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“I got a surprise!” Wei Wuxian declares, waving the bundle of papers in his face while Lan Wangji stands behind him, doing nothing to make him cease his ridiculous behavior.
“What is it this time?” Jiang Cheng grumbles. “Please tell me it’s a more useful invention than making flowers appear out of thin air.”
“You’ll see in the morning, Chengcheng. It’s a surprise for a reason!”
“Who’re you calling ChengCheng!?” Jiang Cheng swipes at him with his fist and Wei Wuxian easily dodges, sticking out his tongue at him.
“Get lost! I still have work to finish.”
“Good night then!” And Wei Wuxian, as shameless as ever, grabs his husband by the arms and drags him out of the main hall. Another shichen passes before Jiang Cheng is ready to go to bed himself.
In the morning, Jiang Cheng wakes first. As the hours passed, Jiang Cheng realizes there’s still no sight of Lan Wangji or Wei Wuxian. Although it is still early for Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng knows he’d slowly gotten accustomed to the early wake-times of Cloud REcesses, even if he didn’t wake up exactly at five. Eventually, Jiang Cheng, having lost his patience to get his brother and his beloved husband out of bed, had stormed into his brother’s room only to find both of them turned into children.
“Wei Wuxian! What did you do !?” Jiang Cheng exclaims. Upon entering the room, he had come to face to face with two small children. One is wearing black robes, adorning a red ribbon in his hair and the other is in white with a headband wrapped around his forehead.
“Is Cheng-ge mad at me?” The one in black asks quietly, his lower lips wobbling. Next to him, Lan Wangji sends him the iciest glare a small child could ever give and takes Wei Wuxian’s small hand into his.
“No.”
“Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng begins through gritted teeth then he sighs, lowering his tone. “A-Xian, come here. Aren‘t you hungry?” the child comes closer and soon Jiang Cheng is holding him in his arms.
“I want Shijie’s soup. Why isn’t she here?” Jiang Cheng closes his eyes.
“She…she can’t be here. She’s busy right now. Let’s go get you something to eat. Lan Wangji, you come too.” They walk toward the kitchen with the small Lan not far behind them.
Once two bowls of soup have been set down in front of the children, Jiang Cheng immediately sends an emergency butterfly message to Lan Xichen who arrives before sunset.
“Jiang Cheng.” Jiang Cheng’s heart twangs at the familiar address. “What happened to Wangji?”
“It seems like one of Wei-, A-Xian’s spells went wrong. They’re both little kids now, Xichen.”
“Well…it seems like we have to find a solution to this, don’t we?”
“Yes…let’s just hope it is temporary,” Jiang Cheng sighs. They walk back into the main hall and are immediately greeted by something crashing into their legs.
“Cheng-ge!”
“Da-ge!”
“Wangji?” Xichen asks softly, crouching down. “And A-Xian?” Wei Wuxian’s eyes go round and he looks uncertainly from Jiang Cheng back to Lan Xichen.
“Xichen-ge?”
“Yes,” Jiang Cheng tells him. Both of them pick up their respective brothers and head back to Wei Wuxian’s room. The two of them are just as lovey-dovey with one another as they are when they’re older and Jiang Cheng isn’t sure if he would be able to handle it if it weren’t for Xichen’s calm smile.
“Lan Zhaaaan.” Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes as he watches the two of them cuddle one another.
“Jiang Cheng, I’m afraid the array is more complicated than I thought. We’d have to go back to Cloud Recesses.”
“We should go tomorrow then.” Jiang Cheng looks over at the two children who had fallen asleep on the bed. He moves to tuck the blanket over them and blows out the candle.
“Shall we go sleep ourselves?” Jiang Cheng gestures with his head. He doesn’t bring Lan Xichen to the guest quarters that tonight. He never did that anymore anyways.
The next morning, they prepare for the journey back after feeding the young ones. They fly on their swords with a squirming child in each of their arms.
“What happened to Wei-qianbei?” The loud Lan - was Jingyi his name? asks, his mouth hung open as he stares at the much smaller version of Wei Wuxian in his brother’s arms.
“Dajiu?” Jin Ling stares as well. Wei Wuxian hides his face in Jiang Cheng’s shoulders, feeling shy at all the attention focused on him.
“And Hanguang-jun too!” Jingyi exclaims.
“What exactly happened?” The Ouyang sect heir, Zizhen asks, his eyes round in concern.
“Let’s go inside first and I’m sure they will explain,” The quiet Lan, Sizhui says patiently. “It must be one of Wei-qianbei’s inventions gone wrong.”
“Oh goodness,” Jingyi mutters. “Well, at least nothing worse happened.”
“Bunnies!” Wei Wuxian suddenly squeals, wiggling so much that Jiang Cheng nearly drops him.
“Wei Wuxian! Don’t move so much! Do you want to get hurt?” Jiang Cheng scolds. There’s anger in his voice, but Jiang Cheng can feel his heart pounding out of his chest. The juniors take the two children to see the bunnies, promising to look after their once-seniors. Jin Ling seems oddly delighted at the idea of taking care of his uncle.
After a few more hours of looking at Wei Wuxian’s messy notes, they finally figure something out.
“They will be fine by tomorrow,” Lan Qiren says with a grunt. “It would be easier if it were an array. Then we could have reversed it. I had no idea Wei Wuxian started to mess around with potions .” There’s a hint of disapproval in his voice. They leave the Jingshi to find the children.
“Cheng-ge! Look, bunnies!” Wei Wuxian scrambles towards him with a bunny held in his hand with surprising gentleness from a four-year-old child.
“Running is forbidden,” Lan Wangji tells him a firm voice as he follows behind him.
“Too many rules!” Wei Wuxian wails.
“Loud noise is forbidden.”
“ Lan Zhan! ”
“I’m not explaining anything tomorrow. You three can tell them.” Jiang Cheng tells the juniors with a growl. Gosh being an older sibling is an absolute pain.
“A-Cheng, let’s just go, shall we?” Xichen puts a hand on his shoulders and guides him to the Hanshi.
The next morning, he wakes up to the sound of Lan Xichen coaxing him awake for breakfast. When he steps out into the morning sun, he’s immediately greeted by Wei Wuxian’s loud and cheerful greeting. He definitely didn’t miss it.
“You.” Jiang Cheng jabs a finger at him. “Are the most annoying younger brother ever.”
“I think just ‘brother’ will be more fitting,” Wei Wuxian cackles, falling backward. Lan Wangji is, of course, there to catch him.
“But really Jiang Cheng, what really happened? Jiang Cheng!” Jiang Cheng is already turning away. Lan Xichen smiles and follows suit.