Work Text:
There was something suspicious going on, Wen Qing was sure of it. Everything was far too quiet.
Now, A-Yuan playing in silence was nothing out of the ordinary. He was a clever, curious child who could easily entertain himself for an entire day. A-Yuan and Wei Wuxian being quiet together, on the other hand, always spelled out trouble. Best case scenario, the boy would end up happy but dirty. On a bad day, something might blow up.
It didn't help that her little brother had decided to sit down to chop the vegetables for today's dinner right at the entrance of the cave where Wei Wuxian did most of his work. A-Ning's adorable innocent face might have fooled most people, but it had never fooled Wen Qing.
"What are they doing in there?" she asked him.
He looked up at her, took a glance at her stern expression and crossed arms, and shrugged.
"I don't know," he said. He was still making the same innocent face, which almost made her proud even though it was annoying. Let it never be said that he gave up easily. "I've been sitting here all morning."
"Yes, I've noticed that," Wen Qing said. "Quite the coincidence, isn't it?"
"It's a nice spot."
"A-Ning."
He held her gaze for a long while, but in the end, his shoulders sagged just a little.
"They aren't doing anything dangerous," he said. He seemed to be honest — and Wen Qing always did read him well — but that didn't explain the situation.
"Then why won't you let me go take a look?"
For the first time in their conversation, he hesitated.
"Well— I—"
A-Ning, as it turned out, was very lucky. He didn't need to come up with a good answer for her, because at that precise moment, A-Yuan came cheerfully running out of the cave. Sure enough, his hands and face were covered in ink, but he soon made Wen Qing forget all about that.
"A-Qing-jiejie!" He slammed into her, hugging her leg with one arm while he waved a piece of paper with the other one. "Look what I made!"
Wen Qing picked up the paper. It was a drawing of a child and an adult — her, she realized, from the way A-Yuan was looking up at her expectantly. Oh.
"Thank you," she said. It was strangely difficult to keep her voice steady. "It's beautiful."
She ruffled his hair and gave him a proper, tight hug. Then she handed him to Wen Ning to be cleaned up, because she very much wanted to act normal and not make this sweet little boy think she had made her cry. He had been close, however. She blinked very hard a couple of times.
When she steadied herself, she realized that Wei Wuxian had also come out of the cave. He was uncharacteristically not annoying. Not quite serious, either — that wasn't his nature — but he wasn't teasing her. Maybe he'd noticed that she had become a bit emotional. Wen Qing wasn't about to ask.
"He made a lot of drafts," said Wei Wuxian, which explained why they had been at it for so long. "He wanted to give you the best drawing ever, his words, not mine."
Wen Qing smiled to herself. She carefully folded the picture and tucked it into her lapels.
"Well, he succeeded," she said. "But why…?"
That was the part that she didn't understand. It wasn't any special occasion. Even if it had been, A-Yuan was still too young to keep track of dates like that. Wei Wuxian looked honestly surprised at that question, but in the end he just laughed and bumped her shoulder.
"Because he likes you?"
"… oh." She looked at where A-Yuan was right now, running around so A-Ning couldn't catch him and clean up. (A-Ning could, of course, but he had always been a softie.) "I suppose he's happy."
"You're a good Auntie," Wei Wuxian said, with the tone of a wise elder. It was too much to bear. She pulled his ear and brought him down to her own height.
"Shut up and go help."