hasn’t, he really should, because Christ. He’s going to self destruct when he looks back on this moment.
‘This moment’ being the one where he sets the Thing on his kitchen counter (which is positioned right next to the door, naturally) and says, “In the morning.”
“But I want to watch you open it!” Nie Huaisang says and—fuck! He’s pouting.
“Then sleep here,” Jiang Cheng snaps, no thoughts, head empty. He’s mentioned he’s tired, right? “Whatever, I don’t care.”
Nie Huaisang is staring again. “You can’t be serious.”
Jiang Cheng smiles. It feels a lot more like brandishing a whip. “Try me.”
“Okay! So you’re not kidding,” Nie Huaisang says, scrambling up from his spot on the couch and following Jiang Cheng as he stalks to his room. “But I super wasn’t planning on this—just supposed to be in and out—and, really, if you could just—”
“I swear to god if you ask me to open it now I’m going to throw you out,” Jiang Cheng snaps, but he’s not, like, heartless or anything. He understands what Nie Huaisang is throwing down. To prove this, Jiang Cheng grabs a shirt and sweatpants from his drawer and tosses them at Nie Huaisang.
See? He’s not a total dick.
“Jiang Cheng,” Nie Huaisang complains, “I was hoping to be on my way home by now.”
“I will open it in the morning,” Jiang Cheng says through gritted teeth. He doesn’t bother looking at Nie Huaisang; he knows that he’s pouting and doing his best to look pathetic so that Jiang Cheng will have mercy on him. Unfortunately for Nie Huaisang, Jiang Cheng’s Need For Sleep™ takes precedent.
“Either stay or go,” Jiang Cheng says. And, just to make things abundantly clear, he crawls into bed. It’s still warm, and he sighs a little.
Nie Huaisang is staring.
“Can I help you,” he says, face pressed into his pillow.
“No,” Nie Huaisang says, just a hair too fast.
Jiang Cheng looks up. He’s warm and comfortable in his bed, and now all that’s left is to wait for sleep to take him. But Nie Huaisang is standing there, looking awkward, and Jiang Cheng really can’t emphasize enough how tired he is when he reaches out to grab Nie Huaisang’s wrist and pulls him into bed.
Nie Huaisang makes this Noise as he stumbles into the edge of the bedframe, and it’s a noise of a very specific, slightly shocked caliber that Does Things to Jiang Cheng’s brain. Things that he would really prefer not to think about right now, thank you very much.
“I’m not digging up extra blankets,” Jiang Cheng says, mouth supplying an explanation even as his brain emits a combination of “????????!!!???????????????????” and the blue screen of death.
“Right,” Nie Huaisang says, still wearing his coat and pants and very much not dressed for bed. “Makes sense.”
“Mm,” is the best Jiang Cheng can do under his current circumstances.
Nie Huaisang removes his wrist from Jiang Cheng’s grip (Jiang Cheng mourns the loss), but Jiang Cheng has thrown down his cards. Whatever happens now is entirely up to Nie Huaisang.
A few minutes later, Jiang Cheng feels the mattress dip as Nie Huaisang gets into bed.
Nie Huaisang digs a bony elbow into Jiang Cheng’s side and grumbles at him to move over. Jiang Cheng does, but he doesn’t miss how Nie Huaisang slides closer when he pulls a little too far away.
Jiang Cheng is not smiling, on account of his face being full of pillow, but it’s a near thing what with Nie Huaisang being pressed against his side and all.
“G’night,” Nie Huaisang murmurs after a few minutes.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t respond. Just hooks his foot around Nie Huaisang’s ankle in something like an embrace. Nie Huaisang pulls closer, and Jiang Cheng falls asleep like this: warm, content, Nie Huaisang pressed fully against his side while winding his other ankle between Jiang Cheng’s legs.
Jiang Cheng sleeps better than he has in years.
Jiang Cheng wakes up with Nie Huaisang’s chest pressed to his back and his arms wrapped around Jiang Cheng’s body. Gentle wisps of breath tickle the back of Jiang Cheng’s neck, warming the skin just enough to bring goosebumps to his arms.
He swallows. Closes his eyes. Focuses on the fluttering warmth in his chest.
He’s missed this. Hasn’t shared a bed outside of disastrous one-night stands in years. And… it feels good, being held in someone else’s arms. Despite himself, Jiang Cheng holds tightly to Nie Huaisang’s arm, enfolds himself deeper in Nie Huaisang’s embrace.
Nie Huaisang hums into his neck, shifts his legs so that they’re well and truly tangled together. mumbles a groggy, “Jiang Cheng?”
“I’m still me,” Jiang Cheng grumbles, although there’s not much bite to it. “Haven’t transformed into a stranger overnight.”
Nie Huaisang laughs. It’s a pretty sound. “I’m glad.”
Jiang Cheng’s chest feels Very warm.
“We should do this more often,” Jiang Cheng says, begrudgingly, like it’s been pulled out of him.
Nie Huaisang, who has done no such wheedling, snorts. And then he sits up, extricating all but h is legs from the Jiang Cheng-Nie Huaisang pile that Jiang Cheng had been planning on never leaving.
Jiang Cheng grunts his protest and tries to pull Nie Huaisang back, but Nie Huaisang shakes his head. Jiang Cheng blinks up at him, squinting against the crumbs of sleep still in his eyes.
“You want more of this?” Nie Huaisang asks.
“You’re warm,” Jiang Cheng says. “Sue me.”
“Mm, I’ll think about it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” Nie Huaisang asks. He says it like he’s talking about more than cuddling.
“What…” Jiang Cheng swallows. His room is sweltering. “What do you think I mean?”
Nie Huaisang’s eyes flick unsubtly to his lips. Jiang Cheng feels like he’s been struck by lightning. He pushes himself upright, hates the loss of Nie Huaisang’s legs on his.
Sitting like this, there is very little room between them.
“Dinner first,” Nie Huaisang says.
Jiang Cheng groans, but he doesn’t argue.
He’s not sure what there is to argue about, but some deeply ingrained part of him searches for it anyway. It tugs against him, tries to pull him back to solid ground.
“You should open your present,” Nie Huaisang says.
Jiang Cheng squints at him. Nie Huaisang’s smile is way too innocent—this is his “definitely not hiding porn” smile, the one that he only pulls out of his repertoire when he’s trying to get out of something.
“What the fuck did you do?” Jiang Cheng asks, and hey. It’s not all that unreasonable to be concerned about that smile, that “I know something you don’t know” look in Nie Huaisang’s eyes—that smug look on Nie Huaisang’s face. Jiang Cheng has seen that smirk often enough to know when it comes out—he’s been in on the joke often enough to know with complete certainty that this—
“Stop thinking,” Nie Huaisang complains, poking Jiang Cheng’s thigh with his foot. “Open it! I waited all night.”
Slowly, Jiang Cheng gets out of bed. “It had better not be a dick.”
“I would’ve refrigerated that,” Nie Huaisang says serenely.
Jiang Cheng gives him a pointed scowl.
He has no idea what to expect his gift to be. Holding the package the night before hadn’t given him many clues, although the size and general heft of it probably outruled dicks and phallic objects of any nature.
Probably.
Nie Huaisang follows him to the living room, not bothering to hide his excitement. Jiang Cheng picks up the package reluctantly, and does not miss Nie Huaisang putting on his boots in the background.
He tugs on a loose end of the twine. The package falls open.
Jiang Cheng stares at the tissue paper inside, noting how it folds over a suspiciously cylindrical object. Thinks he can see a hint of color through the fragile, pale white tissue paper.
Is it—? No, it can’t be…
Nie Huaisang is peering over his shoulder now (around it, really, their heights being what they are), and Jiang Cheng can feel that excited smile on his face.
Jiang Cheng peels back the tissue paper and stares at his “gift.”
“I hate you,” he decides, right then and there.
Because staring back at him is a small, silk plush. It’s clearly custom-made, because no one in their right mind makes fucking eggplant dolls out of silk, let alone an eggplant doll in this specific, shifting shade of purple and this incredibly phallic shape.
It’s. So ugly. And Jiang Cheng can’t stop staring at it.
Because he recognizes this silk—it’s the same one that Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang were snickering over a few days ago. There’s a slight swirling pattern to it, varying shades of deep purple and indigo silk woven together to make something intoxicatingly beautiful.
And in turn, that beautiful thing was turned into this hideous, googley-eyed eggplant monstrosity.
Nie Huaisang, for the record, laughs hysterically, only grabbing his coat and dashing for the door once Jiang Cheng finally manages to tear his eyes away from the… Thing.
Jiang Cheng makes as if to grab Nie Huaisang, play around and wrestle with him like they’ve done for years, but Nie Huaisang can be fucking fast when he wants to be.
“Dinner tonight!” Nie Huaisang calls, chipper as all hell as he slips out the door and into the fresh mid-morning light. “I’ll text you!”
“You’d fucking better!” Jiang Cheng yells, Thing in hand. “I have—” he can’t help the way his eyes are drawn toward it, let alone the way his voice sharpens “—so many questions!”
Nie Huaisang waves goodbye, laugh fresh in the air.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t close the door until Nie Huaisang fades from sight.
He stares at the Thing, squeezes it firmly. There’s enough give to it that the squeezing is easy, but whatever they used to stuff the Thing has some resistance to it, too; it’s both soft and firm. Sort of like an eggplant-shaped stress ball.
Jiang Cheng snorts and squeezes it again. The silk is pleasant, not the ungodly smooth stuff that makes him want to rip off his skin. It has a slightly rough texture, a definite grain to it.
Smiling, Jiang Cheng sets the Thing on his desk, right beside the lump of clay Wei Wuxian insists is a turtle to this day. It’s joined by the bent earing that Jiang Yanli had tried and failed to fix for weeks, a cracked clay bowl that looks like someone covered it with confetti before it got glazed, and several other mismatched items sitting in this dedicated corner of his desk.
He moves the eggplant monstrosity to the confetti-glazed bowl, turning it so that its eyes face the wall.
“Fucking nightmare fuel,” he grumbles, arms folded against his chest, but there’s a smile tugging at his lips. His phone buzzes with an incoming text.
[Nie Huaisang >:3c]: dinner at 5?
[Jiang Cheng]: sure. u have a place in mind?
[Nie Huaisang >:3c]: i'm sure i can think of smth :3c
Jiang Cheng sighs and sets his phone on his desk, strangely content.
And if he stares at the eggplant monstrosity for longer than is strictly necessary, it’s because he’s transfixed by the way the light rolls across the different strands of silk. Not out of anything sentimental or fond. That would be absurd.
(He stares at it for a little longer, anyway—just to prove a point.)
(He winds up thinking about Nie Huaisang and the hysterics he and Wei Wuxian must have gotten into while making the Thing. In the end, he really can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. They’re his friends, and fuck, Jiang Cheng loves them.)