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Lan Xichen has known many kinds of silence.
He knows the space between sips of tea and polite nods. He knows the solemn quiet of shared loss and the breathless joy of shared secrets. He knows the stillness after a kiss, after a promise. After it’s broken. And intimately, he knows the brittle distance of a sect who will not tolerate the honest clamour of grief.
He has lived his entire life in things unsaid, but Lan Xichen has never known a silence like Song Lan. For the first time in four years, he finds himself curious.
There are fractures, small at first, in the tedium of Lan Xichen’s life as Song Lan slips into it. They converse in passing, Lan Xichen with his atrophied words, and Song Lan drawing characters in the air with clean strokes of light. He is concise and eloquent, and Lan Xichen wonders if that was true before he lost his voice.
Meeting by chance turns into meeting by intent, and when they talk, they discuss doctrine and poetry over tea or Song Lan describes Wei Wuxian’s latest research while they walk in the garden pavilions.
It feels very nearly ordinary.
After several weeks, Lan Xichen realises he has spent the time cataloguing Song Lan’s expressions, subtle as they are. He can tell the difference between a pause to deliberate and a pause to disagree, spot suppressed frustration and subdued amusement, and he can recognise when the conversation strays too close to the source of sadness that never leaves Song Lan’s eyes.
It’s a furtive thrill to learn someone new. And it’s a lingering ache to see so much of himself reflected there.
The first time Lan Xichen sees Song Lan smile is in the private garden of his mother’s house.
It is the only truly wild place within the walls of the Cloud Recesses, and Lan Xichen finds it more comforting than any of the well-kept ornamental gardens, or the managed forests that surround them. It’s a place abandoned and reclaimed by time and neglect, an unkept, tangled mess of flowers and vines that climb stone and spill onto the paths. In early summer it is resplendent, beautiful in a way that defies every aesthetic sensibility of his family.
Lan Xichen is, of all things, nervous to share it. He swallows around a tight throat and an agitated heartbeat as he slides open the door to the garden and gestures for Song Lan to precede him. But his fear is unfounded; there is nothing but wonder on Song Lan’s face, softening the tension he carries everywhere.
As with many things, Song Lan understands without being told, that Lan Xichen has granted him something private, something to be held in gentle hands. When he has taken his fill of the garden and a breath he doesn’t need, Song Lan turns back and bows.
Lan Xichen’s throat tightens again, but this time with gratitude. He blinks a few times, manages a rickety smile, and leads the way down the mossy stairs.
On the first visit, they don’t speak. They walk along the overgrown paths and peer into the algae-filled ponds with over-large darting shadows in the murk below. The songs of birds and the chime of bells hung from the eaves are a lively accompaniment.
Song Lan is particularly taken with the ginkgo tree at the edge of a pond. He lets his fingers run through the young leaves, his skin chalky white against the vital green shoots.
When a finch lands on his arm, Song Lan freezes, still as a lake in winter, watching it hop along his sleeve. The bird seems entirely unruffled by the grave man beneath the garment. But when Lan Xichen looks at his face, Song Lan’s lips are curled, slightly but unmistakably, into a smile.
Content with the loose thread it has worried from Song Lan’s robes, the bird departs with its prize.
Lan Xichen looks at Song Lan’s mouth for far longer than is proper.
Even after months, the disciples are no less interested in interrogating the visiting daozhang for details of his travels. His undeath — his condition, as it is named in whispers — is forgivable to the more conservative members of the sect, Lan Xichen suspects, because Wangji will not tolerate otherwise.
Song Lan bears the attention with surprising patience considering it is clear, to Lan Xichen at least, that he prefers quieter company.
You do not treat me as a curiosity, he writes in the cold air of an autumn afternoon when the topic comes up, candid in a way he only is within the gardens of Gentian House. Lan Xichen exhales more obviously than he had intended. I mean, Song Lan starts, then pauses. Speaking with you does not feel like a performance.
Lan Xichen nods automatically. “I am pleased to hear that.” A quiet moment stretches between them, unusually tense. The words push past Lan Xichen’s carefully balanced composure and burrow into the lump of hurt he has steadfastly avoided examining.
Performance is a thing he knows well. Knew well, or believed he did. In the dark months following Guanyin Temple, Lan Xichen’s mind had looped endlessly around performance and duty and the role he thought he played.
Before—
Before, he had enjoyed the relative quiet of his sect. Savoured the reverence and peace with which the Lan observed traditions. As a sect leader, he was afforded this hushed respect by simple virtue of his position.
The quality of silence that follows him now is different: brittle and cold and heavy enough to press his own tongue down. It’s been four years, and still, disciples avert their eyes and bow too stiffly, four years and conversations stutter when he approaches. Four years and the Cloud Recesses is never quieter than when Lan Xichen walks through it.
Everyone thinks they know my story, Song Lan writes after a few minutes of only the trees rustling. The events are not a secret, after all. He is looking at Lan Xichen, mouth parted and eyes imploring. He is looking at Lan Xichen like he’s begging for something. But they don’t know. How could they?
He turns away, and his fingers move to the join in the neck of his robes, to the slightly raised lump that Lan Xichen knows to be the remains of Xiao Xingchen’s soul.
But you listen, Song Lan continues. I think you understand better than most.
Lan Xichen wonders what it’s like to be a curiosity. Is it worse to have your grief held up and misunderstood, or to have it go unacknowledged entirely? The same eyes that follow Song Lan everywhere still slip away when Lan Xichen passes.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter which one is worse. It is the same kind of loneliness, in the end.
On the occasions they walk the grounds, disciples — particularly younger ones — stumble into their path with such regularity and unconvincing expressions of surprise, Lan Xichen is embarrassed for them.
Song Lan admits that it rarely happens when he is alone, which is unexpected. When he contemplates it more carefully, Lan Xichen decides that he doesn’t care whether he is the subject of a new kind of gossip, he is simply grateful for the change.
There are still days, however, when the past tolls loudest, and the privacy of vine-covered walls is a refuge.
Today, Lan Xichen leans on the feeble excuse that there is the feeling of rain in the air.
The spell that Song Lan uses to converse is simple, and with it, Lan Xichen writes things he has been holding in his mouth for years. It’s so much easier to admit he hasn’t picked up a sword all this time when his throat isn’t closing around the words.
Song Lan peers at him for a moment, then unsheathes the darker of his two swords. The sharp scrape of metal against metal makes Lan Xichen’s teeth hurt, and he cannot entirely suppress a wince. Watching his face, Song Lan offers the sword to Lan Xichen. He is careful to hold it so their hands won’t touch if Lan Xichen takes it. The air tastes of blood and steel and dust. Lan Xichen’s fingers tremble even as he sits in frozen cowardice.
This is another silence Lan Xichen knows: the kind where expectations decay. How many people have given up asking him to take up his sword again? It seems cruel to have to disappoint Song Lan too.
Still, he doesn’t move.
Nodding, Song Lan sheathes Fuxue again. He doesn’t always breathe perceptibly, but now he sits beside Lan Xichen with his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm as though he’s counting each and every one. There is determination in his eyes when he turns back to Lan Xichen. It might be seconds, or it might be years, but when he finally looks away, Lan Xichen can release a staggering breath.
Song Lan stands to bow, low and reverent. Lan Xichen doesn’t know if it is an apology or an acknowledgement, but it helps slow the clatter of his heart. Song Lan waits a moment, his face open and patient. When Lan Xichen doesn’t say anything, he nods again and leaves.
Lan Xichen sits in the garden until the air tastes like rain again.
They don’t speak of it.
They speak of a great many other things, and sometimes they don’t speak at all. Song Lan is content to simply read or walk or watch the juniors move through their sword forms.
Lan Xichen is content to watch him.
It’s a new thought, fragile and flickering, one he handles carefully, setting it aside whenever it intrudes upon his meditation. One he doesn’t quite know how to unwind from the guilt that wraps around it.
On an evening when winter has finally settled in, Song Lan stays at the Hanshi later than usual, writing shimmering characters in the smoke of the fire. He tells a story of how Xiao Xingchen had once disappeared for an entire day, then returned to their inn muddy and soaked through with fish he’d caught himself and a collection of street children singing songs about his name.
In return, Lan Xichen describes how Mingjue stopped smiling when he became a sect leader because he thought he needed to be serious. But Lan Xichen could always tell when he was suppressing his smile because an echo of a dimple would form in his left cheek. In their youth, Lan Xichen spent all his time trying to coax it out.
Perhaps it is the comfort of happier memories that lowers Lan Xichen’s guard, perhaps it is the mesmerising glow of the embers in the brazier, or perhaps it is the steady, unwavering presence beside him. Maybe all three, but something relaxes enough in Lan Xichen that he falls asleep.
When he wakes, he finds himself slumped gracelessly against Song Lan’s shoulder, horror twisting in his stomach as Song Lan looks down at him. His face is for once not sad, but devastatingly neutral.
Lan Xichen removes himself and clumsily spills apologies strung together with promises of more restraint in the future, ceasing only when Song Lan’s cold hand gently closes around his own. It’s an effective measure to stop Lan Xichen’s panicked words. Along with his breath.
Lan Xichen’s thundering heart must be audible in the still night, but Song Lan gives him a small smile, squeezes his hand once, and looks meaningfully towards the screens that obscure Lan Xichen’s bed.
Impossibly, Lan Xichen’s pulse speeds up.
Song Lan’s meaning becomes apparent when he collects Fuxue and Shuanghua from where they are resting against the table, departing with his customary bow.
Lan Xichen remains sitting in front of the brazier stewing in a complicated mixture of relief, mortification, and an indefinable, aching disappointment.
He sleeps poorly, assuming he has violated the comfortable peace they’d woven together. But the next day, Song Lan returns, and they sit at the base of a waterfall for the entire afternoon before Lan Xichen starts to believe nothing has changed.
He’s wrong, of course, because it changes everything.
Lan Xichen finds himself staring at his hand and remembering the sensation of skin against his own, cold and dry but unmistakably human. It is fitting, he thinks in one of his darker moods, that someone so thoroughly charred would find relief in the cold of lifeless hands.
But on the brighter days, Song Lan is anything but lifeless: he is a clear, cool spring that washes away all traces of ash.
It changes in another way too. The carefully measured distance between them closes incrementally. Where before, Song Lan might have hummed to get Lan Xichen’s attention, he will now gently tap an arm, or take his elbow to guide.
For his part, Lan Xichen permits himself a steadying hand on Song Lan’s shoulder, a brush of fingers when they pass manuscripts to each other. And once, when he is feeling particularly brave, smoothing the twisted collar of Song Lan’s robes.
The time they spend together does not go unremarked, although as far as Lan Xichen is concerned, it is outwardly unremarkable.
Wangji and Sizhui visit on their regular schedule, and even if neither of them comments outright, they begin bringing bound anthologies of poetry for Lan Xichen’s renewed interest, which speaks loudly enough.
Relief is a sharp and visible thing in Wangji’s eyes. Lan Xichen wants to tell him, as he tells himself every day, not to hope. But he takes the books and says nothing.
Wei Wuxian is far less subtle. He delivers Song Lan to the Hanshi one morning with a slanted grin.
“We’re early!” he says. “I’m giving Song-daozhang the rest of the day off since I could tell he was thinking about you anyway.” Song Lan’s face is stone as he stares at the wood panelling of the door.
“That is kind of you,” Lan Xichen says, inclining his head.
Wei Wuxian’s smile softens into something pleased and less mischievous before he spins on his heel and wanders back down the path.
Song Lan still hasn’t moved. Lan Xichen clears his throat and steps back from the door, gesturing Song Lan inside. He does not move. Instead, he turns his head sharply to look at Lan Xichen and bows much lower than is needed.
Some long-buried instinct has Lan Xichen stepping forward and reaching for Song Lan’s elbows, but the man flinches at the movement, and Lan Xichen stops before he can make contact. They stand there, each frozen, tense and unsure before Song Lan breaks through the moment by stepping back. He grasps the hem of his sleeve so he can write I apologise, in the air between them.
The strokes, usually crisp and bright, flicker and swim with hazy edges. Song Lan takes an uneasy breath and writes again. Wei Wuxian likes to embarrass me. He should know better than to embarrass you too.
Lan Xichen exhales, something almost like a laugh. “He has peculiar methods of friendship,” he says. “I have learned not to take offence.” It’s not entirely true. Lan Xichen had not been bothered by Wei Wuxian’s needling honesty these years because Lan Xichen had not been bothered by anything other than the spectres that follow him, or the guilt and shame that tangle in his throat.
Song Lan watches Lan Xichen’s face with an expression that suggests he hears what Lan Xichen isn’t saying, as though he can see the shadow cast by grief. But he only nods and steps inside.
“I think my uncle had hoped my brother would be a moderating influence on Wei Wuxian, but as you can see,” he lifts Wangji’s latest volume of poetry, “they are of one mind.”
Song Lan accepts the book and flips through the pages. A collection of love poems.
“I have found that the best way to deal with it is to ignore it. Here.” He holds out another book. Song Lan looks at the cover of the memoir Lan Xichen is offering, takes both books in one large hand and uses the other to ask, Do you not wish to speak of love?”
Lan Xichen is sure that Song Lan can hear the way his heart picks up, but he is kind enough not to let on. He follows when Lan Xichen settles at the table and turns two cups. “I do not feel qualified,” he says, letting practised humility seep into his smile.
Song Lan waits until Lan Xichen has finished pouring tea, and has placed a cup in front of him before replying. He pins Lan Xichen with hard eyes and writes, You are not being honest.
“Lying is forbidden,” Lan Xichen says.
Song Lan doesn’t need words to say that simply not lying doesn’t mean honesty. He waits.
He waits, and it feels like a betrayal.
Lan Xichen has weathered iron censure at the feet of his elders, he has endured the sodden weight of pity. And he has submitted to everything in between.
But he had thought Song Lan wouldn’t ask this of him.
Lan Xichen wants to lash out, to let cruel words spill from his mouth and pierce Song Lan’s calm. He breathes through his nose and smiles again. He means to say, honesty is for confidants, he means to say, honesty is less of a consolation than you think, he means to sever this intimacy and retreat into the familiar knot of shame.
But he thinks about performance and curiosity. He thinks about the months of honesty Song Lan has given him, and the way he has never once looked away from his own pain. Or Lan Xichen’s.
Instead, Lan Xichen says, “I thought I knew it once. I was wrong.”
Song Lan frowns and writes, honesty?, followed by, love?
“Yes,” Lan Xichen says.
We have had many conversations about the past, but you have never said his name. The words burn like a brand, like a searing testament to Lan Xichen’s faithless deflection. In all of the Cloud Recesses, no one says that name, and isn’t that the loudest silence of them all?
Lan Xichen’s lips feel like cracking stone when he tries to speak. His throat is full of dust. “Jin Guangyao,” he whispers, then, quieter, “A-Yao.”
Song Lan waits.
Song Lan waits, and slowly, Lan Xichen tells him truths. Peels them from the inside of his ribs and hands them over, grisly and real. He empties himself out, and this time the blood on his hands is his own.
Song Lan waits. He doesn’t flinch or turn away. His tea is cold, undisturbed from where Lan Xichen had placed it in front of him.
When Lan Xichen stops speaking, Song Lan finally looks away from him to where Shuoyue is leaning against the wall, where it has stood since Wangji left it on the first day of Lan Xichen’s seclusion.
Lan Xichen braces himself for the question that’s been four years unasked. He sets his teeth against the words because he knows that until he picks up his sword again, he will not be able to resume his old life. He doesn’t need to be told.
But Song Lan only considers him for several quiet moments, then unsheathes Fuxue and offers it to Lan Xichen.
Anger and fear drain out of him, a treacherous hope slithering into its place. His hands are heavy but he makes them move.
The spiritual energy is cool and faint, an echo of its master. It doesn’t whisper to him the way Shuoyue and Liebing, or even Bichen do; this sword is silent and steady. Lan Xichen lets the tips of his fingers run over the etchings of the hilt, over the cold steel of the blade. He feels the perilous edge of it, then drops his hand.
“I used to practice on the eastern cliffs in the morning,” he says, meeting Song Lan’s eyes once more. “The sunrise is worth seeing.”
Song Lan swallows and re-sheathes Fuxue. He stares at his hands for so long his stillness starts to scrape against Lan Xichen’s skin.
When he moves, it’s with disquieting precision. I would like to see it, he writes, mouth set and solemn. With you. He doesn’t wait for an answer, doesn’t bow, and the humming sparks of his words remain longer than his footsteps on the path outside.
At this altitude, the sun rises slowly. Even while the chill of night nips at your fingers, you can watch the light creep through the valleys and roll gently over fields, sprawling like an unhurried song.
The wet mist of the morning seeps into the fine silks of Lan Xichen’s robe and pulls his hair into tangles that stick to his neck.
Song Lan is already there, back straight, gazing out over the hazy landscape stretched beneath them. The edge of the sky is a gentle pink, and the edge of Song Lan’s face is limned with the first hint of day.
He is perfectly suited to this still and solitary crest, remote and enduring, the scars of his life etched into him, a part of him. Song Lan has the strength of these mountains and the kind of heart that could watch the sun rise every day and still find beauty in it.
Lan Xichen takes three steps towards him before Song Lan turns. And then, it’s easy to meet him. There is surprise in the softness of his mouth, and a welcome in the warmth of his eyes. The surprise fades, but the warmth lingers, and he isn’t looking at the dawn when he writes, You were right. This is worth seeing.
Lan Xichen hasn’t blushed in decades, but under Song Lan’s scrutinising gaze, he ducks his chin to his chest, cheeks warm. When he manages to get himself under control and open his eyes again, Song Lan is watching him.
He holds a hand up as if to write, then drops it and looks away, frustrated.
Sorry, he writes with a mirthless, strained smile, after two more abortive attempts. I am struggling to find a way to tell you— His eyes are lit golden with the morning and the words that burn between them.
Lan Xichen waits, holding as still as he can, ruthlessly pushing against the stubbornly hopeful beat of his heart.
Eventually, when the last sparks of the spell have drifted from view, Song Lan reaches for Lan Xichen’s hand and steps closer. Close enough that the wind picks at the corners of their clothes and whips them together.
Song Lan lifts Lan Xichen’s hand, his thumb tracing over the knuckles, then he turns it palm up and presses it to the side of his face, eyes slipping closed.
“Oh,” Lan Xichen says on a fleeting breath. It’s not quite a surprise, but it’s no less astonishing. His other hand finds its way to Song Lan’s face, and he cradles it.
“I don’t know if—” His voice breaks over the words when Song Lan opens his eyes. But the time for unspoken things has passed. “I don’t know,” Lan Xichen says again, “if I will ever pick up a sword again.”
Song Lan pulls back and looks at him, concern carved into his face. He twists so he can gesture into the air beside them.
Don’t care, he writes, strokes careless and tilted. That’s not what matters to me.
Lan Xichen thinks he knew that, somewhere in his bones. But reading it sets something alight in his skin.
Song Lan pushes damp strands of hair out of Lan Xichen’s face, then retreats again to write, Besides, I have two.
His lips twitch, and Lan Xichen is mesmerised. His own mouth pulls into a helpless smile. It has been so long since he has laughed.
Taking Song Lan’s face in his hands again, traces the line of his brow with a thumb, wiping away the droplets of dew that have settled there. Then, he decides he can’t wait any longer and fits their mouths together.
It’s a soft, lingering pressure; at once a question and an answer.
Song Lan’s arms slip around Lan Xichen’s waist, gentle at first, then more insistent, and Lan Xichen finds himself broken open. He clutches with desperate fingers at Song Lan’s face, his hands slipping down to pull at the back of his neck. Pull and pull and be pulled. Broad hands spread across his ribs, moving restlessly.
Lan Xichen is panting when he has to wrench himself away to breathe. Inhaling instinctively, Song Lan leans his head against Lan Xichen’s shoulder. Then he lets go and steps back, just enough to have room to move.
I don’t want you to forget your past, he writes. Any more than I will forget mine.
Lan Xichen takes his hand where it still waits outstretched, poised to reply, and kisses it. He kisses each knuckle, the pad of his thumb, the delicate bones of his wrist. “I have thought of nothing else for so long,” he says into Song Lan’s skin. “Maybe it’s time to think of the future instead.”
Song Lan pulls Lan Xichen in again, one hand slipping behind his hair and around his nape. He presses his forehead to Lan Xichen’s and hums, quiet and happy and nearly lost in the wind.
But Lan Xichen hears it. That, and everything else.