Chapter Text
A-Yuan is already awake when Lan Zhan quietly opens the door to rouse him. He’s lying in bed watching the door in silence, his eyes open, and he smiles when he sees Lan Zhan’s face.
“Good morning, A-Yuan,” Lan Zhan says.
“Morning, Zhan-gege.” A-Yuan stretches. “I woke up.”
“I see that.”
“Thanks for getting me.”
Lan Zhan musters a smile. Sometimes, A-Yuan says these things… “Of course. Are you ready to get up now?”
“Yeah,” A-Yuan says, then clambers out of his bed. He’s wearing the bunny pyjamas that Lan Zhan dressed him in for bed last night, now rumpled from sleep. “Um, is there breakfast?”
“Yes, of course.” Lan Zhan offers his hand to lead the little boy to the kitchen, which A-Yuan takes with alacrity. “You can always get up early if you are awake before I come to get you. You can play quietly in the living room if I’m not awake, or come wake me up.”
“Thank you,” A-Yuan says, offering him another sunny smile. “Baba doesn’t like to be waked up early.”
“Woken up,” Lan Zhan corrects gently. “Is that so?”
“Uh-uh. He’s grumpy in the mornings.”
“What did you do if you woke up first?”
A-Yuan thinks about that for a minute, while Lan Zhan gets him settled into his chair at the table, with its little blue booster seat, and goes to assemble a bowl of congee, with egg and a little bit of chopped scallion. Then he says, “Sometimes I go back to sleep. Sometimes I go to baba’s room and lie down with him.”
“I see.” It’s been almost a year, but A-Yuan has a sharp memory. Those mornings must have made an impression. Lan Zhan can imagine the boy crawling into bed with the faceless shape of his anonymous father and curling up with him. It’s a strange, intimate image. He banishes it before it can make him uncomfortable; such things aren’t his place, really. He doesn’t know A-Yuan’s father, a man named Wei Ying, who has been in a coma for many months after being infected with Wen Ruohan’s poison, and he has no right to picture him sleeping. Still, from all the little stories A-Yuan has shared, the things that comfort him and the ones that make him miss his baba, Wei Ying must have been a good guardian, warm and loving in a way that Lan Zhan sometimes struggles with.
When Lan Zhan returns with A-Yuan’s breakfast, he asks, “Are you excited to see him today, A-Yuan?”
“Mhm!” A-Yuan says, nodding vigorously.
“That is good.” Lan Zhan supervises A-Yuan’s first few bites of breakfast, then, once he’s sure that the small boy will eat carefully—he always does, but it is best practice to make sure every time—he turns back to his own cup of tea, now the perfect temperature. He takes a careful sip and lets it sit in his mouth for a moment, savouring the mild flavour and the dry feeling of the tannins against his tongue, then swallows.
“It’s good,” says A-Yuan, through a bite of food.
“No talking while eating,” Lan Zhan reminds him gently, and he hums in agreement and returns to eating, applying himself to his food. For a while, there are only the sounds of the city waking up outside the window, the birds and the cars, and A-Yuan’s small, happy eating noises. He obeys the rule about no speech during meals readily, more so than many children would, but he’s never entirely silent. Whether that’s his nature or a learned habit, Lan Zhan is unsure. His mind drifts back once more to the unknown figure of his father, who they will be meeting today. It is a Saturday, clear and bright, and they have arranged by text to meet at a park nearby. Wei Ying had seemed embarrassed, perhaps—difficult to read tone over text, as always—that he could not yet retake full custody of his son, but there was nothing for it; while in the hospital, he’d lost possession of his apartment. And while A-Yuan loves his father and misses him, Lan Zhan has taken care of him for a long time, by the reckoning of his short life, and for him to suddenly vanish would be harsh and jarring. Better to make the transition back slowly, and… well, if all goes well perhaps Lan Zhan will be allowed to remain a part of this child’s life. He has become attached.
Dangerous, of course, to do that—to let someone into his heart so soon, for all that this connection is much different from the one he’d lost. A-Yuan had come into his life only weeks after Wuxian had slipped out of it.
But he can’t think of that now, or he’ll alarm A-Yuan. An empathetic boy, and so attuned to Lan Zhan’s moods that it’s scary at times, when he’s so used to his own emotions staying well-hidden behind a mask, literal or figurative. He sighs into his tea and, at A-Yuan’s small questioning noise, just shakes his head and summons a small smile. A-Yuan studies his face for a moment, then he returns to eating, carefully ferrying the last bite of his congee to his own mouth. His soft hand is still a little clumsy, but he’s become remarkably more skilled with cutlery in the past year, progressing past spoons and forks to master chopsticks. He’d taken a video of some of the early attempts to add to the archive of tiny milestones that he’s been saving for Wei Ying.
A-Yuan sets down his spoon and makes a happy little “mm!” at Lan Zhan, turning up his face for a wipe with a napkin. Lan Zhan obliges, as he does every morning, then waits for A-Yuan to scramble down from his booster before leading the way to the bathroom.
A-Yuan has become well-accustomed to Lan Zhan’s morning routine in the past year, thankfully. It took a few weeks for him to begin rising earlier, though he’d already had the tendency—clearly—and mostly just needed permission; beyond that, he was an intelligent and adaptable child, to whom it was easy to explain the reasoning for such things a tooth-brushing and face-washing. He hadn’t spoken in much detail about his life before, only occasionally doing or saying things to suggest what it had been like, what his habits had been, and though Lan Zhan is sure from that that things are different, he has become reasonably confident that the child’s life is, at the very least, not worse. He cannot ever be a match to A-Yuan’s actual father, who he loves and misses dearly, but he believes he has been a good guardian.
He’ll miss A-Yuan when he is gone, and Lan Zhan is alone once more.
Faces and mouths clean, Lan Zhan helps A-Yuan pick out his clothing for the day and dress, then kneels to take his hands and look into his eyes, still tucked away in the safety of A-Yuan’s bedroom.
“Are you ready to go see your baba?” he asks.
“Mm!” A-Yuan says, and at the same time he smiles brightly and tears up.
There’s nothing for it but to hug him. Lan Zhan has been careful not to deprive A-Yuan of the physical affection he is clearly accustomed to, that he still gets when he’s with his aunts and uncles and grandmother, and the boy’s warmth is familiar in his arms.
A-Yuan sniffles briefly into his shoulder, and then he says, a bit muffled, “Are you ready, Zhan-gege?”
“I am,” Lan Zhan says, pulling away to study the boy’s face. “I am excited to meet your baba. I hope you will introduce me to Wei Ying, and him to me.”
“I will!” A-Yuan says, and the smile has overtaken the tears. “I love baba, and you love baba too.”
“I’m sure I will,” Lan Zhan says gently, and hopes that it’s the truth. He’s sure no one objectionable could have raised such a child as A-Yuan. The child’s love may indeed have the transitive property he grants it.
Shoes, coats, keys, and out the door swiftly after that. It’s about a ten minute walk at A-Yuan’s pace to the park, and fifteen minutes until the appointed time.
It’s a sunny day, and A-Yuan hums cheerfully to a tune that meanders without repeating as they walk. Lan Zhan occasionally adds his voice to harmonize when the little melody wanders into something he recognizes, and then falls away again when it wanders off once more. A-Yuan is happy and bright, walking by Lan Zhan’s side and holding his hand carefully, and it seems like it’s no time at all before they’re arriving at the park.
Lan Zhan had described a bench beneath a tree at the northwestern corner of the park, and as they approach, he sees that there’s already a slim masculine figure standing there, leaning against the tree. As they get closer, the man straightens up, and then his face brightens into a magnetic smile.
“A-Yuan!” the man shouts, and shoves away from the tree to take a few jogging steps toward them.
“Baba!” A-Yuan shrieks, rips his hand from Lan Zhan’s, and bolts across the park toward the stranger.
Well, Lan Zhan thinks, feeling a heady mix of emotion rise up in his chest, at least there will be no issues as to whether or not A-Yuan remembers his father. The transition will be quick.
Ahead of Lan Zhan, the man, who must be Wei Ying, has stooped and caught the running A-Yuan up in a huge hug. He clutches the boy close, rocking him in his arms. As Lan Zhan draws closer, he can hear Wei Ying saying, “A-Yuan, A-Yuan,” over and over into his son’s hair.
Lan Zhan pauses a few paces back, giving them space for their reunion. A-Yuan has gone silent after his first cry, quiet in the way he often is when overwhelmed, and Wei Ying seems equally overcome, though he has translated it into frantic petting of his baby’s arms and back and head, and that refrain of his name, filled with so much emotion that Lan Zhan feels voyeuristic to be present at all. After a few minutes, however, A-Yuan gasps in a breath and says, “Baba, I missed you.”
“I missed you too, baobao,” Wei Ying says, pulling away a bit to study A-Yuan’s face. “I missed you so much.”
“Even when you were sleeping?” A-Yuan asks tearfully.
“Even when I was sleeping. I’ll always miss you when we’re apart, no matter how far away I am or what sort of shape I’m in,” Wei Ying says. “I dreamed of you. I dreamed you were planted in the garden and growing even without me. Did you grow? I think you grew.”
Wei Ying measures a little with his hand pressed against A-Yuan’s forehead, making the boy giggle, and then he looks up at Lan Zhan, and their eyes meet for the first time. Wei Ying’s eyes are startling: a true, pitch black, unlike anything Lan Zhan has ever seen. He can’t tell at all where the pupil meets the iris; his gaze is a void. Lan Zhan blinks before he can fall into it, and studies the rest of the man’s face. He’s fairly gaunt, which makes sense after a year in a coma, but his sharp high cheekbones and the fine line of his jaw, all enhanced by the chin-length strands of hair escaping his bun, suggest that his face would be slim anyway. And he is beautiful. So, so beautiful.
Lan Zhan blinks again, then nods politely, shoving all of that down to be dealt with later. “He has grown,” he offers.
“So you must have been giving him plenty of sunlight and water!” Wei Ying exclaims, and stands from kneeling, A-Yuan still in his arms, without a hitch. Lan Zhan refrains from raising an eyebrow, but only barely; the man must have a very good physical therapist.
“Something like that,” Lan Zhan says mildly.
“A-Yuan, have you said thank you to nice Mr. Lan?”
“Mn!” A-Yuan agrees, nodding. “Zhan-gege said it’s good to be polite.”
“It is, that’s right!” Wei Ying kisses A-Yuan’s forehead with a loud smack. “What other sorts of things have you learned from—“ he hesitates for a moment, glancing at Lan Zhan, then continues, “your Zhan-gege?”
Lan Zhan inclines his head to accept the address, then listens as A-Yuan begins to talk about the things he’s learned: no talking while eating, and make sure the plants get to have a drink, and no running in the house, and two books before bed are allowed. Wei Ying nods seriously, and directs the conversation here and there, asking about A-Yuan’s favourite things about living with Lan Zhan, about what he’s learned in daycare this past year, about all sorts of things. Wei Ying brings out chatter from his child in a way that Lan Zhan has never seen, but he finds it gratifying; A-Yuan is so clearly happy. He has good things to say about his time with Lan Zhan as well, which is satisfying. He has done his best.
Finally, the flood of stories slows a little, and A-Yuan’s attention is grabbed by the laughter of children playing at the park. Wei Ying notices at the same time Lan Zhan does, and he says, “Do you want to go play, baobao?”
“Um,” A-Yuan says, then, shyly, asks, “Will baba play too?”
“Of course!” Wei Ying scoops his child up and rises from where he’d settled on the grass, and takes them both off toward the playground, Lan Zhan trailing. Lan Zhan’s presence is somewhat superfluous at this point, it feels, but he doesn’t mind that. He is content to supervise from the edge of the playground for a few minutes. After a while, though, A-Yuan calls out to him and asks him to come play as well, so he joins the game—a somewhat incomprehensible make-believe where A-Yuan is possibly a dragon, and the adults might be knights, or possibly princes, and they have to chase him. Then it becomes him chasing them for a while, and then he gets caught up in the game of tag a few other children are playing, and Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are able to drift off to the edge of the playground once more to stand side-by-side and watch their shared ward.
“You’ve done so well with him,” Wei Ying says, after taking a moment to catch his breath. He’s more winded than Lan Zhan is, of course. “Thank you again.”
“There is no need for thanks,” Lan Zhan says. “I am glad I was able to care for him, alongside his older relatives. He is a very bright child.”
“No kidding,” Wei Ying says, smiling. But there’s something lurking in his face, around his eyes, a strange sadness. “I think you’ve done better at nurturing that than I ever did.”
“No.” Lan Zhan clears his throat when Wei Ying glances over at him, startled by his sharp tone. He hadn’t meant to be so abrupt, but that sort of thinking was very incorrect. The evidence of Wei Ying’s goodness as a parent and guardian for A-Yuan was incontrovertible to Lan Zhan’s eyes, and he would not allow the man to disparage himself. “You are his father.”
“Adoptive.”
“The only one he has ever known,” Lan Zhan returns.
Wei Ying just shakes his head. “The only paternal figure I ever had kind of sucked, Lan-er-gege. Not to get too personal. Just saying—being the only father he knows only means that, not that I was actually any good at it. And then I left him.”
“Not of your own volition.”
“I suppose that’s true. But I broke a promise.”
There’s a shriek from the playground, and both of them look up at once, tense and startled; Lan Zhan feels the pulse of his power rise beneath his skin and grasps it, ready to call the wind, just in case. But the scream resolves into one of laughter, and they relax again, Lan Zhan more quickly than Wei Ying, he notes. It was not so long ago that Wei Ying had been caught up in the conflict between Masks and terribly wounded, he supposes; some post-traumatic stress is to be expected.
Lan Zhan lets out a breath, then says, “You have done your research on me, I take it?”
“Hm?” Wei Ying glances at him, then says, “Oh! I called you er-gege. Sorry, I suppose that seemed overly familiar.”
Lan Zhan just makes a small negative hum. “It is public record that I have an older brother. I expected you would search for information on the man who has been caring for your child.”
“Yeah,” Wei Ying says, smiling. “I’m sorry for seeming so paranoid.”
“Not paranoid. Careful.”
“Sure, sure.” Wei Ying laughs lightly. “A little of both, let’s be honest.”
“Mn.”
There’s a moment of quiet, then Wei Ying says, “I can’t stay long today.”
“Yes, you said.” Lan Zhan looks over at Wei Ying, and sees him staring out at the playground. There’s a hunger in his face so deep it must be painful as he watches his son run and play. His strange black eyes don’t waver. “But you don’t need to go yet.”
“No. Not yet.”
However, it’s not much longer before the appointed time comes. Wei Ying calls A-Yuan over, and quietly tells him that baba has to go. A-Yuan tears up immediately, of course, and Wei Ying takes him into his arms and rises from kneeling to hold him against his hip, clutching and being clutched in return.
“We should get together again this week,” Wei Ying says quietly to Lan Zhan over A-Yuan’s head. “Maybe just you and me, while this one is at school, or while he’s with one of his relatives. We can arrange more visits.”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan pulls out his phone to consult his calendar, then proposes a date which is swiftly accepted, only a few days away. “Do you know when you are likely to have your living situation sorted out?”
“Not sure yet,” Wei Ying sighs, stroking a hand down A-Yuan’s back. The boy sniffles. He cries so quietly; it’s heartbreaking, every single time. Lan Zhan has wept in sympathy in the middle of the night a number of times in the past year. “I’m working on it. It has to be good enough for this one, not too far from the—from his family… you know.”
“Let me know if you need any assistance. Are you employed?”
“Yeah.” Wei Ying makes a face, something Lan Zhan can’t quite decipher, then smiles. “I got my job back—I worked at Jiang Industries, before.”
“I see.” Lan Zhan keeps his face still. Working for the Jiangs, and caught in Wen Ruohan’s attack... maybe Wei Ying has a Masked identity, or is otherwise involved in that world. Perhaps a support worker for Sandu and the others of that family, as Lan Zhan is sure that he’d know if a Jiang Mask had been out of commission for an entire year. There was Wuxian, but Lan Zhan had attended his funeral. However, he doesn’t know Wei Ying well enough to ask, and it would be unforgivably rude besides. Many Masks keep their civilian identities secret and for good reasons. The little boy in Wei Ying’s arms would certainly be more than justification enough. So he won’t broach the subject, at least not now, but he will watch for other hints. If there is something he can do to assist Wei Ying from behind his Mask, he will.
Wei Ying jogs A-Yuan in his arms, then says to him quietly, “Baobao, you have to go back to Zhan-gege now, alright? Baba has to go.”
“No,” A-Yuan whines, but he relinquishes his grip on his father easily enough once Lan Zhan steps forward to take him. He passes from Wei Ying’s hands into Lan Zhan’s and immediately tucks his face away again, this time into Lan Zhan’s collarbone. “Baba I miss you.”
“I miss you too, A-Yuan. But soon we’ll see each other every day again.” Wei Ying comes closer, until he and Lan Zhan are nearly touching, and he can rest a hand on A-Yuan’s back. “Will you look at baba and say goodbye?”
A-Yuan sniffles again, but he does turn his teary face to look at Wei Ying. Very quietly he says, “Bye-bye, baba.”
“I love you. I’ll see you very soon, okay? I promise.”
A-Yuan swallows, then nods, then hides his face once more.
“Ah, my baby,” Wei Ying says tenderly, then pulls himself away with visible exertion. “Thank you again, Lan-er-gege. I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Yes.”
Wei Ying turns and walks away first, and Lan Zhan stands there watching his slim dark figure vanish across the park, rocking slowly from foot to foot in an attempt to soothe A-Yuan. Eventually, Wei Ying is gone, and so Lan Zhan goes too, walking back to his own home. With a small application of his powers, A-Yuan’s weight feels like nothing in his arms, so it’s no burden to carry him. By the time they arrive, the silent tears have stopped, but A-Yuan is red-faced and wrung out. Lan Zhan puts him down for a nap, in hopes that a little sleep will heal his spirit somewhat, and then sits down to answer some emails.
It’s a quiet afternoon. Lan Zhan makes a calendar appointment for his next meeting with Wei Ying and sends him an invite, which is quickly accepted; he arranges some meetings for work as well. Then he puts his work away, because Lan Huan would be displeased to know he was working on the weekend, and sits with a book instead. When A-Yuan wakes, they watch a little bit of TV, then Lan Zhan reads some more while A-Yuan colours, and then it’s time for dinner, and so on. Their routine is easy, quiet, and settled, but Lan Zhan can see the pauses where A-Yuan is clearly remembering his baba, or looking for him. Bedtime is difficult; Lan Zhan ends up reading a third book, and fetching a glass of water, and finally lying down beside A-Yuan in his little bed until he drops off. He has to extricate his shirt from A-Yuan’s grip very carefully; at last, heartsore, he returns to his living room to make a cup of herbal tea and attempt to comfort his own cares.
That night, he dreams of Wuxian. He dreams of sitting on the edge of a rooftop with him, looking down at the city as they often did together, and the tenor and cadence of his voice. The words are indistinct, but it doesn’t matter. Their shoulders are brushing; he can feel the warmth. Lan Zhan watches Wuxian’s profile, the way it’s shaped by the silver mask he wears, and then Wuxian turns and looks at him. Through the eyeholes of the mask, he sees not Wuxian’s shining silver eyes, but a pool of shadow: Wei Ying’s endless black. Wuxian, Wei Ying, whoever, he laughs and Lan Zhan wakes with the sound in his ears, more vivid in his memory than it’s been in a year, since it was overwritten by the sound of Wuxian’s dying scream of rage and pain and defiance.
His heart is pounding. A glance at the clock tells him that it’s ten minutes to five: just enough time to gather himself before he must begin his day as he always does, as if nothing had ever happened.