Chapter Text
Chains
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Healing
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Futuristic AU
Wei Ying was finishing up the coloring on one of his clients, when he noticed the lights go out in the flower shop across the street from him. He whistles, “they close really early.”
His client simply scoffs, “more like you close really late.” He gestures with his free hand towards the hours posted on his door. They weren’t that crazy of hours to him, he was open from 10 A.M. to 12 A.M. and it happened to work very well with Wei Ying’s sleeping schedule.
On the other hand, the flower shop across from him seemed to have even more insane hours than him. They opened at 6 A.M. and closed at 8 P.M., which to Wei Ying, was very bizarre. He wasn’t sure how it was possible to get up early enough to open a shop that early in the morning nor why they closed that early. He finished wrapping the man’s tattoo and gave him the basic rundown on how to take care of it before he goes over to the window to see the man closing up the shop.
Now, Wei Ying isn’t going to lie. The man that owns the shop is really, really hot. Totally eye candy, with his muscles and breathtaking face. He wouldn’t be lying if he’s been caught a few times eyeing the man by A-Yuan.
A-Yuan is his lovely son who he adopted roughly a year into owning his tattoo shop. Wen Qing and Wen Ning simply couldn’t take care of him as they were too busy taking care of their coffee shop that they own a couple doors down, so Wei Ying decided to step up and take care of him. He could still remember the day that he signed his adoption papers like it was yesterday. The mysterious flower shop man was always a good reminder that he needed to put A-Yuan to bed soon.
As much as he loved staying up late, he didn’t want his son doing the same. A-Yuan needed to grow up healthy and strong and that required getting lots of sleep at regular times. He tells his secretary, MianMian, to tell the next client that he’ll take him back in half an hour. Wei Ying felt blessed to have such a good kid, as putting him to bed was never a chore.
A-Yuan had been playing with his toys in the back room, so he walked back there, just to find the boy missing. Wei Ying takes a breath and tells himself not to panic. His kid didn’t usually disappear without telling him first.
‘Okay, it’s fine Wei Ying,’ he tells himself. ‘He probably just is wandering around the shop again. Or maybe he already went upstairs ahead of time.”
He searches increasingly more frantically for his kid when he is unable to find him downstairs in the shop. Then, he heads upstairs into his house to try and find A-Yuan. He’s close to breaking down into a panic when he finds himself completely unable to find A-Yuan, so he calls Wen Ning.
“Wen Ning! Hi, is there any chance that A-Yuan is at your shop? Because I can’t find him.” He’s praying to the Gods that A-Yuan went down the street to their shop. Otherwise he has no clue where he’d be.
“Um, I’m really sorry but he isn’t here… Maybe he went outside.”
“Fuck,” he hangs up and basically sprints out the door yelling to MianMian, “Close up the shop for tonight!” He’s too worried about A-Yuan right now and he grimly thinks that his business can hopefully take a hit. He might just have to work overtime to make up for it.
He finds himself sprinting up and down the streets in an absolute panic. He hasn’t felt this way since he had been kicked out of the Jiang’s home.
“A-Yuan! A-Yuan where are you?” He calls, praying and praying that his kid will show up eventually. He heads down towards the park at the end of the street, in a full sprint. He can feel the cool autumn breeze against his sweaty forehead.
After what feels like forever, he spots A-Yuan sitting on a park bench next to a man. He can feel himself almost crying at the relief of finding him. He runs up to A-Yuan and quite possibly strangles the poor kid with his hug.
“A-Yuan! You can’t run away like that? What were you thinking? Don’t you know how worried I was?” He cups the boy’s cheeks in his hands and looks him over to make sure he wasn't injured and sighs in relief that he looks okay.. He then proceeds to turn towards the man that was with him.
“Flower shop man? Is that you?” He glances at the man next to him. He definitely has the same muscles and he’s pretty sure that that is what the man looks like. How in the world did he end up with the flower shop man rescuing his kid?
“Mn.” The man nods.
“Gege, I’m sorry,” A-Yuan whines and lifts his arms as if he wants a hug. Wei Ying indulges in him and hugs the boy and lifts him up so that he can hold him. He should probably scold the boy, but he isn’t a fan of scoldings in public. It reminded him too much of how Madam Yu used to constantly make snide comments at him and when he was younger, a lot of those comments sparked tears from the man.
“I’m assuming you were the one who found him? I can’t thank you enough. He’s usually not like this, I don’t know why he suddenly ran out.”
“It is no problem.” The man replies, his golden eyes shimmer under the night sky. Wei Wuxian can almost find himself wanting to drown in them.
“So, uh, my name is Wei Ying. I run the tattoo parlor down the street. Maybe we could get a coffee sometime? As a thanks, of course! If you weren’t looking after A-Yuan, who knows what could’ve happened to him.”
“Mm. That sounds suitable.”
“Uh, could I have your phone number or something then? We could do it now but I really need to get A-Yuan back home. He has school tomorrow and he isn’t used to staying up that late.” He fumbles getting his phone out of his back pocket and unlocks it before handing it over to the man.
The man types in his contact before handing it back to the man. “Well, I’ll, uh, see you around! Thanks again.”
“See you around.” The man replies, before walking off in the opposite direction. He looks down at his phone. He can see a new contact, ‘Lan Zhan’. He smiles, before heading back to the shop, A-Yuan in hands.