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eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year

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Honey-Sweet and Heavy

3zun extra for Tales From Jianghu Shopping Center - some of y'all were interested in how Meng Yao / 3zun fits into this universe and now, months after I answered the ask about it (I just scrolled to check, it was mid-July holy shit) I'm answering that question with fic! And I'm definitely not procrastinating my schoolwork, nope nope nope!

[Masterpost] [AO3]

-/-

JUNE

As is unfortunately common for Meng Yao’s Wednesday nights, the first thought he has at roughly 8:47pm is hands, hands, hands in a sort of… mildly obsessive loop that only ends when he forces himself to tip his head back enough to instead see (and think) shoulders, shoulders, shoulders . It feels like he has to tip his head back as far as it can go before he finally sees the guy’s face, but unfortunately he’s handsome enough that that’s not much better than drooling over his stupid massive hands, or his even more idiotically broad shoulders.

“Hey,” Gym Guy says, friendly enough around the way he can’t seem to ever talk like he’s isn’t two seconds away from getting pissed off.

“Hey. The usual?” Two loads for the wash. Pre-soak, hot wash, hot rinse, extra rinse on cold, spin dry. One load for the dryer, 80 minutes, extra-dry. No soap needed, he brings his own. Dryer sheets, yes, he never remembers to snag them from his house on his way out.

“Yep.”

Meng Yao has the change – in quarters, of course – for his $10 bill (minus a buck) and a couple of dryer sheets ready to slide across the counter before Gym Guy even pulls out his wallet.

“4 and 5 are free if you want, and you can throw it all in dryer 1 when they’re done washing. The others aren’t running as hot as they should, you’ll probably end up with some stuff still damp otherwise.”

As usual, Gym Guy thanks him with a gruff little nod (that Meng Yao tends to ride the high of for the rest of his shift) before he turns and hauls two enormous canvas bags of laundry through the dingy laundromat like they don’t weigh anything at all. Meng Yao watches him and wonders if the guy could bench press him. He definitely looks like he could, anyway.

Meng Yao allows himself roughly four minutes to watch Gym Guy as he bends over and loads armfuls of towels and a few random odds and ends of clothing into the two industrial-sized washing machines conveniently located straight ahead from the counter behind which he’s perched. Any longer than four minutes and he knows the likelihood of him being able to look away (preferably without getting caught) decreases dramatically, so he never allows himself to look longer.

When his four minutes (and extra forty-seven seconds, he’s had a hard day okay?) are up, Meng Yao regretfully looks away from the shift of Gym Guy’s muscles through his gray t-shirt advertising his gym and goes back to the busy work he’d assigned himself for the night, expressly for the purpose of distracting him from Gym Guy. Not that he doesn’t typically end up doing way more than his job description entails, of course, but Gym Guy is distracting enough that Meng Yao has to actually assign himself something in order to avoid making a fool out of himself.

He settles in to go back to his project with a little creak of the wood-and-vinyl stool underneath him, the clanking of quarters dropping into the metal collection boxes followed by the hum and slosh of first one machine and then the other helping to soothe some of the adrenaline-spiked energy humming under his skin.

So long as Gym Guy stays on the other side of the (admittedly very small) space and minds his own business, Meng Yao can usually tune him out about halfway through the wash cycle, if his task is engrossing enough. This late on a Wednesday night they’re usually the only ones in the laundromat, though every other week one of the nurses from the hospital in town comes in off her back-to-back graveyard shifts to run all of her scrubs through the same sort of sanitizing wash Gym Guy uses for his stuff. She’s cute, Meng Yao has noticed, and she’s always nice, if a little tired around the edges. He’d be lying if he said he hasn’t noticed that Gym Guy never bothers flirting with her even when she’d shown tentative interest in him at first.

He’s having a harder time ignoring Gym Guy’s presence tonight, but that’s got more to do with being unable to concentrate as well as he usually can than anything else. Gym Guy is sitting where he always does in one of the too-small plastic chairs by the front windows pretending to pay attention to QVC playing on the small TV up in the corner, perfectly within the usual respectful distance he always keeps. Meng Yao’s just tired tonight, having interrupted his own sleep schedule, such as it is, to finally go and visit his father just on the other side of town earlier this afternoon before the start of his shift. The twinge in his ribs and his hip remind him that he should have probably decided to do it on one of his few days off, but then again he hadn’t exactly expected his father to have him thrown down the front steps without even letting him in the door of his house, either.

At least, he muses in relief, he hadn’t tried to go see him down at Golden Carp. Of course he knows now that his father probably wouldn’t have made such a spectacle out of him if he’d had so many witnesses around that aren’t his immediate family, but then again…a man willing to kick his own son down the stairs where anyone out walking their dog might have seen probably wouldn’t care who sees it anyway. (He supposes that if he had gone to Golden Carp at least there wouldn’t have been any stairs to send him toppling down, but hindsight’s 20/20 and all that.)

It’s just past 9 when the jangling of the phone ringing at the other end of the counter shakes Meng Yao out of his less-than-pleasant contemplation on his sorry lot in life. He winces as he stands from the stool to pick it up, the quiet clatter of the plastic handset against the base barely audible over the sloshing and chugging of Gym Guy’s wash cycles.

“Fitz’s 24-hour Coin-op Laundry,” Meng Yao answers through a hitching breath as his ribs – most likely fractured, he thinks – resettle. “How can I help you?”

Meng Yao has less than a second to brace himself and jerk the receiver away from his face for the sake of his poor eardrum before the owner of the laundromat starts shouting loudly enough at him that he senses Gym Guy’s attention shifting from the TV to him. Great.

He lets the tirade go on for as long as he can stand before he attempts to cut in and maybe, if he’s lucky, defuse the bomb that is his boss’s notorious temper. This time of night he’s probably at least a full 12-pack into his usual 24-pack night, though, so Meng Yao’s hopes aren’t high.

“Mr Jameson - Mr - I didn’t - Mr Jameson I promise it won’t happen again -”

Meng Yao sighs well away from the receiver and turns his back to the rest of the laundromat, the cord stretching across his chest with the movement. He tangles his fingers between a few of the tight curls in it and clutches hard enough that his knuckles ache ever so slightly.

Finally, there’s a long enough break in the vitriol for Meng Yao to hurry and attempt to explain, “Mr Jameson. As I said this afternoon, I apologize for being late. I understand that it created difficulties for Anne, it was not my intention to make her late to pick up her children from daycare. I had a..a family emergency that required medical attention, it won’t be happening aga-“

Meng Yao gives in and hides his eyes behind his free hand as his boss gains a second wind and resumes shouting, something about how that’s no excuse, that unless he’d broken bones himself there was no reason not to be on time (as if on cue, his ribs and hip protest the fact that he’s currently upright and standing on a hard tile-and-concrete floor). Meng Yao attempts several more times to cut in to apologize further, but in the end it’s useless.

He sets the phone down carefully on the countertop and takes two shallow, grounding breaths before turning back to the room at large. It is, mercifully, still only occupied by Gym Guy.

Unfortunately, Gym Guy is looking right at him – glaring, actually – and Meng Yao ducks his head quickly rather than face that head-on. As quietly as he can he drags his stool and his filing project closer to the phone and settles down again, lips pressed tightly together around the possibility of a pained noise escaping his control. Meng Yao keeps an ear out for convenient places to demur a quiet, “Yes, Mr Jameson,” in between all the slights to his character and his (impeccable, unnecessarily driven, unusual) disappointing work ethic, but for the most part he turns his attention back to his project for something of a distraction.

Eventually, Mr Jameson’s tirade peters out enough for Meng Yao to lift the phone to his ear again and actually get a few words in edgewise. “I’m sorry for my…unsatisfactory behavior, Mr Jameson,” he lies through his teeth, “But please rest assured that I will not allow this to happen again. If you’ll excuse me, I have customers to attend to.”

Meng Yao returns the phone to its cradle before Mr Jameson can rally enough to start again and he closes his eyes in relief, hand still resting on the receiver as he exhales, long and slow just like Meng Shi taught him.

“That happen a lot?” Gym Guy’s voice is a low rumble under the sloshing of the washing machines and a too-chipper bottle blonde on the TV espousing the many benefits of a Casio label printer (“Look how easy it could be to label all your folders in just a couple easy steps!” If he had 90 bucks he’d buy the thing in a heartbeat).

“Me being late or Mr Jameson yelling?”

“The yelling. You don’t seem the type to run late.”

“The yelling, pretty regularly, yes, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. As for running late – I don’t. Ever . Today I just…”

“Family emergency.” Gym Guy nods like he gets it, like he knows exactly what happened despite Meng Yao not breathing a word of it to anyone at all. “No explanation needed as far as I’m concerned, especially if it’s not something you make a habit out of.”

Meng Yao blinks and tries to think of something clever to say, but between such a long stressful day and Gym Guy’s close proximity outside of their typical routine when he first arrives and Meng Yao can be prepared for it, Meng Yao’s thoughts are feeling a little too scrambled to be very clever at the moment.

“Right. Yeah. Thanks..?” Meng Yao trails off a little with a bit of a leading tone in his voice, and finally - after a frankly embarrassingly long time - Gym Guy seems to realize that they don’t actually know each other. He hurries to stick out one of his stupid enormous hands that Meng Yao has his little weekly crises over, and Meng Yao can’t be sure but it looks like his cheeks might be just a touch pink in the unflattering glow of the halogen lights overhead.

“Nie Mingjue.”

Meng Yao slips his hand into Nie Mingjue’s and absolutely does not have a second, slightly smaller crisis over how small his own palm is in comparison. That’s just the same crisis in a different flavor, it barely counts.

“Well thank you, Nie Mingjue.”

“Anytime.”

Gym Guy – Nie Mingjue, he mentally corrects himself, though he’s pretty sure he’ll always be ‘Gym Guy’ in his head – goes back to his seat by the TV set, Meng Yao returns to his filing, and just like that their usual weekly pattern resumes.

Right up until Nie Mingjue leaves a business card behind on his way out, with what seems to be a pager number scribbled on the back with the same shitty blue ballpoint pen Glenda down the street uses for her crosswords every Sunday evening.

-/-

“Let me get this straight,” Lan Xichen begins, poorly concealing a laugh behind his indulgent smile, and Nie Mingjue grumbles at him as he focuses on flipping a massive pancake with an expert flick of his wrist.

“Must you?”

“Well yes, darling, because it’s a bit unclear. You went to do the gym laundry on Wednesday evening like usual, yes?”

“Yes,” Nie Mingjue agrees begrudgingly, with the feeling that he’s walking into a trap.

“And the same young man who always mans the counter was there, but he seemed like he wasn’t feeling well?”

“No, he looked like he was injured . He wasn’t moving right.” Nie Mingjue ignores the amused little hum Lan Xichen offers in response to that. (It’s not weird to know how someone moves! It’s his job to make sure he keeps an eye on how people are moving, to make sure that he can prevent injuries before they happen or else prevent existing injuries from worsening. It’s normal!)

“So he was injured, but you didn’t ask about it because it would be rude and possibly a little…alarming to tell him that you’ve noticed him moving differently than usual. That much I understand. And then he got a phone call?”

Nie Mingjue grunts an assent before he elaborates. “Sounded like it was Mark Jameson. Fucking hate that guy.” The pancake takes the brunt of his irritation as he flips it perhaps too aggressively onto the plate waiting next to the griddle. He places a few sliced strawberries beside it much less aggressively and turns to set the plate in front of his boyfriend where he’s perched at the bar counter, and the kiss to his cheek Lan Xichen gives him soothes him only a little.

“And this would be the Mark Jameson who makes a nuisance of himself at every City Commerce Board meeting, and is generally belligerent to anyone and everyone no matter the circumstances?”

“That’s the one.”

“I see. So Mark Jameson, the belligerent drunk who owns the laundromat whom you hate, called to yell at this very polite and wonderful young man whom you quite like – who always knows precisely what you want without you having to say it anymore after having only told him once before, nearly a year ago. And Mr Jameson berated him for upwards of 20 minutes within your hearing?”

Nie Mingjue glares daggers at the new circle of batter bubbling sluggishly on the only functional hot spot on the griddle, mildly pissed that it isn’t ready to flip yet so he can’t vent his anger that way again so soon.

“Yes. And then like I already said , Meng Yao told me that Jameson yells at him all the time despite the fact that every time I see him he’s doing exactly what it seems like he should be – and more! He’s always doing something to keep himself busy, not just reading a magazine or watching the TV to pass the time, even when it’s just the two of us in there and I clearly don’t need anything.”

“And so you offered him a job instead…to get him away from Mr Jameson?”

Nie Mingjue huffs and feels his neck heat up because, well…Lan Xichen does have a point in not being able to follow the thread from there. Because no, Nie Mingjue hadn’t.. quite ..offered him a job.

“I left my card,” he mutters and flips the pancake even though it’s still too early. Almost half of it sticks to the griddle he’d forgotten to grease between pancakes, but since he’ll be eating this one he doesn’t bother caring. “With my number on it.”

“The landline at the gym?”

“...My beeper.”

There’s a beat of silence save for the quiet sizzle of his pancake, and then Lan Xichen bursts into delighted giggles so infectious that Nie Mingjue can’t even be upset with him. It is fairly ridiculous after all, especially since he hadn’t even given Meng Yao the card directly but had instead just left it on the seat he always uses, the one with the best view of the TV up in the corner as well as the farthest from the counter to avoid possibly making Meng Yao uncomfortable when they’re alone late into the evenings.

He flips his pancake onto the second waiting plate and lets Lan Xichen douse it in syrup and whipped cream for him – their shared tendency to eat healthily is nowhere to be seen when they eat breakfast together at the Nie house (and need the extra calories anyway) – and thankfully then Lan Xichen is too busy kissing whipped cream and sugared strawberry juice from his lips to bother him anymore about his awkward attempts at getting Meng Yao out of what’s clearly a tough spot.

But then, come Monday morning, he discovers that for some reason it actually worked .

“Nie Mingjue,” Meng Yao greets him when Nie Mingjue shows up at 6:30am on the dot to start getting the gym ready to open at 7. He’s standing in front of the doors, hands clasped tightly together in front of him, anxiety written into every line of his body as Nie Mingjue approaches.

“Meng Yao.”

They stare at each other for a moment in the clammy early June humidity already clinging to the small of Nie Mingjue’s back before Meng Yao sucks in a sharp breath and sticks a hand out between them, Nie Mingjue’s business card pinched neatly between his first two fingers.

“Nie Mingjue, I’m flattered and everything but-”

“Come work for me.”

Nie Mingjue blinks as the half-finished rejection registers, and Meng Yao blinks up at him looking both similarly startled and just as uncertain how to proceed.

“Excuse me?” Meng Yao finally manages with his usual smile pinched into place. Nie Mingjue clears his throat and comforts himself with the fact that the Unclean Realm is the earliest business in the strip mall to open, so no one in this gossiping little micro-community he has to see on a daily basis is present to witness him already blundering his way through something that should be so simple.

“I can tell you work hard, and your memory seems pretty fucking good. Jameson’s an asshole who can’t see a good thing when he’s staring one right in the face, let alone appreciate what he’s got, so..if you’re interested…”

“A job,” Meng Yao repeats in a way that should probably be a question. Nie Mingjue nods just in case it was meant to be one even though it didn’t quite sound like it. “Here. Doing what, exactly?”

Nie Mingjue shrugs a bit and crosses his arms over his chest, though he drops them again instantly (Lan Xichen has told him it makes him look intimidating, and the last thing he wants to do is scare Meng Yao off). “Front of house? I run a few courses throughout the week, but it’s hard to find time to do all the administrative parts of it when I’m also running the classes and doing personal training sessions in between them. Members can pay their dues any day throughout the month, which can get tough to keep track of amongst everything else. I’ve got electricity bills and rent to pay, documents from the last…oh, ten years or so? that should really be filed properly…”

Nie Mingjue trails off into amused silence at the downright dreamy look that’s crept over Meng Yao’s expression. It takes a few long seconds – in which a single rustbucket car passes by on the main road off to the left already blaring something loud and grungy despite the hour – before Meng Yao seems to give himself a little shake and the dreamy expression is gone, replaced by his usual polite smile.

“I was under the impression that your brother assists you?” Meng Yao asks, and Nie Mingjue is once again impressed with his ability to recall even the most insignificant details he’d probably mentioned in passing months or more ago.

“Stick around and try it out for a week and you’ll understand exactly why I need you instead.”

That dreamy look slips back in for a fraction of a second before it’s gone again so quickly Nie Mingjue wonders if he imagined it. Between one second and the next, though, Meng Yao is once again holding out his hand, although this time there’s nothing caught between his fingers. Cautiously, mildly afraid of spooking him, Nie Mingjue reaches across the distance between them to shake Meng Yao’s hand a couple times.

“When should I start?” Meng Yao asks. Nie Mingjue can’t do anything at all to stop the smug smirk that twitches at the corner of his lips at the thought of telling Lan Xichen he didn’t actually fuck this up at all.

“Soon as you want? I don’t think Mark Jameson is the kind of bastard who deserves a two-week notice and it’s not like I’ll be calling him for a reference anyway, but I’ll leave that up to you.”

“I’d like to not burn bridges if I don’t have to, so I’ll at least work out a week’s notice, if that’s alright?” Meng Yao hedges, nervous around the edges. “And I’m assuming this isn’t another night shift gig-”

Nie Mingjue winces just a little and shakes his head, abruptly remembering that while his day’s just beginning, at this time of morning Meng Yao must be practically ready to pass out after a full shift through the night at the laundromat.

“Days, yeah. You don’t have to come in as early as I do if you don’t want to, though.”

Meng Yao hums without comment, but Nie Mingue thinks he can safely assume, even from the little that he knows about the other man, that he’ll be there every morning at 6:30, on the dot, just like him.

“And next week works just fine,” Nie Mingjue adds to be on the safe side. Meng Yao’s shoulders relax a little more and Nie Mingjue finds himself feeling a little smug about that too. It’s a nice feeling to know he can actually make someone feel relaxed (besides Lan Xichen, everyone else tends to get a bit…wary when he’s around. Even [or maybe especially] his own brother).

“Will you need an extra day or two after to get your sleep schedule switched around?”

“I can fix it quickly. I’ll be in a week from today.”

Meng Yao leaves just like that with a sweet smile up at him in parting, seeming…lighter than he has every other time their paths have crossed. Nie Mingjue watches him go with something like satisfaction tugging at the corner of a little smile of his own.

Lan Xichen’s poorly-concealed surprise (and his fond amusement) when Nie Mingjue tells him the news is only surpassed by the betrayed glare Nie Huaisang gives him when he tells his brother he’s being replaced (but that it does not give him an excuse to stop showing up at the gym entirely!).

-/-

AUGUST

It somehow always manages to catch Lan Xichen by surprise that the hottest days of summer are so late in the year. When June sweeps in on thunderheads and blistering winds after the cool rains of May it seems like that must be the hottest the days will become, sticky and threatening with rumbles off in the distance, felt more than heard. Or when July burns hot enough to turn the sky white and the asphalt cracks apart between puddles of shimmering heat, and the kids from the apartments down the street all dare each other to see if they can really fry an egg on the blacktop before Madam Yu or Lan Qiren chases them off with a round of scolding – surely those days are the peak of summer?

But then August comes, with its golden days that melt into molasses evenings, the sun rising in a flurry of hot winds and lingering high overhead for long hours, refusing to set properly until well after the fireflies have settled back into the rustling yellowed grass for the night and the trees are holding their breath, waiting for the brief respite of a hot sticky night before the sun burns overhead again.

Lan Xichen stands at the front windows of Cloud Recesses and looks across the foreboding expanse of the parking lot – that reminds him of nothing today so much as the griddle Nie Mingjue makes them pancakes on every Sunday morning – towards the squat bulk of the Unclean Realm Fitness Center with a sort of restless itching under his skin that he doesn’t think he can blame on the thin layer of sweat-salt dusting his back and arms.

“I’d like to have dinner at Lotus Pier tonight,” he tells Lan Qiren when his Uncle finishes locking up the safe in the back for the night. “I heard from Wangji that they made a big batch of liang mian for lunch and offered the leftovers to anyone who wants them for dinner tonight.”

Lan Qiren just nods and glares out at the heat mirages winking in the cups and dips of the parking lot that’s badly in need of re-tarring it’ll probably never see. “I’ll make some tonight with cucumber and sesame for you and Wangji to eat tomorrow, you shouldn’t eat anything hot with the weather like this.”

“Thank you, Uncle, that would be appreciated.”

“Hmph. Be home by midnight.”

“Yes Uncle,” Lan Xichen agrees easily. Perhaps most would think he should chafe at being in his 20’s and still beholden to a curfew, but anyone who would think such things wouldn’t have had Lan Qiren for a guardian as a teenager and known how short the leash could be. (Besides, he knows his Uncle can’t sleep until he and Wangji are both home safe, and the curfew is more out of courtesy to him and his sleep schedule than it is any desire to control Lan Xichen’s freedom too much.)

Lan Qiren offers another nod and allows Lan Xichen to open the door for him, heat billowing into the cold vacuum of the shop and heating Lan Xichen’s face. They live close enough to the Jianghu Center to walk to and from work, and so Lan Xichen lingers there at the windows until he sees Lan Qiren disappear across the street and around the corner, headed for their tree-dense neighborhood, and only then does he turn his attention back to the windowed front of the Unclean Realm – where he spots Meng Yao’s teasing glance through the door over the sign he deftly flips over to ‘Closed’ with a smile.

Lan Xichen does not, as a general rule, scramble . Lan Qiren raised him and Lan Wangji to carry themselves with dignity. They even both took ballet lessons as children to help with such important things as grace, and balance, and giving Lan Qiren free time three evenings a week to gossip with the aunties who run the Asian market down the street.

He does, however, hurry (gracefully) to finish locking up the shop and head across the parking lot to that beckoning gaze, the lingering heat of the day settling under his skin like the pleased flush already darkening his ears.

“Hello A-Yao,” he greets as warmly as the air outside as he shuts and locks the door to the gym behind himself.

“Hi Er-ge. You’re so…prompt,” Meng Yao teases him with a smile and a pointed tap of a sheaf of papers on his desk to align them. Lan Xichen can’t even remotely deny it, so instead he shrugs (gracefully) and offers up an unapologetic smile.

“Where’s A-Sang?”

“Jiang Cheng took him out for dinner and then they’re going to the arcade, I believe.”

“Didi’s been running his mouth off for weeks about getting the highest score in Dragon’s Lair, so Jiang Cheng told him he has to either do it again to prove it or else shut the fuck up,” Nie Mingjue calls through the open door to his office behind the front desk. “And we’re all very grateful.”

“I see,” Lan Xichen laughs with a lift of his chin and Meng Yao dimples up at him so sweetly that Lan Xichen doesn’t resist the urge to lean over the vinyl counter displaying the gym’s name and logo to press a shy kiss to his cheek. This… thing that the three of them are apparently doing for real – for the long haul – is still new enough that it sets his stomach fluttering each time he remembers he’s allowed to show such little affections, and judging by the way Meng Yao blushes he’s similarly shy but equally as pleased to be doted on.

He leaves Meng Yao tidying up his workspace for the evening and continues on into Nie Mingjue’s office to give his other boyfriend a kiss to his cheek as well, one that’s more comfortable, like coming home at the end of a long day, but no less thrilling for the mundanity of it.

“Hi,” Nie Mingjue greets, happy and soft around the edges, so Lan Xichen kisses him again on his forehead and lingers long enough to taste the salt on his skin. Their air conditioner has long since been fixed, of course, but Meng Yao’s administrative skills (and eagerness to help with any other tasks that need doing) means that Nie Mingjue is now able to teach classes all day long, and no amount of AC in the world can completely combat the sort of rigorous workout Nie Mingjue now gets on a daily basis.

“Hello darling. Will I go get things set up out back?”

“Yeah sure, but there’s not much to do. The chairs are still set up from last time, just need the noodles from next door. A-Yao’s already got the Igloo under the desk stocked up, I’ll take it out when we’re done in here.”

Lan Xichen, pleased to have a task that’ll help keep him from distracting either of his boyfriends as they finish up for the day, heads over to Lotus Pier to snag the noodles Jiang Yanli had at some point this afternoon portioned out nicely for everyone in the shopping center in a small army of takeout containers topped with paper-wrapped chopsticks, and he makes sure to thank her as he snags the containers labeled for his family, the Nie brothers, and Meng Yao. She gives him a wave and a sweet smile from over the sizzling wok she’s dutifully manning despite the heat of the day, but in the interest of not distracting her during the start of the dinner rush he doesn’t linger for a chat like he otherwise might. As he crosses back over to the gym he’s pleased to hear the rattling and creaking of the deck chairs Nie Mingjue now keeps stashed outside the utility door for evenings just like this.

Lan Xichen rounds the corner of the building and smiles to see Nie Mingjue just getting settled into his preferred seat, a lounger that someone (probably the Jiang brothers during an ill-advised nighttime spree with Nie Huaisang) stole from the local pool. Wherever it came from, it now serves as a perfect place for Nie Mingjue to stretch out his tired muscles and soak up the honey heat of the evening to relax. Lan Xichen lingers just out of sight to watch Meng Yao smile at him as he perches in his lap to pass him a beer, the brown glass bottle already covered in citrine crystals, droplets of condensation reflecting the same sun that limns them both in late-summer gold.

“Ah, our beloved hero returns,” Meng Yao says happily when he spots him. “And with enough noodles to feed an entire army, Da-ge!”

“They’re not all for us, but I figured it’s no use bothering them twice during the dinner rush to fetch everyone else’s,” Lan Xichen answers magnanimously with a little slap to Nie Mingjue’s grasping hand reaching for the container marked ‘Teacher Lan’. He doles out the proper containers quickly, sets the rest safely out of reach of Nie Mingjue pinned under Meng Yao, and settles into his creaking chair with a happy sigh, more than content to enjoy their presence as they eat together in companionable silence.

Unsurprisingly, Nie Mingjue finishes his portion first. Lan Xichen watches in amused silence as he sets his container aside, drains his beer in a few long pulls with swallows that make his pronounced adam’s apple bob, and then sets that aside as well to leave his hands free to start feeling up Meng Yao almost lazily. Lan Xichen settles in with one leg crossed primly over the other, elbows on the hard metal arms of his pool chair, and smirks around his next bite to see Meng Yao pout and swat half-heartedly at Nie Mingjue’s shamelessly roaming hands.

“I’m eating , Da-ge,” he scolds, his wrist in front of his lips to attempt to stay polite while talking with his mouth full, and Nie Mingjue’s happy chuckling settles something deep in Lan Xichen’s chest. He’d worried when they’d started this that he would grow jealous after spending so long pursuing his best friend and having really only just caught him for keeps, but so far he’s only been happy that there’s one more person in Nie Mingjue’s life who can make him laugh and feel as adored as he deserves (and who laughs and allows them to adore him in return, as well).

“I’m not stopping you from eating, A-Yao, and this is your fault for flirting with me all day when I couldn’t do anything about it anyway.”

“I was not flirting , I was picking up after your class of heathens left their pads and foam blocks all over the floor!”

“And how did you know which incident I was talking about specifically if you weren’t sticking your ass out on purpose to rile me up, huh?”

Lan Xichen laughs out loud then and leans forward, stands up just enough to duck in and press a conciliatory kiss to Meng Yao’s cheek while he grumbles half-heartedly and stabs his chopsticks into his noodles with more viciousness than they deserve.

Nie Mingjue doesn’t stop his wandering hands but Meng Yao doesn’t protest again, he simply finishes his dinner quickly and sets his container aside to turn and lounge back against Nie Mingjue’s broad chest properly with every visible effort to get comfortable, sinking into him and cracking open a water bottle to sip on carefully as dusk falls soft and purple-blue around them.

“Xichen, c’mere,” Nie Mingjue eventually mumbles when he finishes his own portion. There’s no question anymore about how they’ll all fit together – Meng Yao parts his legs enough to give him room to straddle Nie Mingjue’s thighs just above his knees, and then Meng Yao brings his legs back in to drape them over Lan Xichen’s thighs in turn, the three of them tangling together easily to the tune of the complaining creaks from sun-bleached vinyl straps and the metal frame of the chair.

Lan Xichen ignores the furniture’s protest in favor of leaning in to kiss his partners indiscriminately, lips catching on and skating across sun- and blush-warmed skin. Meng Yao’s delicate ear. The tip of Nie Mingjue’s nose. Nie Mingjue’s lips first, then Meng Yao’s when he turns his head to seek him out for his turn.

He and Nie Mingjue have fit together seamlessly since the day they both realized they want to, but there’s something special about having Meng Yao between them like this, soft and warm and trusting in the hazy dark. The streetlamps out in the parking lot and down by the road click on with their low electrical fizzing buzz, but here behind the gym, among the plumbing pipes and their new hulking AC units now silent for the night to save electricity, there’s none of that harsh orange glow. There’s only the three of them in the slowly-oozing night, comfortable in their shadows and the sticky August gloaming, too hot to be so close but unwilling to part for long enough to let the breeze cool them into getting comfortable again.

Nie Mingjue’s hands skate up and down Lan Xichen’s back, his sides. Meng Yao’s hands tangle in his hair, cup the back of his neck. Lan Xichen kisses them both with lazy appreciation, his entire world narrowed down to the two men underneath him that he hopes know how much he loves them, even though Meng Yao is such a recent (but vital) addition to their relationship.

True night falls as they make out and they pay it no mind tangled up together, trading kisses and quiet laughter and anecdotes about their days all with the same ease in their first perfect August together.

-/-

BONUS

“It’s alright, A-Cheng, I promise,” Nie Huaisang wheedles as he unlocks the door to the gym and drags his newly-minted boyfriend (!) into the dark, absolute except for the squares of dull orange cutting through the gloom from the streetlamps out in the parking lot. He drags Jiang Cheng quickly, eagerly away from the front windows and further into the darkened building, more than confident in his ability to wend his way through the obstacles of machines and equipment without injury.

“You’re sure your brother isn’t here?” Jiang Cheng asks, dubious, and Nie Huaisang wishes the lights were on so his boyfriend (!!) could see him pouting at him over his shoulder for his lack of trust.

“I told you, he always goes straight home after he locks up! He’s always talking about responsibility and duty and ‘eating a hearty dinner’ and ‘getting enough rest’. So boring! But good for us now, I suppose, so maybe I can forgive him.”

“How kind of you,” Jiang Cheng says dryly enough Nie Huaisang doesn’t have to be able to see him to know he’s rolling his eyes at him.

“I know! I’m the best didi, aren’t I?”

“You’re something alright,” Jiang Cheng mutters under his breath, but he squeezes Nie Huaisang’s hand tightly and then brings it up to his lips to kiss his knuckles, which is just so unbelievably sweet that Nie Huaisang can forgive him his sass. (As if it isn’t part of what he likes so much about Jiang Cheng anyway.)

“Come on, we’ll just grab some soda and head out back, okay? No one’ll look for us out there, even if Da-ge does happen to come back out here for some reason tonight.”

“Sure,” Jiang Cheng shrugs easily, so trusting. Nie Huaisang squeezes his hand back and guides him through the gym, steals a few cans of Coke from the fridge under the front desk by feel, and manages to sneak a kiss when he straightens back up. He tows Jiang Cheng through the gym while his boyfriend (!!!) recovers from such a devastating surprise attack, and Nie Huaisang is so busy being pleased with himself that he wouldn’t have even stopped at the back door had Jiang Cheng not tugged on his hand and hissed a frantic, “ Wait, stop, A-Sang! ”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, bewildered, and then his eyes make sense of what he can see through the glass-paneled back door and he barely manages to stifle his yelp in the back of Jiang Cheng’s hand still laced with his own.

The space behind the gym is as dark as he’d expected it to be – he’d brought Jiang Cheng here for a reason after all – so the tangled mess of limbs and disheveled clothing looks a bit like some sort of eldritch Lovecraftian monster before it crystalizes into the distinct forms of his brother making out with not one but two men, who he quickly identifies as Meng Yao by his gray Unclean Realm t-shirt and Lan Xichen by his white Cloud Recesses polo practically glowing in the dark.

“Whoa,” Jiang Cheng breathes from over his shoulder, and Nie Huaisang finds he suddenly understands how Nie Mingjue feels every time he’s confronted with Nie Huaisang’s interest in erotica. There is nothing chaste about the way Nie Mingjue has his hands hiked up under Lan Xichen’s shirt or the way Meng Yao is rolling his hips in between the two of them, and Nie Huaisang feels like his face is on fire.

“Oh my god. Oh no,” he breathes, despairing. “A-Cheng…I think my brother fucks .”

Jiang Cheng snorts at that and releases his hand to swat his ass lightly. “Clearly. So…what now? Your place is clearly unoccupied considering what we’re looking at.”

Nie Huaisang swallows and tears his gaze away from the spectacle he wishes he’d never seen and momentarily tables his fantasy of burning the deck chairs Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian had stolen for him when he’d complained about having nowhere to sit outside to hang out with them.

“A-Cheng,” he whines, pleading. “This is a crisis !”

“A-Sang, you’re the horniest person I’ve ever met,” Jiang Cheng snorts, and now that Nie Huaisang has turned to look at him he can see just how hard his boyfriend (!!!!) is trying not to laugh at his torment. “What’s the big deal? That he fucks more than you?”

“Oh and if you walked in on your parents like that -” he jams his thumb over his shoulder towards the three out back- “You’d be totally cool and ready to do it with me two seconds later?”

Jiang Cheng’s expression twists in distaste and Nie Huaisang knows his point has been thoroughly made, so there’s no need to gloat about it.

“Ugh. Ew. Take me home, A-Cheng, my delicate constitution can’t handle this. I’m in shock. Shock, I tell you. Come take care of me.”

“You’re so weird,” Jiang Cheng mutters but takes his hand again anyway and they hurry to leave the gym – and Nie Mingjue’s shocking sex life – far enough behind them for Nie Huaisang to pretend he never had to witness it in the first place.

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #Sangcheng #modern AU #the sangcheng is very brief (and newly established) at the end #the focus is of course 3zun #Tales From Jianghu Shopping Center #Honey-Sweet and Heavy #Edit: Fixed the weird formatting issue from pasting directly from google docs #Sorry for the time skip. I started to write LXC and MY meeting/being attracted to each other/starting poly negotiations #but it just didn't fit with the Vibes and you know that's what I'm going for in everything but especially this 'verse #I have a running document keeping up with all the scenes/things I cut when they're not working out for me and I'm thinking #I might post them before the year is out just for funsies #In which case you'd see the snippet I wrote before I cut it #But anyway just know that sometime between June and August 3zun got together and are having a GREAT time

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