Work Text:
Jiang Cheng is enjoying a rare, quiet evening at home, when his phone rings.
He put it on the table when he swaddled himself in a blanket, and it’s biting him in the ass now, because he not only has to unwrap himself, but he also has to stretch uncomfortably to reach the phone.
When he half slides off the couch in the process, Jiang Cheng figures it would have been easier to simply stand up, but by then the phone is in his hands.
Nuisance it says, and Jiang Cheng groans into the couch.
He was having a calm evening. He does not want to talk to Wei Wuxian, who will upend Jiang Cheng’s tranquillity.
Jiang Cheng is still debating weather he should mute his phone or not, when it suddenly lights up again, but this time it says A-jie.
There is no way in hell that Jiang Cheng wouldn’t pick up when Jiang Yanli is calling but seeing her name on the phone so shortly after Wei Wuxian’s makes Jiang Cheng panic.
“Is everyone alright?” Jiang Cheng asks as soon as he accepted the call and when Wei Wuxian huffs at the other end of the line, Jiang Cheng feels betrayed.
“So you have time to answer shi-jie, but not me?” Wei Wuxian asks and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.
“You know I love her more,” he gives back, laughing at Wei Wuxian’s indignant squeak. “What do you want?” Jiang Cheng asks once Wei Wuxian calmed down and he feels slightly betrayed when he realizes that his siblings are together and didn’t even ask him to join them.
Jiang Cheng tries to push that thought away, because they are allowed to spend time together without him—of course they are—but Jiang Cheng has a hard time fighting his insecurities.
“What are you doing?” Wei Wuxian asks and Jiang Cheng looks down at his blanket.
“Nothing?” he asks, because he doesn’t think it warrants being said that he is a slob tonight.
There is a very icy silence from Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng frowns.
“Why?” Jiang Cheng carefully asks, already on the defence.
“What do you mean ‘nothing’?” Wei Wuxian snaps and Jiang Cheng shrugs, even though Wei Wuxian can’t see him.
“I mean, I’m on the couch, about to start my second movie?” Jiang Cheng unsurely gives back.
“You stupid asshole,” Wei Wuxian seethes and before Jiang Cheng can react to that Wei Wuxian snaps out “Just stay where the fuck you are,” before he simply hangs up on Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng is left to stare at his phone, wondering what that was all about, before he remembers that Jiang Yanli must have been with Wei Wuxian.
He clicks into his conversation with her and quickly types out Is everything alright?
It doesn’t take her long to answer, but when Jiang Cheng gets the message, he feels as confused as before.
Yes. Stay where you are!
As if he was going to leave his blanket nest, Wei Wuxian’s mood be damned.
It takes them almost half an hour to get to Jiang Cheng’s apartment, and when they ring, Jiang Cheng stays on the couch.
They are being cryptic, and rude for no reason, and they interrupted Jiang Cheng’s relaxing evening; so just to spite them Jiang Cheng makes them search for their own keys instead of getting up and opening the door for them.
Jiang Cheng can hear Wei Wuxian curse before he even gets the door open, and Jiang Yanli’s calming murmur is not far behind, but still, Jiang Cheng is entirely unprepared for the way Wei Wuxian storms into his living-room.
“What the fuck,” Wei Wuxian says first thing when he sees Jiang Cheng all bundled up on the couch, and Jiang Cheng glares at him, because he told him that was what he was doing.
There really is no need to be this surprised by it.
“What?” Jiang Cheng asks, directing the question more to Jiang Yanli than Wei Wuxian, because she’s bound to be the more helpful one here, but Wei Wuxian steps between them.
“Have you been doing this all evening?” Wei Wuxian asks and his voice is so accusing that Jiang Cheng immediately bristles.
He’s allowed to take the evening off, thank you very much.
“Yes,” he bites out, not bothering to explain anything, as long as Wei Wuxian doesn’t tell him what has him worked up like that.
“And you think this was more important than coming to family dinner? Where Uncle Jiang announced that he’ll be stepping down soon? Really?” Wei Wuxian demands to know and Jiang Cheng goes ice cold all over.
“Family dinner,” Jiang Cheng repeats and he starts to tremble all over.
“Yes, for fucks sake. The one you couldn’t attend because you’re so ‘busy’,” Wei Wuxian bites out, but Jiang Yanli puts a calming hand to his arm.
“A-Cheng?” she asks, clearly picking up on Jiang Cheng’s mood, but Jiang Cheng is already untangling himself from his blanket.
“I need to be alone,” Jiang Cheng says, and he feels very removed from his own body.
He’s cold all over, and he thinks he’s still shaking faintly but he barely registers it. All he knows is that he needs to be alone right this moment.
So he gets up and walks past Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli without looking at them, and then he makes a beeline for his bedroom.
He feels like he’s frozen, rather than angry, and so he closes the door behind him with a soft click instead of throwing it shut and then he simply stands in the middle of his bedroom for a moment, before he walks over to the bed and crawls under the blanket there.
He pulls it up over his head, and then he simply stares into nothing.
A family dinner. Where his father made a very big announcement.
And Jiang Cheng wasn’t even invited.
That thought finally breaks through his shock and his eyes start to burn with tears.
He always knew that Wei Wuxian was his father’s golden boy and that Jiang Yanli would always be the most beloved by his parents, but to think that his parents didn’t even ask him to this family dinner cuts deeper than Jiang Cheng could have ever imagined.
Jiang Cheng curls up into a small ball and presses his face into the mattress, overly aware of the hot tears that slide out of his eyes.
When his door opens, Jiang Cheng startles. He forgot that Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli were still in his apartment and he wishes they would just leave him alone.
He doesn’t want them to see him fall apart.
“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli says, and her voice is soft and careful.
“Don’t fucking coddle him,” Wei Wuxian mutters, clearly still angry, but Jiang Yanli doesn’t pay him any attention.
“A-Cheng, did you not know about family dinner?” Jiang Yanli carefully asks and Jiang Cheng presses his eyes closed even harder than before.
“What?” Wei Wuxian gasps and Jiang Cheng can just imagine how he shakes his head. “But Uncle Jiang said Jiang Cheng couldn’t make it because he was busy!”
“A-Cheng?” Jiang Yanli carefully prods him again and Jiang Cheng feels how she sits down on the bed. “Did you know about it?”
“No,” Jiang Cheng croaks out and he hates how his voice breaks.
There’s a horrified gasp, most likely coming from Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Cheng curls up tighter.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” Wei Wuxian repeats and now the familiar anger bubbles up in Jiang Cheng.
He flings his blanket away as he sits up, not caring that the tears are still streaming down his face as he glares hard at Wei Wuxian.
“I mean that no one fucking told me about family dinner tonight,” he hisses out and he cannot stand to look at Jiang Yanli, because he can imagine the heart breaking look on her face and that is already bad enough.
“No one told you,” Wei Wuxian whispers, the disbelieve clear in his voice. “But Uncle Jiang said you couldn’t make it!”
“Right,” Jiang Cheng bitterly says. “And no one ever lies in this family,” he tacks on and looks down at his hands.
He’s still shaking, he notes, and that’s rather unfair, because shaking implies that he’s feeling something. But all Jiang Cheng can feel is a pitch black hole, right where his heart is supposed to be.
He knows that his parents don’t like him, knows that his father prefers Wei Wuxian and that his mother thinks him useless and worthless, but to have it thrown in his face like that still hurts more than Jiang Cheng could have ever imagined.
“We didn’t know,” Wei Wuxian says, just as Jiang Yanli pulls him into a hug.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t have the strength to fight her hands on him, and so he falls into her deceptively strong arms.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jiang Cheng mutters, because his parents were going to do whatever they fucking pleased.
“It does matter,” Jiang Yanli determinedly says and presses a kiss to Jiang Cheng’s head. “You’re family, and what they did was despicable.”
Jiang Cheng wants to cry and break down and agree, but all he does is ask “What were the big news again?”
“Uncle Jiang is stepping down soon,” Wei Wuxian says, just as he plasters himself to Jiang Cheng’s back. “He wants to announce the next CEO soon.”
Jiang Cheng huffs out a humourless laugh, because with how today went, you don’t need to be a genius to realize that it will not be Jiang Cheng’s name he announces to the world soon.
“Congratulations,” Jiang Cheng bitterly says and he feels how Wei Wuxian shakes his head.
“No. I won’t take that position. He never asked me, and it’s not right. I won’t do it.”
“Well, I won’t do it either,” Jiang Cheng gives back, because he has no intention of accepting that position as a second choice.
Either his father wants him to lead the company or he can go look for an heir elsewhere.
“Good,” Jiang Yanli says, and it’s so surprising that Jiang Cheng moves out of her arms.
“What?” he asks, because usually Jiang Yanli is the one to mediate between all of them, and to keep the peace in their family.
But going by the dark look on her face, she’s over that now.
“This will be the last dinner we attend with them,” she says and pulls Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian back into her arms. “I’m tired of seeing them fight, and of hurting you two. We’re not going back there.”
“It won’t be quite that easy,” Jiang Cheng says, because he knows his parents. They have ways to make their life hell, if they don’t do as they say.
“It will be. I will not allow them to hurt you further,” Jiang Yanli decides and Wei Wuxian is quick to agree.
“We’ll make our own family dinners,” he decides and puts an arm around Jiang Cheng as well. “Once a week, and we will never invite them.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jiang Cheng chokes out, fighting with his tears again, but for completely different reasons now. “I don’t want to see you that often.”
“Hey,” Wei Wuxian yells and then topples them all over when he tries to tickle Jiang Cheng in retaliation.
Jiang Yanli moves out of the way, though she doesn’t do anything to stop them and simply watches on.
Wei Wuxian’s clever fingers find all of Jiang Cheng’s weak spots and soon enough he’s crying he’s laughing so hard and once the tears start, he can’t seem to stop, so it turns into pitiful sobs soon enough.
It seems like Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian simply waited for that, because they bracket him in on either side, and simply hold him while he cries and cries.
“We’re your family, A-Cheng,” Wei Wuxian whispers and Jiang Yanli presses a kiss to his head.
“And we don’t need them,” she agrees and Jiang Cheng clings desperately to both of them.
It still hurts, to know that his parents wouldn’t even think to ask him to come to a family dinner, but with his siblings at his side, it’s almost bearable.
“I love you,” Jiang Cheng chokes out when his sobs started to die down and Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian are quick to return the sentiment.
It’s not enough, not right now with the hurt so fresh, but Jiang Cheng knows that he can count on them, always.
And in a week he might also believe them when they say they love him, but right now he needs to wallow and be coddled.
And Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian seem more than ready to do whatever Jiang Cheng needs.