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It’s easy to underthink certain things. The rustle in the leaves, the quietness of moonlight kissing against his exposed skin, the water lovingly chilling his heated bones. The water ripples as he walks further into the little lake, undisturbed until touched. With each step, the water settles around him again, as if making room for him within itself. The cool water helps the ache in his body, the heat just barely stopped before fizzling over. It had been building for hours now, this heat. When had it started? He had known before, but now the memory leaves him. He doesn’t remember, can’t remember anything. He barely remembers his name. The only thing he knows at all is that the water feels good.
He lets out a quiet little hum, reaching to pull the pin from the crown in his hair. He drops the slim metal pin into the water without a care in the world, watching the stillness of the water swallow the pin whole as it sinks to the bottom. The silver sits quietly, just like the rest of the lake and the forest surrounding it. A dash of moonlight hits the silver, and it shines for just a second. He smiles.
He takes a few more slow steps deeper, then dives under. The water caresses his blazing cheeks as he raises to the surface again, sweeping his hair back. It feels good, the droplets dripping from the ends of his hair and down his back. His skin was sensitive to it--to everything, although he’s sure that it normally isn’t. Even the night air felt a bit itchy, probably because of the humidity. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now, except for how sweetly the lake soothed the desperate heat centered at his core. Even the desperate place that had been throbbing and standing to attention before was calm, in the lake.
“Jiang Cheng?”
That was his name, wasn’t it? He wasn’t sure, but he turns to the voice anyway, idly humming as he ran his fingers through his hair. Something in his mind flashed with recognition. He tried to place it: the red and black robes, the pretty face, and the flute on the man’s hip. He can’t. He figures it must not matter then. He offers the man a smile, and can’t find it in himself to be offended when the man seemed concerned because of it.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Are you sick?” the man asks. Another man, in white this time, approached from behind. He must have made a noise or something, the man in black and red didn’t seem surprised to see him. Actually, he seemed rather relieved. A little spark lit up in Jiang Cheng’s chest as he watched them speak to each other--something that felt a lot like what could’ve been rage, or even jealousy. He didn’t understand the feeling at the moment, so he ignored it.
“Jiang Cheng,” the man in black and red called again. So noisy, noisy, noisy, this man in black and red. But he was pretty, so Jiang Cheng would forgive him. “What are you doing in that lake? You can’t be taking a bath, are you? It’s freezing!”
Freezing? “It feels good,” he said, “be quiet.” He swayed a hand through the water, idle. Enjoying the simplicity. The man in black and red exchanged a look with the man in white, who must have been a companion of some sort.
“How can that feel good, Jiang Cheng? You’re trembling.”
Jiang Cheng lifted his hands out of the water. They, indeed, did shake terribly. He laughed lightly, letting them drop into the water again. It was cold, they said, but he was still on fire. His core seemed to be heating by the second. An oven, fit for slowly bursting him open. Like an egg.
“That’s funny,” he told them, “I’m still burning up. Why am I still burning?” he hummed, parting his hair and dragging one side over his shoulder to wring it out. The man in black and red gasped.
“Hanguang-jun,” he said, voice taking on a strange edge as he glanced at Jiang Cheng again. That must be his friend’s title. And they must be close since neither of them had to say anything more to understand one another.
“Mn.” Hanguang-jun was already drawing his sword. Bichen, although Jiang Cheng couldn’t remember why he knew that. He couldn’t remember anything else, so why could he remember this?
The water around him dropped in temperature almost rapidly. It went from cool and soothing to nearly boiling within a matter of seconds. Jiang Cheng felt himself whine, reaching to hold his head that ached and split. The man in white was approaching him, flying quickly on that pretty blue sword of his. The heat was getting more intense, and before he could get a good look at the man in white’s face, the Earth opened to drown him.
———
“…Jiang Cheng.”
He dreamt of nothing. His dream was nothing, but he knew it was sleep.
“…Sandu Sengshou.”
The heat throbbing through his body would have been more intense if he were awake.
“…Jiang Wanyin.”
He didn’t want to wake up yet. Stop calling him.
“…A-Cheng.”
Wh. Which bastard was it that dared call him that?! He would break their legs! …Just as soon as he woke up. How did he do that again?
“…Shidi, please wake up. How long are you going to make me wait?”
There was only one man in the world who called him shidi like that and still dared to speak to him that way. It’s been years since he last heard it. He wanted to wake up, just on the off chance that man would call for him again. Just on the off chance that man had returned to who he had been, before. And if it wasn’t that man, he would break their legs for daring to speak to him that way, for daring to remind him of what he missed.
Jiang Cheng’s eyes fluttered open. Beside him, someone let out a relieved sigh. Closer inspection, once his vision cleared, proved it to be exactly who he thought it was.
“Wei Wuxian,” he mumbled.
Hearing his own voice say that name in that way: tired, quiet, and lonely, almost knocked him out again. Anger wouldn’t come to him no matter how he begged it. It stayed dormant inside. Or maybe, the way was blocked by the heat thrumming through his core. It hurt. Like his meridians were being overstuffed with cotton.
“Jiang Cheng, you scared us,” Wei Wuxian said, shifting around on the chair he sat in. Always like him, completely unable to sit still for a minute. Jiang Cheng noticed, finally, that his hand was being held in Wei Wuxian’s soft grip. Delicately, as if he were made of glass.
Disgusting.
He tried to pull his hand away. He couldn’t.
“Us?”
Lan Wangji came around from behind a bamboo screen, holding a bowl and a rag. He sat down on the edge of the bed, dipping the rag into the water. He wrung and folded the rag so the remaining water wouldn’t drip, then very lightly laid the folded rag across Jiang Cheng’s forehead. It was cool, and soothed the headache Jiang Cheng only just realized was there.
Oh right. ‘Us’.
“Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Wangji murmured, in that soothing voice of his. It should have grated on his nerves like always, but maybe it was the fever and headache that made his voice so comforting. Just hearing that timbre tone seemed to relax him, just a little.
Above him, Lan Wangji shared a curious look with Wei Wuxian that he couldn’t recognize. It took just long enough for Jiang Cheng’s heart to itch in annoyance, and then both their eyes were turning back onto him. Staying there, watching him kindly.
“Do you remember what you were bitten by?”
He was bitten? He remembered, vaguely, getting attacked by a particularly silent corpse on his way to Lanling. He never heard a sound, but suddenly there was a weight on his back. It was weak, he destroyed it quickly. It must have bitten him then.
“Only a corpse attacked me,” he said, quietly. Inside, the heat throbbed a little harder. “It was a weird, disgusting thing.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji agreed, as if he had seen it. “Can you remember what it looked like?”
This, he could remember, but only because it was so strange and out of place.
“Yes. It was pink,” his words slurred through his teeth, “and had red hearts dotted on it.”
As if his words confirmed something the two of them had been thinking, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian shared another look above him. When did they get so good at that silent communication thing? Did getting married make you develop telepathy? Stop leaving him out, damn it.
“Jiang Cheng,” His hand was squeezed lightly, Wei Wuxian’s worried face coming into his line of sight once more. “Maybe you guessed already, but that particular corpse is venomous. Do you remember when it bit you?”
Venomous, huh?
“Am I going to die..?” He mumbled. Maybe it was the death looming over him; his fingers curled, almost imperceptibly, around Wei Ying’s. Returning his stupid little hand-holding. Something disgusting fluttered around his stomach. “It was…hours ago…last I remember…’d been eight or so hours…is’ so hot…and it hurt. Just wanted to cool down some..”
Lan Wangji took the rag from his forehead, dipped, wrung, folded, and placed it lightly back where it had been. The cool water seemed to recede the rising heat, but just by a little bit.
Shamefully, Jiang Cheng noted the throbbing was mostly centered between his legs. He was thankful, then, that the blanket covering him was thick.
“We won’t let you die, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Ying murmured, “we’re going to take care of you. Okay? Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.” He was.
Wei Ying gave him an indulgent smile. “Of course you aren’t. My shidi isn’t afraid of anything.”
———
It’s just his luck he’d be bitten by a sex corpse, honestly. With all his bad luck history, it was entirely just a matter of time before something like this happened. So when Wei Ying told him about the corpse—about how it takes twenty-four hours from the initial bite to kill a full-grown man, and shidi you only have six hours left , it really didn’t surprise him at all.
There’s no cure? He’d asked, just to tempt fate, but he was wrong. There was one.
Wei Ying had scratched his cheek awkwardly. Jiang Cheng…you’re not going to like this. But well, you don’t really like anything . Which isn’t true. He likes a lot of things. His nephew, dogs, pork rib soup, Lotus Pier, being sect leader, and some days he even likes his memories of Wei Ying. But only on good days. Jiang Cheng…you can cure the venom if you Dual Cultivate with an accomplished cultivator…
In some ways, he supposes, it’s worse than death. To cure it, he had to be on the receiving end. It was humiliating just to think about, he imagined the shame would make him keel over mid-act. But he wasn’t ready to die yet. His nephew still needed him, like hell he was going to just die without fighting. Nobody needed to know except him.
It was too late to seek outside help. Wei Ying and Lan Wangji’s hut was too far out from any cultivation sect for them to make it in time. It was a miracle they even found him at that lake (what fucking lake? They refused to tell him) when they did.
“I can’t do it,” Wei Ying said, regretfully, as if Jiang Cheng would have let him in the first place. “My core is too weak in this body.”
He doesn’t want to see Wei Ying naked anyway. He thinks the differences in Wei Ying’s old and new bodies would crack him open, and something he’d tried so desperately to hide would spill out before he could stop it. The smile he’d kept secret all these years, the Atari 8-bit hero of his youth. He doesn’t even want to think about it.
So he slides his eyes to Lan Wangji. “You’re okay with this?”
“Mn. I am willing.” Lan Wangji stares back. Sometimes, Jiang Cheng is sure nothing is going on upstairs for that man. It’s almost charming.
Jiang Cheng pretends the instantaneousness of the answer doesn’t make him flush. Lucky for him, he was flushed already. Nobody will notice a little more, even if it did.
Wei Ying gives his husband a smile. One of his hands leaves Jiang Cheng’s to hold Lan Wangji’s, as if thanking him.
Jiang Cheng tries not to consider it a loss, and politely closes his eyes when the husband pair lean in to meet one another.
“We have to do this now,” Wei Ying says, and then looks into his eyes with a slight frown. “Jiang Cheng, do you…mind if I stay? I won’t watch if it bothers you, but I want to stay in case something happens.”
He’d already be facing enough shame for a lifetime, what’s a little more?
“Sure. Do whatever you want.” The smile Wei Ying gives him is almost worth it.
“You aren’t angry?”
He watches Lan Wangji rise and go to a dresser nearby as he considers Wei Ying’s question. Maybe he would have been, immediately after waking up. Something in this venom is keeping him nice and calm. He doesn’t hate it. He doesn’t like it either.
“No,” he says, after Lan Wangji returns and sits again on the edge of the bed. In his palm is a bottle of half-used slick. A flash of heat more powerful than the rest rolls over him. He tries not to think about why. “It’s not your fault I was careless. I’m too tired to be angry right now.”
“Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Wangji says, opening the bottle cap. “Strip.”
The shame hits him like a brick. Two pairs of eyes—one warm, one cold, both watching him so, so closely—pierce deep. They’re watching him for a reaction, seeing how he can behave for them.
He reaches for his lapels.
———
The weakness in his bones isn’t something he’s used to. He’s used to his body being tense, but apparently, this venom does more than make him floaty because—
“You’re doing so well, a-Cheng,” Wei Ying murmurs to him, hands lightly petting through his hair. “Doing so well. You’ve already got three inside.”
A tremor passes through his body from head to toe. In that sensitive place, he clenches around the long, delicate fingers prodding him. It drags out a quiet whine from him, not the first of its kind. He hears the smile in Wei Ying’s voice when he speaks, and the dizziness in his mind tells him he would do anything to keep it there.
“Isn’t he doing a good job, husband?”
From behind, “mn. Very well. Made to take it.”
A gasp leaves him, his ignored cock twitching and dripping onto the bed. He shivers again, clenching around those god-like fingers again.
Lan Wangji’s fingers are so much thicker than he thought they would be, with how delicate they look. He’s never done this to himself before, or had anyone else do it for that matter. Slowly pressing in, rubbing up on all the good places inside that bring him little sparks of pleasure, and then drawing out again just to repeat the process.
If this is what Wei Ying experiences when they do it, then it’s no surprise they’re married.
“Yeah,” Wei Ying sighs dreamily, lightly pulling on Jiang Cheng’s hair, “made for this.”
This is going to kill him.
Lan Wangji crooks his fingers, and there’s nothing Jiang Cheng can do to stop the loud moan that leaves him. The fingers pull out just enough to brush against his sensitive, soft rim before pressing in and rubbing that spot again. Like before, he moans, the edge coming closer and closer. Wei Ying coos above him.
“Poor thing,” he says. Jiang Cheng looks up dazedly to meet his eyes and drowns in the pretty Ruby pools that meet him shamelessly. “Already melting just for Lan Zhan’s fingers, hm? What’re you gonna do once you finally get that thick cock in you, huh? Think it’ll break your mind when he fills you up?”
The soft tone Wei Ying uses, and the press of fingers inside just a little harder than before bring him right to the very precipice. He sobs, body twitching and tensing up, hips desperately pressing down onto Lan Wangji’s fingers. Whimpering, he lifts his hips and drops them again desperately. Riding Lan Wangji’s fingers like a two-bit whore. Wants it, wants it so bad. Wants everything, everything they’re promising him.
“Please…” he whines, body twitching violently as it tries to go over the edge and can’t. “Please!” Behind him, Lan Wangji shifts his weight.
He sighs, “slut.”
Jiang Cheng comes.
It wrecks through him like a punch, whiting out his vision and making his ears ring.
Wei Ying lets out a sweet little laugh. He gently pets Jiang Cheng’s hair, loving and gentle. He hums, extending the petting down to Jiang Cheng’s back and hips as they collapse against the bed.
“Poor A-Cheng,” he coos again, “you’re so easy. If I had known you were like this, I would’ve had you ages ago. Or maybe it’s the venom making you so sweet.”
It is. It has to be, or Jiang Cheng will have to end himself to be rid of the shame.
Wei Ying leans over his back. Jiang Cheng, head in his lap, listens quietly to the sound of the two husbands kissing as he pants. He tries to recover from the world-shattering he just experienced, but the slickness on the bed sheet below him serves as more than just a reminder. With every slight movement, he twitches with overstimulation. He whimpers quietly.
“Be quiet,” Lan Wangji murmurs, and seconds later heat blooms across Jiang Cheng'S backside. He gasps, back arching as though to get away from the stinging.
What—what was that?! Did Lan Wangji just hit him?!
“H-hey, you—!” A familiar sense of rage rises in his throat as he whips his head around, but before he can say anything else, Lan Wangji spanks him again.
“Be quiet,” he says again, and when Jiang Cheng cries out he spanks him again. Then again and again and again, until Jiang Cheng’s bottom stings. He’s forced to cover his mouth to stop himself from making any noise. Not even his parents hit him like this! The shame threatens to eat him alive.
He feels like he might come again.
Wei Ying gives a breathless little laugh. There’s a pop when the cap of the lube is opened, and then a schlick schlick schlick noise that Jiang Cheng assumes is…
“My pretty Er-gege,” Wei Ying says. Jiang Cheng can’t turn around with Wei Ying leaning over him like this, but he doesn’t need to. He can feel the back and forth slide of soft knuckles against his lower back, the heat pulsing from the cock he knows that hand is stroking. He can’t dare to look and see the stupid honeymoon smiles that they haven’t lost even after five years of being married. He peeks over his shoulder anyway.
Wei Ying coos, making a tight circle around the head of Lan Wangji’s stupidly large cock with his index finger and his thumb. He strokes down as his husband pulls his hair, and makes eye contact with Jiang Cheng as he moans.
“This is for you,” he coos, slowing his pace down on Lan Wangji’s cock. He lightly slaps it against his shidi’s plump bottom. Jiang Cheng shivers. Like the devil intended, he feels his cock start to chub up again too. “Got nice and hard for you, a-Cheng. You like it?”
Before he knows it, before the question can even fully register in his mind, he’s nodding. He peeks up just a little, and whimpers when he makes eye contact with Lan Wangji.
Wei Ying laughs again, leaning back to the proper sitting position. “Good,” he coos, as he brushes his knuckles along Jiang Cheng’s cheek. The same knuckles just used to stroke his husband, it seems, as the thick scent of musk fills his lungs. It makes him whine.
“Jiang Wanyin,” Lan Wangji murmurs as he leans over him. His big hands settle onto Jiang Cheng’s hips, and next he’s looking directly into those cold, light eyes. “I’m going to fuck you now. Spread your legs.”
Jiang Cheng jolts, his thighs twitching. Spread..? Spread…right. He has to, in order to get this over with, but something about it…he feels like he would be giving something away. Something he’s not ready to part with. Like maybe spreading his legs for Lan Wangji will force him to admit this isn’t against his will, or that it’s not just Wei Ying that he’s hiding something from. He tries not to think about it.
“Shidi,” Wei Ying purrs. His fingers slide through Jiang Cheng’s hair again. He doesn’t say anything else.
Jiang Cheng swallows thickly. All he has to do is spread his legs. And then Lan Wangji will give him what he needs, and he’ll part ways with them, and he’ll never have to think about how this happened ever again. Except for when he’s alone with a hand between his legs, thinking about how the esteemed Hanguang-jun’s cock took his virginity, and how his Shixiong looked at him like that while he watched Jiang Cheng sleep with his husband.
“A-Cheng,” Lan Wangji says, and the term of use is almost as much of a shock as how he lifts one of Jiang Cheng’s legs to spank him again. “You can spread your legs or I can make you, but either way you’re getting stuffed full of my cock today.”
And just like that, he’s close to the edge again. He moans, reaching back to cling to Wei Ying’s robes. He whines, squeezing his eyes shut while he slowly drops his legs open just the tiniest inch.
“Good boy.” Lan Wangji’s hands lightly press against his inner thigh, encouraging him to open them more. When there’s room enough, Lan Wangji dips his fingers into the slick again. He rubs it crudely against Jiang Cheng’s rim and seems pleased with the whimper it induces. He lines himself up and glances up at his husband.
Jiang Cheng guesses it’s a last-ditch effort to make sure Wei Ying isn’t horribly against this. He looks up too, to see his reaction, but finds instead that Wei Ying had been looking at him the whole time instead. Jiang Cheng shivers as his cock drools onto his belly.
He looks down again as he feels that heavy, thick cockhead press against his hole. Lan Wangji presses Jiang Cheng’s thighs up and down, then looks up to meet his eyes as he presses inside. Jiang Cheng sees nothing but heat and fire in the normally cool and collected Lan Wangji. He gasps, slamming his head back as his eyes go wide.
It’s so thick, spreading him apart in his deepest place. The head gets caught on his rim, it’s so—Jiang Cheng tries to squirm away, it’s so much, it’s so much . He’s gonna—
Lan Wangji grabs his waist and yanks him back, forcing his hips down on the bed. Jiang Cheng feels him move just enough to tug on his hole, the electric sparks flashing through his entire system. Tears burst into his eyes as Lan Wangji snarls.
“A-Cheng is doing so wonderfully,” Wei Ying coos, “swallowing Lan Zhan’s cock so well.”
“I can’t!” Jiang Cheng sobs, “I can’t, I can’t!”
Instead of Wei Ying, the one that answers him is Lan Wangji, shoving his cock in roughly as he snarls, “you will.”
Jiang Cheng screams as his world blights out for the second time, legs twitching as cum splurts out across his chest and stomach. He knows he’s drooling, eyes rolling back, and wonders what he looks like to his Shixiong and his always poised Hanguang-Jun. He’ll never be able to live this down, he thinks, feeling his greedy hole fluttering around the throbbing intrusion.
“Sshhhhhh…” he sobs, trying to force out the word. He feels wetness on his cheek, his legs going limp as he comes down from his orgasm. “Shhhhixiong, Shixiong, Shixiong..”
Wei Ying groans, lightly caressing Jiang Cheng’s cheek. Wiping away tears, probably. “I’m here, shidi,” he murmurs, a heat to his voice that Jiang Cheng wants to believe is arousal, “you’re doing so well for us. Taking it so well. You’ve almost got Lan Zhan’s whole cock in you.”
He whines, clinging to his Shixiong for dear life as he glances down again. He can barely see straight, but he sees just well enough to get a good look at Lan Zhan. Head tipped back, ears red, brows furrowed like he’s trying to get ahold of himself. When he hears his name, Lan Zhan looks down again, panting softly.
“Perfect slut,” he says, eliciting a whimper, and presses his hand down on Jiang Cheng’s stomach. He whines loudly, feeling the way Lan Wangji’s cock twitches inside. The way his own cock twitches, as if replying with interest in kind, almost hurts. It’s too soon for him to get it up again but damn if his body doesn’t want to try. His whole body seems to be working towards the one sole purpose of being good for his shixiong and his shixiong’s husband. Wei Ying hums, lightly holding Jiang Cheng’s jaw, thumb rubbing slowly back and forth over his cheek.
“He likes feeling himself move inside,” he says. Jiang Cheng thinks he might faint. He bends to kiss Jiang Cheng’s forehead softly, then looks to Lan Zhan. “Okay, husband, start moving now. Give our A-Cheng what he wants.”
The world whites out again. Our . Our A-Cheng.
He hears a groan, the weight inside of him slowly pulling out. He sobs, instinctively squeezing his legs around Lan Wangji’s waist to keep him inside. Wei Ying reaches to hold his legs open, looking down at him with a smile.
“Poor, sweet A-Cheng.” His hands hold the back of Jiang Cheng’s knees with no effort, almost like he weighs no more than a few grapes and holds no more strength than a mere kitten. It gets his cock twitching in interest again. Then, to his husband, “go on.”
With permission, Lan Wangji seems to let go of whatever hesitation he was holding onto. He groans, fucking into Jiang Cheng roughly. Using him to chase his own pleasure.
Wei Ying coos, “that’s my good husband. Go on, fuck him as hard as you want. His pussy can take it.”
Jiang Cheng moans, holding onto Wei Ying's robes so tight he swears it rips. But the way his cock springs to life when his shixiong calls his…down there…a pussy… he’s never gotten harder so quickly in his life.
“Husband,” Lan Wangji grunts, jamming his cock as deep into that perfect slut as he can get, not bothering to care if Jiang Cheng was uncomfortable. If he were, Wei Ying would say something, surely, and Lan Zhan would have to listen. “Husband, it feels good.”
Wei Ying unties his belt and opens his robes just enough to expose his bare chest. He coos around the sounds of his shidi’s pleasure-crying, “what feels good, A-Zhan?”
Lan Zhan grunts, mounting over Jiang Cheng a little more, taking over Wei Ying’s place and holding their A-Cheng’s thighs open. He groans again, balls slapping as he fucks. “My cock. In A-Cheng’s pussy.”
Wei Ying smiles, lifting himself onto his knees. Jiang Cheng gives a confused little whine around his sobs, then moans as Wei Ying releases his own cock from its confines. He shivers, hand wrapping around himself and jerking roughly at the same pace that Lan Zhan thrusts.
“You hear that, A-Cheng?” He coos, pausing to grunt as he strokes himself. “Making A-Zhan feel so good, aren’t you? Such a good boy. Good boy. Gonna come for us a third time?”
Jiang Cheng sobs, clenching tight around Lan Wangji’s cock inside him. He is going to come a third time for them, it’s coming so fast, he can feel it rushing towards him.
“Please!” He sobs, or tries to. “Inside, please! Shixiong!”
Both of them groan, Lan Zhan’s hips stuttering for just a moment.
“Who knew our A-Cheng would be so sweet for us,” he pants, pressing in deep and grinding roughly against Jiang Cheng’s rim, just to hear the way the boy’s moan turns into a high-pitched keen.
“I’ve been telling you that forever now,” Wei Ying pants, and of course he’s right. “We can’t say no when shidi is begging so prettily, can we? Cum inside, a-Zhan. Fill him up. Make him feel better.”
And just like that Jiang Cheng is coming again, the forceful pleasure being punched into his body peaking as high as it can go and slamming back down into him. His back arches, hips moving to meet Lan Wangji’s thrusts, desperately chasing more pleasure even as his body sings.
He feels something warm flow into him in spurts, and the recognition that Lan Wanji came inside him makes him seize up again.
Vaguely he recognizes his shixiong’s voice, the loving hands that pet his hair, and the second batch of warmth that paint his chest, but he’s completely incapable of registering anything anymore. His body goes limp, the darkness encroaching too closely on the moments he wants to remember .
—
Time passes. Or so it must, because Jiang Cheng opens his eyes when he doesn’t remember closing them. There’s a pleasant ache in his body, void of any overbearing heat or unwanted arousal. He feels…good. He doesn’t feel any of the nightmare residue that he normally feels after waking up. He doesn’t feel any body pain, and— most importantly, he doesn’t feel any stickiness. He counts this as a win.
He tries not to think about it. But he thinks about it anyway. How he woke up alone. Clean and draped in soft bedding, but alone.
Of course, he did.
What, did he think they were going to open their arms to him for good? Did he think they meant anything they said during sex? Rookie mistake, that one.
He’s glad he means enough to them that they didn’t want him to die, even if it meant having sex with someone like him.
Tiny, insignificant, worthless him.
He tries not to think about it.
Instead, he thinks about how many times he embarrassed himself during that whole ordeal, and lets the rage start to boil in his stomach. He’s glad for it since it means he’s back to normal. He lets it pulse in his stomach, lets it boil his insides, his feelings, his tender memories away.
What, ‘I want to remember this’? What, ‘I can be good for them’? What, ‘anything’? Nothing. None of it matters. He’s angry. He’s angry, damn it!
He wipes the tears on his face away like they’re the bane of his existence, then freezes as he hears a scraping sound. He pulls the covers up to hide his face, tries to look natural about it.
He’s asleep, he’s asleep, he’s asleep. He’s asleep, so don’t notice him, okay!!!
The whispering voices come closer with every quiet step and soft rustle of clothing. He can’t quite hear what they’re saying yet.
“…can’t sleep like that,” he’s sure that’s Wei Ying. He has a smile in his voice. Jiang Cheng squeezes his eyes shut and resolutely does. Not. Think. “…not sleeping, just resting……..feel lonely…….when he wakes up.”
“Mn.”
….what the hell, Wei Wuxian!! How can you think he’s really asleep!! There are a few soft smacks of lips, then footsteps approaching a little more.
“You went too hard on him,” Wei Ying whispers, sitting down on one side of the bed. There’s a thump, then another, like shoes falling to the floor. The bed dips. Jiang Cheng peeks an eye open to see Wei Ying arranging his shoes properly by the bed. “Aiya, Lan Zhan, don’t look at me like that. Come on, we’re resting.”
He closes his eyes again as Wei Ying turns back. The bed dips in two places this time, the weights getting heavier as they settle down on the sides of him. The warmth at his back hugs his waist. The warmth at his front presses a soft kiss to his forehead.
“A-Cheng,” Lan Wangji murmurs to him from behind, soft and directly into his ear. “Go back to sleep.”
Oh. So they did know he was awake. Helpful to know. He sighed, peeking his eyes open just in time to see Wei Ying entwine his fingers with Lan Wangji’s on his hip. He looks up and finds a radiant smile. Warm, like the sun, directed at him. The free hand of Jiang Cheng’s Heart comes to wipe the tear tracks on his cheeks away. The lips of Jiang Cheng’s soul press against the back of his neck softly.
“There’s our A-Cheng…go back to sleep, now.” He doesn’t know who spoke. It doesn’t matter.
How can he continue to worry, with the two of them looking at him like that? Talking to him like that? Like he’s their whole world, perfect and pretty and theirs. Decidedly, Jiang Cheng doesn’t think about it. He’s afraid the contentment might wake him up.
So, he sleeps.