Chapter Text
“All right, let’s do the chorus one more time, and this time, you had all better sing louder than me. If I can hear my own voice above all of your voices then something is wrong, got it?”
Wei Wuxian looked pointedly at his gathered group of middle schoolers. When he got nods of agreement from all of them, he began strumming his guitar and leading them into the chorus of “The Campfire Song” from The Lightning Thief Musical, one of his current favorites.
Oh, things couldn’t be worse / When your parents run the universe.
“Not bad, not bad,” he said, putting the guitar to the side as they finished. “We still have to work on projection, but you guys are getting this one down. We’ll work on it some more on Thursday – those with solo parts, practice! I want you to have the words memorized when we get back together!”
The kids all assured him they would as they rushed out of the music room to meet their parents. He didn’t believe them because they were middle schoolers.
Wei Wuxian packed his guitar and was ready to head to his own car when he heard his friend MianMian, who worked the after school care for the elementary school attached to the middle school, call his name.
MianMian looked anxious, and was holding the hand of a kid who couldn’t be more than five or six. At least, that’s what Wei Wuxian thought. He wasn’t exactly great at determining the ages of kids.
“Please help me Wei Wuxian I have a date and this one’s father is running late. I’m sure he will be here any second, he’s never been late before and if he can’t come get him he sends someone to get him. Can you please watch him?”
“Um…”
“Wei Wuxian, PLEASE!”
Never let it be said that Wei Wuxian did not step up to help a damsel in distress.
“Okay, what do I need to know?”
MianMian knelt down in front of the child. “A-Yuan, this is my friend. You can call him Xian-gege. He’s going to stay with you until your Baba gets here.”
“What do I need to know?” Wei Wuxian repeated.
“Nothing. I’ve already locked up the office. The front door is also locked, you’ll need to let him in when he gets here. He really should be here any second, he’s never been late.
“Thanks I owe you one!”
And she was gone. And Wei Wuxian was left with a kid and he really wasn’t the sort of person that got left with kids. The middle schoolers he volunteered with on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons felt like they were too young for him to be in charge of them and they were all much older than this one.
He knelt down in front of the kid. “So, A-Yuan, do you like musicals?”
***
Lan Wangji never used to worry about staying late before he adopted his son. As an attending trauma surgeon, an unpredictable schedule went with the job description. It was these days he depended on Xichen the most. Trauma surgery and single parenthood didn’t mix well, and he would not be able to do it at all without his brother’s support.
When his pager went off, he glanced at his watch and sighed. With an incoming case this close to five o’clock, there was no way he would get to A-Yuan’s school before they closed for the night. Once again, he would have to lean on his older brother. He took his phone out and texted Lan Xichen: “Please get A-Yuan. I will pick him up from your house.”
“Dr. Lan?” He turned as someone called his name. He felt his phone buzz with a notification – that would be Lan Xichen acknowledging the text. He placed his phone in his locker and went to look at the report the nurse was holding.
***
Wei Wuxian was close to panicking. It was now 6:30 and he still had the little boy – A-Yuan, who was four, not five and Wei Wuxian was really confused because he didn’t even know there were kids that young in school. A-Yuan said he was in the PreK class and that was a crazy concept - wasn’t kindergarten supposed to be the easiest class? Now we needed a class to prepare for kindergarten? But regardless, A-Yuan was showing signs of no longer being entertained by the Disney movie he had pulled up for him on his phone. Not to mention, said phone was about to die and his charger was with his backpack in the music room. He didn’t think leaving the kid here by himself was an option, but if he took the kid with him to the music room – what if the father came while he was gone? And where was this supposedly reliable, punctual father anyway?
He found the solution to his problem a moment later – a clipboard, on a shelf that was on this side of the locked office window. He took a piece of paper from the back, turned it over and wrote “We’re in the Music Room” and opened the door enough to stick the paper through. That should be pretty noticeable.
“Hey Little Man,” he said to the kid, “we’re going to go hang out in the music room for a bit.”
A-Yuan looked up from the phone. “Where’s Baba?”
“He’ll be here soon, I left him a note to tell him to come see us there, okay? Come on. My guitar is there, I can play for you? Do you like music?”
A-Yuan perked up at that and willingly followed him.
Wei Wuxian spent the next hour playing songs on his guitar and singing. A-Yuan didn’t seem to know the words of anything he sang, but he clapped and hummed along. When Wei Wuxian’s fingers were sore and his voice feeling strained he put the guitar back in the case and checked his phone. It was 7:33. He was still here, with a child whose parent had apparently forgotten him. He didn’t have MianMian’s number and he had no idea who else to call. This was peak Wei Wuxian. Offer to do a favor for a pretty girl, and wind up royally screwed as a result.
His phone buzzed, but it was just Nie Huaisang .
Nie-xiong:
Still on for drinks tonight?
There’s a complication.
“A-Yuan, come take a picture with me!” The boy gleefully climbed into his lap and Wei Wuxian took the selfie. It was, he had to admit, ridiculously cute, with A-Yuan smiling brightly up at the camera. He sent the picture to Nie Huaisang .
Nie-xiong:
the fuck wei wuxian did you kidnap a kid
No I’m just watching him
Nie-xiong:
Who the fuck let you watch a kid have they met you
It’s a work thing at the school
Nie-xiong:
likely story
it’s true
Nie Huiasang didn’t reply. A-Yuan reached out toward his phone. “Is it Baba?”
Wei Wuxian weighed his options. He could tell the truth, and upset the kid. He could lie, and make the kid feel better. Not really a question when he thought of it like that. And four year olds couldn’t read, right?
He took a chance and showed the phone to the boy: “Yes, it’s your baba. He says he’ll be here soon and not to worry.”
A-Yuan nodded, apparently mollified. “I’m hungry,” he said.
“Oh, yeah, I suppose I should feed you.” Problem was, Wei Wuxian had no idea how to do that. The only possibility was the refrigerator in the teacher’s lounge, which would mean again, choosing to leave A-Yuan alone or take him with him and possibly miss the arrival of the oh-so-reliable, never-late dad.
He settled for propping the door that led out to the parking lot open. That way, if the mysterious Baba did come in he should hear them. Then he took A-Yuan’s hand and led him to the teacher’s lounge.
The gods were with him and there was half of a cheese pizza in a pizza box in the fridge. Wei Wuxian threw several slices in the microwave on a paper plate and sent up a silent thank you to the person who would undoubtedly be cursing him tomorrow when their planned lunch was ruined.
As the pizza heated, he dug through the fridge and found several cartons of milk which weren’t even expired and some apple juice.
“Milk or apple juice, A-Yuan?”
“Juice,” was the definitive answer. Wei Wuxian spotted someone’s diet coke and snagged it. He was definitely going to be the object of somebody’s wrath tomorrow.
Wei Wuxian carried the plates and his stolen diet coke and A-Yuan carried his carton of juice very carefully in two hands as they made their way back to the music room. They sat and ate on the floor while watching Avatar:The Last Airbender on Wei Wuxian’s recharged phone. A-Yuan had never seen it before which Wei Wuxian found inexcusable. Forget abandoning his child at school and never coming back to pick him up - failing to expose said child to the greatest show in the history of shows was the real crime here.
Wei Wuxian was beginning to think he was going to have to have some words with Baba when he finally showed up.
***
Lan Wangji left the hospital as quickly as he could, once the last of the patients from the multi-car accident was in recovery. He wrote his orders quickly and left the patients in the care of his excellent team.
Once he was in his car and pulling out of the parking lot, he hit the bluetooth button and dialed Lan Xichen.
“Wangji?”
“Xichen, I’m so sorry. I had three cases back to back. Do you still want me to come get A-Yuan or should he just sleep there at your place?”
“Wangji….I don’t have A-Yuan.”
“What do you mean? I texted you to pick him up and you answered…” Lan Wangyi was not processing. There was no way that A-Yuan was not with Xichen. He shook his head.
“I never got a text from you. Wangji, do you really not have A-Yuan? Where is he?”
Lan Wangji pulled the car over into the parking lot of a drugstore. He scrambled for his phone and thumbed open his messages. He saw the message to Xichen, and underneath it an automatic message, the notification buzz he had heard earlier: Message failed to send. Click here to retry.
Dread washed over him. He felt like he was going to be sick. He could hear Xichen talking to someone in the background.
“Wangji,” a deep calm voice came over the car speaker.
“Mingjue. Help me.”
“I am. Look at your calls, Wangji - did the school try to call you? They should have called you and left you a message if they couldn’t get you. Do you have any voice mails?”
He furiously checked. “No. No calls, no voice mail. And if they couldn’t get me, why wouldn’t they call Xichen? He’s the emergency contact.” He could feel the wavering of his voice - he knew he was panicking but wasn’t sure how to stop it.
“Okay, that makes no sense. Alright listen, go to the school. Xichen and I will leave and meet you there. I’ll make some calls on the way. You hang up and try to call the school.
“Listen to me Wangji. We will find A-Yuan.”
The line went dead. Lan Wangji pulled out of the parking lot, and drove as fast as he could while directing his phone via the bluetooth voice command to dial the number for the school. He whispered desperate prayers under his breath as the phone continued to ring and ring with no answer.
***
A-Yuan was snuggled in Wei Wuxian’s lap and getting more and more still and heavy as the minutes stretched on. Wei Wuxian shrugged off his jacket and tucked it around the boy. A-Yuan sighed and leaned his head back into Wei Wuxian’s chest. “Sleepy,” he murmured.
“Go to sleep, then,” Wei Wuxian said softly. “I’m right here.”
“Baba plays for me.”
“What does Baba play?”
“Guqin,” A-Yuan answered.
“I don’t know how to play the guqin, but I have a flute?” Wei Wuxian offered.
A-Yuan nodded, then yawned.
Wei Wuxian stretched out and pulled his backpack toward him. He rummaged through the chaos until he located his flute case.
He shifted A-Yuan until the boy was lying against him securely enough that he could use both hands to slot his flute together. After a few warm-up scales, he began playing an old folk song he had learned in college that was soothing and lyrical. As he played the boy’s breathing deepened.
***
Lan Wangji dialed Xichen’s phone after giving up on the school answering.
“Wangji, stay calm and focus on driving,” Nie Mingjue said. “Now, listen - the standard protocol for a school if a child is abandoned-
“He’s not been abandoned!”
“Wangji, I know, it’s just terminology. But the standard protocol would be to call child protective services. Now listen - before you panic, I’ve made some calls to some contacts I have in police and dispatch. There has been no call tonight for anything like that.”
“Then where is he?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out. The school is the last place you know he was so we start there. If we find nothing conclusive there we call the police and I mobilize everyone that works for me.”
Lan Wangji made the turn into the parking lot of the school. He pulled up to the front door, but everything was dark and quiet. “I’m here, everything’s shut and dark, Xichen what do I do?”
“We’re twenty minutes behind you, Wangji we’re almost there. Look around and see if you see anything.”
Lan Wangji ran to the door. He pounded on it and grabbed the handles to shake them. When he did, he saw a piece of paper that had been wedged between the two panels of the door flutter to the ground.
He ran back to the car with the paper so he could read it in the light. The messy handwriting was barely legible: “We’re in the music room.”
The music room? Where was the music room? It had to be here at the school.
Lan Wangji took off at a run down the sidewalk outside the school.
As he turned a corner he saw a sliver of light spilling out into the parking lot. A door, propped open and, was that music? A flute?
He burst through the door and the music stopped.
Lan Wangji stood in the doorway, chest heaving and tears threatening. It took a moment for him to process what he was seeing. When the adrenaline coursing through his body allowed his brain to catch up with his senses, he finally focused.
A-Yuan (his son, his son was safe) was curled up in the lap of a man Lan Wangji had never seen before. His son was covered with what looked to be the man’s jacket. The man himself was in a red t-shirt, long dark hair pulled into a messy bun. The man was smiling as he lowered a flute, a dazzling smile that was so out of place for the emotions Wangji still felt that he swayed, slightly dizzy with the rapid shift from fear to relief.
“Hey little guy,” the man said, nudging A-Yuan.
“Wake up, your Baba’s here.”
“Baba?” A-Yuan called out sleepily.
“Yes,” Lan Wangji said, voice thick with emotion. “Baba’s here.”
“Baba’s late,” he said as he climbed up out of the lap of the strange man in red. Lan Wangj’s heart stuttered.
“No, he’s not late,” the man said.
A-Yuan looked at him. The man held his phone up.
“See? Baba texted me, remember. He said he would be here by 9:05 to get you. And look, it’s only 9:03! Baba’s early! He must have really missed you, he hurried here to get you just like he told me he would.”
The man looked up and locked eyes with Lan Wangji, his expression intense. His eyebrows raised in a silent question: Are you okay?
Lan Wangji nodded. A-Yuan walked over to him and he picked him up. His son’s arms locked around his neck and Lan Wangji took a deep breath as he swayed, again - unsure that his knees would hold him. The strange man was there, quickly. He caught Lan Wangji by the elbow and looked at him.
“You got this?” he said.
Lan Wangji swallowed, and nodded.
“Hey, it’s okay,” the man said. “He’s fine and you’re good. Just take him home.”
***
Lan Wangji buckled his son into the car seat and sat behind the steering wheel in shock. He dialed Lan Xichen.
“I have him, he’s safe.”
“Oh thank the heavens, Wangji we were so worried. Do you still need us to come to the school? We’re five minutes out.”
“No,” Lan Wangji said. “I’m taking him home. Just….could you meet me there?”
“Of course. We’re on our way.”
A-Yuan was awake at first and babbled to Lan Wangji on the way home about all the things he had done with his Xian-gege. Pizza and apple juice and movies and shows on his phone and Xian-gege could play guitar AND flute and he made silly faces when he sang songs to A-Yuan and his favorite character was Momo.
In the ten minutes it took Lan Wangji to drive home, A-Yuan began to finally slow down and get sleepy again. He was able to get him in bed and settled down before Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue made their way into the house.
Lan Wangji allowed his older brother to wrap him in his arms and he buried his face in Lan Xichen’s shoulder. He did not cry, but his shoulders shook with the effort of holding back tears. Nie Mingjue rubbed between his shoulder blades, offering comfort and saying nothing.
Finally Lan Wangji pulled back and told the two of them everything that had happened.
“I need you to find out who he is, Mingjue. A-Yuan calls him Xian-gege. He’s about my age, long dark hair he wore up in a bun. He was wearing a red t-shirt and black jeans, I think?” And he had an incredible smile.
“I’ll put some of my best people on it tomorrow. If he’s connected to the school he has a background check, he shouldn’t be too hard to track down. Get some sleep.”
Lan Xichen hugged him again. “Do you work tomorrow, Wangji?”
“I will be in my office, but I don’t have call.”
“We’ll come see you at lunch, okay?”
Lan Wangji nodded, and closed the door behind his brother and his friend.
Then he went into his son’s room, sat down beside his bed, and listened to his son’s breathing for an hour before he felt comfortable enough to leave him and go to his own bed.
***
Nie Mingjue woke late the next day. For him, that is.
Still, he was surprised to see Nie Huaisang just coming out of his room. For all that it was late for Nie Mingjue to be awake, it was even more early for Nie Huaisang to be.
“Why are you up so early?” he asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” his little brother replied. “Why haven’t you left for work yet?”
“Long, crazy night,” he said, and went to make coffee.
“I thought you were drinking with Wei Wuxian last night,” he said to his little brother. “You’re usually out late and sleep at his place when you do that.”
“He bailed on me,” Nie Huaisang said. “Are you making me a cup, too?”
Nie Mingjue grumbled and pulled another mug out of the cabinet. He busied himself getting the cream and sugar ready for his little brother.
“Son of a bitch texted me and bailed less than an hour before we were supposed to meet,” Nie Huaisang said as Nie Mingjue put his coffee in front of him. “Thank you.
“I have to admire his commitment to the bit, however. He claimed he was watching someone’s kid and he even found a kid to take a picture with. Cute kid too.”
Nie Mingjue picked up his own mug of black coffee and glanced over at the phone Nie Huiasang held out to him. The picture on the screen was of Wei Wuxian, in a red shirt and black jeans, smiling at the camera with an equally smiling A-Yuan in his lap.
Nie Mingjue cursed at the hot coffee that sloshed over his hand at his sudden jerk of surprise.
***
Lan Wangji met Lan Xichen and NIe Mingjue for lunch in the hospital cafeteria. He had debated staying home today with A-Yuan, but the boy woke up acting completely normal and seemed excited to go see his friends and teacher. Lan Wangji felt that disrupting his routine might be worse than letting him go to school so he dropped him off and silently determined that he would pick him up as soon as school let out today.
“Did you find anything yet?” he asked Nie Mingjue.
“Turns out I didn’t have to look very hard,” he said. He took out his phone and quickly typed on it. Lan Wangji’s phone buzzed and he opened the message.
He opened the attachment and stared.
The man he had seen last night was holding A-Yuan in his lap, his hand outstretched, clearly taking a selfie. Both he and A-Yuan smiled at the camera. It was the same red t-shirt, but this time the man was wearing his jacket. It hung off his shoulders, seemingly too big for him.
The man’s eyes were clear and bright and the smile involved his entire face. He looked incredibly joyful and Lan Wangji didn’t think he had ever seen anyone more handsome.
“Lan Wangji, meet Wei Wuxian.”
“How did you find him?”
“I’ve known him more than ten years. He’s Huaisang’s old college roommate and best friend.
“I had Huaisang call him and got the story from him. He’s at the middle school twice a week teaching an after-school choir program. The girl who watches A-Yuan in the afternoon had to leave and left A-Yuan with him. He didn’t have access to your number or any information so he just kept A-Yuan with him until you showed up.”
“So he’s a teacher?” Wangji asked.
“No, he just volunteers there. He’s a freelance IT specialist. Double majored in college in computer engineering and music. Huaisang claims he never went to class and still graduated cum laude. I believe it, kid’s brilliant. He spent summers working as an intern with my cyber guys. I’ve tried to hire him multiple times, even offered him head of my cyber security wing but he turned it down. Likes the freedom of contract work.
“Huaisang says he’s a helluva musician, too. I wouldn’t know, but I can say he’s a genius behind a computer keyboard.”
“But he’s a dependable, reliable person, at least. The type of person you’d want taking care of your child.” Lan Wangji said.
Mingjue laughed. “Gods, no. I wouldn’t trust Wei Wuxian to take care of a houseplant.
“He’s an absolute walking disaster. Drinks way too much. I can’t count how many times Huaisang has had to make sure he gets home safe.
“Think about that for a minute. Huaisang having to be the responsible one.” Nie Mingjue shook his head.
“Once he passed out in my kitchen. I wanted to call 911 but Huaisang said he probably just forgot to eat. We woke him up, fed him and I asked him when he last ate and he wasn’t sure, but it was probably two days before.”
Mingjue laughed. “If you could see the look on your face, Wangji. Look, he’d never hurt anyone - he’s got a good heart. I actually owe him a lot, for things he’s done for Huaisang. He might forget to feed a kid he was watching, but he’d never hurt him intentionally.”
“He fed A-Yuan,” Lan Wangji said. And he lied and covered for me so my son didn’t think I had abandoned him.
“Broken clocks can be right twice a day, so I guess Wei Wuxian can appear to be responsible and mature, every now and then” Mingjue said. “Just don’t expect it to keep happening.”
“Mingjue, do you have his contact information?” Xichen asked.
“Here,” Nie Mingjue produced a business card. “I keep his card handy for clients who have computer related jobs too small for us.”
Lan Wangji took the card and tucked it into his wallet.
***
“I can’t believe you got into this mess because you were trying to impress a girl,” Nie Huaisang said, after meeting Wei Wuxian for lunch.
“Have you seen MianMian?” he asked.
“Dude, she ditched you with a kid so she could go on a date with someone else.”
“Yeah, but - she will always remember that I made that date possible and she will think of me fondly. I’m playing the long game here, Nie-xiong.”
“You know,” Nie Huaisang said wistfully. “You hear the term ‘bisexual disaster’ and you think you know what it means. But then you meet Wei Wuxian.”
“Fuck you, you’re just jealous.”
“Of who? You? Her? Get over yourself, Wei-xiong. I love you but I don’t want to sleep with you. You’re cute and all but I know you’re more than I can handle.” He smiled up at the server who refilled his water.
“You wound me.”
“I’ve got to know, Wei-xiong, what did you say to Dr. Surgeon Lan Wangji when he finally showed up over four hours late? Did he even apologize?”
“I had a whole speech planned that I was going to say to him, but when I saw him I couldn’t do it. He just looked so scared and upset.”’
“Oh I’m sorry, we are obviously talking about the wrong person then,” Nie Huaisang said. “The words ‘scared’ and ‘upset’ don’t apply to Lan Wangji.”
“He was pretty panicked. Swayed where he was standing, I was afraid he was going to pass out.”
Nie Huaisang shook his head. “Does not compute. That guy is a robot.”
“How do you know him again?”
“Well, first I went to high school with him back in the day. Spent the entire time avoiding him because he terrified me. But the other reason is his older brother and my older brother are...friends.” The hesitation on the last word caught Wei Wuxian’s attention.
“Friends like us? Hang out, drink together, platonically admire how hot the other is type of friends?
“Or like friends who do all that, except non-platonically?”
“I wish I knew,” Nie Huaisang said. “Da-ge won’t talk about it but they spend a lot of time together. They reconnected a few months ago and they’ve been together recently, like, a lot.
“I’m sure he would prefer to be the second type. Not sure about Lan Xichen. It’s frustrating being around the two of them, though - I wanna smash their faces together and lock them in a room until they sort it all out.”
Wei Wuxian checked his phone. “I should get back to work.” He scrolled through his email and opened one with a confusing subject line: In regards to last night.
He scanned the email quickly, then put his phone down and looked at Nie Huaisang.
“What?” his friend asked.
“Your brother’s maybe-boyfriend’s brother just emailed me.”
“Wei-xiong it’s too early and I’m too sober to follow that.”
He picked up the phone and read aloud:
“Greetings. Please allow me to offer my sincere apologies for my tardiness yesterday in retrieving my son Lan Yuan. I am aware that you stayed much later than you are required to in order to care for him. If you will let me know your standard hourly rate I would like to compensate you for your time. Regards, Lan Wangji, MD.”
“Is this guy for real? My standard hourly rate? What am I, a babysitter?”
Nie Huaisang raised one eyebrow in an expression all too familiar to Wei Wuxian - the one that preceded a suggestion that was invariably a bad idea. “Wei-xiong, if you have ever loved me or regarded me as a friend, please respond with your actual consulting hourly rate. Please.”
“He can’t afford me.”
“Oh, he can. The Lans are old money, and he’s you know, a surgeon. Do it Wei-xiong.”
Wei Wuxian waved the comment off and put his phone away. “Whose turn?”
“Yours, you bailed on me last night.”
“Not sure that’s fair, since my predicament last night has given you so much entertainment value, but okay.” Wei Wuxian smiled at the server as he handed him his credit card.
“That’s coming back with a phone number,” Nie Huaisang said after the server walked off.
“You overestimate my charm. Besides, he probably thinks we’re together.” It was something that happened often when they were out, and Wei Wuxian did not mind. It made it a lot easier sometimes to be able to fall back on “no, look I’m in a relationship.” Even if the relationship didn’t technically exist.
“He was close enough to hear when I announced I would never sleep with you. Number incoming, trust me.”
The waiter brought back the receipt for Wei Wuxian to sign. His number was written at the bottom of the customer’s copy.
It was several hours later, after finishing up a project for a small locally owned pharmacy that needed some upgrades to their prescription tracking database, that Wei Wuxian sat down to respond to the email.
“No worries! The only payment I ask is that you let A-Yuan keep watching Avatar. We got up to episode 4 in Book 1. Oh, and please don’t say anything at the school. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.- Wei Wuxian”