Work Text:
It’s really a shame that Wei Wuxian has roped him into this. The tall shelves in Wen-popo’s house have held more books than Nie Huaisang could have reasonably imagined, and now that she is downsizing, giant piles of books to be donated are accumulating all around the house. Everything Wen-popo wants is already gone; they just need to figure out where the rest of the stuff should go. A tall order, given her tendency to save everything she could. Though to be fair, those tendencies aren't unusual considering how she'd had to leave everything to come to this country, decades ago.
Nie Huaisang has already picked through the art collection for the items he wants to keep, and the rest have been sorted into piles depending on their quality and rarity. To fend off the possibility of future work, he has wedged himself into a cozy overstuffed armchair with several piles of photo albums and tasked himself with saving only pictures with Wen Ning and Wen Qing.
He’s unlikely to find any, given that these albums were labeled with dates that precede their births, but it’ll pass the time nicely.
“Watch out,” Jiang Wanyin warns, as Wen Qing gets too close to a precarious stack of old magazines. “We’re lucky there aren’t any bugs; that whole stack just needs to be recycled.”
“Ugh, these tripping hazards,” Wen Qing says as she hands Jiang Wanyin her armful of paperbacks and then readjusts her ponytail. “I tried to get Popo to donate these years ago.”
“That’s not the only thing Popo should have donated,” Wen Ning says, climbing down the ladder with one arm full of hardcover books. “There’s an entire shelf of dictionaries from different years, and a separate shelf for other reference books.”
Wei Wuxian is steadying the ladder, staring up in consternation as he realizes how many books were hidden from view and still need to be hefted down. “What the heck,” he cries. “Why did Wen-popo need so many of these? Begone encyclopedias! Goodbye almanacs! Eat my ass, thesauruses!” (Lan Wangji’s head pokes in at this last statement, the rest of him still in the kitchen where he is supposed to be tidying with Jiang Yanli.)
“Perhaps if you studied the books in your hands,” Huaisang says, because if he is tired and done with being helpful for the rest of the hour, it’s a good time to pester everyone else into going away, “You would have told the thesaurus to masticate your butt.”
There’s a chorus of groans. Perfect.
“Bite my behind, Huaisang,” Wei Wuxian says, always willing to play while he works. He’s starting to climb the ladder that Wen Ning has vacated, so he can’t see Huaisang’s response.
“Who’d want to chomp your keister?” Huaisang retorts while waggling his eyebrows at Lan Wangji, and then has the pleasure of watching Lan Wangji’s ears first turn pink and then disappear back into the kitchen.
Wei Wuxian’s reply is inaudible, but it seems like the others have had enough. Huaisang graciously refrains from composing another response.
“The car is getting full; maybe let’s do a donation run before it gets much darker,” Wen Ning suggests, and when his sister agrees, Jiang Wanyin hauls Wei Wuxian towards the door by the scruff of his shirt, yelling in the direction of the kitchen that they’ll be back soon.
Nie Huaisang stretches out in his warm little nest, satisfied with the results of his hard work. Maybe if he takes a nap now, he'll be ready to actually help out again in a bit.