Chapter Text
Lan Xichen could see his disciples struggling. He could see Zidian's last across the forest as he knew Clan Leader Jiang and his disciples were also struggling with the yao wolf pack that had surrounded them.
He heard a guqin ring out as he slashed down, killing another wolf, thinking that another Lan had been in the area and had come to aid them - Lan Xichen was relieved that someone else was helping, that they might be able to come out of this with all of their disciples alive, injured, but still alive.
When all of the wolves had fallen, the silence rang out across the night sky, the quick sounds of his and his disciple's breathing was all Lan Xichen could hear.
Lan Xichen finally raised his head to assess the damage, to see how many of his disciples were injured, to see if any of them were no longer alive, if he had taken his junior disciples on a mission too advanced for them, if he underestimated the threat level of this particular night hunt.
He spotted someone helping one of his disciples to their feet, others he didn't recognize bending down and administering aid to those who were injured.
There was a group standing across the field from him, two tall men and a few younger disciples standing around them - at least, Lan Xichen interpreted the height difference as differences in age. He could see their faces, the moon unable to break through the branches they were standing under.
At some point, Clan Leader Jiang was standing above him, his hand extended out to help Lan Xichen up.
He stood and they both made their way to the group that was slowly forming, both Lan and Jiang disciples standing around the two men and their disciples who had come to their aid.
"Wei-Qianbei! You promised we would have fun!" A disciple whined, "This wasn't fun at all!"
Lan Xichen and Jiang Wanyin both froze at the laugh that rang out through the quiet forest.
"What? This was plenty fun! You can't expect every night hunt to be a glorious fight." A far too familiar voice rang out, despite how long it had been since either of them had heard it.
Lan Xichen knew that he and Jiang Wanyin were thinking the same impossible thing as they walked forward, as their paces slightly hastened, as they found themselves along the edge of the crowd, disciples parting as they made their way deeper into the group.
Both of the men had their backs towards them as they approached, one of them standing firm but quiet and the other bending forward and ruffling the hair of the young man standing in front of him.
"A-die!" Lan Xichen heard the disciple whine, pushing away the hand in his hair.
"Aya, A-Yuan you've become much too like your Baba. You won't even let your a-die praise you for your work? I saw the way you cut those wolves down, anyone would be proud for you to be their son."
The other disciples around them started agreeing with their senior, only making the boy flush more.
And then he looked up, meeting Lan Xichen's gaze, confusion crossing his face as Lan Xichen watched his eyes move between him and the quiet man in front of him, until he saw the disciple's mouth open like he understood what was going on.
"Baba, A-die, Clan Leader Lan is standing behind you," The two adults froze, "And I assume Clan Leader Jiang is the one standing next to him."
The world seemed to freeze as both men looked over their shoulders, as Lan Xichen was faced with the same faces he had seen in Caiyi's markets all those years ago - the faces, and people, he had almost been able to convince himself was an illusion, a hallucination, a trick his mind was playing to work thought the grief of the potential loss of his baby brother, of not knowing where he was or what they would come across when they retraced Wangji and Wei Wuxian's steps.
Lan Xichen watched both of their eyes widen, watched as both of them seemed to shift, standing almost protectively in front of their disciples, turning so they were both standing in front of the boy that had called them Baba and A-die.
He dared take a glance over towards Jiang Wanyin and could feel the anger radiating off of him, he watched Zidian spark on his hand, his hands fisted at his side, slightly shaking.
"Wei Wuxian." Jiang Wanyin gritted out, taking a step towards them - only to be stopped by Bichen's blade pointing at him.
"Do not." Wangji spoke, his voice deeper with age.
Lan Xichen thought that Wangji's voice sounded settled, as if he was more confident, that he knew his strengths and knew how strong he was - no more of the short quipped, single responses that he often gave when Lan Xichen or any other Lan spoke to him.
"Don't!" Lan Xichen shouted, hands reaching for Jiang Wanyin as Zidian swung, his hand aiming right for Wei Wuxian.
He swore he saw Wei Wuxian's eyes widen before the whole group simply vanished, disappearing as if they were never there in the first place. The disciples who had been kneeling next to their injured had vanished along with them, medical supplies they were holding falling to the ground with a string of thuds.
Zidian landed on the ground right where Wei Wuxian had been standing, the grass burning as Zidian retracted, as Jiang Wanyin cursed.
The forest was quiet, Jiang Wanyin's panting and the muffle groans of their injured disciples mingling with the noise of the wildlife.
"That bastard," Jiang Wanyin finally spoke, "Just vanishing like that before he could explain himself, before I made him face every single thing he has done, what his absence has cost me, the shame he brought onto the Jiang-"
"We're leaving," Lan Xichen interrupted, turning around, facing the small group of disciples he brought, those strong enough carrying the few who were injured, already anticipating their Clan Leader's instructions as they stepped onto their swords.
"Lan Xichen!" Jiang Wanyin shouted after him, "You of all people should understand! Wei Wuxian vanished with your brother! It was Wei Wuxian's stupid actions that shamed not only the Jiang Clan for his disappearance and wasted resources on search parties, but for smearing the Lan Clan for taking away their heir!"
Lan Xichen's eyes slipped shut as he tried centering himself, calming himself, reminding himself that he and Lan Qiren as well as many Lan disciples had already long accepted that something had happened to Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji that night, that something so significant had happened in that forest that they simply could not comprehend.
He remembered seeing all the blood, seeing the dead yao, seeing the track marks on the ground from where his didi and Wei Wuxian had fought, the splintered trees surrounding the yao and the blood.
Lan Xichen remembered seeing an older Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian in the market that day, he remembered trying to convince himself that it was just an illusion, that it was people who looked like them, that there was no way for either boy to become grown men in such a short amount of time, for his didi and Wei Wuxian to be almost as old as Shufu had been at the time.
He remembered seeing the way Wei Wuxian dragged his brother through the market, a smile on his face as Wangji let himself be dragged along, as he let Wei Wuxian see whatever he wanted and watched him be happy.
And then they had vanished, Wei Wuxian's laughter cutting off mid-sentence.
Vanishing just like they had just now, like they had never been there in the first place.
Lan Xichen's eyes opened, scanning over his disciples before stepping onto his sword, silently taking off into the night sky, his disciples following behind him, Jiang Wanyin's shouts echoing in his ear as he screamed at the retreating white figures in the night sky.
It was lucky, he supposed, that their night hunt was in close proximity to Cloud Recesses, that they were able to fly their injured back home, hand them over to the care of the healers.
Lan Xichen laid in his bed that night, unable to fall asleep, replying the few moments he had with Wangji alive in his sight, the few moments he could finally see his brother again.
The boy that had referred to both of them as his fathers, as his Baba and A-die.
Xichen knew that Wangji had been struggling with his emotions regarding the teen Jiang disciple, towards the whirlwind that Wei Wuxian was. They hadn't spoken about it, but Xichen knew his brother, knew the way he looked frustrated every time Wei Wuxian was around them, when his name was brought up.
Some part of him was happy that it appeared Wangji had figured his feeling out, that it appeared they were reciprocated, that in whatever way he and Wei Wuxian were together, that it was mutual.
Somehow, Xichen managed to fall asleep, rising only a few hours later at the Lan standard maoshi.
It was only when he was sorting through his qiankun pouch from the night before that he noticed a slip of paper inside, his name written across the top in his brother's handwriting.
Tears slid down his face as he read, as he learned what had happened that night, what happened when he and Wei Wuxian vanished. When he learned how both of them had been attacked, likely in a similar way their disciples had been the night prior, a wold yao pack, cornering them and attacking, both of them too injured from the battle with the yao to fight off the wolves, resigning themselves to their deaths, that at least they would die together, knowing that they were protecting one another, that they had tried their hardest.
Then, they would wake on the Celestial Mountain, a failsafe embedded into the red ribbon Wei Wuxian wore, a protection charm Cangse Sanren gave to her child, one that would've saved her and her husband if she had kept it the night they perished.
Wangji wrote of meeting their ancestor, of finally understanding what he wanted with Wei Wuxian, of the boy feeling the same.
Xichen read Wangji describe their wedding, read Wangji's words of the improvements he and Lan Yi had been able to create, Wei Wuxian's inventions now that he wasn't restricted by the Jiang Clan's grip.
The letter was still in his hands when Lan Qiren walked into his home, demanding to know why Xichen hadn't reported to him about the night hunt, that their disciples were saying ridiculous things about seeing Wei Wuxian and Wangji - only to stop mid-sentence at the tears spilling down his eldest nephew's face, the letter in his hands.
"Shufu," Xichen started, his voice unusually soft, "We were not kind to Wangji."
Lan Qiren takes the piece of paper Xichen hands him, his eyes scanning the page, scanning Wangji's writings and explanations as to what happened, what his and Wei Wuxian's lives are like now, how they had very nearly died, how they were now living on Baoshan Sanren's mountain, how she and Lan Yi (as well as the healers on the Celestial Mountain) had saved their lives when they had been attacked by a wolf pack.
He reads as Wangji explains why he and Wei Wuxian never left, why they chose to stay on the mountain, why they chose to let the world think they were dead rather than returning back to them once they had healed, once they were able to stand on their own feet again.
Lan Qiren reads as Wangji explains that neither of them every saw who he was, that they would place expectations onto him and be disappointed whenever he chose to act on his own motivations and desires. Wangji tells him that he cared for both of them, that they are his family, but he does not like the people who raised him.
That on the mountain, he finally is around and with people who want him to succeed and be who he is, not who they want him to be, who they think he should be.
That Wei Wuxian was able to discover that his mother was actually the daughter of Baoshan Sanren, that he has family on the mountain, that the Jiangs never really cared for him. Wei Wuxian would miss his shidi and Jiang Yanli, but he would never be able to forgive himself if he left the mountain and left his grandmother behind.
Lan Qiren wipes away his tears when he reads about their children. Their eldest daughter A-Xu, their son Sizhui, and their newest addition being a baby boy they've named A-Chen.
He gently sets the letter down onto the table, sitting down across from Xichen as he watches his nephew cry into his hands. Lan Qiren's hands are shaking as they rest in his lap, as they both sit and mourn the man they had lost, the man Wangji had become - that neither of them would ever get to see.
------
"Baba? Who were those men?" Sizhui questioned, watching his fathers as they sat across the table from him, their meals finished and that was usually when they would report on the latest night hunt.
His A-die sighed, resting his head on Baba's shoulder.
"That was your Baba's brother and my former shidi." A-die spoke, fiddling with Baba's hand in his lap. "I didn't expect to see them there, for us to respond to a distress signal and be met with both of them."
His fathers looked at him like they were expecting him to ask questions, to ask everything he could ever want to know about Clan Leader Lan and Clan Leader Jiang, about the people who had once been important parts of their lives. They looked at him like they would cave to any question Sizhui asked, that they might not be comfortable answering, but they would explain anything Sizhui wanted to know.
Sizhui knew that his fathers didn't speak of their time in the Cultivation World often, that usually A-die laughed it off and said they had spent so much more time on the mountain that the little time they spent there didn't matter, it was long lost history to them, that they barely even remembered it.
"Clan Leader Jiang wasn't very nice." Sizhui spoke from behind his cup, watching the way his A-die froze, clearly expecting Sizhui to ask more questions, to want to know more about the time they spent in the Cultivation World, the time before they were on the mountain.
There was a smile on his face as his A-die laughed, leaning against Baba, a smile on his face as he shook his head.
"I'm afraid to say Clan Leader Jiang has never been very nice. He has walked the world since his birth like they very air existing around him is offensive."
Before anyone could speak, could bring up anything else about Clan Leader Jiang or Clan Leader Lan, the door to their home opened and A-Xu ran inside, a wide smile on her face as she spotted her fathers.
"Baba! A-die! You're back!" She practically shouted, running into their arms.
"I see," Sizhui pouted, "Your gege means nothing to you, I understand."
A-Xu's head poked up from between their fathers arms, glaring at Sizhui.
"I'm older than you!" She shouted, pouting as her didi smirked at her.
"From where I'm sitting, you're the one who doesn't want to be older than seventeen, whereas I'm almost a complete adult disciple."
Baba and A-die held A-Xu in their arms as she thrashed, her arms trying to reach across the table towards Sizhui, wanting to tackle her brother to the ground.
"Now now A-Yuan, what have we told you about teasing A-Xu about her choices?" A-die spoke, a teasing tone in his voice as both of his children froze, turning to him, not meeting his gaze.
"That A-Xu is within her rights to remain however old she wants to, that her life is her own." Sizhui mumbled, fidgeting with his sleeve.
"A-Xu will be ready on her own terms." Baba spoke, his voice firm but kind, full of warmth towards his children.
A-Xu broke out of their hold and moved across the table, falling into her didi's arms as they hugged it out, mumbling apologizes into each other's ears.
She pulled back, a small smile on her face - a smile that Sizhui has long associated with the times A-Xu and A-die worked together to prank the others on the mountain.
"Besides, Yuan-didi, I can only get older, you can't get younger."
A-Xu ran out of their fathers home, Sizhui hot on her heels as they hear the shout of their names from their A-die.