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"And then he," Wei Wuxian says, and lowers her voice dramatically, waggling her eyebrows. "You know." She gestures a little too broadly too quickly. Her wine sloshes in her glass, which is over-full, and splashes over the edge. She's having a rosé moment — her words, not Jiang Cheng's. Jiang Cheng is doubtful of Wei Wuxian's rosé moment. He thinks she got the idea from Nie Huaisang, who genuinely likes rosé, but every time Wei Wuxian has it, he never actually sees her drink it. He doesn't know how she's this tipsy. The amount of wine in her glass hasn't changed at all since she poured it, and they've been sitting on the porch for over an hour.

"I don't know," Jiang Cheng says. He takes a long sip of his beer. He's fine with his beer. Beer is in many ways objectionable, but this particular type reminds him of being sixteen and stupid in a way he currently wishes he could recapture. Loudly, as Wei Wuxian's eyes light up, he adds, "And I don't want to."

This was a mistake. Wei Wuxian's eyes widen, and then she grins, wickedly. "Awww," she says. "I'm so sorry, didi, I don't mean to upset your poor virginal ears—"

"I'm not a virgin," Jiang Cheng says, even though it is pointless to do so because Wei Wuxian never believes him, often to the point of making a big deal about how it's okay to be untouched and unloved. One day, perhaps, he'll stop rising to every single implicit challenge, but he can't imagine that day coming soon.

Luckily, today Wei Wuxian doesn't bite. Unluckily, she doesn't shut up. "—but it's important. Jiang Cheng, he grabbed my dick. Just put his hand up my skirt and ya—"

"Really don't want to hear this," Jiang Cheng says, even more loudly, and then he frowns. "Are you okay?"

Wei Wuxian blinks at him. Some of her mascara flakes onto her cheek, and Jiang Cheng has the horrible instinct to lick his thumb and wipe it away. "Am I okay?"

"Yeah, like do I need to go beat some asshole up for violating your boundaries?" Jiang Cheng asks. And while he wants Wei Wuxian to be okay, he also kind of wants her to say yes. He's been dying for an excuse to punch Lan Wangji in his smarmy little face for years.

"Oh," Wei Wuxian says. She flushes slightly. There's a faraway look in her eyes. "No, no, it's okay."

"Okay," says Jiang Cheng, and looks away, out over the yard toward the lake. There are some trees obstructing his view, but he can see the glint of the moon on the water between them. It's so dumb, but on a nice summer night like this, when the bugs aren't too bad, he feels like he can sort of understand why someone might choose to write poetry. To shake the thought away, he takes another pull from his beer and grimaces a little. It really does taste disgusting, like mistakes made underneath the bleachers at the soccer field the night after the big game. If he closes his eyes, he can practically smell the dirt.

He takes out his phone and texts Nie Huaisang, I think they finally did it. Then he thinks for a moment, and adds a clarifying: Wei wuxian and lan wangi.

Wei Wuxian's eyes zero in on his phone. "Who are you texting?" she asks. "Your girlfriend?"

"No," Jiang Cheng snaps, and swallows the you just called me a virgin retort on the tip of his tongue. He locks his phone and shoves it in his pocket and then realizes, belatedly, that this reaction could read as too defensive. With no small amount of mounting dread, and to distract both of them, he asks, "So is he going to move in?"

"What?" Wei Wuxian asks. She laughs, a braying, nervous sound. "Why would you think that?"

"Um, because if Lan Wangji finally grabbed your dick and you're fine with it, there's no way either of you two weirdos are going to let each other go?"

"Who said it's Lan Zhan?" Wei Wuxian takes a sip of her wine, so Jiang Cheng re-focuses on her face. There! There! She's grimacing! Rosé moment, his ass. "It could be anyone."

"It's Lan Wangji because you can't fucking shut up about it," Jiang Cheng says. "And if it was anyone else, you'd say their name, because you're sick of me telling you that your big fat crush on Lan Wangji is obvious and disturbing and you'd want to prove me wrong."

"I can so shut up about Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian says. She settles back against the bench and tugs one leg up, wrapping her arm around it to steady it and twisting to face Jiang Cheng more directly. "It might be someone else."

"Okay," Jiang Cheng says, girding his proverbial loins. He wants to text Nie Huaisang again — a prediction about how long until Wei Wuxian fails at changing the subject — but he doesn't want to give her ammunition. "Who, then?"

"I'm not going to fall for that," Wei Wuxian says. Then, in what is clearly a thinly-veiled attempt to divest herself of a wine she obviously hates, she asks, "Hey, do you want to try my wine? I think you'd like it."

"No thanks." Jiang Cheng wiggles his bottle of beer at her, as an emphatic explanation, but she takes it as an invitation instead, grabbing the bottle from his hands and trying a swig. "Hey!"

She makes a face at him. "Jiang Cheng, isn't this the same stuff we used to get Nie Mingjue to buy us?"

"Yeah," Jiang Cheng says, yanking the bottle back from her and holding it, protectively, with the outstretched hand that's further away from her.

"Why?" she asks. "You could get anything else!"

Jiang Cheng shrugs. "It's fine," he says.

"Oh man, do you remember the day we went to the batting cages and drank, like, an 18-pack of these things?" she asks. "And you were so sure that having high cultivation would make you good at hitting balls with that silly little bat, so you kept trying and trying?"

"That was you," Jiang Cheng says. "I threw you the balls and you failed to hit each one."

"Because you suck at throwing," Wei Wuxian counters. "Otherwise I would have gotten them all. I mean, I was so good at archery, right?" She pauses, and adds, thoughtfully, "Anyways, I think I did hit a couple, though."

"One, badly," Jiang Cheng points out. It occurs to him as he says it that this is a trend with the two of them. Now — often — he's once more the one teeing Wei Wuxian up, lobbing a few casual throws her way, waiting for her to hit on an errant thought, or accusation, or realization. Such as —

"Oh my god, I hit Lan Zhan's car," she remembers.

Bullseye.

"He got so mad, Jiang Cheng, do you remember? Like absolutely apoplectic. Dumped out all my beer and tattled on me to Lan Xichen. I thought he was going to hit me!" As Jiang Cheng watches — mildly horrified — a glazed expression settles over her face. "Do you think if I did it again now, he'd get mad enough to punish me? Sexually?"

"I don't know and I don't care," Jiang Cheng says. He's pretty sure if Wei Wuxian asked nicely, Lan Wangji would punish her as much as she wants, but there's no way he's going to tell her that. "So are you still claiming that this mystery man is someone else?"

His phone buzzes in his pocket. He ignores it.

Wei Wuxian's eyes drift over to Jiang Cheng. "I'm not telling you one way or the other," she says. When Jiang Cheng's phone buzzes again, insistently, she adds, "Who are you texting? Is it Wen Qing? Are you trying to hit on her again? You know she's gay, right?"

"Everyone I know is gay," Jiang Cheng says, and very diplomatically does not add 'thanks to you' to that sentence. It goes without saying, anyway. He also doesn't point out that he lost his virginity to Wen Qing and her strap back in college, during a fit of unrelated emotional catharsis. First of all, that's Wen Qing's business, not Wei Wuxian's; second of all, Wei Wuxian wouldn't believe him anyway. Instead, he purses his lips thoughtfully. "Aside from Anita at the office. It's not Wen Qing. You know when Lan Wangji moves in he's going to be just like another Brandon, right?"

"Taiko drumming at three o'clock in the morning Brandon?"

"No, 'let's have a house meeting about the rules' every three fucking days Brandon," Jiang Cheng says. "What the fuck. Maybe Taiko drumming at three in the morning Brandon too. I don't know. Maybe he's like that. I don't pay that much attention to Lan Wangji, unlike some people I could name."

"He will not be like Rules Brandon," Wei Wuxian says, rolling her eyes. "You really don't want to try my wine?" At Jiang Cheng's headshake, she sighs. "Lan Zhan might be a little like Rules Brandon. He loves rules."

"You sounded way too fucking sappy when you said that," Jiang Cheng scowls. "When Lan Wangji — I'm sorry, your mystery dick-grabbing man — moves in, I'm putting him on bathroom-cleaning rotation forever and charging him extra."

"If my mystery dick-grabbing man moves in, we'll be sharing a room!"

"And he'll still be paying full price," Jiang Cheng says. His phone buzzes again, this time in the pattern indicating a call instead of a text, so he pulls it out of his pocket and answers it. "What?"

"How long do you give it until he moves in?" Nie Huaisang asks. "A month? Two?"

"Less, probably," Jiang Cheng says. Wei Wuxian is leaning closer, trying to listen in, so he shoves her away with his feet. "Why?"

"Is that corner room still available?" Nie Huaisang asks. "I want to see this up close."

"It is for $350 a month and a better excuse than that," whispers Jiang Cheng, jerking back from his stupid adoptive sister. "Wei Wuxian, fuck off, I'm on the phone."

Nie Huaisang sighs in a way that tells Jiang Cheng that she's either smiling or rolling her eyes. "You, Jiang Cheng, are a ridiculous man," she says.

"I don't know what you mean by that."

"I'll be there tonight," Nie Huaisang says. "I've had my go-bag ready for months."

"You're so weird," Jiang Cheng tells her.

When he hangs up, Wei Wuxian is staring at him.

"What?!"

"You will not fucking believe what da-ge has gone and done now," Nie Huaisang says, swanning out of the car that delivers her to Lotus Pier and waiting while the driver struggles to pull three oversized suitcases out of the trunk. All she's holding is a fringed purse barely big enough to contain her phone. "Oh, Wei Wuxian! Is that rosé?"

She tramps up the stairs, a waft of that disgusting perfume that always gives Jiang Cheng a headache floating behind her. Dumbfounded, Wei Wuxian hands her the glass — still mostly full — and Nie Huaisang downs it in one.

"Hey," the driver calls. "Your bags?"

"Oh, Jiang Cheng will get them, won't you, A-Cheng?" Nie Huaisang asks. She's gotten her nails done recently. Fresh falsies. They are... intimidatingly long. When Nie Huaisang pats Jiang Cheng's arm, he shivers.

"You can get them yourself," he says, staring at her nails. His eyes cross a little when she brings her hand to his cheek and pats that, instead.

"Oh, come on," she says, with that half-whine tone she takes every time she plays up just how useless she is at tasks, so Jiang Cheng troops down the porch steps and goes to the sidewalk where they lay. It's better this way, anyway. He doesn't want to hear Wei Wuxian comment on how great Nie Huaisang's tits look in that top she's wearing. He doesn't need his attention brought to that at all, thank you. Especially not in front of Wei Wuxian, who would never let him live it down if he so much as implied agreement.

"What did Nie Mingjue do, anyway?" Wei Wuxian is asking when Jiang Cheng approaches the porch again. He's got all three suitcases clutched haphazardly between both hands. If Nie Huaisang didn't want to risk them getting scuffed, she would have helped him out.

"Decided both his fucking boyfriends should live in our house. Our house! Can you believe it? Where I sleep? I had to leave, they were simply too noisy and gross."

"It's not much quieter here," Jiang Cheng points out. There's like four other people living at Lotus Pier right now, besides him and Wei Wuxian. Maybe five. He's not entirely sure if the person with bright blue hair is a squatter or a partner, and every time he tries to bring it up, he gets weird looks.

Nie Huaisang gives him a Significant Glare, so he raises an eyebrow right back at her. Like Wei Wuxian wouldn't smell a rat the second Jiang Cheng didn't grumble about someone's choices.

"Well," Wei Wuxian says, glancing between the two of them. "Okay, then. Nie Huaisang, do you want some wine? There's more in the kitchen."

Nie Huaisang disappears inside. A moment later, through the open window, she yells, "Are you having a rosé moment?"

"It's summer," Wei Wuxian yells back, like that's any kind of fucking reasoning. Jiang Cheng leans against one of the porch columns, suitcases at his feet, and takes a sip of his beer. It's warm now, and nearly flat. Truly, truly unpalatable. He downs the rest of the bottle and sets it down on the porch railing with a thud.

Nie Huaisang re-emerges with an empty glass and the bottle. "More?" she asks Wei Wuxian, sitting down in the spot Jiang Cheng vacated..

"No, no, I'm good," Wei Wuxian says. She stands and pulls her phone out of the back pocket of her cut-off jorts. "Thanks though. I have a call to make."

"Your mystery man?" Jiang Cheng asks, because making fun of Wei Wuxian supersedes not wanting to know anything about her budding situationship with Lan Wangji. She flips him off, scrolling through her phone for — yes. She's angled such that he can just see the contact info for Lan Zhan 🫳🍆💦😳 pop up on the screen. Disgusting.

"Don't forget what I said," Jiang Cheng tells her, as she hits call and lifts the phone to her ear.

"He's not going to be like Brandon!" Wei Wuxian says, clattering down the steps and heading around toward the little dock at the back of the house. As she wanders away, Jiang Cheng can just make out her saying "Heyyyyy, gege. Yeah, I'm heading out to the shed."

"Taiko drums Brandon or stupid rules Brandon?" Nie Huaisang asks, amused. "Wait, don't tell me, I already know."

"You made the wrong choice in coming here," Jiang Cheng tells Nie Huaisang as she pours herself a glass of the wine. "It's about to get even more insane."

"I love mess," Nie Huaisang sighs, like she hasn't spent years actively refusing to learn the ins and outs of her family's meat-packing business. She kicks off her shoes and tucks her feet up underneath her.

"Enough to leave your perfectly good house?"

Nie Huaisang flutters her hand. "Your house is good too, except that you live so close to the beach and still don't get free access to it. And anyways, da-ge can survive without me for a few weeks," she says. "Maybe he actually will get his act together with those boys of his without me there to take care of everything."

"Nie Mingjue does the cooking," Jiang Cheng feels beholden to point out. "And the cleaning."

"Yeah, and on that note, I feel like my contribution to your chore chart should be selecting the music that you play when you do your silly little sword forms in the mornings," Nie Huaisang says. "Really stick to my strengths."

"Absolutely not," Jiang Cheng says, firmly. He prides himself that he does not waver even when she begins to pout. He does, however, go to sit down next to her when she gestures for him, and lets her shush him when she decides it's time to try and listen in on whatever they can glean from Wei Wuxian's phonecall.

Nie Huaisang sneaks into Jiang Cheng's room at around two in the morning, startling him awake. "Shut up," she hisses, climbing into bed with him and slapping her hand over his mouth, which is making some kind of half-asleep noise of shock. Her cloying perfume has toned down, but hasn't dissipated entirely, despite the water dripping from her hair onto Jiang Cheng's bedsheets as she drops her sodden hair towel next to him. "You'll wake up the entire house."

"You woke me up," Jiang Cheng grumbles. He doesn't point out that his window is open, like always. Nie Huaisang knows he likes to hear the sounds of the lake more than he cares about climate control in his room. She'll pitch her sounds accordingly.

Nie Huaisang considers this. "You big baby," she decides, and then she's kissing him, sliding over his body with her own. "I can't finger you, by the way. I just got my nails done."

"I noticed," Jiang Cheng admits. Then he points out, "And I didn't ask you to," even as he's letting his legs slide open so that Nie Huaisang can slot one of her thighs between them. He's already half-hard, but whether he woke up like that or he's just responded to Nie Huaisang in his bed that quickly, he couldn't begin to say.

"Yeah, but you want me to," she says. "You always want me to."

Jiang Cheng considers protesting this, because while it's true, it's a little embarrassing. But if he does, she might get distracted into a debate, instead of continuing with whatever her specific intent here may be. He wants this, so he lets the truth lie between them, unremarked upon.

She never kisses like he expects her to. The first time they did this, he kind of thought she'd be a pillow princess, given her everything, but she moves like she's hungry, trying to swallow him whole with every slide of her mouth. Her wet hair pools at the side of his face. It's a muggy night, and the water feels like sweat sliding down his neck. He grabs it, wraps his hand in it so he can push it out of the way, and she makes a noise against his mouth.

"What do you want?" he asks, hushed, the words swallowed in the cavernous dark between them.

Nie Huaisang just laughs. He can feel her clit against his thigh, big and tender, and when she fucks its soft swell up against him, he groans. "What do you think?" she asks.

"If I knew, I wouldn't ask you, would I?" Jiang Cheng asks.

"Don't be annoying," Nie Huaisang tells him, and kisses him again, wet and desperate. Her mouth is open. Somehow, she's got a hand on his chest now, wedged between them and crooked just so that the tips of her fingernails are digging into his chest. He shivers at the feeling of it, at the way her fingertips press through the thin fabric of his sleep-shirt. "Get rid of this," she says, scratching down so that the fabric pulls and bunches. "It's in the way."

Jiang Cheng wrestles himself up, letting go of Nie Huaisang's hair so that he can rest his hands at the small of her back and keep her from tipping over as he sits up enough to yank his shirt off. He wiggles his boxer-briefs down, too, when she rises up on her knees to let him work them off. "You, too?" he asks, hopefully, tugging at the hem of her shirt, spreading his hand so that his fingertips brush over the curve of her ass.

Nie Huaisang leans forward, capturing Jiang Cheng's earlobe in her mouth. She sucks at it, grazes it with her teeth, tugging it down. The soft wet of her mouth cuts through to Jiang Cheng's core, and he shivers at the sensation. "You'll get distracted if I do," she murmurs, and pulls back enough for him to see her pull a pout. It's devastating in its subtlety: it doesn't seem put-on at all. "You've been avoiding looking at my tits all night."

"I was being respectful!"

"Gross," she says, but she pulls her tank top over her head, watching as Jiang Cheng tracks the movement of her hands with wide eyes. "Who the fuck asked you to do that?"

Jiang Cheng bristles, a little, but is soothed when Nie Huaisang cups his cheek with one soft hand. She digs her thumb into the corner of his mouth until he gasps and lets it fall open. She leans in for another kiss, then. The lace of her bra brushes against his chest, just enough that he can feel the texture of it against his skin but not come to any conclusion about how, precisely, it makes him feel. This kiss is as consuming as all their others: Nie Huaisang likes to push and prod with her tongue, likes to really lay claim to Jiang Cheng's mouth, and Jiang Cheng likes to let her. It's frenzied enough, focused enough, that Jiang Cheng ends up with his head tilted back awkwardly far, only barely supported by Nie Huaisang's hand. He can make out one of her rings biting into the skin of his back as he fumbles to unhook her bra.

"That's better," she says, when Jiang Cheng is panting against her mouth, dazed as he looks up at her.

Wei Wuxian used to tease Jiang Cheng about his hopeless yearning for a big titty anime girlfriend. He has no idea where she got that one from, not least because he likes all sorts of breasts. Nie Huaisang's, for example. He likes the way they feel in his mouth, when Nie Huaisang guides his head down, lifting one breast up gently with two long fingers, thumb jutting into the edge of her areola to illustrate exactly what her expectations are. He licks over her nipple, greedily taking in the little sounds she makes as he sucks, gently but insistently, the way that she likes, prodding at the hardened tip of her nipple with a careful, hungry tongue.

She pushes a hand through his hair. "You should grow this back out," she says, tugging at the strands. "I miss when you were going for that old-school cultivation vibe."

Jiang Cheng pulls back, enough that he can talk but not so far that he's truly separated from Nie Huaisang's boobs. "I was in college," he says, which is both protestation and excuse.

"Yes," she agrees, the so what evident in her tone. "And now you have a degree in cultivation, so you should look the part."

Jiang Cheng has a degree in economics, for his parents. The cultivation minor — not a degree — was also expected; everyone from their social circle has one except Wei Wuxian, who managed to fail out of it. The musical theater detour was just for him. "Most people with cultivation degrees don't have long hair," he says, and tugs at the ends of Nie Huaisang's, squeezing some more water droplets out of it. The water trickles down her chest. Dazed, Jiang Cheng leans forward to lick it up.

"Most people with cultivation degrees are idiots," Nie Huaisang says. "Do you want to be an idiot, Jiang Cheng?"

Jiang Cheng shakes his head and kisses her again, before he can say something truly idiotic, like 'I want to be your idiot.' She hums her satisfaction, digging her nails into the skin of his back as she bears him down against the mattress and then sits up again.

"It's really annoying that you're such a bottom," she adds, conversationally, walking her knees up the side of his body until she's straddling his dick. "Sometimes a girl just wants to be fucked."

"Did you bring your strap?" He could use the dildo, maybe. That could be fun.

"It's in my room," Nie Huaisang says, mournfully, and scratches her nails down the front of Jiang Cheng's chest. The sensation ripples through him, and he shivers. "Since I can't finger you I figured, why bother?"

"You're so annoying," Jiang Cheng tells her, and she grinds her hips down against him, mockingly, in emphasis. He bucks up against her, instinctively, and then again when she smiles at him. "I could finger you?"

"I guess," Nie Huaisang says, pouting, but she lifts up enough to push her sleep shorts down, working them off one leg and then giving up and letting them bunch around her other knee.

Nie Huaisang doesn't always like to be looked at, Jiang Cheng has learned. She's got all these tucked-away secrets that she pretends she doesn't have, much less play close to the chest, and sometimes she interprets gazes as scrutiny and unwanted perception. Other times, though, she gets off on dazzling people into thinking she's no more than just her looks. Jiang Cheng likes to think he's an exception to this — she usually preens a little under his attention, like those birds of hers she loves so much — but he doesn't want to press his luck.

She's striking a pose today, though, so Jiang Cheng lets himself take her in in her entirety, mouth going dry at the shadows gathering at the curves of her body: her breasts, her belly, her thighs. The pocket at her shoulderblade when she stretches to pull the curtains across the window. Her clit is lying soft against her thigh, and Jiang Cheng reaches for it, rubbing the head of it with the tips of two fingers.

Nie Huaisang curves back to him, the curtain falling whisper-soft against the windowsill as she releases it. Jiang Cheng stretches up to her, cupping her cheek with his other hand and drawing her down into a kiss. Frenzied this time; Nie Huaisang is quickly getting into the rhythm of things, grinding down against Jiang Cheng so that his cock presses against her ass. Her teeth are sharp against his lips, and she pushes insistently forward. "Do the spot," she says, so Jiang Cheng spreads his hand, pressing a finger firmly against her taint and, mindful of her balls, another, more gently, against the place at the underside of her clit that always leaves her gasping.

Though —

"Ew, no," she says, after a moment. "What are you, an animal?"

"Huh?" Jiang Cheng asks. His hand hovers, intimately crooked against her, but he pulls it back to reduce the pressure. "Sorry?"

There must be a look on his face, because she smiles at him — gently, genuinely. "Lube, bro," she says.

"Oh, shit, yeah," Jiang Cheng says. "The bedside—"

"I know where you keep it," Nie Huaisang says. The warmth that suffuses Jiang Cheng at that chills slightly when she adds, "I'm waiting for you to get it."

"But —" Jiang Cheng doesn't want to stop touching her, but she's raising an eyebrow at him, imperious, spine arching in a way that always spells a good time for him. "Okay." He releases his hold on her and twists to grab it, squeezing some onto his hand and dropping the bottle on the covers next to them.

When he's settled back into place, one slick hand curving around Nie Huaisang, a finger teasing at her hole and the others clenched together and pressed up tight against the underside of her clit, and his other hand clutching her thigh, she smiles at him again. "Good boy."

Pitifully, his cock twitches at that. Nie Huaisang clearly notices: she smirks down at him, cupping his chin with one hand and then yanking at it, so that his head tilts back, eyes cast back toward the ceiling instead of her body.. Lightly, she slaps his cheek, palm open. It's louder than it feels, and when he gapes, trying to twist his head to look at her, she backhands the other cheek. It's not a harder hit, but her knuckles dig into the flesh of his face for a brief, fraught moment, and the edge of one of her new false nails presses against his cheekbone.

"You love being pushed around by a pretty girl," Nie Huaisang sighs, affecting an idle tone, but she's shifting her hips, pressing down against Jiang Cheng's fist, her hole tight and warm around his finger as he stretches it out, tries to fuck it deeper into her, so Jiang Cheng chooses to interpret her tone as 'misleading.'

"I do," he admits. So what if he likes when pretty girls are mean to him?! Most people like when pretty girls are mean to them.

Nie Huaisang leans in again. The air between their bodies is humid, and even though they're not cultivating, Jiang Cheng can feel the zip of energy between them. "I like that about you."

Jiang Cheng swallows. Nie Huaisang drags a finger down his chest, scratching lightly, and then abruptly fucks down onto his fingers. His hand cramps with the force of it, but he bites his lip and presses back, focusing more on stroking his knuckles against her secret sensitive spots than working his fingers into her. It's the way she always fingers him — fingernails allowing — and he figures she wouldn't default to it so often if she didn't like it herself.

In truth, he doesn't have to do much work. Nie Huaisang knows what she likes. Jiang Cheng likes when she uses him, like he's just one of her many toys. He puts his hands where she tells him and holds them steady and lets her fuck herself against him. Today she ignores his cock completely. It presses against her soft inner thigh as her hips work against his hand, but that's incidental, a happy accident. An ephemeral friction, as fleeting and unsustained as Nie Huaisang's attention span when Jiang Cheng catches her in a particular mood. It's good. Jiang Cheng likes to be useful. He also likes to be considered, and when Nie Huaisang has her head tossed back, grinding minutely against his hand, one hand still planted square on his chest to prop herself up, hair dripping onto Jiang Cheng's legs and belly and bedspread, letting Jiang Cheng watch her wrest her pleasure from him, he feels... acknowledged, in some indefinable and unexplorable way.

Eventually, Nie Huaisang decides she's had enough and climbs off Jiang Cheng, gesturing for him to roll over. He wipes his hand on Nie Huaisang's abandoned towel and slots himself between her legs, taking her clit into his mouth and flicking at its head with his tongue. He presses a hand, heavy, to her lower belly, the way that she likes, holding her hips steady and still, thumb digging into the flesh of her groin. She pulls his hair, harrumphing again about how short it is, pushing his face down. Her clit fills his mouth; he pulls back enough that he can focus on working his tongue at the base of its head, shifting his hand and pressing against the root of it so that it stiffens a little. Not much; just enough to make her loll her head back with a gasp and a moan as her hips twitch her deeper into his mouth.

Nie Huaisang's entire body always relaxes with her orgasms. It's wild: Jiang Cheng usually feels wound tighter and tighter; coming feels more like the building pressure escaping from him in one strong burst, but Nie Huaisang grows languid in her pleasure, melting into the bed, hand loosening on Jiang Cheng's head. She pats his cheek, imprecise and soft, and he pulls back off of her. "Yes?" he asks, voice hoarse.

"Yes," she confirms. She drags an arm across her eyes. Jiang Cheng looks at the shadow it casts over her face in the night-dark room, dimly lit only by virtue of the streetlight outside seeping timidly through his gauzy curtains. Her mouth is a dark, raw slash across her face. The corner of it is ticked up: an exhausted smile. "If you want to get off, you can hump my thigh. Gently."

"Not even going to jerk me off?" Jiang Cheng asks, hovering over her. Now that she's come, he can focus on the mounting pressure inside himself: his belly tight and shivery with it; his cock hanging, hard, between their bodies.

"Nails," she says, like that's any kind of reasonable excuse. "What if I scratch you?"

Jiang Cheng licks his lips. "What if you did," he asks, voice even hoarser.

Nie Huaisang pushes her elbow back so that her forearm moves up her forehead, peering at him from under its shadow. "You want that?" she asks. "Hm."

"If you do," Jiang Cheng says, because even sometimes in the soft of the night with a beautiful postcoital Nie Huaisang, he can't admit the depths of what he craves to himself.

"Next time," she decides, after a protracted moment. "I'm so tired, Jiang Cheng, you really wore me out!"

Pride swells in Jiang Cheng's chest. "Did I?" he asks.

"Oh, don't go clawing for compliments, you know you're a good fuck," Nie Huaisang says, and sighs, pushing herself half-up. "You want a reward?"

"Yes."

Nie Huaisang purses her lips, giving Jiang Cheng a long, considering look. Then she reaches between them, wrapping her long fingers around his cock. "Okay," she says, giving it a leisurely stroke.

There's a glint in her eyes. Jiang Cheng's stomach tightens, even as he leans into her touch.

She pinches the head of his cock, hard, between her thumb and forefinger. Her nails don't dig in, but the threat is there in the long, even line resting gently against Jiang Cheng's foreskin.

The pressure crests. Jiang Cheng comes, doubling over with the force of it. His forehead presses against Nie Huaisang's neck and he bites her collarbone — an acknowledgement, a thanks. She twists her head and kisses his temple. "Thanks, bro," she says.

"Good work, team," Jiang Cheng says. He rolls over, landing on her wet hair towel, and winces, wiggling around until he can yank it out from underneath him. He tosses it over the side of the bed, and then rests that arm over Nie Huaisang's chest.

She brings a hand up, wrapping it around his forearm, and squeezes a little. "Should I go back to my room?"

"Do you want to?" he asks.

Nie Huaisang lays quiet for a long moment. "I'll stay, then," she says, and curls up, her head tucked under Jiang Cheng's chin, her knees pulled up to her chest.

"Bro, does the blue-haired twink actually live here?" Nie Huaisang asks, coming into the kitchen the next morning. It's early; most of the house is either still asleep or off at work for opening shifts. There's a little mark just peeping over the edge of her low-cut shirt. Jiang Cheng isn't sure if she's even aware that it's there. He likes it, though. They might not talk about their thing much, with each other or with other people or whatever, but he likes to know that there's evidence of the two of them somewhere. He woke up with her already getting ready in her room. So, like. It's nice to see her in the light of day, or whatever. He flashes a smile up at her, and she winks at him, kicking the leg of his chair as she walks past him to the coffee machine.

"Echinacea?" Wei Wuxian asks. She's leaning against the fridge, eyes closed, like she's hungover even though she literally did not drink any of her wine last night. "Yeah, they've got the couch."

"The couch isn't a rental unit," Jiang Cheng says, frowning behind his enormous cup of coffee. "Wait, what the fuck kind of name is Echinacea?"

Wei Wuxian glares at him while Nie Huaisang covers a smile with a huge yawn and looks away, studiously examining the mugs in the dish drainer. "Dude."

"Sorry, sorry," Jiang Cheng says, putting his hands in the air. "Anyway, tell them they need a contract. Didn't we veto couch-surfing, like, a year ago?"

"I thought that house rules clause got voided when Xiao Xingchen left and took Xue Yang with him," Wei Wuxian says.

It's Jiang Cheng's turn to glare. An easy prospect: he's under-caffeinated still, and he had a late night. "You know that with a contract, people can build a rental history for future living situations."

"Paper trail," Wei Wuxian counters. "Formal records."

"We live in a society," Jiang Cheng reminds her. "Like it or not. Plus we have spare rooms."

"But—"

"If it's a money issue, they can have the in-law suite guestroom for just the monthly grocery share," Jiang Cheng says. "But no couches."

"How many empty rooms would that leave, then?" Nie Huaisang asks, idly, in a way that Jiang Cheng is pretty sure Wei Wuxian can still read as pointed.

"The attic," Jiang Cheng says. After a thoughtful sip of coffee, he adds, "And the shed, I guess."

A strange look crosses Wei Wuxian's face. "If the couch is off-limits, so is the shed," she says. "I need it. For reasons."

"Are you fooling around with unverified talismans again?" Jiang Cheng asks, alarmed.

"Um," Wei Wuxian says, her eyes very wide. "Yes? Yes. That is what I'm using the shed for. Unorthodox cultivation."

"The stuff that got you kicked out of cultivation school?!"

"Yep," Wei Wuxian says. "Yeah. That's me. Jiang Cheng, they're only unverified until I submit them for approvals!"

"Weren't you literally just complaining about how the CIRB won't un-blacklist you?"

"I'm going to submit them through Lan Zhan's name," Wei Wuxian says. "The world needs my talismans, Jiang Cheng."

This will absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, go terribly. But if Jiang Cheng says as much, Wei Wuxian will absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, double down. "If you lose your job over this, don't come crying to me," Jiang Cheng grumbles.

"I promise," Wei Wuxian says, earnestly, clutching one hand to her chest. "Oh, look at that, is that the time? I gotta go. The working grind spares no woman."

"Bye, babe," Nie Huaisang says. She has a strange expression on her face. Jiang Cheng watches her as she tracks Wei Wuxian on her way out, and then lifts a questioning eyebrow.

"What's up?"

"Wei Wuxian is up to something," Nie Huaisang says. At Jiang Cheng's eyeroll, she shakes her head. "It's not dark cultivation. Or fucking Lan Wangji, I think. Something else."

"When is she not up to something?" Jiang Cheng asks.

Nie Huaisang laughs a little, lightly. "You're right, of course," she says. "I don't know what I'm talking about." She glances around the room and listens for a moment. Then she ducks in and brushes a kiss to Jiang Cheng's lips. "I have to go listen to my brother try and talk me into learning more about fucking meat-packing. See you after work?"

"I'll be here," Jiang Cheng says. She claps him on the shoulder and, when her hand lingers, he allows himself to cover it with one of his own and squeeze.

Wen Qing brings her brother and their grandmother and nephew over, their first real visit since they managed to get a home of their own and move out from Lotus Pier. It's not until they're all sitting in the living room that Jiang Cheng realizes the house is a different kind of noisy now. It's a little disconcerting, actually! Wen Yuan shouting about his favorite pterodactyl facts rockets Jiang Cheng immediately back into the memory of the weekend mornings he and Granny Wen would spend shushing the kid, trying to let Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian sleep in after a night shift. He doesn't begrudge the Wens for striking out on their own once Wen Qionglin recovered and Wen Qing's prospects improved, and he ranges from 'fine' to 'enthusiastic' regarding all of Wei Wuxian's strays who have moved in and out over the ensuing years, but at his heart he feels that Lotus Pier is at its best when it's full of family, and as it turns out, while a flock of gay twentysomethings can be family, he misses actual, well, families. Maybe later he'll call Jiang Yanli and see how the new Jin Hotel-opening is going.

In total defiance of Jiang Cheng's nascent yearning to be surrounded by family, Lan Wangji is over, too, sitting a scant three inches away from Wei Wuxian. He is very clearly not leaning in to Wei Wuxian in a purposeful way, because Wei Wuxian is still loudly maintaining that it's conceivably possible she might be fucking someone besides Lan Wangji. Two seconds into their carefully-still interactions (with Lan Wangji's unremitting gaze basically boring a hole through Wei Wuxian's thigh), though, Wen Qing makes meaningful eye contact with Jiang Cheng and they have a brief, delightful moment of blatantly and extravagantly rolling their eyes at each other.

As Wen Qionglin scoops Wen Yuan up just before he can run into a bookshelf, Granny Wen asks Jiang Cheng about business — "Booming," he says, modestly, and she nods gravely at him in a way that he thinks signifies her pleasure that Qingxin Ling Imports has bounced back so well after the accident.

"Good," she says, reaching to take the child from Wen Qionglin's grasp. He gives Jiang Cheng a sideways sort of glance once his hands are free, and shuffles closer to Wei Wuxian. Irritated — Jiang Cheng may barely know the guy, but his family is like Jiang Cheng's family at this point, and it's not like Jiang Cheng is the scariest of men!! — Jiang Cheng scowls and turns to Wen Qing. Let Wei Wuxian deal with Wen Qionglin. She seems eager enough to talk his ear off.

"How's the hospital?"

"It's good," she says. She looks tired, but happy. She tucks her hair behind her ear, scratching briefly at her undercut as she does so. "I like it better than that ambulance, at least."

"What was wrong with the ambulance?" Wei Wuxian interjects, leaning forward. Jiang Cheng watches as Lan Wangji's eyes track Wei Wuxian's neckline, then looks away, disgusted. "We had fun in that ambulance."

"I notice you don't work in the ambulance anymore, either," Wen Qing says, tartly.

"And their wings was this big!" Wen Yuan yells.

Everyone looks over. Wen Yuan's arms are outstretched, so wide that they're jutting out behind him. One of his hands knocks against Lan Wangji's knee, hard enough that Lan Wangji shifts his leg. Jiang Cheng knew he liked the kid.

"Wow," Lan Wangji says. His tone is flat as anything. "It sounds like pterodactyl's wings were very big indeed."

"Yeah!" Wen Yuan agrees and then, realizing all the adults are watching him, promptly grows shy. He sticks his thumb in his mouth and hides his face against Wei Wuxian's leg. She ruffles his hair.

"You really like dinosaurs, huh, kiddo," she says. "You wanna see some modern-day ones?"

A chair scrapes back in the kitchen and two seconds later, Nie Huaisang appears at the door. She's been in the other room, frowning over what she'd described as 'these awful boring files da-ge wanted me to look through, even though he knows I can't make heads or tails of this shit — no, Jiang Cheng, it's sweet of you to offer but these are probably not the kind of thing someone outside the company should be poking around in. I'll just suffer through it till he explains it all to me.'

"Wei Wuxian," she says. "Do you have a bird?"

"Uh," Wei Wuxian says, darting a glance around the room. "No?"

"Don't hold out on me, bitch."

"I wouldn't!" Wei Wuxian says, holding her hands up defensively. "I promise! No birds!"

"Fine," Nie Huaisang sighs. "Break my heart." She glances at Jiang Cheng as she says it, and he tilts his head apologetically.

"All I said was, 'if you're going to get a bird for the house, at least make sure it's ethically sourced,'" Jiang Cheng reminds her. "Not just one you caught on your walk back from the train."

"You're so annoying," she tells him, shaking her head.

The look they're exchanging is interrupted when Wei Wuxian slaps her knees and stands up. "Coming, A-Yuan?"

"Okay, Xian-jiejie," he says, reaching up to take her hand.

Lan Wangji follows them out, wordlessly, and Wen Qionglin trails along after them.

"So I see Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have finally gotten their act together," Wen Qing says.

"They're not admitting as much, those dummies, but yeah," Nie Huaisang says.

"I'm fine with it," Jiang Cheng lies. "As long as Wei Wuxian is insisting that she's getting it from maybe some other guy, she's going over to Lan Wangji's for sex."

"When do you think he's going to move in, then?" Wen Qing asks.

"My guess is a month," Jiang Cheng says. "Nie Huaisang thinks they can hold out for two."

Wen Qing laughs. "I give it a week, if that," she says. "Is there a pool?"

"Yeah, I'll go get the envelope," Nie Huaisang says, and darts upstairs.

"You don't think Wei Wuxian will try and move in with Lan Wangji?" Granny Wen asks.

"No," Jiang Cheng says, firmly. That won't happen. He'll stomach Lan Wangji as a roommate long before he'll let Wei Wuxian move out, too.

"Then I'll say by the start of Northwestern's fall semester," Granny Wen says, peaceably.

Wen Qing pushes away from her spot leaning against the wall and sits on the couch next to Jiang Cheng. "So," she says. "You and Nie Huaisang, huh?"

Jiang Cheng considers denying it, but abandons that thought almost immediately. He spent his childhood swallowing words, and truths, and feelings. He tries not to do that anymore. "Is it that obvious?" he asks instead. "I don't think Wei Wuxian has a clue."

"Wei Wuxian is terrible at recognizing relationships," Wen Qing says. "Or else Lan Wangji would already be living here. Did Nie Huaisang move in, or did she just move in?"

"She just moved in," Jiang Cheng sighs. "She says it's to see this Lan Wangji situation develop first-hand."

Wen Qing hums in that way she does when she's processing information that she doubts, but before Jiang Cheng can ask about it, Nie Huaisang clatters back down the stairs with the betting envelope. "Okay," she says, slapping it on the coffee table. "Going rate is ten bucks. Who's in?"

Nie Huaisang is curled up on Jiang Cheng's bed, scrolling through her phone while Jiang Cheng, perched on his desk chair with his feet propped up next to Nie Huaisang's, tries to concentrate on reading instead of leaning forward to touch the strip of skin showing where Nie Huaisang's shirt has ridden up, when Wei Wuxian slams open the door and flops on the floor.

"Okay," she says, stretching out so much she takes over most of the carpet. "I confess. It is Lan Wangji."

Jiang Cheng closes his book, using his finger to hold his spot. Nie Huaisang puts down her phone. They exchange a glance. "What's Lan Wangji?" Nie Huaisang asks.

"Sangsang?" Wei Wuxian asks, sitting up. "What are you doing in here?"

Nie Huaisang exchanges another glance with Jiang Cheng, this time with a slight eye-roll. "Catching up on my art-school instagram," she says. "If you know any of my old classmates, you'd be shocked by who's married with kids now."

"Oh," Wei Wuxian says. "Okay. Sure." She blinks, the way she does when she's trying to compute new information into her worldview.

Jiang Cheng decides, against his better judgment, to interrupt her. "What was that about Lan Wangji?"

"Oh," Wei Wuxian says. A stupid dreamy smile crosses her face. "Yeah. You were right. He's the one I've been fucking." She honest-to-goodness sighs. "His dick is so big, Jiang Cheng, you wouldn't believe it."

"I'll take your word for it," Jiang Cheng says, making a face.

"Since when are you a size queen?" Nie Huaisang demands. "Is this new? Is this because of Lan Wangji? Has he dickmatized you?"

"Don't ask her that," Jiang Cheng hisses. "She'll tell you."

"I've been thoroughly dickmatized," Wei Wuxian says, loudly. "Did you know that dicks are good, actually? I'm a changed woman. Have you heard about butt stuff?" There's a beat and then, contrite, she adds, "Sorry, Jiang Cheng. I know you're hopelessly unsexed. Thanks for not being an incel about it. Take my word for it, though: you should try butt stuff."

Nie Huaisang glances meaningfully at Jiang Cheng's bedside table, where she has semi-permanently interred her strap. "Yeah, Jiang Cheng," she says. "Have you considered trying butt stuff?"

"I've considered kicking you both out of my room and going to sleep," Jiang Cheng growls. He brushes a surreptitious finger against Nie Huaisang's ankle. She glances down at his hand, and then back up at him. Her gaze softens, and he quirks his lips to the side in response.

She waggles her eyebrows and pushes herself off his bed. "Okay, Wei Wuxian," she says. "Let's leave your poor hapless brother alone to his beauty sleep. Come downstairs and tell meimei all about Lan Wangji's enormous horse cock, or whatever. Jiang Cheng, tell her you're happy for her."

"I'm happy for you," Jiang Cheng says. He is, really, though he'd be happier to never hear about it at all.

As Nie Huaisang shepards Wei Wuxian out the door, she mouths You owe me to Jiang Cheng.

You like this, he mouths back, and she tilts her head in a way that somehow manages to evoke the same vibe as the respectful bows they learned in cultivation school.

So do you.

Six days later, Lan Wangji approaches Jiang Cheng at the dog park Jiang Cheng likes to go to, to watch other people's pets and unwind.

"Jiang Wanyin," Lan Wangji says, standing in front of Jiang Cheng's favorite bench.

Jiang Cheng tenses. He hates that name, but it's also not worth unpacking with someone like Lan Wangji. "What?" he snaps.

"I would like," Lan Wangji says, looking very much like his teeth are being pulled, one at a time, without anesthetic. "To move in."

"Wei Wuxian owes me, like, so much alcohol," Jiang Cheng mutters.

"I beg your pardon?" asks Lan Wangji. He does not seem to be begging anything, if Jiang Cheng is honest. It rankles: the disinterested, dispassionate way with which Lan Wangji is regarding him.

"There's a shed out back," Jiang Cheng offers. He's going to keep the spare rooms free, just in case someone he likes needs a place to stay. "You can have it for six hundred a month."

Something indefinable flickers in Lan Wangji's eyes, but it's quickly swallowed by his usual blank stare. "Is there running water?"

"No."

"Is it affixed to the ground, at least?"

"Probably not," Jiang Cheng says. "Take it or leave it."

"If I reported it to the city, would you be reprimanded for marketing rental space that does not meet the current code?" Lan Wangji asks.

"...fuck," says Jiang Cheng. "Probably. If you report it to the city, I won't give you a contract."

Lan Wangji considers this. His dumb face is inscrutable. Jiang Cheng really doesn't know what Wei Wuxian sees in this twerp.

"Very well," Lan Wangji says, about six eternities later. "I will take it."

Lan Wangji's face is always obnoxiously expressionless. Jiang Cheng doesn't know how he does it; Jiang Cheng can't hide a single emotion he's ever felt from his face. Still, with his utterly blank and flat affect, Lan Wangji is somehow communicating the aura of a man who has smelled something bad. There's a tightness around his eyes that really pisses Jiang Cheng off. Still, the shed really isn't a habitable space, so Jiang Cheng scowls and relents. "Or you can double-bunk with someone in the house for nine hundred."

"I don't understand your rental pricing scheme."

"Why, is that too much?" Jiang Cheng doesn't care if it breaks Lan Wangji's bank, but he doesn't want to put anyone else out with his pricing. Maybe he should revisit his fees, knock the regular rates further down. He didn't even want tenants, or to charge anyone, in the first place, but paying rent was the only way Wei Wuxian would agree to stay after Jiang Yanli got married. After Wei Wuxian had a rental contract, she started bringing around strays — usually folks she'd met at the clinic — who needed last-minute, generally short-term, accommodation, and she would have gotten on that high horse of hers if Jiang Cheng didn't charge them something after making a big, loud deal about giving Wei Wuxian a rental contract and a fee 'commensurate with the size of her room.'

Lan Wangji gives him a look. It is exactly the same as every other look he has ever given, but Jiang Cheng assumes Lan Wangji means it to convey a unique sentiment. Like, okay, what does Wei Wuxian see in this man?!

"It is not too much," Lan Wangji says.

"Why do you want to move in, anyway?" Jiang Cheng asks. "Don't you have, like, a super nice place in Hyde Park? That your family owns?"

"This is closer to work," Lan Wangji says, which is — fair. Jiang Cheng, regrettably, regularly sees Lan Wangji crossing his path on the significantly more expedient sword flight route above the Red Line.

Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow at Lan Wangji anyway, though. The Qingxin Ling Imports docks have migrated further and further south over the years, and you don't see him moving away from his family's ancestral(ish) home to get closer to them!

"It is also closer to Wei Ying," Lan Wangji adds.

"Well, that was obvious," Jiang Cheng says. Can't beat the same room for proximity. He doesn't bother asking why Lan Wangji doesn't invite Wei Wuxian to move in with him, instead — he doesn't want Wei Wuxian to move out. "I assume you'll want to be in her room?"

Lan Wangji gives him a long, still-inscrutable look. "Obviously." The aura of constipation he consistently exudes sharpens briefly and — in a horrifying moment that leads Jiang Cheng to grow concerned that Lan Wangji can read his mind — adds, "I invited Wei Ying to move in with me, since Cloud Recesses is... quieter. She said she'd prefer it the other way around."

"I'm going to have to draw you up a contract," Jiang Cheng says, tamping down the sudden, complicated warmth flushing through him at the thought of Wei Wuxian purposefully staying. "And I'll have to change hers, too. Add a clause that allows her to evict you from the property if she doesn't want you around anymore."

"Very well," Lan Wangji says, sounding — pleased?!

"There's also going to be a clause that you're not allowed to call house meetings about rules or chore charts," Jiang Cheng warns him. "And one that you can't fuck in common areas. So don't go getting any ideas."

Lan Wangji gives Jiang Cheng the longest look yet. "May I bring my Taiko drums?" he asks. "I like to practice as soon as I wake up. At five in the morning."

"I'm going to kill Wei Wuxian," Jiang Cheng mutters. Just because she's fucking Lan Wangji, or in love with him, or whatever other weird gross kinky thing they have going on, doesn't mean she should be in cahoots with him. "I'll get you your contract Monday."

For a man moving in under the thinnest veneer of an excuse — a man whose family has a whole-ass enormous house of their own a comfortable hour and a half train ride (or thirty-minute sword flight) south — Lan Wangji sure shows up with a lot of shit.

It doesn't all fit into Wei Wuxian's room.

Jiang Cheng considers offering Lan Wangji an actual room, but there's already one wasted half-empty room in the house, since Nie Huaisang spends almost every night sleeping in Jiang Cheng's bed instead of what is, ostensibly, her own. And what if someone needs the space quickly? Jiang Cheng has lived in the same house — in the same room — his whole life, but he imagines it would be disconcerting to wake up in a new space just to see some guy's shit all over the place.

"Well," he says, looking around the qiankun boxes and bags. "I know you're not actually staying in the shed, but I could move some of your extra stuff out there? Free up some space?"

Lan Wangji blinks. Wei Wuxian's face goes white, then red. "You can't do that," she blurts.

"Why not?"

"Uh," she says, glancing over to Lan Wangji, who gives her one of his stupid blank looks in return. She winces at him, like his face is actually saying something even though it's absolutely not. They're both disgusting. They deserve each other. "Well. You just can't?"

"Wei Wuxian," Jiang Cheng says. "What have you done with the shed?"

"Did you actually start dark cultivation arrays in there?" Nie Huaisang asks from the door. She has a small bowl of cherries in her hand. Her mouth is dark with the juice. As Jiang Cheng watches, she spits a pit right back into the same bowl.

He likes her so much. Something must show on his face, because she gives him a funny little half-smile before turning back to Wei Wuxian.

"Well?"

"Yes," Wei Wuxian says. "It's super unsafe for other people and belongings. Don't go there."

"I'm going there," Jiang Cheng says. He drops one of Lan Wangji's bags ignominiously to the floor and strides out of the room.

Everyone else scurries after him: Nie Huaisang nonchalantly; Wei Wuxian anxiously, Lan Wangji (of course) indifferently.

At the door to the shed, Jiang Cheng pauses. He glances out, past the fence and over the lake. The cool summer sun is glinting off of it. There's a person on a sailboat at the edge of the horizon. It's beautiful. He reminds himself: no matter what Wei Wuxian has done to the shed, it won't be worth another sister moving out of Lotus Pier.

"Don't do it, Jiang Cheng," Wei Wuxian says.

Jiang Cheng throws open the door.

And blinks.

"What the fuck," he says.

"This is Wuji," Lan Wangji says, bending down to pick up a fat black hen. "And that one down there is Birdtha."

"Chickens?!" Jiang Cheng demands. "How did I not know you snuck in chickens?!" He rubs his temples. He definitely has a gnarly headache brewing.

"Lan Zhan helped," Wei Wuxian says, pouting, and then she winces. "Don't kick him out over this though, Jiang Cheng, he literally just got here."

"I did tell you she was up to something," Nie Huaisang says, shaking her head.

"You knew?"

"I didn't know anything!" Nie Huaisang says, putting her hands up and then, after a beat, resting one, placatingly, on Jiang Cheng's bicep. "She was just acting fishy, that's all!"

"Don't chickens need to go outside?"

"Yeah," Wei Wuxian says. "But I always leave the house after you and I'm usually done at the clinic at least two hours before you get back from the docks, so."

"You got back from work after I did three times last week," Jiang Cheng says, dumbly. Chickens?! In his own backyard?? Without his knowledge?!"

"Lan Zhan helped," Wei Wuxian shrugs. "You know he works like five blocks away. And, no offense, didi, but you've seemed a little distracted lately."

Jiang Cheng can't help but glance at Nie Huaisang again. She widens her eyes at him and pouts, ever-so-slightly.

"I guess," he allows.

"Are you going to make me get rid of them now?"

Jiang Cheng turns to Lan Wangji, forcibly reminding himself to unclench his jaw before speaking. "I assume you know the city ordinances regarding backyard chickens," he says, with great resignation.

"Two to six provided you have at least four square feet of space per bird; no roosters; no slaughter within city limits," Lan Wangji says, promptly.

Jiang Cheng sighs. He glances at Wuji, and then Birdtha. Suddenly he understands why Wen Yuan came inside from Wei Wuxian's little pterodactyl field trip the other week crowing about dinosaur beaks.

Birdtha cocks her head to one side, and then pecks firmly at Lan Wangji's foot.

"They can stay," Jiang Cheng decides, after watching Lan Wangji dance backward, nearly dropping Wuji in the process. "If you build them a proper coop." After another moment of consideration, he adds, "Also, you have to share their eggs."

"So," Jiang Cheng says, as Nie Huaisang cups her hand around the back of his neck. He glances over at the door, triple-checking that it's still locked. It is. Nie Huaisang locked it when she waltzed into his office, a paper bag in hand, calling back to Anita, Jiang Cheng's secretary and the only heterosexual he knows, that Mr. Jiang, silly man, left his lunch at home, and she happened to have business in the area later that day. "How much longer do you plan to stay at the house?"

"Trying to get rid of me so quickly, Jiang Cheng?" she asks, digging her thumb into the meat of the pressure point at the juncture of his shoulder. "I've barely even moved in!"

"Yeah, but Lan Wangji signed the contract," Jiang Cheng says. He glances apprehensively at the paper bag Nie Huaisang has left on his desk, next to the lunch he brought with him.

"Faster than I expected," Nie Huaisang murmurs. "I can't fucking believe Wen Qing won the stupid betting pool. I was so sure that after all this time they've spent dancing around each other, they wouldn't get their heads out of their asses for at least a few months." She sighs dramatically, and leans over Jiang Cheng's shoulder, squinting at the terrible shipping management program open on his computer. Wei Wuxian keeps promising to dig around in the program and try and whip it into something functional, but Wei Wuxian also keeps getting pulled into other tasks and responsibilities that she claims are more immediately pressing. "Anyway, Jiang Cheng, the good stuff is just starting! Like, I know you hate it, but it is the off-season, so this is now my Bachelor. My Survivor. My — oh, my analogies are lost on you, you hate reality tv. Of course I'm going to hang around a little while longer."

Jiang Cheng feels abruptly relieved. "Okay, then," he says. "Good."

Nie Huaisang twirls his chair around so that he's facing her, and the windows that overlook the port. There's a barge docked right now, cranes working steadily to transfer its cargo to the railyards below. When he was younger and it still felt special, Jiang Cheng used to love to watch the boats, and the industrial bustle of it all. Now — with Nie Huaisang in front of him, a wicked expression on her face — it barely captures his attention. Artfully, she drapes herself across his lap, stretching backward so that the chair's armrests are bearing more of her weight than Jiang Cheng is. "Jiang Cheng," she says. "Do you mean to imply that you like having me around?"

"No," Jiang Cheng says, bringing a hand up around her waist. He spreads it out, dipping his thumb up under her shirt and feeling the reassuring heat of her skin. "I don't mean to imply anything. You know I try to say what I mean. I like having you around."

Nie Huaisang blinks at him. "Oh," she says, and laughs a little. "Careful, a girl could start to think you care!"

"What about this has led you to think that I want you gone?" Jiang Cheng asks. He tightens his grip, tugging her a little closer, and then rethinks the move. He doesn't want her to get up and leave him, but he also doesn't want her to feel trapped. "I wouldn't be with you if I didn't care. What the fuck, Nie Huaisang."

Nie Huaisang's mouth works for a moment. "But you never talk about us."

"Neither do you!" Jiang Cheng shoves his free hand through his hair. His other hand flexes on Nie Huaisang's waist. "I — thought you didn't want to. You like having secrets. I assumed I was one of them."

Nie Huaisang concedes the point with a funny little head twist-slash-nod, but her facial expression is recalcitrant. As Jiang Cheng watches, one hand hovering between his head and the arm of his chair, the hard line of her mouth softens. Her brow furrows. Under the hand he has on her waist, he can feel her body move with her inhales, her exhales. Her mouth works a little, a wry twist forming in one corner, but she doesn't say anything, just looks at him. Even as closely as he's watching her, he only realizes that her eyes have gathered a sheen when she blinks and it goes away.

"What," Jiang Cheng says. "Would you like me to parade you around, introducing you to everyone as my live-in girlfriend?"

"It would be nice!"

"Okay then!" Jiang Cheng says. "Good! That's what I want, too!"

Nie Huaisang tilts her head and regards Jiang Cheng for a long moment. "Can I introduce you as my angry little boyfriend?"

"Why the fuck would you want to do that," Jiang Cheng says. "Sure. Whatever. If you have to."

Nie Huaisang kisses him then, tangling her fingers in his hair as she pulls him in. It's immediately deep, her tongue probing into his mouth in a hot, thick slide. He opens up for it and lets her in, bringing his other hand to her waist as she twists, straddling his lap on the chair. "You're growing your hair out," she murmurs, words muffled between their mouths. "I know you canceled that hair appointment you had scheduled last week."

"You wanted me to," he says, defensively.

She kisses him again. "You know what would be fun," she says. "If you let me sit here in your big boss chair while you hunched under your desk and give me head for as long as I want."

Jiang Cheng shivers. "That's unhygienic," he protests, but it's weak and they both know it.

"Even if I put a plug in you first?" Nie Huaisang asks. "And I wore stilettos, and used those to manhandle you around?"

The mental image of the sharp heels of Nie Huaisang's stilettos digging into the soft, vulnerable places between Jiang Cheng's inner thigh and his groin is a vivid one. Anticipation shoots through Jiang Cheng.

"You're thinking about it," she says, smugly. "I can tell."

"I won't do it when people are in the office," Jiang Cheng says. "I can't."

"So tonight, then," Nie Huaisang says. It's more a whisper than anything. She's pressed close to Jiang Cheng's ear, low voice vibrating and reverberating through his entire body. "I don't have everything with me, anyway. Take me out to dinner somewhere in the area and then bring me back here, like you're too desperate to make it all the way home."

"Yes," Jiang Cheng breathes, and then they're kissing again, frantically. Nie Huaisang's hands are scrabbling at Jiang Cheng's back; he pushes one hand up her shirt and starts fumbling at the clasp of her bra.

"I've got you right where I want you," Nie Huaisang tells him, as she lifts her head to suck Jiang Cheng's earlobe into her mouth. Through the haze of his arousal, this strikes Jiang Cheng, and he turns the phrase over in his mind.

They are, regrettably, interrupted by the intercom.

"Mr. Jiang," Anita says, through its crackle. "Your one o'clock called. She's running behind but will be here shortly."

Jiang Cheng hits the intercom button. "Thanks, Anita," he says. "I'll be ready for her."

Nie Huaisang sits back, pouting a little. They regard each other for a long moment.

"Fine," she says, at last. "I have to go pick up my stilettos from da-ge's anyway."

"I can pick you up from there at six," Jiang Cheng offers. "Like an old-fashioned date. It's closer than home, anyway."

"Home," Nie Huaisang says, in a tone that is just a hair over-satisfied.

This, too, pings in Jiang Cheng's awareness. He tilts his head and regards her.

"What?" she demands.

"I have a theory," he tells her. "It's percolating."

"Well, then?"

"You know I never shut up about Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian's thing."

"This is true," Nie Huaisang says. "I don't know if we can characterize this as a theory. Sounds more like a law."

Jiang Cheng shakes his head. "I don't think you particularly care about whether or not they got together."

"I literally moved in to watch it happen," she says. He can't quite tell, though, how much of the affont in her tone is genuine, and how much is put-upon.

"Did you?" he asks. "Or was that just... convenient? You're very clever, Nie Huaisang." Cleverer than me, he doesn't add. He doesn't swallow words anymore, but this is different. Somehow, this feels like a truth too heavy to share. "And I know how you feel about Wei Wuxian's sourdough experiments. And, more recently, Lan Wangji's naked yoga."

"You really should just replace your fridge," Nie Huaisang agrees. "That girl has no business engaging in the bread crimes that she does. But I think you're projecting with those naked yoga issues. I don't really mind it."

"I don't think Lotus Pier is the type of space you tend to prefer," Jiang Cheng says, ignoring the implication that Lan Wangji's predilection for nude handstands in front of the coffee at five thirty in the morning is anything but hugely objectionable. "I think you just like that I'm there."

"Think highly of ourselves, don't we?" Nie Huaisang asks, archly, but she doesn't look mad.

"My theory was that they were an excuse," Jiang Cheng says. He strokes Nie Huaisang's hair back, gently, brushing his knuckles against her cheek as he does so. "To see if I would let you move in. Test drive the relationship, so to speak."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Nie Huaisang tells him, eyes dramatically wide, like she's trying to communicate that she's the pinnacle of innocence. "I'm really a very simple girl, Jiang Cheng. If I had my way I would just split my days between making welded-metal sculptures and fucking you and nothing else."

"I'm glad you did it," Jiang Cheng says. "I like having you there."

"If you tell anyone else this silly little theory of yours," Nie Huaisang says, "I'll dump you and move out."

"Then I better keep my mouth shut," Jiang Cheng says, and kisses her once, chastely, to demonstrate how well he can do just that. "Considering you just moved in, and all."

Nie Huaisang smiles at him. Her smile is a sharp one, nearly sharklike. Jiang Cheng likes her so much.

"Good boy," she tells him.

"What the fuck," Jiang Cheng says, staring at the bathroom. Red is smeared all over the floor, the side of the tub, and the back of the toilet. There are droplets all over the tub and the shower, and there's a ring of pink around the bottom of it. "Wei WUXIAN!"

"Yeah, what's up?" she yells back, from deep within her room.

"Did you murder Lan Wangji in the bathroom???" he demands, striding down the hallway and slamming the door open. It would, he thinks as he runs a hand through his hair, be a proportional response to how annoying that man is to live with — just yesterday he had to reassure Echinacea that Lan Wangji wasn't actually judging their hookups; that that's just how his face is — but murder???! Jiang Cheng doesn't know how to cover up murder, and he's pretty sure chickens aren't the right animals for getting rid of a dead body. He—

—looks up and sees Lan Wangji lounging smarmily on Wei Wuxian's bed, one knee propped up with a book open against it. Wei Wuxian is sitting on the floor next to him, head tilted back just enough that Jiang Cheng can make out that she's wearing some new dog collar-looking choker necklace. Lan Wangji has one hand tangled in her hair.

Her newly red hair.

Jiang Cheng points at her with a shaking finger. "Bathroom duty," he tells her, darkly, trying to bring himself down from the adrenaline rush of briefly thinking he might need to help her hide a body. "I'm changing the chore chart. Bathroom duty for a month."

"By the way," Wei Wuxian says, totally ignoring him. He's going to give her bathroom duty for a year. "I saw Nie Huaisang coming out of your room again last night. What, were you feeling left out? Are you copying us?"

Jiang Cheng blinks at her. "If you check the timestamps," he says, sharply. "I think you'll find we predate you two."

"Wait," Wei Wuxian says, sitting up so fast that she winces when her hair gets yanked out by Lan Wangji's stupid fingers. "You what?!"

"You didn't notice?" Lan Wangji asks. Even with Lan Wangji's horrible expressionless existence, Jiang Cheng can read the confusion radiating off of him at Wei Wuxian's surprise. Jiang Cheng looks immediately away from him: he doesn't want to experience a communal moment about this, or anything else, with Lan Wangji.

"No," she says. "Wait — wait — Jiang Cheng??? Does this mean you're really not a virgin????"

Jiang Cheng flips her off, an act that helps settle his nerves. She's already cackling as he closes the door behind him.

Privately, he smiles.