#yes it's the lan headband around jgy's arm

[nebulathunderwave-art]

They're tired but they're safe like this in each other's arms

(Sweet and tender XiYao cuddles are my obsession)

[guqin-and-flute]

Jin Guangyao supervises a-Fu and a-Ling's first sleepover while Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue are night-hunting

[Well, this was SUPPOSED to be just fluffy, but that’s a little hard inside of JGY’s head]

A-Fu bounded his way into the room and flung himself into Jin Guangyao’s arms with such force that it nearly knocked him over. “Oof--my child, please--” he chuckled as he caught him and A-Fu rubbed his face all over the embroidered Sparks Amidst Snow peony on the front of his robes, likely wiping his snot off on it. His clothes were still cold and damp from their flight.

“We--” A-Fu reared his head back, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling. “Are gonna stay up all night!”

A-Yuan appeared to have stayed behind by Lan Xichen’s side, because the pair made their entrance at a more measured pace as Lan Xichen reminded, patiently, “While the rules of Carp Tower may be different than Cloud Recesses, staying up all night is not good for you.” 

Rather shyly, A-Yuan bowed in greeting to Jin Guangyao and he nodded back, smiling down at the boy. It had always been vaguely amusing to him that A-Yuan had more patience and decorum than A-Fu, who was born a Lan. One had to wonder if it was the influence of the slightly more rowdy Nie Clan exposure or simply innate. “Seeing how I am the one watching you and I cannot stay up all night, I’m going to have to disagree with you, Fufu,” Jin Guangyao slotted his gentle negation right alongside Lan Xichen’s and braced for the inevitable pout.

Instead, he received a sunny smile. “Oh, okay, then you’ll just go to bed at the Lan time and we’ll stay up to help the sun rise!”

A-Yuan was looking between the adults with a rather furtive smile, as if trying to silently communicate that he did not, in fact, condone this plan and would not like to be a part of the repercussions. Jin Guangyao grinned and hefted A-Fu over to his side to brace him on his hip, his back beginning to complain. “Ah, what a creative set of ears you have, Fufu--we say ‘you’re not staying up all night’, and yet they hear ‘you’re allowed to stay up until sunrise’! Truly remarkable.”

Quite dramatically, A-Fu sighed and smushed his hands up onto Jin Guangyao’s face, smearing his cheeks around. “Dieeee, don’t be a party pooper, it’s our first Jin sleepover with all of us!”

Gently, Jin Guangyao shook his face free of his cold fingered grasp and turned toward Lan Xichen to receive the kiss to his forehead. Despite A-Fu beginning to wiggle, he leaned into it, let himself inhale the scent of ozone-sky, clean wind, and sandalwood that clung to his robes and hair. The habitual tension torqued at his core loosened, like a sigh. “Easy trip? You’re not too tired after carrying them both, are you?”

Lan Xichen chuckled, slid to kiss his temple. “I’m fine, A-Yao. I’m sorry again for the short notice--Wangji is off on his own night hunt and this cannot wait.”

Shaking his head, Jin Guangyao smiled. “It’s no trouble. A-Ling is very excited.”

“And you?”

“Also very excited--ah!” A-Fu made a lunge off of his hip, not being content to simply wiggle his displeasure at being kept from pelting about and Jin Guangyao had to stoop to catch him before he hit his head on the ground. “A-Fu!” The boy froze, guiltily, and let himself be lowered down to his feet. Jin Guangyao crouched down and straightened his robes and headband with little tugs to lessen the sting of his scolding, brushing his hair back over his shoulder. “Patience is valuable. You’ll hurt yourself that way.”

As soon as no more admonishments came, A-Fu brightened immediately. “You wouldn’t drop me. A-Yuan!! Let’s go find A-Ling!”

Darting away, he seized A-Yuan’s wrist and dragged him out and down the hall, already excitedly chattering about the plans of the night as Lan Xichen chuckled and shook his head, winding an arm about Jin Guangyao’s waist when he rose. “Good luck. He couldn’t keep still the entire trip and told me the same thing when I reminded him that dropping from my arms in the sky was a bad idea.”

“Aiya,” he shook his head and, since they were alone, turned inside his embrace and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I’m sure it will be fine,” he murmured against him. “But you will be careful, yes?”

“Mm,” Lan Xichen tilted his head, pressed a firmer, more complete kiss against his lips, slipping his arms fully around him before pulling back to smile down at him. “I always am. Da-ge will be with me.”

With practiced ease, he swept aside the tangle of anxiety, old hurt, regret, and darker things the mention of Nie Mingjue bubbled inside his gut and smiled back. “Of course.”

The boys were already fighting by the time Jin Guangyao found them in Jin Ling’s toy room down the hall--something about the colors of toy swords--but quieted down fairly quickly when he mildly suggested that perhaps they wouldn’t need more sugar after dinner because they were already so lively. Eating went well, as both A-Ling and A-Fu were too busy inhaling food like they were starving and A-Yuan was making like a good Lan child and not talking during meals. He contented himself watching them dart around afterward, announcing in grandiose little voices the various heroes they were and what monsters they were battling. Without direct adult interference, A-Yuan grew a little more vibrant and playful, and though he never reached the same volume of the other 2, he seemed to be enjoying himself. Soon, Jin Guangyao faded into the background for them like so much furniture. He smiled as he watched them play. It was funny how sometimes it worked on children as well as adults. 

That is, until A-Ling twisted around like he suddenly realized something. “Hey, you’re a hero of the Sunshot Campaign, right, shushu?”

Jin Guangyao blinked and smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say all that.” Modesty was a good trait to teach your children. In any case, his father would certainly agree with his hedging and Madam Jin would certainly take exception if her grandson began calling such a bastard a hero in her presence. “Most people of my generation were a part of the Sunshot Campaign. Why do you ask, A-Ling?”

“Well, you just seem so normal.”

Jin Guangyao did not let the slightly darker, wry humor he felt coil in his chest bleed into his perfectly reasonable smile. “I’m pleased that you think so.”

“But heroes aren’t normal, though, they’re heroes,” A-Fu seemed to understand whatever A-Ling was failing to adequately explain. “They aren’t moms and dads and stuff.”

“What should they be instead, then, A-Fu? Simply stories?”

His son squinted his eyes at him, like he was solving a particularly difficult equation and looked over at A-Yuan and back. “But...you didn’t have...like...sleepovers and things, right?”

Jin Guangyao was silent for a moment, keeping his expression perfectly balanced. There had never been another child to whisper the night away with. No adult in the corner to watch him play. Nights were not a time for fun. “No, A-Fu, I didn’t. But plenty of others have.”

A-Fu cocked his head. “Why not?”

Jin Guangyao smiled. “Why don’t we see if the cook has any sweet buns leftover? I know she baked them fresh this morning.”

After the hunt and acquisition of their prize and after the children had licked their hands clean, A-Fu looked up at him with a few crumbles of sugar stuck to the tip of his nose and said, “You can be part of the sleepover if you want, though, die, ‘cause this is our first one all together too!”

Heart pinching, flooding with warmth, he reached out and brushed the little crystals off with his thumb, tilting his head. “So thoughtful, xiao-Fu. I wouldn’t want to spoil your fun.”

“You’re fun, die! Right, A-Yuan?”

With a shy smile, A-Yuan nodded. “I liked when you taught us about the plants in the woods, that one time.”

The time in question had been more than 2 years ago when they were quite a bit younger, not too many months after the boy had recovered fully from his illness to be well enough to leave the Hanshi where he was staying with Lan Xichen and A-Yuan for extended periods of time. Even as A-Fu screwed up his face in confusion, the strange buzz of realization that he lived in the minds of these children in ways he did not control rushed through Jin Guangyao. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know this, cognitively or as if this wasn’t true of everyone, but...when they were small and unsteady on their feet, still learning the ways of the world and the words for things, one forgot to consider them people on the way to becoming themselves. Recording and collecting moments that were inconsequential to their grown ups. When he considered his own childhood, there wasn’t a boy who lived there, but himself, as he ever was, reflected back through time, the story written and unyielding. He had never felt particularly like a child.

And yet, here was a boy who remembered him fondly from an insignificant walk from some recordless day for pointing out a few edible plants along a path. 

He found himself wondering if his mother had ever been taken out of her own head for a moment, watching him watch her, not knowing the picture she painted across his memory. For good or for ill. 

Always good.

He blinked back to himself and made sure to smile at A-Yuan. “I’m glad.”

“I don’t remember that,” A-Fu complained just as A-Ling said, “I didn’t get that! Shushu, tell me about plants!” 

That startled a genuine laugh out of Jin Guangyao and he knelt down. “I’m no expert, but in the morning, what if I took you all out to the gardens and told you about some of the plants that we have growing here in Carp Tower? Would you boys like that?”

The answering, competitively loud yells of YES from both A-Fu and A-Ling had him wincing but A-Yuan’s eager nod made him smile. 

There was whining and stalling at bedtime, misuse of soap, and a hastily declared armistice of a mutinous pillow fight because there are lanterns in here, A-Ling, you know better, but, finally, they were tucked in, 3 dark little heads on the pillow with the blanket pulled up to their chins. “Are we going to greet the sun?” Jin Guangyao asked with knowing patience, kneeling beside their bed, leaning with his elbow in his own nightclothes.

“Nooo?” A-Fu widened his eyes, as if his own father didn’t know when he was trying to be innocent.

Smoothing a palm over his forehead, bare of its headband, Jin Guangyao raised his eyebrows. “What happens if I find you trying to stay up to greet the sun, A-Fu?”

“Youuuu...join us!”

Jin Guangyao blinked slowly, smile still fixed on his face. A-Fu sighed grumpily. “I probably have to clean dishes for a month or something.”

“Or something,” he agreed. “I’ll leave it up to your blue father.”

A-Ling snickered as A-Fu stiffened. “Nooo, don’t tell him!”

“Then I will advise you, Fufu, to not do it at all,” he replied indulgently, stroking his thumb between his eyebrows.

Tucked in the middle so the other two didn’t fight, A-Yuan piped up, saying, “I won’t let them, bo-fu.”

When A-Yuan gave him a smile, he felt his own soften without his say so--but here, with uncalculating eyes and sleepy shadows, he supposed that was alright. He reached over and patted A-Yuan’s round cheek, resisting the illogical parentally-encoded impulse to pinch them. “Thank you, A-Yuan.” Then, he reached farther to do the same for A-Ling. “Goodnight, boys. Sleep well.”

As Jin Guangyao rose and moved to the door, A-Fu chirped, “Love you.” He paused as the other 2 echoed the same words, like A-Fu had reminded them of an important ritual. 

Drawing in a deep breath around his suddenly tight throat, he turned back and smiled. “Love you, too.”