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Raising a baby was hard.
Meng Yao's body had taken a lot from him after birth.
Luckily, he was surrounded by an amazing support system, having needed help doing everything from bathing to dressing, and it turns out burnout didn’t magically vanish after giving birth.
Bedrest—ugh, again—but he loved his baby. When he woke up to feed, his mates were right there. He left some milk for bottles just in case he was too tired. He felt bad until his beta started crying, saying he was so happy that he left him to feed the baby on his own, even if it was bottle feeding, because he always wanted to have a baby, too.
That was heartbreaking.
There were times when he wanted his Mother.
To talk to her or ask for advice, bouts of sadness would follow him when this thought came up when he was alone. At first, he couldn’t even move without someone jumping to his side, but now, with the baby for almost nine months, both mates were back at work, and Meng Yao found himself overwhelmed.
An upcoming conference had left him alone. His two mates had to attend, his in-laws had things to do, and everyone had their lives to live. However, his son was teething, and the conference was five days long.
He wanted to prove he could do this all alone.
Which was sure he could!
Suppose it wasn’t for the damn burnout! Which he hated because doctors claimed some people took years to heal, add in the drama of last year and giving birth, well, if he didn’t have manners he’d have cursed the doctor out.
Even if it wasn’t the doctor’s fault, he felt upset that there was nothing to do but rest, do calming hobbies, take time to relax and recuperate. But with a baby?!
It had been day three, and the laundry had piled up. The babies were messy, and he was so tired. Rosang was teething badly, crying nearly all the time, and barely sleeping.
At the moment, he was stressed out, feeling like a failure, an Omega, and he was sure that his baby knew it because no matter how much he tried to soothe him, teething toys and the baby hated the numbing stuff the doctor had prescribed him to the point the scream where louder than the crying.
Walking back and forth, patting his back, Meng Yao was crying, his head spinning on what to do. He sobbed, almost as loud as his baby, when he nearly jumped out of his skin, hearing a voice.
“I thought you had fainted,”
“Baba,” Meng Yao gasped; he had gotten into the habit of calling his in-law, Uncle Lan Qiren after the older Omega had come to help with the baby for the first three weeks. Unable to keep up, looking at the picture of a perfect Omega, he sniffed. “I can’t turn him off!”
“Here, give me the baby,” Lan Qiren moved forward, holding Rosong in one arm and put his other arm around Meng Yao. “let’s get you some rest,”
Sobbing, Meng Yao let himself be guided away. “…How did you get in here?”
“I have a key?” He raised an eyebrow. “You gave it to me,”
Sobbing more, leaning into him, Meng Yao hated the fact he forgot that he had given him a key.
--
Sniffling, he sat in a hot bath after showering. His body was sore, and he could hear his son crying. The baby had received a bath and was now being dried and dressed.
Trying to will his body to get up to help, Meng Yao paused when the crying suddenly stopped. Blinking,, he watched as Lan Qiren came in with the baby, now in his car seat, cleaned and dressed,, and wearing gloves while chewing on something.
“I put numbing cream on his gums,”
“But… he hates that…?” That little traitor! “How is he not screaming?”
“I had my mate freeze some fruit,” He smiled. “It helps distract from the taste, and what Rusang can taste is distracting enough.”
Looking away, Meng Yao sniffed and tensed when Lan Qiren sat beside the tub, placing a hand on his head. Slowly, the calming scent relaxed him, and he let Baba help him bath Then, feeling like a child rather than someone who had amazing skills and a sharp mind, he felt an odd warmth in his chest while he was helped up, a warm robe and hands using a soft towel to clean his face and dry his hair.
“I’m sorry,” Meng Yao whispered, eyes watering. “I’m sorry,”
“No need to be sorry. Raising a baby is hard,” Lan Qiren assured. “I helped raise my- friend's children for a while.”
Back then, he was surprised to find himself raising his brother’s child in the dead of night, first when Lan Xichen was born and then again a few years later.
Lan Qiren might have been bitter, assigning several more guards to both houses to keep the two from seeing each other. One, he didn’t think his brother deserved his mate, and two, Madam Lan deserves peace even in his seclusion, and his fight with the elders to get the once-a-month visits had been met with several punishments.
It's worth it to see how happy his nephews were.
But raising two kids?!
Alone?!
No one told Lan Qiren that these kids were raised similarly but had different manuals! Each had different habits, quirks, and personalities, and while he’d love them, becoming an Omega Grandmaster was easier!
That was its own hurdles he had to face.
When a whole day had passed without a call or text from Meng Yao, he had gotten worried. Having chosen to work part-time, slowly retiring, he had grown closer to the small Omega, and the final straw of not getting a callback, he made his way over to the penthouse.
After ringing the doorbell and knocking, he got worried something was wrong.
He was right.
Meng Yao was walking like a zombie, crying along with the baby, and looked like he would collapse. Now that the baby was distracted and Wen Ruohan grabbed all the laundry, he took it to get washed and paid someone handsomely.
Lan Qiren dried off a still-stressed Meng Yao.
“Stop that,” He scolded lightly, stopping the Omega from saying sorry again. “If I did not want to help you, I wouldn’t. Raising a child isn’t like the movies; now, let’s get some food and water into you before bed.”
“But…”
“No, buts' we can watch the baby while you sleep,” Lan Qiren was rather pleased that this Meng Yao had meat on his bones, not jagged bones sticking out or bruises on his body. Slipping on a long sleep shirt and helping him step into some underwear, he grabbed a brush. “Next time, you should come stay with me,”
“I didn’t want to burden you,”
“You are never a burden,” He assured, starting to soothe out the hair, quickly getting the long hair into a long, soft braid because Meng Yao was nodding off. Having him sit at his vanity, he got some warm socks on him. “New mothers need sleep too,”
Meng Yao let out a sound, but his eyes were so heavy he barely even made a sound.
--
Wen Ruohan was a horrible person in his past, an awful, no-good person who had done several monstrous things against humanity to achieve his goal. His only grace was being there as a Father, but even that was askew when he started to show his sons how to harm and inflict torment on others. He had long lost the love of his life, who had seen the path he was going down and refused to join him.
Even having Meng Yao at his side, he had always wanted an Omega child, but at this point, he had done so many things and got joy out of torture and even forced Meng Yao to participate in them, and a few times, he had seen the genuine fear and smelt it.
Soon, he could hide it, but sometimes, when walking by the Omega room, he would look in and find that the Omega was hiding in his closet, rocking back and forth, its scent filled with fear. A habit he'd find out much later was the only way Meng Yao had to cope with everything since he had no one to turn to.
Good, he thought at the time, that kept the Omega from ever leaving. One day, he’d marry Meng Yao to someone of Wen Ruohan's choosing. Much later, after being stabbed and dying, he had caught the fear leaving his body, but the overwhelming joy that followed it, at the time, he thought was for his downfall, but later he realized it was because he was reunited with his mates.
Well, it's supposed to be.
Occasionally, Wen Ruohan wondered if Meng Yao truly thought he’d get to go back to the Unclean Relem and be mates to one of them. In death and sent to be tormented and purified, he saw everyone’s life and honesty; he felt slightly bad that Meng Yao might have been better off dead.
The small Omega being passed around being beaten, abused, humiliated, used, and tortured, from one Alpha to another. If he hadn’t been so hellbent on ruling the world, he bet that when Lan Qiren had requested, the marriage between Meng Yao and Lan Xichen would have gone through. After all, he knew that Jin Guangshang was terrified of him.
In the afterlife they had all spent time together, Meng Yao had hidden from him a lot, until he spoke with Lan Qiren and slowly the Omega realized he wasn't going to hurt him.
Wen Ruohan knew what he was thinking. After all, everyone who took in Meng Yao did the same thing. They took him in, love bombed him, and then started using his sharp mind to win while also taking advantage of his desperate need to be wanted, to have a shred of love.
Wen Rohan was no different.
A head pat here, a hug there, one little gift of warm robes, the Omega had been up for weeks sorting out his son's battle plans, and so on. He was sure Meng Yao wouldn't have killed him if he hadn’t been madly in love with Nie Mingjue or Lan Xichen.
But he was.
And then the cycle continued, Nie Mingjue, Jin Gangshang, Madam Jin, all of them pushing and forcing their way to an Omega who, for all his wit and cunning, fell victim to just wanting to be loved and wanted.
To Wen Ruohan, Meng Yao was like a cat. Born without claws to protect himself, he was forced to figure out how to survive in a world where he was tossed from one wolf to another and then into a Golden Palace that he was told would be filled with acceptance and happiness.
Instead, he was tossed into a pit of snakes, and people wondered why he snapped and carried out his plans. Nie Mingjue would die, and Meng Yao had completed the task earlier. However, others liked to overlook that being a sworn brother was an excuse the Alpha used to inflect pain onto the Omega.
How often did even psychopath Xue Yang comment on whether the bruises were from the Alpha? If they were, he could guess who had battered the Omega just from the location of the bruises.
While looking calm outwardly, there was no doubt that Meng Yao had broken and shattered at some point. The only thing that anchored him seemed to be Jin Ling for a time, but with everything coming to light, Wei Wuxian came back to life, while the plan to step down and marry into the Lan Sect, at last, was thrown out the window.
Walking into the living room after getting all the laundry taken care of, he saw Rusong asleep in the baby swing that was rocking him slowly back and forth, and his mate on the couch, in his arms was Meng Yao curled up, softly breathing through his mouth worn out—light dark circles under his eyes, hand holding lightly to Lan Qiren’s shirt.
Lan Qiren held him close in his lap, patting his back like Meng Yao had been trying to pat the babies when they arrived to soothe Omega.
A part of him always wondered if they should have adopted an Omega child since his mate had always mentioned he’d like at least one of each. Instead, he took three Alphas and one Beta to his Omega children-in-law.
Lan Qiren cared a lot about children, no matter how old they got. He walked over to grab a throw blanket and covered Meng Yao, who let out a little groan but was soothed back into a deep sleep as Lan Qiren rocked him.
Meng Shi might be gone, but Lan Qiren would ensure that Meng Yao had someone to care for him in his time of need. Things did change, maybe not earlier in this life; however, he would do his best to be there for any of his children.
Birthed or not, married into the family, Lan Qiren didn’t care.
As long as he could show his love for them, that’s all that matters.