Work Text:
I wasn’t a monster.
But that fact didn’t stop the world from calling me one.
Once, I had a future lit up by music—my flute had secured me first chair in the university orchestra, and I was surrounded by family and friends, their laughter ringing like wind chimes at every turn. I was the golden boy until I wasn’t.
The headlines read Local College Student Blamed for Tragedy. Then my name—Wei Wuxian—turned sour in all the mouths that used to sing it praises. The fire hadn’t been my fault, it had been Jin Guangyao’s. But, unlike me, he had the family and the money to come out of it unscathed, and I was the scape goat. I wasn’t arrested, but I was expelled, cut off from the world I once knew.
So, I vanished.
I found refuge in the property my grandmother left me—a crumbling house in the middle of nowhere, it was a decaying cage. The lot was overgrown, and some of the windows were shattered. Looking at the house’s bones, it was obvious that the place was once beautiful but was now covered in vines that were choking the life from it. It was a mess. Just like me.
My solitude was endless, but I became comfortable with my own company. My flute lay forgotten under the bed, silent testimony to a lost passion. But, it was fine. It was okay to be alone, muttering nonsense to myself and keeping the radio on at all times for some type of noise.
🎶
He came on a Tuesday.
I was lost in the monotony of tinkering with the water heater, trying to drown out the static in my head, when the doorbell rang; startling me and causing me to drop my tool.
No one rang the bell.
I thought it was a dare. Some TikTok idiot looking for haunted house clout. But when I opened the door, there he was.
He was taller than I remembered, a crisp white button-down accentuating a neat collar, hair like black ink pulled into a sleek bun, eyes clear and cold as glass. It’d been years since our paths crossed, but I recognized him instantly: Lan Zhan.
He didn’t flinch at the sight of me—me, in a dirty hoodie, ink-stained fingers, and a scowl at the ready. I didn’t ask how he found me.
Not long ago, Lan Xichen stumbled into my backyard on some urban explorer nonsense, twisted his ankle, and then collapsed before I could kick him out. He stayed the night—briefly easing the isolation. Then Lan Xichen went on his way, and I figured that was the end.
Now, his brother stood in my doorway, all control and calculation. He gave me the same expression that he used to back when we knew each other.
“Wei Ying, I’m here for you,” he said, his voice brokered no argument.
“W-what?” I asked, my confusion was obvious.
“Please let me in,” Lan Zhan said. His cello case and suitcase sat by his feet like silent witnesses.
Every instinct in me screamed to slam the door, to shut him away from my carefully constructed exile. I should’ve threatened him, should’ve told him to fuck off. Instead, I stepped aside.
He moved in like a fog. Silent. Graceful. Unshakable.
Lan Zhan chose the least dusty room available and then cleaned before claiming it at his own. He then began to reorganize my busted library. I often caught him reading, knees drawn up in the window seat peacefully.
Each evening, his cello would echo in the sunroom. The sound cut through me, it vibrated in the deepest parts of my soul.
Lan Zhan wasn’t sunshine. He was a storm. He was the rain that nourished things back to life.
I found myself watching him too closely, convincing myself that it was because I saw him as a threat. The truth was that he treated me like someone worthwhile.
And that was worse.
🎶
The vase shattered as it hit the wall. Fragments of ceramic strewn on the wooden floor and near my bare feet.
Lan Zhan watched me with impassive eyes.
It was a bad day for me. I was angry, fed up with him constantly being in my orbit, and hating that I wanted to draw him in closer.
“I don’t want you here,” I snapped, a nasty snarl on my face, my voice bitter and raw.
Without a word, he went to fetch a broom.
“Are you deaf or stupid?” I demanded as he began to clean up the mess I had made.
“Neither," Lan Zhan replied, his tone as calm as a winter pond as he swept up the shards. "I’m here because I want to be."
I scoffed, my self-loathing coming to a head. "Why? To witness the freak show that is Wei Wuxian? To see how far I've fallen?"
"No." He said as he disposed of the ceramic pieces before turning to face me. "I’m here for you, Wei Ying. Only you."
Something in his steady gaze made my breath catch. I looked away, my anger deflating. "I don't need your pity or charity."
"It’s neither." Lan Zhan said.
I wanted to hate him. To push him away with the worst of myself. I found myself throwing tantrums, yelling and exposing the ugliest parts of me. He remained unruffled. It was infuriating.
🎶
“Do you ever plan on fixing the garden?” Lan Zhan asked me one afternoon, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen over us like a warm blanket.
“No,” I answered absently.
“Why?” Lan Zhan asked, sharp eyes on me.
“Because it’s dead.”
He arched a brow. “So are stars, but that doesn’t stop people from wishing on them.”
Between the two of us, the house was coming together nicely. He helped me with the kitchen just last week, already silently judging the yard, ready to tackle the next project.
Eventually, Lan Zhan found the overgrown lotus pond hidden in the back; a memory of its past loveliness now reduced to a swamp buzzing with mosquitoes.
He gave it an appraising look and called it the “spine of the house.” I asked him what he meant he simply said. “Everything grows from it.”
He began pulling weeds one day at a time, large hands gentle in the dirt, careful with the roots underneath. He was with me for the entire Spring, but I never thought he’d stay.
🎶
"I have to go," he announced one evening.
We stood on the front porch, with the moon casting a silver glow over him. It accentuated his sharp cheekbones and pointed chin, and made me want to cut myself on his face.
"I want to speak up for you. You didn't deserve what happened."
I let out a bitter laugh. "Who would care to listen?"
He shook his head slowly, as if weighing the impossibility of my redemption. The Wen siblings had died in that fire, I didn’t deserve more than what I got.
My heart ached. "Don't bother coming back."
“Mm,” he murmured.
I didn't want him to leave, but I couldn't hold him back. Instead of arguing, I went to bed, I laid awake for a long time, torn between relief at his departure and a desperate want for him. When I woke up the next day, he was gone.
🎶
I returned to my ghosts—old songs, stained notebooks, messages I never sent—a quiet retreat into a past where chaos and beauty had once intertwined.
Days blurred together, the cool spring spilling into a scorching summer. The lotus pond began to thrive, timidly sprouting a single pink blossom. I even started working on the dilapidated gazebo, trying to rebuild a semblance of what it once was. I found solace there.
It was one of those days when the sun was high and I couldn’t handle the heat, that I decided to turn in early and spend the rest of the day inside. It wasn’t until I was closer to the backyard that I heard it: a flute concerto, so familiar that it brought tears to my eyes. It was a recording of me, a relic of the person I once was. Before I knew it, my feet carried me toward the sound.
Lan Zhan stood in the sunroom. His phone was connected to a Bluetooth speaker I thought had died two years ago.
Seeing him stirred something warm within me, and I longed to hold him, to gently cradle his face, to bridge the distance between us. Instead, I halted just inches away, rooted myself in that spot under his intense gaze. He smelled of ozone and sage, a scent I never realized I needed.
He came back.
“Hey,” I managed to say around the lump in my throat.
“Hello,” he said, his voice as soft as the summer breeze.
He stepped forward and embraced me. We stood there, my ear against his chest, absorbing his presence.
"Did they listen?" I whispered, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart.
"Yes."
Of course they did. Who could ignore Lan Zhan? I always hung on every word he said. I wanted to know the details, if justice was being served, if people regretted their actions. But instead, I cherished the moment with the man before me. Nothing else mattered.
Later, Lan Zhan officially moved in with me. We painted the rooms, repaired the windows, and focused on restoring the house, piece by fragile piece. I even began creating music again. It was raw, chaotic, and imperfect—but full of life.