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At first, before he knew better, Jiang Cheng thought Wei Ying thought Jiang Cheng was homophobic and that’s why he wouldn’t tell him the truth about his relationship with Lan Zhan. Wei Ying tended to make the worst possible assumptions about Jiang Cheng, which hurt, although even he had to admit that, well, he hadn’t always done the right thing.
But he’d grown up since then! He was mature now and had spent several years in therapy and even had apologized once. They were drunk at the time, so he wasn’t sure it really counted, but still.
Yanli and his therapist both told him he had to give Wei Ying time and show him that he had really changed, and so Jiang Cheng didn’t yell at him for thinking he was homophobic, he just tried to show that he wasn’t, which turned out to be harder than he’d expected. He gave Wei Wuxian a rainbow flag pin, which Wei Ying accepted with a puzzled expression (and later gave to Wen Qing), and asked Wei Ying if he wanted to go to that new gay movie with him (Wei Ying thanked him, but said he’d already seen it with Lan Zhan), and spoke disparagingly about homophobic politicians.
He asked Wei Ying how he was celebrating Pride Month. This was at a brunch. Wei Ying and Lan Zhan were there, sitting a little too close as usual, and spending more time whispering to each other (well, Wei Ying whispering to Lan Zhan- Lan Zhan didn’t speak much) than talking to anyone else. It was a little gross- but not because it was gay! Jiang Cheng didn't have a problem with gay people! He just didn’t like PDAs in general.
Wei Ying gave him a puzzled look. “Ah, do you really think we should? I mean, we’re just allies so…”
The entire brunch table turned to stare at him, Wen Ning and A-Sang turning away from their conversation about A-Sang’s latest instagram crush, Wen Qing and Jiejie stopping their conversation about some show they both watched.
Wei Ying looked at them all curiously. “What?” he asked.
“You’re not… queer?” Wen Qing asked, slowly, her eyes flickering back and forth between the two of them.
“What?” Wei Ying asked. “No! A-Qing, you in particular know I have an affection for the ladies.”
Lan Zhan made a little movement that Jiang Cheng couldn’t interpret.
“Why me in particular?” Wen Qing asked, dangerously.
“Because we check them out together!” Wei Ying exclaimed. “Why are you all bullying me!?”
They all looked at each other and then back at Wei Ying who impossibly seemed to be sitting even closer to each other now.
“Let it go,” Yanli mouthed at them, and so they did.
Not that Jiang Cheng didn’t corner Wei Ying about it the next day.
“You’re seriously not dating Lan Zhan?” he asked.
“No!” Wei Ying exclaimed. “Why does everyone think that?”
“You spend all of your time together,” Jiang Cheng said. “You’re constantly touching him. You’re always going on about how beautiful he is. You walked out of brunch holding hands!”
“Stop foisting your toxic masculinity on me,” Wei Ying said. “Men can show affection for their friends without it being gay. Hello, Jiang Cheng, it’s the twenty-first century. We’re bros. We have a bromance. Healthy platonic affection between two straight friends. Stop trying to put us into boxes.”
“Have you kissed him?” Jiang Cheng asked.
Wei Ying’s face reddened.
“You kissed him!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed. “How can you…?”
“It was on a dare,” Wei Ying said, pouting. “Anyway, he never kissed anyone before and needed the experience.”
“Oh my god,” Jiang Cheng said suddenly, desperately needing to get out of the conversation. “You know what? I’m sorry for assuming you and Lan Zhan are a couple.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” Wei Ying said. “Lan Zhan and I are both very secure in our sexuality and we’re not homophobic, so we do not find offensive that people keep thinking we’re queer.”
It only got worse from there, though luckily Jiang Cheng wasn’t around to see it. He went to Spain on a semester-long exchange program and Wei Ying went and stayed with Lan Zhan, since he couldn’t afford to rent on his own and Lan Zhan had an empty room, or that’s what Wei Ying claimed anyway.
“I’m pretty sure they’re sleeping in the same bed,” Nie Huaisang reported. “I took the opportunity to snoop around when Wei Ying and Lan Zhan were in the middle of one of their stupid arguments (Jiang Cheng knew all about those stupid arguments- they either consisted of Wei Ying wanting to do stupid, like trying to see if he could only survive on crunchy cheetoes for a month, and Lan Zhan telling him not to or they consisted of Lan Zhan wanting to do something intelligent, like going to bed at a reasonable hour, and Wei Ying pouting at him and trying to talk him out of it).
“They’re not even trying to be subtle about it!” Huaisang continued. “I asked Wei Ying about it later, like ‘do you sleep in the same bed with Lan Zhan?’ and he was like ‘Yeah, it’s just easier.’ What does that mean? What does that even mean?”
“Did you ask him?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“Yeah,” Huaisang said. “I was like ‘easier for what?’ and he just smirked at me. So I was like ‘are you two dating now?’ and he was like super taken aback, like it was the weirdest question.”
“I can’t with those two,” Jiang Cheng said.
Wei Ying didn’t move back in with Jiang Cheng after he got back, so Jiang Cheng had to room with Nie Huaisang and his disturbingly large collection of clothing and accessories and when he wanted to spend time with his brother he had to go over to their apartment and witness their nauseatingly sappy interactions, Lan Zhan bringing Wei Ying snacks unasked and Wei Ying looking up at him and smiling and saying ‘you’re the best,’ Wei Ying plopping his feet in Lan Zhan’s lap and Lan Zhan giving him a foot rub without even seeming to notice, Wei Ying having to show Lan Zhan something on his phone every few minutes, even when he’d been in the middle of a conversation with Jiang Cheng.
It was worse when they went out, Wei Ying taking pictures of basically everything he saw to send to Lan Zhan, or waffling over buying some bunny-related item for Lan Zhan (bunny related?! Lan Zhan was 21!), or just the way he talked about him non-stop, about how smart and kind and witty and especially beautiful Lan Zhan was.
“I thought you weren’t gay,” Jiang Cheng said.
“I’m not!” Wei Ying replied. “I can appreciate a man’s objectively beautiful features without being gay.”
‘Uh huh,” Jiang Cheng said.
“I mean everyone agrees with me,” Wei Ying said. “It’s just that he’s beautiful.”
“I don’t think he’s beautiful,” Jiang Cheng said.
“Well, you like dogs, so clearly your taste is bad,” Wei Ying said.
Wei Ying went to San Francisco for grad school and though he never said it explicitly, Jiang Cheng was pretty sure it was because that’s where Lan Zhan went. He could never have afforded it on his own (of course they were going to room together), and he’d been talking about a program he really liked in Madison before suddenly changing tune and going on about UC Berkeley instead.
Jiang Cheng flew out to visit Wei Ying for his birthday and stayed with them in their apartment. They had a two bedroom, but the room he stayed in was clearly used as Lan Zhan’s office. In the middle of the night he got up to use the bathroom and as he was passing their bedroom he heard what was distinctively the sounds of someone moaning, then Wei Ying giggling and whispering ‘Lan Zhan, we have to be quiet’.
He stood there for a moment, not because he wanted to hear his brother having sex, ewwwwww, but because he was too stunned to do otherwise.
“They’re having sex!” he hissed into the phone at Huaisang.
“What? It’s like four in the morning,” Huaisang complained. “Why are you calling me?”
“My idiot brother!” Jiang Cheng said. “And his ‘platonic best friend’ are totally having sex! I heard them!”
“Uh, okay,’ Huaisang said. “Well, that’s… something. I mean, they’ve been sleeping in the same bed for over a year, so I don’t think it’s surprising enough to justify this phone call?”
“Ugh,” Jiang Cheng said, and hung up.
“So, you and Lan Zhan,” Jiang Cheng said the next day, when Wei Ying was showing him the sights, but mostly was dragging him around over-priced thrift stores. “You’re still not in a relationship?”
“We’re in a relationship,” Wei Ying said, pulling out what definitely was Lan Zhan’s credit card to pay for his purchases. “Just not that kind of a relationship.”
“I heard you having sex,” Jiang Cheng said, flatly, when they were out of the shop.
“Yeah,” Wei Ying said, with a shrug.
“But you’re not in a relationship and you’re not queer,” Jiang Cheng said.
“It’s no big deal,” Wei Ying said. “Just two bros helping each other out. You know we’re too busy to date.”
“Because you literally spend all your time together,” Jiang Cheng said.
“Because we’re in grad school,” Wei Ying said.
“So when you’re out of grad school you’ll date?” Jiang Cheng asked. “Women?”
Wei Ying sighed. “Dating is so much effort. I don’t know.”
“But don’t you want to fall in love?” Jiang Cheng asked. Wei Ying had always been the sappy sort; he and Jiejie had used to love romantic comedies and he’d caught them both crying during them a few times.
Wei Ying shrugged again. “I’m pretty happy the way things are,” he said.
Jiang Cheng stared at him. He blinked. “Because you’re living and spending all of your time with and fucking Lan Zhan.”
Wei Ying went a little pink. “I mean, I’m not fucking him…” he began.
“That is not the point!” Jiang Chang exclaimed. “The point is that… how are you two not in a relationship? What about this whole thing isn’t a relationship?”
“It’s just not like that,” Wei Ying said, for the first time sounding a little upset. “It’s just… that’s not…” He pointed to a donut shop. “Let’s get donuts. No- cake. I know the best place for cake. They’re Lan Zhan’s favorite, we can bring him back a slice.”
Jiang Cheng sighs. “Fine,” he said, and let Wei Ying pull him down the road.
I’m not going to get involved, he told himself after that. I’m not going to get involved, I’m not.
He didn’t say anything when Wei Ying and Lan Zhan moved together to Boston for Wei Ying’s postdoc, didn’t say anything when they bought a house together and moved out to the suburbs of Eastern Massachusetts a few years later. He didn’t ask why Wei Ying was spending the Harvest Moon festival with Lan Zhan’s family instead of them (‘it’s only fair, since we spent the Lunar New Year with you and Jiejie’) when they could have easily split up and only gone to see their respective families.
He didn’t even say anything when he heard Wei Ying say to someone, at Jiejie’s wedding, “Oh no- Lan Zhan and I are platonic life partners. It’s very modern.” Didn’t go over there and shout ‘’Platonic’ doesn’t mean what you think it means!’ On no, Jiang Cheng was very restrained.
And then, one day, when he and Jiejie and Nie Huaisang and Lan Zhan’s brother Lan Huan and his partners and were visiting, all sitting around a large table in the backyard of Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s suburban house, he heard Wei Ying laughing and saying “Husband! Come and help me with this!”
Everyone turned to look at them.
Wei Ying looked up, blushing. He put the tray down on the table then perched, as if he didn’t even know he was doing it, in Lan Zhan’s lap. “Ah,” he said. “Um, well, Lan Zhan and I got married. For tax purposes, and because we’re thinking of adopting, and our lawyer said it would look better if we were married. So…”
Jiang Cheng couldn’t take it. He just couldn’t. He dropped his head against the table. “You got married,” he said.
Nie Huaisang consolingly patted his back.
“Yeah,” Wei Ying said. “We figure we’ll just spend our lives together, so…”
Jiang Cheng took a deep breath. “Wei Ying,” he said, and took a deep breath and let it out again. Because in the end it didn’t really matter did it? The outcome was the same. Wei Ying was happy. “You know what? Call it what you want.”
Wei Ying blinked at him.
“And congratulations.” He raised his glass to his brother and his platonic fuck-buddy life partner husband and then drank the whole thing.