Work Text:
The rules.
It was during one of Lan Xichen’s more difficult days that he saw his brother’s heart break.
It was not intentional on his part. He had woken up that morning with a burst of energy and a confusion he did not know how to deal with.
He had jumped out of bed with the thought that he had not seen Jin Guangyao in far too long. His sleep addled brain had wondered why he had not sought his sworn brother out before his self-imposed seclusion. He was sure Jin Guangyao would have had thoughtful words for him. But then the first rays of light had slowly revealed the world to him.
Jin Guangyao was dead.
As the realization of his relatively new reality had sank further in, he found himself going though motions without much thought. He fixed his robes with shaking hands and started to groom himself into how a clan leader should look. Crisp lines on his robes. Hair brushed neatly and styled. The act brought no sense of relief. The normality of it all absurd in the face of the shit storm that was his life. He sat on his bed, time flowed past with no care to the pain that incapacitated him mid-routine.
That was how Lan Zhan had found him. Sat on the bed, hair ribbon still held loosely in his hand rather than neatly knotted around his forehead. It was noon, and his breakfast sat untouched in front of his residence. That was not the GusuLan way.
“Brother.” Lan Zhan's voice was a rope saving him from drowning in the stretched-out moment of despair he was sinking into.
Gentle hands wiped at his face. Had he been crying? He did not realize. Lan Zhan took the ribbon from his hands and tied it around his head, A fraction tighter than his own usual preference.
“Have breakfast with me.” He moved to the study, giving Lan Xichen time and space to gather back the will to exist.
He settles in front of his brother, the breakfast tray neatly arranged. An unappetizing spread lay before him, and underneath Lan Zhan’s sharp eyes, he eats reluctantly. Before long he finds his stomach full. They sat a while in silence. Lan Xichen lost in his own thought, while Lan Zhan slowly despaired in front of him.
“Brother please. I need you to listen.” Lan Zhan’s eyes were fixated on the nearly untouched breakfast laid in front of him. “There are rules that you must abide by.”
Despite the empty hollow inside, Lan Xichen found a smile. He finds affection growing in the darkness, a tiny ray of light at his brother’s attempt to copy the words he had once said to Lan Zhan in the early days after the bloodbath of Nightless City. After Wei Wuxian seemingly disappeared from their lives forever. There are rules that you must abide by, Lan Zhan. I need you to do this for me.
“You must wake up every morning.” Lan Zhan continued, meeting his eyes without hesitation. His voice a steady, anchoring presence. “You will clean yourself. You will eat your breakfast. You will spend the day in a place that is not your room, you must not return to your room before night fall. And you will eat your dinner.” He finds comfort in his brother’s unchanging quiet support.
“Thank you, brother. I know.”
“You must do this every day.” Lan Zhan insists, half stern and half pleading. “Every day.”
There are many things in this world that he shared only with Lan Zhan. And there are very few things he would not grant him.
“I promise I will.”
---
Wake up.
He wakes at 5am, because his body tells him to. Decades of habit will not be undone by any one thing. Not even the illusion of a happy life crumbling all around him. His best friends both dead and buried. His chosen brothers, both betrayed. His heart, broken.
Waking up and waking up are two different things, he discovers. One involves the opening of his eyes. The slow realization that today is a day like any other, except that it’s not, because life has changed for better and worse. The other is gathering the will to move.
The second, he finds to be an unpredictable process. There are days when dressing is not complicated. Days when he is able to work through the routine of putting on his clothes, one layer at a time. But then there are days like today, when it feels much too difficult. Where he must focus on moving through the sludge that has replaced the air around him, weighing down on his chest, holding down his limbs, slowing his movement.
These are the days he hates himself a little bit. Anger making its way through the despair.
Self-indulgence had always been frowned upon in Cloud Recesses, and what is grief but a prolonged moment of self-indulgence in the form of pity. Lan Xichen calms his breathing which had picked up in the moment. Annoyance at circumstances beyond his control bleeding into annoyance at himself.
What is grief, but a misguided missile running through the worst of his thoughts.
“Do not punish yourself for things you would not punish me for.” Lan Zhan had admonished him, the last time they spoke.
He takes in a slow breath and works through his tangled thoughts. There is time enough for introspection later. But right now, he must vacate his bed.
---
Clean yourself.
As if mimicking his thoughts, the washcloth in his hand feels especially heavy today. Textures he never noticed before feeling somehow sharp and coarse on his skin. He found satisfaction in the sear of the hot water and the rub of the cloth along his skin. It was not pain, but it was not comfort. It was an awakening of senses that reminded him, I am here, I am alive.
He forces himself to let go of the earlier burst of anger, washing it away with last night’s remnants of unsettled rest. Sweat and anxiety cleansed away.
Lan Xichen was a man of logic. But as a Lan, emotions run deep. Love had always been his family’s falling. His mother and father’s love story on the forefront of his mind. His uncle’s love for his father running a close second. A deep and forgiving love that in the end left his father in solitary seclusion for the rest of his life, and his uncle with two young boys needing guidance. And himself and Lan Zhan with warped ideas of love.
And Lan Zhan. It pains him to this day to remember his brother as he slowly put himself back together. Drifting from day to day, with only short bursts of awareness when A-Yuan was in his arms.
He had long denied himself romantic entanglements because he has seen nothing positive in the way romantic love has played a part in his family member’s lives.
No. Instead he had poured all that love out onto his sworn brothers. In the end he was still blinded by love. He was disappointed in himself for falling into the Lan’s age-old story of blind faith. He was disappointed in himself for failing so many people.
Lan Xichen puts away the washcloth away, and wipes at his eyes tiredly.
---
Eat.
He eats because he must. Lan Zhan has left him with very specific instructions. Three bites from every plate at breakfast. Four bites from every plate at dinner. At the very least.
There was a comfort in following the rules that his brother had set.
That he had set for Lan Zhan so long ago.
He understood the theory of having simple rules to follow in dealing with aftermath of personal tragedy. He had read books and talked to people. He understood the anatomy of grief. But on the other side of it, he felt lost and helpless anyway. There are times when he felt like he was nothing more than a receptor for emotions that his mind understood logically, but his heart rejected wholeheartedly.
He chews slowly, ruminating on the day.
Today is quiet in the way that unsettles him, and he is helpless in the face of too many hours left till sundown. He sighs and forces himself to focus on the daunting pile of food in front of him. Just two more bites from each plate to go. It was… doable.
A meagre intake of nutrients for someone of his height, but it was all he could consume before his stomach would inevitably protest. Maybe tomorrow he will force himself to have a few more bites.
One day at a time, he once told Lan Zhan.
---
Spend time outside of the bedroom.
He stays in his study, a ghost in his own home, a whisper of displaced wind and the soft thud of an ungraceful descent to his seat. He had cleared away his breakfast in favour of a pile of correspondences that greet him.
Seclusion was supposed to be a time of quiet contemplation, but an idle mind is one that he cannot tolerate, even in his current state. The itch to be productive exists. Even though there are days he finds processing one request takes him much too long.
He slowly sorts though the paper piled neatly on his desk. He will need Lan Zhan to properly respond to official requests, but he drafts replies and plans for his busy brother. Uncle will deal with paperwork for incoming disciples, but he helps with lesson plans and grading. He checks over punishments for sloppy or incorrect paragraphs. He works on his own pile of scrolls he forces himself to study.
There is comfort to be had from knowing that even in seclusion, he is not completely useless. The tasks keep him from deep diving into dangerous territories. They bring logic and a connection to the real world that he very much needs. An anchor that keeps him from getting too lost in his own thoughts.
Then there are the letters.
Lan Zhan updates him on sect matters, especially their relationships with other sects. There are short paragraphs every now and again about his run ins with Wei Wuxian. He sighs, still getting used to the worry and anxiety that creeps up whenever the name pops up. It will be along while till he stops worrying about their relationship and Wei Wuxian’s influence over his brother.
Nie Huisang’s pile of letters sat untouched. The first one reached out to him not as fellow clan leaders, but a grieving brother to a grieving brother. An apology that read as stiff and nowhere near as eloquent as he knew Nie Huisang to be.
He understood that the younger man had stewed with the slow burn of rage and anger. But he also understood that opening more letters from Nie Huisang, reading them, and replying to them would require emotions and mental fortitude that he does not have the capability to access right now.
Buried underneath such letters was a curt request for an audience from Jiang Wanyin.
They always had a good relationship, the younger clan leader seeking his company in meetings and gathering throughout the years. Refusing to admit that the other clan leaders were unbearably boring and much too slow for the fiery energy that Jiang Wanyin possessed.
He was grateful that Jiang Wanyin had decided to keep up with their monthly meeting. His scheduled visits, along with Lan Zhan’s own, were a break in the monotony. A welcome distraction. A brief ray of lightness in the days that had started to run together.
And so the hours pass in strange bursts of speed and unbearable slowness.
---
Eat.
He eats because he must. Because he understands that Lan Zhan needs him. Because he has a clan to lead… someday. Because he must not disappoint his uncle. Because there are children outside needing his guidance.
He eats because he must. Because he understands that one day, the gaping wound in his heart will slowly close. An ugly scar bridging damaged trust and broken promises.
He eats because he must.
---
The rules.
“There are rules that you must abide by, Lan Zhan. I need you to do this for me.” Lan Xichen smooths out the scroll he has brought with him. His neat writing clear and commanding, in letters that are easy to digest. He weighs them down with paperweights and fixes their position on the table.
“Hmm?” Lan Zhan’s blank eyes greet him.
“You will eat everyday Lan Zhan. Breakfast and dinner. And you will clean yourself every day. You will also spend time in a place not your bedroom.” He holds his brother’s gaze and wishes with all his heart that he could take a fraction of the pain away.
“It… hurts.” Lan Zhan admits, his voice the quietest that Lan Xichen had ever heard it since their mother’s passing so many years ago. His brother’s knuckles clenching and unclenching, a subtle nervous tick.
“That is why there are rules.”
“Are the thousands we have not enough?”
“Forget them for now. These are enough.” Lan Xichen takes his sleeve to dry his brother’s cheeks. And he holds himself together enough to smile at him. “One day at a time, Lan Zhan.”