Chapter Text
he could feel the buzzing at the tip of his fingers, which was surprising at the moment seeing he could barely feel much else.
later on, he would try to explain to his therapist, the one xichen forced him into seeing, what he felt in the best way he could, completely aware that there were not enough words in any language known to men that would manage to describe it fully.
“it felt like i had never had a taste of water in my life until he showed up.” and wei wuxian was a force of nature by all accounts. he was the flood that brought life to the dried land and destruction to all that men claimed to be his.
and lan wangji could do nothing but sink.
wei wuxian was cruel in that, of all the things he showed the other, instead of teaching him how to swim, lan wangji learned how to breath underwater.
“they drained the flood.” they built a dam with concrete blocks and missile proof glass. in a complete act of violence and self righteousness and what could only be described as men playing god. “i was drowning in fresh air.”
he could not recall his surroundings at that moment, when his knees gave out under him and something inside his head clicked, but he felt the cracks spreading in his chest from inside out, destroying everything in his path; like god was punishing him for allowing such thing to happen.
and maybe that was what it was 一 he reckoned some time in the future; one that he was still there, still breathing and waking up at morning and suffering.
it was god’s punishment for all of his sins.
he never believed in a god before. the universe, as he vaguely remembered from the few times he spent with his mother, is the master of all things, and we are but blessed to have been able to experience an existence, doesn’t matter how brief.
“the universe isn’t good, and it isn’t bad,” she would say, stroking her hand through his hair. “it simply is.”
but that wasn’t true. it mustn't be.
because lan wangji was certain that, for the universe to exist, it was dependable on the existence of one wei wuxian.
and seeing that things didn’t cease to exist when he did, the obvious conclusion was that, there was a god, a punishing, merciless god, toying with them behind the scenes.
and wei wuxian was the collateral damage in lan wangji’s existence.
“death doesn’t happen to you.”
it took around seven minutes for the man to understand that the encompassing noise he was hearing was being produced by him.
“it happens to those who stay.”
the seven minutes it took to lan xichen find him, and pull him to his chest, and beg, and beg.
“those who have to learn how to be in a existence where you no longer are .”
rocking his baby brother, trying to distance themselves from the edge of the ship, as the younger tried to grasp at the few metal pieces that were meant to serve as a protection. “lan zhan, please.” he wouldn’t be heard even if the man wasn’t screeching, seeing as, he too, barely even managed to get the words out himself.
at some point wangji stopped yelling. which was all that more worrying.
lan xichen held whatever was left of his baby brother in his arms for 15 minutes, calling for help until the paramedics arrived to access the situation.
the silence was all consuming in the lan residency in the next 4 months following the accident.
“ptsd, anxiety disorder and social phobia, but what we should be focusing on more heavily is his situational depression.” after a couple of weeks the doctor was finally able to give some type of assessment.
"he said that your brother's refusal and inability to cope with the situation at hand can turn this into a psychotic depression" as much as lan xichen had wanted to be physically present to care for his brother, the situation required as much damage control as possible, and the man was wise and experienced enough to know that their father would not be able to attend to the needs presented in this situation.
as much as there would be jokes about his stiff, one track mindedness, uncle qiren was his best option at managing it all in the best way possible, given their circumstances.
xichen sighed.
"medication."
"if he's willing."
"he won't be, uncle."
"xichen…" the man closed his eyes, knowing what was to come, but not prepared to hear it. "i don't really think we have options here."
there were then 4 months of which lan wangji’s grasp on reality was extraordinarily thin.
he would come to be thankful for it, as time would progress, seeing he did not have the tools to deal with real life at that time.
he was almost certain he would’ve never managed to come back from it, and would be still dependent on his family’s kindness to navigate him through a world where he did not feel any sort of attachment to no more, had it not been for that child.
“i know him.” lan qiren was not one to be startled easily, and he took pride in that, however he could not have predicted that, seemingly at random, on a tuesday afternoon, after turning on the television to see what developments xichen had told him had happened on the case, the shell of the man who used to be his nephew would be inclined, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, to try and stay within the boundaries of his household instead of being still stuck in that damned ship.
“the immigrants that were found that day.” the man motioned at the screen with his chin, gaze fixated on the ravenette, afraid to even blink and have to watch his hopes of regaining some sort of normalcy crumble once more. “your brother finally managed to grant them refugee status.” he followed the man’s glance towards the corner of the image being shown, where the group stood in front of the police station.
an elderly woman rocked in her arms a young child, that could be no older than 3 years old by their size.
almost imperceptibly at first, but then, in an all consuming motion, lan wangji felt something.
something managing to break through the nothingness he was so adamant in taking comfort in.
“i reckoned that it is our duty to create a safer environment for those who cannot manage to do so on their own” those words, when spoken at the time, were done so in a mockingly manner, was lan wangji’s memories correct 一 and they usually were whenever he was concerned; lan wangji was not one to be blessed with oblivion after all.
despite that, he knew he meant it.
wangji remembered seeing the child.
malnourished and dirty and disheveled, but still smiling; still clinging to wei wuxian’s leg.
even though at that point, the grief and the pain and the addiction had already turned him into someone wangji could no longer easily recognise, it would take a blind person to not see that the youngling meant something to the man.
something important.
lan wangji had previously asked why.
why was it that he taking the most difficult route? why was he willingly burning and breaking and ripping himself apart with them?
“i found something i must protect.” he answered without any sort of hesitation, looking at the wrap of blankets in the corner of the container.
and how could wangji not relate to this man when, he too, had something worth protecting.
except, he once more realised, that he failed.
terribly, at that.
“uncle.” lan qiren’s eyebrows went higher than they had in decades. lan wangji would not dare to allow his failures to stump on wei wuxian’s last unspoken request. “could you please call my brother? i must speak to him.”
looking back at that time, lan xichen reckoned that, granting his brother’s wish wasn’t probably the smartest decision he’d ever had.
lan wangji’s grief was acting as his prometheus. though the sacrifice came before the deed, his brother’s actions were indeed that of a champion.
xichen’s mind was fogged but not enough to realise the peril the whole ordeal could bring. however, upon seeing his brother kneel in front of the unknown elderly woman and beg for her approval, he could do nothing but concede.
if this was what he needed, if that child was what it took to have some semblance of the person he used to have back, then xichen would too steal fire from the gods.
lan qiren often thought about what kind of wrongs their past generations must have done, for their stories to sound like epic greek tales, of taking the world and nature upfront, to only have downfall become them.
and much like those first moments, the painstakingly lasting hours turned into days, and long before wangji could realise, chopin’s prelude was resounding across his living room, played to a great accuracy when considering his son was now no older than 7 years of age, have been practicing the piece for no longer than 2 weeks 一 having piano lesson for barely 6 months 一, but unsurprisingly so, taking into account his perfect pitch, to all of the lan family’s pride and joy.
“father?” sizhui’s gentle voice sounded calmly from his seat on his father’s lap, his whole body unmoving with the exception of his arms, that expertly stroked the keys on the white piano forte in front of both of them.
had it been with anyone else, except his father and his uncle, sizhui’s demeanor would seem to be as calm and stable as ever.
however, that was for those whot did not raise the child. and lan wangji could see the slight bit of tremor on his left hand, and the sudden stiffness that appeared to run through his slender yet small body 一 clear indicator that he was currently struggling to word whatever it was he thought needed to be said.
“yes?”
it was a couple of minutes before the child gathered enough courage to voice his intention, wangji allowing him to mentally prepare for as long as deemed necessary.
“i would like to pick up the dizi.”
wangji prides himself in his self control.
never allowing those emotions that his poor uncle and brother, and his irrefutable father, had to put up with for so long, to affect his child.
in that moment, however, his control slipped.
as he abruptly went stiff in his seat, sizhui missed a note and started rushing through the melody, the tremor in his hand more and more apparent.
berating himself for his exasperation, wangji took a deep breath before raising his hands to carefully remove his son’s arms from their position, stopping the melody altogether.
“how long have you been considering it?” he wondered out loud, helping sizhui’s arms to rest alongside his torso as he rubbed circles on the boy’s hands. he gave the smallest of shrugs.
“i don’t remember exactly. quite a while probably.”
“and why did you keep your wish to yourself for so long?”
another beat of silence.
“i’ve heard grandfather qingheng speak once of instruments with grandfather qiren.” he fiddled with his fingers before grabbing 2 of his father’s on each hand. “he spoke of how infuriated you have become with flutes and the like. i thought you would disapprove.”
wangji left out a deep breath while closing his eyes.
“your grandfather can certainly be overprotective at times.” with a swift motion he turned sizhui around in his lap, in order to look him in the eyes. “father does not have a problem with anything that you might desire to do, as long as it does not harm yourself, or others.” he passed a hand through the youngling’s hair, tucking a loose strand behind his ear.
the small smile showed both gratitude and hope.
“does that mean i don’t have to do gymnastics if i don’t want to?”
wangji’s eyebrow furrowed in contempt.
“unfortunately, your grandfather qiren is not quite as understanding as i am.” heaven’s knew how the older made it seem like a matter of family pride and honour, that the lans must be as physically apt as the human condition would allow.
with the smile now gone from his face, sizhui’s arms embraced his father’s neck, and with a quick ‘thank you’ he was off to his room.
as soon as the door clicked the lock in place, wangji was gasping for air.
with unsteady legs, he stumbled his way to his own bedroom, his left hand scratching at his neck ferociously, as if trying to open up a passway of sorts, as his eyes burned.
he fell to his knees by his nightstand, opening the drawers with desperate hands as the world around him spinned and the walls closed in on him.
the teardrops that fell on his lap and ran down his face onto his shirt sent him back to that day, as the water hit the sides of the ship and splashed all over whoever dared to stand on top of it, and he was screaming again.
looking around frantically, desperately.
hoping to god he was not too late.
every now and then, whenever this would happen, he could hear a scream that was not part of his memories.
a shriek, somewhere faraway from where he stood.
his psychologist classified it as his mind’s way to physically manifest the tug that he felt that moment, that ended up driving his legs to run in the direction they did.
as a way to make sense of out of chaos.
and once again, by the time that he arrived it was too late.
he was too late.
and nothing in the world would fix it.
he popped the cap of the pill container and downed down an amount that would be considered overdosing by any medical professional, in any board, across the entire globe.
lan wangji was too late and, because of that, nothing in the world would ever be the same again.
he scrambled up to his bed, almost crawling his way up, as his heart felt like it would either stop altogether or beat so fast it would explode.
lan wangji was too late that day, and the months before that too, and now he would have to live the rest of his life, this life that he was forced to live in, knowing that he would never be ok again.
he patted around the surface until he found one of his pillows, and immediately placed it on top of his head.
lan wangji was too late and for that he’d never be a person again, just an empty shell of a man.
he pressed the pillow down and yelled.
this type of episode would be recurring in the next few years, and what felt like dying then, was but a distant memory now.
“i honestly believe that, where we are at now, is a fairly stable place.” his psychiatrist said, and, would her patient been anyone else, she would’ve received a scoff as an answer.
she knew lan wangji enough by now, however, to learn to read the shift of his breath as a disagreement.
“i know you might not feel like it, but that is because you’ve been there for every second of your progress.” she tapped her pencil against the notebook in her lap. “this is much like whenever a-yuan would go back to school, from vacation, and all his teachers and peers would marvel at how much he’d grown. you were not as shocked as they were seeing you stood besides him every day, his change to you was imperceptible.”
lan wangji would’ve liked to disagree.
he would’ve liked to point out how abnormally fast sizhui’s growth spur had been, and how it seemed that everyday he seemed to get taller by at least an inch.
it would be pointless, however.
the woman was carefully chosen by her stubbornness and strong will.
meng yao’s doctor friend of sorts, coming to the lan family, at their time of need, in the highest of recommendations.
the woman was not afraid of punching sense into her patients if needed be.
“from not being able to cope with being alive to,” the blond quickly raised her eyebrows. “rapid and uncalculated decisions, highly unlike your personality, to frequent dissociative episodes, self medicating,” she looked briefly at him before looking away and scratching the tip of her nose. “to self-destructing behaviour, paired with constant panic attacks, i mean-” she shrugged a bit. “how long has it been since you last had an episode?”
“6 months.” lan wangji would not give himself credit for it even if his life depended on it, deciding that it most definitely was the medicine keeping the demons at bay.
even though they were lowering his doses steadily and increasingly for the past 2 years, leaving him dramatically far from emaciated state he would prefer to be in.
“that would be unthinkable 5 years ago.”
“i suppose.”
“lan wangji,” he realised she was calling his attention over after a couple of minutes in silence. he looked in front of him to see the woman with her elbows rested on her knees and a smirk playing at her lips. “you’ve survived. you’ve made a name for yourself as one of the most renowned lawyers in the country. you’ve raised a beautiful, intelligent, talented son, who’s by anyone’s standard a prodigy. and you’ve survived.” in her words lan wangji could hear the echoes of what she had said in the first sessions, more than a decade ago.
“he’ll pull through.” she promised to a crying lan xichen, as wangji laid in a bed, unmoving, slowly losing all touch with reality. “he will survive this.”
“i’m not saying you’re healed,” she conceded. “but i’m saying that you have now the tools, to be the father your son needs to have. to be the brother xichen deserves.”
“even if it’s all pretend?” the man asked almost immediately, making the woman retract a bit.
she looked over at the clock on the table before letting out a sigh.
“fake it till you make it?” she mocked, offering him the most honest smile that she could, as she got up. wangji mimicked her movements. “next session we will start talking about survivor’s guilt, ok?” she walked towards the door, her heels clicking onto the wooden floor. “i might be a decade overdue there.” she chuckled.
“dr. xie.” wangji bowed slightly towards her after she opened the door for him, receiving back a nod.
“ah, wangji.” he was halfway through the corridor when her voice called out to him.
the man turned around to see the petite blond still standing on the threshold, leaning onto the door frame with crossed arms.
“you need a haircut.” she advised, making wangji’s hand shot up to touch the locks that were now past his shoulders.
he nodded once more, before turning around and leaving.
“mrs. luo.” he greeted when his secretary picked up the phone, as he made the turn to the freeway.
“good morning mr. lan, how was your session today?” the woman’s voice sounded throughout the car.
“uneventful.”
“i would consider that better than disastrous.” and there had been disastrous sessions in the past. “a-yuan has landed safely in taipei half an hour ago sir.” the man hummed in understandment. “mr. guo and mr. chang are confirmed at 9 o’clock to go over the settlement procedures, after that you have mrs. wang at 11 to start discussing the shares transfers, then lunch with your uncle at 1, and we return at 3 with mr. jin to enter the divorce procedures.”
lan wangji was not a man who’s emotions were on shown on his sleeve, but he could not help but audibly groan at that.
while he admired his brother for his yearly humanitarian trips to help those in need alongside the united nations committee, that usually meant that whatever jin matters, both business and personal, would fall into his lap, as they, understandably so, had a long settled mistrust with their competitors .
“anything else, sir?”
“that would be all.” as he signaled to change lanes, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. “actually, mrs. luo?”
“yes, sir?”
“schedule an appointment for me at the barber shop this evening.”
“gladly, sir.” he could hear her chuckle.
most days were hard. because they were.
being alive when you had no desire to was something that took a tool on a person.
that thursday, however, was proving to be specially trying.
by lunchtime wangji was already exhausted.
drained both mentally and physically.
the settlement had fallen through as mr. guo had found out, just the night before, that his fortune teller had passed away. and having no one to check the auspiciousness of said trade in such short notice, he had refused to sign any papers.
wangji spent almost an entire hour trying to convince the man of overcoming such frivolous reasoning to no avail.
he would’ve been better potty training his bunnies.
to make matters worse, mrs. wang had decided to unload on him, all the reasons for her mistrust in her frivolous son.
what was supposed to be a consultation of 45 minutes had turned into over 2 hours, with lan wangji having to adamantly refuse her invitations to have lunch together, ultimately needing mrs. luo to almost forcibly drag the woman out of his office.
never had he been so thankful for his uncle’s constant check ups on him whenever his brother was out of town.
“forgive me for my tardiness.” he apologised as he sat across his uncle on the table.
“punctuality is the greatest mark of a man’s character, lan zhan.” the older tapped onto his pocket watch before closing and tucking it away. lan wangji thanked the waitress as she handed him the menu. “perhaps you should consider going back to gymnastic class to rethink the priorities in life.”
and just like that, lan wangji considered forfeiting his lunch altogether.
“it won’t happen again.” he stated. “nangchang jar, please, thank you.” he ordered without even the menu, promptly returning it to her hands.
“it better not. otherwise, we might run into some trouble.” the man linked his fingers, resting both his index fingers onto his lips, immediately prompting wangji to furrow his brows.
so this was not a check-up lunch as he previously had thought.
“why is that?”
“i’ve recently spoken to your brother, and giving the importance of the matter he’s decided that you should hear it as soon as possible, in order to prepare for what’s to come.” the white-haired man took a sip of the glass of water sitting on the table before continuing. “since he is not in town to deliver the news personally, the task has been laid upon my shoulder.”
something tightened around his throat and he was glad suddenly made glad for the double dosage of his klonopin earlier that day.
“they are reopening the investigation.”
lan wangji tilted his head ever so slightly.
“the luanzang investigation.” and as for stoic as his uncle was, lan wangji could see the tips of his fingers turning white as he held tighter onto the glass.
the last time something of the sorts happened, wangji’s, then very thin, grip with reality was all but severed.
although now he understands, how he could’ve, and should’ve, handled things differently, he didn’t bother to fool anyone into thinking he regretted his actions.
he’d do it again, and again, if he thought necessary.
he only regretted not taking sizhui into account, and how the consequences to his actions might have affected his son.
that was a decade ago, however.
and it had been quite a considerable amount of time since he heard that name.
“whatever for?” he asked after coming to the conclusion that getting up and leaving, not only would not solve his problems, as it would be an extremely rude act towards an elder.
“one of the refugees- oh thank you.” he said as the waitresses placed their food on the table. “apparently her brother suffered some type of injury coming from the accident. for some reason or another, she only now was able to reach a lawyer and would like to sue the jin’s for compensations.”
“before the statute of limitations is up.”
“yes.”
in order to be able to move forward with the process, they would need to re-open the case.
“it’s fine. we’ll just settle it.”
“i’m afraid it’s more complicated than that.”
wangji put down his spoon as he looked at his uncle, who for some reason didn’t held his gaze.
“what-” then, realisation hit. “ no. ”
“the jiang’s are representing her on this.”
wangji had to go through all the same techniques he was forced to learn while in group therapy, all those years ago.
amazingly, still no one managed to raise a reaction out of him quite the same way they did.
“what would they possibly gain from this? is she rich?”
“they’re doing pro-bono.”
the younger scoffed .
“they want to hurt us.”
“that’s why you should be prepared.”
lan wangji pushed his bowl away on the table, without even touching it at all, before getting up.
“they’re not going to win.”
“that’s not what we are concerned about.” qiren said, with his mouth pulled on a straight line, and his brows furrowed.
lan wangji stood there, looking at his uncle, knowing he was expecting a promise he could not keep.
“forgive me, uncle, but i have a tight schedule today.” was all the man said before leaving the restaurant.
lan wangji would’ve very much liked to steer his car a couple of blocks away from the gusu enterprise’s building and settle this matter right that afternoon.
he knew, however, that the deeds of a 21 years old, grief stricken, recently graduated boy, who decided to try and heal a hole in his soul through self-righteously inflicted violence, would not have the same repercussions as that of the 33 years old, second chair of the biggest law firm of all of asia.
so he drove himself to his office.
and forced himself to live another day on a world where justice did not seem to apply to those who needed it the most.
jin guangshan was as unhelpful as one would have imagined him to be.
for over 7 years now, jin tech unltd. was run by meng yao, with his father being no more than an allegory of power. kept out of the loop in order to protect not only the company, but also himself.
ignorance was indeed blizz, lan wangji reckoned as the man seemed as unbothered by any and all events related to the real world as he had ever been.
he too insisted in not breaking the pattern of frivolous time wasting that his clients decided to follow that day, as he chose to focus not only on his current failing marriage, as he did on the previous 6.
when lan wangji finally freed himself from the man, he was left with a list of helpful tips for a long lasting marriage.
he did not know what was more incredulous; to receive such type of advice from jin guangshan of all people, or the belief that he would be engaging in matrimony with anyone in the future.
“you seem tense mr. lan.” wen minghoo said as he combed his hair back. “i reckon that’s why i haven’t seen you lately.”
“i keep losing track of when i should visit.” the man explained as he sent some emails to business partners and alike, through his phone.
“perhaps we should make an appointment for every other month?”
“hm.” that would be wise. as bad as lan wangji was dealing with changes of time, he was a lan and once a lan had an appointment, other than a serious matter of unforeseeable circumstances, they would make it.
“same length, sir?”
“hm.”
he did not exactly remembered when it happened, but apparently he had a prefered type of haircut.
lan sizhui pointed it out once, over at dinner with some friends from school, how unless his father forgot to go to the barber, his hair was always at chin’s length.
although it was now considered a fashion stance, lan wangji kept it so out of pure practicality.
he allowed his mind to wonder as he scrolled through notes and emails, in order to try and keep himself grounded.
he could not afford to take a misstep.
not now.
suddenly, his phone was ringing.
“yes, mrs. luo.”
“sir.” the woman seemed out of breath, and her surroundings were noisier than they commonly should for the time. “we have a problem. there’s been a problem with a-yuan in taipei.”
and just like that she opened the door of the barber shop, disheveled and red on the face.
“you need to go there right now, sir.”
lan wangji furrowed his brows and got up at once, before accessing the danger of doing so while someone held a scissor so close to his head.
“what happened to my son?”