Chapter Text
Thirteen years of relative peace were a precious thing. There had been tragedie in that near decade and a half, some of which had touched Lan Xichen more intimately than he would have preferred, but the world hadn’t known anything like the cruel dominion of the Wen, or the fantastical evil of the Yiling Patriarch.
Lan Yuan grew up into a kind and intelligent young man, exceeding any expectations that Lan Xichen might have had for a boy who had lived so long at the Burial Mounds. Not a trace of that evil lingered on him, not a hint of the horror that he was sure to have witnessed as the rest of his relatives were massacred. He had never given any sign that he remembered his life before Cloud Recesses. A small blessing for him and for Lan Xichen. He did not want his nephew (as he privately thought of Lan Yuan as such) to be tormented by his past.
If Lan Yuan (Lan Sizhui, now, he was old enough for a new name) had perfectly adapted to his new life, Lan Xichen was sometimes less sure of his brother’s well being. The first three years had been the roughest, when it was unsure that Lan Wangji would ever fully recuperate in body and in mind. He hardly spoke a word that entire time he was in seclusion, though he would find the strength to smile at little Lan Yuan when the child was brought to see him.
Perhaps there was more of their mother in Lan Wangji than Lan Xichen had ever realised.
Even when he came back to the world, Lan Wangji was changed. It was not a bad thing, not as such. He became more involved in the training of the disciples rather than only in dispensing discipline, teaching them to improve their techniques and taking them on night hunts whenever he could. The young ones feared him a little, but never as much as they admired him. When he wasn’t teaching, Lan Wangji would roam the world, answering any plea for help that would get to him, no matter how insignificant. Sometimes he took the juniors with him, sometimes he went alone, but he could not abide suffering.
A way to atone for his failure to save that man, Lan Xichen suspected. He never asked his brother why he was doing these things, unsure he would like the answer. Did it matter, anyway? Lan Wangji’s reputation kept growing, and soon everyone appeared to forget that he had been the one who saved the Yiling Patriarch in Nightless City.
Sometimes, Lan Xichen himself almost managed to forget those tragic events. He would go for days without thinking about that man who had ruined so many lives. Lan Wangji did not appear unhappy with his life, it was easy to pretend that nothing wrong had ever happened. Then, one night or other, Lan Xichen would see his brother sitting on the grass near the Jingshi, stroking a pale rabbit on his lap, his eyes lost in the stars, and he would be reminded of the truth. Though he was not the sort to commiserate on his own fate and did not behave like a love-sick widower, Lan Wangji was deeply unhappy.
It always pained Lan Xichen to see his brother that way. He wished he had words to comfort him, to show him that the man he missed so much would never have brought him happiness either.
It made Jin Guangyao smile when Lan Xichen confided in him about how powerless he felt.
“You cannot right all the wrongs of this world, brother,” Jin Guangyao told him. “The only remedy to grief is time. Do not judge him too harshly for being attached to the memories of one dear to him. Aren’t we the same when we talk about our brother?”
Their pain over the premature death of Nie Mingjue was a very different matter than Lan Wangji’s mourning for a man who never bore him any affection, Lan Xichen thought at first. And yet, after some time, that comparison helped. Loss was loss. If Jin Guangyao could dearly miss Nie Mingjue though he had sometimes been treated wrongly by him, surely it was fine for Lan Wangji to long for someone who, at a time at least, had been his friend.
Time passed and brought little change to Lan Wangji’s mood, until it became hard sometimes to remember that he had not always been quite so severe and silent. Lan Xichen stopped worrying so much. This was the new normal for them.
But one day, as he was leaving Cloud Recesses, Lan Xichen found himself faced with a most unusual scene. His brother and a little team of junior disciples were trying to drag inside a man who was crying in protest and clinging to a donkey. The animal looked as if it expected to later be rewarded for its patience, while the juniors were losing theirs.
Lan Wangji, at a small distance, was watching the scene with something his brother could only have described as amusement.
“Wangji never brings guests home,” Lan Xichen noted as he approached. “This is?”
There was an odd hesitation in his brother’s contenance, something Lan Xichen hadn’t seen in years. More troubling, there was a light in his eyes that normally only shone when someone complimented Lan Sizhui in his presence.
“Brother, are you going to visit Lianfang-Zun again?”
“To negotiate about the next Discussion Conference at Jinlin Tower,” Lan Xichen confirmed, before he realised that his brother had not answered his own question.
It had been a long time since Lan Wangji had done such things. Thirteen years had done a lot to mend the rift created by a love that should not have been. Some things they did not speak about, but when they talked they no longer kept secrets.
It had been a long time, too, since Lan Wangji had been in such good humour, and his brother could not figure out why. After what had just happened some days earlier…
“Uncle has taken and examined what you brought back from Mo Village,” Lan Xichen mentioned since the matter was on his mind, then frowned. Lan Wangji barely seemed interested in their conversation and kept glancing at something ahead. Only, there wasn’t much of interest there, just the juniors and that odd man with the donkey.
A man who had been silenced, as Lan Xichen noticed.
“It is not often that you bring somebody home, being in such good spirit,” Lan Xichen noted as he lifted the spell. “You need to treat your guest with courtesy, unlike this.”
Lan Wangji glanced ahead again. There was the faintest of smiles on his lips, something that made him look like a child caught doing a naughty trick. With some more care, Lan Xichen looked at the man next to the donkey. An odd character that looked more like a vagabond than anything else, and yet Lan Xichen was sure he had seen those features before. Very curious. If he’d had time to ask more questions… but he was awaited elsewhere.
Hopefully, nothing bad would happen while he was away.
It was a surprise to meet Lan Wangji in Tanzhou, when last he’d known his brother was in another part of the country to study this mysterious cursed arm that had been found in Mo Village.
Lan Wangji explained, in as few words as he could, what had happened since their last meeting. None of it was particularly pleasant to hear. That business with a powerful corpse cut into parts and hidden was worrying to say the least, and hearing Xue Yang had still been active until recently was upsetting. None of that, however, brought Lan Xichen as much uneasiness as hearing his brother had not been alone on these adventures.
“I’m surprised you travel with such a companion,” Lan Xichen said with as much tact as he could. While away, he had been told the exact identity of his brother’s new friend: Mo Xuanyu. That mere name had Lan Xichen shiver in barely repressed disgust. No wonder his face had been familiar back then. And this was the man his brother had brought into Cloud Recesses, who he had extensively travelled with, quite publicly.
“Hm.”
“I imagine you have heard his reputation. It is surprising he could help as much as you say he did, he is apparently a poor cultivator.”
“Hm.”
Lan Xichen’s eyes narrowed. Lan Wangji, already taciturn by nature, had become much worse since the disappearance of a certain person they avoided talking about. Still, Lan Xichen prided himself in his capacity to interpret his brother’s silences. At the moment he could not, and he suspected this was done on purpose.
“You need to be careful to not be seen with that man. Those who know him also know why he was driven away from Koi Tower. His tastes are…”
“The same as mine.”
Lan Xichen paled. In thirteen years, they had never once spoken of that. To hear it said so plainly, and while discussing a man such as Mo Xanyu who was everything Lan Wangji wasn’t…
“Is that why you took him along?”
Lan Wangji considered the question, taking far too long to answer.
“No,” he said at last, but there was the ghost of a smile on his lips, a hint of mischief, just as there had been when he’d brought Mo Xuanyu into Cloud Recesses.
“Then why?”
Another long silence.
“It seemed a good idea,” Lan Wangji simply stated, as if that were an explanation.
Lan Xichen pondered that answer. For a few minutes, they walked in silence.
“It is normal for any human to want companionship,” he said at last. “I told you once that we would welcome whoever your heart chose. I did not know at the time what your preferences were, but I will reiterate that blessing… with some amends. You cannot go against your own nature, but I am sure you can find a better cultivation partner than this. There are things I cannot share, but I will say this: Mo Xuanyu was not expulsed from Koi Tower without reason, and that punishment was the kindest one they could have chosen.”
“You think little of my tastes.”
“I think compared to Mo Xuanyu, your previous infatuation was not such a bad one.”
Lan Wangji huffed at that, his mouth turned up in a rare smile, one that even a stranger might have recognised as such. He was laughing, and that left Lan Xichen more confused than ever.
“So Wei Wuxian would have been better,” Lan Wangji noted in a pensive voice, as if this were important information that he might need to remember.
Lan Xichen wanted to protested that this was not at all what he had meant, but cries coming from a distance prevented him for explaining himself. Forgetting about their conversation, they hurried toward the source, only to find their juniors being attacked by an odd corpse. One whose movement, though erratic, were familiar to the point of painfulness for Lan Xichen. That thing was too similar to Nie Mingjue in body and actions for it to be a coincidence.
To make matters worse, Mo Xuanyu had opinions on the matters, opinions he shared with the Lan brothers quite naturally. To hear a man such as this make accusations against Jin Guangyao would have normally been infuriating, but there was something odd to his manner.
This was not the Mo Xuanyu that Lan Xichen had met on occasions at Koi Tower, nor did his behaviour fit with what he had been told after a certain incident lead to the young man’s expulsion. In fact, he even seemed different from what he had been some weeks earlier, when Lan Xichen had seen him crying and clinging to his donkey like a child to its mother.
Odd how a man could change in so little time. Odder still how Lan Wangji appeared to trust this stranger, how his body always imperceptibly leaned toward Mo Xuanyu when he spoke. Their conjoined theory about Jin Guangyao was one that Lan Xichen could not bear to consider at the present time, but it stood on good evidence and could not be dismissed entirely either.
It was at Lan Wangji’s great insistence that Lan Xichen agreed to have Mo Xuanyu come with them at the Discussion Conference in Koi Tower. He would rather have avoided bringing that man anywhere near Jin Guangyao, but short of the sordid truth nothing could have change Lan Wangji’s mind, and that truth was not to be shared outside of Lanling Jin Sect.
Besides, and though he would not admit it, Lan Xichen found himself more and more intrigued by this Mo Xuanyu character. There was something to his attitudes, to his manner of speech, that felt both familiar and at odds with what he ought to have been. Lan Xichen had been worried when Lan Wangji had half hinted at his interest in Mo Xuanyu, but as they travelled toward Koi Tower, some of his apprehensions were assuaged. This man was surprisingly clever, a skilled musician, he was kind to the juniors, and he often made Lan Wangji smile. Perhaps more importantly, he appeared to have genuine affection for Lan Wangji, teasing him gently, understanding some of his silences, treating him as if he were an old friend. To call that love might have been too much, but it looked like a step in that direction.
If Lan Xichen hadn’t known what he knew about Mo Xuanyu, he might have thought his brother had found a worthy companion at last. Still, between Mo Xuanyu and that other man thirteen years before, there was no denying that Lan Wangji had a taste for scandalous men.
Or more distressingly, he had a taste for one specific scandalous man.
A scandalous man whom Lan Wangji brought back to Cloud Recesses after the debacle at Koi Tower. As if that wouldn’t be the first place people would want to search, after seeing the two of them escape together. For Lan Xichen, it had brought back terrible memories of everything that had happened after the massacre at Nightless city. Scandal, blood, a flight on Bichen. Once again, Wei Wuxian had found a way to ruin his brother’s life.
Suddenly, all those behaviours that Lan Xichen had found nearly endearing when they were coming from Mo Xuanyu became abhorrent when he knew that they came from Wei Wuxian. He could have forgiven the errors of a confused young man who took admiration for his own brother a little too far… but he couldn’t forgive the marks on Lan Wangji’s skin, the years of pain both before and after tragedy struck.
It was painful to watch Lan Wangji sitting at Wei Wuxian’s side while he recovered from the wound that didn’t manage to kill him. It reminds him of that time in the cave. There too, Lan Wangji had saved Wei Wuxian and hidden him, there too he stayed at his side and helped him heal.
“I would have thought you wiser than this,” Lan Xichen scolded him, struggling to keep anger from his voice. “Making the same mistake twice is not like you, Wangji.”
“Hm.”
There was a tenderness in Lan Wangji’s eyes as he watched Wei Wuxian that was nearly unbearable to see.
“Things are different,” he said, never looking away from the sleeping man.
“What makes you so sure of that?”
The answer to that question came from Wei Wuxian himself, who started struggling in his sleep, as if in prey to a nightmare.
“Lan Zhan,” he called out, blinding reaching around him until his hand found one of Lan Wangji’s sleeves and desperately grasped at it.
“I am here.”
“Don’t… don’t be angry,” Wei Wuxian muttered, almost a plea.
“I am not angry,” Lan Wangji reassured him.
The words had immediate effect. Wei Wuxian relaxed, as if that had been the main issue of his nightmare, but didn’t let go of the fabric. There was silence for a moment. Lan Xichen wondered what to make of that, if that was the reason his brother believed things had changed between him and the man who broke his heart. Then, as Lan Wangji moved to rise from his seat, Wei Wuxian’s other hand came to grab his arm, pulling it to him and hugging it close.
“I’ll go with you!” he shouted, his eyes still closed as he held onto Lan Wangji like his life depended on it. “Quick, take me back to your sect!”
Slowly, Wei Wuxian opened his eyes. There was something in the way he stared at Lan Wangji and clung to him, something that mirrored too closely the way Lan Wangji had looked at him and held him while he was asleep. Whatever was passing between those two, it was so open and raw that Lan Xichen felt as if his presence were an intrusion on something private. He did not want to leave them alone, not now that he knew the truth, but he still went behind a screen to let them have that moment.
Lan Xichen could refuse to believe Wei Wuxian’s usual flirtations, but he doubted the man was such a good actor he could have faked this. Perhaps Lan Wangji was right. Things were different.
Over the years, Lan Xichen had made many mistakes. He was only human, and with that came wrongful judgments and biases. Some of those mistakes had had to do with his brother. For a long time, he’d believed the worst thing he had done had been to not be more insistent when he had realised Lan Wangji was in love, that he hadn’t forced the confession out of him and talked some sense into that boy.
Now, as he stood in a temple in company of Jin Guangyo, Jin Ling and the much despised Wei Wuxian, Lan Xichen realised that perhaps a bigger mistake had been to trust Jin Guangyo too much. What secret hadn’t he shared with his sworn brother? What wouldn’t he have done to help this clever man who worked so hard to keep the cultivation world at peace? He had trusted Jin Guangyo more than anyone in his life, and all for what? For every good action he’d done, it now appeared Jin Guangyo had done three evil deeds.
It hurt to hear Jin Guangyo taunt Wei Wuxian with the knowledge of Lan Wangji’s affection for him.
It hurt far more to realise Wei Wuxian had no idea what that meant.
“What yearning? What happy ending?” Wei Wuxian asked, his voice nearly breaking on the words.
Looking at the confusion in that man’s eyes, Lan Xichen found himself torn between pity and anger. At first, anger was what took over him when he explained to Wei Wuxian how Lan Wangji had protected him, even after he had provoked so much horror in Nightless City. But the more he spoke, the more Wei Wuxian’s brilliant self assurance fell apart, one piece at a time, until nothing was left but a man torn between worry and hope. Lan Xichen nearly pitied him.
Wei Wuxian really was just a little stupid then, in that way brilliant men could be when they forgot other people too could feel. Once Lan Wangji joined them, Wei Wuxian never really left his side again as other events unfolded around them and more secrets were revealed. He looked like a man who had discovered a great treasure and did not want to risk having it taken from him.
And Lan Wangji was a treasure indeed, one more precious than someone like Wei Wuxian deserved.
Peace returned to the cultivation world, but it had left Lan Xichen’s heart for good. The death of Jin Guangyao was a heavy weight to bear, no matter how cold and cruel the man had been to those around him. With Lan Xichen, he had never been anything but a kind friend.
Lan Xichen wondered if that was how his brother had felt, after the siege of the Burial Mounds. If he too had struggled to reconcile the man he’d known in private, and the actions taken in public… but no, even that was an unfair comparison. If they had all learned one thing, it was that Wei Wuxian hadn’t been quite as bad as rumours claimed.
Not a good man, but not evil either.
It still struck him when, sometimes, he passed near the Jingshi and saw Wei Wuxian chatting happily with Lan Sizhui, Lan Wangji standing right next to them. Lan Xichen still felt discomfort over the way his brother looked at the man he shamelessly called his husband, but at least there would be moments when Wei Wuxian would turn to Lan Wangji, his expression showing all the love he felt for the other man. Things couldn’t have been further from what they were long ago in that dreadful cave, when Lan Wangji’s desperate love was stained by pain, when Wei Wuxian was so consumed by his own rage and grief he rejected the last person who wanted to stand at his side.
Lan Xichen was slow to anger but quick to forgive. After some months, the sight of Wei Wuxian wasn’t so unbearable to him anymore.
After so many years, it was hard to change his mind on Wei Wuxian, but he worked on doing that, for his brother’s sake. Perhaps the man had genuinely never known of Lan Wangji’s feelings, too caught up in everything else that was going on. Lan Xichen wondered how things would have turned out for these two, if the Wen had not wrecked the world and forced them onto such paths. They might have found each other earlier, but it was just as likely that without such tragic events to bring them close, they would have gone their separate ways.
“You look happy,” Lan Xichen told his brother one day, as they watched Wei Wuxian and the younger disciples try to catch the rabbits after they had escaped. “He is a better man than I thought.”
Lan Wangji smiled at that, one of those rare true smiles that could be recognised as such by anyone seeing it. After so many years of struggles, finally he had the one thing that had been missing in his life. Lan Wangji had his family, his sect, his night hunts, a son he adored… and he had, at last, the affection of the man for whom he had risked everything.
“I really am happy for you,” Lan Xichen repeated, and he found that he meant it.