WHO: George Weasley & Jiang Cheng WHAT: ~Someone~ steals the water totem and attacks WWW with George and Jiang Cheng inside WHEN: Late tonight September 20th WARNINGS: flooding, near drowning STATUS: complete
Jiang Cheng was unprepared for what the night would bring. But he had no way to know that, of course. All he knew at the moment was that he was looking forward to seeing George.
It was a little shocking to realize he truly had so much more than obligation and an orphan nephew to live for again. He was worried about his brother's nightmares of course, but outside of that, things were generally good here for him and his family. If he were anyone else, he might even have looked like he was skipping as he entered Weasley Wizard Wheezes after hours and scanned the shop for his lover.
His eyes caught on Serefin instead. He wasn't sure if they qualified as friends, but if he was honest with himself, he cared what happened to Serefin. And gossip about his rule-breaking use of magic at fight club the other night had been hard to escape.
The conversation that followed was strange and stilted, and Jiang Cheng quickly excused himself to search the store. He felt off-balance but finding George in the back settled something quietly behind his ribs.
"Please tell me you're nearly done." He stroked a hand up George's spine and spoke with deadpan seriousness. "I just had an unsettling run-in with Serefin and I want to press you into a mattress as soon as possible."
George could see the easing of Jiang Cheng’s entire being happening over the last few months. His ego wasn’t big enough to take credit for it, but he did have hope that their relationship was having a good effect on the other man because it was on George. His worries over Fred being sent to his death were always going to be there. It was just a fact of life. But his constant worrying over the unique situation they found themselves in was over. There were other things to keep his mind focused on and Jiang Cheng was one of those things right up there.
After a strange and slightly unnerving shift working with Serefin, George had sent the younger man home after they closed for the night. Something was off about Serefin, but the news of his fight club misdealings had reached George’s ear and he had put it off to that. If he ever wanted to talk about it, George would be there. But unless it affected his performance at work, George planned to stay out of it. So he had sent the man to the front to grab his things and head out, while he finished the last of his managerial paperwork for the night, when heard someone enter the backroom. He was about to look away from the clipboard where he was writing the last of his order for the week down to ask Serefin if he had forgotten something, when he felt a familiar presence on his back and heard a welcomed voice speak.
Smiling as he processed the words, he dropped the clipboard on a tabletop nearby and turned to face JC. “I can be done right now if you’re that eager.” He didn’t waste any time looping his arms around the other man’s neck and pressing himself bodily against him, though his smile did falter a bit. “But yeah, it’s been a strange sort of day with him. You think something’s wrong?”
Jiang Cheng hummed, thoughtful but pleased as George moved in close. The steady buzz of touch-starvation had dimmed in the last few months, thanks to simple moments like this. He no longer felt like the version of himself that had gone years without being touched with any kind of tenderness. But his thoughts were tangled. His spiritual core was restless.
"I don't know. Perhaps. My mind often assumes the worst, but something…" A chill ran down his spine and pulled George closer without realizing it. "...Something was very off there. In his eyes. But then, my instincts are not always accurate." George was apparently now on a very short list of people with which Jiang Cheng would admit such faults, but that didn't mean he did it gracefully. "They are still better than most, though!"
With that, he linked his fingers through George's and stepped to the side to peer back into the main area of the store. It was forebodingly dark. His grip on George's hand tightened.
George couldn't help the little laugh that escaped him. No matter how much things changed, some things stayed the same. And how he was perceived was always going to be important to JC. "Yes, dear. I trust your instincts more than most people." Softening, he continued, "If he's still acting strange the next time we see him, we'll talk to him and find out what's turned him around so much."
He followed Jiang Cheng's gaze out into the shop and squeezed his hand back in turn. "What's wrong?" George didn't sense anything off, but he wasn't as sensitive to darker energies like Jiang Cheng was.
“Yes. You would be a better choice than me to talk with him.” As much as Jiang Cheng would have preferred to focus on the warmth in George’s teasing and the way he said dear, he felt like a cat with its hair standing on end. He instinctively moved a little in front of George, even though he knew well that George could take care of himself. Just as the silence grew genuinely concerning, Jiang Cheng patted at one of the inner pockets of his robes. The chain on his totem had busted on the way to the shop, so he’d tucked it away until he could get it fixed. He felt nothing but fabric and his leg underneath that.
He breathed in sharply. “It’s…”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence before water came rushing into the shop from one wall of windows. Glass shattered and shelves tipped over. It was sloppy work – the overdramatic magic-wielding of someone used to a different kind of power perhaps. But it was no less terrifying for it. Jiang Cheng pulled George’s hand but a wave swept his feet out from under him and he was whooshed across the floor as the room began to fill with water.
George had caught the flash of panic on Jiang Cheng’s face, right before all sorts of watery hell broke loose. He didn’t even have time to suck in a breath to utter a curse, before glass shattered against his face and the water swept him away from JC. Slamming hard up against the shelving opposite of the broken windows, a cauldron that had been sitting merrily on a top shelf came crashing down and hitting George right in the head. It would have been almost comical, if not for the fact that it knocked him out.
Slumped on the ground as the water filled the store, he had no awareness of how much danger he was in while unconscious.
Jiang Cheng had spent his entire life swimming in the lake of Lotus Pier. But that was also the calm waters of a lake. And he had definitely gotten spoiled in these few months of having the totem under his control. He reached out first, trying to control the flow, before he remembered and had to push his way to his feet, grasping at a shelf.
More waves of water crashed into the room as he searched for George. One washed up over George's unconscious body just as Jiang Cheng spotted him.
"No!" He lugged his feet and soaked robes a few hurried steps before the water was deep enough that he could slip under. There was too much debris, store product and furniture and gods knew what else. He couldn't swim strong like he normally would have. But he didn't lose sight of George, and his own magic was enough to propel him forward.
He pulled George up to the surface, George's back to his front, his head lolling against Jiang Cheng's shoulder. Swimming was more pulling them both backward towards the emergency exit as the water level rushed towards the ceiling. He held George's head above water as best he could, until they were both very nearly kissing the ceiling. Coughing out water, Jiang Cheng gave a push of his power at the emergency exit. It was graceless and he would've been embarrassed but he was too worried about George to care.
They both were swept through the door and out into the alley out back as the door crashed open and a sea of water flooded out. He was hacking as he rolled George to his back.
"Don't you dare do this to me," he hissed brokenly, the harshness of his tone counterpoint to how gently he cradled George's head in his hands. "Wake up, damn you. I can't--I won't lose you." He swallowed and tried to center himself so he could send a flow of healing energy into George's head. It wasn't as good as musical healing, but it was all he had in the moment. While he didn't have any modern CPR technique to fall back on, he did know how to tip a victim's head back and blow into their mouths. He desperately hoped the combination of magic energy from his hands and air from his mouth would be enough.
George had been underwater for what was about a minute by the time Jiang Cheng had managed to get a hold of him. Given that he hadn't been conscious, he hadn't been able to hold his breath and had started to drown the second his mouth and nose were underwater. One minute was a long time for someone to spend drowning.
But it wasn't his time to go. Not yet.
Coming back to consciousness was an awful experience. To feel himself coming out of that blank void into what was basically drowning, it sent a surge of panic through him. Thankfully, with Jiang Cheng's abilities and his breathing life back into him, the water logged in his body came coughing out through his mouth and nose. What felt like gallons of water spilled out through him, as he shoved himself onto his side to make it easier to expel the water.
He hadn't heard JC's words, but he could feel his hands on him now, helping him stay on his side as he struggled to regain his bearings. Voice rough from the coughing fit that plagued him once he stopped leaking water, he clung to the arm that was bracing him against his boyfriend and asked, "What happened?" A dull ache throbbed from where the cauldron had hit him in the head, but he was otherwise...okay. Not dead, more importantly. And then the sensory memory of feeling JC's lips against his, blowing air back into him, came to the forefront and he asked, "Did you just try to snog me back to life?" His tone was slightly amused, not at all aware of what CPR was.
Relief tumbled out of Jiang Cheng like all the water still pouring from his clothes. He was shaking, but he refused to acknowledge that. Instead, he pressed his forehead to George's shoulder and tried to catch his breath.
"Are you complaining?" He patted George's face blindly before he rolled over onto his back, his shoulder still pressed snugly to George's. Exhaustion and worry left him too stunned to think about how their attacker could still be lingering. He'd get there. "It wasn't snogging anyway, don't be a shit. You weren't--" It was hard to swallow all of a sudden. "You weren't breathing," he finished quietly. Then without warning, he reached over and slapped George on the chest with the back of his hand. "I love you but if you ever do that to me again, I might have to kill you myself."
Weakly holding the back of Jiang Cheng's head to his shoulder, trying not to come off as needy but definitely still clutching at the other man, he reluctantly let go when his boyfriend shifted. There were a million things he wanted to say to the other man, but feeling his comforting presence tempered all his runaway thoughts.
The thought that they were still in danger didn't occur to him either, but even if it had, it would have been dashed by the sudden reveal of feelings Jiang Cheng was blurting out.
They made a pair, didn't they? But maybe that was what made it so good, something neither could doubt of the other. There has been no pre-planning, nothing contrived in their feelings. It came from the heart with no filter and that's why despite the little "Ow!" that escaped George, it was followed by a dazed, but blinding smile as he turned his head to look at the other man. "Say that again. Not the killing part. The other part."
Jiang Cheng gave a great big roll of his eyes and sat up. "I love you," he said petulantly, looking down over his shoulder at George. "Now get up." He paused and concern softened his features. He reached back to push wet hair away from George's forehead, examining him for damage.
"Can you get up? Do you feel dizzy?" His gaze shot out along the alley, following a shadow, and he tensed. Nothing appeared but his attention was grabbed now and he was focused. Serefin had to have taken the totem and used it. He knew about it. He'd been right there and he was the last person Jiang Cheng saw between breaking the chain on the way to the shop and the attack. "We need to move," he ordered quietly.
Should George be getting up? Probably not. But he heard the danger in Jiang Cheng’s voice and rolled unsteadily to his feet anyway. Hannah or someone at the clinic could finish healing him later. “Let me just Apparate us ou-” he started to say, but stopped, when he reached for his wand and pulled out a broken piece of wood. Cursing quietly to himself, he gripped the back of Jiang Cheng’s robes and tugged. “Come on, we can Floo out of the flat upstairs to the Burrow,” he explained, pulling Jiang Cheng back toward WWW.
The reveal of George's broken wand made Jiang Cheng stumble a step. His eyes shot to George's face as he was pulled along. He didn't seem heartbroken, so perhaps the wand was easily fixed just not here in this moment. Jiang Cheng frowned and followed George with his back to him. It was slower, but he needed to keep his eyes on the end of the alleyway.
"Lead the way. And let me know if you see anything. Even if it's your trusted employee."