Work Text:
The lights were still out in Chi Cheng’s apartment when he returned, which wasn’t necessarily unusual, but it was a disappointment after a long day. His Weiwei frequently disappeared off on his little missions, leaving Chi Cheng to do most of the work in their company. He was constantly here-there-and-everywhere: chasing ridiculous bargains, harassing potential clients, taking offerings to his mother’s grave or, most likely, plotting away with Guo Chengyu’s Doctor in his newly expanded clinic.
Their schemes weren’t perhaps as grand as they once had been, Chi Cheng let his little Master get away with a lot, both then and now, but Wu Suo Wei would never again try to seduce anyone that wasn’t Chi Cheng. These days, they mostly excelled in finding innovative ways to give him and Chengyu headaches and then make them so turned on they could hardly breathe. At least, for Chi Cheng. (But the two of them were brothers after all. Fucked up, weirdly homoerotic brothers, but still.)
He flicked the light on, making a beeline for the shower. He thought of his Weiwei as he scrubbed the workday out of his skin and massaged the shampoo into his hair. Thought of Chi Cheng’s hands gliding all over his dripping body, thought of him on his knees staring up at Chi Cheng with those big, glassy eyes, thought of the way his frenzied breaths would fog up the glass as Chi Cheng pressed him into it – desperate and alive. Jiang Xiao Shuai had a lot to answer for, keeping his Dabao away for this long. And what the hell was Guo Chengyu doing, letting him get away with it, couldn’t he control his own boyfriend?
He shut the shower off and dried himself down with a touch of aggression, choosing to forgo clothes altogether for the moment as he made his way into the master bedroom. After all, it was his home. Their home. And his Weiwei wasn’t even here to appreciate the view. His little mouse should be strewn across their bedding, flowered-short bearing limbs tangled in between the sheets, damp hair loosely framing his darling little face and those massive bug eyes that Chi Cheng was obsessed with would be tracking his every move. If Chi Cheng had fucked him in the shower, he would stare unabashedly, sure of his total ownership of his Cheng-ge. But sometimes, when he needed reminding, he would hide behind his stupid little comics, coyly sneaking glances as if Chi Cheng wouldn’t be able to feel his Weiwei’s stare on him half-dead, bleeding out in some field, like he wouldn’t know his Wu Suo Wei in every universe, in every reality. As if they weren’t wholly each other's, bound together by his Dabao’s own schemes – pulling the red string of fate so tightly around them, choking them into their own world of bliss where nothing else existed but them... Fuck.
Where the hell was his little brat?
Reaching for his phone, his eyes immediately scanned for his Weiwei’s message on instinct but apart from a mutual email chain they’d been mentioned in at work and a promotional advertisement from the app that he’d been forced to download for the restaurant's loyalty card,
(“Look two more stamps for a free drink! Will you take me there Cheng-ge? Yes, of course, right now!”)
there was no sign of his Dabao anywhere on his home screen. Not even a reel that had made him laugh or a check-in to make sure that Chi Cheng hadn’t lost his fucking mind and decided to run back off to Wang Shuo or decided to fulfil his goal of sleeping his way throughout the adult male population of China. According to his phone, it was 5:30pm, and according to Chi Cheng, he couldn’t wait any longer for things to be back as they should.
[YOU] Weiwei when are you coming back home?
[YOU] Xiao Cu Bao misses her mommy
He’s busy with me rn man iykyk. Ill lhk u called tho ;). [My Weiwei]
[YOU] I will kill you with my bare hands and then fuck him over your cold corpse before chopping you into three. I'll use your head as fuel for my fire to warm him at night so he’s never feel cold and then I’ll cook your chest and feed it to him so he’s never hungry, then I’ll use your legs to stuff under the doorways of our home as draft excluders and jam your toes into the locks so he can never leave ever again.
DAMN [My Weiwei]
I was just joking bruh [My Weiwei]
I always forget ur ACTUALLY crazy not js acting nonchalant like my wife... [My Weiwei]
Im going to tell chengyu [My Weiwei]
[YOU] Jiang Xiao Shuai. Give Weiwei back his phone.
[My Weiwei Sent an image]
His little mouse was spread out like a final meal, mouth-wateringly beautiful in a questionably fitting old tee-shirt and joggers as he napped on the Guo-Jiang household couch. His head was burrowed into the cushions, face down, hair frizzing up at odd angles, but it was the soft, curved ass stuck up in the air that was the real focal point of the photo. It was a sight truly wasted on the underserving; Chi Cheng mourned all that he would do if he was there as he saved it to his steadily increasing camera roll.
Before his Dabao it had been nothing but pictures of his snakes, and further back, embarrassing pictures of him and Chengyu as teenagers. However, now it was filled to the brink with candid shots of his Weiwei. Wu Suowei sleeping at the opera, fucked out Wu Suowei in the back of his car, grumpy Wu suowei impatiently waiting for his food; each one was a treasure Chi Cheng worshiped and this new addition to the collection reminded Chi Cheng exactly why Jiang Xiao Shuai hadn’t mysteriously disappeared just yet – and it wasn’t because he was scared of Chengyu. Really. It wasn’t.
[YOU] Wake him up. Tell him to stop being such a slut and come home
He says to order chicken wings or else he’ll beat u when he gets back [My Weiwei]
U guys r such freaks... u better not teach my wife to act like u [My Weiwei]
Feeling relief for the first time that night, possibly for the first time since his little master sent him off to do his bidding in the morning, he ordered the chicken wings with a few extra side dishes before throwing his phone to the side. Then, he set off putting his own pyjamas on and setting out his Weiwei’s matching set next to him on the bed.
He didn’t bother to tell Jiang Xiao Shuai that Chengyu was just as much of a pervert as him, albeit in a different way. That he got off on the doctor’s reliance on him, needed him to eat his food and cling to him. He didn’t mention that Guo Chengyu needed to be needed the same way Chi Cheng needed to control. He’d let Xiao Shuai figure that out on his own as part of his long-term, undetectable to the naked-eye revenge on the doctor for all his part in the scheming. Chi Cheng had frequently been called “reactive”, “confrontational” and “downright aggressive” throughout his life (and that was by the people who actually liked him), so he was rather enjoying the surprisingly difficult challenge of trying to inflict pain and suffering on someone who was loved by the only two people whose opinions Chi Cheng cared about and therefore could never find out.
The couple-from-hell who wouldn’t stop subjecting those around them to their weird costume-drama harem roleplaying only lived about fifteen minutes away by car so Chi Cheng managed to feed Little Jealousy, pour two glasses and migrate with to the sitting room just in time to hear scuffling behind the door before the fateful crash of it slamming open with enthusiasm.
With Wu Suo Wei, all the colours and the noises of the apartment returned. Even the air seemed to smell sweeter, Chi Cheng remarked as oxygen flooded back into his lungs. Weiwei came bumbling in, bags in tow, hair still sticking out at odd ends, pulling both Chi Cheng and his Xiao Cu Bao back into his orbit so, so easily.
When had Chi Cheng become so weak? When did he learn to act so pathetic?
“Cheng-ge! You’ll never guess what happened- oh I met the delivery guy downstairs by the way- I was visiting Xiao Shuai only for ten minutes but then-” Wu Suo Wei pottered around, pulling plates out of the cupboard to put the chicken on as he narrated his day, not sparing even the smallest details and Chi Cheng was helpless to do anything but reach for him as he stretched up, up, up into the cupboards for a glass, exposing his midriff thanks to the shrunken shirt he wore.
“Ah! Why are your hands so cold?! You must have low blood sugar. Where are those supplements Shifu gave me...? Even if you get sick, I won’t let you have the day off, so you better look after yourself,” His little master scolded him, and he nodded obediently, soothingly running his hands up Suowei’s sides. They ate like that, leaning against the counter, with Chi Cheng refusing to fully let go of Suowei, content just with being reunited once more. Suowei, on the other hand, never stopped talking, even with a mouthful of food: “And then Guo Chengyu came out with this pineapple cake, and I was like- Chi Cheng are you listening to me?”
“Mm.” he hummed.
“Mm? Mm What?”, Suowei repeated
“Mhm. ‘m listening, just missed you Weiwei, you abandoned me.”, Chi Cheng sulked, eyes impossibly dark, pulling his Dabao closer.
Suowei puffed out his cheeks in indignation, hadn’t Chi Cheng been listening to his story? There was a very good, very distracting excuse for why he hadn’t been home on time if he’d bothered to pay attention. And plus, it wasn’t as if Wu Suowei was some kind of... Of... housewife! He didn’t have to sit around all day waiting for Chi Cheng to bestow attention on him.
Still, he made no real attempt to break away from the taller man and even let Chi Cheng drag him into their ensuite. Chi Cheng undressed him with reverence, and a look promising danger, peeling back each layer of clothing until his Weiwei was in his most perfect form. He let Chi Cheng kiss him against the bathroom wall, slow and soft as the shower warmed up and long after, impossibly greedy.
Chi Cheng was there again when Suo Wei stepped out of the shower, wrapping him in a towel and leading him to their bed. On some days, Chi Cheng couldn’t believe how far they’d come from the lies and the deceit between them: Wu Suowei’s mother, his refusal to give up on a scheme once he’d begun it, his painfully repressed homosexuality. Chi Cheng’s daddy issues, his lack of trust in the world and his weird codependent frenemy. All the people of their past meddling: Yue Yue and Wang Shuo and Wang Zhen. Those issues hadn’t magically disappeared, their love wasn’t perfect but the desperation that had expressed itself through anger and jealousy time and time again, making them react, making them hurt each other without wanting to, had faded now, into the simple surety of ‘as long as we’ve got’ between them.
Their love had gone soft round the edges, something neither of them knew was possible with their extreme personalities. They needed each other like they needed air– it was still codependent, messy, possessive. It always would be between them, but, as Chi Cheng dressed his little wife in the pyjama set matching his own, watching his Weiwei’s little head lull onto his shoulder as sleep overtook him once more, it didn’t matter. It was all theirs. It was home. Wu Suo Wei knew too, as he felt that last lingering kiss on his forehead, the hands pulling him secure to the chest of his lover, he was safe, and loved, and protected.