Chapter Text
“Hey, psst! Lan Zhan!”
“Mm?”
Wei Wuxian shuffles along the pier and closer to his husband. “Don’t you think this is kind of weird?”
“What is?” Lan Zhan tilts his head, hair falling across his shoulders in that effortless elegant way, so beautiful and perfect it feels staged.
“That!” Wei Wuxian gestures widely to the tiny figure of Nie Huaisang scampering around the muddy banks of the lake. “Isn’t it weird that out of all of us here, Jiang Cheng ends up being Nie-didi’s favourite? Out of all people! Even over you!”
“Oi,” says his grumpy shidi from his other side. “Shut up unless you want to go swimming again.”
“So mean, Jiang Cheng! I’m just saying! It’s weird! We spent weeks trying to get him to like us, playing with him, buying him toys. And you come in with your scowly,” Wei Wuxian waves, “everything, going all Sandu Sengshou. And he clings to you like a… a-”
“Frog,” says Lan Zhan.
Wei Wuxian blinks. “An odd choice for a metaphor, but I can see where you’re going with it. They are rather sticky.”
But Lan Zhan shakes his head. “No. Look.”
The other two follow his pointing finger to see little Nie Huaisang clambering up the bank.
“Jiang-zongzhu, Jiang-zongzhu! Look what I found!”
His cheeks are red and flushed from exertion and his hair mussed. From here Wei Wuxian can even see a smear of mud on his jaw, dark and flaking already in the afternoon sun. But the grin on Nie Huaisang’s face is the widest he’d seen in the month he had been in their care.
“Jiang-zongzhu!”
Jiang Cheng clicks his tongue and shouts, voice booming over the water. “Watch your feet, not your hands! Do you want to trip and fall?!”
Wei Wuxian braces himself for tears. Jiang Cheng’s scolding voice can be scary for those who haven’t built up an immunity. But Nie Huaisang only slows down his pace, taking more care with his footing as instructed.
“Jiang-zongzhu!” the child gasps when he reaches them. “I found a frog!”
“Yeah?“ Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow. "Is that why you’re shoving your hands into my face?”
Nie Huaisang holds his cupped hands up as high as he can. “Isn’t it cool? It’s got spots on its back!”
“Let me see.”
Wei Wuxian watches as his shidi bends down to peer into the little cave that Nie Huaisang made out of his hands.
Jiang Cheng hums. “I know these ones. They’re fast. You did well catching one.”
Nie Huaisang’s face lights up like dawn, and Wei Wuxian wonders if that was how Jin Ling had looked at this age when Jiang Cheng praised him. “I was really careful! I didn’t move until I was sure I could get it!”
“And landed yourself knee deep in mud,” Jiang Cheng huffs. “What did I tell you about going too close to the water?”
“Not to,” Nie Huaisang pouts. “But Jiang-zongzhu! The frog was gonna escape!”
“And you can’t swim,” Jiang Cheng growls. “What are you going to do if you fall in, hm?”
“Yell really loud so you can come rescue me.”
Jiang Cheng inhales deeply, closing his eyes. “Brat,” he snarls, reaching out a hand and roughly mussing Nie Huaisang’s hair. “See if I come in after you next time. You never learn your lesson! I should leave you there to drown, hm? Hm?”
Nie Huaisang giggles through the rough treatment. “Noooo, Jiang-zongzhu, who’s gonna catch frogs for you if I drown in the lake!”
“I can catch them well enough myself.”
“Nuh uh! You’re old. You’re not fast enough!”
Jiang Cheng smirks. “So sure of yourself, are you, youngster? Willing to stake something on it?”
Nie Huaisang narrows his eyes. “I bet my whole bag of candied walnuts that I can catch more frogs than you, Jiang-zongzhu.”
“Well then,” Jiang Cheng rolls up his sleeves and works off his boots. “That bag is mine.” And with no warning, leaps down into the muddy bank.
“What! But we didn’t say start!” Nie Huaisang yells, chasing after him with his short legs. “Cheater!”
Wei Wuxian, left behind at the pier unacknowledged with a pair of boots, turns his head to catch his husband’s eyes.
“See? Weird.”
But Lan Zhan shakes his head, gaze thoughtful as he looks at the pair playing in the mud. “Is it? Nie Mingjue.”
…Well from that perspective then yes, Wei Wuxian supposes that it’s not so strange that this young Nie Huaisang would latch onto a loud and slightly overbearing authority figure with a scary face.
It does, however, put them in a little bit of a bind.
They have been visiting at Lotus Pier for about a week now, and every day they’ve seen little Nie Huaisang bloom, transforming from the nervous, overly polite child, who was so careful to not make himself a burden at Cloud Recesses, to a happy, rambunctious, and lively nine year old, poking into everything with curious eyes. And it is so obvious what the change is. Neither he nor Lan Zhan had done anything different. But as soon as Jiang Cheng started taking time between his work as sect leader to entertain his guests, Nie Huaisang had started coming out of his shell.
“I’m…” Wei Wuxian scratches at his cheek, embarrassed. “To be honest, I’m actually a little jealous.”
Lan Zhan turns towards him, taking hold of his free hand and squeezing it gently. “I am too.”
Wei Wuxian is a little relieved at that. He thought that it might have been a little selfish, wanting to be the only ones to hold Nie Huaisang’s favour. But his husband is one of the least selfish people he knows.
“Is this…” He bites down on his lip, unable to speak the words. “Is Nie-didi… Should we-?”
“No,” says Lan Zhan immediately. “I don’t-”
Wei Wuxian turns to see his husband’s frowning face turned down into his lap, his other hand clenched into a hard fist.
“I do not want to leave A-Sang at Lotus Pier,” says Lan Wangji, voice tight. “I- I promised him.”
“I don’t want to either, Lan Zhan.”
He’s attached to the little Nie, with his clever eyes and careful bearing. It has been a joy getting to know the little boy that had grown into one of his old friends, or whatever they are now with the corpse of Jin Guangyao and Mo Xuanyu between them. Wei Wuxian truly does not want to leave little Nie Huaisang behind here.
“But we won’t get to keep him forever anyway, will we,” says Wei Wuxian.
Because they have to go back to Cloud Recesses soon. They have to keep researching what it is that reversed time for their chief cultivator. And as much as Wei Wuxian would love to say ‘damn it all’ and leave the jianghu to figure itself out around the power vacuum that Nie Huaisang leaves behind, he has a vested interest in political stability right now, given that so many of his loved ones are deeply entrenched within the system.
And when Nie Huaisang returns to his original state… Well.
Before this whole thing happened, Nie Huaisang had not crossed Wei Wuxian’s path for two whole years, and Wei Wuxian has the feeling that it would probably have been longer if whatever happened to Nie Huaisang had not conveniently happened while he was making a brief visit to Lan Xichen.
So, no. It isn’t likely that he and Lan Zhan will be keeping Nie Huaisang long at all.
“Wei Ying…” Lan Zhan mutters. “Wei Ying wants to…”
Wei Wuxian rocks a little in his seat and makes a non-committal sound. “I think that’s a conversation to have with Nie-xiong, when he gets back.”
There is still so much to say, so much that Wei Wuxian doesn’t understand.
“But you, Lan Zhan,” he says, turning to face his husband again. “Do you want him to stay?”
“I…” Lan Zhan stares out at the two muddy figures. “I have missed Huaisang. I had forgotten…” he trails off.
Wei Wuxian tilts his head questioningly. “Lan Zhan forgot what?”
Lan Zhan sighs, closing his eyes. “How to be Nie Huaisang’s friend. I… I had left him so alone. I do not wish for him to be alone any longer.”
Wei Wuxian swallows thickly at that. Who does Nie Huaisang truly have left in the dust Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao left behind?
A delighted shriek breaks him out of his thoughts. “Wei-gege, Wei-gege!”
He looks up and scans the area to see Jiang Cheng holding a squirming Nie Huaisang over the water.
“Wei-gege!” Nie Huaisang calls, hands outstretched towards him. “Save me! Jiang-zongzhu is going to dunk me in the lake!”
“Hah! It’ll save me the trouble of having to wash up all this mud.”
“Nooo! Wei-gege! A-Zhan! Jiang-zongzhu is being mean, come and-”
The rest is lost in a sudden shriek as Jiang Cheng Dips the child into the lake.
“Ah! So cold!”
“That’s what you get for putting a frog down the back of my robes, you little brat!”
Wei Wuxian grins, putting aside his grim thoughts for later. “Hold on, little Nie! Wei-gege is coming! He’ll defeat the evil demon king and rescue you!”
Jiang Cheng scowls, watching his approach with narrowed eyes. “Who’s the demon king? If anyone’s the demon here, you are! You and this tiny tadpole of a brat here.” He gives Nie Huaisang a bit of a toss in his hands, eliciting more giggles.
“Oh, we can do it that way too, I guess,” Wei Wuxian shrugs, grinning. “This Yiling-Laozu will rescue you from the righteous cultivator, little ghost!”
“You’ll have to catch us first,” says Jiang Cheng. He wades into the water, holding Nie Huaisang up high.
“Wei-gege, save me!” The boy laughs, sounding not at all distressed at his situation. “I can’t swim!”
“Coming!” Wei Wuxian turns back for a moment to look at his seated husband. “I’ll be right back, Lan Zhan.”
It doesn’t matter anyway that Nie Huaisang had been left alone for so long. It doesn’t. Not now that he has them at his side and watching over him.