#i.e. he can't hide his intelligence and cunning anymore but he still wants to be lazy and uninvolved as much as possible

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Research Is a Love Language

Sangcheng extra for chapter 7/8 of Soldier, Poet, King

Set during the week Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen are recovering from their Drift experiment.

[AO3]

-/-

Nie Huaisang is minding his own business and trying to stay awake for roughly the 34th hour in a row when he’s suddenly grabbed from behind, which is the excuse he’s going to use for why he whips around and sucker punches world-renowned Jaeger pilot Jiang Wanyin in the throat.

“I’m sorry!!” he gasps immediately, hurrying to wrap an arm around the man’s shoulders where he’s doubled over coughing and gagging, attempting to gasp in a breath. Nie Huaisang pats his back a little frantically. “I didn’t know it was you! But honestly, who the hell walks around just grabbing people from behind in a place like this?!”

Jiang Wanyin is incapable of answering at the moment - re: coughing, gagging, etc. - so Nie Huaisang just sighs and ushers him into the lab with tutting and clucking in disdain over the man’s general condition that would put his favorite childhood auntie to shame.

“Whoa - the hell did you do to him?” Mo Xuanyu asks but Nie Huaisang just waves him off in favor of dragging Jiang Wanyin over to the emergency cot. The thing’s seeing way more action lately than it has the entire time Nie Huaisang has been here, though sadly it hasn’t been the kind of action he’d been hoping for when he’d stuck it in here.

“Why are you investigating us?” is the first thing Jiang Wanyin manages to say when he can breathe again, though he still sounds like someone tried to choke him out. “Wei Wuxian said someone’s been digging around in our personnel files, and he traced it back to you. What the fuck do you want?”

Nie Huaisang blinks at that; it’s only been a couple days since he finally broke through Tokyo’s obnoxiously tight security to get at all the juicy, classified shit they don’t want anyone to see, and it’s been roughly 10 hours since he managed to track down and unencrypt all the studies and experiments done on and with the Yunmeng trio. Nie Huaisang puts on his best innocent eyes, the ones that fool everyone except for Jin Guangyao, and looks at Jiang Wanyin with a confused pout.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he lies smoothly. “I don’t do that kind of research, I’m on weapons duty and A-Yu is on Kaijus. Why would I look up pilots’ files?”

Jiang Wanyin’s resolve visibly wavers, slipping for just a moment into uncomfortable uncertainty, and Nie Huaisang personally thinks it does wonders for that handsome face of his that’s always far too angry to be at all welcoming. Nie Huaisang pulls his favorite fan from his sleeve and starts waving it quickly in front of his chin, aware that it usually makes him look more anxious than he is simply because the too-quick fluttering puts others on edge so they assume he must be as well.

“I don’t know why you would want to, but you’re not going to throw me off - you did, and I want to know what the fuck is going on!”

Nie Huaisang continues to pout as charmingly as he knows how and stops waving his fan in favor of snapping it shut and swatting Jiang Wanyin in the chest with it. “Are you always pissed off? I don’t think I’ve seen you look happy about anything since you got here.”

“Am I supposed to be happy about being investigated by my commander’s brother?”

“No one’s said anything about investigating except you,” Nie Huaisang sighs and stands up to retreat to his desk and plop down, using his reflection in the screen to redo his little half-ponytail. Jiang Wanyin stands and starts stalking across the room towards him, but Mo Xuanyu pushes off his desk to roll his chair in between them. Jiang Wanyin stops in his tracks, still glaring, and Nie Huaisang smirks to himself. Mo Xuanyu, for his part, looks like he hasn’t even noticed anything, just sitting in his chair with his knees pulled up to his chest reading something on a tablet and munching on the last of his favorite candy from the grocery shipment earlier in the week.

“Cut the bullshit,” Jiang Wanyin says, sounding…moderately calmer. Nie Huaisang looks up at him sidelong, an eyebrow raised. “No one’s better at this shit than my brother, and if he says he caught you red-handed then he caught you, that’s it. Just tell me why and I’ll leave you alone.”

Nie Huaisang sighs and leans back a bit, pulling one foot up onto his chair and resting his elbow on it, fan still dangling from his hand. “Down, A-Yu. Good guard dog,” he tells his friend and the boy rolls his eyes but returns to his desk anyway with much-less-suave scooching. Nie Huaisang gestures grandly to the rickety old wooden chair next to his setup. “Take a seat in my office, Jiang Wanyin. Come on.”

Jiang Wanyin looks a bit wary but he complies anyway after a moment, crossing behind him and settling down in the chair stiffly.

“Why does Wei Wuxian have a tracker on your files?”

“Because he’s a paranoid idiot.”

“Mhm. And he sent you down here to bully me instead of coming himself because…?” Nie Huaisang unfurls his fan and waves it a few times lazily as Jiang Wanyin blushes a splotchy red high on his unfairly perfect cheekbones.

“Is he too busy pestering Lan Wangji to come harass me in person?”

Jiang Wanyin scoffs hard and leans back, arms crossed tightly and his jaw (also unfairly perfect) tense as he clenches his teeth.

“Is it pestering if they’re both happy to keep everyone else on the corridor awake until the middle of the night with their bullshit?”

Nie Huaisang nods sagely, as if in agreement, only to say, “That’s hot.” It’s mostly to see Jiang Wanyin thoroughly flustered and he doesn’t disappoint, his upper lip curling in disgust and the bridge of his nose suddenly has the most adorable crinkle Nie Huaisang thinks he’s ever seen. He hides his mouth behind his fan as he laughs and waves his free hand at Jiang Wanyin as he tries to stop laughing long enough to get him to sit back down. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Sit down, here. Don’t go storming off, I’m just teasing. Obviously he sent you here to flirt with me since he knows he’s not my type.”

Nie Huaisang laughs harder and this time Jiang Wanyin actually does storm out, red from the top of his forehead all the way down his throat. 

“Nice one,” Mo Xuanyu says once his laughter has died down to chuckles. “That’s probably enough to chase him away for at least a few days.”

“I know. What a shame though, he’s so handsome I wish he’d stick around just for me to look at, he’d make such a good trophy husband for me don’t you think?”

“Babe, we both know you’ll be the trophy wife for whatever meathead manages to tie you down.”

Nie Huaisang sighs in long-suffering and fans himself, as world weary as a Victorian maiden on her fainting couch. “Don’t I know it. Still, he’s fun to tease. Don’t try to keep him out if he comes back, alright? I like him.”

“Whatever you say, Laoshi.”

-/-

Jiang Cheng is absolutely not stepping foot in the research lab again. The only person in the entire world he can stand making a fool out of him is his dumbass brother, and even then it’s rare that he lets him get away with it. But Nie Huaisang?! The guy looks like he weighs 100 pounds soaking wet and he obviously relies on others to fight his battles for him (re: Mo Xuanyu sliding up to defend him and, he has to assume, Nie Mingjue’s reputation keeping anyone from messing with his brother in the first place).

“You like him though,” Wei Wuxian teases when Jiang Cheng finishes his ranting, pacing back and forth around their room like a caged tiger. “And he wasn’t wrong! I did send you down there to flirt with him! Why’d you run away when he started pulling your pigtails?”

Jiang Cheng tackles him down to the mattress and shoves a pillow over his face until he stops thrashing and obliges his irritation by playing dead. 

“I don’t need your help to…do that!” he snaps, returning to his pacing. Wei Wuxian sits up with a sigh and looks up at the ceiling like he’s praying for strength. It’s actually a little disconcerting when it’s usually Jiang Cheng lamenting over having a brother like Wei Wuxian, and he’s not totally sure he likes even a momentary reversal of their usual roles.

“It’s flirting, A-Cheng. You can say it, I promise you won’t catch on fire.”

“I don’t flirt!”

“Yeah no shit!”

“You fucker-!!”

“Boys,” Jiang Yanli sighs a few minutes later when she finds them wrestling on the floor. “You can’t even get along while I’m gone for two hours?”

“Jieeee,” Wei Wuxian pouts from where he’s got Jiang Cheng pinned with a knee in his back, an arm and a leg each yanked up behind him in a too-tight hold. “I sent him downstairs to talk to that cute researcher he likes and he messed it up!”

“Oh dear,” Jiang Yanli tuts and shoos Wei Wuxian off his back. Jiang Cheng refuses to pout, because he’s not a fucking child, but he does accept Jiang Yanli fussing over him and brushing his hair back over his ears as Wei Wuxian is left to sort himself out - good, he doesn’t deserve to be coddled. “A-Cheng, what happened?”

“I went down there to ask why the fuck he’s investigating us, like you told me to!” That last is, of course, aimed at Wei Wuxian considering he’d never yell at their sister. “I didn’t know I was supposed to flirt, considering I’ve never done that in my entire fucking life!”

“Well…did he tell you why he’s looking into us?”

Jiang Cheng sighs and resists the urge to pinch at his nose. He knows from experience that it won’t do anything to alleviate the particular flavor of headache that is Wei Wuxian and all his chaos.

“I got..sidetracked and left before he answered.”

There’s a beat of silence to mutually lament his social skills - or lack thereof - and then, as usual, it’s Jiang Yanli who rallies first. “Alright, well then that’s just the perfect excuse to go back down there and try again! Right, A-Xian?”

“What? Oh! Yep, yes, absolutely, you should 100% try again. I can totally see this going better the second time around if you go back down there. And hey, I need the room tonight with Lan Zhan anyway so -”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jiang Cheng snaps and storms out. He’s going to kill that little Jin Guangyao guy, he swears. Ever since Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji got their shit together during his experiment they’ve been nothing but absolutely unbearable, and if Jiang Cheng has to spend one more night bunking with the Jin cousins he’s going to murder one or both of them, no matter that Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan have now apparently settled their differences as well.

He heads down to the weight room to attempt to distract himself from..well, everything really, but he can’t do that all day and night. He stops for dinner and goes back right after, still too keyed up to even think about trying to find somewhere to bunk down for the night. He supposes, with some degree of irritation, that he could sleep on one of the weight benches and try to make Wei Wuxian feel guilty for sexiling him yet again, but he already knows that Wei Wuxian will just brush it off as Jiang Cheng being too lazy to go asking around for somewhere to crash.

He realizes belatedly that with Lan Wangji in his and Wei Wuxian’s room that the Lan brothers’ quarters will be empty. Everyone knows by now that Lan Xichen is holed up in Jin Guangyao’s room with him, and no one’s seen either of them in days though Nie Mingjue hasn’t made any comment about it one way or another so he’s assuming they’re fine. He should just ask to stay in the Lans’ room considering it’s Lan Wangji’s fault that he can’t sleep in his own bed anyway, but…he glances at the time only to realize it’s too late to ask, and it’s not like sleeping in another room will keep him from being able to hear what his stupid brother does with his downtime these days.

The more he thinks about going back to that fucking hallway the less he wants to, and so when he finally gives in and leaves the weightroom after a quick shower he finds himself heading back down to the research labs. Nie Huaisang has a bed down there, after all, and everyone knows that researchers don’t sleep. It’s worth a shot, and sure enough when he gets there he spots the man still sitting hunched at his computer, his features colorless and eyes dark in the acid-green glow of whatever he’s reading on the display.

There’s no sign of the little one, Mo Xuanyu, so Jiang Cheng steals his chair and sinks down into it with a sigh.

“A-Yu, you’re supposed to go get some sleep,” Nie Huaisang mumbles without looking up.

“Tell that to the bags under your eyes.”

“Fucking shit!” Nie Huaisang yelps, whipping around with wide eyes to stare at him. Jiang Cheng smirks in satisfaction for having startled him and put him on the back foot instead. “When did you - what -”

“Got sexiled again and I’m sick of trying to sleep in the same shoebox as Jin Zixun. And you never answered my question earlier.”

“That is so valid, you stay here as long as you want to, gorgeous,” Nie Huaisang huffs when he’s recovered. “And what question did I not answer?”

Jiang Cheng sighs heavily and tips his head back against the headrest. So they’re still playing this game that’s definitely more of a nuisance than a game. He rolls the chair over to Nie Huaisang’s workstation and pushes a haphazard pile of folders and loose papers out of the way enough to put his elbow on the desk and prop his chin in his palm, too tired to care about appearances.

“Come on, seriously. I just need to know that you’re not like…doing weird shit with our information. There’s personal stuff in there, and you wouldn’t be the first one to try to start something with our reputations.”

Nie Huaisang hums and his tired eyes light up briefly in recognition. “Am I planning a smear campaign against you guys in an attempt to turn the entire world against your brother, you mean?”

Jiang Cheng winces for the reminder of his mother’s most lasting legacy in the eyes of the world, and Nie Huaisang at least has the decency to look apologetic. “Yeah. That.”

“Nah, I don’t know how to do that even if I wanted to, which I don’t.” Nie Huaisang flicks his fan open and waves it a few times, the slight hint of a breeze a relief in the stale air of the shatterdome that’s even worse down here in the basement. “Can you be trusted with secrets or are you the type to get nervous and blurt out everything you know?”

Jiang Cheng blinks at that and actually thinks about it before ultimately deciding on, “Yeah, I can keep a secret. What’s up?”

“I need information on three-way Drifts, and you guys are pretty much it.”

Jiang Cheng blinks at that and then frowns, trying to find an example to prove that’s not the case only to realize that…there really isn’t one that comes to mind.

“No way. There have to be others. I know we’re the only triple-team in Asia, but there’s gotta be others elsewhere. The Americas? Oceania?”

“Nope. I guess they’ve probably experimented with it, but I mean, you’ve seen the level of mods Wei Wuxian had to make to your first Jaeger suit to get it to work with three consciousnesses controlling it. And now Violet Spider is completely unique, your repair crew had to be trained by Wei Wuxian himself to be able to maintain her, right? You think anyone else is willing to put in that kind of time and effort when Jaegers work just the same with two pilots?”

“...Huh.” Jiang Cheng takes a moment longer to consider it and then shakes himself a bit in an attempt to focus back on the task at hand. “Okay fine, so we’re the only three-way team in the Jaeger program. Why do you need to study us?”

Nie Huaisang shrugs in a way that looks just a little too practiced to be fully nonchalant. “I dunno, I just do what I’m asked.”

“You broke into Wen Ruohan’s security system and accessed extremely classified information on some of the top Jaeger pilots in Asia…because you were asked. And you don’t know or care why you were asked.”

Nie Huaisang shrugs again and picks up a half-empty cup of instant noodles to sip up some of the broth, though he makes a face and sticks his tongue out immediately after. “Eugh, that’s ice cold. How long have I been down here?”

“Pretty sure nobody wants to think about that. Listen - can I steal the cot over there for a few hours?”

“Hm? Oh - yeah sure,” Nie Huaisang waves him off and turns back to his computer, already hunkering down again and looking very much like he’s about to fall asleep right there in his chair. “A-Yu won’t be back for a while, he usually passes out pretty hard when I send him to sleep in a real bed. Should be pretty easy to sleep down here, I’ll stay quiet.”

Jiang Cheng nods and starts to stand up, but halfway there he pauses and takes a closer look at Nie Huaisang’s face, once again washed out and vaguely tinted green by his monitor. Even in such weak lighting, the shadows under his eyes are obvious, and his posture speaks of exhaustion. His little half-ponytail that Jiang Cheng refuses to acknowledge is cute is askew and short pieces are hanging loose around his face, as if pulled free by a few too many passes of his hands. Jiang Cheng sighs and finishes straightening up, crossing his arms and waiting for Nie Huaisang to look up and notice him again.

It takes Jiang Cheng kicking one of the wheels of his chair to knock him out of concentrating on what looks like weapon schematics that definitely have the Wen symbol in the top corner, startling him into blinking up at him and asking a confused, “What??”

“If Mo Xuanyu is off crashing somewhere and I’m sleeping in here, where are you going to sleep?”

“Uh…I just have to finish this one last -”

“Nope. I can’t sleep with lights on, your monitor will keep me up. Go to bed.”

“Well that’s not my problem, and you said it yourself that the alternative is the Jin boys -”

“Huaisang.” The use of just his given name stops him short, and Jiang Cheng forces himself to meet the other man’s wide eyes without blushing and without looking away. “Either find somewhere to sleep, or I’ll make you. You look like shit.”

Nie Huaisang’s mouth falls open and he reaches up suddenly to push the strands of his fringe back away from his face, his surprise turning into a pout that Jiang Cheng is already learning is his typical method of deflection. Not like he hasn’t seen that trick a million times.

“A-Cheng!!” he whines, and the diminutive is fair play but still makes Jiang Cheng’s neck go hot. Of course he’d found his family name in those fucking files. Damn it. “You can’t tell a man you barely know that he looks like shit! You’re so beautiful, don’t you know how soul-crushing that is??”

“Somehow I think you’ll recover,” Jiang Cheng snarks. “Come on, wrap it up and find somewhere to sleep for a while.”

Nie Huaisang whines the entire time he’s locking all his programs with layer upon layer of passwords, as he powers down the computer bank, as he gathers up the trash covering his desk and chucks it in a bin in the corner. Jiang Cheng stands nearby with his arms crossed over his chest and watches him drag himself through the motions. He tries not to smile at the display that’s…surprisingly far from infuriating for reasons he’s not going to examine closely.

“Will you still be here when I come back?” Nie Huaisang asks when he’s lingering in the doorway to the corridor, the entire room darkened save for a single table lamp near the cot for Jiang Cheng to see by.

“Dunno. How long are you going to sleep?”

“I usually can’t get more than about 5 hours. Sometimes 7 if I’m lucky.”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t have high hopes for his own ability to sleep any longer than that, and normally he’d just get up and leave to go about his business, but..something a bit sad and a bit hopeful in Nie Huaisang’s eyes gives him pause. Before he can stop himself, he’s promising, “Yeah. I’ll be here whenever you get back.”

“Okay great, we need to talk about weapon upgrades for Violet Spider and I don’t feel like hunting you down tomorrow, it’s so much more convenient if you just stick around. Okay goodnight!”

Jiang Cheng is left standing in the doorway gaping stupidly at Nie Huaisang’s quickly-retreating back, unsure if he should feel like an idiot or…well no, he’s self-aware enough to recognize that he’s just going to feel like an idiot no matter what Nie Huaisang’s intentions are.

Still. He keeps his promise, and when Nie Huaisang walks in the following morning to find Jiang Cheng sitting up on the edge of the cot rubbing at his forehead Jiang Cheng hears his footsteps stutter.

“Oh. Hey, you really stayed!”

“Was I not supposed to?” 

“No - I mean yes! I mean of course, I’m just..pleasantly surprised.”

Jiang Cheng grunts an acknowledgement and forces away the lingering wisps of his usual nightmares. Not that his mood is all that good most of the time anyway, and he’s not a morning person, but that’s all the more reason to not let the black mood of his dreams hang around and make things even worse. He stands up and stretches his arms above his head with a couple of satisfying clunks from his shoulders, and he frowns as he walks around the end of the computer bay to find Nie Huaisang already settling in in his chair.

“Breakfast?”

“Hm? Oh uhh…we’ve got ramen?”

Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow and Nie Huaisang snaps his fan open to hide behind. Jiang Cheng kind of wishes he found that slightly less endearing than he does.

“There’s a canteen full of hot, only slightly-shitty, freshly made food within a 3-minute walk from here. Why would we eat instant ramen cups?”

“Uhhhhh..”

“Morning. Oh! Good morning~”

Jiang Cheng sighs and turns around to find Mo Xuanyu shuffling through the door looking a little bleary-eyed but more well-rested than the couple of times Jiang Cheng has seen him. He points a finger in the boy’s direction and he stops short, eyebrows raised. “You. What are you eating for breakfast?”

“Oh no, are we out of ramen?”

“Fucking hell,” he mutters and turns back to Nie Huaisang to find the man blinking sweetly up at him, clearly pleased at having his argument backed up. “Well I’m not eating shitty instant ramen for breakfast, and if you want me to come back and talk about weapons you’ll come with me. Otherwise I might just forget where I’m supposed to be and go work out instead.”

“A-Cheng!” Nie Huaisang pouts. Jiang Cheng ignores the blush he can feel burning in his cheeks to turn and stride out of the research lab.

“Get going, both of you! The eggs are running out so they’re limiting portions and I want my fair share.”

Jiang Cheng makes it to the canteen quickly, and he’s just sitting down at an empty table with his tray when he’s joined by a handful of others. He glances up to find both his siblings settling down across from him, with Lan Wangji at Wei Wuxian’s side, of course, considering they never go anywhere without each other anymore. Luo Qingyang sits down on his left, and on his right -

“Nie Huaisang! How lovely, I didn’t know you’d be joining us this morning,” Jiang Yanli greets, her warm enthusiasm infectious.

“I got bullied out of my cave,” Nie Huaisang replies with a smile, and Jiang Cheng thoroughly ignores the meaningful stares from the peanut gallery on the other side of the table. “Wei Wuxian, I believe I have you to thank for my newest mother hen?”

Wei Wuxian, the fucking bastard, just laughs so hard he needs to lean against Lan Wangji’s side for support until he gets himself under control again.

Luo Qingyang asks, “Did A-Yu come up with you?” around a bite of soup and Nie Huaisang makes an elegant little gesture that manages to direct the eye without outright pointing.

“He’s sitting with his siblings over there, I told him only one of us needed to corral A-Cheng here and make sure he comes back downstairs after he eats.”

“ ‘A-Cheng’?” Wei Wuxian repeats with a frankly unholy level of glee. Jiang Cheng kicks his ankle under the table hard enough to make the man yelp and he ignores Lan Wangji’s glare to bare his teeth at his stupid meddling brother.

“Yes, he found my family name since someone’s encryptions on our files aren’t as effective as he said.”

“My encryptions are fine! No one else has ever gotten through them before anyway. But you’re trying to distract me - he found your name and you’re letting him use it?!”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t deign to rise to the bait, instead stabbing somewhat viciously at his eggs and taking a bite that’s probably a bit too aggressive but he doesn’t care. Everyone seems to get the hint and thankfully start their own meals, though Jiang Cheng can feel his siblings practically vibrating with the desire to ask him what the hell happened between yesterday afternoon and this morning. He desperately wants to tell them absolutely nothing, but knowing them they wouldn’t take his word for it. It’s easier to just let them indulge their imaginations rather than trying to convince them of the boring truth.

“By the way,” he pipes up when he’s nearly done. “I’m sick of getting sexiled since you two can’t keep it in your pants for a single damn night. Lan Wangji, congratulations, you can move into the room and I’ll go somewhere else. And I don’t want to hear you two going at it ever again in my entire life!”

“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian yelps and Lan Wangji goes perfectly still; whatever his face is doing is something subtle enough that Jiang Cheng doesn’t feel like trying to decipher it.

“God I picked the wrong table this morning,” Luo Qingyang mourns into her smoothie. “I’d so much rather listen to A-Yu chattering about Kaiju guys or Zixuan reciting sappy poetry about Yanli into his congee.”

“Oh my god,” Nie Huaisang laughs behind his hand. “Are all pilots such good gossips? I definitely need to sit with you more often, the Jins have been so boring on their own!”

Before things can devolve too far into shouting and jostling, Nie Mingjue stops next to their table and everyone goes silent though their commander only has eyes for Nie Huaisang.

“Did you get it, A-Sang?”

“I’ve got it, da-ge. You wanna talk about it in the lab or should I find you later?”

“I’ll come to you after lunch.”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes fall to the containers in Nie Mingjue’s hands and he’s just thinking that it’s an awful lot of food even for someone of Nie Mingjue’s stature when Nie Huaisang fills in the gap for him.

“You taking breakfast back to the other two?”

Nie Mingjue just grunts and Jiang Cheng catches the slightest softening of his features before he nods and moves on without so much as a goodbye.

“Huaisang,” Jiang Yanli starts in a conspiratorial whisper the moment Nie Mingjue is gone. She leans over the table and Nie Huaisang happily leans in to meet her, opening his fan up to hide their faces from the rest of the room, though naturally everyone at their table can hear them just fine. “We’ve heard a silly little rumor that perhaps you can clear up for us. Is Xichen living in Jin Guangyao’s rooms right now?”

“Is that really a rumor when Wangji told us he is himself?” Jiang Cheng snaps - he’s never much cared for gossip though everyone else seems to be determined to turn it into a full-time hobby.

“Hush, A-Cheng, it’s just a bit of fun. So - is he?”

“Ahhh Jiang-jie, I really don’t know! They were down in the lab for a few hours last Wednesday but I really don’t know anything about what’s happened since they left!”

It’s a blatant lie considering he’d just asked Nie Mingjue if he was taking breakfast to them, but he says it so convincingly that only himself and Lan Wangji seem to have noticed the dishonesty. Jiang Cheng doesn’t really care enough to call him out on it. Instead, he’s thinking about who the fuck would order Nie Huaisang to research three-way Drifts, and Nie Mingjue carrying breakfast to Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao who are, according to Lan Wangji’s extremely stilted and bare-bones report, recovering from a Drift experiment done in secret that had nearly ended very badly.

He waits until they’re on their way back to the research lab to say, “Chifeng-Zun wants to drift with Xichen and Jin Guangyao, doesn’t he?”

Nie Huaisang hums and waves his fan lazily as he practically saunters down the corridor, his soft, wide-legged trousers swishing quietly with each step. “I really don’t know, A-Cheng, I just do what he asks me to!”

“Bullshit, you know plenty,” he grumbles but lets it go. He supposes that eventually they’ll all know one way or another if the legendary Chifeng-Zun is going to make some sort of grand comeback, but Jiang Cheng…doubts it. The man’s more than earned a quiet retirement, as far as he’s concerned, and the fact that he’s the martial leader of Shanghai is enough of a surprise.

Anyway - he’s got his own problems to worry about. He settles in next to Nie Huaisang at his desk and looks away as the man types in all his passwords, only looking at the screen again when Nie Huaisang taps him on the knee.

“So, your files included plenty of video footage of you doing all sorts of different things: sparring, practicing on your own, fighting in your Jaeger - and that footage is both from inside the cockpit and from the helicopter feeds, so I can see how you move and how your Jaeger moves if I watch the footage side-by-side like this.”

Jiang Cheng forces his embarrassment down far enough to actually watch what Nie Huaisang is showing him, though his eyes are drawn to his siblings more often than not. He genuinely loves Drifting with them, fighting with them, working together as a unit that’s capable of protecting people (even if they hadn’t managed to save their loved ones from the destruction of Lotus Pier), and it’s interesting to watch them in action like this. But Nie Huaisang constantly draws his attention back to himself, pointing out quirks in his fighting style or things that are unique to him that he feels are important.

He’s never felt so…noticed. 

“Look look look!” Nie Huaisang says with quick slaps to his arm a few hours in. “Look I loved this battle of yours! I can tell when it’s Wei Wuxian or Jiang Yanli on point and making the decisions and they’re great too, but this one was all you, I can see it.”

Jiang Cheng flushes at such brazen admiration, but he reminds himself forcefully that it’s just professional. It’s just research.

“Violet Spider isn’t fast enough to accommodate the things you try to do with her,” Nie Huaisang says as they watch the side-by-side footage. In the cockpit, Jiang Cheng watches himself (and Wei Wuxian) execute a flawlessly timed jump of the sort that he prefers, the pair of them landing the jump and punctuating it with a vicious downward swing of their sword that should have decapitated the Kaiju they’d fought no problem - except the footage from the helicopter feed shows Violet Spider executing the move a few beats late, and in those precious few seconds the Kaiju escapes their grip and turns on them. “It’s not your fault - it’s the tech. We’re not actually advanced enough to keep up with fighting styles like yours, you know? You’re so fast, and if your Jaeger could keep up with you you’d be unstoppable. I mean you basically already are, right? You guys are in third place in Asia, just behind the Jades and the Jin cousins, and the Jin cousins are only so high up because they’re fucking loaded and their Jaeger has so many mods it might as well be a new classification, it’s got nothing to do with them.”

Jiang Cheng frowns and refuses to be flattered by so much blunt praise of his martial skills. He’s been honing them since his childhood, of course he’s fast. Wei Wuxian is faster when they spar, but he refrains from saying so. “So what do you want me to do about it? We’re not rich, we can’t pay for the mods on Violet Spider that would make her like Sparks Amidst Snow, and something tells me Jin Guangshan wouldn’t go for it anyway considering no one else seems to be allowed to have a Jaeger or suits like theirs.”

“That’s where I come in,” Nie Huaisang says with a cheerful smile that makes Jiang Cheng’s heart do something highly unauthorized. “Your weapons are outdated compared to every other Jaeger in the field except for Immortal Mountain, and she’s not actually on active duty yet. Once again - not your fault! But I know Wen Ruohan doesn’t prioritize anybody in Tokyo except his children and their cronies, and obviously everyone in that ‘dome with any degree of influence whatsoever hates your brother, so why would they help you? 

“But I’ve got clearance now to upgrade your weapons for you, and I thought you might like having something to use that’s purely your style for when you’re on point. What do you think?”

Jiang Cheng sits back for a moment to just..process. Obviously he’s going to agree to weapons upgrades, there isn’t a fool alive who wouldn’t. But the thought that Nie Huaisang had actually sat and analyzed their fights, had spotted the rare occasions that he gets to call the shots, and had then decided to ask for his input on the issue rather than going to world-famous tech genius Wei Wuxian…

“How the fuck did you even notice all of this?” he finally asks to stall for time, and Nie Huaisang instantly leans back to widen his eyes at him and start fluttering that fan under his chin again, clearly preparing to deflect. “And don’t tell me you don’t know or someone else told you to look for it! No one’s ever noticed this shit before, not even my siblings and they’re in there with me.”

He and Nie Huaisang stare at each other for a long, silent moment broken only by the slight ruffling of the fan between them. Nie Huaisang breaks the silence first to say, “Soooo is that a yes, you want to pick your weapons?”

“Hell yes I want to pick my weapons!” Jiang Cheng shouts and Nie Huaisang laughs, swats at his chest with the fan.

“Okay well that’s all you had to say! To answer your question , I noticed because I was watching for it, and I just thought you might like a treat considering how much of a shit deal you get the rest of the time, what with having to risk your life and everything. That’s all.”

Jiang Cheng keeps his arguments about that behind his teeth. Nie Huaisang says it like it’s not a big deal, like it’s not the first time in his life that someone has looked at Jiang Cheng right next to Wei Wuxian and noticed him first. Like it’s not the first time in a long time that someone besides his siblings can make him feel seen in a way that isn’t unnerving or miserable, but is instead like being appreciated. Wanted. Valued. Nie Huaisang doesn’t need to know all of that, but when the man pats his knee again he leaves his hand there for a second too long, and Jiang Cheng thinks maybe he knows anyway.