Work Text:
Jiang Cheng is enjoying a simple, relaxing morning with Nie Mingjue when his phone rings.
“Leave it,” Nie Mingjue immediately says, because it’s Sunday and if it’s work then clearly he doesn’t deem it important enough to go in on a Sunday.
But it’s not work, Jiang Cheng realizes when he throws a glance at the caller id.
“It’s my mother,” he says with a sigh and that gets Nie Mingjue’s attention as well.
“You think she realized that you quit?” Nie Mingjue asks and presses a kiss to Jiang Cheng’s cheek.
“We’re about to find out,” Jiang Cheng says and accepts the call. “Mother,” he greets her.
“You will meet me at home in half an hour,” Madam Yu tells him without preamble and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes at her tone.
“Your home or my home?” he asks, because he hadn’t thought of his parents’ house as home in a long while.
“Do not get smart with me now,” Madam Yu snaps at him and promptly hangs up.
“I would say she knows,” Jiang Cheng says with a sigh and presses an apologetic kiss to Nie Mingjue’s lips. “I better head over there.”
“Alright,” Nie Mingjue says and takes a gulp of his coffee before he gets up, making Jiang Cheng frown.
“What are you doing?” he wants to know and Nie Mingjue levels him with a look that tells Jiang Cheng exactly how stupid Nie Mingjue thinks he’s being.
“I’m going with you, of course,” Nie Mingjue then explains and Jiang Cheng shakes his head.
“There’s no reason for you to come,” he tells him. “It’s going to be a mess of a conversation and you shouldn’t have to witness that.”
“You didn’t meet your father alone and you’re not going to meet your mother alone,” Nie Mingjue says, even though those two are completely different things.
His father is neglectful and only ever wanted what’s best for Wei Wuxian, so he didn’t even care enough about Jiang Cheng to yell at him. His mother on the other hand—
“It’s not going to be pretty,” Jiang Cheng tries, because his knows his mother.
“I don’t care,” Nie Mingjue immediately replies and pulls him into a kiss. “Let’s see her do her worst and then make her watch as you go off with me,” he whispers against Jiang Cheng’s lips, who has to laugh at that.
“Fine,” he agrees because he would love to see that actually.
The drive to his parents’ home is silent, but Jiang Cheng can’t help but to tap his finger on his tight repeatedly. He’s not nervous, not really, because he stands by his decisions, especially seeing as how all of them turned out so very beautifully, but his mother will still try to make him reconsider.
She’s going to be vicious and Jiang Cheng really only wanted to have a calm morning.
“There is nothing you have to be nervous about,” Nie Mingjue tells him eventually and reaches for his hand, to intertwine their fingers.
“I know,” Jiang Cheng says with a sigh and turns to look at Nie Mingjue. “I’m not nervous, I’m just—”
“Nervous,” Nie Mingjue completes his sentence with a small smile and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes at him.
“Fine, maybe I’m a little bit nervous,” he finally admits. “I keep wondering what she’s going to say to convince me that my decisions were actually so bad for me.”
“Do you feel like your decisions were bad for you?” Nie Mingjue asks and he’s not judging Jiang Cheng—wouldn’t even judge him if the answer was yes, Jiang Cheng knows that—but he’s still quick to shake his head.
“No,” he resolutely says. “The decisions that brought me here were one of the best I ever made,” Jiang Cheng tells him and raises their hands to press a kiss to the back of Nie Mingjue’s. “Especially this one,” Jiang Cheng says with a smile and Nie Mingjue huffs out a laugh.
“Excuse me, I think I was the one who made that decision. You thought I wanted to go on a business date,” Nie Mingjue teasingly says and Jiang Cheng groans as his face goes hot, like it always does when Nie Mingjue reminds him of this.
“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng complaints but Nie Mingjue only laughs and it makes Jiang Cheng laugh as well.
It was enough of a distraction for Jiang Cheng that they arrived at his parents’ house without him realizing it and he throws Nie Mingjue a look who has the audacity to smile smugly at him.
“You’re the worst,” Jiang Cheng accuses him, but he leans over to kiss him, too.
“I know,” Nie Mingjue happily tells him and then gets out of the car.
Time to face the music then.
Madam Yu is of course not waiting for them at the door, because that is not who she is, and Jiang Cheng leads Nie Mingjue towards her office.
If this is about him quitting then she would never meet him anywhere else.
“Mother,” Jiang Cheng says when they find her sitting behind her desk, because of course this is where she is, and she only spares a quick glance for Nie Mingjue before she fixes her glare on Jiang Cheng and stands up.
She never did care if they dragged their family fights into the spotlight.
“Jiang Cheng, what is the meaning of this?” she demands to know, but two can play that game and Jiang Cheng doesn’t have to suck up to her anymore.
He makes enough at Nie Corps to pay for his own tuition if it should come to that and he thinks that Nie Mingjue would help him out otherwise.
“The meaning of what, mother?” he asks sweetly and she narrows his eyes at him, but Jiang Cheng only smiles at her.
“I heard you quit,” she finally says and Jiang Cheng shrugs.
“You heard right.”
“You will come back immediately,” she orders him and Jiang Cheng shakes his head, putting a hand to Nie Mingjue’s arm when he tenses next to him.
“I will not, mother,” Jiang Cheng says, keeping his voice even, and it only works to enrage her further it seems.
“How dare you leave the company behind? That’s your inheritance!”
“With how father was always grooming Wei Wuxian, I doubt it,” Jiang Cheng gives back and Madam Yu goes a little bit red in the face.
His father’s treatment of Wei Wuxian is still a sore topic in this household after all.
“I heard the rascal quit, too,” Madam Yu says. “Was that your doing?” she wants to know and Jiang Cheng shrugs.
“Not really? I mean, it’s not my fault no one at the company can do what I did for Wei Wuxian.”
“So you’d rather stay without a job than work towards inheriting the company?” Madam Yu asks and Jiang Cheng scoffs.
“Mother, it’s nice to see how highly you think of me, but I do actually have a job. I am employed.”
“Who dares to employ you?” she seethes and Jiang Cheng shakes his head, just in time to stop Nie Mingjue from speaking.
“That’s none of your business, seeing as you never cared about my life before.”
There’s a beat of silence and when Madam Yu speaks again, her whole demeanour is softer. Jiang Cheng expected that, because if yelling at him doesn’t work then this is always the next step.
“Jiang Cheng, really, this is all so sudden,” she tries sweetly, as if there could be an argument in this train of thought that would bring him back to the company, and Jiang Cheng only scoffs right in her face.
“If you and father would have paid even a little bit of attention to me, nothing of this would be sudden to you. I can assure you that it was a very gradual process,” Jiang Cheng gives back and enjoys the look on his mother’s face.
“And besides, I resigned months ago. It’s very telling that you only seem to realize that now,” he then adds, and watches as pure rage flashes over his mother’s face, before she composes herself again.
“Who is this?” she then asks, clearly trying to avoid talking about her own shortcomings and she nods at Nie Mingjue, who so far has kept blissfully quiet during the whole exchange.
“That’s my boyfriend,” Jiang Cheng gives back and now it’s Madam Yu who scoffs.
“That’s Nie Mingjue,” she then says as if that would mean he can’t be Jiang Cheng’s boyfriend.
Knowing his mother, this probably even made sense in her head.
“He is,” Jiang Cheng easily agrees and now Nie Mingjue speaks up for the first time.
Jiang Cheng was about to stop him, but when he sees the twinkle in his eyes, he decides to let him speak.
Fun things happen when Nie Mingjue’s eyes twinkle like that.
“I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Madam Yu, but my mother actually put in an effort into bringing me up and making a decent person out of me instead of relying on pure luck for that, so I know better than to lie to you,” he says, his voice just as sweet as it is when he insults Old Man Yao to his face without him noticing.
Madam Yu definitely notices, because she goes very red in the face and Jiang Cheng has to laugh at seeing it.
“My son is more than a decent person,” Madam Yu hisses at Nie Mingjue and he simply reaches for Jiang Cheng’s hand.
“That he is, but I doubt it has anything to do with your influence,” he tells her and Jiang Cheng has to choke down his laughter.
“Are you sleeping with him so he will employ you? Did he promise you some shares of the company?” Madam Yu suddenly asks as she turns to Jiang Cheng and this time he’s helpless against the laugh that breaks out.
“How dare you,” Madam Yu hisses at him, but Jiang Cheng is too busy to laugh than to care about her enraged tone.
“Next you’ll probably ask if I’m sleeping with him to get company secrets,” Nie Mingjue says completely serious, and it only sets off Jiang Cheng again.
“Oh, she would,” he howls and bends over.
It takes long minutes before he has himself back under control again, and Madam Yu is glaring daggers at him.
“Mother, I’m very sorry to inform you, but not every relationship has to be defined about work,” Jiang Cheng tells her when he caught his breath again. “I know you and father both don’t understand that, but I am in a relationship with Nie Mingjue because I love him and he loves me back,” Jiang Cheng says, going hot in the face for entirely not laughing related reasons and Nie Mingjue squeezes his hand.
Jiang Cheng figures he probably shouldn’t have said it for the first time in this context, but it’s done now and Nie Mingjue doesn’t seem to be too mad about it if the soft look on his face is anything to go by.
“Now, if that is all, we really have better things to do today,” Jiang Cheng tells his mother who still hasn’t found her voice it seems and he simply drags Nie Mingjue out of the office and through the house.
He only lets go of his hand when they are outside.
“That felt really good,” Jiang Cheng says with a sigh, because those words had burned on his tongue for a while and finally speaking them felt awesome.
“Wanyin,” Nie Mingjue says from his side and when Jiang Cheng turns around to him, there’s a very intense look on his face. “Come here,” Nie Mingjue almost growls out and pulls Jiang Cheng closer by hooking a finger into one of his beltloops.
“What?” Jiang Cheng innocently asks, though he damn well knows what this is about.
“I love you,” Nie Mingjue says and leans in for a scorching hot kiss.
Usually Jiang Cheng would object, because he is pretty sure his mother is still watching them from somewhere, but he leans fully into the kiss.
“I love you, too,” he says once they part and Nie Mingjue glares at him.
“So you said. In the worst possible moment, because I couldn’t even respond!”
“Well, you made your stance very clear now,” Jiang Cheng says with a teasing smile and Nie Mingjue kisses him again for his troubles.
“Let’s go home,” Nie Mingjue says when they finally manage to break the kiss and Jiang Cheng sighs against his lips.
“Please. I was enjoying our quiet morning,” he says mournfully, because their coffees are no doubt cold already, and the whole feeling is lost.
“Maybe we have to take tomorrow off to recreate it,” Nie Mingjue decides and already gets his phone out to tell Nie Zonghui that neither of them will be in tomorrow.
“You’re abusing your CEO power,” Jiang Cheng accuses him, but he is so damn happy he could burst with it.
“Well, there have to be some privileges that come with that title,” Nie Mingjue easily gives back and after one more fleeting kiss he moves them towards the car.
“Let’s get out of here, there’s still a quiet afternoon and a quiet evening to be enjoyed.”
“I would prefer it if the evening could be hot instead,” Jiang Cheng says with a smirk and when Nie Mingjue laughs he knows that Nie Mingjue is on board with that.
This Sunday still has the chance to be a very good Sunday.