Work Text:
Wei Wuxian is tangentially aware of the concept of the Cat Distribution System, wherein the universe simply decides one needs a cat and then makes it happen. He’s been on the internet before. He’s seen the posts that start out with “This is not my cat” and end with “I love this cat, she’s my new best friend, I can’t imagine my life without her.” It’s how Wen Qing and Wen Ning ended up with DanDan, their floppy bratty calico that always alternates between demanding his attention when he visits and smacking his hands when he dares to try to pet her. Wen Ning came home from work one day, found her curled up in the middle of their couch, and was unable to convince her to leave. (As near as they can tell, she came in through a cracked-open window, but their apartment is on the third floor and there’s no fire escape. Sometimes Wei Wuxian amuses himself by imagining the kitty parkour DanDan must have pulled off to make that happen.)
It’s not that Wei Wuxian is against the idea of having a cat, either. He likes cats! He had vague plans of going to the shelter and getting a cat someday. Cats are way better than dogs, obviously (even DanDan is vastly superior to every dog, and she’s an asshole), and way less work than a snake or a lizard. Feed them, clean their litterbox, and play with them? Easy. Hell, you can even leave them at home alone for a couple of nights as long as you make sure they have enough food and water. You can’t do that with human children until they’re at least teenagers.
It’s just...
Wei Wuxian didn’t imagine acquiring a cat like this, nor did he imagine acquiring a fluffy white cat that, even covered in dirt and debris and clutched to a four-year-old’s chest like a teddy bear, manages to give the impression it’s judged his entire life and found it deeply wanting.
“Uh, A’Yuan,” he asks slowly, just in case this is a hallucination. “Who’s this?”
“A cat,” A’Yuan says proudly, leaning his round cheek against the top of the cat’s head, while the cat continues to look at Wei Wuxian like he’s wearing week-old clothes covered in food stains. (Any food stains on his red DILF shirt are A’Yuan’s fault, he’d like it known.)
“Where did it come from?” he asks, putting down his book and pushing up his glasses to rub his eyes.
“He was in the garden.” A’Yuan is also covered in dirt and debris, likely from said garden. He has both arms wrapped below the cat’s armpits, its back legs and tail dangling toward the floor. Wei Wuxian spares a moment to be impressed at the cat’s tolerance for this level of kidhandling. DanDan would never. “Baba, he needs help.”
Wei Wuxian presses his lips together. A’Yuan sounds so serious, but he’s still at the stage where he cares more about saying words than he cares about making sure the words he’s saying can actually be understood, so it’s like getting radio news from a drunk announcer with a bad connection. He wants to laugh, and suppresses the urge aggressively, like he does at least seven times a day. Kids.
“Is he hurt?” Wei Wuxian is over his surprise and has moved on to logistics.
A’Yuan frowns and looks down, which—given the relative proportions of a four-year-old and a full-grown feline—means he basically smushes his nose into the top of the cat’s head. “I don’t know?”
“Put him down so I can check.” Wei Wuxian levers himself out of his chair, refusing to make the “Dad Standing Up Sound” that Nie Huaisang makes fun of him for. A’Yuan carefully crouches to put the cat’s back legs on the ground, then just as carefully releases his hug, all of which combines to mean the cat sort of slithers to the floor in an extremely undignified manner. It immediately shakes itself, sits primly on its haunches, and starts licking one paw. Wei Wuxian lowers himself slowly down next to it, not wanting to startle the poor thing.
“You okay, bud?” he asks, offering up one of his hands for it to sniff before he tries to pet it. The cat pauses its grooming to give him an absolutely withering look, blue eyes flashing. It glares at his hand after a moment, then goes back to cleaning its paw. Wow! Rude! He’s trying to help! “I’m gonna check you for injuries now,” he informs it, more to model correct behavior for A’Yuan than anything else, and carefully settles his fingers between the cat’s shoulders.
The cat tolerates this, meaning it doesn’t immediately attack him. The cat is actually remarkably tolerant of his examination—it glares at him the whole time, but he’s able to make sure it’s not bleeding anywhere, and in the process learns that it’s a he. He also reflexively checks for signs of resentful energy, just in case the reason the cat is so chill is because he’s secretly a yao trying to lure them into a false sense of security, but comes up with nothing worrying. There’s a bit of resentful energy, but Wei Wuxian is pretty sure that’s normal for cats, especially cats who were previously being used as a teddy bear by a pre-schooler.
“Baba?” A’Yuan asks, face creased up with concern. “Is Snowflake okay?”
“Snowflake?” Wei Wuxian asks, keeping his face straight with a real effort.
A’Yuan nods emphatically. “He’s white.”
Actually, he’s more of a dingy gray-brown at the moment, but that’s probably temporary. “Good name,” Wei Wuxian lies—this cat looks like being called “Snowflake” would be deeply beneath his dignity, but he’s not going to disappoint a four-year-old. “Snowflake seems fine, but we should take him to a vet anyway so they can make sure.”
A’Yuan considers this. “Can we get him a collar first?”
Oh, no. Wei Wuxian should have seen this coming. He takes a deep breath, steeling himself for tears. “Listen, Radish, Snowflake’s really friendly.” Really friendly to A’Yuan, anyway, not so much Wei Wuxian. “He might be someone else’s pet already.”
Bottom lip trembling, A’Yuan takes a deep breath and sets one hand protectively on Snowflake’s shoulders. “We have to give him back?”
“Maybe,” Wei Wuxian hedges. “The vet can see if he has a microchip, and we should put signs up around the neighborhood in case he has people looking for him.” A’Yuan’s eyes get dangerously wet, and Wei Wuxian hurriedly adds, “If he already has a family then they’ll be worried about him, little Radish! You don’t want his family to think he’s gone forever, do you?”
A’Yuan considers this with all his four-year-old compassion and not-entirely-developed sense of object permanence. “But we can keep him until we find his family?”
“We’ll take good care of him,” Wei Wuxian promises recklessly, relieved at having staved off a tantrum.
A’Yuan pats Snowflake gently on the head. “We’ll take good care of you,” he tells the cat, then gives Wei Wuxian a sly look. “Can we keep him if he doesn’t have a family?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Wei Wuxian mutters to himself, casting around for his phone, finding it underneath his abandoned book, and opening up Wen-popo’s contact. First he needs to ask the local old lady gossip grapevine if anyone’s missing the world’s prissiest white cat, and then make a speedrun to a pet store before said cat can piss anywhere it shouldn’t. This was not how he’d planned to spend his Sunday afternoon.
🐾
Lan Wangji has had worse weeks of his life. Of course he has—his mother died when he was a small child, which he’s fairly certain would top the leaderboard for anyone. There was also the time his uncle sent him to a wilderness outdoor camp for young cultivators and his bunkmate turned out to be the deeply odious Wen Chao—that was a worse week than this.
This week is pretty bad, though. At least as Wen Chao’s bunkmate he had opposable thumbs.
Lan Wangji is also generally used to not having opposable thumbs. He and Lan Xichen inherited shifting abilities from their clanless mother, to the great horror of the Lan elders. (Lan Wangji privately thinks the reason so many of them hate his shifting ability is that he’s petty enough to use it to get out of conversations he doesn’t want to have. Sorry, Lan Wangji isn’t available right now—he’s in a form incapable of human speech.)
No, it’s not that Lan Wangji is unfamiliar with being a cat, it’s that Lan Wangji isn’t normally trapped in cat form thanks to a nighthunt gone wrong. He hasn’t normally spent several days lost and wandering on foot in what he hopes is the direction of the Cloud Recesses; he hasn’t normally been barked at and chased by multiple horrible dogs, leaving his feline form panicked and covered in dirt from harrowing escapes; hasn’t found himself on the edge of despair before finally catching a familiar scent and following it over a fence into a back yard to find one of the students from his brother’s Children’s Lullaby Music Classes happily digging in a garden bed.
Technically it’s an improvement to be indoors with an adult human man checking him for injuries. That it’s the incredibly loud, irritatingly attractive father of his brother’s student is infuriating, as is the fact that he’s wearing a red shirt that says DILF in large block letters.
Technically it’s an improvement. It just doesn’t feel like one.
Lan Wangji recognizes Wen Yuan from the occasional times he’s covered the class when Lan Xichen was called out on an urgent errand; he doesn’t actually know the name of the owner of the DILF shirt, who’s happily wearing said DILF shirt in the presence of his young son. Maybe A’Yuan can’t read yet—Lan Wangji still finds it inappropriate, and tries to communicate as much with his eyes.
His glaring is to no avail. The DILF shirt remains stubbornly in place.
Spiritual energy tingles through his fur, and Lan Wangji’s heart leaps. DILF is a cultivator?! Yes, many of the students in Lan Xichen’s classes come from cultivator families, but just as many of them come from the civilian world—he didn’t know. Maybe...?
The spiritual energy is followed by the cold slither of resentful energy, and Lan Wangji’s ears flatten back without his permission. Who is DILF? Has Lan Wangji been captured by a demonic cultivator? Would said demonic cultivator be able to tell that he’s cursed? Lan Wangji isn’t entirely sure if he wants that to be true or not.
He gets his answer a moment later when DILF sits back over his heels, not having noticed anything amiss. Lan Wangji feels his ears droop before he wrestles them back to neutral. He’d suspected that the curse sealed his core, which explains why he can’t access his qi to shift back to human form. Unfortunately it seems that his core is sealed so thoroughly another cultivator can’t sense it, not even with unorthodox methods. Frustrating.
Still. At least he’s indoors now, and with a potential way to access the Cloud Recesses as long as this demonic cultivator doesn’t decide to use him as an experiment. He’ll have to convince DILF to take him to A’Yuan’s next music class, which will be difficult, but not impossible. Once he’s there, Lan Xichen will recognize him—
“Mowow?!” Lan Wangji protests involuntarily as DILF scoops him up with startling efficiency before depositing him on a tile floor in what proves to be a bathroom.
“I know it’s not scenic, but I gotta go take A’Yuan to buy everything a cat needs,” DILF says, blocking the exit. “Please don’t pee on my bath mat while I’m gone.”
Lan Wangji shoots this demonic cultivator a look of cold contempt. Just for that he should pee on the bath mat, but presumably A’Yuan uses this bathroom as well—he can see a child’s stepstool next to the toilet—and he won’t inflict that on a child, even one with an untrustworthy parent. He cannot allow this slander to stand, however, and before he can overthink it he jumps lightly up to the toilet seat. Figuring out where to brace his legs in this form takes him a moment, but Lan Wangji makes direct eye contact with DILF as he empties his bladder into the toilet. When he’s done, he flushes, still holding eye contact, and leaps primly back down to sit on the floor.
DILF blinks twice, wide-eyed and momentarily speechless. “Okay, you’re definitely someone’s pet,” he says with half a laugh. “A’Yuan is going to be so disappointed.”
The door clicks shut, leaving Lan Wangji alone in a bathroom. A minute or so later he hears swift footsteps in the hallway, and the door opens to admit a hand that plonks a bowl of water on the ground, then shuts again.
Lan Wangji shuts his eyes and reminds himself firmly that this is an improvement.
🐾
Wei Wuxian manages to get through the pet store without A’Yuan melting down or convincing him to buy a million toys for Snowflake that the cat almost certainly doesn’t need. Like, yes, Wei Wuxian picks up a dangly thing and a catnip toy shaped like sushi (it was very cute, he couldn’t resist) but he does not add the catnip doughnut, the catnip slice of cake, the catnip mouse, the catnip octopus, or the catnip pickle, no matter how much A’Yuan pouts.
He caves on the collar, though.
“We might not be keeping him, remember?” he says, trying not to sound too plaintive.
“But we’re keeping him now,” A’Yuan insists, both hands clenched around a pale blue collar with a bell. “He should be ours.”
There’s a path of least resistance, and it’s the one Wei Wuxian chooses: He puts the collar in the cart, along with the toys, the brush, the litterbox, the cat litter (he feels obligated to buy it even after watching Snowflake’s impressive display with the toilet earlier), and a stack of canned food. He dithers about a cat bed for a little while, then remembers that DanDan refuses every bed provided to her on principle, choosing instead to sleep on top of everyone’s shoes or in cardboard boxes. They don’t need a bed right now—he’ll put a towel in a shoebox or something.
The cat—Snowflake—is still in the bathroom when they get home, to Wei Wuxian’s relief. After the toilet thing he was legitimately worried that Snowflake might be able to use doorknobs, but instead he opens the bathroom door to find a dingy white cat curled up on the bathmat. Snowflake lifts his head and glares, so he must be feeling fine.
“Good to see you, too,” he tells the cat, moving A’Yuan’s plastic tub of bath toys from the floor next to the toilet into the bathtub itself (he’ll have to move it every time he showers, it’s fine, whatever) so he has room to wedge the litterbox in its place. Snowflake watches this process without moving from the bathmat, giving the impression that he could do it better. Wei Wuxian decides he’s welcome to try and see how well it goes, what with his lack of opposable thumbs.
“Snowflake!” A’Yuan yells from the bathroom door, waving the dangly toy around like he’s a rhythmic gymnast going for gold at the Olympics competing through a terrible earthquake. “Come play!”
Snowflake does not meet this with the withering glare Wei Wuxian was met with. He instead gets up, stretches, and trots politely to the door, following A’Yuan out into the living room. Wei Wuxian watches him go, feeling a little offended. Like, sure, he likes A’Yuan significantly more than he likes himself, on account of A’Yuan being his perfect radish son, but he doesn’t need a cat reinforcing that.
Whatever. Wei Wuxian has Cat Chores to do now. He fills the litterbox, making a mental note to figure out where to store the extra litter (is there space under the sink? Barely! It’ll do!), then takes the water bowl from earlier out to the kitchen. He keeps half an eye on the living room—A’Yuan has more enthusiasm for the dangly toy than he has coordination, but Wei Wuxian got one of the fleece ribbon kind specifically because it would do less damage to the house. A’Yuan also has more enthusiasm for the dangly toy than Snowflake does, although the cat does occasionally chase it, almost like he wants to respectfully acknowledge the amount of work A’Yuan is putting in. It gives Wei Wuxian the chance to refill the water bowl, then scoop half a can of cat food (“Made with real Alaskan salmon!” the label announces proudly) into a second bowl.
“Hungry?” he asks Snowflake, clinking his fingernails against the bowl like he’s about to give a speech at a wedding.
Snowflake abandons A’Yuan, joining Wei Wuxian in the kitchen at speed and practically skidding to a halt as he sits next to the water bowl. Wei Wuxian puts down the wet food, amused, and Snowflake goes after it with urgency. Question answered. Wei Wuxian wonders how long Snowflake has been lost for—this is obviously someone’s pet.
As long as the cat is thoroughly distracted, Wei Wuxian grabs the brush and drops to sit cross-legged on the kitchen floor. Very, very gently he runs it over Snowflake’s shoulders, bracing himself for hissing or smacking. He gets the ol’ hairy eyeball, unsurprisingly, but Snowflake seems content to be brushed while he eats, and even after he’s finished eating. He rolls from one side to the other, letting Wei Wuxian get all the dirt and debris out of his fur, and only after they’ve accumulated a cat-sized pile of dingy white fluff does he finally climb to his feet, shake himself off, and trot away. Wei Wuxian takes a moment to marvel at the amount of fur that came off Snowflake. How does he still have fur on his body? It doesn’t seem physically possible!
“Baba?” A’Yuan materializes at Wei Wuxian’s side as he’s attempting to clean excess cat fur off his pants, holding the collar up plaintively. “Can we put it on him?”
“Sure thing, Radish.” Wei Wuxian takes a moment to cut off the store tags, then a second moment to make sure the break-away clasp on the collar actually breaks away. He approaches Snowflake slowly where the cat has settled in the center of the living room rug, hoping that the cat’s weirdly chill attitude toward manhandling continues. “It okay if we put this on you, buddy?”
Snowflake shoots a dirty look over his shoulder but otherwise doesn’t move as Wei Wuxian clicks the collar on and adjusts the fit. When he lets go Snowflake shakes himself again, bell jingling, and does a long, full-body stretch before returning to his prim little sit.
“What do you think?” Wei Wuxian asks A’Yuan, sitting crosslegged on the ground and patting his thighs until A’Yuan climbs into his lap. (He ignores all the pointy little elbow and knee attacks this results in with the ease of long practice.) “Does he look good?”
A’Yuan squints at Snowflake thoughtfully for a bit before nodding firming. “Pictures?”
Wei Wuxian is aware that A’Yuan is using Snowflake as a way to get his sticky little kid hands on his phone—he monitors his son’s screentime very carefully; he’s not a rube —but they also definitely need photos for the “ Is this your mean cat?” fliers he plans to plaster the neighborhood with. Snowflake stays helpfully still as Wei Wuxian digs out his phone and takes a variety of pictures, allowing A’Yuan to art-direct the shoot once he has the basics done. Why does A’Yuan want a close-up of the inside of Snowflake’s ear? Who knows! The minds of children are strange.
The first thing he does next is send the good photos of Snowflake (as in, not the ear exam photos) to the Wen groupchat with, “ look who a’yuan dragged in today! ” followed by, “ has anyone seen this cat before? popo? ” Between Wen-popo (Wen Mei, though she refuses to let anyone use her given name) and Uncle Four (Wei Wuxian has somehow never learned his name and at this point—literally years in, and after having legally adopted A’Yuan—is afraid to ask), he trusts that every busybody old person in a two-mile radius will know about Snowflake by bedtime. Wen-popo runs the neighborhood Chinese community center with an iron but benevolent fist and plays bridge with three women who volunteer at their churches—one Protestant, one Catholic, and one Baptist—almost solely so she can hear about the church gossip. (Church gossip is wild, they’ve learned, so it’d be worth hanging out with Pam, Margaret, and Monique even if they weren’t lovely folks. Wei Wuxian likes them despite their attempted meddling in his nonexistent love life. Maybe someday they’ll stop asking when he’s going to settle down and get married, but he’s not holding out much hope.) Uncle Four plays mahjong in the park when it’s sunny or in the community center when it’s rainy, and while all his mahjong buddies would like to claim they don’t gossip, Wei Wuxian has played with them, and those uncles? They're gossiping.
“Shall we get dinner going, Radish?” Wei Wuxian asks, putting his phone firmly away before A’Yuan can get any ideas about asking to watch him play Candy Crush.
“Dino nuggies?” A’Yuan asks hopefully, as he does for fifty percent of his meals.
“Dino nuggies!” Wei Wuxian confirms, tackling A’Yuan forward off his lap with a T-Rex roar and pretending to bite his cheeks. “I have a big dino nuggie right here, don’t I?”
“Noooooo,” A’Yuan giggle-wails, pushing at Wei Wuxian’s face. “No, Baba, don’t eat me!” He says this while laughing and making no real effort to escape, which is how Wei Wuxian knows he can keep being the fun version of Saturn Devouring His Son for a bit longer. When A’Yuan seems like he’s about to pee laughing Wei Wuxian finally lets him up, accidentally making direct eye contact with Snowflake, who looks utterly horrified.
Wei Wuxian is a mature adult entrusted with the care of a small child by both the state and the child’s relatives; he has the adoption paperwork to prove it. Obviously he sticks his tongue out at the cat.
Snowflake blinks at him once, condescendingly, and pointedly turns his back to lick one paw. Wei Wuxian decides he won that round, and hauls himself and A’Yuan upright—oh, he definitely makes the dad-standing-up-noise this time—and toward the kitchen, mentally running through the vegetable options he has available to accompany the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets he buys in bulk to sate his son’s eternal appetite. He’s pretty sure he has at least one more frozen stir-fry mix, so if he does that on rice and tops it with the dino nuggies, it makes a perfectly balanced meal. It helps immensely with meal planning that Wei Wuxian mostly eats like a toddler, only generally with more hot sauce. Really, he’s nailing this whole parenting thing.
🐾
Lan Wangji has been feed, brushed, decorated, and photographed by DILF, the demonic cultivator whose name he still doesn’t know. The man is horrifyingly loud and strangely aggressive with A’Yuan in ways that strike Lan Wangji as possibly inappropriate, but he’s aware he doesn’t spend much time with children outside of the Cloud Recesses, and the Cloud Recesses have a lot of rules about conduct and a willingness to enforce them. Just because his father would never have scooped him up and pretended to eat his ears while twirling him around the kitchen during dinner prep doesn’t mean that’s an unusual thing for a parent to do. His father was an outlier, and not in a good way.
Still. Lan Wangji feels like he should keep an eye on everything in case DILF intends to corrupt A’Yuan with resentful energy (ignoring that there’s not much he could do about it in his current form if that turns out to be the case), and if he loafs up on the back of the couch, he can see the whole space, from living room to kitchen to the tiny dining nook where the table seems to be covered in art supplies. Being up high soothes his cat instincts (he’s eyeing some of the taller bookshelves speculatively), while being out of the way soothes his natural introversion. Being fed has made him much less cranky; being clean has made the whole situation tolerable. He can manage like this for however long it takes to hitch a ride back home, certainly.
As though to test his resolve, a knock sounds at the sliding glass door into the back yard, followed immediately by the old woman outside shoving the door open and entering without waiting for permission.
“Popo!” A’Yuan yells, running directly into her legs and nearly knocking her over.
“Popo!” DILF echoes, very slightly quieter than the four-year-old. “What brings you over?” he continues in Mandarin, tossing the pan of vegetables on the stove. “You know I haven’t lit the kitchen on fire in at least a year, and that time was because I didn’t notice A’Yuan had knocked the oil over.”
“Yes, you’ve been very responsible, A’Xian,” the old woman—Popo? Whose grandmother is she, exactly? She seems old enough that both A’Yuan and DILF could be her grandson—says, also in Mandarin, resting one hand affectionately on top of A’Yuan’s head.
“We got a cat!” A’Yuan yell-announces.
“We are temporarily keeping a cat safe while we try to find his owners because he’s clearly someone’s pet,” A’Xian—Lan Wangji is so grateful to no longer have to think of him as DILF, though he would of course prefer to know his whole name—corrects with the air of someone knowing he’s fighting a losing battle.
“We’re temporarily keeping a cat!” A’Yuan amends, tugging on the hem of the old woman’s shirt. “Popo, come meet Snowflake!”
“That’s exactly who I’m here to meet,” Popo assures him, transferring his grip from her shirt to her hand and allowing herself to be led into the living room, even if at a lower speed than A’Yuan would prefer, judging by the effort he puts into pulling her. “Tell me about your mysterious new cat, A’Xian.”
“He’s way too tame to be a stray and he looks at me like I’m dirt on his shoe,” A’Xian says cheerfully, doing a last toss of the pan and turning off the heat so he can join the others in surrounding Lan Wangji on the couch. Lan Wangji does not like being the center of this attention, exactly, but he finds it easier to tolerate as a cat than as a human. At least no one expects him to talk.
“He’s a cat,” Popo says, regarding Lan Wangji thoughtfully. “They tend to do that.” She offers him a hand politely, holding it close enough to his face that he can easily sniff it, but far enough away to make it clear she respects his personal bubble.
“Snowflake is nice,” A’Yuan tells the room at large.
“Even DanDan doesn’t hate me as much as this cat does,” A’Xian insists. He does not bother to explain who DanDan is. Lan Wangji doesn’t particularly care, but he’d like some context. Popo is very patiently waiting with her hand out, and Lan Wangji has been raised to respect his elders. He leans forward to give her a sniff, then offers a soft headbutt. Popo’s fingers scritch gently behind one ear, and he instinctively tips his head into the touch, eyes slipping partially shut. It’s inappropriate to project on a stranger like this, but Popo has such strong maternal energy that it makes Lan Wangji simultaneously miss his mother and pathetically grateful for the expression of care.
Also, he’s a cat. He likes to be petted. He can’t help it.
“Wow, he loves you,” A’Xian says, sounding both impressed and a little annoyed. He reaches toward Lan Wangji’s head, and Lan Wangji immediately smacks his hand with a paw. “Hey!” A’Xian protests, holding his smacked hand to his chest. “In this house we don’t solve our problems with hitting!”
“Don’t hit Baba,” A’Yuan tells Lan Wangji solemnly. “Use your words.”
Lan Wangji would love to be able to use his words, but they are not presently available to him. He turns his face pointedly back into Popo’s hand instead, tail lashing once.
“See?” A’Xian pouts at Popo. “He hates me.”
“Try approaching him more quietly,” Popo advises, getting both hands into the fur behind Lan Wangji’s ears and scrubbing. “You think he’s someone’s pet?”
“I mean...” A’Xian gestures at Lan Wangji, who has started involuntarily purring. He’s slightly embarrassed by this, but again: He’s a cat. He can’t help it. “Also, I put him in the bathroom when we went to go get cat stuff and he peed in the toilet, Popo.”
A’Yuan giggles. “You said pee!”
Popo’s eyebrows go up. “Really?”
A’Xian nods. “And he flushed.”
Of course Lan Wangji flushed. He’s not an animal.
Usually.
“Hm.” Popo looks at him with fresh eyes, something admiring in her expression that makes Lan Wangji feel weirdly proud of himself. “That definitely doesn’t sound like a stray, but I don’t recognize him. I’ll ask around, though.”
“Thank you, Popo,” A’Xian says, wrapping her up in a hug and kissing the top of her head. Lan Wangji struggles to reconcile this with the man’s earlier use of resentful energy—surely demonic cultivators don’t have gentle, affectionate relationships with old women who may or may not be their grandmother? It doesn’t make sense.
Before Lan Wangji manages to figure it out, something beeps in the kitchen, and everyone’s eyes snap that direction.
“Dino nuggies!” A’Yuan screeches, taking off running.
“No running in the kitchen!” A’Xian half-shouts, following at speed and managing to preventing a tragic kitchen stove collision accident, for which Lan Wangji is deeply relieved.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your dinner,” Popo says fondly, giving Lan Wangji one last pat. “Don’t worry, they’ll take good care of you,” she assures him in an undertone before heading out through the back door. She must live in the other half of the duplex, Lan Wangji realizes belatedly. That’s good—A’Yuan clearly needs involved parental figures who don’t wear DILF t-shirts or meddle in resentful energy.
“How many vegetables do you want?” A’Xian asks, dishing rice into a bowl.
“All of them!” A’Yuan says proudly. “I’ll eat them like a brontosaurus!”
Hm. Well. Maybe A’Xian isn’t doing too badly, if he’s figured out how to get A’Yuan to eat vegetables without complaining.
Lan Wangji lashes his tail and settles into his perch for the evening. This is... tolerable.
🐾
Wei Wuxian gets his son fed, then bathed, then into bed. At every step of the process Snowflake observes him, like the social workers did back when they were trying to make the adoption official. He watches them eat dinner. He watches from the door while Wei Wuxian convinces A’Yuan it’s bathtime, then leaves during the actual bath. (There’s a lot of splashing, so Wei Wuxian gets it.) He watches Wei Wuxian tuck A’Yuan into bed and read him a story, then trots back to the living room once A’Yuan’s forehead has been kissed. Wei Wuxian does not appreciate feeling like his parenting skills are being judged by a cat, but he also recognizes that he’s likely just projecting. Snowflake is in an unfamiliar location. He probably wants to learn what’s going on.
(Probably.)
Anyway, child successfully lured to sleep (good work, him), Wei Wuxian dims most of the lights, turns on an Afrofunk playlist low enough that he’ll be able to hear if A’Yuan needs anything, and settles in at his desk in the dining room. Maybe someday his talisman designs will pay enough that he can move them into a three-bedroom and have an actual office, but until then this corner will do.
Proper night hunting would pay more, but it would also mean leaving A’Yuan with Popo and Uncle Four overnight, would mean having to convince the accreditation board to license him, would mean having to pay for the license assuming the board was willing to look past the (dropped) demonic cultivation charges, would mean having to pay the freelancer rate for liability insurance since he’s not affiliated with any major clan or organization anymore, would mean a vastly increased probability of fucking dying and leaving his son without parents, again... The talisman work is fine, thank you. He makes enough enough to cover the rent, their health insurance (yikes), and a little to go into savings, anyway—Wei Wuxian has had to try to pay for more with less. If he can get this pest-repelling talisman working he’s pretty sure he’ll make enough for A’Yuan’s college fund.
Wei Wuxian gets into a flow state pretty quickly, testing out different potential designs, finding the pieces that work, and combining those pieces into new designs. Some of the combinations work even less well than the original, which is to be expected, but he tries them anyway—that’s how he ended up inventing the food preservation talisman that pays most of his bills. It was a complete accident that happened when he combined something that was supposed to create cold with something that was supposed to put a yao or guai into stasis. He did not create a perfect monster-freezing talisman, but he did create something that makes it so ice cream shops who have a low-level cultivator on staff can make sure people’s fancy ice cream makes it home without melting.
Now, if he could just work out how to power big versions of that talisman, like shipping container size, he could revolutionize the refrigerator shipping industry. No such luck yet, alas—talismans need to be charged by someone with spiritual energy, and he hasn’t found a way around that limitation.
(Well, he’s found ways to make them work with resentful energy, but trying to patent those... It’s like trying to convince someone to approve a cell phone powered by a tiny nuclear reactor. Using resentful energy as a power source is even less dangerous than using normal lithium batteries—resentful energy doesn’t explode your phone as long as you’re using it right—but he has, ah, a history and the people running the patent office are extremely orthodox. It might be a requirement of the job: “Must love bureaucracy and hate new ideas.”)
At some point movement catches his eye, and he glances up to see Snowflake perched on the edge of his desk, giving the gimlet eye to a talisman that Wei Wuxian is pretty sure would end up attracting rats instead of repelling them.
“Yeah, it’s not quite what I wanted,” he says, stretching and hearing his shoulders pop. “I think it could be useful in the right context, I mean... It would get the rats out of the building, at least.”
Snowflake ignores him, cocking his head at a different talisman and even going so far as to bat lightly at it with one fluffy white paw.
“That one’s for...” Wei Wuxian picks it up, shoving his glasses up so he can rub his tired eyes with his free hand. “Oh, this is the mold-killer.” He sighs deeply, flapping it in the air. “Only I can’t figure out how to keep it from killing every plant and fungus in a thirty-foot radius, so it’s not something you can use in an inhabited apartment building.” Again, it’s not useless, but it’s not something he can sell on the sly to people dealing with slumlords and absent building supers. He doesn’t think killing the neighbor’s houseplants would go over well.
Snowflake doesn’t quite meow, but does make a sound, which is probably the first peep he’s made since he purred for Popo earlier. It’s a barely there “Mrrt,” that Wei Wuxian probably misinterprets as sounding interested. Snowflake is a cat. Cats don’t understand talismans, or the design thereof.
That said, Wei Wuxian needs very little encouragement to talk about talisman design, and Snowflake can’t argue with him about things like “the proper use of resentful energy” or “respecting the natural order” or “you realize that people could use this one to commit mass murder, right, Wei Wuxian?” (The last one was from Wen Qing, and he didn’t realize it until she said it, and he promptly destroyed all the versions of that talisman as soon as she pointed it out. He was just trying to find a way to make water damage cleanup easier and faster—he didn’t intend to create a talisman that could theoretically suck all the water out of living tissue if misused.) If Snowflake doesn’t want to hear Wei Wuxian explain all his talismans and the thought processes that lead to them, Snowflake can leave. It’s Wei Wuxian’s house, anyway. He wants the cat to feel welcome, sure, but he’s not going to rearrange his entire life and workflow when he’s not even sure if Snowflake is a permanent addition.
Snowflake does not leave. Snowflake sits on the corner of Wei Wuxian’s desk, occasionally lashing his tail and sending a slip of talisman paper flying, while Wei Wuxian narrates his design choices in a low voice. It’s nice. He hasn’t truly been alone in the house for years, not since he moved in with the Wens and then subsequently out with A’Yuan in tow, but normally he’s the only one up this late. It’s nice to have someone to talk to like an adult, even if the someone is a cat that doesn’t understand human language.
It’s after midnight when Wei Wuxian rubs his bleary eyes one last time and decides to pack it in. The talismans he files into folders mostly to keep them out of A’Yuan’s hands, the organization system contained within known only to him, and even then only some of them time. He caps his brush pens and puts them in the caddy Jiang Cheng made for him in his first woodworking class, yawns hugely, and gives Snowflake an affectionate scrub on the head like he would A’Yuan.
“Thanks for the company,” he says, and gets two living room lights turned off before he remembers to be surprised that Snowflake let himself be pet. Wei Wuxian turns around, eyeing the white blur through the increasing darkness. Snowflake shakes himself, stretches, and leaps gracefully down off the desk. The cat investigates the living room, eventually choosing a corner of the couch to curl up on, whereupon he proceeds to ignore Wei Wuxian entirely.
“Goodnight, I guess,” Wei Wuxian says with half a laugh, and he yawns his way to bed.
🐾
Lan Wangji wishes “A’Xian” (someday he will learn this man’s whole name, but it’s that or DILF and he’s made his choice) was slightly less responsible. This is a strange thing for him to wish for, but A’Xian’s determination to be a responsible pet caretaker has landed Lan Wangji in a cardboard cat carrier on his way to a vet appointment. Neither being in the cat carrier nor visiting a vet particularly appeals. At least he’s no longer quite so concerned about ending up a victim of demonic cultivation, because A’Xian has explained his resentful energy theories at length while designing talismans, and not a single one of them involves using resentment to harm others. (Lan Wangji remains vigilant just in case, though.)
“Don’t worry,” A’Yuan whispers through one of the holes in the carrier, his voice very nearly at normal volume. “It’s okay if you’re scared to go to the doctor, but Baba will be there the whole time, and you get ice cream after.”
“I don’t think cats are supposed to have ice cream, little Radish,” Wei Wuxian points out from the front seat.
A pause. “I’ll share my ice cream with you,” A’Yuan promises, his volume nowhere near stealthy. Lan Wangji appreciates the offer. It does not make him feel better about being taken to the vet.
A’Xian pauses before getting out of the car once they’ve parked, taking several deep breaths before plastering on a smile and helping A’Yuan out of his booster seat. He pauses for more deep breaths before they go inside. Lan Wangji doesn’t understand why, and can’t get a good look at his face through the holes in the carrier. Does he has asthma? Is that what asthma sounds like?
“Woof!” says a dog as soon as they’re inside, not unexpectedly. A’Xian jumps about a foot in the air, quite unexpectedly, flinging Lan Wangji around inside his carrier. Lan Wangji hisses out of surprise and displeasure, both from the jostling and the barking.
“Puppy!” A’Yuan announces happily.
“You said on the phone you had a dog-free lobby?!” A’Xian says in a high-pitched voice, backing up until he bumps into a wall, Lan Wangji thinks based on the fresh jostling. Dog-free lobby? Why would he—
Oh. Oh. The deep breaths suddenly make sense as Lan Wangji realizes A’Xian must be afraid of dogs. Frankly, Lan Wangji doesn’t much care for them, either, and he levels a glare through one of the bottom holes in the carrier at the fluffy tan dog that did the barking, letting out a warning yowl.
“Right over here!” someone calls, and A’Xian doesn’t quite run into the next room, but he certainly makes his way there with urgency. “So sorry about that,” the person continues from much closer. “We have a separate entrance to the dog-free area, but it’s around the side. Someone should have warned you when you made your appointment.”
“No harm done,” A’Xian says with what even Lan Wangji can tell is fake cheer. “I should be down at two for an initial checkup for Snowflake? I’m Wuxian Wei.”
Lan Wangji reverses the names mentally and rejoices. Wei Wuxian! He finally has a full name! He can stop referring to his captor/savior/caretaker as DILF or A’Xian! It was worth the indignity of going to the vet just for this knowledge!
Wei Wuxian does the necessary check-in tasks with the receptionist, then plays I Spy with A’Yuan while they wait the five minutes or so to be called back to a room. Lan Wangji learns several things about the waiting room that he can’t see—apparently there’s a fish tank, which he wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at—then gets carted down a hallway.
“You wanna explore, little guy?” Wei Wuxian asks, popping open the top of the carrier once the door is shut.
Lan Wangji does, both for his normal human curiosity and because the cat side of him needs to know the best places to hide. He doesn’t want to seem too eager, though, so he grooms his shoulder for a moment before finally jumping out of the cardboard box. The exam room is... An exam room. Lan Wangji has been to a vet before (as a human accompanying an animal), and this exam room holds no surprises. It smells like cleaning supplies and faintly of many, many animals, and he politely sniffs his way around the exterior before jumping up on the windowsill to look outside. The view of the parking lot that greets him is uninteresting, so he goes to explore the counter and the sink instead.
The vet arrives while Lan Wangji is testing the best way to lay in the sink—sometimes it’s easiest to let the cat desires take over—and Lan Wangji reluctantly allows himself to be poked and prodded because, unlike an actual cat, he knows that if he fights back everything will take longer. He thanks his ancestors that most vets have switched to the ear thermometer, so this experience isn’t entirely humiliating, and only grumbles a little bit when the vet peels his mouth open to look at his teeth. She could just ask.
(Lan Wangji knows just asking isn’t a possibility for the majority of cats, but still.)
“So you found him as a stray?” the vet asks, thumping on Lan Wangji’s ribcage for some reason.
“I found him in the garden!” A’Yuan announces proudly.
“He’s toilet trained,” Wei Wuxian starts to explain.
“I use the potty like a big kid,” A’Yuan chimes in again, and Wei Wuxian visibly attempts to smother a laugh.
“Good job,” the vet tells A’Yuan solemnly.
“Yes, my little Radish is a bathroom prodigy,” Wei Wuxian agrees, “but I mean the cat knows how to use the toilet, so I don’t think he’s a stray.”
“Yeeeees, that seems unlikely.” The vet pets Lan Wangji’s head thoughtfully. “We’ll scan him for a microchip and see what we find.”
The scanner finds nothing, as Lan Wangji knew it would. The vet seems confused. Wei Wuxian looks somewhere between relieved and disappointed. A’Yuan is ecstatic.
“So he can stay with us?” he asks, tugging the hem of Wei Wuxian’s shirt.
“It just means he doesn’t have a microchip,” Wei Wuxian says, rubbing his face. “We still have to put up signs and stuff.”
“Well, he’s a perfectly healthy, well-behaved intact adult male longhair,” the vet says cheerfully. “Now, we do recommend neutering for the health and wellbeing of the cat and their owners; did you want to get estimates for that?”
Lan Wangji prepares to commit murder. Fortunately, Wei Wuxian makes a noise of disagreement. “We still don’t know if he belongs to someone, so I don’t want to do anything irreversible until we find that out, right? Also, he’s been good at staying inside and hasn’t sprayed on anything, so...”
“If that’s your decision,” the vet says, sounding a little skeptical. (Lan Wangji gives her some side-eye.) “It’s really a very low-risk, non-invasive surgery, so if you change your mind don’t hesitate to give us a call. Did you want us to go ahead and vaccinate him while you’re in?”
“That’s probably smart,” Wei Wuxian agrees. Lan Wangji sighs internally—the specialty vets at the Cloud Recesses keep his cat form up to date on his rabies and FVRCP vaccines, but Wei Wuxian and this vet have no way of knowing that. He suffers through two injections and gets rewarded with what the vet calls a “squeezy treat,” to which his cat senses respond with a truly embarrassing level of enthusiasm. Lan Wangji doesn’t slurp in his normal life, but one taste of whatever that chicken goo was and all his higher functions abandon him. He comes back to himself when the vet finally throws away the very empty package, and manages to compound his humiliation by being unable to muffle a plaintive meow about it.
“Don’t worry, little dude,” Wei Wuxian assures him, scooping him up and depositing him in the carrier while he’s too confused to fight. “I’ll get you some more of those the next time I go to the pet store.”
Well. At least Lan Wangji has that to look forward to. He only has to deal with this until he can trick Wei Wuxian into bringing him to the Cloud Recesses, anyway. He can manage until then.
🐾
Snowflake has been luring them into a false sense of security this whole time, Wei Wuxian decides the third time he has to grab the cat under the armpits and gently yeet him back into the middle of the living room.
“What has gotten into him,” he mutters under his breath, keeping the door shut with his foot while he does his best to get A’Yuan into his coat and shoes and little backpack without dropping or forgetting anything. All Wei Wuxian did was ask if A’Yuan was ready for music class and Snowflake went... Well, not feral, exactly. He’s still way too polite for that, but he definitely wants to get outside in a way that he’s never demonstrated before. Wei Wuxian has left the back door open so he could hear A’Yuan playing while he made dinner and all Snowflake did was lay just inside the door where he could see both of them.
Now, though? This is a cat that wants to be where the people are, and where the people are trying to be is on their way to a damn class.
“Baba, can he come?” A’Yuan asks, turning his best doe eyes on Wei Wuxian.
“Mrow?” Snowflake adds plaintively.
“No,” Wei Wuxian says heartlessly, medium-immune to A’Yuan’s best doe eyes at this point and more surprised to hear Snowflake vocalize than anything (he’s not a chatty cat). A’Yuan pouts, and Wei Wuxian explains, “The Cloud Recesses doesn’t allow pets, remember?”
A’Yuan stops pouting and frowns instead, clearly thinking that through. “I see dogs sometimes,” he points out, eyes narrowed.
Ugh, Wei Wuxian knows and wishes he didn’t. “They let pets visit for very short times,” he amends. A’Yuan immediately perks up, and Wei Wuxian hurries to add, “But we can’t bring Snowflake! What do you see the dogs on?”
This question is so distracting Wei Wuxian manages to get A’Yuan’s shoes on the correct feet on the first try, hell yeah. “Leashes?” he tries eventually.
“Exactly.” Wei Wuxian zips up A’Yuan’s jacket and feeds his arms through the backpack straps while he’s too caught up in thought to wiggle. “We need to get a special leash for Snowflake if we want to take him with us for a visit.”
“Oh.” A’Yuan considers that. “But we can get one?”
“Sure we can,” Wei Wuxian promises recklessly. He makes no promises about whether or not Snowflake will tolerate it, or whether they’ll be able to take him on walks, but they can definitely get a kitty leash and a harness. “Now we need to go so you’re not late to music class, okay?”
“Okay,” A’Yuan agrees, perking up as he remembers about the existence of music class, presumably. “Bye, Snowflake!” he tells the cat, crouching down to offer a few pats, which Snowflake tolerates.
“Bye, Snowflake!” Wei Wuxian repeats, scooping him up under the armpits and yeeting him at the couch so he can escape out the door with A’Yuan during the airborne interim.
“Mrow,” Snowflake says, sounding extremely resigned in the moment before Wei Wuxian shoves the door shut. He’s outside with his son, his keys, his wallet, and no cat.
Victory.
🐾
With A’Yuan safely deposited in his music class at the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian has a blessedly child-free hour to himself. He loves Thursdays for this reason. A’Yuan is wonderful, and he loves his son very much, but it’s also nice to know he’s in very good hands, and therefore Wei Wuxian is free to go buck wild.
“Buck wild” entails getting a fancy mocha and a pastry from a nearby coffeeshop that does weird flavor combinations—they do some seasonal stuff with hatch chilies they bring up from New Mexico, among other things—and then eat and drink his little treat without having to share with a small child who at least seventy percent of the time hates whatever he bought, but insists on trying them anyway. He pokes around in a secondhand bookstore and doesn’t spend the whole time in the children’s section! He buys a fantasy novel to read, one that might have sex scenes in it! Luxury!
Sometimes—very occasionally—Wei Wuxian uses this time to do night hunts. Just little ones! The kind that are like spiritual janitorial services more than anything. He pays attention to the freelancer boards and when he sees a job that’s too small-time for any of the other rogue cultivators in the city to take on, he might snag it. “The vibes in the stairwell of my building are off,” doesn’t interest most people, but it can mean anything from, “Your super needs to replace these light bulbs,” to, “The feng shui of this place is awful and it dumps all the resentful energy of the building directly into this stairwell, also your super needs to replace these light bulbs because the burnt-out fixtures aren’t helping anyone’s mood.” Wei Wuxian can address the latter with talismans and some light manipulation of resentful energy as long as there aren’t any other cultivators around, earn a small fee, and go home secure in the knowledge that the place won’t end up with an infestation of Moth Yao or something.
(Wei Wuxian can also address the former with one of those extendable light bulb grabber arm things, and he keeps one in the trunk of his car for just such occasions. Why do landlords cheap out so hard about light bulbs? He doesn’t get it.)
Today is not a day for night hunts, though. Today is a day for bookstores, and he arrives at the Cloud Recesses for pickup with a spring in his step that the caffeine in his spicy mocha only partially accounts for.
“Afternoon, Lan-laoshi,” he says with half a wave, taking the opportunity to talk to another adult and to offer Lan Xichen the opportunity to do the same. He likes Lan Xichen for multiple reasons, chief among which is that he knows who Wei Wuxian is and has happily allowed him to enroll A’Yuan in music classes, even after the whole thing with the demonic cultivation charges and his ejection from polite cultivation society. Additionally—or possibly relatedly?—Lan Xichen doesn’t act nearly as prissy and superior as the rest of his clan, which may explain why he’s chosen to teach preschool music classes to kids who may not ever even become cultivators. That takes a lot of mental fortitude and tolerance for chaos, like, for example: There are a handful of kids left in the classroom waiting for pickup and all of them are focused on a classroom xylophone.
At the same time.
It’s tuned well! That’s about all Wei Wuxian can say positively about the sounds they’re making on it, except for A’Yuan, obviously, who is a musical prodigy.
“Hello, Wei Wuxian,” Lan Xichen says with a nod. “A’Yuan was a delight to have in class today.”
Wei Wuxian preens. Obviously. His son is a perfect beautiful radish. “Good to know,” he says, trying to tamp down his pride, like, a little. “You’d tell me if he wasn’t, right?”
Lan Xichen smiles genially, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Believe me, the day I have to fill out an incident report for biting, you’ll know about it.”
“Ooof.” Wei Wuxian winces. “That happen today?” Lan Xichen looks... tired, Wei Wuxian decides on. There are pale purple shadows under his eyes, and a strain at the corners of his perpetual smile.
Lan Xichen shakes his head, and Wei Wuxian exhales a sigh of relief on his behalf. Still. “Something else wild happen in class today?” he guesses. Lan Xichen gives him a questioning look, and Wei Wuxian gestures vaguely at his own face. “You look a little harried. Usually that means someone threw up on a bongo.”
“Ah.” Lan Xichen presses his lips together. “No one threw up on a bongo.”
“Glad to hear it,” Wei Wuxian says very honestly. He pauses leadingly—if Lan Xichen doesn’t want to talk about it, he won’t pry, but he is curious.
Lan Xichen closes his eyes on a sigh. “Wangi is late returning from his latest night hunt,” he admits, his shoulders lowering maybe a millimeter from their perfect posture into something that might be a slouch if you squinted. “We’re all a bit worried.”
“Ah.” Wei Wuxian feels bad for asking, now. He hasn’t met Lan Wangji, exactly, but he’s seen him from across the compound once or twice, usually walking with his steps in perfect unison with Lan Xichen. Lan Wangji is the kind of prissy, superior Lan that would probably rather gnaw off his own arm than spend five minutes in the company of clan-reject nominally-rogue-cultivator technically-not-doing-demonic-stuff Wei Wuxian. He’s also unfortunately very attractive—Wei Wuxian likes people who look mean. He also likes people who look nice. He’s versatile that way.
He does have the good sense not to say anything like that out loud to Lan Xichen. “He’s a powerful cultivator,” he says instead, which he knows more from reading cultivator news blogs than anything else. “I’m sure something came up that’s keeping him busy.”
Lan Xichen smiles again, and it looks slightly more real this time. “I’m sure,” he says, giving Wei Wuxian a little nod of thanks. “A’Yuan!” he calls to the classroom at large. “It’s time to go.”
“Baba!” A’Yuan abandons the xylophone and crashes into Wei Wuxian’s legs at speed. Wei Wuxian, very used to this, has braced for impact and thus stays upright. “I learned a song on the recorder!”
“Wow, really?” Wei Wuxian asks, mentally substituting “horrendous racket” for “song” on that sentence. (A’Yuan is actually pretty good at music for a four-year-old, but he’s still four, and a recorder is a recorder.) “Maybe you can play it for me next week?”
“YEAH!” A’Yuan yell-agrees. Wei Wuxian winces, giving Lan Xichen an apologetic look. Lan Xichen waves it off, he with the eardrums of steel, and goes to stop a sword fighting match between two children wielding xylophone mallets at each other. Wei Wuxian hustles A’Yuan out of there before he gets any ideas, sparing a thought for Lan Wangji, wherever he is. Hopefully he’s somewhere safe.
🐾
Lan Wangji has been thwarted.
He was so close! Wei Wuxian and A’Yuan were going to the Cloud Recesses! All he had to do was sneak into the car and he’d be home by now! He loafs up angrily on the back of the couch, cursing his white fur. Surely if he was a less eye catching color this would have worked. Brown tabby, maybe. Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have noticed a brown tabby going for the door.
(Lan Wangji is, deep down, glad that Wei Wuxian is being a responsible cat owner. Even as a sometimes cat who sometimes goes outside, Lan Wangji is aware the domestic housecat is an invasive species in most environments, and have devastating effects on the local wildlife, to say nothing of the... biological urges they address in people’s gardens. Lan Wangji would judge Wei Wuxian quite heavily if he allowed him unfettered access to the outdoors. He’s just also angry that in this particular instance, that responsibility prevented him from getting home.)
Lan Wangji ruminates on this and other grumblings of a similar nature until he hears a car in the driveway. He considers making a break for the door when it opens, primarily out of spite, but even he can recognize that’s not a helpful impulse. Instead he deliberately faces into the kitchen, tail wrapped tightly around his hindquarters, and prepares to give Wei Wuxian the silent treatment for the rest of the evening.
“Snowflake!” A’Yuan announces the moment he’s inside. “I did a song on the recorder in class today!”
“Song” is probably pushing it—Lan Wangji has subbed for Xichen’s class before—but he sounds so proud, and so happy to see him. Lan Wangji isn’t used to people being this happy to see him, and he finds himself trotting over to the doorway and rubbing on A’Yuan’s pants in greeting.
“Oh, sure, now you’re trustworthy around doors,” Wei Wuxian mutters, bending down to help A’Yuan get his coat off.
Lan Wangji blinks at him once, turns away, and rubs his face into A’Yuan’s happily waiting hands.
“Fine, ignore me,” Wei Wuxian says, kicking his shoes vaguely in the direction of the shelf. “That means you have to watch A’Yuan while I get dinner going.”
Lan Wangji is aware that Wei Wuxian means this as a joke, but he takes the safety and well-being of children very seriously, and therefore follows A’Yuan over to the corner of the living room with the playmat covering the floor and a very dangerous amount of Legos scattered atop it.
“My song was really good,” A’Yuan tells Lan Wangji, plopping into a plastic kid-size seat at what’s probably a repurposed coffee table and picking up a partially completed Lego assemblage. (Lan Wangji can’t tell what it will be when it’s completed, but he has to admit it’s definitely partially completed.) “It went like this!”
A’Yuan proceeds to sing the song in fits and bursts, stopping occasionally to tell Lan Wangji what one of the other students was doing. “Jingyi played drums,” he explains solemnly. Lan Wangji assumes this is his little cousin Lan Jingyi, and winces internally. Yes, he’s familiar with Lan Jingyi’s love of drums. Most of the Cloud Recesses is familiar with it, whether they want to be or not.
The bits of the song A’Yuan gets through without interrupting himself do sound rather nice. Lan Wangji remains a bit skeptical of if that’s how they sounded when he actually played it, but the child clearly has internalized some of Lan Xichen’s teaching about melody and simple composition. Once A’Yuan finishes the story of the song he keeps talking with an enthusiasm that makes it very clear he takes after his father. Lan Wangji lays on the coffee table in front of him, fascinated by the sheer volume of words the child produces.
The song reminded him of another song, this one a “scary song for monsters,” and from there he explains at length about what Lan Wangji can only call a vampire self-insert story? A’Yuan is a vampire and he bit Wei Wuxian, who is now also a vampire, and then he bit his Popo and a variety of other relatives, so they’re all vampires, and they live in a haunted house. The house is haunted because a monster bit it and turned it into a haunted house. (Lan Wangji finds this a sensible, original piece of worldbuilding.) A’Yuan is also going to bite all of his friends so they can be vampires, too. He is both four years old and four hundred years old. Lan Wangji believes this is because A’Yuan was turned into a vampire at age four, four hundred years ago, but A’Yuan doesn’t actually clarify the reasoning.
It goes on for at least twenty minutes. At one point the narrative shifts to reveal that Wei Wuxian was actually the first vampire, and he bit A’Yuan when he was angry with him and turned him into a vampire. Lan Wangji is not sure if this is a plot hole or a plot twist. Either way, he’s impressed by the creativity. Is this how all children talk, or is A’Yuan especially imaginative? And especially talkative? Lan Wangji ought to be annoyed by this, but it’s impossible not to be charmed by A’Yuan’s excitement and the way he occasionally pauses his Lego-building to gently pet Lan Wangji’s head.
He’s stuck with this for at least another week, but it could be worse.
🐾
“All right, bud,” Wei Wuxian says, setting aside the brush he’s spent the last ten minutes grooming Lan Wangji’s fur with. “Let’s see how you handle this.”
Lan Wangji peers at him balefully from the corner of his eye, resenting how boneless he feels after all the brushing. The vet suggested that he might benefit from additional grooming, given his long fur, and Wei Wuxian has been dutifully brushing him every other evening. It’s the only time Lan Wangji lets Wei Wuxian touch him, and to his embarrassment he always ends up purring violently.
Wei Wuxian does not have the brush. He has an overly complicated collar? No, Lan Wangji realizes, it’s a harness! The kind that attaches to a leash! For people who walk their cats outside!
He sits up, lashes his tail once, and looks at Wei Wuxian expectantly.
“You are such a weird cat,” Wei Wuxian informs him, which is the kind of thing he only says when A’Yuan is out of earshot. Right now A’Yuan is next door with Wen-Popo, so Lan Wangji expects many more almost-insults. “Try not to squirm too much.”
Lan Wangji doesn’t intend to squirm at all, thank you. He sits perfectly still while Wei Wuxian buckles the harness in place and adjusts all the straps so he can’t, presumably, wiggle out of it. Lan Wangji also doesn’t intend to wiggle, but he understands the point of the situation. When Wei Wuxian is satisfied with the fit of the thing he sits back on his heels, and Lan Wangji shakes himself, stretches, and—
Immediately falls over onto his side to instinctively try to escape the thing touching his back. As the thing touching his back is the harness, this achieves nothing but making him very embarrassed at his lack of self control. He forces himself to stand up, intending to walk normally, and finds himself instead arching as high as he possibly can to try to escape the thing touching his belly. As the thing touching his belly is also the harness, this only compounds the embarrassment. Why?! He is a grown man who happens to be in the body of a cat! He can do this!
Lan Wangji successfully takes several steps forward. He grimly focuses on this victory, choosing to ignore that he’s hunched so low as he does it that his belly brushes the ground.
“Oh no,” Wei Wuxian wheezes behind him between gales of laughter. “Oh no, I should have had my phone ready.” He may be filming Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji doesn’t have the brainpower to care, given that he’s now rolled over onto his back and can’t stop shimmying like a snake because the harness keeps touching him. He ended up wiggling after all. Disgusting.
“I’m so sorry, buddy,” Wei Wuxian tells him through tears, still giggling. “Here, let me take that off you.”
Lan Wangji avoids his outstretched hands, dragging himself sideways along the carpet to do so. No! He’s a cultivator! One of the best in his generation! He formed his golden core at an impressively young age and regularly goes on solo nighthunts that would take a team of other cultivators to complete! He will not be conquered by a cat harness.
Lan Wangji grits his teeth (which is difficult to do as a cat) and shoves himself to all fours. The phantom weight of the harness on his back wants to bear him to the floor, and he fights against it with all of his strength. All his fur puffs up, especially his tail, but he can’t spare any attention for it.
Lan Wangji walks to the door, each step measured, his spine as rigidly straight as a cat can hold it. He does not wiggle, or squirm, or try to claw at the harness. When he reaches the front doormat, he sits down with proper posture, front paws delicately side-by-side, and wraps his puffed-out tail around his legs. His ears seem to be stuck in a flattened position but much like the fur situation, there doesn’t seem to be anything he can do about it.
“Meow,” he says to Wei Wuxian, practically vibrating with the effort of keeping himself upright and still.
Wei Wuxian is visibly crying from laughter, which Lan Wangji refuses to acknowledge. “You wanna go outside, bud?” he asks, after several deep breaths that fail to calm him.
Lan Wangji does not dignify this with a verbal response, only a single, withering blink.
“Okay, little guy,” Wei Wuxian says agreeably, wiping his eyes and levering himself upright with a groan. “Let’s see how you handle the leash.”
Lan Wangji remains seated in his perfect cat posture while Wei Wuxian clicks the latch of the leash to the d-ring on his harness. The light tug of the retractable leash feels strange, but no stranger than the harness feels, so he catalogs it along with all the other terrible sensations currently besieging him and pays it no further mind. Wei Wuxian swings the door open, and Lan Wangji steps outside, each paw placement precisely where he wants it to be, tail upright and bottle-brush puffy, and his jaw tight. (Again, it is hard to clench his teeth as a cat—he doesn’t have the molars for it—but Lan Wangji is trying.)
Wei Wuxian has a postage-stamp-sized yard next to the shared driveway, the latter of which is occupied by two slightly battered cars and the former of which is planted with a somewhat overgrown collection of flowers. The whiff of something herbal catches Lan Wangji’s attention, and he follows it over to the yard that’s really more like an oversized flowerbed. The herbal smell seems to be coming from a groundcover of some kind? Lan Wangji sniffs it, sneezes, and eventually identifies it as thyme. He didn’t know thyme came in a groundcover option, but he’s admittedly not a gardener.
“Oh, wait, wait a second, bud,” Wei Wuxian says, scooping him up and tightening the leash before he sets him back down out of range of the flowers. “Let me make sure those won’t kill you.”
Lan Wangji smacks Wei Wuxian’s leg vengefully for the unwanted scooping, but he also doesn’t want to get poisoned, so he keeps his claws sheathed. He is forced to admit that, while Wei Wuxian does obviously work with resentful energy, the man is definitely not an evil demonic cultivator. Evil demonic cultivators don’t worry about whether the flowers in their yard might poison their cat; they poison the cat directly, no yard required.
There’s an interminable interlude where Wei Wuxian presumably looks up the entire contents of his flower garden on his phone. Lan Wangji occupies himself by stalking back and forth in front of Wei Wuxian, consumed with a desire to go roll around in the thyme once his freedom has been returned to him.
“Wow, I did not know that about lilies,” Wei Wuxian mutters to himself, shoving his phone back into his pocket and hitting the release on the retractable leash. “Go ham on it, buddy,” he tells Lan Wangji, waving at the garden. “Try not to eat so much grass you puke.”
Lan Wangji despairs at this man’s expectations of him, then takes an additional moment to despair that the expectations are quite reasonable given that he’s currently a cat. Just to make it clear he doesn’t take orders, he intently sniffs the driveway for a few minutes before finally sidling over to the dense mat of thyme. Lan Wangji doesn’t flop—he has some dignity left, thank you—but he does gracefully settle onto his side, then rolls over onto his back for a good, luxurious stretch.
It’s only after he’s had his fill of rolling in the thyme, after he’s sniffed half the plants in the small garden plot with the full intent of sniffing the rest of it, that Lan Wangji realizes the harness has stopped bothering him. He pauses, nose buried in some kind of low-growing pink flowers, and shakes himself experimentally. Yes, he can still feel that he’s wearing the harness, but he no longer wants to react as though he’s being dragged to the center of the earth by a heavy weight. Perhaps he just needed a distraction?
Whatever the reason, Lan Wangji is relieved to be able to tolerate the harness. If he wiggles around like a worm every time Wei Wuxian puts it on him, Wei Wuxian will assume he hates it and won’t keep trying. It’s also immensely nice to be outside again, even if his movements are restrained by the leash. Lan Wangji is in favor of indoor-only cats, just not when it’s him.
Lan Wangji smells every single plant in Wei Wuxian’s front yard, then trots across the driveway to repeat the process in Wen-popo’s front yard, which is much more nicely landscaped to resemble a traditional Chinese garden instead of being a colorful hodgepodge of—Lan Wangji assumes—whatever Wei Wuxian liked along with whatever happened to be on sale. (Wei Wuxian sometimes does his household accounting at the desk in the dining room where he designs talismans. Lan Wangji now knows more about Wei Wuxian’s budget than he really feels comfortable with.) When he’s done smelling all the plants he finds an especially warm part of the driveway and lies down on it, allowing the sun and the sun-heated concrete to gently roast him from both sides. It is, in a word, bliss. Lan Wangji’s cat body wants to be warm basically all the time; Lan Wangji’s human brain has bad memories associated with the cold and also tends to prefer warmth.
Vaguely, from a distance, Lan Wangji is aware Wei Wuxian is taking photos of him. As a human this would bother him. As a cat... Well, it still bothers him, but he’s aware that people consider him a beautiful cat and understands the impulse to take pictures of beautiful cats. Anyway. He’s basking. He’s too comfortable to summon up the energy to care.
“Having a good time?” Wei Wuxian asks from nearby. He might be crouching? Lan Wangji’s eyes are shut, so he doesn’t know. Lan Wangji is having a good time, and it’s primarily for this reason that he doesn’t take Wei Wuxian’s hand off at the wrist when he feels fingers brush questioningly at the soft fur under his chin. Wei Wuxian’s touch gains some confidence, fingernails scritching down through the thick fur to Lan Wangji’s skin, and Lan Wangji finds himself leaning into it without quite meaning to. Moments later he finds himself purring without meaning to.
“There we go,” Wei Wuxian murmurs, audibly pleased, and the scritching intensifies. Lan Wangji should really put a stop to this—he doesn’t want to create a precedent for touching—but he’s warm and outside and Wei Wuxian is really good at chin-scritches...
Lan Wangji purrs louder and stays exactly where he is. This is fine for now.
🐾
Wei Wuxian probably shouldn’t be surprised by how quickly Snowflake got used to the harness and leash, considering the cat still insists on using the toilet (and flushing!) instead of using the litterbox that Wei Wuxian bought and diligently maintains for him. (He will not get rid of the litterbox only to then learn that Snowflake preferred the toilet out of spite or something, especially when the chance exists of Snowflake deciding to express this spite by peeing in Wei Wuxian’s shoes.) He got plenty of photos and videos of Snowflake writhing around like he was being attacked by tickle ghosts; he’s not at all mad that the process in general went fast and smooth.
No, what he’s surprised by is how the addition of the harness and leash seems to have improved their relationship, if that’s the word to use for a man and the cat that seems less and less likely to be a temporary guest. Wei Wuxian knows for a fact that the only reason he got to pet Snowflake on that first trip outside was because he was thoroughly distracted with rolling on the concrete. He wasn’t expecting it to be a regular occurrence, given how deep Snowflake’s disdain for him clearly runs. A’Yuan? Wen-popo? Uncle Four? Snowflake will tolerate petting from them if not seek it out. Wei Wuxian? Unless he has a brush in his hand, he might as well be chopped liver, except cats probably like chopped liver, he assumes. Certainly there’s a lot of organ meat listed on the labels of some of the really fancy cat foods he doesn’t buy. (Snowflake likes the salmon stuff—Wei Wuxian knows enough about cat preferences to not try to switch things up when you found something that worked on the first try.)
Post their first little leashed adventure, Snowflake actually sits on the back of the couch on Wei Wuxian’s side. Normally he sits on A’Yuan’s side, perched high enough that he can see everything happening in the room, and conveniently out of A’Yuan’s easy reach and as far from Wei Wuxian as he can get. When Wei Wuxian starts to nod off during the documentary about animals that live in bamboo forests—he’s not mad that A’Yuan loves to watch nature documentaries instead of grating children’s TV shows, but he’s seen this one seven times already and the narrator is very soothing—and his head tips backward to bonk into Snowflake’s warm fur instead of the couch cushions, it’s hard to say which of them is more surprised. Snowflake whacks him right on the top of the head, but claws-in, and Wei Wuxian knows for a fact he doesn’t hit as hard as he could. He doesn’t even hiss! Progress!
That Saturday Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli come over for lunch, which is an opportunity for Wei Wuxian to have adult conversations with his siblings away from the tense specter of the Jiang parents while A’Yuan gets to run around in the back yard with A’Ling. With two other grown-ups around Wei Wuxian gets to have one (1) sour fruity beer, eat whatever delicious food his sister decided to bring potluck-style and therefore have a dino-nuggie-free meal, and hear about cultivation clan gossip that no longer affects him at all. (This comes at the price of having to pretend it doesn’t bother him that cultivation clan gossip no longer affects him, that he doesn’t still wish he was part of a clan or an official organization, but Wei Wuxian has a lot of practice pretending.)
Snowflake has joined them in the back yard, sans harness, because he has excellent boundaries about the back yard for some reason. (He also ignores the opening and closing of the front door most of the time. Wei Wuxian still hasn’t figured out why he was so determined to escape on A’Yuan’s music class day.) Snowflake has, to be precise, joined Yanli in the back yard, first by sitting next to her chair, then by laying at her feet, and now by curling up in her lap and purring smugly while she cards her fingernails through his floof. Wei Wuxian obviously can’t blame anyone for falling immediately in love with the most perfect sister in the world (and indeed, ninety percent of his beef with her husband Jin Zixuan is that he didn’t fall immediately in love with her, and by the time he did, he’d been a real asshole to her in the interim), but he still feels a little miffed. Yanli doesn’t even have the brush!
Then Jiang Cheng tries to pet Snowflake, and gets his hand thoroughly smacked for his trouble. Snowflake goes after him with both paws like a boxer, bap bap bap before Jiang Cheng can pull away.
“Ow!” he says, affronted and examining his hand for injuries. (There are none—Snowflake is very good about not using his claws.) “You little a—”
“There are children present,” Yanli sing-songs.
“Animal,” Jiang Cheng amends, after an awkward pause where he probably ran through every A word he could remember to find one that worked and wasn’t a swear. He settles grumpily into his seat and glares at Snowflake. “You let that around A’Yuan?”
“Snowflake loves A’Yuan,” Wei Wuxian says expansively. “Watch this: A’Yuan! Snowflake misses you!”
A’Yuan sets down his plastic shovel, climbs out of the corner of the garden bed where he’s allowed to do his construction projects, and trots over to Snowflake. “Hi,” he says very seriously, then gives the cat a kiss on the forehead. “Do you want to come play with me in the garden?”
Snowflake bonks his head into A’Yuan’s affectionately, but stays in Yanli’s lap.
“Looks like it’s not garden time for Snowflake,” Wei Wuxian says, kissing the top of A’Yuan’s little head. “He knows where you are now so he can come play with you if he wants.”
“Okay,” A’Yuan says agreeably, accepting this logic. He runs a hand down Snowflake’s back, leaving behind a smear of loose dirt, and jogs back to the garden bed where A’Ling appears to be trying to dig to the center of the earth.
“See?” Wei Wuxian takes a very smug swig of his beer. “He’s a perfectly well behaved cat. He just doesn’t like you.”
Jiang Cheng transfers his glare from Snowflake to Wei Wuxian, a sneer curling the corner of his mouth. “Oh, and I suppose he likes you, then? I haven’t seen you pet him.”
Wei Wuxian is less impulsive than he used to be—adopting a kid will do that to you—but he still can’t back down from a challenge, especially one issued by his little brother. He reaches over to Yanli’s lap and rubs behind Snowflake’s ears, absolutely expecting a tornado of smacking.
Instead, Snowflake tips his head into the touch and purrs louder. Wei Wuxian swears he makes direct eye contact with Jiang Cheng while he does it, too. It feels absurdly like they’re cahoots together, like Snowflake understood the whole conversation and decided to prove Jiang Cheng wrong. This is impossible, of course, since Snowflake is just a cat.
It’s still very funny, especially the color Jiang Cheng’s face turns.
“You have to stay still and let them come to you at their own pace,” Yanli says gently, clearly fighting down laughter at Jiang Cheng’s reaction.
“Or be the one who provides the stinky salmon food twice a day,” Wei Wuxian admits, deciding not to torture his little brother too much. “Honestly, he’s only recently started letting me pet him” —like today, now, as they speak— “so I think he just takes some time to warm up to people.” He decides to stop pushing his luck and takes another sip of beer, relinquishing Snowflake to his sister’s attentions.
“Have you decided if he’s staying permanently?” she asks, carefully picking A’Yuan’s departing gift of dirt off Snowflake’s white fur.
Wei Wuxian wrinkles his nose. “It’s looking that way,” he admits. “He has no microchip, Popo’s gossip network hasn’t found anyone looking for him, and no one’s called about the posters I put up.” He ran through his entire monthly printing allowance at the library making those! Maybe he doesn’t want to give Snowflake up at this point, but it would be nice if his efforts actually went somewhere. “I just don’t get how you train a cat to use the toilet and then lose him, you know? Someone has to be trying to find him.”
“Maybe his previous owner is dead,” Jiang Cheng offers.
“Incredibly depressing, thank you for that suggestion,” Wei Wuxian deadpans. Jiang Cheng leans over Yanli to swipe at him, and Wei Wuxian leans further away, actively choosing not to get into a slap fight directly above a cat. See? He can be mature.
“It would make sense,” Yanli points out. “There are a lot of people going into and out of a house after someone passes away—he might have escaped in the confusion, and it would explain why no one’s looking for him.”
Wei Wuxian is forced to admit that, combined, they have a point. Snowflake even had a little bit of resentful energy clinging to him when he first showed up, right? Even peaceful deaths will generate some resentment as the spirit wants to subconsciously cling to life; his owner’s soul might have passed on, leaving behind a natural well of resentment and a cat with no one to take care of him.
“I just hate to tell A’Yuan we’re definitely keeping him when I know if someone shows up saying, ‘That’s my cat!’ I’ll have to give him back,” he admits in a low voice. “A’Yuan already loves him, and the longer we keep him the worse it will get.”
Yanli makes a sympathetic sound. Jiang Cheng snorts over the rim of his beer. “Why didn’t you just dump him at a shelter, then?”
Wei Wuxian leans across Yanli to start a slap fight, because this one’s fully justified. Snowflake beats him to it, lunging up and smacking Jiang Cheng’s hand so hard he almost drops his beer.
“Hey!” he snaps, offended and wide-eyed.
“Serves you right!” Wei Wuxian snaps right back, prepared for more slapping. “I’m not dumping anyone at a shelter, A’Cheng! Listen to the words that come out of your own mouth.”
Jiang Cheng scowls and opens his mouth to say something he’ll almost certainly regret, and Yanli holds up a hand. “Boys!”
“No fighting!” A’Yuan yells from across the yard, his little face scrunched up in a frown.
“We’re not fighting,” Jiang Cheng protests ineffectually, given he’s clearly about to slap at Wei Wuxian again.
A’Yuan’s eyes narrow. “Popo says if you’re mad you have to try to use your words,” he says with the solemnity of an ancient monk.
“Thank you for the reminder, A’Yuan,” Wei Wuxian says, straightening his shoulders under the scrutiny of his son. “Good job remembering Popo’s advice.” He glances sideways at Jiang Cheng significantly, but it still takes Yanli subtly pinching his elbow for Jiang Cheng to realize he has to say something, too.
“Thank you, A’Yuan,” he manages without an eye roll. Wei Wuxian is almost proud of him; given Jiang Cheng’s general state of emotional constipation, a thank-you is a big step.
A’Yuan considers them for another moment. “Use your words,” he admonishes, then turns around to A’Ling, who has used his briefly unsupervised time to bury A’Yuan’s shovel. Wei Wuxian keeps a close eye on them until he’s sure A’Yuan has a) found his shovel without, b) anyone crying, then turns to his brother expectantly.
“What?” Jiang Cheng asks, glaring in the direction of Wei Wuxian’s knees. Wei Wuxian says nothing—there was a time when he would have immediately shot back a rejoinder, but parenthood has taught him the value of an expectant silence. Yanli has also learned this lesson, and she adds her gaze to his, thus massively boosting the effectiveness of the expectant silence. Jiang Cheng squirms under their scrutiny, going immensely red, and finally slouches down in his seat with a huff.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“For?” Wei Wuxian prompts, just to be an asshole.
Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, but his voice is sincere when he says, “For suggesting you dump a cat at a shelter to avoid taking responsibility.” He picks at the label on his beer. “But animal shelters are there for a reason, so if you couldn’t take care of it...”
Given that Wei Wuxian had assumed he would eventually acquire a cat by going to an animal shelter, he can’t argue with that. “Well, I’m not taking him anywhere,” he says, giving Snowflake another rub behind the ears. “He’s staying with us unless his old owner shows up.”
“He’s very sweet,” Yanli says, scratching under Snowflake’s chin while he purrs.
“To you,” Jiang Cheng grumbles quietly.
“If his previous owner is still alive, they must be worried.” She strokes down Snowflake’s spine and sighs. “Poor Lan Xichen is almost going out of his mind.”
Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian exchange a confused glance. “Is Snowflake Lan Xichen’s cat?” Wei Wuxian ventures.
“Mrow!” Snowflake says, suddenly paying very close attention.
Yanli shakes her head, lips pursed. “Don’t you know? Lan Wangji has been missing for almost three weeks.”
Oh. Right. Wei Wuxian did know that. Lan Xichen told him directly. He hadn’t forgotten, exactly, but he had sort of filed it away as “none of my business” and therefore not something he needed to dedicate active brainspace to. “Still? Have they found anything?”
Yanli shakes her head again. Snowflake makes a mrrt sound, tail lashing, and she pets his spine soothingly. “The night hunt was in a national park, so...”
Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng wince in unison. Wei Wuxian wonders which particular national park hunt Jiang Cheng’s remembering: The one with the mudflats? The one with the nest of coyote yao? The one that took them three days just of hiking back and forth in a featureless forest to find the source of the maze array that was trapping people?
(Wei Wuxian misses night hunting, but even so: Some hunts just fucking suck.)
“He could still be tracking whatever it is,” Jiang Cheng offers, patting Yanli awkwardly on the arm.
“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says confidently, “he’s probably gonna roll back in tomorrow with a really good story.”
Snowflake heaves a huge sigh, sounding very longsuffering.
“I hope so,” Yanli says, gaze distant. “I just... I know what he’s going through.”
Wei Wuxian winces again, while Jiang Cheng gives him a significant glare. Okay, yes, dropping off the face of the earth for three years after being fired from Jiang Cultivation (on absolutely spurious charges cooked up by the now-incarcerated Wen Ruohan) (yes, Wei Wuxian was experimenting with resentful energy, but that doesn’t make him a demonic cultivator, dammit) (demonic cultivation is something entirely different; Wei Wuxian’s work with resentful energy is restorative and he has the data to prove it, not that anyone will publish him) was not the mature way to handle his entire life imploding around him, but in his defense, he was younger then and desperately in need of therapy.
“Well, I came back,” Wei Wuxian insists cheerfully. “I’m sure he will, too.”
“Mrow,” Snowflake says sadly, and sets his chin on Yanli’s knee.
🐾
Wei Wuxian would like it known that he didn’t intend to take Snowflake on a night hunt. Wei Wuxian would like it known that he didn’t even intend to take himself on a night hunt. Wei Wuxian isn’t entirely sure who he’d like to make this known to, as he’s deeply embarrassed about the entire situation and knows if he tells anyone about it, they’ll make disappointed faces, and then he’ll be embarrassed and feel bad for having endangered himself, but he really, really didn’t mean to!
What happened was this: Wei Wuxian was trying to get Snowflake more used to the harness, and he had a spare couple hours while Wen-Popo and Uncle Four took A’Yuan to a Wen family thing that Sunday—a birthday for a cousin Wei Wuxian isn’t sure he’s ever met? They asked if he wanted to come but at least two kid-free hours? Come on, it’s not even a question—and so he had Snowflake with him for a car ride around the neighborhood when one of his usual talisman clients texted him that the laundry room in their basement was feeling super creepy again. The apartment in question was only a ten minute drive away, and Wei Wuxian always keeps some spare talisman paper and ink in his no-longer-a-diaper-bag-thank-all-the-gods-and-his-ancestors-for-A’Yuan’s-potty-training-success. He figured he could pop over, swap out the cleansing talismans, and get paid with no one the wiser but his bank account, plus Snowflake would get some Leash Time in a new and interesting environment. Win-win!
“How the fuck did you get into a washing machine?!” he yells at the water ghoul from where he’s sheltering behind a row of dryers, Snowflake clutched protectively to his chest. The poor cat’s fur is puffed out like he just got struck by lightning, and he hisses over Wei Wuxian’s shoulder as if to emphasize his point. There must be something seriously hinky with the plumbing in this building—Wei Wuxian shudders to think of what might go wrong with their toilets.
The washing machine—or, rather, the ghoul trapped inside of it—thump-thump-thumps violent like it has an extremely off-balance load of laundry inside. The ghoul screams, as well. It’s a real auditory experience!
Wei Wuxian swears, wanting to rub his face in exasperation but occupied with holding onto an angry, squirming cat. He can do this. It’s one water ghoul: He has talismans, a spiritual flute, and a lot of experience with water ghouls. He doesn’t normally have to defeat them hands-free while keeping a cat under control, but it’s an opportunity to learn!
Deep breath. Wei Wuxian centers himself, ignoring the screaming and thumping, and finds the beat of his core; soaks up the spiritual energy cycling through his body and tunes himself to the resentful energy outside of it. (Snowflake has all the claws from all his paws digging into Wei Wuxian’s chest and belly through his denim jacket, which Wei Wuxian forces himself to ignore along with the screaming and thumping.) When he has the thread of it, he takes another deep breath and starts to whistle.
Whistling is not Wei Wuxian’s preferred way of manipulating resentful energy—he’s limited by the number of notes he can produce with just his mouth, and it’s not as safe as channeling through Chenqing, a flute designed for exactly that purpose—but it’s enough to start bleeding resentment from the ghoul. As he coaxes away layers of resentment, the ghoul stops banging and screaming so fucking much, which means Snowflake stops hissing and attempting to launch himself off Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, which means Wei Wuxian can risk digging one-handed in his no-longer-a-diaper-bag for the talisman paper. He’s learned from experience to keep it in a separate pocket from the rest of the sundry supplies a single father needs on the daily, and furthermore has learned to store it in something waterproof after the Applesauce Incident.
All this combines to mean Wei Wuxian has to awkwardly wiggle open a ziploc bag with one hand, while whistling at a water ghoul and pinning a cat to his chest with the other. Whatever. It’s not harder than getting a soapy wet kid back in the tub when he decides it’s time to run naked around the house instead of take his bath! Wei Wuxian can do this.
(Granted, the naked wet kid thing had slightly less chance of grievous bodily injury if he fucked it up, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Wei Wuxian successfully gets a hand into the plastic bag and unceremoniously dumps paper out onto the scuffed linoleum floor. He finds a cultivator brush pen in the bottom of the baggie (lead-free cinnabar being one of the many advances in cultivation science he’s grateful for) and starts frantically scribbling talismans. Cardinal directions, correctly balancing the five elements, adding a conduit to drain the ghoul’s resentment away safely back into the pipes so the running water can finish the cleansing... He double-checks his work, still whistling, and nods to himself. Yeah. That should work, as long as Snowflake stays even a little bit chill—Wei Wuxian does not want to be wrangling a leashed cat along with the rest of this.
The screaming has stopped entirely, though the possessed washing machine is still vibrating sullenly, so Wei Wuxian risks peeking out from behind the dented dryer sheltering him from the ghoul. No wet socks launch in his direction, so either the washer is out of clothes to throw (a strong possibility given how many he had to dodge earlier) or he’s successfully calmed the ghoul for the moment. Hoping it’s the latter, he climbs carefully to his feet, freshly written talismans clutched in his free hand. His mouth is starting to go dry from all the whistling, but he can’t spare the time to swallow. He can barely spend the time to breathe—Wei Wuxian learned circular breathing for the flute, but damn, does it come in handy sometimes.
Wei Wuxian anchors the first talisman with a pulse of spiritual energy, leaving it fluttering on top of a non-haunted washing machine. He keeps a careful eye on the haunted washer as he sidles past it to anchor the next talisman, whistling all the while. Snowflake twists around in his grip to glare furiously at the still-lightly-thumping washer, but seems otherwise content to stay in Wei Wuxian’s arms, thank fuck. The third talisman goes down easily, but ideally Wei Wuxian needs to get the fourth one anchored on the wall directly behind the machine. He narrows his eyes while he considers his options, trying not to get distracted by the sound of his own creepy whistling. Is there a broom? He could maybe stick the talisman to the end of a broom and then use the broom to stick it to the wall...
Caught up in his own thoughts, Wei Wuxian unconsciously licks his dry lips, then swallows to try to wet his throat, and immediately regrets both when the water ghoul bursts, screaming, out of the machine and swipes at him. Everything gets very loud, very quickly, and Wei Wuxian keeps his grip on the talismans but loses hold of a yowling Snowflake. Wei Wuxian grabs at him ineffectually, the handle of the leash clattering to the floor, and at least Wei Wuxian can use both hands for his flute now, but the cat—
The cat snarls and smacks the water ghoul in the face, claws-out. The water ghoul screams in what sounds like surprise this time and flinches backwards. Snowflake presses the attack, swiping and scratching with a fury that shocks Wei Wuxian and the water ghoul both, driving the ghoul back toward the washer from whence it came, spitting and yowling at the top of his lungs. It’s distraction enough for Wei Wuxian to lunge over and slap the a talisman on the wall behind the washer, then he whips Chenqing out of the qiankun pocket in his not-a-diaper-bag and starts playing a little awkwardly, his final talisman pinched between one thumb and the flute while he waits for the opportune moment.
Between the cat attack and the shrill demands of Wei Wuxian’s dizi, the water ghoul retreats back into its washer, still screaming. (Why so much screaming?!) Wei Wuxian risks pausing his playing to send the final talisman in after it, and then Snowflake leaps onto the washer and smacks the door shut with a resounding CLANG! The talismans flare to life in a red flash, and the washer briefly makes a sound like someone decided to wash a load of hockey skates instead of clothes. It shakes so hard it almost walks itself away from the wall, and Snowflake sits heavily down on the lid while Wei Wuxian, Chenqing, and the talismans do their work.
It takes a minute and a lot more clanging, but Wei Wuxian slices away layer after layer of resentment, calming the ghoul and reminding it that there are options other than rage. It fights him, but deep down all it wants is to rest, and Wei Wuxian promises it that rest through the flute, draining off the anger and the need for revenge until the ghoul finally sighs and drifts away to somewhere more peaceful.
Wei Wuxian pants audibly in the suddenly-silent laundry room, Chenqing still held at the ready.
He almost jumps out of his skin when the formerly haunted washer clicks to the spin cycle. The adrenaline tips over into near hysteria a second later, and he doubles over laughing with his hands on his knees, hovering on the edge of giddy tears.
“Holy fucking shit, hell, ass balls cocksucker fuck,” he wheezes, giving himself the gift of using every swear he can think of while A’Yuan isn’t present. “Tittyfucking Guanyin on a pogo stick, fucking shitting hell.”
“Mrow,” Snowflake says emphatically, the handle of the retractable leash clattering to the floor again as he leaps down from the washer to rub up on Wei Wuxian’s leg.
“Oh, shit,” Wei Wuxian realizes aloud, dropping to the floor in a way he’ll definitely regret later and patting over Snowflake with frantic hands. “Are you hurt?! Please tell me you’re not hurt, A’Yuan will cry and then I’ll cry and then Popo will kill me.”
“Mrrt,” Snowflake says, letting himself be examined without complaint. He headbutts Wei Wuxian’s hand, insisting on having his ears rubbed, and Wei Wuxian can’t see any blood so he thinks the cat? Is probably?! Fine!? After fighting a water ghoul?!
Wei Wuxian scoops Snowflake up in trembling arms and buries his face in all that white fur. “Holy shit,” he gasps, trying not to have a total breakdown. “Holy shit, Snowflake, never scare me like that again.”
“Mrow?” Snowflake asks, bonking his head against Wei Wuxian’s temple.
“I mean, it was super helpful and badass,” Wei Wuxian admits, aware he’s talking to a cat and honestly fine with that, “but never again.”
“Mrrt,” Snowflake says, and starts licking Wei Wuxian’s hair. It’s objectively disgusting. Wei Wuxian lets him do it for at least five minutes anyway.
🐾
It finally clicked for Lan Wangji after the visit from the Jiangs just who DILF is: Wei Ying, courtesy Wuxian, disgraced former second-in-command of the Jiang Cultivation organization, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances and, to Lan Wangji’s knowledge, never returned. He realizes now that all the news articles must have used Wei Ying’s birth name to delegitimize him—allowing someone accused of demonic cultivation the honor of a courtesy name? Blasphemous.
Lan Wangji doesn’t remember a lot about the case, having spent most of his time on solo nighthunts while it dragged on, but he does remember being immediately suspicious that the accusations came from Wen Ruohan. Given that Wen Ruohan was eventually convicted and imprisoned for exactly the kind of demonic cultivation he’d accused Wei Ying—Wei Wuxian—of doing, Lan Wangji was right to be suspicious. There was something going on with Wen Ruohan abusing another branch of the Wen family, as well? Lan Wangji suspects that Wen-Popo and Wen Yuan are from that branch, and further suspects that they were either aided by Wei Wuxian during his disappearance, or aided him. Possibly both.
Unfortunately Lan Wangji found most of the reporting about the case to be inexcusably salacious, and thus avoided it out of principle. He wishes now that he’d paid closer attention, consumed with curiosity as he is for how the second-in-command of an entire org—a position requiring both excellent cultivation skills and excellent administrative skills—ended up a single father designing talismans to make ends meet and using a clearly powerful spiritual weapon primarily to play pop songs to entertain a pre-schooler. Wei Wuxian seems happy enough, but Lan Wangji doubts his journey involved much justice.
Lan Wangji’s early wariness of Wei Wuxian’s cultivation has long since faded. If he’s being honest, it was almost entirely gone after the second night he stayed up to watch him design talismans. He uses resentful energy, yes, but in innovative ways that—and this is a vital distinction—remove resentment from the environment. Many of Wei Wuxian’s talismans act on resentful energy the way trees act on air pollution, filtering it and either removing it entirely or turning it into the pure spiritual energy found in nature. Lan Wangji wonders why Wei Wuxian is living in one half of a scruffy duplex when his work could easily cut the ambient resentment in the city by a third—could be incredibly lucrative—and then remembers the blanket anti-unorthodoxy policies passed by every known cultivation organization after the Wen scandal broke.
Ah.
Yes.
Lan Wangji imagines trying to explain some of Wei Wuxian’s talisman work to his uncle, and if he wasn’t already a cat, he’d want to shift into cat form just to avoid the conversation. From what he can tell, Wei Wuxian’s commercial talisman work is all well within the bounds of orthodox cultivation. The Lan Wangji of a month ago would be shocked that the current Lan Wangji regards that as a massive shame.
The Lan Wangji of a month ago would also be shocked to see the current Lan Wangji perched on the edge of Wei Wuxian’s desk at midnight on a Sunday night, trying convince Wei Wuxian to go the fuck to bed through furious eye contact. The Lan Wangji of a month ago would be concerned about Wei Wuxian’s experimentation with resentful energy; the Lan Wangji of now is concerned that Wei Wuxian seems to subsist on a maximum of five hours of sleep each night and inconsistent naps. Wei Wuxian stays up to work on talisman designs after A’Yuan goes to bed, which makes sense to Lan Wangji.
The fact that he stays up until two in the morning most nights does not, especially when A’Yuan wakes up naturally at seven and loudly cajoles his Baba out of bed for breakfast. Lan Wangji commends Wei Wuxian’s care and feeding of his son; Lan Wangji is going quietly frantic about Wei Wuxian’s lack of care and feeding for himself.
Wei Wuxian came home from the impromptu night hunt on Sunday, smiled and played with his A'Yuan, fed them both with some party leftovers from Wen-Popo, and then proceeded to stay up until after midnight working on talismans. He took a brief nap on Monday, and then was up until three am and out of bed again at seven-thirty on Tuesday. He went to bed at an almost reasonable midnight on Tuesday night, only to wake up at six on Wednesday because A’Yuan had a nightmare. It’s now ten-thirty Wednesday night, Wei Wuxian is staring blearily at his talisman papers with exhausted bruises under his eyes, and Lan Wangji has had enough.
When Wei Wuxian next puts down his brush pen, Lan Wangji sits on it. Wei Wuxian reaches absently for the pen without looking, and Lan Wangji smacks his hand.
“Ow,” Wei Wuxian says reflexively, even though Lan Wangji didn’t use his claws. He blinks and frowns. “Get off that.” He attempts to move Lan Wangji from the pen and gets smacked again for his trouble. “Hey!”
Lan Wangji glares at him, puts one paw on Wei Wuxian’s current talisman design, and draws that closer until he can sit on it as well. “Mrrt,” he says dangerously.
Wei Wuxian eyes him, lips pressed into a flat line. “Are you bored?” he asks rhetorically. “Do you want the dangly toy?”
Lan Wangji does not want the dangly toy, but he does want Wei Wuxian to leave the desk, so he paws at the edge of the talisman he’s sitting on performatively.
“I shouldn’t reward you,” Wei Wuxian grumbles, but he shoves away from the desk and ambles to the living room. Success! Lan Wangji immediately abandons the writing utensils and gives chase, intercepting Wei Wuxian before he even manages to find the dangly ribbon toy and batting at his ankles.
“Hey!” Wei Wuxian protests, dodging backwards. “What the fuck, Snowflake!” he hiss-asks, while Lan Wangji determinedly herds him down the hall through a combination of ankle-smacks, being very annoyingly in the way, and at least one bite mostly to Wei Wuxian’s pant leg. Wei Wuxian stumbles through the door into his bedroom while Lan Wangji pursues relentlessly, hits the foot of his bed calves-first, and falls backward onto it. Triumphant, Lan Wangji leaps directly onto Wei Wuxian’s stomach, loafs up, and makes direct eye contact.
“What the fuck,” Wei Wuxian repeats to the ceiling, then pushes himself onto his elbows as though to get up. Lan Wangji un-loafs one paw and puts it on Wei Wuxian’s sternum, flexing his claws until they prick through the thin fabric of Wei Wuxian’s shirt in a quiet threat. Wei Wuxian pauses, narrowing his eyes at Lan Wangji, and experimentally lies back down.
Perfect.
Lan Wangji starts purring. Pointedly.
Wei Wuxian raises his head to give Lan Wangji a wild, wide-eyed look, then drops his head to the mattress with a near-silent laugh. “You fucking weirdo,” he complains, sounding weirdly delighted. “You want me to go to bed?”
Lan Wangji purrs louder.
“I can’t believe I’m being bullied by a cat,” Wei Wuxian gripes to the world at large, one hand coming up to massage behind Lan Wangji’s ears. They lapse into a comfortable silence broken only by Lan Wangji’s purring for a few breaths, and then Wei Wuxian very carefully wraps his hands around Lan Wangji’s loaf form for support as he sits up. Lan Wangji stops purring and flexes his claws again, giving Wei Wuxian an inquisitive look.
“I know, I know,” Wei Wuxian says, unhooking Lan Wangji’s paw one claw at a time. “But I need to brush my teeth, little dude.”
That... is acceptable. Lan Wangji allows himself to be deposited on the blanket, then watches as—
Ah. Lan Wangji closes his eyes, but not before he gets a good look at Wei Wuxian’s bare back while he shucks out of his shirt to change into pajamas. It’s a nice back. Lan Wangji is not currently in a form where he has actual bodily reactions to seeing an attractive man, but he can certainly admit that Wei Wuxian is an attractive man.
Wei Wuxian, crucially, does not know that he’s changing clothes in front of another man trapped in the body of a cat. He thinks he’s changing clothes in front of a cat, which is a normal and reasonable thing to do. Lan Wangji must respect his privacy as much as he’s able. He keeps his eyes shut until the shuffling sound of clothing ceases, then follows Wei Wuxian to the hall bathroom to make sure all of this hasn’t been an elaborate ruse for him to sneak back to his talismans. He waits outside the bathroom door, listening to the water run, then trails along at Wei Wuxian’s heels as he turns off all the lights, the edges of his hair a bit damp and his skin looking freshly moisturized. Finally he follows Wei Wuxian back into his bedroom and jumps up onto the bed, waiting expectantly until Wei Wuxian climbs between the sheets.
As soon as Wei Wuxian lies down, Lan Wangji leaps lightly onto his chest and pins him there. Wei Wuxian laughs and pats him on the head, then does a long reach to turn off the bedside lamp.
“All right, you little monster,” he murmurs, sounding fond and already sleepy. “You win, okay? I’m in bed.”
Lan Wangji purrs smugly, butting his head into Wei Wuxian’s hand when it returns for more scritches. He notes with satisfaction as Wei Wuxian’s touch grows clumsy, his hand eventually falling still as his breathing evens out. It takes maybe five minutes for Wei Wuxian to drop fully asleep, hand still draped on Lan Wangji’s shoulders. The feeling of accomplishment this engenders in Lan Wangji is wildly beyond what actually makes sense—he might as well have just taken his first swordflight, instead of bullying an obviously exhausted man into laying down.
Lan Wangji feels accomplished anyway, and he basks in that feeling while Wei Wuxian’s chest rises and falls under him until it carries him, too, off to unconsciousness.
🐾
Lan Wangji allows Wei Ying to stay up until ten-thirty the following night before forcibly stealing his brush pen. Wei Ying reaches for it, bumps his knuckles into Lan Wangji’s fur, and blinks at him.
“Again?” he asks, amused and exasperated.
Lan Wangji puts his paw on a draft talisman and blinks back at him.
Wei Ying narrows his eyes. “You’re like ten pounds,” he points out. “I could just pick you up and move you. I could send you to kitty jail.”
Lan Wangji blinks again, slowly, and draws the talisman closer.
A laugh bubbles out of Wei Ying’s throat, his head tipping back to the ceiling as he pushes up his glasses to rub his eyes. “You know what? Fine. You win, little dude.” He pats Snowflake on the head and clicks off his desk lamp, then stretches as he stands. The rest of the lights get turned off as he pads toward his bedroom, Lan Wangji trotting along at his heels, tail and head both held high.
Lan Wangji falls asleep on Wei Ying’s chest again, purring in satisfaction. It feels like victory.
🐾
Wei Wuxian refuses to admit that he wakes up Thursday morning feeling better rested than he has in years, because that would mean admitting he could have been doing this the whole time and just made bad bedtime choices for his own bad reasons . He wakes up before A’Yuan does, even! The sun shines around the corners of his shitty rental blinds—someday he’s going to replace those on his own dollar and the landlord can thank him for it—when Wei Wuxian blinks his eyes open, warm and muzzy-headed and weirdly weighed-down. The reason for the latter hits him a moment later—Snowflake is stretched out on his chest, blinking sleepily back at him as he rouses from Wei Wuxian’s movements. They stare at each other in silence for a moment, then—simultaneously—yawn.
“Morning,” Wei Wuxian says, offering Snowflake an early-morning ear scritch, which the cat leans into eagerly. Wei Wuxian also will not admit how well rested he feels because it would mean admitting that his cat has better bedtime sense than he does. He does feel the need to express his gratitude to Snowflake, though, which he does by giving him face scrubs with both hands, some full-body petting, and then—mostly for his own amusement—plays the cat’s butt like the bongos. Honestly, he was sure he’d get smacked for it, so he’s as surprised as anyone when Snowflake’s ass elevators upwards under Wei Wuxian’s rhythmic spanking. He doesn’t stop purring, either, so that’ll show him for making assumptions.
It’s honestly insulting how much easier the morning goes when he’s not gritty-eyed from a level of exhaustion he’d just assumed he had to live with. Cooking breakfast? Easier. Not having to tamp down on his temper when A’Yuan accidentally spills half his breakfast all over the table and his clean clothes? Easier. Remembering the schedule for the day? Way, way, way easier. Wei Wuxian is very lucky to have Wen-Popo and Uncle Four next door—is incredibly lucky to have the extended Wen family around to help with A’Yuan—but he’d sort of decided, without really deciding it, that as a single parent working freelance talisman gigs that the solution to not having enough hours in the day was sleep deprivation. He has the feeling he might have been wrong about that. When he imagines telling his siblings about it, Imaginary Jiang Cheng immediately calls him a self-sacrificing dipshit.
Imaginary Jiang Cheng is, in this instance, probably right. How much work was he really getting done between like eleven and two, anyway? It’d be one thing if he could revert entirely to the semi-nocturnal schedule of his teenage years, but pre-schoolers wait for no man.
He’s still marveling at how he has the energy to actually clean the kitchen properly when his phone reminds him about A’Yuan’s music class. Right! Outside of the house things! A’Yuan, predictably, gets very excited when he’s reminded about music class. Snowflake also gets very excited, running in circles around A’Yuan as A’Yuan runs for the door, but at least this time Wei Wuxian is prepared for his little escape artist tendencies. He gets the harness on Snowflake before anything else, hangs the handle of the leash off one of the coat hooks, and gets A’Yuan into his outside clothes with no worries about the cat making a break for it.
Snowflake has turned out to be a very chill car cat, for which Wei Wuxian is grateful. He buckles the leash handle in for safety, anyway, but Snowflake seems happy to put his paws on the passenger-side door for stability and look out the window. Since A’Yuan is in the booster seat in the back, Snowflake climbs over the center console to join him there. When Wei Wuxian glances in the rear-view mirror, A’Yuan is telling Snowflake a story, petting his head while Snowflake enjoys the view outside. It’s so fucking cute Wei Wuxian wishes he could safely take a picture, but alas: He’s driving.
Both A’Yuan and Snowflake are practically bouncing in their seats from excitement when Wei Wuxian parks. Wei Wuxian has no idea why the cat is so excited to be at the Cloud Recesses, but there are a lot of very nice gardens. Snowflake loves sniffing plants. Maybe he just want to sniff new plants? Regardless, he makes sure he has a firm hold on Snowflake’s leash before he unclips it, and keeps that firm hold going while he helps A’Yuan out of the car.
Snowflake doesn’t stop to sniff anything, practically trying to drag Wei Wuxian toward the music building to the point that he doesn’t release the retractable part of the leash for fear of somehow losing him at the end of it. When they get close enough to the entrance that other kids show up, he reels Snowflake in and picks him up entirely, tucking him under his arm so he can’t trip anyone with the leash.
“Cute cat,” says one of the other parents, a white woman named... Barbara? No, Brenda! Brenda! Wei Wuxian remembers her name, and resists the urge to pump his fist.
“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian says, reeling with the success of remembering another parent’s name. Is this what happens when you sleep well? “This is Snowflake.”
“He’s our cat!” A’Yuan announces to both Brenda and her daughter Alexis. (Wei Wuxian knows Alexis’ name because she comes up in A’Yuan’s stories. He knows the names of most of A’Yuan’s classmates, and almost none of their parents.)
“Do you want to see if he’ll let you pet him?” Wei Wuxian asks Alexis, who peeks out at him from behind her mother’s legs and nods. He crouches down so she can reach, and Snowflake stays very still and calm while Alexis gently and reverently pats his head.
“What do we say?” Brenda prompts.
“Thank you, Snowflake,” Alexis whispers, not looking at Wei Wuxian for a moment. Brenda closes her eyes in silent exasperation, and Wei Wuxian smothers his sympathetic laugh.
“It’s fine,” he mouths when Brenda opens her eyes.
“Thank you,” she mouths back at him, then taps Alexis’ shoulder. “We need to get inside for class, so say goodbye to Snowflake.”
“Bye,” Alexis whispers, giving Snowflake one last pet before re-gluing herself to Brenda’s pant leg.
“Do you want to come inside with us?” Brenda asks A’Yuan, glancing at Wei Wuxian as she does. “If you take him in you’ll get mobbed,” she says in explanation, jerking her chin at Snowflake.
Wei Wuxian winces internally. Yeah, he hadn’t thought that part through. “A’Yuan?” he prompts. “Do you want to go inside with Alexis?”
A’Yuan frowns. “I want everyone to meet Snowflake.”
“Meow,” Snowflake chimes in from Wei Wuxian’s elbow.
Wei Wuxian really should have seen this coming. “They can meet Snowflake after class. If we go in now class will start late because everyone will want to say hi, and then you won’t get as much music time.”
A’Yuan gives this some serious thought, which is one of Wei Wuxian’s favorite things: Watching a kid consider a basic concept they’re encountering for the very first time. “After class?”
“After class,” Wei Wuxian confirms. “Can Brenda take you inside?”
A’Yuan considers that, too, then finally holds out a hand for Brenda to take. “Thank you,” Wei Wuxian mouths at her emphatically. She nods and leads both children inside, leaving him alone with a squirming cat and a child-free hour. He clamps Snowflake a little closer to his side and heads back to the car, pausing to give Snowflake the freedom of the leash when they’re far enough away from the music building not to cause a kid stampede.
“What do you want to do?” he asks Snowflake, who has finally stopped trying to return to the music room and has chosen instead to sniff a flower on the side of the path. “You want to go look at some cheap books?”
“Mrrt,” Snowflake says balefully, but he follows Wei Wuxian back to the car.
They don’t actually end up at the bookstore because Wei Wuxian realizes belatedly that the bookstore might not be cat-friendly, but the cafe with the weird drinks has a window that opens to the street, so he gets his spicy mocha, a pastry, and a little bit of bacon from one of the sandwiches the barista insists is for Snowflake. These he absconds with to a nearby park with a duck pond, where Snowflake daintily eats his bacon treat and then lays at Wei Wuxian’s feet while they’re both lightly menaced by ducks who feel entitled to Wei Wuxian’s pastry. They circle but don’t approach thanks to Snowflake’s vigilance. Truly a hero.
Wei Wuxian is considering just a little park nap when his phone rings. Talisman customer? He is not fighting another washing machine ghoul, not today—
The Cloud Recesses number flashes on his caller ID, and Wei Wuxian is on his feet and coaxing Snowflake toward the car even as he swipes to answer.
“Hello?” he says out loud. Please no puke, he implores the universe.
“Hi, is this Wei Wuxian?” It’s the music school receptionist, Lan Yue if Wei Wuxian remembers correctly, and he puts a little more pep in his step.
“That’s me!” Distantly, not quite covered up by the background noise-canceling on the phone, he can hear crying. “Is that A’Yuan back there?”
“I’m afraid so,” Lan Yue says apologetically. “One of the other students said something that set him off and we haven’t been able to get him to calm down.”
Oof. A’Yuan has been very resilient and everyone in his extended family has banded together to give him all the love and support in the world he needed after his parents died in that car accident, but when you get down to it he’s still a traumatized four-year-old, and that shit comes up at random times. Like, as an example: Now.
“I’m about ten minutes away,” Wei Wuxian assures her, scooping an unresisting Snowflake up for the final jog to the car and bundling them both inside. “Can you put him on the phone?”
“A’Yuan?” Lan Yue says, a little muffled. “Do you want to talk to Baba?”
There’s rustling, crying much closer to the speaker, and a wet, “Baba?”
“Hey, little Radish,” Wei Wuxian says, switching his phone to speaker and clipping in into the holder on the dashboard. “I’m coming to get you, but can you tell me what’s got you so sad all of a sudden?”
A’Yuan heaves a huge, shuddering sigh, and launches into a sobbing explanation that Wei Wuxian understands maybe fifteen percent of. He thinks—thinks—someone maybe asked about A’Yuan’s mom, and A’Yuan had to say he didn’t have one, and the other student was confused and insisted everyone had moms, and it devolved from there? But that involves a lot of extrapolation on Wei Wuxian’s part. It’s not actually important that Wei Wuxian understand A’Yuan’s explanation right now; the important part is that he listens and says things like, “Wow, that sounds like it gave you some big feelings,” and, “You’re doing such a good job talking about how you feel,” and, “I love you and I’m coming to get you right now.”
Eventually A’Yuan cries himself mostly out and hands the phone back to Lan Yue, who assures Wei Wuxian she’s fine to wait until he arrives for pickup and hangs up. Wei Wuxian proceeds to drive safely but very efficiently up the winding roads to the Cloud Recesses, parks as quickly as possible, and one hundred percent breaks some rules by running to the music building with Snowflake cradled to his chest. He doesn’t quite burst through the front doors, but only because he thinks doing so would startle the hell out of Lan Yue and he doesn’t want to be rude to the person currently caring for his traumatized son.
“BABA!” A’Yuan wail-yells as soon as he’s inside, launching off the waiting room bench and directly into Wei Wuxian’s instinctively-braced legs.
“Hey, A’Yuan,” Wei Wuxian says as soothingly as he can while trying to catch his breath, dropping into a crouch so they can hug properly. “Hey, little Radish, it’s okay. We can go home.”
A’Yuan snuffles something unintelligible into Wei Wuxian’s neck, smearing snot and tears half onto his shirt and half onto his skin. It’s disgusting. Wei Wuxian just holds him tighter, Snowflake headbutting A’Yuan’s knees and purring at the top of his lungs. Wei Wuxian thinks he’s trying to be soothing? It’s very sweet, and he makes a mental note to spend some extra time brushing out his fur tonight as a thank-you.
“Here’s his bag,” Lan Yue says, setting, A’Yuan’s backpack down where Wei Wuxian can easily reach it. “A’Yuan, I’ll see you next week, okay?”
A’Yuan nods and says something else untranslatable into actual language. Wei Wuxian gives Lan Yue a grateful nod, hooks his hand through one of the straps of the backpack, and bundles A’Yuan onto his hip as he stands up. Ooof, the kid is really getting too big to carry around for an extended period of time, but he’ll do what he has to.
Lan Yue, continuing her streak of helpfulness, holds the front door for him so he doesn’t have to back his way out ass-first. Wei Wuxian makes a mental note to ask her for a hot drink order next week so he can bring her something from the weird cafe, then looks up at the sound of a second door opening.
“Wei Wuxian!” Lan Xichen calls from the music classroom door, poking his head into the hall. “So sorry about A’Yuan. I know Francisco didn’t mean to upset him.”
“It happens,” Wei Wuxian says with a shrug. “We’ll see you next week, Lan-laoshi.”
“Of course. Be well, A’Yuan!” Lan Xichen pairs this with a friendly wave, and A’Yuan manages to unclench one hand from Wei Wuxian’s shirt to wave back. Lan Xichen smiles, one of the real ones he saves for the kids, and then his eyes drop to approximately Wei Wuxian’s ankle-level and go wide as saucers. He takes half a step out of the door, face blank with shock, and says, “Wangji?” just as the main door clicks shut behind Wei Wuxian.
At least, that’s what Wei Wuxian thinks he said? It was hard to hear over A’Yuan’s continuing sniffles, and the context was weird, and Wei Wuxian needs to get them all home so anything that doesn’t involve a literal fire is lower in priority.
Snowflake meows piteously, air-pawing toward the music building, but at Wei Wuxian’s gentle tug on the leash he follows them, once again, back to the parking lot. He’s more reluctant to get in the car than he was when they first parked, but he also weighs like ten pounds, so Wei Wuxian successfully gets everyone loaded regardless of reluctance or amount of crying.
Driving home with his son quietly sobbing in the back seat is a unique form of torture. Yes, Wei Wuxian prioritizes safe driving and understands the point of booster seats, but he’d also like to be able to hug his crying child instead of trying his best to block out the misery from the driver’s seat.
Anyway.
They do manage to get home, and Wei Wuxian unloads everyone into the house with no small amount of relief, letting Snowflake off the leash but ignoring the harness for the moment. There’s something niggling at the back of his mind, but he doesn’t have the time to think about it, not while A’Yuan still has big wet tears tracking down his cheeks. Wei Wuxian changes them both out of their now-snotty shirts, wiping A’Yuan’s face with a warm washcloth, and tries to talk A’Yuan through identifying and feeling his feelings in the hope of maybe actually working through something?
This does not result in much success. It in fact sets A’Yuan off wailing again, and Wei Wuxian holds him close, tipping his head back to the ceiling and blinking hard to try to stave off the sympathy tears. Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool. Absolute failure, zero stars. Wei Wuxian is just killing it at the fatherhood game today. Why did they let him adopt A’Yuan, again? Left to his own devices he’d eat spicy instant noodles six days a week and never put his clean clothes away—he’s clearly not Dad material.
Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath and firmly steers his brain away from that particular spiral. He loves A’Yuan, and he does his best, and he’s trying his damndest to make sure that all of A’Yuan’s childhood traumas are temporary and not shit that will fuck up his life forever. That’s better than Wei Wuxian got. He’s trying.
He also has backup, which is why he chooses to live in a duplex where he can frequently hear Uncle Four’s TV through the walls. It takes some one-handed fumbling in a pocket while he hugs A’Yuan with the other, but he manages to dig out his phone and send Popo a request to come over.
A few minutes later the back door slides open, and A’Yuan immediately reaches for Popo before she’s even inside.
“Shhh, A’Yuan, it’s okay,” Popo tells him in Mandarin, accepting him from Wei Wuxian with only a slight grunt. (Wei Wuxian is frequently impressed by her child-carrying capacity, given how tiny she is.) She raises her eyebrows significantly at Wei Wuxian, who shrugs helplessly still rubbing circles on A’Yuan’s back.
“Something in class,” he whispers. “I think he’s having big feelings about not having a mom.”
“Goooo-oooo-oooooone,” A’Yuan gasp-sobs right after this. Wei Wuxian chooses to take it as confirmation, even though he’s seen A’Yuan cry almost as intensely about dropping his spoon on the floor. (He got over the spoon thing much more quickly, which is another point in favor of this being related to a deeper issue.)
“Aiya,” Wen-Popo sighs, petting A’Yuan’s hair. “We miss her, too. Do you want to come look at pictures of her with me and Uncle Four?”
A’Yuan nods, smearing tears into her shirt.
“Let’s go look at pictures, then,” Wei Wuxian says, deeply relieved to have some plan of action.
“No,” A’Yuan says sullenly, shoving his face into Wen-popo’s shoulder so they can’t see his expression. Wei Wuxian shares a look with Popo, then cranes around to try to make eye contact, feeling much less relieved.
“No, you don’t want to go look at pictures?” he asks gently.
“No!” A’Yuan insists, voice muffled since he refuses to look up.
“You still want to go look at pictures?” Wei Wuxian asks, narrowing in on the answer he needs through the process of elimination.
A’Yuan nods, doing further tear and snot damage to Wen-Popo’s shirt in the process. Wei Wuxian shares a look with her again, internally cringing at the sympathy in her face, and asks, “Do you not want me to come look at pictures with you?”
A’Yuan nods again and lets out a hiccuping sob. Wei Wuxian looks at the ceiling again, willing the tears away with sheer determination. It’s fine. Kids get like this sometimes. Wei Wuxian isn’t going to take it personally that his son is rejecting him from a family activity. It definitely doesn’t feel like having all his guts scooped out with a rusty melon baller. It’s! Totally! Fine!
“Let me pack you a bag in case he wants to stay the night,” he tells Popo, voice low.
“He’ll get over it,” Popo says, pulling him down so she can press her warm lips to his forehead. “You’re a good Baba.”
That does nothing to help Wei Wuxian’s impending breakdown, and he decamps to A’Yuan’s bedroom to gather up pajamas, several stuffed animals, and probably way too many bedtime story books. He keeps it together long enough to carry the bag next door for Popo and to kiss the top of A’Yuan’s head, murmuring love into the warmth of his hair. Once he’s back inside, though?
Wei Wuxian drops onto the couch like his strings have been cut and sobs. The thing people don’t tell you about parenthood before you’re in the thick of it is how often your kids will break your heart. He knows, he knows that whatever’s going on with A’Yuan today has nothing to do with him, knows that he can’t fix everything in the world just because he wants to, knows that losing your parents young embeds itself into you in a way that never goes away, but knowing all that only helps so much. A’Yuan is in pain; as his father, Wei Wuxian should be able to help, and he can’t, and it hurts.
Snowflake jumps onto Wei Wuxian’s lap and squirms into his arms, purring loudly enough to be heard over Wei Wuxian’s crying. A laugh bubbles up through the tears, and Wei Wuxian lets his hands settle onto Snowflake’s soft fur, then finally unbuckles the harness and sets it aside.
“I’m being dramatic,” he says self-deprecatingly as Snowflake braces his paws on Wei Wuxian’s belly and headbutts him in the chin. “He’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
Snowflake rumbles something that Wei Wuxian chooses to interpret as reassurance and snuggles closer. Wei Wuxian lets himself sink entirely into the cushions and cry as much as he wants to. He’ll feel better once he’s done, as he tells A’Yuan on a regular basis.
Better, he decides some five minutes later when he’s gently dislodged Snowflake and gone to the bathroom to rinse his face, is definitely more of an emotional than a physical descriptor. He has a headache, his sinuses feel stuffy, and his eyes are unpleasantly swollen, but at least he’s no longer a creature of pure (shitty) reaction now. It’s good parenting to recognize your own limitations and reach out for help; it’s good parenting to take a step back and let your kid decide for himself what he needs most in a moment of high pressure. It still feels immensely shitty that A’Yuan didn’t want him, but that’s how it goes sometimes. It doesn’t mean A’Yuan doesn’t love him; it means A’Yuan trusts that his Baba will still be there when he gets back from Popo’s, and that’s not nothing.
Wei Wuxian makes himself a cup of tea and drinks it leaning against the counter in the kitchen, practicing meditative breathing and emotional regulation and all of that good shit Wen Qing is always on him about and that he tries to model for A’Yuan. He cleans up the chaos at the door where he dropped everything he was carrying other than A’Yuan when they got home, then tidies A’Yuan’s toy corner while he’s at it. (The Legos have a tendency to migrate, which is at least one of the reasons theirs is a slippers- on household. He really tries to keep the number of booby-traps to a minimum.) He gets a load of laundry going, into which he tosses their snotty shirts from earlier, and peers into the fridge, thinking about groceries.
Through it all he lets his brain wander, needing some mental recovery time from the laser-focus on A’Yuan. Wei Wuxian’s brain has two modes: Juggling at least seven different trains of thought at the same time, or so dug in on one train of thought there’s no room for anything else, even stuff like “bodily needs” or “other people trying to get his attention.” (The latter has changed since A’Yuan came into his life—he always has one ear out for trouble—but anyone else? Sorry, no synapses available.) With A’Yuan he was dug in; now he’s thinking about groceries, and chores, and maybe a snack now, and should he make dinner later, and he really feels like he was close to figuring out that talisman design last night when Snowflake decided it was bedtime—
Snowflake.
Wei Wuxian shuts the fridge and turns to contemplate the cat, who has loafed up in his usual place on the back of the couch. Snowflake makes eye contact with him and blinks lazily.
Lan Xichen...
Lan Xichen said, “Wangji.” He looked at Wei Wuxian normally, then looked down, made a face like he’d seen a ghost, and said, “Wangji,” his brother’s name.
His brother who has been missing for weeks.
His brother who’s an immensely powerful cultivator.
The only thing he could have seen around Wei Wuxian’s ankles at the Cloud Recesses was Snowflake.
Snowflake ignores open doors unless it’s time for A’Yuan’s music class at the Cloud Recesses, at which point he scrambles for the outside like he’s desperate for it. Snowflake is a perfectly behaved, un-neutered cat who uses and flushes the toilet, and who has never once scratched the furniture or tried to steal human food. Snowflake sometimes does things that make it seem like he understands spoken language, which Wei Wuxian always wrote off as coincidence, but...
Shapeshifting isn’t common among cultivators, but it’s not entirely unheard of, either. Wei Wuxian has read some nonfiction research about it (and also some very fictional horny romance novels), and much in the same way it’s possible for an animal or plant to cultivate a human form given enough time, it’s possible for a cultivator to earn an animal form, assuming they’re not born into one of the rare bloodlines where the ability crops up naturally. (Wen Ning apparently used to be able to turn into an owl when he was kid, before that incident with the partial spirit snatch. Wen Qing hopes he’ll be able to regain the ability with enough cultivation and spiritual therapy.)
Even knowing all this, Wei Wuxian feels like a real doofus when he hesitantly says, “Snowflake?”
Snowflake gives his usual blink. Inconclusive.
Wei Wuxian wets his lips, telling his heart to calm the fuck down. “Wangji?”
Snowflake’s head snaps up, and he leaps to his feet on the back of the couch. “Mrow?!” he says, practically dancing in place.
“Lan Wangji?” Wei Wuxian says, feeling a little lightheaded.
“Mrow!” Snowflake sounds intense.
Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath and really hopes he hasn’t lost it entirely. “Okay.” He shuts his eyes, trying to steady himself, then makes eye contact with the cat. “Meow twice if you can understand me.”
“Meow. Meow.” It’s two distinct, separate meows, delivered with unblinking eye contact and absolute seriousness from the fluffy white cat on the back of Wei Wuxian’s couch.
“Fuck,” Wei Wuxian says with feeling, and he sits down on the kitchen floor. There’s a thump, followed by the pitter-patter of little feet, and Snowflake—Lan Wangji?!—skids around the corner of the counter.
“Mrow?” he asks with what sounds like real concern, and Wei Wuxian clamps a hand over his mouth before he descends into absolutely hysterical laughter.
“I’m just having a moment,” he says into his palm, then covers his face with both hands, leaning his head back against the cabinet. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking shitting monkey hell, what the fuck.
“Are you Lan Wangji?” he asks the inside of his hands and also the ceiling.
Two more entirely distinct meows. Wei Wuxian wants to scream. His cat—A’Yuan’s cat—is actually a full-ass man who Wei Wuxian has accidentally kidnapped. Or imprisoned? He’s not sure which, and isn’t happy about either option.
“What happened?!” he asks, dropping his hands to make eye contact again.
Lan Wangji blinks at him, cocks his head, and makes an indistinct mrrt sound. Yeah, okay, that’s a complicated question for someone only capable of meowing.
“Give me a second,” Wei Wuxian says, levering himself off the floor and heading for the bookshelf. He digs through the kid-appropriate games and then the actual good games (not that he’s had time for a game of Catan since he adopted A’Yuan) to find the Ouija board Nie Huaisang bought him as a joke, “You know, to help with the ghosts!” Ouija boards are not actually helpful for ghost communication, as to be expected from something sold by Hasbro, but they are made to facilitate getting answers, even if it’s just from your own subconscious, so he slaps the open board on the coffee table and gets a notebook while Lan Wangji (probably) investigates the board.
“Okay, so,” Wei Wuxian says, pushing past the absurdity of the situation to focus on the actual problem. “Let’s calibrate. Are you Lan Wangji?”
The cat puts its paw on “Yes.”
“And you’re not fucking with me?”
Lan Wangji touches the “No.” He also gives Wei Wuxian a familiar withering look, which honestly makes him feel weirdly better.
“Spell the word ‘apple’ so I know this hasn’t all been a coincidence,” Wei Wuxian orders, halfway hoping that it has all been a coincidence, and maybe the issue is that he’s recently gotten too much sleep and now he’s hallucinating.
A-P-P-L-E goes one paw on the board. Not a hallucination, then. Great. Cool. Awesome. Wei Wuxian can handle this, for sure. He presses his lips together, trying to come up with the most efficient use of his questions.
“Are you a shifter?”
A tap on “Yes.”
“Can you turn back?” Wei Wuxian demands, suddenly very aware of the presence of a random adult man in his house and around his kid for the last month.
Lan Wangji practically slams his paw on the “No,” smacking it a few times in a row for good measure. Wei Wuxian might be projecting, but he honestly thinks it looks like Lan Wangji just had a similar thought occur to him—certainly his little fluffy cat face is somewhere between apologetic and affronted. Wei Wuxian decides, in the interest of productivity, to believe that Lan Wangji did not turn into a cat specifically to infiltrate their household. (Given that he’s tried to escape their household to return to the Cloud Recesses, this has some genuine weight behind it.)
“What happened?” he asks again, with a wave at the Ouija board. Lan Wangji gives that some thought, ears flicking, and after a moment starts tapping at letters.
H-U-N-T, okay, he was on a hunt, Wei Wuxian knew that... C-U-R-S-E he pats, followed by the yes and the no simultaneously. L-O-S-T he adds, then finishes with Y-U-A-N. Wei Wuxian appreciates the attempt at brevity—certainly he didn’t want to have to transcribe full sentences—but this requires a bit of translation on his end.
“You think you got cursed on your night hunt, then got lost trying to get back to the Cloud Recesses and found A’Yuan?” he guesses.
Lan Wangji pats the “Yes” several times, and Wei Wuxian lets himself feel accomplished.
“You recognized him from music class,” he realizes out loud, “so you knew I’d go back to the Cloud Recesses and you hoped you could come along with me.”
Another “Yes.” Wei Wuxian gives Lan Wangji a hard look.
“Why didn’t you try to tell me you were a person before literally now? I could have called them for you! You could have been home weeks ago!” Wei Wuxian has involuntarily imprisoned a whole-ass man and he did not consent to that situation!
Lan Wangji avoids eye contact, his ears at an awkward angle. Wei Wuxian crosses his arms and fixes him with an unblinking stare. It's Expectant Silence Time. Lan Wangji holds out for a while, even spending a minute licking one paw, but he must know Wei Wuxian has the upper hand (on account of literally having hands and not paws) because he eventually starts tapping again.
E-M-B-A-R—
“You were embarrassed?” Wei Wuxian demands, voice high with outrage. “Your brother has been worried sick about you and you stayed with me because you were embarrassed about getting stuck as a cat?!”
Lan Wangji, to his credit, also looks embarrassed about this. He starts tapping letters without waiting for Wei Wuxian to ask another, more specific question, and it’s enough letters that Wei Wuxian actually has to write them down.
“Longer than expected,” he reads out loud, adding slashes between the words to make it more legible. “Pleasant.” He frowns at the notebook. “You thought you’d get back to the Cloud Recesses faster, but in the meantime you liked it here?”
Lan Wangji pats “Yes.”
Wei Wuxian blinks. “Well, thanks, I guess?” He drums the end of the pencil against the paper. “Should I call Lan Xichen now?”
Lan Wangji’s paw travels toward the “Yes” again, but he hesitates with it outstretched. After a moment of indecision, he starts tapping letters instead, Y-U-A-N—
“A’Yuan,” Wei Wuxian breathes, rubbing his face with his pen hand and hoping vaguely he didn’t draw on himself in the process. “Oh, fuck, what am I gonna tell A’Yuan?!” He drops his hand so he can glare, aware Lan Wangji doesn’t technically deserve to be the target of this anger but needing somewhere to put it. “He loves you! You’re his cat! What am I supposed to tell him when you go back to the Cloud Recesses?!”
Lan Wangji’s ears have a distinctly embarrassed and regretful slant again. He spells out “truth” and then “sorry,” which does go a bit of a way toward making Wei Wuxian less angry. None of them really chose this situation, did they? He may find some of Lan Wangji’s choices infuriating because of how they’ll affect his son, but the man has spent the last month without thumbs. Wei Wuxian can cut him some slack.
“You can apologize to him yourself,” Wei Wuxian announces, dropping the notebook on the coffee table as he heads for his desk. “And then you can also call your brother yourself and explain why you’d rather live as a four-year-old’s cat for several weeks than tell me what was up.” He slams himself into his desk chair, grabs a brush pen, and starts scribbling.
The next several hours pass without Wei Wuxian noticing, caught up as he is in array design and development. He pauses a couple of times to do more detailed spiritual examinations of just what the fuck is going on with Lan Wangji, carefully mapping out all his meridians and finding the sneaky little tendrils of the curse masking itself as background resentment so well he didn’t notice the first time, then goes right back to refining the array with his new knowledge. At one point he makes a necessary trip to the bathroom and on his way back detours into the kitchen just long enough to grab a sparkling water, hearing, “Don’t forget to hydrate, A’Yuan!” echoing in his head in his own voice. Good job, Dad Him. He won’t forget to hydrate.
Somewhere around array draft number five Wen-Popo texts him to say A’Yuan will definitely be staying the night next door. He sends off an acknowledgment and keeps working until it’s too dark to easily see, clicks on his desk light, and powers on through.
At array draft number eight Snowflake—Lan Wangji starts his “it’s time to go to bed” pen-stealing routine, but Wei Wuxian isn’t having it, not when he’s so close to getting this right. He scoops Lan Wangji up into his arms, carts him to the bathroom, and shuts him inside. Wei Wuxian is doing this for him! He’s stuck as a cat! He should be thanking Wei Wuxian, quite frankly.
It’s possibly array draft nine or ten when Wei Wuxian thinks he cracked it. He’s not entirely clear which, since he stopped numbered them several drafts ago. The important thing is that this one should work . It would have been a lot easier if Lan Wangji wasn’t a shifter, actually, because an array just to turn him into a human? Waaaaay simpler than an array to lift the curse and allow him the full range of his spiritual powers, including unlocking his ability to turn himself into a human. Fortunately for him Wei Wuxian is very good with resentful energy and loves few things as much as he loves a complicated problem to puzzle out.
The living room is the only place big enough to draw out the full-size array, so Wei Wuxian turns on a couple more lights (when did it get so dark?) before wrestling the couch, the coffee table, and the rug out of the way. In the interest of not guaranteeing the loss of his security deposit, he digs up some of A’Yuan’s sidewalk chalk and starts drawing.
(Well, he starts drawing after he figures out how to make a big compass out of some crafting yarn and tape so the circle comes out even, but that’s neither here nor there.)
The chalk portion is only half the battle. The other half involves a lot of talismans, which Wei Wuxian dutifully draws out, double-checks against his design, and anchors on the floor in key spots with a press of spiritual energy. He could probably get away with all chalk, honestly (years ago in what feels like another life Wei Wuxian had considered doing grad school to research material science and its interactions with cultivation, and he still tries to keep up with the data), but the nontoxic cinnabar and organic bamboo paper has better spiritual resonance, so with the combination it means it will take less effort to power the array.
(It’d take even less effort if he drew the talismans in blood, but he promised Wen Qing he’d stop doing that outside of true emergency situations when he adopted A’Yuan, and frankly he doesn’t like having to cut himself. The cinnabar works perfectly well.)
When the final talisman is in place, Wei Wuxian sits back on his heels and rubs his aching eyes with slightly chalky hands, giving himself a moment to recover before double-checking the array one more time. When he squints at the clock on the microwave he can’t actually tell what time it is, which means he’s either very tired or he just accidentally covered his glasses in chalk dust. Doesn’t matter. He just has one more thing to do, and he levers himself upright with a groan, knees and lower back making alarming clicking sounds in the process.
“MEOW!” Lan Wangji says with emphasis when Wei Wuxian opens the bathroom door.
“Yeah, yeah.” Wei Wuxian scoops him up and carts him to the living room. “Yell at me when you can use your words again.” He plops Lan Wangji into the center of the array, unsnaps the cat collar, and runs one last triple-check to make sure he hasn’t missed something obvious. Lan Wangji turns around slowly, eyes fixed on the chalk, occasionally pausing to examine a talisman. When he’s given the whole thing a once-over, he sits on his haunches and gives Wei Wuxian an expectant look.
“Does it meet with your approval?” Wei Wuxian asks, only a little sarcastically.
“Mrow,” Lan Wangji says, picking up and flexing his front paws alternately in a sign of excitement that he can’t quite conceal.
“Great.” Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath, trying to center his spiritual energy while ignoring the burning in his eyes and the exhaustion prickling the back of his skull. “Here goes nothing, then.”
Wei Wuxian makes a seal with his hands, drawing upon the whirl of his golden core and the ambient sea of resentful energy in the world outside, and he combines them with the expertise of a master bartender making a cocktail. The energy coils between his palms, blending together into a balance, the pure energy of his core pulling the resentful energy further towards purity and the resentful energy adding an extra earthly zing to the power singing in his meridians. It builds and builds, trying to escape his control, an over-filled water balloon threatening to burst. Distantly, Wei Wuxian remembers that he could have asked for help with this step, that Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing could have added their spiritual energy to the process so he didn’t have to use up quite so much of his own.
Well. He made his choice. He pours himself and the world into the space between his palms, a red-gold glow painting the living room in stark shadow. Lan Wangji is an unearthly orange, not like an actual orange cat but like the sun hanging over the horizon. Wei Wuxian sees him meow, but he can’t hear it over the pounding in his ears, over the tremble in his hands as he wrestles the power into the shape he needs.
Lightheaded and heart racing, Wei Wuxian separates his hands and slams them down into the characters of the array, the light going from a spotlight to a literal ring light embedded in the floor. Lan Wangji meows again, this time in obvious alarm as the rushing power of the array lifts him into the air. All four of his legs scramble for purchase on nothing, and then there’s a flash of light and energy that knocks Wei Wuxian ass-backward. He manages to protect his head from smacking into the floor, but he’s dizzy as hell even without the impact.
He may have put too much energy in that spell, but he had a fucking curse to break. He wasn’t gonna dance around it, was he?
“Wei Wuxian?” says a deep voice, one a bit rough around the edges as though it hasn’t been used much recently.
Oh, shit! The curse!
Wei Wuxian shoves himself upright, sways a little, and catches himself on one hand. “Lan Wangji?”
The Hottest Lan Wei Wuxian Has Ever Seen, Usually At A Distance, nods at him. He’s kneeling in the center of the now-inactive array, fully human from the top of his head down to his toes.
Wei Wuxian can confirm this because he’s also fully naked. Wow. What a body Snowflake was hiding under all that shapeshifting! Lan Wangji has covered his crotch with both hands, but that only goes so far vis-a-vis protecting his modesty.
This is far too much extremely hot man being naked in Wei Wuxian’s living room for him to process this late at night after expending this much spiritual energy. It’s also suddenly hitting him that Lan Wangji is actually here, is actually a whole-ass human man, and Wei Wuxian has been treating him like a pet for the last several weeks.
“I’m so sorry I fed you cat food,” is the first thing out of his mouth for some fucking reason.
Lan Wangji blinks. “I was a cat,” he says reasonably.
“No you weren’t,” Wei Wuxian wails quietly, covering his face with both hands. “You were a human stuck in the shape of a cat, and I tried to make you poop in a box.”
“I had access to a toilet,” Lan Wangji points out. Wei Wuxian peeks through his fingers to glare, remembers Lan Wangji is naked, and covers his face again.
“I made you chase a dangly toy! I put you in a cat harness! I talked to you like you were a baby!” Lan Wangji should be a lot madder about all of this, Wei Wuxian thinks. It was basically a kidnapping, right?
“You very reasonably thought I was a cat, and I did nothing to persuade you otherwise,” Lan Wangji says. “You treated me well.”
Wei Wuxian wants to cry for some reason. “You don’t get it! I played your butt like the bongos this morning! You’re the hottest man I’ve ever seen in my life and you’re naked in my house now and I have to deal with knowing I thought you were a cat and I played your butt like the bongos!”
Warm hands encircle Wei Wuxian’s wrists and gently pull his hands away from his face. Lan Wangji’s brown eyes in his extremely handsome, high-cheekboned face regard him with no small amount of amusement and a confusing lack of anger. “Wei Wuxian—”
“Wei Ying,” Wei Wuxian’s mouth says for him. He’s not sure why, it just doesn’t seem appropriate for a man who’s definitely seen him singing pop songs to his son with all the words rewritten to be about Legos to call him by his courtesy name.
Lan Wangji presses his lips together, considering. “Wei Ying,” he decides. “You may call me Lan Zhan.”
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying’s mouth says for him again.
Lan Zhan nods, seeming satisfied. “Wei Ying, I am not upset with your behavior.”
That seems entirely fake. “You’ve glared at me since day one.”
Lan Zhan’s expression changes slightly. He’s maybe resigned? Or embarrassed? He was easier to read as a cat, dammit. “I was initially... concerned about your use of resentful energy.”
Fair. Wei Wuxian knows he seems like a demonic cultivator at first glance, even though all he’s ever done with demons is fight and free them. That’s only half the issue, though: “You glared at me anytime I talked, not just when I was working on talismans.”
Ah, Lan Zhan definitely looks embarrassed now. “I am not used to so exuberant a household.”
Wei Wuxian mentally translates that, still feeling about three steps behind. “I was too loud for you?”
Lan Zhan’s bare, lickable shoulders raise and lower in a tiny shrug. “Cats do tend to prefer quiet.” He refocuses, and wow, that is some intense eye contact. “I’m accustomed to it, now.”
Wei Wuxian is too tired and too drained of spiritual energy to understand how the conversation got here, or why Lan Zhan is still gently holding his wrists. He’s also desperately trying to keep his eyes above collarbone level, since Lan Zhan is no longer protecting his own modesty, and presumably his dick is just out there in the air for people (not Wei Wuxian!) to see. “You said,” he tries, taking two stabs at the sentence. “You said ‘pleasant.’ Earlier.”
Lan Zhan nods, his expression softening and maybe even going a little shy. “Yes.” He pauses for a breath. “I have... enjoyed spending time with you.”
That is the nicest thing a sexy naked man has said to Wei Wuxian in possibly the last five years. He feels his face go incredibly hot, and prays that the low lighting in the living room will cover it. Given the way Lan Zhan’s eyes sharpen, that prayer is likely futile. Worth a shot, anyway!
“You said,” Lan Zhan says slowly, like he’s trying not to scare Wei Wuxian off, “that you find me attractive?”
Oh. Wei Wuxian can go redder, actually. “I think I said you were the hottest man I’d ever seen in my life and I’m sorry for playing your butt like the bongos,” he corrects, because he can’t sit here and let Lan Zhan make him sound more articulate than he actually was.
Lan Zhan inclines his head, conceding the point. “Is it inappropriate for me to say that I find you very attractive as well?” he says, as though that’s a reasonable thing to ask at ass-o’clock at night/in the morning after all the rest of the day Wei Wuxian has had.
“I have no idea,” Wei Wuxian says honestly. “You were a cat this morning and I played your butt like the bongos, and now you’re naked in my living room. I don’t think there’s an appropriateness guide for this.”
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees with no small amount of amusement. He squeezes Wei Wuxian’s wrists once. “I let you.”
“Muah?” Wei Wuxian asks, which is almost a word.
“I let you play my butt like the bongos,” Lan Zhan says, each ridiculous word perfectly articulated. “I could have left if I’d wanted to.”
That is... A very valid point that somehow escaped Wei Wuxian’s notice before now. “Buh,” he says, which is also almost a word.
“I would not be averse to repeating the experience,” Lan Zhan says, which is such a vicious finisher that Wei Wuxian forgets all of his almost-words along with all of his actual words. That sounds like— Does he mean—
“Are you hitting on me?” he finally asks, voice going annoyingly squeaky in the middle.
Lan Zhan nods once and squeezes Wei Wuxian’s wrists again. “Is it working?”
“Hnergh,” Wei Wuxian says, exasperated, and kisses him. A small voice in the back of his mind says that this is a bad idea, that he’s moving too fast, that Lan Zhan might have bad intentions. A louder voice points out that Lan Zhan has seen Wei Wuxian play with A’Yuan in the most embarrassing ways possible, knows he subsists on far more dino nuggies than is appropriate for a grown man, and is definitely aware that Wei Wuxian’s relationship to clean laundry is distant at best. If Lan Zhan knows all that and is still attracted to him, who is Wei Wuxian to pass up that opportunity?
Also, there’s a third voice, louder than the first two, screaming that he hasn’t gotten laid in years and if the hottest man in the world wants to hit on him, they are jumping at the opportunity and onto the man, god dammit.
Lan Zhan makes a pleased noise into Wei Wuxian’s mouth, dropping his wrists to pull him closer around the waist. Wei Wuxian goes where he’s pulled, looping his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck and ending up straddling his lap. This is a great place for him to be, and he tries to express as much by opening his mouth a little in invitation. Lan Zhan takes that invitation immediately, his tongue meeting Wei Wuxian’s in a hot, toe-tingling slide.
“Why is your breath good?” Wei Wuxian asks, unable to stop himself and truly wishing his brain wasn’t like this. “You’ve been a cat for like a month, and I sure wasn’t brushing your teeth.”
Lan Zhan actually takes a moment to consider the question, sneaking his hands under the hem of Wei Wuxian’s shirt to cup his lower back as he does. “Perhaps you returned me to the state I was in when the curse struck?”
Oh! Maybe he did! Wei Wuxian wrote the array with some very specific restoration parameters, which reminds him of something else that’s actually urgent and not ridiculous: “Can you shift cat again?”
Lan Zhan’s fingers tighten on Wei Wuxian’s back. “Now?”
“Yes!” Wei Wuxian scrambles backward out of his lap, mourning the choice but knowing it’s the right one. “I need to make sure my array did what it was supposed to do.”
The expression on Lan Zhan’s face says, wordlessly and eloquently, that he does not appreciate this interlude, but he gamely... Flexes? Something? It’s like Wei Wuxian’s eyes sneeze, a deeply confusing and uncomfortable sensation, and when he can focus again he’s looking at a familiar fluffy white cat. The cat stretches luxuriously and yawns, giving Wei Wuxian a “See? ” kind of look. Another unpleasant eyeball sneeze later and Lan Zhan is back, this time on all fours, which makes sense given he was just in cat form, but given the generally horny trend of the last five minutes, Lan Zhan on all fours gives Wei Wuxian ideas.
“Satisfied?” Lan Zhan asks dryly.
“About that?” Wei Wuxian curls a hand around the back of Lan Zhan’s neck, deeply relieved that his array worked properly and vindicated about his own genius. “Yes. In other ways? No.” He attempts to lie down and pull Lan Zhan with him, and only succeeds in the former.
“You have not vacuumed in two weeks and the floor is covered in chalk,” Lan Zhan says, arms locked to keep himself in a box position while Wei Wuxian sort of awkwardly hangs off him. “May we move this to your bed?”
Oh, yeah, a bed is a way better option. Wei Wuxian’s joints are already complaining about this much time on an unpadded surface. “You are so smart,” he says, scrambling upright and doing his best to suppress any unsexy groans he might make as he does. (Though Snowflake the cat has definitely heard all his unsexiest dad-getting-off-the-couch noises, so this is probably unnecessary.) He also tries to remember the last time he washed his sheets—it’s been maybe a week? Which isn’t awful. Again, Lan Zhan is likely aware of this and still wants to do sex things in Wei Wuxian’s bed—Wei Wuxian needs to stop overthinking this and just go with it.
Lan Zhan is very obviously not overthinking it, since he gets Wei Wuxian into the bedroom and shirtless before Wei Wuxian is quite sure what’s happening. There are warm hands on the bare skin of his waist, running down to settle on the button of his jeans, and Lan Zhan asks, “May I?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Wei Wuxian says breathily, glad he’s at least wearing a relatively new pair of black boxer briefs instead of one of the pairs that’s more hole than fabric at this point. (They’re comfortable, okay?) Lan Zhan pops the button and pulls down the zipper, being politely careful not to grope Wei Wuxian’s dick too thoroughly this early in the proceedings. It’s extremely cute of him, and Wei Wuxian melts a little inside, putting a hand on Lan Zhan’s shoulder for balance as Lan Zhan drops to one knee to help him step out of the jeans pooling around his ankles.
Lan Zhan stands back up slowly, letting his hands drag warm against Wei Wuxian’s skin from the outside of his calves all the way to his ribs. Wei Wuxian shivers, the touch lighting him up inside. It’s impossible to be touch-starved with a four-year-old around, but it has been so long since anyone touched him like this, and he’s hungry for it. He has the distinct feeling this is all a hallucination, that there’s no possible way Lan Zhan has seen him at his most unguarded and still wants this.
Also, ten minutes ago Lan Zhan was still a cat. It’s been a weird night.
When Lan Zhan makes it back up to Wei Wuxian’s face, he cups his jawline in one hand and draws him in for a deep, intense kiss, which is wow even before all his naked skin presses against Wei Wuxian’s naked skin. The thing poking Wei Wuxian in the leg is almost certainly Lan Zhan’s dick, which is communicating its interest in the proceedings eloquently and nonverbally. It’s absurdly flattering, especially since they’ve barely done anything yet, and Wei Wuxian tries to steer them both backward toward the bed without stopping kissing Lan Zhan or removing his hands from Lan Zhan’s lower back or even opening his eyes.
Naturally this means he trips over a pair of sweatpants he keeps reminding himself to put in the hamper and ends up going ass-backwards for the second time in recent memory, sprawling on his back on the mattress with a light bounce. He really means to try to save it—he thinks he can do a sexy, come-hither pose—but Lan Zhan crawls on top of him before he even stops bouncing, pinning him down in a luxurious press of heat. This time he bypasses Wei Wuxian’s mouth in favor of biting his jaw, to which Wei Wuxian responds in a very sexy and alluring way, and definitely not by making a horny squeaking sound.
“It’s, uh,” he attempts, language not exactly coming easily to him at the moment with most of the blood in his body rapidly leaving his brain for a more southward destination, “been a while? For me?” Why is he saying this as a question? “So don’t judge me if this is over fast.”
Lan Zhan presses an open-mouthed kiss to the tender skin of his neck, one hand running up Wei Wuxian’s flank to squeeze his pec, and says, “I won’t judge you.” He does another very hot, very wet kiss under Wei Wuxian’s ear and adds, “It will be good if it’s fast. You need to sleep more.”
Wei Wuxian would really like to argue with that point, but he let a cat bully him into an earlier bedtime several times this week and got tantalizingly close to knowing what “well-rested” feels like. Also, Lan Zhan’s thumb has found Wei Wuxian’s nipple, which seems to be wired directly to Wei Wuxian’s dick, which is harder than it’s been in recent memory and got there at a speed Wei Wuxian didn’t know he was still capable of at this age. (Ironically, he knows it’s the constant parenthood-related exhaustion that makes it hard to get horny, which just ties back into Lan Zhan’s point about him needing more sleep.)
“Let me at least get the rest of the way naked,” he says, trying not to sound too plaintive. “And the rest of the way on the bed.” His calves are dangling off the side, giving him absolutely no leverage whatsoever. He doesn’t know what he’d use leverage for if he had it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it.
Lan Zhan seems to think these are fair requests, as he rolls off Wei Wuxian to the side and starts peeling down the boxer-briefs while Wei Wuxian wiggles properly to the center of the mattress. This means there’s a moment where Lan Zhan is pulling his underwear off while he’s squirming the opposite direction, which means it briefly goes twice as fast, like walking on one of those moving sidewalks at the airport or something. Wei Wuxian valiantly keeps this realization to himself and fumbles in his nightstand for the unmarked opaque squeeze bottle with the child-resistant cap he decants his lube into after the time A’Yuan found his pump-action bottle and managed to turn himself and the entire hallway into the world’s most dangerous slip-n-slide. (Was it funny? Yes. Was it a nightmare trying to get a lubed-up toddler safely into the bathtub in order to wash all the lube off? Also yes.) (He is so so so so glad he didn’t have any condoms or sex toys in the drawer when A’Yuan found the lube, and also that it was well before A’Yuan started figuring out how to read. “Sometimes adults need to make things slippery,” was as far as that explanation needed to go.)
“Here.” Wei Wuxian helpfully hands the lube to Lan Zhan as Lan Zhan climbs back on top of him. Lan Zhan immediately pauses everything else to try to figure out the weird child-resistant cap. Wei Wuxian takes it back, uncaps it with his many, many years of experience dealing with child-safe caps, and offers it up again.
“What would you like?” Lan Zhan asks, very considerately for someone whose erection is actively throbbing against Wei Wuxian’s hip.
Wei Wuxian’s brain does a horny blue-screen. This was such an unexpected turn for his day in general that every porno he’s ever seen has erased itself from his memory. What is sex, actually? Does science know?
“Are you gonna think I’m boring if I say I kinda want us to do what we we doing before, only with lube this time?” he asks, dragging his abused neurons back on track with an effort.
Lan Zhan frowns minutely. “You mean...” He centers their hips together and grinds down against Wei Wuxian, who makes a sound he actively chooses not to be embarrassed by.
“Yeah, that,” he says when his tongue rejoins the party. A swallow. “And we can kiss during?”
They can kiss now, Wei Wuxian discovers when Lan Zhan does just that. “Not boring,” Lan Zhan says against his panting mouth when he lets him up for air an uncountable, tongue-filled interlude later. He shifts enough to squirt a dollop of lube onto and around Wei Wuxian’s dick, who jumps—cold!—and then when he grinds them together again everything is much wetter, no uncomfortable friction or chafing. Wei Wuxian shows his approval of this with another incoherent sound, wraps his legs around Lan Zhan’s hips, and crushes their mouths back together.
It’s very quickly overwhelming, Wei Wuxian’s poor neglected nerves not knowing what to do with all the sensory input. Lan Zhan’s skin is soft over his toned cultivator muscles, his hair shockingly silky considering it hasn’t technically been brushed in almost a month. (Unless Wei Wuxian combing out Snowflake’s fur somehow counted?) He’s quite bitey, which makes him seem catlike even in human form, his teeth imprinting on Wei Wuxian’s lower lip, jaw, neck, and even his shoulder. He licks each bite afterward soothingly, not beating the cat allegations in the least. Wei Wuxian would tease him for it if that didn’t put his impending future orgasm at risk of delay.
He does his best to give as good as he gets, nipping at Lan Zhan’s earlobes and running his hands over as much of him as he can reach. Lan Zhan’s ass is... Wei Wuxian couldn’t really see it very well earlier, but when he gets a good handful? Top notch ass, for sure. He never wants to not be touching it, except that there’s a lot more Lan Zhan to touch.
Lan Zhan groans into the curve of Wei Wuxian’s neck when he squeezes both glutes, hips stuttering in their next thrust before picking up speed. How excellent that Lan Zhan likes having his ass grabbed as much as Wei Wuxian likes grabbing it! This works out well for both of them.
Wei Wuxian sorta feels like he should be saying something—normally he never stops talking, even during sex—but he can’t shake the feeling that he might still mess this up somehow, that if he speaks he’ll wake himself up out of a dream, or that Lan Zhan will realize he’s made a huge mistake and leave. Granted, the way Lan Zhan devours his mouth doesn’t make it seem like Lan Zhan thinks he’s making a mistake, but better not to risk it.
Then Lan Zhan slides one large hand down Wei Wuxian’s side to cup the outside of his ass, hitching his hips up at a slightly different angle, and Wei Wuxian says, “Fucking fuck,” eloquently, intensely and against Lan Zhan’s mouth.
“Good,” Lan Zhan says smugly, and—this should not be this good, it’s basically dry humping with lube—wet humping?—frottage, that’s the technical term—but Wei Wuxian’s orgasm has gone from impending to imminent. All he can do is hold on to Lan Zhan’s ass for dear life and make horny sounds that he’s doing his very best to muffle, because Uncle Four’s bedroom is on the other side of the wall, and the man takes out his hearing aids to sleep but that only goes so far.
“Ooooh haaaaah, fuck, hah,” Wei Wuxian says into the crook of Lan Zhan’s neck, everything going tight from the ears-down. Lan Zhan pulls him even closer with the hand on his ass and that does it; Wei Wuxian gives another, “Hah!” and his cock jerks as he comes, smearing blood-hot and even wetter between their bodies. It’s fucking hilarious how fast it happens, and the rush of release comes out his mouth as breathy, unstoppable giggles.
Lan Zhan remains as unphased about Wei Wuxian’s sudden giggle fit as he has been about everything this evening. He might even be into it—Wei Wuxian thinks he might hear a quiet “Hah!” half under Lan Zhan’s breath, and see the quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth. It’s hard to tell between the laughing and the darkness of the bedroom, but the way Lan Zhan pats his ass can only be interpreted as approval.
Oh, also, Lan Zhan doesn’t stop rubbing off on him for a second, driving Wei Wuxian’s orgasm to its absolute limit. He’s just baaaaarely tipping over into overstimulated when Lan Zhan groans and bites down on the meaty part of Wei Wuxian’s shoulde r, cock jerking between their stomach s as he adds a fresh hot rush to the already significant mess between them. His O face—what Wei Wuxian can see of it—is a little understated, a scrunch to his eyebrows almost the only outward sign. He comes for a while, though, then collapses bodily onto Wei Wuxian like a disgusting, sticky blanket.
Fuck, it’s nice, though. Wei Wuxian shuts his eyes and basks in the post-orgasm glow and the comforting weight of another person on top of him. What a hell of a day.
Thirty seconds later, Wei Wuxian jerks back awake with a whole-body jolt.
“Mn?” Lan Zhan asks, now nuzzling the crook of Wei Wuxian’s neck.
“Cleanup,” Wei Wuxian says, forcing his eyes open. “And pajamas.” It’s unsafe to sleep naked with a four-year-old in the house who might come join you in bed on any given night. Said four-year-old isn't in the house on this particular night, but that doesn't mean Wei Wuxian can break the habit. “Are you staying the night?”
Lan Zhan pushes up onto an elbow and gives Wei Wuxian a searching look. “May I?”
Wei Wuxian blinks, takes too long with his eyes closed, and wrenches them open again. “Yeah? Unless you want me to call your brother to come pick you up at” —he squints at the clock— “two in the morning? Wait, when did it get to be two in the morning?”
“While you locked me in the bathroom, largely,” Lan Zhan says, peeling them apart and then looking around for (presumably) for tissues. He spots the roll of toilet paper on the nightstand (Wei Wuxian makes a mental note to put tissues on the shopping list and promptly forgets he did so) and avails himself of it, getting them both to a point where they won’t actively drip on anything.
“Sorry.” Wei Wuxian clambers awkwardly to the edge of the bed, only swaying a little when he stands up. “Getting you human again was more important than bedtime.”
Lan Zhan follows him off the bed with significantly more grace, reeling him in by the waist for a soft kiss. “I am not displeased with the outcome,” he tells Wei Wuxian, voice low. Wei Wuxian’s knees try to melt, and he remains upright via sheer force of will. The fucking sincerity rolling off this man! It outta be illegal!
“Pants?” he asks, only somewhat nonsensically.
Lan Zhan hums noncommittally. “I believe I should remain in cat form, in case A’Yuan comes home early tomorrow morning.”
“Smart,” Wei Wuxian says, almost on autopilot from all the kissing and cuddling and general tiredness. Something slams into him like a ghoul in a washing machine, and he drops his head to Lan Zhan’s shoulder with a groan. “A’Yuan! What am I gonna tell him?”
Lan Zhan pets his hair and starts steering them in the general direction of the chair that holds Wei Wuxian’s “clean enough” clothes, and also his pajamas during the day. “You can think about that when you’ve slept.”
Wei Wuxian yawns, right on cue, and he is forced to admit Lan Zhan has a point. It’s going to be a weird, hard conversation no matter what—trying to plan it out while his body is trying its best to fall asleep standing up won’t do anyone any good. He grabs his pajama pants and tracks down a robe for Lan Zhan, then goes rummaging in the bathroom drawers for the multi-pack of Lego-themed children’s toothbrushes he knows for a fact he bought when he found them on sale. Lan Zhan gets to brush his teeth with a ninja minifig toothbrush, which is honestly an honor and a memory he should treasure.
Wei Wuxian would love a shower but has no energy for it, so a wipedown with a warm washcloth and a quick face rinse will have to do. Once he’s clean (enough) and his teeth are minty, he lets Lan Zhan steer him back into the bedroom.
“Can you spoon me before you go cat again?” Wei Wuxian asks muzzily, not entire sure when he got under the blankets but deeply happy to be horizontal. “Just until I get to sleep?”
Lan Zhan hums something probably affirmative—ah, make that definitely affirmative, as he drapes the bathrobe over the foot of the bed and then climbs in after Wei Wuxian, pulling him close until they’re nestled together from shoulders to toes.
“Good?” Lan Zhan asks, his arm a warm weight around Wei Wuxian’s waist.
“Uh-huh,” Wei Wuxian mumbles, wrapping his arm over Lan Zhan’s and promptly passing out.
🐾
Wei Wuxian swims awake at what feels like a reasonable hour, without being kicked or elbowed in any of his most tender parts by the sharp limbs of a four-year old. It’s an unfamiliar sensation, and he revels in it for a minute, because why not? Sure, maybe the duplex is suspiciously silent and he’ll wake up to find A’Yuan making Buddhist sand mandalas on the kitchen floor with spices and flour, but luxuriating for a hot second won’t make that situation any worse.
Wait. The duplex isn’t suspiciously silent. He can hear quiet movement out in the kitchen, cupboards opening and closing as though someone was trying to find the cups as surreptitiously as possible. That’s definitely not A’Yuan, who hasn’t yet mastered the idea of closing a door at any speed less than a slam. Who is in his house? Did Jiejie come over and let herself in?
Wei Wuxian has manage to struggle up onto his elbows when the bedroom door swings open to reveal the hottest Lan in the world, dressed in Wei Wuxian’s old red plaid flannel robe and carrying a cup of coffee in one hand.
Oh. Right. That happened.
It takes a moment for Wei Wuxian to re-orient himself to the flow of linear time, by which point Lan Zhan has sat on the edge of the mattress, holding out the coffee in offering. Wei Wuxian pushes the rest of the way upright and scooches back to lean against the headboard before accepting, automatically trying to lower his chances of spilling coffee everywhere. He feels half of his brain come alive with the first sip—damn, Lan Zhan got it perfect, just the right amount of the disgusting soy caramel creamer Wei Wuxian loves and Jiang Cheng claims is vile—and asks, “A’Yuan?”
“Still asleep.” Wei Wuxian frowns a question at him, and Lan Zhan lowers his eyes toward the nightstand. “I saw a text from Wen-popo when I plugged in your phone. I did not intend to pry.”
Wei Wuxian follows his gaze to find his phone, which is indeed plugged in to charge and now face-down. He takes another long sip of coffee and exchanges the cup for the phone. Ah, yep. A’Yuan wore himself out with all the crying and as of (he checks the time) approximately half an hour ago was still absolutely conked out. Wei Wuxian knows from experience that if A’Yuan sleeps past seven then he’s likely to sleep straight through until nine, which will wreak havoc on his nap and sleep schedule tonight but it’s not like they haven’t dealt with that before. He sends an acknowledgment to Wen-popo, mostly to let her know he’s awake, and switches out the phone for the coffee again.
He’s gonna need a lot of coffee for what comes next.
“What are we gonna do?” he asks Lan Zhan, which is a hell of a question to spring on a man at seven-thirty in the morning, when the man used to be a cat and also you had sex last night.
“I have congee going in your rice cooker,” Lan Zhan says, still not quite making eye contact.
Wei Wuxian perks up. Breakfast? That he didn’t have to cook? “That’s not what I meant.” He can’t let himself get distracted, even by a hot man making him breakfast. Maybe especially by a hot man making him breakfast.
“I know.” Lan Zhan takes a deep breath and meets Wei Wuxian’s gaze with a determined air. “I like you. I would like to continue seeing you, and to continue spending time with A’Yuan, if you’ll allow it. I know you have not known me for very long as” —he gestures to himself, indicating how he’s not currently a cat— “and I also know having a child makes it more complicated.”
“My son is the least complicated part of this whole situation,” Wei Wuxian points out, not bothering to smother his wry smile.
“Indeed.” The corner of Lan Zhan’s mouth quirks up, and he sets his hand on the blankets between them, palm-up in offering. “I will defer to your decisions, but... I would like to continue seeing you.”
Wei Wuxian considers that for a moment. He doesn’t intend to make Lan Zhan squirm, but last night happened very quickly and this is the kind of decision that shouldn’t be made on a whim. He’s also running on maybe five and a half hours of sleep, which means he’s doing okay but needs a bit more time for the caffeine to kick in before he reaches full functionality. Lan Zhan’s eyes slowly lower while Wei Wuxian thinks, and his fingers have just started to curl in when Wei Wuxian puts his hand in Lan Zhan’s.
“I want to see you more, too,” Wei Wuxian says, and Lan Zhan’s fingers tighten, his lips parting on a silent breath. “I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like, given” —he gestures cautiously with his coffee— “but I’d like to at least go out to dinner sometime.”
“I would like that,” Lan Zhan says with quiet, intense sincerity.
“And I’m happy to let A’Yuan spend time with you at, like, the Cloud Recesses, maybe?” Wei Wuxian hedges. “Not here? Not at first.” He grimaces. “That really depends on how he reacts to, uh...”
Lan Zhan presses his lips together. “Yes. We should discuss how you would like to break the news.” He pauses as the rice cooker sings it’s little “I’m done!” song, and adds, “Over breakfast.”
“Over breakfast,” Wei Wuxian agrees, and he lets Lan Zhan pull him out of bed.
🐾
Wen-popo brings A’Yuan over at about eight-thirty, which is actually a little earlier than Wei Wuxian had expected, but allowed plenty of time for him to hash out the shape of a plan with Lan Zhan over congee with soft-boiled eggs and more coffee, and to clean up the array-related mess of the night before. It also allowed plenty of time for Lan Zhan to turn back into a cat, which is a pretty significant part of the plan. (Whooboy, Wei Wuxian really hopes he’s making the right call, here.)
“Baba!” A’Yuan yells, sprinting through the back door and crashing into Wei Wuxian’s legs before Popo can even open it wide enough to get through herself.
“He’s very excited to see his Baba,” Wen-popo calls through the partially-opened door in slightly belated warning.
“Radish!” Wei Wuxian drops to a knee and scoops A’Yuan up into a twirling hug, dropping kisses on his round cheeks. “How are you feeling?”
“I love you!” A’Yuan announces, which doesn’t answer the question but makes Wei Wuxian’s heart melt and his shoulders slump in relief.
“I love you, too,” he says, gently bouncing his son, who’s back in his arms and no longer uncontrollably crying and just generally so much better than yesterday. Thank fuck. Thank heaven. He didn’t mess this up. “Did you have a good time with Popo?”
“Mmm!” A’Yuan nods vigorously, almost knocking his forehead into Wei Wuxian’s nose. “We had soup and watched sharks.”
Wei Wuxian assumes “sharks” is a nature documentary of some kind. “That sounds great,” he says and means it. Wen-popo’s soup and a nature documentary about sharks is kind of the perfect evening, and when did he get so boring?
“I missed you,” A’Yuan says almost offhandedly, and Wei Wuxian is right back to melting.
“I missed you, too,” he says, trying not to let his emotions leak out of his eyes. “But I’m glad you had a good time with Popo.”
“Yeah!” A’Yuan half-yells. “It was good!” He squirms until Wei Wuxian puts him down, then launches himself at Lan Zhan. “Snowflake! I missed you!”
“He just needed some time,” Wen-popo tells Wei Wuxian, meeting him in the dining room/office and giving his arm a squeeze. “I told you.”
“I know.” Wei Wuxian pulls her into a hug, and while he has her held close, whispers, “The absolute wildest thing happened last night, and I need to give you the scoop right now where A’Yuan can’t hear.”
Wen-popo makes an interested noise and pulls away to scrutinize his face. Whatever she sees there makes her call, “A’Yuan! I’m stealing your Baba to help me lift something.”
“Okay!” A’Yuan says, having carried Lan Zhan over to the Lego corner, where he’s now happily narrating the elaborate soap-opera-comic-book plots of his minifigs. They probably have at least fifteen minutes before he decides to start trouble, so Wei Wuxian tows Wen-popo out onto the back patio and shuts the sliding glass door, keeping half an eye on A’Yuan to make sure the fifteen minute estimate stays accurate.
“Well?” Wen-popo asks, eyebrow raised.
Nothing to do but just go for it. “You know how Lan Wangji has been missing from the Cloud Recesses?”
Wen-popo nods. Wei Wuxian looks through the glass door significantly at Lan Zhan, whose tail twitches with interest while he listens to A’Yuan’s extensive monologue. Wen-popo follows his gaze, frowns, and then her eyebrows almost hit her hairline.
“Snowflake?” she asks in disbelief, and Wei Wuxian nods emphatically.
“I said it was wild,” he reminds her, and then infodumps most of the previous evening’s discoveries and this morning’s planning to her almost without pausing for breath. (He leaves out the sex stuff, but he might sort of hint that he and Lan Zhan kinda, possibly, sorta-maybe have a thing, because it is actually relevant.)
“So it’s obviously going to be a big thing for A’Yuan, and I was hoping you could be there?” he finishes, bouncing on his heels a little to give some of the nervous energy a place to go. “For support?”
Wen-popo considers him for a moment. “If you wanted to meet a nice man you could have just said and I could have set you up with someone,” she says, shaking his arm a little. “You didn’t have to go to this much trouble.”
Wei Wuxian smothers a laugh, because if he starts laughing right now he doesn’t think he’ll stop for a while. “Believe me, Popo, meeting a nice man was the last thing I thought would happen when A’Yuan found a cat.” He pushes his glasses up and rubs his face with both hands. “So will you...”
“Of course, silly melon,” Wen-popo says, patting him on the elbow. “Now?”
“I don’t think waiting will help,” Wei Wuxian admits, droppings his hands and shoving his glasses back into place. “I wish this wasn’t the day after...”
“There’s never a perfect time with kids,” Wen-popo says authoritatively. “Putting things off only makes them worse.”
It lowers Wei Wuxian’s anxiety significantly to hear Wen-popo say that, and tension flows out of his shoulders for the first time all morning. “Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay. Thank you.”
Wen-popo reaches up and tweaks his ear. “You don’t need to thank me, silly melon,” she scolds affectionately. “I’m here because I love you.”
Why does hearing that made Wei Wuxian want to cry?! Every time! His secret weakness: words of affirmation apparently. “I love you, Popo.” He takes another deep breath and rolls his shoulders back. “Let’s go have the weirdest conversation imaginable.”
Wen-popo shrugs. “A’Yuan told me last night that he wished he was a shark and if he bit me maybe I’d turn into a shark and we could be sharks together and fight pirates,” she says philosophically. “I don’t know if this is weirder than that.”
Wei Wuxian can’t argue that point—most conversations with a four-year-old are weird—and he checks to make sure A’Yuan hasn’t started playing with knives as they head back inside.
“—and then there’s a submarine,” A’Yuan is in the middle of saying to Lan Zhan, busy constructing what could be a submarine or could be a sea monster out of Legos, “only it’s not a submarine, it’s an even bigger shark!”
“Mrrt,” Lan Zhan says, reaching out a paw to touch the unidentifiable Lego thing.
“And it has teeth!” A’Yuan continues with relish. “Really big teeth!”
“What does it eat with its really big teeth?” Wei Wuxian asks, leaning over to tickle A’Yuan’s sides. “Does it eat little radish boys?”
“Noooooo,” A’Yuan laugh wails, flailing at Wei Wuxian’s arms. “It eats boats, Baba!”
“Oh, of course.” Wei Wuxian ceases the tickling and kisses the top of A’Yuan’s head. “My mistake.” A’Yuan huffs and rolls his eyes at Lan Zhan, giving the cat a, “do you see what I have to deal with?” look, and Wei Wuxian smothers a smile. “Hey, Radish, can you finish your Legos later? I have some news.”
A’Yuan squints up at him upside-down, immediately suspicious. “What news?”
“News news,” Wei Wuxian says, trying to be as normal as humanly possible while seven million alarms go off inside his brain. “Come on, let’s couch.”
A’Yuan remains suspicious, but he allows himself to be herded to the couch, Wen-popo on one side and Wei Wuxian on the other. Lan Zhan follows them over and perches on the coffee table, tail neatly wrapped around his haunches. Everyone looks at Wei Wuxian expectantly, which is definitely fine and not nervewracking at all.
Okay.
“Radish, do you remember how when you first found Snowflake, I said he might not be able to stay with us forever, because if he had another family, they’d be sad without him?”
“Yeah,” A’Yuan says reluctantly, lower lip starting to stick out in a pre-emptive pout.
“And you know Lan-laoshi?” A’Yuan nods, slightly confused but still pouting, so Wei Wuxian continues, “Well, his brother Lan Z—Wangji has been missing for a while, and he’s been very worried. Wouldn’t you be?”
A’Yuan nods, face caught somewhere between bewildered and upset. Yeah, Wei Wuxian gets it.
“Well, it turns out we do need to give Snowflake back to his family,” Wei Wuxian soldiers on, not letting himself second-guess this. “To Lan-laoshi.”
A’Yuan’s gone fully bewildered now. “Snowflake is Lan-laoshi’s cat?”
Logical! Not what happened! “Snowflake is Lan-laoshi’s brother,” Wei Wuxian says pointedly, which is Lan-Zhan’s cue to jump off the table, wiggle underneath the robe Wei Wuxian laid carefully out on the floor, and turn back into a human.
“WHAT,” A’Yuan yells, scrambling to his feet on the couch. This is a very reasonable reaction, so Wei Wuxian doesn’t bother telling him to sit down again, just steadies him with a hand behind his back.
“Hello, A’Yuan,” Lan Zhan says over his shoulder, securely belting the robe before he turns around. (They had a long conversation about the best way to handle the fact that Lan Zhan’s clothes don’t shift with him, and this was the best solution they came up with.) “Thank you for taking very good care of me.”
A’Yuan gapes at him. It would be funny if it wasn’t so stressful. “Lan-laoshi,” he says eventually, somehow making it clear that he means a different Lan-laoshi than Lan Xichen. “You’re my cat?”
“I am,” Lan Zhan says very solemnly, sitting on the coffee table so he and A’Yuan are closer to eye level. He nods at Wen-popo and adds, “Pleased to meet you, Popo.”
“You’ve been a good cat,” Wen-popo says, shaking his hand. Her eyes track sideways to Wei Wuxian. “And such a handsome young man.”
Wei Wuxian wills himself not to blush and is vaguely grateful that he’s too worried about A’Yuan’s reaction to get truly embarrassed. Not the time, Popo!
A’Yuan seems mostly stuck on “confused,” which is better than heartbroken. “Why are you my cat?”
“My brother and I are both shifters,” Lan Zhan explains, outwardly calm but Wei Wuxian suspects he’s freaking out internally. It’s something about the set of his jaw. “While I was on a night hunt, I was struck with a curse that trapped me in my cat form. I spent several days trying to get home before I was lucky enough to find you.”
A’Yuan’s face creases up in worry, like the way it does at the dramatic part in a nature documentary when a baby antelope gets separated from its mother. “You were lost?”
Lan Zhan nods. “It was very frightening. I was grateful that you took me into your home and gave me a safe place to stay while I was unable to turn human.”
“Oh.” A’Yuan thinks hard about that, slowly sinking down to kneel on the couch since it apparently takes too much brainpower for him to stay upright. “And you need to go home now?”
Lan Zhan nods again, his hands pressed against his knees slightly too tightly to seem casual. “My brother has been very worried about me. He needs me to come home.” They haven’t actually called Lan Xichen yet—Lan Zhan wanted to avoid him showing up at Wei Wuxian’s house before they had this conversation with A’Yuan, and seemed to think it was a distinct possibility. That’s next on the list for the day. Wei Wuxian’s already dug out the good tea from the back of the cupboard and is so glad Lan Zhan helped him clean up a bit. Lan Xichen doesn’t need to see how he lives most of the time.
“But...” The creased-up nature of A’Yuan’s face shifts from thoughtful to upset. “But you’re Snowflake.” His lower lip trembles. “I don’t want Snowflake to leave.”
“I know,” Lan Zhan says, with deep sincerity. “I’m very sorry, but my brother needs me.”
A’Yuan takes a deep, shaky breath, clearly trying to rein in his emotions with a shocking level of self-control for a four-year old. “I miss Snowflake,” he says, looking up at Wei Wuxian with his voice wavering.
“I know, Radish,” Wei Wuxian says, trying to keep his own emotions reined in so he can be the support his son needs. “Lan Zhan can’t live with us, though. You don’t want Lan Xichen to still be sad, do you?”
A’Yuan shakes his head and scrubs at his eyes with his chubby little fists. “Can we still play Legos?” he asks Lan Zhan plaintively, just on the edge of tears.
“Yes.” Lan Zhan reaches out a hand and waits for A’Yuan to take it. “Your Baba says that after your music classes you can stay late at the Cloud Recesses with me if you want. We can play Legos, or I can be Snowflake for a little while.”
A’Yuan sniffles and makes direct eye contact with Lan Zhan. “Promise?”
Lan Zhan shakes his hand with the seriousness of someone who just negotiated a billion-dollar merger. “I promise.”
“And,” Wei Wuxian cuts in, judging this to be the appropriate time, “because you did such a good job helping take care of Lan Zhan when he was Snowflake, as soon as you’re ready, your Popo and I will take you to the shelter so you can pick out a cat yourself.”
A’Yuan whips around to look at Wei Wuxian, tears nearly forgotten. “Really?”
“Really really,” Wei Wuxian says, bouncing him a little on the couch. “And I promise I’ll check really closely to make sure they’re not a person before we bring them home. Okay?”
A’Yuan flings his arms around Wei Wuxian’s neck, almost smashing Wei Wuxian’s nose with his forehead in the process. “Okay!” he half-yells, and then he turns around and launches himself at Lan Zhan, who catches him around the waist with obvious alarm, not used to this particular brand of tackle-hug. “I’m sorry you were Snowflake,” A’Yuan says into Lan Zhan’s neck, probably kneeing him in the spleen if Wei Wuxian is to guess by the very slight grimace on Lan Zhan’s face.
“I was happy to be Snowflake with you,” Lan Zhan tells him, carefully disentangling A’Yuan’s limbs and setting him back on the couch. “But my brother is ready for me to come home.”
A’Yuan’s face crumples again, but he nods anyway. “Okay,” he says quietly. There’s a moment where they all brace for tears, but A’Yuan just takes a deep breath and asks, “Will you play Legos with me now?”
Wei Wuxian almost goes lightheaded with relief. “Lan-laoshi needs to get dressed and call his brother,” he points out, pulling A’Yuan in and kissing the top of his head. “He can play Legos with you after that.”
“Okay,” A’Yuan says again, longsuffering. He immediately turns to Wen-popo, Lan Zhan apparently forgotten. “Popo, will you play Legos with me?”
“For a little while,” Popo says, correctly interpreting Wei Wuxian’s pleading eyebrows (he’s pretty sure the next hour is going to be wildly busy in unpredictable ways). “Show me what you’re working on?”
🐾
Lan Wangji, very relieved to be on the other side of breaking the news to A’Yuan that his cat is actually his occasional music teacher without anyone bursting into tears and also very relieved to be wearing pants again, borrows Wei Ying’s phone to call Lan Xichen. This is where the crying happens, which Lan Wangji is unsurprised by, but feels very bad about causing.
(He actually texted before he called, sending, “Ge, this is Lan Wangji on Wei Wuxian’s phone. Please answer when I call.” Lan Xichen picked up on the first ring with, “If this is a prank—,” immediately went silent at the first word out of Lan Wangji’s mouth, and dissolved into relieved tears. It was some time before he was capable of coherent speech, which is fine. Lan Wangji is not too proud to admit tears may have been involved on his end as well.)
Having successfully explained the situation to his brother, Lan Wangji finds himself listening to A’Yuan’s latest monologue while sitting at the Lego table. This time he’s actually able to assemble Legos himself—thank you, dexterous human hands and especially opposable thumbs—and he makes a small multicolored house while nodding along and occasionally making interested noises.
“What happens when the dragons meet the sharks?” he asks, trying to find a bush or tree or something to decorate his Lego front yard, and glances up to find Wei Ying watching from the kitchen with an utterly besotted look on his face. Lan Wangji can’t look away for some reason, and the moment stretches (A’Yuan happily continuing his explanation in the background) until a knock at the door makes them all jump.
Wei Ying’s expression changes immediately from fond to nervous. “That’s your brother,” he says, putting down his mug with a clatter.
“Probably,” Lan Wangji agrees, abandoning his Lego search.
“Hm?” A’Yuan asks, arming a little Lego man with multiple swords.
“Lan-laoshi is here,” Wei Ying tells him, wiping his hands on his pants and starting for the door.
“Lan-laoshi!” A’Yuan yells, abandoning his heavily-armed Lego man to run after Wei Ying. “Lan-laoshi, do you want to play Legos?”
This last is said as the door swings open to reveal a somewhat frantic-looking Lan Xichen, who manages to say, “Hello, A’Yuan, it’s nice to see you,” even while looking past him into the house. Lan Wangji has followed at a slightly slower speed than A’Yuan, who goes most places at a run, and the moment his brother spots him he watches tension drop from Lan Xichen’s shoulders like someone unclogged a drain. “Wangji,” Lan Xichen says, his voice breaking, and they somehow manage to dodge A’Yuan as they crash together into a hug.
“Snowflake is Lan-laoshi,” he hears A’Yuan say from somewhere around knee-level, presumably to Lan Xichen. It’s hard for Lan Wangji to pay attention to anything other than his brother, who’s trembling, his face smashed into the crook of Lan Wangji’s neck and both hands clenched into fists in the back of his borrowed shirt. It is... He knew Lan Xichen was worried about him, but now it’s real. He can feel every bit of his weeks of absence in the tense lines of his brother’s body, and he squeezes him tighter, trying to force away the tension and the terror.
“Wangji,” Lan Xichen says again, his racing heart and shuddering breaths feeling like Lan Wangji’s own.
“Ge,” Lan Wangji says. “I’m here. I’m safe.”
Lan Xichen crushes his ribs through three more breaths, then forces himself a step back with obvious, visible reluctance. He leaves his hands on Lan Wangji’s biceps, clutching just a little too tight, and gives him a once-over from head to toes. “You are,” he says, eyes wet. “You’re safe. You can come home.”
“I am looking forward to it,” Lan Wangji says with feeling. Wei Ying and A’Yuan have taken very good care of him and he’s looking forward to (hopefully) visiting their house more in the future, but right now he wants the familiarity of his rooms, his space, his clothes. “We will need to retrieve Bichen,” he realizes out loud.
“I have a talisman for that,” Wei Ying says from somewhere behind him, and Lan Wangji watches Lan Xichen’s eyes suddenly snap over his shoulder into the rest of the house, and just as clearly watches Lan Xichen realize Wei Ying is present. His face goes from “relieved heartbreak” to “polite interest” almost instantly, and he steps to the side with one hand raised.
“Wei Wuxian!” he calls, outwardly showing nothing but friendly recognition, which Lan Wangji can tell is a front for many deeply-felt, still-churning feelings under the surface, most of which Lan Wangji expects to hear about on the drive home. (He suspects a large amount of his brother’s questions will revolve around why he waited so long to communicate his situation, which made sense at the time but in retrospect he’s not sure how he’s going to justify it.) “I understand you had quite a surprise.”
“Definitely not what I expected when A’Yuan found a cat in the garden,” Wei Ying agrees, coming over to shake Lan Xichen’s hand and find him a pair of guest slippers.
“Lan-laoshi!” A’Yuan half-yells, clearly having done his best to stay quiet during their reunion. “Lan-laoshi is my cat!”
“Yes, I understand you’ve been very good to him,” Lan Xichen says, dropping to one knee to look A’Yuan in the eye. “I wanted to thank you for how good a job you did taking care of him.” He reaches into his bag and takes out a thick envelope, from which he withdraws a beautiful handpainted “Certificate of Cat Care Excellence,” made out to Wen Yuan. “This is to tell everyone you’re officially very good at taking care of cats,” he tells A’Yuan solemnly, holding out the paper. Lan Wangji has a sudden deep surge of affection for his brother for taking the time, in a very chaotic morning, to remember that a little boy was losing his beloved pet cat, and thinking to do something that would ease that transition.
“What do we say, A’Yuan?” Wei Ying prompts, resting one hand gently on A’Yuan’s head while the boy gapes at the paper.
“Thank you, Lan-laoshi!” A’Yuan says at volume, taking the paper very carefully and examining the calligraphy. He twists around to look up at Wei Ying and holds out the certificate. “Can we take this to the pet store? So they know?”
“The animal shelter,” Wei Ying corrects, ruffling his hair. “And we don’t want to take this, because we need to keep it safe, but we can take a picture of it with us, okay?” He takes the certificate, presumably for safekeeping, and looks up at Lan Xichen. “Would you like some tea?”
Lan Xichen wavers, clearly wanting to take Lan Wangji home and conduct a gentle interrogation, and Lan Wangji neatly sidesteps that with, “I believe Wei Ying said he could help us track Bichen?”
“Right,” Lan Xichen realizes aloud, and gives Lan Wangji a significant look at the use of Wei Ying’s birth name (the pending interrogation gains several additional questions). “You said it was a talisman?”
Lan Wangji makes the tea when Wei Ying gets too involved in explaining his semi-experimental spiritual energy tracking talisman to remember to do it himself, then adjourns with A’Yuan to the Legos. If Wei Ying’s talisman will allow them to easily find Bichen (and the rest of his abandoned equipment), it’s worth acting as a distraction for a little while longer.
(If this also gives Wei Ying an opportunity to make a good impression on Lan Xichen with his obvious, unorthodox genius, then so much the better.)
Lan Wangji still has not found an actual Lego bush for the front yard of his little Lego house by the time Wei Ying has drawn out several different versions of the talisman and provided Lan Xichen with detailed instructions on how to use them, but A’Yuan has taken pity on his struggle and helped him build a bush out of a variety of green blocks.
“Thank you for your help,” he says, fixing the little Lego bush in place.
A’Yuan eyes it speculatively. “Pretty good,” he allows. Lan Wangi gets the feeling A’Yuan has suggestions for how to improve his Lego skills in future builds, and is holding himself back out of politeness.
“Wangji,” Lan Xichen calls from the kitchen, and Lan Wangji hands his entire Lego house back to A’Yuan.
“I enjoyed playing Legos with you, but I have to go now,” Lan Wangji tells a A’Yuan. “Please decorate this and show me your work after class next week.”
A’Yuan grins. “Okay!” He sets the Lego house aside and bodily launches himself into Lan Wangji for a hug. “Thanks, Lan-laoshi!”
“You’re welcome,” Lan Wangji tells him, warmed through his whole body from A’Yuan’s enthusiastic affection. He manages to detangle himself after a few moments, and meets his brother and Wei Ying at the door.
“Thank you, again, for everything you’ve done for Wangji, and for these,” Lan Xichen is saying, tucking the talismans carefully into his bag. “I’ll let you know how they work.”
“Please!” Wei Ying says, eyes bright. “If one of them works better, or you have any feedback for how to improve them, let me know! This is the first real test run they’re going to get.”
“I’ll take notes,” Lan Wangji says, brushing his fingers against Wei Ying’s elbow. He intends it to be subtle, not wanting to engage in any questionably intimate touching in front of A’Yuan at this stage in their... potential ongoing romantic relationship, but Lan Xichen’s eyes snap to Lan Wangji’s hand. He blinks and does something with his eyebrows at Lan Wangji, who blinks back at him once, absolutely deadpan.
“I’ll give you a moment to say goodbye,” Lan Xichen says diplomatically, with significant eye contact that lets Lan Wangji know the interrogation to come will be lengthy and invasive. “I’ll see you next week in class, A’Yuan!”
“Bye!” A’Yuan yells from the Lego nook, waving an incomprehensible shape over his head. The door swings mostly shut as Lan Xichen steps outside, leaving Lan Wangji somewhat alone with Wei Ying.
“Tell me everything about how the talisman works,” Wei Ying says, fidgeting his fingers against his pant legs. “Seriously, every piece of feedback is helpful.”
“I will,” Lan Wangji says. He glances at A’Yuan, who thankfully seems entirely absorbed in his Lego world, and dares to take one of Wei Ying’s fidgeting hands between both of his. “Your number is in my brother’s phone. I will call you as soon as I have mine back, and arrange to return your clothing.”
Wei Ying nods, his eyes on their joined hands, then makes a face and looks up at Lan Wangji. “Texting is better,” he admits a little ruefully. “It’s very hard to have a phone call with a four-year-old around.”
Ah. Yes. Lan Wangji nods, accepting the correction. “In the event I don’t have my phone back before A’Yuan’s next class, may I join you on your outing?”
A laugh. “You want to come with me to the cafe with the weird spicy drinks and the used bookstore and the park?” Wei Ying says, clearly joking.
“Yes,” Lan Wangji says honestly, not seeing the issue. A nice beverage, books, and a park? The only thing that would improve such an outing would be skillfully played live instrumental music.
Wei Ying presses his lips together, studying Lan Wangji’s face. “Okay,” he says after a moment. “Yeah. If you don’t text me between now and then, I’ll meet you outside the music building when I drop him off for class.” He presses his fingers into Lan Wangji’s palm, sealing the promise.
“I look forward to it.” Lan Wangji squeezes Wei Ying’s hand, trying to put the things he can’t say into the touch. “Thank you for everything.”
Wei Ying goes very red and rubs the side of his nose with his free hand, trying to hide behind it. “Yeah, well, you can buy my coffee and pastries until you’ve paid off all the cat food I bought for you.”
“I accept your terms,” Lan Wangji says immediately, switching his grip to a handshake and giving Wei Ying’s hand a pump. “Be well?”
“You, too,” Wei Ying says, then yanks on Lan Wangji’s hand and pulls him, stumbling, into a quick hug. “Please say good things about me to your brother,” he whispers. “If I can get him on board with my resentful energy talismans I might be able to start actually selling them and saving for A’Yuan’s college fund.”
Lan Wangji huffs a laugh. “I will do my best,” he promises, reluctantly extricating himself from the hug. To A’Yuan he calls, “I will see you next week after class.”
“Okay!” A’Yuan doesn’t bother to look up from his Legos. Children are truly incredible.
Lan Wangji forces himself to step outside, torn between the dueling urge to linger with Wei Ying and the desire to be back in his own house with access to his own clothing. Lan Xichen, caught in a conversation with Wen-popo beside her postage-stamp front garden, glances up and then makes his polite goodbyes. Lan Wangji accepts a farewell hug and well-wishes from Wen-popo as well, and then they finally climb into Lan Xichen’s car.
“So,” Lan Xichen says, once they’ve made it off the residential side-streets and onto the main road leading to the Cloud Recesses. “Wei Ying, is it?”
Lan Wangji sighs, pretending to be put-upon.
It’s good to be home.
🐾
“How much longer, Baba?” A’Yuan asks for the third time in five minutes, impatiently waiting by the door.
“As long as it takes,” Wei Wuxian says for the third time in five minutes. “He’ll be here soon, Radish. Why don’t you play with Beans until he gets here?”
A’Yuan sighs with the put-upon energy of an exhausted schoolteacher at the end of a long day, but he gamely picks up a dangly toy and tries to convince Beans to chase it. Beans—a thirteen pound brown and white spotted shorthair, obviously named by A’Yuan—immediately launches herself off the couch in hot pursuit, landing with a thump and flipping over part of the carpet in her haste to catch the waving rainbow fleece. Cat and child distracted for the moment, Wei Wuxian goes back to reviewing the notes from his latest group talisman test run, trying to organize everyone’s feedback into an actionable form. It’s still absolutely wild that he has group tests of his talisman designs now, and enough feedback from said groups that he needs to organize it.
It has been an immensely strange ten months. Good, to be clear! Just also very strange, even aside from the whole “adopting a cat that turned out to be a cursed man who then wanted to date me” situation. Like, first of all, Lan Zhan continued—continues —to want to date Wei Wuxian, disaster self-employed single dad? And is in fact still dating Wei Wuxian, disaster self-employed single dad, and Wei Wuxian is actively waiting for his boyfriend—Lan Zhan—to show up at his house so they can take A’Yuan to the children’s museum together?!
Make it make sense. Wei Wuxian still can’t, not entirely, but he’s doing better at not expressing his disbelief on the subject to Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan has made it clear on multiple occasions that a) he holds great affection for Wei Wuxian and b) does not predict that affection diminishing at any point in the future, and c) he holds a different but deeply great affection for A’Yuan, as opposed to finding him a loud, annoying impediment to dating. It’s very hard to argue with Lan Zhan about his own feelings, especially when he brings his weapons-grade sincerity into play, so Wei Wuxian has mostly given up and just tries to enjoy it, now.
(He very much enjoys the way Lan Zhan emphatically and thoroughly expresses his affections on every horizontal surface in his house in the Cloud Recesses and against some of the vertical ones, as well. They do still go out to get drinks from the weird cafe while A’Yuan is in class, but only sometimes, and only after Lan Zhan has skillfully, effectively, and speedily taken Wei Wuxian apart first. Sometimes they don’t go to the cafe at all, and spend almost the entire hour in Lan Zhan’s bed. A’Yuan starting kindergarten opened up entirely new timeframes for daytime assignations. Wei Wuxian has never been this laid in his life, and it’s really hard to remember to be insecure when he’s almost constantly floating on a cloud of sex endorphins.)
Lan Zhan is also part of the reason Wei Wuxian gets group feedback on his talisman designs now. At least, the good word he put in with Lan Xichen on his behalf (and how effectively his talismans helped them track down Bichen) made Lan Xichen ask a series of interested, pertinent questions, which Wei Wuxian answered with full honesty, which led to Lan Xichen slowly but stubbornly changing some Lan policies behind the scenes, which is having a trickle-down effect on the professional board that approves talisman patents. It’s not quite at the point where Wei Wuxian’s resentment-powered designs are getting approved for commercial distribution and use, but they’re actually getting reviewed now, which is huge progress. Lan Xichen has also arranged for some of the Lan junior cultivation classes to test Wei Wuxian’s talismans in the field as part of their curriculum, and while translating the feedback from a dozen teenagers into something helpful isn’t always easy, it is invaluable. Wei Wuxian thinks he might be able to afford renting a small office in a co-working space in a couple more months, at least for a few days a week. It would be nice to have an actual divide between his work life and his home life, probably? Wei Wuxian hasn’t had that in years, so he’s forgotten what it’s like.
Beans rebounds off his leg, and Wei Wuxian calls, “Careful,” without looking up from his laptop.
“Sorry!” A’Yuan says, backing more toward the center of the living room again, cat in hot pursuit, bouncing off furniture and the walls with a staggering lack of dignity. They ended up finding her at the shelter the week after Lan Zhan went back to the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian having learned he liked having a cat around and A’Yuan insistent that he was ready and that they had to bring his certificate so the shelter knew how good he was at cats. Wei Wuxian’s one stipulation was that they not get a kitten (one high-energy baby in the household was enough, thank you), but he really didn’t have strong opinions other than that.
It turned out his opinions were unnecessary, anyway. The shelter employee let them into the room with the then-named Stardust, and as soon as they sat down Stardust climbed into A’Yuan’s lap, put her paws on his shoulders, and started licking his face. When Wei Wuxian offered her his hand to sniff, she grabbed it with both paws and shoved her forehead into his palm, purring so loudly he thought they might have been able to hear it in the hall. They didn’t bother looking at any other cats; the promptly-renamed Beans came home with them that day and immediately claimed the divot between two of the couch cushions as her preferred napping spot. She has a loose belly (more correctly termed the primordial pouch, Wei Wuxian has learned) that swings back and forth hilariously under her when she runs, she’s absolutely dumb as a stump, and she drools when she’s happy. Wei Wuxian adores her, and she loves everyone.
(Including, adorably, Lan Zhan in cat mode. Wei Wuxian was a little worried about bringing a cat into his house where his boyfriend might, in the future, regularly turn into a cat. Lan Zhan assured him that other cats generally liked him, but Wei Wuxian didn’t fully believe it until Lan Zhan came over while A’Yuan was at kindergarten, changed into cat form, and then stared smugly at Wei Wuxian while Beans immediately trotted over, tail in a curious little question mark and her eyes bright. They snuggle sometimes. It’s the cutest thing in the world. Wei Wuxian has taken many photos.)
The doorbell interrupts both Wei Wuxian mid-sentence and A’Yuan mid-twirl of the dangly toy, which is obvious because A’Yuan releases his hold on the handle and it goes sailing over the couch to clatter against the floor in the hallway.
“ZHAN-GEGE!” he announces to the room in general and possibly also the whole world, sprinting at the door.
“No running!” Wei Wuxian corrects, in what he knows is a futile effort but feels obligated to make anyway. A’Yuan skids on the uncarpeted section of the entryway as he modulates his speed somewhat, but still thumps into the door. Kids. What can you do?
Wei Wuxian hurriedly finishes the sentence he was writing (lest it be lost from his head forever) and hustles over to join A’Yuan at the door before he can fling it wide and give Beans the chance to escape into the outside world. (Beans has shown absolutely no interest in the outside world, but better safe than sorry.) Wei Wuxian instead opens the door a normal amount, and the only creature that rushes outside is A’Yuan, who greets Lan Zhan in the traditional manner, AKA by crashing directly into his legs.
“Zhan-gege!” he repeats, not at a yell this time but still plaintive. “It took you so long to get here! I was waiting forever!”
“We’re very excited about going to the museum,” Wei Wuxian translates for Lan Zhan, suppressing a smile.
“Mrowow!” Beans says from around Wei Wuxian’s ankles.
“It’s good to see you, too, A’Yuan,” Lan Zhan says, the corners of his eyes creasing slightly with amusement as he herds A’Yuan back inside to retrieve his shoes. “What are you looking forward to seeing today?”
“The dinosaurs!” A’Yuan says, picking his shoes out of the pile and sitting down to put them on.
“Are there dinosaurs at the children’s museum?” Wei Wuxian asks Lan Zhan under his breath, setting one hand on his waist and leaning close for a quick, chaste kiss that nevertheless feels absolutely scandalous to do in front of A’Yuan. (Last month Wen-popo and Uncle Four agreed that they could officially introduce Lan Zhan as Wei Wuxian’s boyfriend, instead of just being a friend who A’Yuan saw at the Cloud Recesses after his music classes. Wei Wuxian is still getting used to the whole Public Boyfriend thing, and apparently has reverted to teenage-crush levels of fluster about it.)
“I am not certain, but we will find out together,” Lan Zhan says, similarly low. His hand spreads out across Wei Wuxian’s lower back in a warm press, and Wei Wuxian smiles helplessly and dopily at him. This man! And sometimes cat! How is Wei Wuxian supposed to handle him?
“Shoes!” A’Yuan announces, leaping to his feet. “Can we go now?”
“Sure thing, Radish.” Wei Wuxian grabs the go-bag full of snacks and emergency kid supplies and gently nudges Beans away from the door with his foot. (Beans may not show any interest in the outside world, but she loves her humans and is, as previously mentioned, dumb as a stump, so he doesn’t want to give her the chance to follow them outside and get into trouble.) Cat successfully herded, they get en route without incident, A’Yuan happily narrating all his future adventures at the museum from the back seat, most of which are not physically possible in the human world.
Fortunately A’Yuan is not disappointed by the lack of actual living dinosaurs or giant robot trucks or haunted houses that have been bitten by monsters at the children’s museum, being instead immediately captivated by the many sensory exhibitions that allow him to turn cranks to pour colored liquids down an obstacle course or assemble a building out of big foam blocks (that he then gets to knock down) or operate a miniature piece of construction equipment. Wei Wuxian also has a great time in the sensory exhibit section, to be clear. It’s great having a small child and therefore an excuse to play around at the museum, and it’s also fantastic to have a second pair of eyes and hands on A’Yuan that belong to a young, swift cultivator instead of Wen-popo or Uncle Four. (Popo and Uncle Four are both pretty spry and he’d never malign them in that way, but they have a perfectly reasonable amount of trouble catching a suddenly sprinting five-year-old who just saw something cool and doesn’t have the situational awareness to notice he’s about to cut off a family with a huge stroller and thus get absolutely run over. Lan Zhan? He just takes four huge steps and sweeps A’Yuan out of the imminent collision path with one strong arm, then nods politely to the stroller family as they roll on by, disaster averted.)
Wei Wuxian worried about this family date idea when Lan Zhan brought it up—would Lan Zhan’s tolerance for Kid Chaos be able to stand up to Tornado A’Yuan in a place designed to amp him up as much as possible? Lan Zhan likes peace and quiet; would the children’s museum be too much for him, given that it provides neither of those things?—and is forced to conclude, once again, that his worries were unfounded. (Will his brain learn from this? Doubtful.) Yes, Lan Zhan has put in discreet sound-dampening earplugs and makes a point to steer A’Yuan away from especially loud groups of children, but he stays engaged and enthusiastic, asking A’Yuan questions and listening to his rambling answers. They even go down a slide together, A’Yuan tucked safely into Lan Zhan’s lap, long legs taking up an absurd amount of the slide surface on the ride. Wei Wuxian takes seven million photos and wonders if it’s possible for your heart to burst out of sheer concentrated cuteness.
They manage to drag A’Yuan off to the outdoor picnic tables for lunch, which he protests right up until he has his first bite and suddenly realizes that a) food exists and b) he wants to eat it. One very aggressively-eaten meal later they watch an educational video about bugs in the big museum theater (to let the food settle before A’Yuan starts running around again, a lesson Wei Wuxian has learned the hard way) before ending the day on the big play structure. It ostensibly has plaques and other built-in sensory toys to help kids learn about, like, outer space and stuff, but mostly it’s just a huge jungle gym where parents let their children wear themselves out before taking them home.
“Regret your life choices yet?” Wei Wuxian asks as he and Lan Zhan take a break on one of the observation benches, Lan Zhan’s arm around his shoulders. In front of them, A’Yuan sees how far he can jump off the the bottom step leading up into a rocketship tower. (Not very far. He’s five.)
“No,” Lan Zhan says, immediately and easily. He leans over to press his lips to Wei Wuxian’s temple. “A’Yuan is enjoying himself, and I enjoy spending time with you watching him do so.”
Wei Wuxian feels his face go deeply red, but he manages to tamp down on the urge to squirm. They’re in public! How dare Lan Zhan do this to him in public! (Did he ask the question hoping that Lan Zhan would do exactly this to him in public? Shut up.)
“Well, good,” he says eloquently, and snuggles a little more closely into Lan Zhan’s side.
A’Yuan eventually starts dragging, and they herd him back to the car before he gets exhausted enough to go into a full meltdown, in spite of his protests that he’s having so much fun and can they stay a little longer, Baba? He then promptly passes out once the car gets moving, and only wakes up long enough to eat dinner, change into his pajamas, and brush his teeth before getting tucked into bed at seven thirty. Will this mean he wakes Wei Wuxian up at five the next morning? Quite possibly, but he can’t complain too much when it means that (after waiting twenty minutes to make sure A’Yuan’s fully asleep) Lan Zhan has the whole evening to take Wei Wuxian to bed and thoroughly dismantle him until he loses track of spoken language, what his legs are doing, and the ability to have actual thoughts.
They shower together after Wei Wuxian recovers from the brain-melting orgasms, intimate and a little awkward in the cheap rental bathtub with the shower curtain trying to reach out and grab them every time they move. It’s not a luxurious porn shower by any means, but Wei Wuxian revels in it just the same. A gorgeous man, in his house? His shower? Helping take care of his kid? Wild. Unreal.
Somehow actually happening.
Under the covers, clean and wrapped up with his boyfriend’s head on his shoulder, Beans sprawled out by his feet, Wei Wuxian laughs just a little.
“Hm?” Lan Zhan asks, squeezing the arm he has wrapped around Wei Wuxian’s waist.
“I just really wasn’t expecting this when A’Yuan hauled you in out of the garden,” Wei Wuxian says, scrubbing his fingers through Lan Zhan’s shower-damp hair.
“Mn,” Lan Zhan agrees, then stretches and suddenly a fluffy white cat is draped across Wei Wuxian’s chest. Cat-Zhan yawns and gives him a smug look, like, “Is this what you were expecting?”
“That’s more like it,” Wei Wuxian admits, rubbing Cat-Zhan behind both ears. Cat-Zhan starts up a rumbling purr, tucking his head into the crook of Wei Wuxian’s neck.
It’s the perfect way to fall asleep.