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Lan Wangji has always loved sweet things.
It started when he was little - a nibble of his mother's tea cake here and there, the tiny sips of sweet milk they were afforded every once in a while, a decadence to the pittance that he'd been raised on in Madam Lan's house. Unlike what most people assumed, the second heir hadn't been raised in luxury, or with a silver spoon in his mouth- the earliest years of his existence were simple, the kind that bespoke warm hugs and home cooked meals, with none of the fanfare the rest of the Lans got used to - in those years it was simply the two of them, and the bare necessities the clan sent to keep them alive, so anything sweet was scarce. But whatever scraps of sugar or sweets they could afford, Madam Lan had always left for Wangji, smiling as he savoured every last bit of it, never once asking for a bite.
Perhaps that was the love a mother had for their child.
But as the years passed by, Wangji grew out of the house. Or rather, the house outgrew him. It was emptier than he remembered, setting foot in there after weeks of being separated from his mother, separated from the loving warmth of her embrace, away from the soft, gentle face that was lined with so much steel he had to look away at times, when tears started to stream down her face. His mother had been a pillar that wasn't meant to break -
But all things eventually did.
And along with it, so did some parts of Wangji. He hadn't been able to tell which part of his exactly, and would not be able to for years, but he felt it all the same. The knowledge that he would never be a child again, stuck in her embrace.
The halls are haunted , he'd thought then, in a way only a five-year old would comprehend. The walls were cold. Gone was the welcoming place he'd once called his home, a testament to the Haven that Madam Lan had once created, lined with laughter and filled with hope, nothing like the silence that Lan Zhan had been trained into the past few weeks. Instead, these halls were lined with an eerie emptiness, not unlike the silence of the classroom, giving the haunting feeling that something, or perhaps someone, was missing. The Elders afforded no answers, and in Lan Wangji's first brush with death, he found only silence, no grief. Only the closed doors that left a note of finality, like the last moments of a dashing crescendo.
The doors would never open again.
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Eventually, Wangji had grown to drink tea. It ages, steeped in time, a labour of love. It was harsher than Wangji remembered, the sugar of his youthful years fading away as he became a teen, taking his rightful place as the Second Jade of Lan, a second heir. Who was as refined as he was polished, etiquette sanded into his very being, like the tea leaves he so loved to steep.
Only there was no time for sugar, no time for milk, because proper tea should always be as it is, steeped in tradition, filled with pride, elegant and refined without the distractions of milk and sugar. But all Wangji found it to be was harsh and unyielding, the kind of tea that Lan Qiren would like. It lies heavy on his tongue, a dampening promise, of what could and should lie ahead. A bitter reminder of what the Lan name should uphold - tradition, elegance and refinement.
The tea grows more and more bitter as time passes, leaving behind traces that feel stapled to Wangji’s tongue. It's the bitter traces that linger the first time he sees Wei Wuxian on the rooftop, with his blade out and ready.
“Trespassing is not permitted,” he calls out to the silhouette lounging on the precipice of the rooftop, glancing up at the sky as if there were nary a problem in sight. Some ingenious person had managed to scale their way up the walls and get past the wards, a feat Wangji himself had only managed twice as part of his “Heir’s training”. It's a feat no other Lan has mustered, because to do so would cost the Lan Clan greatly - a compromise to its security and prestige.
The intruder doesn't seem perturbed by Wangji in the slightest, simply turning around to glance at Wangji, and for the first time ever in Wangji's life, it feels like the breath in his lungs has been knocked out of him. The stranger is breathtaking, nearly ethereal in the dim glow of the moon, that only seems to illuminate his features - grey eyes that look nearly luminous, like liquid silver blessed by the moon, pink lips that seems even more flushed in the glow of light, as if he'd been kissed by the heavens themselves - but his frame is light, nearly wary, the kind that comes from a lifetime of being alert, and on your feet. The first sight of him is devastating, and somehow Lan Zhan wants to see more .
It's unnerving.
“I've a permit,” the intruder muses, sending a document towards Wangji's hand without so much as lifting a finger, showcasing a level of cultivation that was nearly unheard of for this age. Nearly . Wangji holds onto the paper, scanning it. It looks authentic, the Lan Seal is hard to force, but all Jess truly looking for in the document is one thing: his name.
Wei Wuxian, birth name: Wei Ying . Lan Wangji smiles to himself as his eyes linger on the name, but his smile quickly disappears when he catches the scent of something else. It's faint, a fleeting floral scent mixed with something nearly imperceptible to anyone else, but Wangji knows that scent the way he knows his own name - it's engraved into his memories, something he'd known from the very beginning.
“Alcohol is not permitted within Cloud Recesses,” hearing this, Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen, and he immediately hugs the bottles of Emperor’s smile from where he'd hid them, beneath his robes. Wangji ignores the flush creeping up his ears at the thought of them so close to his body. “Improper,” he chastises, but the smile on Wei Ying's face simply deepens.
“If I make you a deal, promise to let me go? I swear you've never tasted anything quite like this,”
“Bribing is also an offense.” Wangji's retort comes swiftly, but he finds no indignance in his voice, only exhaustion. But he can't deny that something about the offer seemed tempting, more so than it should. A taste, perhaps- wouldn't be so bad, if it was the closest he could get to being back in the house.
“You didn't say no,” the other boy's smile is saccharine sweet, and he inches closer to Lan Wangji, too close- Wangji can feel his breath in the shell of his ear. Wangji can feel his heart quickening in his chest, more so as a small flask is pressed into his hands. Against his better judgement, Wangji holds onto it, before stashing it into his robes.
“Thank you,” Wangji whispers, finding himself rooted where he is, next to Wei Wuxian. The hazy smell of flowers intensifies this close to the younger man, who simply smiles brightly at Lan Wangji, his eyes alight with mischief.
Lan Zhan doesn't think he's ever seen anything brighter.
“The dorms are that way,” he gestures towards the general direction of the dorms, ignoring whatever transpired between them.
“Thank you, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whispers, before planting a small kiss on Wangji's cheek, and disappearing into the night. The tea glued to Wangji's mouth has never tasted sweeter.
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In the few months that Lan Wangji has grown to know Wei Wuxian, he falls more and more in love with tea. His brews become lighter, turning a little more floral, unlike the heavier brews that Lan Qiren tends to favor. The fleeting note of rose, the quiet hint of chamomile, all swirl in the quiet bliss of chrysanthemum tea, an ode to the lost and a call to the present.
He still lets them seep, of course, but they take far shorter to brew, a hubris dedicated to youth. But in the time he saves, Wangji finds himself seeking another. Chasing after a fleeting scent, a brilliant smile, that eludes him like a ghost, that leaves the aftertaste of his mouth nearly bitter. And yet, everything that lingers after they meet is sweet, a paradox that Lan Wangji cannot quite fathom, as the days tumble together, passing quickly as if Wangji had sped through time.
Or perhaps it was simply an aftereffect of youth, something that made the days pass faster, feel fuller and yet leave the heart full of wanting at the same time - an incongruous oddity. Not feelings that Wangji should bear, that much he knows, because they are fickle things, feelings. And Wangji has learned to bear it, bury it down, and pretend they never bubble close to the surface. To protect us, Lan Qiren says,but at this point Wangji can no longer tell what or who he's protecting, just knows that whatever he feels should be buried deep, deep into the ground, never to resurface or be retrieved.
But even the earth moves sometimes, and when the tectonic plates shift, Lan Zhan finds himself confronted with a reality he can't quite face, at least not yet, not now. He likes Wei Wuxian. Not in the simple way someone does when they have a crush, but in the way that is nearly devastating, nearly soul-crushing in a way that Lan Qiren would once again blame on the debris of youth. It's a feeling that sits with Wangji, that settles in his gut and curls around his throat. The feeling stretches north within his body, taking a hold of his heart. It curls reflexively around his lungs, inching its way up to his throat, constricting whenever Wei Wuxian is near.
It burns , knocking the air out of Lan Wangji's throat, stretching past his throat to take control of his mind. A parasite, Qiren would chide, one that was nothing more than a distraction. But with Wei Wuxian, it felt so right . To hear him laugh, to catch a glimpse of smile - to talk to him and have his mischievous comments directed towards him - Lan Wangji has never felt a power higher, never felt something as sacred as this, nothing as divine. But it's a feeling forsaken, one that shouldn't exist, not in his world.
In this world,he should be the perfect second heir. Marry a woman, create heirs. An inevitable fate, yet seeing Wei Wuxian, some part of him wants to try . To break free, to chase after the younger, a fleeting light.
But the floral tea on his tongue lays heavy, and Wangji will never be bare of the responsibilities that clothe him, of the duty that calls for him, summoning him. It’s killing him inside, but for Wei Ying, Lan Wangji was more than willing to die, he simply can't leave.
So he goes back to life as he’s memorized it, letting the tea steep a little longer. The flowers he added are slowly replaced with the herbs Lan Qiren favours once again, as the seasons pass, and he no longer makes his own tea. Instead of the familiar floral scent, he's haunted by the knowing glances Wei Wuxian throws at him when he thinks no one else is looking, haunted by the taste of his tongue between Wangji’s own lips. He's haunted by the vacancy in Wei Wuxian’s eyes, not unlike the house he'd loved all those years ago. He's haunted by everything they can and should be, and taunted by everything they can't . Wei Ying knows it too, it's mirrored in everything that Lan Wangji sees. He sees the flicker of hope in his eyes slowly diminish, like a flame being quietly put out. Wangji wants nothing more than to reignite it, bring it back to life, but his own hands are tied. So he sees the fire in his eyes slowly extinguish, like a flame placed in a partial vacuum.
By the time the Jiangs leave, the remnants of tea left on Wangji’s lips are bitter, and the image of Wei Ying's eyes are imprinted into his soul.
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Lan Wangji doesn't expect to see Wei Wuxian ever again. There's a theory he read somewhere: it states that once you’ve fulfilled whatever purpose you have in meeting someone, the universe closes the door between the two of you. A severance of ties, a final meeting, an end to whatever road you were meant to take together.
And yet, wherever he turns, he always finds Wei Wuxian. He turns up when Wangji least expects, and Wangji has never been more aware of a person. In every war meeting he's dragged to, in every competition and function he has to attend, he always finds Wei Wuxian first. It doesn't matter how far apart they are or how many people are in the room, Lan Wangji could pick him out in a room full of millions. He knows him, from the light of his eyes, the rosy pink of his lips down to the scars scattered around his torso. He could pick out that scent in a matter of milliseconds, could identify his footsteps in a room full of chatter. To say it hurts would be an understatement, to be so close and yet so far. Wei Ying is always at the periphery of his vision, close enough to watch, but too far to touch. He knows it too , that much Wangji is certain of, because he feels the weight of the Jiang Heir’s second-in-command’s gaze on his shoulders as he makes his way around the rooms they're forced into. They make an odd dancing pair, really- pulling apart without ever once pushing close to one another, a discordant choreography against the symphony of what is meant to be fate, though it sounds more like society.
A chapter that was meant to end, and yet, Wangji finds them to be at an impasse - neither moving past one another, nor moving towards one another - instead, they stand like chess pieces frozen in an abandoned game, meant to end but never really quite over.
The tea that Lan Qiren grows gets more and more bitter by the day, but Wangji swallows it down, letting the bitter liquid choke him, haunt him. He pretends it doesn't bother him, pretends there's no trace of it that lingers, not anymore. In the void forged by Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji can only falter.
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The taste of alcohol on his lips is nearly foreign to Wangji, but in the abyss left behind by the two people he loves best, it seems oddly familiar. It tastes like the beginning of spring, mixed with an undercurrent of alcohol that nearly burns as it trickles down Wangji's throat, oddly smooth.
It's his first taste of alcohol, really, and one Wangji is fairly certain will probably be his last. He isn't supposed to drink it, not in Cloud Recesses, but at this point there isn't much more that he can lose - Wei Wuxian is dead. His mother is long gone, and the only other person who came close to being something in Wangji's life is now gone, this time forever.
Grief turns Wangji into a stranger that he can no longer recognise, a hollow shell of the young man he once was. Instead of living, he's haunted by the ghost of pink lips against his, of grey eyes that seemed to glitter, a fleeting smile that was blindingly brilliant, a sight that he will never get to see again, for as long as he lives. Because instead of following Wei Wuxian when he'd had the chance, he left him alone, leaving him to take care of the Wen Clan, letting him singlehandedly defend the innocent, even if Wangji had spoken up too those few times, he'd never fought. And what he'd done was not enough, never enough to save any of them from their later fates, a brutal massacre that Wangji has fought against, but even then he'd been too late, too far to save Wei Ying, to push him away from the arrow that had been aimed at his heart.
Instead, he got to cradle his corpse, watching as the last of his spirit left his body, collapsing into the ground with him.
There's nothing else for Lan Zhan to hold onto, not truly. Nothing left of Lan Zhan to tether him to the rest of humanity except a distant memory of Wei Wuxian calling his name. I want you to live, he'd said, but the words felt as hollow now as they did then, because Lan Zhan had already learned at that point that a world without Wei Wuxian wasn't a world worth living in, wasn't a world he wanted to stomach alone, not since the first time he's clasped his eyes on him.
But Wei Ying's words were a sacrament, and all Wangji can be is hallowed in his presence.
So he holds on.
There's nothing that can really take away the pain, but the alcohol is the closest he comes to it. It numbs as it singes his throat, running through his veins until it reaches his mind, grabs it and nearly disconnects it from his body, dragging him out of his thoughts, though nothing can stop the pain. The world turns into a swirling black, the familiar floral scent creeping in until he's lost in a familiar embrace, greeted by two familiar faces that he knows he will never see again once he wakes up.
And for the first time in his life, Wangji raises a glass; to drown in sorrow.