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Lan Xichen never liked Qishan. The behavior of the Wen Sect members is obnoxious, the air tastes like ash, and tensions are so high it feels as if a heavy weight had been placed on everybody’s shoulders upon entry.
This time was no different, and Xichen should be more concerned with Wen Ruohan’s bid for power that he no longer sees the need to disguise, and he is. But the image he can’t get out of his mind is Wangji, trembling, as he ties his forehead ribbon back on.
They return to Cloud Recesses a dispirited, humiliated force. No sect can stand up to Wen Ruohan, and Uncle is shaking with suppressed fury at all the atrocities that go unanswered. Before he can release it through practice and meditation, his eyes land on Wangji, who’s been pale and withdrawn since the archery competition.
Xichen knows what will happen even before Uncle opens his mouth. He could never stand to see Wangji defeated or upset—either of his nephews in such a state, actually, but Xichen had learned early to conceal any trace of his turmoil.
Wangji is the same, reserved by default, retreating into himself and showing the world no sign that anything affects him. For him to not be able to appear impervious, the blow must have been devastating.
Uncle doesn’t know, and if he had, he’d be even angrier. Without dismissing the other juniors, he turns on Wangji, berating him harshly for his performance. Finishing fourth is half the problem. Xichen and Wangji are always expected to be the best, but Uncle is not so arrogant as to believe no one can challenge them. All Xichen gets for finishing second is a vaguely displeased look, and, if the conference had been held in any other place, this would not have been an issue at all.
No, Wangji draws Uncle’s ire for the reason he’d finished fourth—namely, for withdrawing from the competition halfway through without an acceptable explanation, such as sustaining major bodily harm.
Wangji kneels, shoulders tight, and eyes downcast, as Uncle goes on and on about responsibility, about selfish and fanciful behavior, about not taking the sect’s reputation and wellbeing seriously in these trying times. The other juniors watch in clear discomfort, and Xichen prays none of them volunteer to tell Lan Qiren what happened. If Uncle finds out that someone had grabbed Wangji’s ribbon and Wangji had failed to prevent it, Uncle will believe Wangji had allowed it, and then nothing will save Xichen’s brother from being beaten to within an inch of his life.
Their fellow juniors are blessedly silent, either under the force of Xichen’s preemptive glare or out of loyalty to Wangji, and Uncle eventually tires of Wangji’s blank acceptance.
He sends a parting shot at Xichen, “And where were you when your brother disgraced us?” before assigning punishment to Wangji, ordering Xichen to supervise it, and finally dismissing everyone out of his sight.
Wangji doesn’t look at anyone as he leaves.
--
Xichen arrives to the Punishment Hall slightly early. Wangji is already there, of course, and Xichen doesn’t need to speak to him to know he wants to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Everything about Wangji screams about his desire to crawl into a hole, away from prying eyes—from anyone’s eyes. He will never show it, but Xichen can sense his shame as his own, an acrid burn under his skin that would drive anyone out of their mind. Only Wangji’s iron will, almost inhuman in its power, is keeping him in place.
Grimly, Xichen nods at the awaiting disciples. “Begin.”
--
This is not the first time he’s seen his little brother beaten in front of him. In all likelihood, it won’t be the last. He should have become inured to the sight years ago, but he never did. Every time is like the first time.
Every time Xichen wants to howl.
They had been children still, the first time, Xichen six, and Wangji only four. Wangji’s eyes had been huge with fear, but he’d said not a word. It was Xichen who had been near hysterical, grabbing at his uncle’s robes, trying to explain that it had been only an accident, that Wangji had never meant to make a mistake.
In answer, Lan Qiren made him watch, holding him in place firmly, but releasing him once it was over, ordering others not to stop him, as he’d run to his brother’s side, scooping him up into his arms. They sat on the floor of the Punishment Hall alone, Xichen hiccupping from crying, Wangji’s tears silent, his arms trustingly around Xichen’s neck, as he murmured, “It didn’t hurt, Xiongzhang. It didn’t hurt.”
The next time, Xichen had begged Uncle to punish him instead. Was Xichen not responsible for his little brother, after all? Would it not be reasonable then to punish him for failure to supervise him?
Uncle had looked at him very seriously and said, “Do you not want your brother to grow up his own man? Capable of bearing responsibility for himself?”
Xichen didn’t care. Xichen was eight.
Uncle had sighed, and his eyes hardened. “Every time you ask to take his punishment for him, I’ll double it.”
Xichen’s eyes had widened. “No, please!”
But Uncle had shaken his head. “It’s an unpleasant lesson, but you both need to learn it. Interfering with another’s punishment is forbidden. Everyone must learn on their own.”
Wangji had cried that time, too, but, when Xichen wanted to run to him after, Uncle had held him back.
“You are doing him no favors by implying that this is unjust,” he’d said. “Our actions have consequences. None of us can escape it. Your brother must learn this—” Uncle had given him a hard look— “same as you.”
Xichen hadn’t understood then, not really, not until Wangji had found him later that day and whispered, urgent, persistent, “It didn’t hurt, Xiongzhang. Do not be upset. It didn’t hurt.”
‘Lying is forbidden!’ Xichen had almost snapped, then had bitten his tongue hard. If he’d said that, he’d have had to assign another punishment to Wangji. It was his own fault that Wangji had felt the need to lie in the first place. Xichen was to blame, yet Wangji would suffer.
Xichen had smiled at him, reassuring. “It will hurt next time,” he’d said. “But it’s all right. I will not be upset, because you’re hurting.”
Wangji had looked at him with clear skepticism, but said nothing. His little brother had always understood such things a lot faster than Xichen did.
That time had been the last time he’d seen his brother cry.
--
“Twenty,” the disciple administering punishment says and puts the heavy ferule away before bowing to Xichen.
A light punishment, all things considered. Uncle must be aware his anger is misdirected.
“Thank you,” Xichen says quietly. “You may go.”
They don’t leave, however, until Wangji rises to his feet and bows to them. Then, the brothers are alone.
Xichen had long stopped needing his uncle’s hand on his shoulder to prevent himself from coming over to his brother’s side. He stays where he is. Wangji doesn’t need comforting, at least not in the physical sense. Body is body and pain is pain. Wangji knows how to deal with it. Every disciple in Cloud Recesses does, neither of the sect heirs excepted.
The other kind of comfort… Wangji will have to allow. Xichen stands there, waiting for a sign. For a moment, it almost feels as if Wangji might say something. He lingers. But in the end, he only bows to Xichen and walks out.
Xichen closes his eyes and thinks of nothing.
--
It’s not in him not to reach out, so over the next few days, he keeps a close eye on Wangji. His brother is withdrawn, more so than usual, but he rebuffs all attempts to draw him out. Xichen forces himself not to hover. Pressuring Wangji is never a good idea.
It’s not just about the ribbon, Xichen knows. The ribbon had merely been a rough awakening.
His brother had spent the year since Wei Wuxian had left Cloud Recesses pining for him. Quietly and unnoticed by anyone but Xichen—and perhaps their uncle. The Lans didn’t really do the ‘first love—next love’ kind of thing. Wangji had fallen and fallen hard for the boy with mischievous eyes and a carefree laugh. Xichen had wanted them to be friends, yes. He never wanted for his brother to be in this kind of pain.
Helpless. He hates how helpless he’s feeling. Wangji had always looked at him with boundless adoration. There used to be a time when Xichen deserved it, when he could fix anything for Wangji with a flick of his hand, a word, a simple action.
He can’t fix this. Not even if he travels all the way to Yunmeng and gives every single person there a piece of his mind, he can’t fix this.
Wangji wanders through Cloud Recesses like an angry ghost, and Xichen braces for the moment when the anger works itself out.
--
He hears familiar footsteps outside his room and nods to himself. If he can hear Wangji, it means Wangji wants to be heard, giving Xichen the option of turning him away. Xichen has never taken it in his life, but Wangji insists on offering. It’s an old, well-known pain.
It is, in fact, past curfew. Xichen has been going to sleep later since they’ve returned from Qishan, vaguely hopeful. It’s the reason he keeps the candles lit as he sits on the bed to brush his hair, taking twice the time he usually does.
There’s no knock as the door slides open quietly. Wangji is also dressed down for bed, his hair loose, as he stands in the doorway, caught in the crossfire of warm candlelight streaming from within and the cool silvery glow of the bright moon outside. He looks ethereal, yet soft, and devastatingly beautiful.
Xichen’s fingers itch for a brush; he hasn’t had time to paint in weeks. Oh, to be able to capture this vision. Wangji is heartbreakingly graceful in his vulnerability. The world, Xichen thinks, would never believe it.
Wangji looks at him, saying nothing, not even his customary ‘Xiongzhang.’ Xichen doesn’t say anything, either. It’s a fragile thing, this moment. A word could shatter it.
So Xichen softens instead, merging with the warmth of the candles. Something shifts in Wangji in response, and he steps in, closing the door behind him.
Unprompted, now that he’s inside, Wangji comes over to sit on the bed next to him. Xichen completes the final sweep of his hairbrush and sets it aside. Wangji is ready to give in, he just needs to do it in his own time. Xichen is nothing if not patient.
It doesn’t take long. It’s been a long five days since their return, and Wangji, when he lets go, emanates exhaustion. He shifts closer, flush against Xichen, and lays his head on his shoulder with a quiet, barely-there sigh. Xichen wraps an arm around him, sharing his warmth. Wangji feels chilled. He must have stood outside for a long time.
Xichen can feel Wangji begin to relax, to surrender his weight to him and to gravity. He presses his lips to his brother’s hair—an indulgence Wangji will allow him now. Another barely-there sigh. Xichen hums quietly.
“You want to talk about it?” he asks gently.
As close as they’re sitting, when Wangji speaks, it’s so quiet that Xichen strains to catch his words.
“He didn’t recognize me, Xiongzhang,” Wangji confesses, shame clinging to every syllable. “When he first saw me. He didn’t even know who I was. He didn’t… he didn’t remember me.”
Xichen blinks, stupefied. How is that even possible? is the obvious question. ‘Attempt the impossible’ is the motto of Yunmeng Jiang, of course, but—how?
What can he even say to that? That a year is a long time? Not for someone like Wangji who’d spent that year composing heart-wrenching love songs. For Wei Wuxian… out of sight, out of mind, indeed it seems. Oh heavens.
“I’m sorry,” he says, arm tightening involuntarily around his brother’s waist. Would that he could pull Wangji into his body, protect him from all harm.
“I’m boring,” Wangji says, inflectionless and yet so bitter. “Rigid. Uptight. Of course he’d—”
“Stop.” Xichen’s voice is harsher than he means it to be. “Don’t repeat that.”
“Why? It’s the truth.”
“It’s not the truth. It’s the truth as some people see it.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Don’t. You’re smarter than that, Wangji,” Xichen chides.
His brother huffs in displeasure, but doesn’t pull away. Heartening.
“Every virtue can be a vice, Wangji. Every vice, a virtue. People will see what they want to see. What they are able to see. It doesn’t change our nature.”
“Nature,” Wangji repeats. “I hate my nature.”
“I love it.” Xichen rests his chin on top of his brother’s head for a moment. “You are so strong, Wangji. Stronger than anyone I know. I only wish you didn’t have to be.”
Wangji hums. After a beat, he says, “People don’t see your true nature, either.”
Xichen smiles, trying to conceal it in his voice. “Why, whatever do you mean, Wangji? Are you implying there might be more to me than my beauty?”
Wangji’s elbow abruptly digs into his belly. It’s not exactly soft and it’s not easy to make it hurt, but Wangji manages.
“Ow,” Xichen says thoughtfully, biting his lip against another smile.
Wangji ends up with his head in Xichen’s lap, looking up at him. Xichen rests a hand over his brother’s heart, its steady, measured rhythm pulsing through his palm.
If their uncle happened to walk in on them like that, there’d be no end to the lecture. Xichen doesn’t care. They are the Twin Jades for more reasons than because they look alike.
“We are what we are,” he says softly. “People will make of us what they will. Those who are true… those who are meant to be—they will see. And they will stay. You deserve to be with someone who sees you, Wangji. With you, there’s so much to see. You take my breath away every time I look.”
Wangji looks away, catching a strand of Xichen’s hair and twirling it in his fingers.
“You are my brother,” he sighs. “You’re supposed to say that.”
Ah yes, his ultimate disqualifier. Still—
“Should we ask what Uncle thinks of you?”
Wangji’s eyes snap to him, and for a moment, his brother is more visibly close to bursting out laughing than he’s been since he was four years old. Xichen grins for both of them.
Wangji becomes drowsy eventually, and sits up with reluctance, preparing to leave. Xichen knows he won’t see this side of him again in a long, long time. For a heartbeat, he’s almost grateful to Wei Wuxian for this moment of closeness, though he can never feel the same way about his brother’s pain. Being unwanted by the one you love most is the worst feeling in the world when you’re seventeen.
It's not, of course, that it becomes easier with age. It’s just that there are worse things yet to be experienced.
“Wangji,” Xichen says softly, unable to help himself. “Have heart. Young Master Wei is… young, but very perceptive. He seems to have… a peculiar blind spot, but I don’t think you should take it personally. Sometimes… sometimes, we need time to know ourselves, before we can know others.”
Wangji blinks, and turns to look at him with sudden clarity. “Thank you, Brother.”
Xichen sighs and squeezes his shoulder. “Goodnight, Wangji.”
--
The next morning, they bow formally to each other when they meet for breakfast, and greet their uncle the same way. Wangji appears his usual cold pond of undisturbed serenity.
Xichen sips the bitter herbal tea, and thinks that there are words his brother is incapable of saying. They are not ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you.’ Nor are they, despite popular opinion, words of passion, words of love. With those, Wangji has his own way, though few would be aware.
No, the words he can never say are simple, highly dangerous most of the time, and yet so very necessary sometimes.
The time Xichen had spent with their father over the course of his entire life would not make up even one solid day, and yet he knows. To their father, these words would never even occur.
Their mother might have said them at some point, but, from her, they would have fallen on deaf ears. Their uncle would deem them unacceptable from anyone over the age of five.
Xichen had never learned to say them. He thinks of his first night hunt with Nie Mingjue, of Nie Mingjue’s face, contorted with incomprehension and anger.
‘Xichen, you’ve bled through all your clothes! I’d asked you if you were all right an hour ago—why didn’t you say something?!’
Xichen had smiled at him and said, ‘No, you’d asked me if I could hold the rope a little longer, and I could.’
Nie Mingjue, he thinks, had never quite forgiven him.
Wangji… Wangji had never learned to say the words, either, for all that they are incredibly simple.
It hurts.
But Wangji had come to him. Had asked for what he needed, however indirectly. There’s still hope perhaps. Still time.
Wangji finishes breakfast first today, a sense of purpose hovering around him like a cloak. Uncle must have given him a task.
He stands up and bows to Xichen again. He says nothing, so as not to disturb the silence in the hall, but Xichen reads the echo of the words in the unyielding line of his back, in the stubborn, determined set of his shoulders.
It doesn’t hurt, Xiongzhang. Do not be upset. It doesn’t hurt.
Xichen sighs, and summons a smile for his brother, not saying many, many words of his own.