Work Text:
“Lan-er-gongzi.”
…
“Lan Wangji.”
…
“Wangji-xiong”
…
“Lan-er-gege!”
Wei Wuxian watched in growing anticipation as the stoic boy grew increasingly frustrated at his shenanigans. He grinned handsomely as he got closer to Lan Wangji, eyes shining brightly as he spied the white knuckled grip the other boy had on his calligraphy brush. It’s a wonder that the second young master hadn’t snapped it in half yet.
Wei Wuxian inched closer, leaned into a reddening ear as he whispered, “Lan Zhan.”
Lan Wangji slammed his palms down onto the table as he angrily turned to Wei Wuxian, no longer able to ignore the audacious young master who has no qualms invading his personal space. He glared down at him, pushing down the warmth in his chest that grew at the unrepentant grin on his face.
“Shameless!”
“That’s me!” Wei Wuxian smiled jovially, having accomplished what he wanted. “Okay, okay, I’ll get back to my work.”
Just as quickly as he abandoned it, Wei Wuxian returned to his end of the table picking up his own brush, continuing to transcribe the rules of conduct from where he left off.
Lan Wangji eyed him suspiciously but eventually sat back down, eyes turning down to his own text to transcribe only to freeze, just barely registering the snickering from the only other person currently present. The annoyingly familiar presence was back at his side.
“So,” Wei Wuxian begins with a casualness that grates on every fibre of Lan Wangji’s being. “See anything you lik—?”
The rest of the session devolves into something that has Lan Wangji feeling thoroughly ashamed, pulling a sword on another disciple over a prank, but Wei Wuxian is laughing uproariously, barely able to keep himself upright yet still managing to expertly dodge each one of Lan Wangji’s attacks.
Lan Wangji doesn’t know how this brawl would have ended. He knows how he would have liked it to end. With Wei Wuxian on his back as the second young master impressing upon him just how grievously he’s crossed a line.
As it was, he doesn’t know how it would’ve ended because they were interrupted by the sound of a wailing child.
—
Wei Wuxian was a lot of things.
The head disciple of the Jiang Sect, a troublemaker, a skilled cultivator, too smart for his own good, and a mouthy piece of shit at times–
"Baba!"
--but last he checked he wasn't a father!
He was in so much shock that he barely registered the weight that had barrelled into his legs and began to tug at his robes.
“Baba! Baba!”
Wei Wuxian looked down at the small child staring tearfully up at him. The distress so evident on the child’s face brought Wei Wuxian back to the present as he quickly gathered his wits.
“Ah, no! Shhh don’t cry,” he said, clumsily trying to gather the child into his arms, but the little boy only shook his head as he continued to pull at Wei Wuxian.
Lan Wangji watched as Wei Wuxian helplessly let himself get pulled over closer to the window while he himself was rooted in his spot wondering where this child had come from.
Children. Plural.
The little boy had let go of Wei Wuxian’s pant leg and latched onto another, smaller child that looked to be sleeping as the boy continued to cry.
“Baba! She won’t wake up!”
Lan Wangji's feet finally came loose as Wei Wuxian knelt down and carefully cradled the girl in his arms. The second young master came down beside him as they both looked her over and Wei Wuxian checked her pulse. Their eyes met before coming to an agreement.
Lan Wangji grabbed the little boy, who struggled as he was pulled away from the girl, and the two young masters rushed off to the infirmary.
—
Lan Wangji resisted the urge to slam his head against the nearest pillar only able to stop himself because that would only serve to worry the healers when they needed to focus on the task at hand. The task itself required all their attention because the boy was already distressed coming into the infirmary, and it was nothing compared to the near apoplectic rage as they tried to separate him from his sister and only calming down when Wei Wuxian came forward.
“Hey no don’t cry, it’s alright they’re going to make sure your sister is okay. They’re not taking her away, you’ll be able to see her soon,” Wei Wuxian said soothingly as he held the boy close and ran a hand down his hair the way Wangji remembers his mother would do for him when he was upset.
He promptly crushed the image in his head and forces himself back into reality.
The little boy hiccoughed as he nodded, cheeks stained with tears.
“So let’s let the healers do their job so she can get better, okay?”
After another tearful nod Wei Wuxian picks up the boy before meeting Lan Wangji’s eyes, and gesturing for him to lead them out.
With a nod of his own he walks out of the space to the relief of the healers who have finally started checking over the unconscious girl.
As they walk out into the general receiving area Wangji asks for a junior to be on standby outside of the room to come check up on the little boy once he’s ready.
Wei Wuxian continues to rock the child as his cries lessen, finally calm.
Wangji can’t help but watch as Wei Wuxian cares for the child who appeared out of thin air. With the situation calmed for now Lan Wangji’s mind goes back to what the child first said in the library.
Could this really be Wei Wuxian’s child?
Wangji feels his stomach roil at the thought. It would line up with what he’s heard of the other cultivator, how he’s always flirting with girls and giving them gifts when he goes into town. No, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for this little boy and his sister to be the result of one of Wei Wuxian’s escapades.
Though, that doesn’t explain how they ended up here.
Wangji takes a deep breath as he feels the beginnings of a headache in his temples.
The guest disciple in question pays no mind to Lan Wangji, still entirely focused on the upset child. He sways a little while he gently pats the boy’s back as his tiny face is buried into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder who begins to softly whisper in his ear. When he finally turns back to Lan Wangji, the second young master is met with a furrowed brow and a troubled look.
“He’s asleep,” Wei Wuxian says softly, stepping closer to where Lan Wangji has been silently observing. “One of the healers should check him over now, I don’t know how well he’ll react to them once he’s awake.”
Wangji nods and beckons the junior healer who’s been watching from the door over.
Wei Wuxian nods at the young woman and goes to sit so that he can prop up the little boy for an examination without jostling him to wakefulness.
She kneels before him waiting for Wei Wuxian to finish cautiously, turning the boy over. Once done, she carefully checks him over, hands firmly placed onto pulse points causing the boy to whine quietly in his sleep only soothed by Wei Wuxian stroking over the boy’s hair.
The healer makes quick work and informs them that there don’t appear to be any major issues, only some bruises and minor cuts probably from falling in the library. When she asks if she can take him away for further observations Wei Wuxian visibly hesitates, his grip tightening on the boy. The action causes Wangji to squint at the other disciple. It could very well be that Wei Wuxian is just worried about how the boy will react to strangers without him, but Wangji can’t help but go back to his earlier suspicions about the children’s parentage.
“Wei Ying,” Wangji says. Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen as his head snaps over to him, and Wangji tries to will his embarrassment away as the healer also looks to him in surprise at the overly familiar address. “We must speak and the child requires medical care.”
And though Wei Wuxian still looks unsure he allows the healer to take the boy away, leaving only the two of them in the room. Once Wangji is certain they’re alone he swiftly approaches Wei Wuxian.
“Is that boy your child?” He demands more than asks.
Wei Wuxian, who had still been looking in the direction the healer left, pauses while looking at him incredulously. He gapes at him for a moment and Wangji is about to repeat his question before Wei Wuxian seems to find his voice again.
“Are you out of your mind?” Wei Wuxian regards him with such confusion, but he will not be deterred.
“He called you baba,” Wangji explains plainly.
“That doesn’t mean that I’m actually his father!”
“Don’t yell.”
“Don’t yel–?” Wei Wuxian cuts himself off with an aggrieved sigh. “Look, I can’t be his father. It’s not possible.”
Wangji’s eyes once again narrow in suspicion. To think he’d even refuse to acknowledge the possibility.
Wei Wuxian seems to understand his thoughts even without voicing them.
“I’m serious,” he states at a much more acceptable volume. “Neither of those kids are mine. There is no way I could have fathered them.”
Only now does Wangji come to the realization that perhaps the mother never told Wei Wuxian of their children. If Wei Wuxian is so convinced that it’s impossible then maybe she told him otherwise.
“Will have to do a paternity test,” Wangji says. It’s the only logical course of action.
“No, you don’t understand!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “I–, fuck! Okay so this is embarrassing to say but I don’t see any way around it and because it’s you I’m not expecting any kind of averse reaction so it’s fine really.”
The longer he rambled the more annoyed Lan Wangji got. It’s dishonourable of Wei Wuxian to try and excuse his behaviour especially regarding his own children. Eventually he got fed up.
“Speak clearly–”
“I’m a virgin!”
“...what?”
Wei Wuxian looked up at him with red cheeks and frustration clear on his face.
“They can’t be my kids because I’m a virgin. I’ve never even kissed anyone before, let alone gotten a girl pregnant. Plus the boy is at least four, which means he would have been conceived when I was eleven! That’s insane! Eleven year olds don’t fuck!” Wei Wuxian paused thoughtfully before emphatically adding, “At least they shouldn’t!”
“They’re not your children,” Lan Wangji said, feeling foolish and the words left his mouth.
“No!” Wei Wuxian looked close to begging.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“...Mn.”
Wei Wuxian sighed loudly as he slumped forward in relief, muttering to himself quietly enough but Lan Wangji thought he heard a faint, “thank the gods.”
His relief turned to anger as he straightened and glared at Lan Wangji, stepping into his space bringing the two nose to nose.
“I know we don’t know each other all that well but I would never leave a woman on her own if I got her pregnant. Aside from how dishonourable that would be, I know what it’s like to grow up without parents. I’m not bringing kids into the world just to abandon them.”
Taken aback at the uncharacteristic show of anger, Wangji can do nothing but nod in assent.
Appeased, Wei Wuxian steps back and relaxes.
“Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the more important thing,” he says, not giving Wangji any time to adjust. “How the hell did they get here?”
—
Wangji waits outside of the infirmary for his brother and uncle. Wei Wuxian decided to wait outside of the observation room in case either of the children woke up and needed him to calm them down. Thankfully the boy is still asleep, as is the girl, unfortunately, though the healers say that there isn’t anything wrong with her and she’ll wake up in her own time.
Wangji hopes they’ll be able to figure out what happened once they ask the kids a few questions, but it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to tell them anything in detail. What’s more concerning is that they were able to bypass the wards around the sect entirely. He keeps thinking back to the library, if there was anything in the papers that could have been related to their abrupt appearance, but all that was in those papers were the paper copy of the rules and the literature he was transcribing for himself. Aside from the yellow pages Wei Wuxian slipped into his book there was nothing else, unless the guest disciple slipped an array or talisman in with the sheets as well. Wangji likes to think that Wei Wuxian would’ve come clean about that if he did, but he’ll have to check the library again anyway.
When his brother and uncle greet him he allows himself to relax and leads them inside so they can speak to the healers.
—
The child hides his face in Wei Wuxian’s robes at the sight of new faces, though he thankfully does not cry.
Lan Qiren stays back not wanting to intimidate the child and nods for Lan Xichen to approach the nervous child. Lan Xichen steps forward slowly so as not to spook the boy. Wei Wuxian is sat on the cot where the girl remains asleep, the boy blocking her off as best he can with his small body still half hidden behind his “baba.”
“Hello, little one,” Lan Xichen greets softly, as one would a frightened animal, lowering himself so he’s more eye level with the child. “My name is Lan Xichen, may I know yours?”
The boy peaks up at him then looks to Wei Wuxian. The guest disciple smiles down at him and carefully extricates his sleeves from the boy’s hands and guides him to sit at his side instead, no longer hidden. He nods encouragingly with a whispered, “Go on.”
After a shaky nod in return the boy turns to a patient Lan Xichen and says barely above a mumble, “A-yuan.”
Lan Xichen’s smile widens. “It’s very nice to meet you, A-yuan. And who is this with you?”
“...Shui’er. My little sister.”
“I see,” Lan Xichen says. “Did Wei-gongzi explain where you are?”
“Mn, in the healing pavilion,” A-yuan trips over the word pavilion. “They’re gonna heal Shui’er.”
“That’s right,” his brother nods solemnly. “You’ve been very brave, A-yuan. The people here are going to make sure that you and your sister are okay, but to make sure that happens we need to ask you a few more questions. Is that okay?”
A-yuan looks back to his sister, and Wangji takes the moment to look at her as well. She lays unmoving on the bed with breaths so shallow it’s almost as though she isn’t breathing at all. The white sheets on the cot wash her out and Wangji has an unkind thought as he compares her likeness to a corpse.
A-yuan once again looks to Wei Wuxian, unwilling to comply without some kind of reassurance.
“I’ll be right here with you. If you don’t want to do this now, if you just wanna sleep instead, that’s okay, too.”
The boy seems to mull it over in his head, but ultimately the decision is made for them when the little boy yawns and barely seems to be keeping himself upright.
Wei Wuxian turns to them apologetically. “I think this will have to wait, Zewu-jun.”
Lan Xichen smiles kindly at him. “We can wait.”
With that the Lans step out of the room, and Wangji can’t help but look back inside.
Wei Wuxian lifts the boy up and places him in the space next to his sister. He takes his time making sure the boy is comfortably tucked in before coming out.
Lan Qiren sighs, a hand coming up to massage his temples. “Always something to be dealt with.”
Lan Xichen nods absentmindedly then turns to Wangji. “What exactly happened in the library?”
Wangji relays the events that occurred while Wei Wuxian stands patiently to the side, for once not interjecting with his own version of what happened, only speaking up when asked for his confirmation.
“He called me baba,” the guest disciple says when asked to explain A-yuan’s apparent attachment to him. “They must have been with their father before they popped up in the library. Maybe I look like him or something.”
Lan Qiren eyes him suspiciously. “And you’re certain you’ve never seen these children before?”
Wei Wuxian levels the man with an unimpressed look, completely different from his earlier desperation to convince Lan Wangji of the truth. “Laoshi, given how old A-yuan looks, I would have been a child myself when he was born.”
He’s composed when he says it but somehow Wangji can tell he’s fighting with himself to stay that way.
From his side Lan Qiren huffs, but does look appropriately regretful for jumping to conclusions.
“Apologies, Wei-gongzi,” Lan Xichen says. “We mean no offense, but it was rather jarring to hear of your supposed relationship to the boy.”
Wei Wuxian shrugged ineligantly. “You didn’t see him crying earlier. I wasn’t about to make it worse by fighting him on who his dad was. I’ll correct him once we figure out why exactly he thought I was his father.”
“It’s a bit late, all things considered, but would you mind assisting us? I have my doubts regarding A-yuan’s cooperation without you present.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Wei Wuxian agreed, smiling brightly once more.
—
“And there was nothing on the children that would indicate what kind of talisman, array, or spell brought them here?”
“Nothing, sir. Only some bruising, minor cuts and scrapes that were likely from the blast that sent them here.”
The troubled look on Lan Qiren’s face did nothing to quell the growing anxiety Wangji felt at the situation. What were they going to do if they couldn’t figure out where the kids had come from?
Wei Wuxian had left for his dorm after it became apparent that both A-yuan and Shui’er would likely sleep through the night, thus everyone deciding to regroup tomorrow for questioning.
For now his uncle has the servants sorting through the mess in the library. Wangji is silently grateful that the porn book was destroyed in the blast.
“So our only lead is to ask the children where they’ve come from,” Lan Qiren sighs. “The boy has already mistaken a stranger for his father, it is unlikely that we will be able to get any descriptive information out of him.”
“Let us not lose hope before we even start, Shufu,” says Lan Xichen reasonably. “He was in a stressful situation, worrying about his sister and likely being separated from his caretakers. It’s not unheard of for children to latch onto the first kind person they run into. After some much needed rest, I think A-yuan will be able to think more clearly.”
“He’s four,” Lan Qiren deadpans. “Still practically a toddler. Excuse me, nephew, but I find myself more inclined to believe that young master Yuan will be just as confused as we are.”
Wangji can’t help but agree.
“Ah well,” his brother smiles blithely. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”