Chapter Text
He’s on the phone with Jiang Cheng when he walks past his old guitar in the front window of the pawn shop.
“Hold on,” he says, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. A man in a bright yellow rain jacket knocks into him and curses over his shoulder. Jiang Cheng, halfway through a scathing tirade about something-or-other—the wedding, probably; it’s always the wedding these days—grunts.
“What?” The connection is bad and his voice is tinny. Wei Wuxian steps out of the trickling flow of foot traffic, staring as though he’s seen a ghost, which, well. He sort of has.
“Just hold on a minute. I have to do something,” he says. His reflection peers out at him from the grimy window: circles under his eyes, damp from the drizzly afternoon, in desperate need of a haircut. He blows his bangs out of his face. “Don’t go anywhere—”
"Where the hell would I go?"
"—I'll call you back."
“Wei Wuxian! This is important—!”
He hangs up.
A bell jingles deep in the belly of the shop as he enters, and the door creaks shut behind him. Air blasts down from the vents above, disturbing a thicket of loan ads and restaurant menus pinned to the corkboard behind the counter. Piles of old junk collect in haphazard stacks, flotsam washed up and left where it’s landed, and the lights flicker and buzz in the distant recesses of the ceiling. It has that old secondhand store smell, dusty and stale and a little sweet, the narrow edge of rot.
Wei Wuxian sneezes.
“Hello?”
The air conditioner whirs away above him. No one responds.
Well then. If no one’s going to stop him, he’ll have to help himself.
The guitar has seen better days. One of the tuning pegs is chipped, and when he rubs the ivory between thumb and knuckle the groove presses into the pad of his finger. It’s been strung with nylon and the gauge is all wrong, much too heavy. One of the frets is loose, just a little, and when he picks it up it clicks, strings buzzing. But it’s his. He’s sure of that, sure as anything—and even if he weren’t, when he turns it over in his hands there’s the smear of his name, handwriting half legible, tucked just behind the neck joint: Wei Ying.
He laughs and chokes on it. Muddy disbelief clots in his lungs. Of all the pawn shops in all the world—
“Hello,” he murmurs, eyes bright and prickling, and settles the body of the instrument against his hip. Whenever it’s been these past four years, time has been less than kind to it. Though, time has been less than kind to him as well, so who is he to judge.
His fingers brush over the strings, fitting to chords all on their own. It needs tuning, badly, but the sound cuts through him anyway, something tight and delicate thrumming in his chest. Even after the sound fades, his ears ring and ring.
He laughs again, vision blurring, and shakes his head. The wood is warm beneath his palms, alive, just the same as when he’d sold it for money to cover a month’s rent and groceries for four. It fits against him as though he’d never given it up, and for a moment he stands there, wistful and tangled in a faded memory of stagelight and song. It’s been long enough that the ache is a low thing. He takes a deep breath.
“You know,” he says fondly, running a hand along the body, feeling for scratches, “I never thought I’d see you again. But here you are! Just waiting for me, hmm? What a good little thing you are. So patient.”
The guitar doesn’t say anything. Wei Wuxian hums to himself and peers over the strings with a critical eye. Whoever strung this was an idiot. Can’t have been the collector he sold it to back in the day; she’d at least known what she was doing.
“Hey,” says a voice behind him, and he jumps. One of the strings twangs. “You can’t mess with that.”
“Says who?” demands Wei Wuxian, turning around.
The man—he's a boy, really, a skinny kid with delicate features and racoonish eyeliner—points at a sign hanging above his head that Wei Wuxian has completely missed. It reads, in blocky, hand-written letters:
DO NOT TOUCH MERCHANDISE THANK YOU MO’S PAWN SHOP
“Ah,” says Wei Wuxian. He doesn’t put the guitar down, though. The boy’s frown deepens.
“You gonna buy it?”
“Maybe,” Wei Wuxian hedges, and then laughs. As if he could afford it. “Where’d you get it?”
“Dunno. Some guy brought it in last week.”
“Some guy?”
The kid squints at him. “Why do you care? Someone owe you money?”
“I wish.” Imagine that, being owed money. “How much is it anyway?”
“Dude, that’s a Gibson.”
“Yes, I know.” It’s an LG-2. Aunt Yu had always been very clear about what an old and expensive model that was, how it wasn’t a toy. “How much?”
He waits as the kid gives him a long, slow look. Probably he means it to look intimidating, but he mostly just looks, well, like a kid. “One thousand.”
Wei Wuxian laughs. A thousand.
“Listen,” he says, feeling incredibly patient. Magnanimous, really. “This is a good guitar and it’s worth at least twice that. Though.” He makes a face and rubs a thumb against the chipped tuning peg again. “Maybe not in this condition.”
“Okay, sure,” says the kid, completely unreceptive to the wisdom he’s being offered. Wei Wuxian sighs. He gets no respect these days.
Not that he ever got any to begin with, but still.
“So, are you buying it, or...?”
And the thing is, the thing is— He considers it. Even though he shouldn’t, even though it’s the stupidest thing he could do and he’s done some pretty stupid things in his life. His mind whirs, doing the math: if he dipped into his savings, if he stretched every penny, if he resigned himself to instant noodles and stealing food from the office for the rest of the month—
He could do it. Barely. For a single, maddened moment his grip tightens around the neck of the guitar. All that history held in his hands, the impression of cheap strings and a decade’s worth of music digging into his palm. It would be so stupid. It would be his.
It’s tempting. It’s so tempting, nauseating almost. Like free-falling; the ground seems to slip out from under his feet and gravity twists until he’s dizzy.
He huffs out a laugh and makes himself loosen his grip.
It’s just an old guitar. It's an old guitar he gave up a long time ago. Whoever it belongs to, it's not him.
“No,” he says lightly. He runs one thumb along the neck, plucks at a string, aches in an old and familiar way. His mouth presses up in a smile. “No, not today.”
The kid is frowning at him, expression hard to read behind all the eyeliner. Something conflicted, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he’s wondering what the fuck the weirdo in his store is getting so choked up about. Fair enough.
“Okay, well. You, uh, change your mind, it’ll be here. Probably.”
“You should have someone see to it,” he says. “It needs new strings.”
“Okay, man,” says the kid. “Sure.”
Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to explain—it’s important, alright, with old guitars like these; you have to take good care of them; they’ll only treat you as well as you treat them—but his phone buzzes before he can get into it.
He shakes his head. It would probably be wasted on him anyway.
“Thanks for the help,” he says instead. He hands the guitar back and answers his phone on autopilot, feeling as though he’s coming up from deep underwater. When he steps outside, the watery sunlight blinds him.
“I said a minute.”
“That was more than a minute,” returns his pedant of a brother. “The hell’s so important you had to hang up on me for?”
In the window, the kid carefully returns the guitar to its stand and disappears into the bowels of the shop. Wei Wuxian stares for a moment longer, something earthen caught in his throat, and swallows it down. His reflection smiles at him, red at the corners of the eyes.
“Nothing,” he says, turning away. “Go on. I‘m listening.”
“Sure,” says Jiang Cheng after a blip of hesitation so short no one but Wei Wuxian would have noticed. He makes a face and switches his phone to his other ear so he can check his watch. Shit. He’s late to pick up Yuan. “Anyway, like I was saying—”
Jiang Cheng’s voice accompanies him to the preschool, and by the time Wei Wuxian has promised, thrice, to check in with the catering company about dietary restrictions, he has almost—almost—forgotten about the old guitar in the window and the world he walked out on years ago.
Yuan is waiting in the lobby with one of the teachers when Wei Wuxian blows in with the weather, stuffing his phone back in his pocket, hands already raised in apology.
“Sorry, sorry,” he calls to the daycare worker while Yuan shouts “Baba!” across the room and charges for his kneecaps. He keeps his balance through ease of long practice and settles a hand on his head as the boy beams up at him. He grins back, ruffling his hair gently.
“Did you have a good day today, A-Yuan?”
“Yes! We made art. With food.”
“He had a very good day,” says Qinyuan-laoshi, joining them at a far more reasonable pace. “Do you want to show your baba the art you made, A-Yuan?”
“Yes!” the boy agrees enthusiastically, and he lets go of Wei Wuxian long enough to let Qinyuan-laoshi help him pull a piece of colored paper out of his little backpack. Pieces of dried macaroni have been glued to it in a shape that is somewhat reminiscent of a potato, or perhaps the sun. Wei Wuxian crouches down to examine it, stroking a nonexistent beard while Yuan giggles.
“Exquisite craftsmanship. Evokes a deep sense of artistic vision with a truly unique focal point, a certain je ne sais quoi.” Above him, Qinyuan-laoshi is smiling a crinkly-eyed smile. “What’s the title of this magnificent work of art?”
“It’s a bunny!” Yuan proudly proclaims, which is— Okay, yeah, sure, Wei Wuxian can see a rabbit, sort of, if he tilts his head and squints. A postmodern bunny for a postmodern world. Or something.
“It’s very good,” he says, rubbing at one apple-round cheek. “Should we put it up when we get home?”
“Can it go on the fridge?”
“That sounds like a good place for it.”
Yuan nods to himself for a moment, reaching for Wei Wuxian’s free hand. It’s a little sticky, but that’s fine. It’s probably nothing too gross. “Okay.”
Wei Wuxian straightens, smiling sheepishly at Yuan’s teacher. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he says. “My sister’s getting married and the wedding stuff is… ah, keeping us busy.”
“That’s alright,” she returns with a bright laugh. “It’s never any trouble to spend a little time with him. He’s a ray of sunshine. I can’t imagine where he gets it from.”
“No idea,” agrees Wei Wuxian with a grin. He shakes Yuan’s hand in his. “Hear that, A-Yuan? You’re a real charmer, just like your old man.” When Yuan looks confused, he taps himself twice on the chest. Yuan’s expression clears.
“You’re not old, Baba,” he says solemnly. Wei Wuxian appreciates that, he really does. What a great kid he’s raised.
“C’mon,” he says, Yuan in one hand and macaroni art in the other. “Let’s get you out of here so Qinyuan-laoshi can go home, hm? I’m sure she’s had enough of your shenanigans for the day.”
Yuan smiles up at him, gleaming, and Wei Wuxian’s heart thumps hot and heavy in his chest, same as it does every time Yuan looks at him like that. Surely one of these days he will stop being bowled over by how much he loves this kid. Statistically speaking it has to happen some time or another. He can’t go around with this sun rising inside his ribcage for the rest of his life, can he?
He’s starting to think maybe he can.
They take the long way so Wei Wuxian can drop a letter in the mail, which means Yuan gets tired after about a block and a half and looks pitifully up at Wei Wuxian until he carries him, but that’s fine. He smells like Play Doh and playground grit and chatters cheerfully about his day right in Wei Wuxian’s ear, a rambling story involving some kind of architectural feat and also one of the new kids spilling all the macaroni at the arts-n-crafts station, which are possibly the same thing. Wei Wuxian makes all the right noises at the right time, an ever-attentive audience, and switches Yuan to his other arm when the first gets tired. They stop at the corner store when they reach their block and Yuan picks out a trio of the brightest oranges while he buys milk and eggs and chocolate cereal because he’s a grown adult and he can buy chocolate cereal if he wants, dammit.
They don’t pass the pawn shop, taking the long way home. He’s not thinking about it anyway, about the guitar with his name inked on it or the kindness in Uncle Jiang’s face when he gave it to him. He’s not thinking about it the same way he doesn’t think about lots of things, like it’s a personal calling or an art form or something between the two. He’s pretty good at it, if he does say so himself.
But there’s this little shred of what-if niggling at him like a splinter, and it’s making the not-thinking, well. Difficult. Just a bit.
He blames the time of year. The rainy season always makes him think of his aunt and uncle.
The rain picks up again as they reach the apartment, heavy drops splattering down against the sidewalk, air thick with humidity. They make a dash for their door halfway down the breezeway, water plinking down on the awning. Wei Wuxian juggles groceries and keys and Yuan’s little backpack, and then the lock clicks and they stumble inside just as the sky opens up, and for a moment he’s standing in the grey-dim entrance to their shabby apartment, clutching oranges and macaroni art and wondering if he should be wondering when this became his life.
Mostly, honestly, he’s thinking about whether or not Yuan will mind having chicken nuggets for dinner three nights in a row, and how to coax him into a bath, and if he can win both battles in one night.
Probably not, but that won’t stop him trying. Attempt the impossible, and all that. He likes to think Aunt Yu would approve, if she’d been the kind of person to approve of anything.
“You hungry?” he says, palming the light switch. The bulbs need to be replaced—washed-out light bleeds through the living room, yellowing and dusty. The coffee table is a clutter of dirty cups and half-finished coloring books, one leg propped up with an old textbook. Through the doorway, the kitchen is a heavy, looming shadow. The walls are dedicated to family photos, stuck up with thumbtacks, and art Yuan has drawn—including the patch of wall at about shin height next to the old TV that boasts a Wei Yuan original done in magic marker. Wei Wuxian’s framed it for posterity, and his own amusement. No one else seems to find it as funny as he does.
There are no pictures of the old band. Or anything before Yiling, for that matter, a studious absence of the first twenty-two years of his life. There’s nothing here at all, really, not even his old music books. Just the flotsam and jetsam of life as a single parent running a nonprofit that stubbornly insists on staying one bad week away from going under.
Ugh. He feels old. Old and adrift, like he blinked and the world leapt forward without him while he wasn’t looking. Like he has somehow, without meaning to, without realizing, missed something important.
He shakes the thought away.
“Food?” he prompts Yuan, who shrugs and goes to poke through his coloring books. Wei Wuxian leaves him to it, ducking into the kitchen to drop everything on the counter and stick chicken nuggets in the oven. He shuffles the groceries away and checks his phone while he waits—nothing but a text from Jiang Cheng asking if he’s had any luck with the caterers yet. He considers responding just to point out it hasn’t even been an hour and Jiang Cheng can wait until after bedtime.
Instead, his fingers type out a different message altogether.
Wei Wuxian: u have any pics of the band?
He frowns immediately after he sends it, text bubble glaring accusingly up at him. Maybe this is opening a can of worms best left closed, and sealed, and somewhere near the back of the cabinet. He sticks his phone in his pocket and resolves to ignore it for the rest of the evening.
Dinner is its usual mad rush. For a moment it looks like the dinosaur cup is in the sink and there might be a meltdown over it, but eventually he finds it in the wrong cabinet, disaster averted. Yuan digs in with the single-minded joy of youth, and Wei Wuxian sits in the chair next to him with half a bowl of reheated chili and watches him eat, slow with clotting thought: Jiejie and Jiang Cheng, the band, the Wen case. The four years of deadspace between Then and Now and the hollow in his chest where music was meant to live.
“A-Yuan.” The boy looks up, mouth full. “What do you think about piano lessons or something, hm? Do you want to learn how to play music?” Music is good for kids, right? Enriching? They can get a keyboard, maybe, put it in the living room. He can teach Yuan scales, and chords, and— other stuff, he doesn’t know. What do you teach kids about music? He doesn’t remember a time he wasn’t hungry for it, desperate to get his hands on whatever he could.
Yuan, because he’s a shockingly well-behaved kid, waits until he finishes chewing to echo, “Music?”
“Yeah. Do you want to learn?”
He considers. “How?”
“I’ll teach you.” He pauses half a moment. “Baba used to play music, did you know that?”
“Really?”
“Really. With your dashu and Qing-gugu. People used to come see us play, up on stage and everything.” If he lets himself, which he tries not to, he can conjure up the sense memory, the heat of the lights and the rubber-and-stale-beer smell of every venue ever and the kiss of the mic. It all layers together, composite.
“You don’t have to,” he says, when Yuan stays quiet a little too long. He presses down on the twang in his chest. This isn’t about him anyway. “It’s only if you want to do it. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want.” Except, like, eat his vegetables and take baths and go to school, but that’s not so much to impose on a kid. Not like Aunt Yu insistence that they live up to ever-growing expectations; he’s not— He’s trying to do better than that, at least. Most days he’s pretty sure he manages.
Yuan’s brow furrows in careful consideration, dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets forgotten on his plate. Wei Wuxian waits, poking idly through the dregs of his dinner.
“Okay.”
“I— Really?”
“I want to play music.” Yuan nods once, mouth a firm, determined line. Wei Wuxian laughs, surprised and then not surprised at all.
“Well alright then.” He reaches out to thumb some ketchup off Yuan’s cheek, his whole heart going soft when he turns into the touch and smiles. “We’ll get a keyboard, hm? You’ll be better than me in no time.”
“We can play songs like on TV!”
“Just like on TV,” Wei Wuxian agrees. “And you can show off to your ayi when you see her.”
“Aunt Yanli is gonna visit?”
“We’re going to see her. She’s getting married, remember?”
“Oh.” Wei Wuxian is pretty sure Yuan doesn’t understand the intricacies of marriage—hell, he hardly understands them and he’s planning the thing—but he gets the gist of it. “Yes, we’re going to visit and there will be lots of people and food and we’ll dress up nice and Dashu will cry.”
“Exactly.” Wei Wuxian will probably cry too, but that’s neither here nor there. He brushes some of Yuan’s hair out of his face and more importantly out of the ketchup danger zone. “But only boys who eat their dinners and take their baths can go to weddings so how about you finish those chicken nuggets, hm? Or else I’ll eat them all and you’ll only have spicy chili from now on.”
Yuan laughs and pushes Wei Wuxian’s hand away from his plate. “No, Baba! It’s mine! It’s mine! Eat your own! Baba—!”
After Yuan is fed and clean and tucked in bed with his favorite stuffed rabbit and a story or three, he settles in the living room with his laptop open across his knees and—
Well, actually he sits there for an embarrassingly long time, fingers settled over the keys, staring at the blank search bar. It’s a bad idea, probably. It’s something he’s managed to avoid for four years by stint of pure spite, and then stubbornness, and then then heartsick guilt, and by the time even that faded to the same dull ache that colors most of his memories before Yiling, it had become routine.
But tonight he’s thinking about it, all the connections that withered like uprooted flowers after the Jiangs’ crash and the Wen scandal and the ensuing fallout. It’s a lifetime ago, a world he’d left behind because it had been— easier, sort of, and kinder, and by the time he had wanted to go back he’d had other things to see to, other responsibilities. But just for tonight, well.
His fingers click over the keys and he hits search before he can second guess himself.
The results pop up immediately: dozens of videos, reviews, fan accounts, and right at the top of the page an article, nearly four years out of date.
Twin Jades Split Following Death of Gusu Records CEO
Gusu Records confirmed today that Lan Huan, courtesy Xichen, known by his stage name Zewu-jun, has replaced the late Qingheng-jun as CEO of the family-run company. Zewu-jun previously performed as one half of the Twin Jades with his younger brother Lan Zhan, courtesy Wangji, both managed by Gusu. In their official statement...
It’s a dry, impersonal article followed by an equally dry, impersonal statement from Gusu Records saying all the same things. No extraneous details, no additional information. He can’t say he’s surprised; they always were private with their personal affairs.
He hadn’t know their father had died, though, and so soon after the Jiangs, so soon after—
Wei Wuxian closes out of the article.
Then—because hell, he’s already come this far, why not go all the way; all he’s missing is a drink to really round out the whole cyberstalking-your-ex thing—he looks up Lan Wangji.
Baidu found you about 19,040,000 relevant results
Lan Xichen may be retired but Lan Zhan isn’t. Wei Wuxian scrolls through the search results with masochistic curiosity. He has a dedicated website, thousands of fan accounts, even his very own Baidu Baike page, sparse on personal details and heavy on tours, collaborations, albums, a few television appearances. He has a solo act now, under the stage name Hanguang-jun. Fitting. He always did shine up there.
He sits for a moment in his brittle satisfaction. He’d always known Lan Zhan was meant for the stage. It’s good to have proof. To know he’d been right to leave.
He navigates back to the search results and clicks through to his site, appropriately minimalist with neatly organized tabs for past performances, merchandise, ticketing, contact information for the agency. At the top, slower to load than the rest of the site, is a banner.
INQUIRY TOUR
March - September
Buy your tickets now!
There’s a show next week. Right here in Yiling.
He closes the computer with a snap, hands shaking. The room goes dark. Outside, thunder rumbles distantly over the shushing patter of the rain but inside is quiet quiet quiet . Something big and terrible pushes its way up his throat. He bites down hard against it and waits for the surging panic to subside.
It ebbs slowly. In its place a wry, tired amusement filters in, a familiar exhaustion. The universe, it seems, is having a joke at his expense.
“Lan Zhan,” he says to the rainfall, voice small in the dark cavern of the room. “Looking for me even now, hm?”
He isn’t, of course. Wei Wuxian walked out of his life four years ago and made certain Lan Zhan wouldn’t follow. Still, though, still. After everything— He wouldn’t altogether mind it if Lan Zhan came looking for him.
Is he different now, Wei Wuxian wonders. Does he feel older too? Has time treated him kindly? It’s been so long since they spoke. Surely he can’t be all that different. In the pictures, he looks the same as ever: cold, unsmiling, untouchably lovely. His chest aches, a tangled muddle of feelings he doesn’t bother to unknot, afraid of what he’ll find if he tries.
On the coffee table, his phone buzzes. He reaches for it gingerly, strangely wounded.
It’s a text from his brother. He swipes it open.
There’s an image. Three kids, sixteen or seventeen, dressed in denim and flannel and shirts with old band logos printed across the fronts in peeling letters. Wei Wuxian has one arm slung around each of the others, beaming. Wen Qing is rolling her eyes but smiling—it must have been Wen Ning behind the camera, then—and Jiang Cheng is grinning almost as wide as he is. Above them stretches a banner: Cloud Recesses Summer Festival .
Wei Wuxian stares at it for a long minute, grainy and a little blown out, sun too bright. They’re so young. He can’t get over it, just how young they look, skinny and sunburnt and smiling. His heart fits funny in his chest, like it’s the wrong size. There’s a lump in his throat. He can’t stop staring. It takes him an age to respond.
Wei Wuxian: thank you
Jiang Cheng in return sends him the contact details of the catering company they’ve hired and Wei Wuxian snorts and shakes his head, wiping his itching eyes. He doesn’t have to be a genius to take a hint.
He opens his computer up again, closes out of half a dozen tabs of old articles and festival announcements. He’s old now, boring. He checks in with catering companies for his sister’s wedding and considers a second hand electric keyboard splurging and keeps his old downstairs neighbor on speed dial because she’s the one who watches Yuan when he has to cover shifts at the food pantry.
Hanguang-jun doesn’t fit in this dull world. It’s no kind of place for someone so bright. Their paths diverged a long time ago, like they were meant to, and Wei Wuxian keeps to his alone in the gathering dark.
Wen Ning is sitting in the office kitchen—which is also their lounge, meeting room, storage closet, and site of their once-a-year company dinner because the apartment isn’t big enough for the half dozen of them once you factor in things like partners, children, and Mr. Four’s propensity to provide homemade liquor—when Wei Wuxian goes looking for him.
He’s folded up on the couch, hunched over his phone with a tight frown, and concern flares in Wei Wuxian’s chest. It’s been three years since he was in the hospital and still he can’t shake the instinctual worry. He blames Wen Qing.
“Everything okay?”
“Mm? Oh, yeah.” He pokes at something on his phone again and purses his lips, line of his brow quirking. Only partly mollified, Wei Wuxian perches on the arm of the couch, leaning over his shoulder to find him playing some mobile game, one of the ones with all the letters. He huffs under his breath. “Frostsnow03 is beating my high score.”
“Well, beat them back.”
Wen Ning hums, tapping at the screen, blinking slowly. After a moment, he looks up, pleased.
“Zombies,” he says sagely. “Um. Did you need something?”
“Yeah, actually.” He pops up off the arm of the couch. “Can you lock up today? I have to run into town.”
“Of course.”
It’s silent for a moment. Wen Ning stares at his phone like he’s waiting for something. Wei Wuxian clears his throat, standing in front of the couch like a kid giving a school presentation.
“You can ask what for.”
Wen Ning glances up at him, and then his face does the slight, tilting thing it does when he’s trying not to laugh. He appreciates the indulgence. “What for?”
“I’m getting a keyboard for A-Yuan.”
Wen Ning blinks slowly. Something passes briefly across his face. “Oh.”
He hesitates. “Do you think it’s a good idea? He’s about old enough to learn. I thought he might like it.”
It’s not that he is asking permission, per se. It’s more that— He wants Wen Ning to like it, is all. He wants this to be something good for Yuan, not just Wei Wuxian doing what he wants. And he thinks it is, he really does, but sometimes his good things— Well, he’s well aware of how he’s fucked things up trying to help in the past is all.
Wen Ning is smiling, though, the soft smile he reserves for his littlest cousin. “Yes. I think he’d like it very much.”
“Oh. Well, good. I have to get there before they close, so—”
“I’ll lock up,” Wen Ning assures him, standing.
“Alright. I’ll have my phone, if you need anything.”
He shrugs, because he won’t. “Okay.”
Wen Ning trails him out of the lounge and back to the crowded clutter of the bullpen. The place is dim and musty, the only suite in the Luanzang Hill complex—though, in Wei Wuxian's opinion calling it a complex is really overselling it—in any condition to serve as office space. They’re down to one working bathroom and the electricity goes out at least once a month and they only had the air conditioning put in last summer when Wen Ning had nearly fainted from the heat but hey, at least rent is cheap. It serves well enough as the HQ for Yiling Laozu.
He hadn’t realized, when he moved here, that he’d be starting his own nonprofit in addition to enjoying the perks of fatherhood and helping his best friend through med school while her brother was in the hospital two blocks over, but he’s ended up knee-deep in enough accidental projects over the years that he's hardly surprised anymore. And anyway, Yiling’s had a rough time of it ever since Wen Enterprises went under and took half the work in town with them. It’s not that he’s guilty about it, exactly—Wen Ruohan and his miserable children got exactly what they deserved—but still. People here need help, and what the hell else is he going to do?
“Hey,” he says with his bag over his shoulder, belatedly remembering his umbrella is in Yuan’s backpack. Wen Ning looks up from his computer. “Your sister’s in town next week, yeah? You two should come over for dinner.”
“Alright,” says Wen Ning.
“And I’ll see you Sunday. At the market?”
“Yes.”
“Cool. Have a good weekend.”
He’s halfway out the door when Wen Ning calls from behind him. “Hey, boss?”
“Hm?”
“Send me a picture? Of A-Yuan and the piano?”
Wei Wuxian grins. “You got it.”
Jiang Cheng calls Sunday afternoon after they’re home from the small, sad, root-vegetable-heavy farmers’ market to talk wedding prep, which has become as much a staple of their routine as everything else. Yuan is fully occupied with an art project while some educational kids' show plays on the TV, overenthusiastic animal characters talking about different kinds of families, and Wei Wuxian is waiting for someone to deliver his damn keyboard.
“I still think it’s dumb,” says Jiang Cheng. Wei Wuxian leans down to swap out the pen Yuan is scribbling with for a crayon. The boy pouts but accepts the exchange without further protest, which is nice of him because he’s got ink smeared all over his hands and half his face and Wei Wuxian has the feeling that bath time tonight might be a bit of an uphill battle. On screen, the blue moose declares, “I have two daddies!” with the blunt panache of an educational cartoon character.
How nice for him, Wei Wuxian thinks distractedly.
“I’d prefer to be there earlier too,” he tells Jiang Cheng, frowning at the clock above the stove. It’s nearly four; shouldn’t they be here already? “But we’ll be around to help as soon as we can.”
“I know,” sulks Jiang Cheng. The line is quiet for a long moment, and Wei Wuxian is too busy pulling up the confirmation email—yes, delivery by three, where the hell are they—to fill the silence. “A-Jie misses you.”
Wei Wuxian catches the sentiment beneath it and leaves off his multitasking with a smile, basking in the warmth of Jiang Cheng’s slantwise affection.
“I miss her too,” he says, and means I miss you both. Jiang Cheng hears him. He huffs.
“It would just be easier if you were here. I wouldn’t have to deal with—”
“Yes?”
“Hmph. You know.”
Jiang Cheng is just such an easy target. He hums. “Know what?”
His brother holds out for an admirably long moment, but old habits die hard, and it’s hardly as if Wei Wuxian of all people is going to give him grief over their future brother-in-law. “The peacock.”
Wei Wuxian laughs. “I know, I know. But if we presented a united front, we’d be too much for him. You and I would scare him away and then Jiejie would never talk to us again.” He considers. “Or cook.”
“Perish the thought,” says Jiang Cheng dryly. He goes quiet again. “Do you think they’d be happy? Mom and Dad?”
Wei Wuxian swallows around a sudden lump in his throat.
“They’d be happy that Jiejie is happy,” he says and tries to believe it himself. Then, more easily, “Your mom would be thrilled, probably. She was friends with Mrs. Jin, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
Wei Wuxian sits back against the arm of the couch and sighs. The closing credits play on the television. Up next: more of whatever this is. Yuan bobs his head along to the theme song, tongue poking out as he draws. Jiang Cheng clears his throat.
“She asked if I’d give her away.”
Wei Wuxian is busy watching Yuan, full of big and frightfully warm feelings, so it takes him a moment to process what his brother says. “What?”
“A-Jie. Asked if I— y’know.”
“Oh. Right.” Right, of course. Someone will have to, since— Right. “What did you say?”
“I said I would, if that’s what she wants.”
Wei Wuxian nods slowly, speaks slower. “Good.”
On the other end of the line, Jiang Cheng is unusually careful. Stilted. “I don’t want you to feel… y’know.”
Wei Wuxian opens his mouth and stalls out, staring blindly at the door. He coughs out a laugh.
“No,” he says, and laughs again, easier this time. “No, no, it should be you. She’d have asked me if she wanted me to do it.”
He can see Jiang Cheng’s frown in his mind’s eye, the tick between his brow, the unhappy line of his mouth. All that stupid guilt he carries around for being who he is. Wei Wuxian loves— loved— loves Uncle Jiang, but sometimes he could throttle the man for making Jiang Cheng feel like less than he is.
“A-Cheng,” he says, and feels more than hears his brother flinch down the phone. “I mean it. It should be you. Don’t be upset on my account.”
“I’m not upset on your account,” he mutters, all ire and embarrassment beneath.
“Well, good,” says Wei Wuxian firmly. “Because I’m not either. I’ll just be happy to watch my didi and my jiejie on her wedding day.”
“Oh, shut up,” mutters Jiang Cheng. Wei Wuxian really is unbearably fond of him; it sneaks up on him at the strangest moments. “There’s plenty left to do. The flowers, the fittings, the music, the seating arrangements—”
“It’ll get done,” Wei Wuxian interrupts. At the door, a blurry shape appears in the frosted glass of the window, and he sits up more fully. “I have to go. I’ll text you, yeah?”
“Go where?” demands Jiang Cheng, and doesn’t wait for an answer. “Yeah, fine, whatever.”
“It’ll all get done,” repeats Wei Wuxian. “We’re going to put together the best wedding you’ve ever seen.”
“How many weddings have you seen?” Jiang Cheng mutters, but it’s only his desperate bid to get in the last word. Wei Wuxian lets him have it. And anyway, there’s a knock at the door and he doesn’t have the time for a clever answer.
“Baba!” shouts Yuan, warning him of the novelty of someone visiting their apartment. There’s ink on his shirt too. Aiya.
“I’ve got it,” he promises, and brushes a hand against his hair on his way to the door. The man on the other side looks halfway miserable, frazzled and damp from the on-again off-again rain. Wei Wuxian offers him a smile.
“I take it you’re the piano man?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a delivery for… Wei Wuxian?”
“That’s me.”
“If you could just sign…?”
He scrawls his name across the paperwork and then trades pen and paper for the keyboard box. He grunts as he props it up just inside the door. It’s heavy.
And his. Ha. This is so stupid. He grins.
“Right,” says the guy. “You should be good to go. If you need help with anything, feel free to give us a call.”
“Wonderful,” says Wei Wuxian. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
And then he’s left standing in the entryway with a box full of piano. He laughs in the sheer incredulity of it all.
Sometimes adulthood is kind of good, actually. Like, not often, but every now and then it really comes through for him.
“A-Yuan! Come help your baba. Can you move those cups for me? Careful, this is heavy. No, just— stay there. Pick up that— yeah, there you go. Thanks.”
It takes a great deal of patience and shuffling, and he nearly kills himself tripping on the rug, but eventually they get the box across the room and Yuan gleefully helps him rip the tape off to reveal the electric keyboard within. He presses down on a key in quiet, open-mouthed curiosity, and his face scrunches up when it doesn't make any noise. Wei Wuxian pinches his cheek.
“We have to plug it in first. Let me finish putting it together and then we’ll do that, yeah?”
So Yuan sits back on the couch where he’s safely out of the way as Wei Wuxian screws together the stand and balances the keyboard on it, and only once it’s all in place does he let the boy carefully plug it into the wall. For a moment everything is dull and grey, and then the buttons light up a serene blue.
“It’s working?”
“Do you want to check?” asks Wei Wuxian. When Yuan nods eagerly he lifts him up. For a moment he frowns at the wealth of options before him, then he picks a key, pressing down firmly. The electric echo of a C hums through the apartment.
Yuan beams.
“It’s working! It’s working!”
“Sure is, Yuan-er.”
“Play something, Baba.”
“Me?”
“Yes!”
Wei Wuxian laughs and hefts Yuan a little higher on his hip. “It’s been a long time since I played anything. It might sound really bad.”
“No,” Yuan disagrees, and wriggles in his arms, insistent that he be let down. Wei Wuxian sets him on the couch and perches on the edge of the coffee table, which they’ll have to move if they want to put a chair in front of the keyboard. There’s really not enough space for everything in here. But that’s a problem for tomorrow’s Wei Wuxian.
The keys are smooth plastic under the pads of his fingers. He plays a chord and shifts a little, back cracking. The coffee table is too low for any sort of proper posture—Yanli would be horrified—but it’s fine.
He settles his shoulders and picks out the first thing that comes to mind.
It’s an old piece, familiar as it unfurls across the keyboard. He can’t quite recall where he learned it, but his body has always held music better than his mind and he doesn’t think much of it. His hands move over the keys with surety, and as he trips down a triplet he feels, vaguely, that there ought to be words too. If there are, they’ve been lost to his own patchy memory.
It doesn’t matter, anyhow. The song is sweet and soft, and something deep in the cavity of his chest aches to play it.
Or maybe that’s just the slow bloom of music after so many silent years.
The last note lingers, its sound a spell slow to be broken. Yuan stares at him with a fuzzy, complicated expression stretched on his face that Wei Wuxian can feel echoing around the spars of his ribcage. He holds a hand out.
“Come here,” he says gently. “Let me show you.”
Yuan clambers into his lap, hands stretched out to reach the keys. Wei Wuxian shifts his elbows, coaxes his fingers into gentle arcs. The keys are too wide for his hands, but that’s okay. He’ll grow into it.
“This is an C,” he says, pressing down on the same key Yuan picked out earlier. “And this is D, and E—”
They work their way up the octave and down again, Wei Wuxian pointing out the keys for Yuan to parrot back at him, and then they have to go over the rest of the keys, black and ivory both. By the time they’ve gone through it all the sun has set and it’s well past dinner time, and Yuan has ink smeared over the back of his hands and his cheek and desperately needs a bath.
But there’s music in his home again, so that’s alright.
Sunday 7:45PM
Wei Wuxian: [image]
Wei Wuxian: [image]
Wei Wuxian: [video]
Wei Wuxian: I think he really likes it
Wen Ning: 👍🎵🖤