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Wei Wuxian had told everyone to leave it in the past. He had told them to move on, to forget. He had been punished for his crimes and figured himself long paid back for whatever good he might’ve done.
He was the one who told them to forget.
And yet he was the one who had the hardest time moving on.
He returned to Gusu with his husband - husband! - and his son - son! - and lived his life in relative peace.
And perhaps that was part of the issue. Peace meant quiet, and quiet and Wei Wuxian had never really gotten along. Quiet meant, more often than not, Wei Wuxian was left alone with his thoughts - his memories, or the lack thereof.
Lan Zhan tried his best but he had responsibilities. He had tried to push off those duties to care for his husband - husband! - but Wei Wuxian was nothing if not as stubborn as his husband - husband!. He told Lan Zhan to not worry, that he would be fine, it was just a bit of… transitional sickness.
In the end, Wei Wuxian hated the peace and quiet.
So he started helping the juniors! He couldn’t help them in certain fashions - the gaping hole where his old golden core used to be still aches sometimes, the small core he’d managed to build in this new body was still too weak to use properly. But he could teach the juniors other things; survival skills, how to live against all odds with nothing but your own two hands, how to fight with bigger opponents with no sword, things like that. He’d spend time with the rabbits and Lil Apple, time in the kitchens desperately pleading for the cooks to let him season the food (he was always rejected, but one day he’ll convince them! Attempt the impossible!). Sometimes he’d chaperone nighthunts, providing backup, more often than not with Lan Zhan at his side. Sometimes, though it was rarer, he would travel on his own on the back of Lil Apple, wandering from town to town to help farmers sow or harvest or whatever else the common folk needed help with.
Most of the time, it helped.
Kept his hands busy, forced his mind to stay in the present.
But sometimes it hurt.
He would watch Lan Sizhui - his A’Yuan, and yet not his A’Yuan.
And he would ache.
He had missed so much.
Thirteen years was such a long time, especially when you were a child. A’Yuan hadn’t known him, that day on Dafan Mountain, he hadn’t remembered his Xian-gege - and Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure if it would’ve been better or worse for him to have remembered.
He still sees the boy he had once longed to call his own in his peripheral vision, a flash of robes and a childish laugh in the corner of his eye, the edge of his hearing.
He still sees his boy in Sizhui’s eyes, in his smile, in his dimples. He looks so much like Wen Ning when they are next to each other that it makes Wei Wuxian’s heart ache.
But there are so many gaps. He sees A’Yuan in Sizhui, but there’s so much that is different. A fear of spiders when A’Yuan loved playing with bugs, a tidiness when A’Yuan was so messy, a quiet chuckle when A’Yuan was a loud giggle.
He is still the same boy, but now he is grown and Wei Wuxian wasn’t there.
There are so many stories that he’s missed out on, so many milestones, so many life points. So many times he could’ve been there and wasn’t. He wasn’t there for A’Yuan’s first friendship, first crush, first sleepover. His sword ceremony, his courtesy name ceremony, so many birthdays. He wasn’t there when his A’Yuan got sick or when he got better, when he was learning to read, to write, to draw. He wasn’t there when A’Yuan needed hugs, or a push in the right direction. He wasn’t there to teach him sword forms, to teach him how to tie his robes, to teach him how to cook. He wasn’t there for so much.
And yet, his A’Yuan grew regardless. He grew and grew and now he is a wonderful, kind young man who is so much like his uncles and like his father and nothing, nothing like Wei Wuxian.
He sees Wen Ning, he sees Lan Zhan, he even sees Lan Xichen.
He does not see himself.
And he hates it, hates that he can’t move past it. Hates that he is stuck missing the toddler he had loved so much when there is a teenager, almost man, who is waiting for his father to love him.
And Wei Wuxian does love Sizhui - he truly does! He loved Sizhui before knowing that this young man and the boy he had loved so much were one and the same. He loved Sizhui.
But something in his chest kept searching for that boy.
He hated himself for it, for not loving Sizhui enough, for not loving him right.
-
“Baba,” Sizhui calls him one evening during family dinner. It takes Wei Wuxian an embarrassingly long moment to realize that Sizhui is calling for him. Sizhui had stopped calling him Senior Mo, thank the gods, and typically switched between calling him Senior Wei in public and Xian-gege in private. He called Lan Zhan Hanguang-jun in public and Fuqin or A-Die behind closed doors, so it made sense for him to use different titles for both his fathers.
But Baba was not what Wei Wuxian was expecting to hear on this night.
“A- Ah?!” He sputters, almost spilling his tea. “Ah, I mean, ahem, yes, A’Yuan?”
Sizhui smiles that damning, all-too-knowing smile that Wei Wuxian swears he got from Lan Xichen. “Would you like more bamboo shoots, Baba?”
“Uh, yeah, yeah, thank you, A’Yuan.”
Lan Zhan is watching with a satisfied smugness rolling off of him and Wei Wuxian just knows he had something to do with this sudden change of address. That shitty bastard, Wei Wuxian loves him so much.
-
After that first night, it happens more and more.
“Baba, could you-”
“Hey, Baba, do you think-”
“I need help with this work, Baba, can you-”
Wei Wuxian startles every single time. But soon, as with most things, the word becomes familiar. It becomes simple and daily and something that warms his chest every time he hears it.
And soon, somehow, he finds himself introducing himself as Sizhui’s father.
They are in a small town for a nighthunt and the magistrate asks for introductions.
“This one is Lan Sizhui, and this is my senior-”
“His father,” Wei Wuxian says, without even thinking about it.
Sizhui’s smile is blinding and Wei Wuxian finally, finally sees himself in it.
-
And that hollow spot, the one that had torn at Wei Wuxian’s heart so much, slowly closes. He talks with Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren - who had finally given up on trying to avoid his nephew-in-law after Wei Wuxian kept showing up in random impossible places to ask him questions, and then eventually, the way moss grows on a stone, he grew used to “that Wei boy’s nonsense”. Wei Wuxian asks them about A’Yuan’s childhood in Gusu, about stories of him as a little boy, as a young disciple.
He talks to Lan Zhan, gathering the stories like pieces of a puzzle and slowly building a picture of what his son was like after the fever.
He sees Lan Zhan’s mementos of A’Yuan’s childhood - toys, books, drawings, and everything else. He teases his husband - only a little bit! - about being so sentimental.
Lan Zhan shuts up him with a look, and a few short words.
“I saved them for Wei Ying.”
-
And slowly, that scab began to heal over. Slowly, as the days go by, that feeling of failure had faded, and instead was replaced by pride - fatherly pride. He saw Sizhui learn and grow, he saw his son build friendships and relationships with others, he saw his son become the man he had once imagined his son could grow up to be.
Sizhui is smart as a whip, kind to a fault, but not willing to roll over for anyone. He helps strangers with no expectations of repayment, he travels around on nighthunts to help the people who need it and he smiles the entire time. He cares for the rabbits and Lil Apple and his sect siblings, his heart big enough for all of them. He’s strong, a brilliant sword fighter, and a certain gentleman. He is the best parts of Lan Zhan and of Wei Wuxian without most of their many, many issues. He’s an amazing young man, now, and Wei Wuxian is so proud to call him his son.
And maybe it took them awhile, but this… this was the family Wei Wuxian had once dreamed of - donkey included.