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Jiang Cheng is, in a word, tired. Fucking exhausted and still half asleep, to be exact. He’d been blissfully sleeping with Wei Wuxian very warm and very tucked into his side. That had all been ripped away by the frantic and loud banging on the front door with an incredibly pale and panicked Nie Huaisang on the other side.
Before Jiang Cheng could truly process the situation Nie Huaisang was walking past him into his house, beelining for the kitchen, where he is now pacing a path behind the bar. Jiang Cheng is sitting lopsidedly on one of the barstools, foot still solidly on the floor of one side and bearing his weight, too unstable in his sleepy state to maneuver fully into sitting on it. He’s stirring an unhealthy amount of instant coffee crystals into the mug on the counter right before him and staring blearily at Nie Huaisang’s jittery presence. Damn him.
Nie Huaisang, he thinks, is telling him some many-worded tale of a fan. He must have missed the bits where he explained the significance of this fan and why it had brought him all the way to Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s loft. Frankly, though, he doesn’t think he could manage to give even half of a fuck about it if he did actually know what this is all about.
His coffee is terrible and bitter and makes him want to spit it back into the cup, but it works enough to rouse some functionality in his brain. He finally tracks some of what Nie Huaisang is saying and puts it together that, yes, he is chattering on and on about a fucking fan, but one that is apparently cursed. So he says. Jiang Cheng wonders for a moment in what ways a fan could even be cursed aside from its appearance in general, but tucks that thought away as he straightens up further on his stool now that his ass has gone numb.
“Nie Huaisang,” he finally says, voice thick with sleep and annoyance coloring it sharp enough to cut the other off mid-sentence. “Has this fan actually done anything to you? Is it dangerous?”
Nie Huaisang’s boyish face turns a shade of pink and looks positively cornered as he dances his eyes to look anywhere but at Jiang Cheng. “Well, no.. not yet,” he admits slowly, voice sheepish and dissonant.
It’s exactly as Jiang Cheng fears and his head hangs forward with a rough roll of his eyes, hands coming up to steeple under his chin. He’s so fucking annoyed, so frustrated, and so damn tired. “Get out of my house,” he grouses. A glance to the clock on the stove rips a ragged sigh from his lungs. “Get the fuck out before a’Xian wakes up and I let him maim you for panicking in our kitchen at four in the damn morning.”
In a bold moment of daring, Nie Huaisang laughs and Jiang Cheng vividly pictures his hands around his throat to shut him up. “Wei-xiong can sleep through anything,” he teases with a wave of his hand, completely unfettered.
With one long and blank look, Jiang Cheng shrugs one shoulder and moves to get up. “Your choice,” he muses, dumping his sad coffee down the drain and running the cup under the tap. “Any minute now he’s going to roll over and realize I’m not there. When he comes to look for me, which he will because he can’t get back to sleep without me, he’ll throttle you right where you stand.” He’s drying the mug now, placing it along the holder on the counter by the coffee maker that is much too loud for using in the middle of the night.
Nie Huaisang, he notices when he turns to look at him, is frowning or pouting and it pinches his face in a way that makes Jiang Cheng think of those small bitchy dogs women on tv are fond of. It almost makes him laugh.
“You’re both so shitty and domestic. I hope I die and you both have to spend your lives feeling bad and guilty for not helping me.” Nie Huaisang snips, pushing his arms back into the coat Jiang Cheng failed to notice he had even worn, let alone taken off.
He pushes him to the door, opening it and ushering him through all while saying, “Yes, yes. I hope for your death all the time and nothing has happened to you yet. I’m not lucky enough, it would seem.” As he shuts the door behind him, Jiang Cheng utters a final, “Goodbye, Nie Huaisang, don’t come back.”
He’s about to turn and make his way back to his and Wei Wuxian’s bedroom, but just as he reaches to switch the lights off Wei Wuxian appears from behind their bedroom door. He’s shirtless and his crimson briefs are bunched up high on his thighs. He’s rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand and yawning; his entire demeanor is hazy and sensual, warm and inviting. “a’Cheng,” he whines sleepily, “Come back to bed now, okay?”
Jiang Cheng’s annoyance fades out to make room for the flood of fondness he feels for this pouting idiot. He grabs for his hand, leading him back to their plush blankets where they wrap themselves around each other and sink back into the peace of sleep.
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Across town, Nie Huaisang finds himself getting maimed anyway due to his fan indeed being cursed.