Chapter Text
“I want to take someone back to Gusu,” Lan Wangji said, staring off into the distance. “And…hide them somewhere.”
A pause.
“But…they are unwilling.”
Lan Qiren came to an abrupt halt.
He hadn’t meant to overhear that.
He wasn’t even supposed to be at Jinlin Tower right now, much less accidentally eavesdropping on his nephews having a private discussion. Lan Wangji was quiet by nature, introverted; he spoke rarely, and usually only to his brother – even with Lan Qiren, he tended more towards silence, although Lan Qiren sometimes flattered himself to think that it was a comfortable silence, a silence of mutual understanding, as comforting to Lan Wangji as it was to him.
But it was certain that Lan Wangji had not ever said such words as these to him before.
Perhaps those words would seem tepid and weak to any other ear. But to Lan Qiren, who knew better than most what life Lan Wangji had lived, what terrible secrets their clan had, the fears they all harbored as a result, each of them suspicious of their own hearts and yet wholly irresistibly subject to them…to him, those words were a blazing declaration of passion. Of a passion as great as a flood and just as destructive, for it would permit nothing to stand before it or get in its way.
Nothing, and no one.
Lan Qiren found that, without knowing it, he had lifted his hand to his mouth, pressing down tightly on his lips as if to contain the surge of bile that had risen up the back of his throat.
Take someone back. Hide them away.
They are unwilling.
Lan Qiren stumbled backwards, pressing his back against the wall, seeking stability. Against his will, a stream of images filled his mind like a torrent: his brother, his brother’s wife He Kexin, the distant look in his brother’s eyes as he chased fruitlessly after her, the blood that had so artfully splattered her cheek after her murder – the blood of their teacher, a relative to both his brother and himself, kin, meant to be honored and respected, not disdained – and then the aftermath, his brother making his bows with her before she had even washed that blood away, unclean, their entire marriage an abomination that could only be absolved by sacrifice, endless sacrifice, not only his brother’s, but his own. His life, his dreams, all sacrificed, all ruined, and for what?
All so that his brother could take someone back, hide them away, and never mind what He Kexin had to say about it, unwilling as she had been. She had been unwilling from the beginning and she had remained so, had remained unwilling all those years. He’d known it as no other had; she had been taking her grief, her anger, her unwillingness out on Lan Qiren and he couldn’t even complain, being as he was the only one she saw. They had both been trapped into a situation neither had wanted, unwilling prisoner and unwilling jailor –
He was going to be sick.
Lan Qiren was not supposed to be here in the first place. He had only come to Jinlin Tower on a whim; he was supposed to be resting. He had been very badly injured in the Wen attack on the Cloud Recesses, but despite that he had risen from his sickbed, determined to keep going – he’d devoted himself to maintaining his sect, whether in recovering what they could or keeping them together or leading them on the battlefield. He had done everything he could, given everything of himself to his sect the way he always had, and now that the war was over, he finally had time to properly recuperate. The sect elders, and Lan Xichen in his role as the new sect leader, had given him leave to enter voluntary seclusion, which would allow him time to center himself in peace and tranquility, to spend all his time in contemplation and music and reading, all manner of quiet joyful things that he couldn’t otherwise find the opportunity to do, beset as he was by the endless requirements of duty. Lan Qiren had packed up all he had needed and retreated, quite happily, to one of the seclusion houses.
He'd barely had the chance to finish settling down before there was a knock on the door.
Technically speaking, it hadn’t been anything worth disturbing his seclusion over, but Lan Qiren wouldn’t have missed it for the world – his favorite cousin, Lan Yueheng, and his wife had been expecting a very unexpected youngest child who had decided to make an equally unexpectedly early appearance into the world, coming a full month before he was due, a distinct contrast to all six of his much older siblings who had arrived on time or late. Poor Lan Yueheng had been terrified that that had meant something was wrong, as if his wife wasn’t already thoroughly practiced in the art of bearing healthy living children, and naturally Lan Qiren had rushed over at once to share his burdens and his worries, as well as to offer his assistance with this birth as he had with all the others.
That being said, once Lan Qiren had helped with the delivery (and nearly broken his hand in the process, as was traditional, with both Zhang Xin and Lan Yueheng clinging onto him like those legendary constricting snakes one read about in books, and only one of them with any real justification), he wasn’t exactly in the mood for quiet contemplation.
Perhaps more accurately, he generally used seclusion as unfettered time to do sustained work on music, and that wasn’t happening, not with fingers as bruised as his were now. Poor Lan Yueheng had been horrified when he’d realized the extent of the damage, even though it wasn’t his fault – it was Lan Qiren whose circulation was more impaired than it had been for those previous births, his health weaker and recuperation ability diminished. Lan Qiren had sought to assuage his cousin’s guilt (and escape his persistent apologies) by making up some excuse that he had a sudden desire to speak to his nephews, fleeing the Cloud Recesses and forcing Lan Yueheng to turn his attention back to little A-Shen, who in the future would be called Lan Jingyi if he lived long enough to earn that courtesy name, a little boy already loud enough to burst eardrums.
And so, because do not tell lies was a rule even if you only retroactively took action to make it true, Lan Qiren had come to Jinlin Tower.
He’d been searching for his nephews to let them know he had arrived, since obviously they had not reason to anticipate him, but before he’d had a chance to greet them, he’d heard –
Take someone back. Hide them away. They are unwilling.
In Lan Qiren’s ears, the words changed involuntarily to something else.
I will take her as my bride, his brother had once declared, eyes feverish and mad with passion that acknowledged and permitted no boundaries. She will live within the Cloud Recesses for the rest of her life as my wife, and I myself will enter seclusion to atone for my sin.
(I will take her, even though she is unwilling, and hide her away.)
How could Lan Wangji say such a thing?
How could he want such a thing?
Lan Qiren had tried, more than anything else, to raise his nephews to be upright and moral, to be righteous men who would know and obey their sect rules but to also think about them carefully, living up to the meaning rather than the mere word. He had been stern with them even when it had broken his heart, he had been meticulous in seeking to educate them, he had tried his utmost best to give them every advantage and assistance he could. He had wanted to teach them in such a way that would let them avoid their father’s terrible fate.
Had Lan Qiren so thoroughly failed in his task?
Had he really raised Lan Wangji to be the sort of person who would want…that? To be happy with the thought of imprisoning another person against their will, locking them away from sunlight and freedom, dying by inches every day, turning the serenity of the Cloud Recesses into a hellish abyss of dreary boredom?
Was their entire bloodline truly so cursed that nothing could impede them from walking in the steps of their forefathers, footstep by footstep straight to their doom?
Lan Qiren was going to be sick.
Not just metaphorically. He was a cultivator, his mental state and his health inescapably intertwined; his qi was rioting inside of him, his entire being rebelling against what he had inadvertently overheard in ways that went beyond mere emotional distress and risked becoming an actual threat to his life. He needed to sit somewhere peaceful and focus on stabilizing himself – he needed to breathe.
He needed to find Lan Wangji and shout at him until his voice was gone and his throat was bleeding, to grab his beloved nephew by the collar and shake some sense into him in a way he’d never done before, to grip and hold onto him tightly until his bruised fingers cracked, the bone shattering, enduring any type of pain if it only meant keeping Lan Wangji safe from his own worst instincts.
He needed to stop this from happening.
Lan Qiren coughed, and tasted blood on his tongue.
He spat it out, splattering the wall in front of him, blood on gold. His eyes fell upon it, the gold in the wall shining in the sunlight that came in through the windows, momentarily blinding him, and the brightness of it served as a potent reminder that there was nothing Lan Qiren could do about the situation at this exact moment in time.
They were in Jinlin Tower, Jin Guangshan’s territory – the man might be useless in all sorts of ways, but he was the king viper in a pit full of poisonous creatures; he had a slimy, slippery way of arranging things to make them go to his political advantage, provided only that he wasn’t too drunk to implement his own schemes. If Lan Qiren went to scold Lan Wangji now, as he wished, in this place where every whisper could be overheard…
No, he couldn’t do that.
His Lan sect was still weak, in need of rebuilding; Lan Xichen had already agreed to accept Jin sect money to complete projects already started. If Lan Qiren acted out now, making a fuss or being unreasonable, it would make Lan Xichen’s work of reclaiming their sect’s dignity and standing harder. His nephews still needed him to be strong.
Lan Wangji hadn’t taken anyone back yet.
There was still time.
Lan Qiren straightened up by force of will, reaching out to wipe away the blood before anyone else saw it. Once that was done, he stiffly turned on his heel and went back out of Jinlin Tower, intent on flying back to the Cloud Recesses at once. He should have found his way to the Lan sect quarters and meditated there, recuperating. He’d only just arrived on what was already an ill-advised venture, already tired and weakened; he was in no condition to fly, much less such a long distance as would be required to get home – there was every chance he’d fall off his sword like a child just learning the art. But staying would mean speaking with his nephews, with Lan Wangji who had confessed such a thing and Lan Xichen who had not dissuaded him, and Lan Qiren couldn’t do that.
Not here.
He couldn’t just pretend not to have heard what he had heard, and yet he could not say anything about it…no, staying would be intolerable. Lan Qiren was already used to giving more of himself than he had to spare. Pushing himself to fly back to the Cloud Recesses, especially if he made sure to take some reasonable stops along the way, was to his eyes just be more of the same. He would make it back home to the Cloud Recesses, back to the place he’d lived his whole life and given his whole life to, and he’d wait for his nephews to return from Jinlin Tower – by the time they got back, he’d have thought of what he wanted to say to them and how he wanted to say it, whether he would lecture them or scold them or merely plead with them not to make their father’s mistake.
At the Cloud Recesses, he would be backed by the full might of his sect, the authority of an elder. He would not need to worry about his nephews losing face or his sect being damaged; he would be free to speak his mind, at length, without impediment. His nephews would be in a place where they were accustomed to listening to him. They would listen to him.
Lan Wangji would listen to him.
Lan Qiren ignored the somewhat confused door guard at Jinlin Tower, who had welcomed him not long before, and got on his sword, flying away as quickly as he could. His mind was preoccupied with the thoughts of what he would do when he got home, the preparations he would make, what he would say, what he needed to do – he had to find out everything that had happened during the war, while Lan Wangji was away from his side. He hadn’t pressed too hard before, not wanting to cause either of his nephews pain; he’d trusted them. He’d believed in them, believed in himself, believed that he’d raised them well, that they wouldn’t make those most terrible of mistakes…the whole war, he’d cared for nothing but that they’d live and live well, and they had. Neither was injured, neither was mutilated, and if they had scars upon their souls, well, who didn’t in wartime? It would be cruel to press on those wounds by asking too many questions, so he hadn’t forced them to speak, only made sure they knew that he was available in the event that they wished to share their thoughts with him.
He’d deceived himself.
Lan Qiren had remembered to worry about the harm his nephews might face from the sword, but forgot to worry about the harm that could come from their own hearts. It was from their hearts that his family faced the greatest risk – their hearts, that would lead them inexorably down the path of destruction –
No.
Lan Qiren would not let Lan Wangji destroy himself the way his father had.
He would fix this. He had to. He had to.
He would speak with Lan Wangji, he’d explain…
Ah, but he was deceiving himself once more, wasn’t he?
Lan Wangji had barely listened to Lan Qiren’s admonitions when he was six, or at least he didn’t when he disagreed with them; merely getting him to stop biting people had been a struggle worthy of epic poetry. How much more stubborn would Lan Wangji be now, full grown, an adult, a man – not just that, but a man in love? And not just in love, but loving the way the Lan always did, blind and reckless and never-ending?
No, Lan Wangji wouldn’t listen.
Just like his father hadn’t listened.
No – that was cruel, and incorrect. Lan Qiren’s brother had ignored Lan Qiren’s entreaties and advice because he had disdained him, their relationship as brothers so thin as to be nearly nonexistent, but Lan Wangji was different. Lan Wangji would listen. He would nod and he would promise to be obedient, because he loved his uncle. He might even be obedient, in his own way, but he wouldn’t…stop loving them, whoever it was.
He’d just love them quietly, distantly, but no less passionate for his silence.
And if something then happened –
I want to take them away, but they are unwilling.
Lan Qiren shuddered to think of it.
No, Lan Qiren had to act before anything that happened. He had to find out who it was that Lan Wangji loved so unstintingly. He had to figure out who it was, and –
He didn’t even remember falling.