Archive of Our Own ^beta

Summary:

The best things that ever happened to Lan Qiren were brought to him in the middle of the night by women with perms. First, his nephews, stricken with grief at the death of their parents, then Wei Ying, brought by a harried babysitter when his parents disappeared.

or

 

There’s no time or space for grief or anything. He takes the children to buy black suits, he leaves them behind in the apartment, twelve-year-old A-Huan assuring him he’s old enough to be left alone with his brother, to go to their house and oversee it being packed up, the furniture sold, the personal effects of his brother and his wife put in storage.

 

There’s no room for decisions or education. Only him sitting at his table with two children, eating in silence, only hearing A-Huan whispering to his brother in the middle of the night, only the three of them all tangled up together with grief and confusion and pain.

 

And the certainty that he isn’t… that he won’t be a good parent.