Chapter Text
Since being brought to Gusu with no memory and in the arms of a stranger, Lan Yuan has had three years to get to know the enigma of the man that raised him under a careful eye and strict principles. In those three years, Lan Yuan has come to realize four things about his father.
Those four things are as followed.
1) He takes comfort in rules.
A simple table, covered in brush pens and sheets of pressed mulberry, stands between the two of them. However, Lan Yuan always feels as though the distance between them stretches on for miles and miles. Even with his Father’s observant gaze on him, part of him feels secluded from the inner workings of the man who raised him. Between them, there’s something missing from the life that Lan Wangji crafted for him from the ashes of a phoenix’s demise.
His Father’s light eyes, simmered to a spark like dying gold, flicker about the page of the book in his hand. His voice, low and melodic, resounds the principles that the generations before them had written in their earnest to make only the most competent disciples.
Comfortably, Lan Yuan listens. His hands remain folded in his lap. His eyes remain up to make eye contact whenever his Father looks his way. Every so often, he wrings them to keep any childish instinct at bay. Ever attentive, he brandishes a graceful smile.
Their lesson halts when they both hear footsteps approaching the room they’re occupying. Lan Xichen walks into the room as graceful as ever. His calming gaze meets Lan Yuan first. His uncle gives him a warm smile, eyes calculating the mood around them. As he deems the two of them to be content, he bows to his brother before fully entering the room.
“Are you two feeling okay today?” Settling onto his knees at the right side of the table, Lan Yuan doesn’t miss how his uncle mainly poses that question to his own brother.
There’s a tick of emotion in his Father’s right eyebrow. One that Lan Xichen discerns with a small sigh.
“Wangji, how long have you been teaching A-Yuan? It may be time for a break.”
2) Lan Wangji is a completionist.
Breaks are not common in the slightest during their lessons. If his Father so deems it necessary, he will keep Lan Yuan in front of that same table as he teaches for hours at a time. Typically, they will only break when they are done, when the moon rises, or when one of their stomachs (usually A-Yuan’s) yells in protest. Even during his visits, Lan Xichen’s presence alone doesn’t usually call for a break.
“Take a break, A-Yuan. Put on some tea.” His Father says.
Surprised, Lan Yuan blinks up at Lan Wangji with an owlish gaze. However, he quickly raises to his knees and then fully onto his feet. Muscles adjusting to the blood rushing back into them, he casually stretches his legs out as he makes his way into the other room. In the background, his uncle starts speaking as soon as Lan Yuan is out of direct earshot.
When he was newer to Gusu, Lan Yuan had an interest in everything that went on around him. Enjoying the knowledge he received from the Jade twins, he clung to any sort of information he could get his small fingers on. His father had commented on his over-brimming curiosity early with a fond look in an otherwise hazy gaze. Despite the warmth though, and to Lan Yuan’s surprise, he was quickly discouraged.
“Don’t eavesdrop.” His father had scolded him one spring night, guqin settled before the lotus position he sat in. “It’s rude. You’ll hear something you wish you hadn’t one day. Come here.” Then, he had pulled his son into his lap before his fingertips began to play that same, familiar, comforting melody.
3) His Father has secrets.
This much had been made clear to Lan Yuan the day he broke the dam of his fever and emerged in his Father’s home. Despite having no recollection of the man, he felt a twinge of hopelessness as his small hands pressed into the crevices of the skin on Lan Wangji’s back. Old, dried blood had soaked the white robes. In his sleep, his strong hands seemed to desperately cling onto something far, far away.
“Father.” He had asked him, months later as they stood side by side in the kitchen. Wrists deep in suds, Lan Wangji turned his gaze down to the growing boy he fought to raise.
“Hm?”
Hesitation creeps onto the newly named Lan’s features. “Your back.” He pauses. “What happened? Did you get hurt?”
Once again, his Father’s hands cling to what he can. While no expression flickers in bright eyes, Lan Yuan notices the small hitch in the next inhale he takes.
“Don’t pry.”
And that was that.
Now, along with the cadence of a crackling fire and the gentleness of his shufu’s voice, Lan Yuan sifts around his soul to find straggling answers to a seven-year-old’s impossible problem. His Father’s worries narrow down to a clear enigma that Lan Yuan wants to see. He desperately wants to reach into his Father’s chest to pull out the frayed soul that lies there.
For a moment, he wonders if his anxieties are normal for children his age. Do the other kids outside of these four walls have to think about what keeps their Father awake at night? Restless, pacing, flipping through the same three books over and over again until black circles pry any brightness from his eyes-- Do they have to see the scars on his back heal and the heart that can never be mended?
Even if it wasn’t normal, he didn’t mind. While most of his Father’s actions went over his head, he only needed to understand one thing; Lan Wangji raised him with every ounce of love that he knew how to show. Even while firm, Lan Yuan feels nothing but loved.
And even so, if he could see his Father radiate with joy, he would do and put up with just about anything.
Pulling their chipped teapot into his hand, Lan Yuan smiles to himself as he goes to reach for his Father’s favorite tea. When he realizes that he can reach it on his own without the stool perched in front of the sink, he beams.
Quickly, excited steps take him around the corridor and back to tell his Father of his growing height. However, before he can turn the corner, a gentle albeit firm tone resounds from his shufu.
“-- Do you really plan to never tell him anything?” Lan Xichen murmurs.
Slowly, Lan Yuan tilts his head around the door. His Father’s robes are pushed off of his shoulders. White cloth pools around his waist in waves of cotton. Down the snowy planes of his back, however, still, lie deep lines of rosy regret in the form of entrenched scars. Sitting behind him, Lan Xichen has cool hands settled across his shoulder blades.
He has seen this a few times. He knows that Lan Xichen can’t heal the wounds-- but he does know that his Father silently appreciates the cool palms against his occasionally burning skin.
“He doesn’t need to know.” His father replies, voice crisp.
A patient hum. “Not everything, no. But maybe you should open up to him a little bit. Maybe tell him why he doesn’t get to go outside like other kids his age… or teach him about love.” A small, smile falls onto his lips. “You know that love is very important.”
“Xiongzhang.”
“Just think about it, okay? I know how much you love A-Yuan and he should know that you would do anything for him.” He gently drums his fingers over the top of his little brother’s shoulder. “Opening up is one of those things.”
“Staying alive is hard enough.” Comes the slightly terse reply.
“Wangji.” Lan Yuan has never heard such negative emotion seep into his uncle’s voice. It wasn’t anger, no-- but fear.
And that same fear sinks into Lan Yuan’s stomach like the heaviest of swords and stabs into his heart.
As Lan Wangji begins to pulls his robes back onto his body, he opens his mouth to reply. Before he can do so, a sudden crash resounds from around the corner.
“A-Yuan.” Heaviness sticks in his tone. Are they being attacked? No. Nothing can get them in here. In his adrenaline, Lan Wangji doesn’t even have time to pull his robes fully back onto his shoulders before he’s rushing to his son.
In front of Lan Yuan, glass shards of a broken teapot surround him like his breaking control. Tears creep down chubby, pale cheeks in rivers of childish speeds. He hiccups once already, greying eyes misting at the thought of his father dying and leaving.
Leaving him.
Moments later, Lan Yuan’s pulled from the ground and towards his Father’s chest. Warmth envelops him as he tucks his face into the safe castle of Lan Wangji’s arms. Clinging tightly onto him, a small sob shakes his form and he shakes his head wildly.
Lan Yuan has never been a fussy child. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t pout. He does as told. He holds himself with pride and grace. He smiles gently and handles everything with dignified care to the point where Lan Wangji sometimes wonders if he is a Lan in more than just name.
So when he cries, Lan Wangji feels his heart split even further down the center. Glancing at his brother, it only takes one nod from Lan Xichen for him to realize that he was the only one who could mend both of their hearts in this moment.
“A-Yuan,” he starts.
“Diedie, Diedie!” Lan Yuan sniffles. “I’m sorry if something I did makes you sad! I’m sorry you don’t want to be alive but you have to -- you
have
to because I will be sad forever if you go away.”
“A-Yuan.” He tries again, softer. He lifts a hand, slowly carding it through his son’s hair. “Listen to your elders.”
This silences Lan Yuan. He blinks up at his Father, taking his trembling lip in between his teeth.
“I’m not dying.” He murmurs. “You misheard me.” Slowly, he lowers himself back to the floor. With his son still in his arms, he allows small hands to cling onto his shoulders and his wet face to burrow into his shoulder. “I don’t want to die. I have to stay around for you.”
“But-”
“No interrupting.” He scolds but quickly warms his tone. “... A few years ago, I made choices that others didn’t like.”
“But I did what was right for me. A-Yuan, you will face many things in your life that will make you wonder if you’re strong enough for the world you were born in. You will have to grow up faster than you already are. You will have to always be diligent.” He sighs, and Lan Yuan thinks of how he hasn’t heard his Father ever talk this much in the span of five minutes. “But you must always stay true to yourself and to those you love.”
“Yes sir.”
Pulling away, Lan Wangji continues to stroke at his son’s hair. With a nod, he speaks a little more. “I loved someone very much. I would have done anything for them.”
Lan Yuan’s hands graze over the scars on his Father’s back.
“And I will continue to do so. Just like I would do anything for you, A-Yuan.”
Then, to Lan Yuan’s surprise, his Father pulls
him
closer. Those same, strong hands cling again -- but this time onto his son’s white robes -- onto something he
can
reach.
4) His Father’s love comes in silence and in gestures he cannot name.