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“Just take your time. I have to make it to the shop now. Before they close.” Wen Qing grabs a tote bag from the hook behind the door, and another one that she stuffs in the first one. “If you’re done before I get back, just pull the door shut.”
She’s halfway out the apartment when she turns on her heel again.
“Do you want anything?” she asks Jiang Cheng, who is still standing there with a forlorn look on his face, staring at the cracked door of his foster brother’s abandoned room. He shakes his head, like he just snapped out of a dream, and finally starts taking his shoes off.
“Alright.” Wen Qing shuts the door and runs down the stairs. It’s on the second floor she realizes that she might just have told him both to leave while she’s gone and to stay till she’s back. She’s been stressed. She was trying to be polite because he looked miserable.
Apparently Jiang Cheng helped his brother back when he moved in, but Wen Qing was abroad then. It’s a little odd that he might know the place she lives in better than she knows him. On the few occasions they had anything to do with each other, basically two of Wei Wuxian’s rather crowded birthday parties, Wen Qing used to get the vibe he might have a crush on her. Sometimes Jiang Cheng would be over to play video games. They’d never get past hello but whenever he’d been there, all the dishes previously lost in the black hole that was Wei Wuxian’s room would suddenly show up soaking in the kitchen sink, which made Jiang Cheng a welcome enough visitor in Wen Qing’s book.
She pushes the cart through the aisles and when she passes the beer she thinks, What the hell, and grabs a six pack. It’s the least she can do, offer the man a drink.
It’s always risky, taking a cart, you might end up with more groceries than you can carry, and it was a dumb idea buying beer when you’re also buying laundry detergent, potatoes and a fucking ill-advised watermelon. She had to get an extra bag, even. But her fridge is a gaping hole and she has two days off for a change. She wants to stuff herself and do nothing, certainly not take another trip to the store. Wen Qing huffs up the stairs, nevertheless kicking herself just a little. She hopes Jiang Cheng hasn’t left yet, now that she has the beer. That would be some annoyance for nothing. She does not like to drink alone.
His shoes are still there so Wen Qing yells, “Back!” into the apartment while slipping off her own loafers and denim jacket. When she doesn’t get an answer, she heads on into the kitchen and starts putting the stuff away.
“Did you carry all that?” he says, suddenly standing in the doorway.
“No, it followed me home from the alley,” she says and it comes out a little harsher than she intended. “Sorry,” she mumbles.
“I could have given you a ride,” he shrugs.
“Well, I shopped on impulse.” She watches his eyes lock on the massive watermelon and it’s almost like he is trying not to smile.
“I’ve got beer in the fridge if you want to, I don’t know, take the edge off,” she says.
“I drove here, because I’ll have my brother’s things. That’s why I said I could have given you a ride,” he replies sensibly. He’s younger than her and trying hard not to seem so. Wen Qing reckons that’s what growing up with toddler-for-life Wei Wuxian will do to you.
“Fine. I guess I can have one now and by the time I’ve got everything packed…” he says.
“Yeah, you’ll be good.” Wen Qing opens the fridge.
She hands him his bottle and follows him with her own when he goes back into Wei Wuxian’s room. Everything is still there, apart from his laptop, the scratched hard-shell suitcase and probably a bunch of clothes.
“I am sorry I’m making you do this,” she says. “I don’t have the space and A-Ning will be moving in next week.”
Really, she’s being kind. She could have taken everything to the dump the day rent was due. Not that she has time for that.
Wen Qing doesn’t know where Jiang Cheng lives and where he’s planning to put his brother’s stuff. She’s more worried about Wei Wuxian himself than his clutter. She’s also mad at him but then again, she can understand how sometimes, you want to run away. She never would but she has wanted to. Jiang Cheng looks a little bit like he might want to, right now.
She knocks the side of his bottle gently with her own but he doesn’t avert his eyes from the horrible tie-dye sheets on the bed.
“Did he make those himself?” he asks. Wen Qing laughs.
“Yeah.” She is still leaning in the door frame. “Do you want help?” she asks. She can hang around for a bit, for one beer.
Jiang Cheng sits down on the end of the bed. From what she gathers, Wei Wuxian’s chaos looks just like it did the other day. Clearly nothing has happened while she was out shopping.
“I don’t know where to start,” he says and takes a swig. It hurts her heart to see him like that. Although she barely knows him, she can relate. Cleaning up other people’s messes can be hard. Must be even harder when you’re worried sick about said people, which he clearly is. He’d have to be a real asshole not to be.
Then again, she doesn’t know him, he might as well be an asshole. An asshole that she left alone in her apartment less than an hour ago without a single second thought, like she has become a trusting person all of a sudden.
“What was the plan with your brother?” Jiang Cheng says. “Before my brother left, I mean.”
“Stay in Paris for another year with our grandmother and after that find his own place, I guess.” Wen Qing has to admit that it was sort of convenient that the room opened up.
“I live with my grandmother,” Jiang Cheng says. “Well, she lives with me and my dad.” He pokes at a cigarette burn in the duvet cover. “I had plans to move into the city, but then this happened.” He gestures at the metal shelf in the corner, with all the horizontally stacked books on its boards and the cables hung over its top corners, the fruit crate full of worn down converse sneakers in front of it, half a skateboard on top of the doodled-on desk.
“I didn’t mean…” Wen Qing didn’t mean anything. She just answered his question but he’s always been a bit of a cranky one from what she’s heard and what she’s seen, scowling by default.
She scoffs.
Wen Qing grabs one of the folded cardboard boxes Jiang Cheng has brought and assembles it.
“There. Shoes, bags, belts.” She puts it down in front of Jiang Cheng and drops the first pair of sneakers in it with a thud. It startles him.
“Can I ask you something?” he says, avoiding looking at her. She shrugs, she thinks she knows what’s coming. It’s alright. She nods.
“How well did you know him? How close… Did you guys, like, talk? Has he really not said where…” He takes a deep breath. “I mean were you…” He makes a very vague hand sign that means you know what which means fucking, most certainly.
Wen Qing groans.
“Really?” She shoots him a look. They were. Fucking, that is. Sometimes. Not as their main thing or each other’s main thing, only when it happened. Six times in total, maybe. It’s none of Jiang Cheng’s business but she lets it slide because he’s like twenty-two and awkward and perhaps a virgin. Fuck her if she isn’t a little bit soft for him, too.
He still isn’t putting shit in boxes, though, which is getting a bit annoying.
“Did you?” She mimics his ambiguous hand gesture right back at him. His eyes widen but he doesn’t yell No right away, which would probably be a more correct reaction when being asked about having fucked your foster brother. Jiang Cheng does come off a bit stuffy, though, so if they’ve ever as much as jerked off in the same room, that might be enough to confuse him on the matter. Frustrated, Wen Qing has to remind herself that she doesn’t even care about any of that, she just wanted to throw his inappropriate question back into his face to embarrass him into tidying up.
He doesn’t react to the mean look she shoots him like he’s supposed to, like most people, who just scramble and do whatever she asked them to do hours ago. He looks hurt and then he slides off the bed, onto the floorboards, tilts his head back and downs the rest of his beer in one go. Like he is getting ready to talk, which is not what Wen Qing wanted at all.
If she left and hid in her bedroom, he’d probably get a move on. He seems to be distracted when she’s there. But maybe he really needs the attention, the conversation. It’s not her strong suit but she can try to be a comforting presence for twenty minutes, even though she’s not sure she wants to.
Maybe it’s still the old crush and he is deliberately stalling to trick her into staying to oversee his progress. That seems unlikely, though, or at least not like something he’d do consciously. He doesn’t strike her as much of a schemer. Wen Qing finds that - for a superficial acquaintance - she seems to have an awful lot of opinions about what Jiang Cheng is like and would and wouldn’t do.
Watching him pick at the label on his beer, she notes that she has opinions about his looks, too. For example, she kind of likes the scowl. He has a good face that carries a little indignation quite well. She likes his hands and his arms where the cuffs of his shirt, which she cannot decide is grey or purple, are rolled up to the elbows. She remembers Wei Wuxian mentioning that his brother was on the school swim team and still trained like a maniac. Jiang Cheng is sitting quite close.
She could easily put her hand on his shoulder and give him a shake and see what happens. Or at least check-feel how the training’s been going.
Wait a minute, Wen Qing thinks to herself, I have seen this porno.
She couldn’t have, though. The situation is probably just this side of complex enough to not end up in that sort of script. That doesn’t mean, of course, that it isn’t sexy.
“Huh,” Wen Qing grabs another shoe to dump in the box. Then hesitates, puts on her strict voice. She stays bent forward a little bit and looks at Jiang Cheng. “Are you hungry?”
He shakes his head.
“Are you tired?”
He nods.
“You need the bathroom?” she asks and watches him bite down a smile, then shake his head.
“Are you sad?” She doesn’t look at him quite that mercilessly for that one. He shrugs. And then Wen Qing smirks, because the next one is a win/win. If he says yes, she might get to ride his dick or adjacent and if he says no, she’ll leave him alone and he’ll at least hurry up with packing.
“Are you horny?” she asks.
“What?” he says and looks at her completely baffled.
“That’s a yes/no question,” she says. He rolls his eyes.
“Are you…” he stutters.
“Well, are you?” she says and then she laughs, because she is chronically overworked and underfucked and that can make a person get a bit funny in the head, and also she just has a hunch that it might do both of them some good if they felt each other up for a bit.
“Are you… ” he begins. “Why are you laughing at me?”
“I am laughing at myself because I am an ass, trying to come on to you with a fucking quiz,” she says, dryly.
“You were?” he asks like a dumb idiot.
“I was. Trying to come on to you. I wasn’t. Making fun of you,” she elaborates. He bites his lip and lets his eyes roam over the heaps of stuff and more stuff.
“Fine,” he says finally but doesn’t move or do anything.
Wen Qing gets up and pats the duvet.
“Up!” she orders and he follows.
She looks him in the eye, which isn’t exactly easy because he’s trying to stare into empty space.
“I don’t have time for a boyfriend.” She swallows. “But I am free tonight.” It’s her go-to line. He rolls his eyes at it, which he is very good at, and it makes her respect him more, actually, because it is a very cheesy line. Still, it gets the job done.
He takes her arm by the elbow and drapes it over his shoulder, does the same with her other arm. It’s an interesting way to go about this. Making her do things to him. She climbs into his lap and starts kissing him.
A kiss can be quite telling. The lazy drag of lips over lips and Wen Qing finds out that she will have to accidentally end up at parties and places he goes to. She pushes up against him a little harder. If he fucks like he kisses, she will have to get drunk at those parties and pretend that is the whole reason for when she keeps taking him home with her.
Because this is hot. He’s hot. Why.
Fuck, she really hopes he goes to parties at all. Because he feels good under her. If he feels this good inside her, she’ll be very distracted at work the coming weeks, trying not to hit him up. Until she cannot resist anymore and has to text him to come over so spontaneously and at such unholy hours that it always leaves him a dignified out.
Wen Qing is really going to fuck Jiang Cheng into fucking Wei Wuxian’s butt-ugly sheets, right where she’s fucked Wei Wuxian barely two months ago. She pushes him onto his back. He winces, reaches under the blanket and pulls out a colander.
“What the…” Wen Qing says, snatches it and blindly throws it at the light switch while she is at it. Now in the pale door-shaped rectangle of light coming in from the living room, she resumes kissing Jiang Cheng. He feels good through his pants when she grinds her hips against his. She puts his hand on her breast over her top. He barely does anything on his own but then once you’ve given him a little push, he’s so damn good it’s maddening. Great instincts, but strangely insecure, like he doesn’t know he has them.
Fortunately, Wen Qing doesn’t mind taking initiative, pushing someone when they stagger so beautifully.
She just knows she will have to play a terrible game of fast and loose with this boy, if he keeps touching her like this.
And then he does.
He brushes his thumb over the soaked patch in her leggings with such precisely measured pressure that Wen Qing slumps forward, nuzzles under the collar of his shirt, bites gently at his collarbones, to hear those sharp huffing noises he makes on the edge of pain. They kiss and kiss and it becomes sloppier, rougher.
In good faith Wen Qing reaches over into the bowl on the nightstand and is lucky enough to fish out a condom. Which is a lie, she knows that’s where Wei Wuxian keeps them, kept them, but it’s a fairly conventional place, so she might just as well have guessed.
She puts it in Jiang Cheng’s hand, the one that isn’t between her legs. She takes off her top and her comfortable but ugly bralette with it, wiggles out of her leggings and lets them fall off the bed along with her underwear. She’s ready to climb on top of him again. His eyes are locked politely on the space somewhere over her shoulder, he is definitely not looking at her naked body, which makes Wen Qing want to laugh but she stops herself or he’ll get self-conscious again.
“Can you… Would you like to...” he twirls his finger in the air, clears his throat. She kisses him and thinks about how this is so not how a guy who cannot look at a naked lady, or say Sit on my face so I can eat you out, should kiss.
Wen Qing throws her leg over him and while she sinks down on his face, watches him unbutton his jeans, push them down and free his cock from his briefs.
And then he begins with a goddamn kiss right on her pussy before slowly bringing in his tongue. It’s so goddamn sweet and he seems extremely into it. She leans forward slightly and splays her fingers on top of his pubic bone, so they pinch his cock at the base just a little.
“You don’t have to… ” he mumbles and it’s hard to understand him because of where his mouth is.
“I don’t have to do anything, but you have a very nice dick and I’d fucking love to,” she says and at that, said dick twitches and fills up even more. Wen Qing’s breath catches as she dips her finger at the head into a drop of precum and that touch just comes right back at her via the tongue lapping at her cunt. Hands clasp over her thighs and push her down.
It’s spectacular. For every lick, she shudders, for every shudder, she moans and gets a moan right back and for every unison moan, the dick in front of her bounces and takes on a deeper and shinier color. It’s a perfect circle.
She realizes he had only been teasing when he stops teasing and dives in for real. Pussy eating, if done right, should make you go post-verbal and unable to name the thing they’re thinging with their thing. Now all Wen Qing sees is colors and all she feels is an ebbing and flowing of goosebumps through her entire body. Distantly she hears Jiang Cheng’s huffs and tiny, cut off whines. Wen Qing cannot remember the last time anything felt this nice and easy. She has no idea what the fuck he is doing but that’s cool as long as he doesn’t stop.
Only then, he does. For the fragment of a second, just long enough for Wen Qing to catch up with the fact that he is flexing his feet and next thing, coming in spurts all over his belly. Untouched. Some of it hitting her chest. It’s glorious.
She groans and rocks her hip back on his jaw, just to make sure he doesn’t get the idea that he is off the hook now. He doesn’t need any more convincing than that and anyway it’s not like he’s trying to get away. Quite the opposite, he’s going at it with new found focus. It knocks Wen Qing forward and she flops down into the sticky puddles on his abdomen and chest. Her hair slipped out of its band a while ago, she didn’t notice until now that it’s blocking out the light and she can fall deeper into the feeling. Jiang fucking Cheng. Who knew.
Her hand is on his cock, just casually resting there doing nothing and, unbelievably, he is getting hard again. She wraps her fist around it and his shudder vibrates through both of them.
Slowly but with a tight grip, she starts jerking him off. When she deems him ready to go, after he has drawn another string of gasps and breathless fuck fuck fucks out of her, she spins around, finds the condom somewhere near his armpit and tells him to put it on.
She kisses his neck while he does, nibbles on his ear a bit, recognizing and getting a little overwhelmed by how she really likes the way his skin smells. She can feel her pulse deep in her pelvis, ready and cushioned and throbbing with the rush of blood.
“Okay,” he says and Wen Qing reaches down to guide him inside. Her thighs already feel wobbly but he holds on to them so she can lower herself slowly. It’s good and snug and she feels sopping wet and full. His hands have moved to her buttocks and dig into the muscles where he’s supporting her. Wen Qing realizes that she is smiling and that he has noticed. He looks beautiful with his skin flushed and glistening around his tiny hard nipples, his cheeks wet, his eyes all black. She leans forward and the shift of the angle makes her clench around him.
“You are really good, you know that?” Wen Qing whispers between kisses that taste like her and her words, the praise, send something like electricity through Jiang Cheng. She holds on to his shoulders, till she is sitting up again.
He is not looking away anymore. His eyes never stray from hers, except when he squeezes them shut because something feels especially good.
Tonight, Jiang Cheng, all this is such a fucking treat. Wen Qing can feel how he fucks the reports, the conference calls, the emails and the meetings right out of her. He is doing so well. Her head is empty, her cunt is full and the rest of the world is just white noise.
When she says faster he speeds up, when she says harder he holds on tighter to her ass - possibly leaving a pretty pattern of bruises, every tip of his fingers like a petal on a daisy - and plunges in deep and seething hot.
At some point he sits up, probably because even swimmer’s arms can only last so long, and they’re hugging and kissing again. His face is wet and salty. It might be sweat but it might as well be tears. Wen Qing hopes it’s tears. She hopes he’s crying, actually. She likes that.
Wen Qing can feel him touch all the right places and fuck, like this, with her legs wrapped around his back and gravity holding her down, he might be touching new places. There’s a distinct sensation in her belly that she thought bordered on the land of myth and legend but it’s there, inarguably warm and tingling behind her navel.
Jiang Cheng’s hand slides down between their bodies - still sticky with his cum because who cares - and starts stroking her. It sets all of Wen Qing’s nerves on fire. She is loud, really loud, as inside and outside blend into another and within seconds Wen Qing comes so hard, she feels the vertebrae in her tailbone pop. He’s pulled along, she feels it, her clenching, squeezing, clutching muscles make sure of it. Heaving and shaking, the two of them tumble and melt into another.
Then they sit still, heads propped against each other’s shoulders, panting and waiting for their heartbeats to settle.
Wen Qing inhales on a hiss when Jiang Cheng pulls out of her. She hides her face in the side of his neck while he ties off the condom.
“Okay,” he says and sniffles. He is brushing his knuckles up and down her arm and petting her hair.
“Mhm,” Wen Qing hums into his skin. She cannot really talk yet, or she would tell him that he’s better than her vibrator, which she never thought would be a problem with any man.
“You…” he begins. “We’re sitting in the wet.”
Wen Qing knows. She knows she’s drenched her ex-roomie’s sheets. She just needs a minute.
“Nevermind,” he says. Wen Qing isn’t cold but when he fumbles with the duvet to cover her with the bottom end that they’re not sitting on, she doesn’t protest. Jiang Cheng wraps his arms around her, so everything stays in place and she lets him. She’ll let him get in the shower with her too if he wants. She might let him stay the night, so they can pack the stuff up in the morning.
“See you around,” she says at last. It’s half a joke.
“I don’t know about that.” He sighs. “I’ve applied to do my master’s abroad. I might not be…” he hesitates. “Around.”
He hugs her tighter.
“I should get everything into those boxes and get going. Parking is only till midnight,” he says in the hollowest of tones.
Well, shit, Wen Qing thinks to herself.