Chapter Text
It is a sticky hot day and they are sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the fan in the living room when the doorbell rings. Sizhui looks curiously at Jingyi.
“Jiang Wanyin,” they hear Baba’s calm voice. Jingyi startles.
“Lan Wangji.”
Jingyi scoots back closer to the arm of the couch to be less visible. They haven’t met Jiang-shushu very often since they came to live with their dads. Whenever Jiang-shushu visits there’s always a lot of yelling. There’s also a lot of laughter but Jingyi doesn’t like the yelling very much. Not that Jingyi gets yelled at anymore, these days, but he isn’t taking any chances. And there’s the thing he heard in the playground. Sizhui doesn’t seem to be worried though, but he’s only six years old. Jingyi, seven, is worldly and wise enough to want to hide from Jiang shushu.
The adults come in from the door. They scramble up off the floor and bow politely. Jingyi looks into his father’s knowing golden eyes, and Baba takes pity on him. “Jingyi, come help me bring out the watermelon.” He goes along to the kitchen and is handed the giant plate of watermelon slices. He throws a pleading look at Baba but gets only a squeeze on his shoulder before he is booted back into the living room, where Sizhui is smiling at something Jiang shushu said. He sets the plate down carefully on the table and tries to unobtrusively scoot to the other side of the room, but Jiang shushu turns to look at him and he is pinned to the spot, like a butterfly on a board.
“Thank you, Jingyi. Are you enjoying the summer?”
He nods nervously, but is saved from further conversation by Lan baba entering with a tray of lemonade. Jiang shushu nods companionably at Jingyi and turns to speak to Lan baba.
Jingyi goes over to Sizhui and pokes his arm. Sizhui simply smiles and hands him a watermelon slice. “Shushu says we might have someone else to play with, soon.”
“A new kid? Who?!”
Sizhui shrugs. “He didn’t say.”
Jingyi gnaws on his watermelon, suddenly anxious. What if the new kid is going to be like Jiang shushu? What if he’s nice? What if Sizhui decides the new kid is great and Jingyi never gets to play alone with Sizhui again? Sizhui isn’t his, but they were a pair for long enough before they came here, that sometimes he feels like he doesn’t want to share.
His train of thought is derailed by the front door banging open. “A-Cheng!!” He perks up. Wei-baba is shucking his shoes off in the entryway. Everything instantly becomes three times brighter and five times louder. He crosses over to them and ruffles Sizhui’s hair with one hand while mock-punching Jingyi with the other. Jiang shushu shakes his head as Wei baba flops onto the couch.
“You have to stop calling me that.”
“Yeah, as if I’m going to call my little brother anything else. What would you prefer, laoban?” Baba laughs and elbows Jiang shushu in the side, sloshing the lemonade in his glass.
“Wei Wuxian!”
Wei baba fears no one, so he only laughs some more and looks over to wink at Lan baba, who is already making that face. Jingyi returns to his watermelon slice, feeling oddly comforted.
And then Wei baba stabs him in the back.
“Why are you sitting all the way over there, Jingyi? Are you scared of Jiang shushu?”
“What? No!” he squeaks. “No?” Wei baba echoes.
Lan baba looks over. “Jingyi?”
“No! Not exactly, I just…”
Wei baba adds, smiling fondly “He looks like that, but he’s actually not bad.”
Jiang shushu gives him a flat look. “Thanks for that glowing recommendation.” Then he turns to look at Jingyi, who shrivels a little under the combined attention of three (Three!) adults.
“It’s just...Jin Chan told me last time that Jiang shushu has a ring and...and it...turns into a whip.”
Lan baba raises an eyebrow and Wei baba goggles at Jiang shushu, “A-Cheng! Did you threaten someone else’s kid?”
Jiang shushu is thinking. “Hmmm, Jin Chan...slightly chubby kid? Little red mark on his forehead?”
“Yeah!” Sizhui says.
“Ah yes. Don’t like him,” Jiang shushu muses, immediately earning a spot on Jingyi’s list of favorite people. Not so near the top to be anywhere close to his fathers, but still.
Wei baba laughs again. “I know what you mean, he’s a little bit of a bully. But what do you mean, a whip?” Jiang shushu snorts.
“Ah, he was pulling some kid’s hair so I went over to scare him. And he tried to sass me, said something like, what are you going to hit me with, and I said, you see this ring?” He twists the silver ring on his right hand. “If I’m really angry it turns into a whip, and you do not want to see that.”
“Ahaha, Jiang Cheng, you’re unbelievable! A whip, of all things, not even like, a regular stick. Did it work?”
Jiang shushu’s face is scrunched up in laughter as well.
“Yeah, that’s the funniest thing. You see, I said the whip thing really sternly and that popcorn cannon on the street went off right at that moment. He jumped straight into the air, I swear.” Jingyi is delighted. Maybe he can ask Jiang shushu to go with him to the playground so he doesn’t have to fight Jin Chan everytime he comes up to annoy Sizhui. He does feel a little less scared now that the ring has been declared harmless, just a hand-me-down from Jiang-shushu’s scary mother.
There are lights in the living room when Jingyi opens the door of their room as soundlessly as possible. Who could be up at this hour? It’s late even for Wei baba. And he knows he was quiet because Sizhui just sighed in his sleep and rolled over. Please don’t let it be Jiang shushu, please don’t let it be--of course.
He shivers a little and pads over to where Jiang shushu is on the couch staring at a handful of papers, his other hand scrubbing over his face impatiently. His hair is sticking up in the back, and he looks different than he does in the morning. Jingyi wonders at that for a moment, and Jiang shushu notices him, immediately straightening up.
“Jingyi? What is it? Are you all right?” His voice is scratchy. Jingyi doesn’t quite want to talk yet, but Jiang shushu does look somewhat concerned. Even if his scrunched eyebrows look a little scary.
“Umm, I’m fine, shushu. I just had a bad dream so I came out to...uh, get some water.”
Jiāng shushu silently pours him a glass and when he goes over to take it, gestures at him to sit down. Without looking away from his work, he runs a hand through Jingyi’s hair. He hasn’t focused on Jingyi entirely and that makes Jingyi feel better; he didn’t want to be looked at. And somehow Jiang shushu is far less threatening at night, when he’s quiet. Maybe because Wei baba isn’t here to rile him up.
Shushu takes the glass away and asks, “What do you usually do if you wake up in the middle of the night like this?”
“Sometimes I just sit here.”
“Do you want to stay here then? I still have some work to finish though.”
“Is that okay? May I? Please?”
Jiang shushu wordlessly wraps an arm around him and pulls him closer. Jingyi tries not to think about his nightmare.
Minutes pass quietly. Shushu sets down his papers with a sigh to pour himself some water, and turns to look at Jingyi.
“Do I still scare you? If you like, I can take the ring off.”
“No, it’s really not the ring, shushu. It’s just, sometimes—sometimes it’s scary when you yell at baba, but he says it’s because you like him.”
“Oh, I do like him, very much, he’s my big brother. He’s one of my favourite people.”
Jingyi nods in fervent agreement.
“You know, when we were younger, I used to hate Lan Wangji, so much.”
Jingyi tries to worm out of his hold to protest but Shushu raises his other hand in surrender.
“We’re friends now! Back then I was angry just because your Wei baba liked him so much and was constantly hanging out with him. I just wanted him to see me too, so I yelled a lot. Now it’s become a habit. But mostly it’s because he’s annoying.”
Jingyi laughs softly.
“You didn’t want to share baba?”
“You know, you’re exactly right. But we all have to share. It’s better now that we’re older.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t want to share Sizhui either, sometimes. He’s so small but he’s friends with everyone.”
“So you get jealous sometimes? That’s okay. I think you and Sizhui are much better than we were.”
“It’s a secret, please don’t tell.”
“Of course. Don’t tell your baba I like him either, he’ll be insufferable if he knows.”
He turns back to his work, his left arm still around Jingyi. Jingyi wonders at how warm it is, the remnants of his nightmare melting away, then leans over and closes his eyes.
This is how the earliest riser of the house finds them at five am. Jiang Cheng with his head tipped back, a book covering his face, and Jingyi curled up in his lap, legs tangled in the red throw blanket.
Lan Wangji smiles softly and adjusts the blanket over both of them before tiptoeing away.