Chapter Text
"Some tings don't work
Some tings are bound to be
Some tings, they hurt
And they tear apart me"
Lan Xichen gazed out the window of his room in the Golden Tower, sighing as if each sigh were an invisible oar trying to push the sky toward calm, but the clouds laughed at him, tied to ropes of wind that no one could cut. Behind him, sitting at the low table, Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao were two miniature storms, one a hurricane of words, the other a fragile glass castle trembling before every gust. Or rather, Mingjue was screaming his indignation at the top of his lungs as if the volume could convince the sun to rise later, and Jin Guangyao… well, Jin Guangyao was trying not to spill his wine on the floor, which seemed the only fragile thing in that room besides his dignity.
Lan Xichen closed his eyes for a moment, as if wanting to suspend the world around him and find a small space of calm. The meeting had just ended, yet he still felt the weight of expectations, like a light blanket that couldn't be lifted. The room, which was supposed to be a refuge, appeared calm only on the surface; underneath, thoughts and worries moved silently, ready to strike him at the slightest misstep.
Jiang Cheng was there, or at least his presence seemed to fill every corner. Lan Xichen felt that man's gaze making its way down his back, cutting through his thoughts like a cold wind cutting through leaves. No words were needed: her worry was a gentle, constant weight, impossible to ignore, yet not entirely suffocating. “Please,” Jiang Cheng had said to him, his voice a whisper that seemed suspended in the air, but with a weight that could constrict his throat, “maybe this time he'll listen. Bring that… idiot back to the right path, please.”
Lan Xichen felt the gravity of the request, as if someone had placed a small planet on his shoulders. He couldn't answer, not really: there was no easy way to get Wei Wuxian back anywhere, and certainly not along the paths others had blazed. So he had limited himself to a quiet nod, small as a leaf trembling in the wind, So he had limited himself to a quiet nod, at the same time dodging Nie Mingjue's dangerous smile, a smile he knew all too well.
That smile never promised anything simple. Lan Xichen stood there, suspended in the apparent quiet, feeling the world swing like a pendulum that no one dares to stop. Nie Mingjue, his brow furrowed like a map of wars past and present, and like a small hurricane ready to engulf everything in its path, placed a massive hand on Jiang Cheng's shoulder and said in a booming voice, “Do you want it whole or in pieces?”
Jiang Cheng, who considered diplomacy an art that was more explosive than calm, did not hesitate for a moment. “You can tie a bow around his head, drag him along the ground, throw him into the river… as long as he comes to his senses.” Lan Xichen remembered Nie Mingjue's satisfied look and the powerful pat he gave Jiang Cheng on the shoulder. For a moment he took pity on that poor shoulder, which looked like a small planet under the sudden weight of a meteorite. Nie Mingjue was certainly not one who knew how to measure his strength: Lan Xichen could count them on the fingers of one hand, yet every gesture had an almost theatrical precision, as if the scream and the power were secret choreographies of a chaotic ballet.
Then Nie Mingjue turned to him and made the gesture Lan Xichen knew all too well: a small greeting, a warning, a promise of future complaint. “See you later, and know that I will complain.” And he walked away, leaving him there, with Jiang Cheng smiling as if he had just handed him the sun wrapped in a bow, or even the entire universe, laid out in the middle of the corridor like a carpet ready to be unrolled.
Lan Xichen clasped his hands behind his back. A headache. A headache that felt like an invisible drum band marching inside his head, punctuating every step and every sigh. But there was no time for endless sighs: he had to go and talk to his uncle, who was waiting for him at the gates of the Golden Tower, ready to return to Gusu immediately after the conversation. Someone had to take care of Gusu while Lan Xichen was away, and someone, reluctantly, had to take care of Lan Wangji, fragile as crystal, suspended in the hands of fate.
“Don’t let him run away as soon as we blink!” his uncle said, pointing his finger again at Lan Wangji, who this time had been found locked in the library, especially in the forbidden section. His voice boomed like thunder. “Love is a curse! And this has confirmed it once again!” he shouted again, as if just by raising his voice he could impress upon Lan Wangji's mind that impulsiveness was a mortal enemy.
Lan Xichen remembered that day well, as if it were a small orbit of crazy light in his brain. Lan Wangji, an impeccable model of rectitude and politeness, had turned to being a thief of the smallest secrets: hiding the Emperor's Smile, Wei Wuxian's favorite wine, under the wooden beams of his chamber, as if he were burying a small golden treasure amidst the ancient wood, a treasure that no one should ever find.
Lan Xichen had glimpsed him once from the window, in passing, and felt like a thief of thieves, a guardian of secrets in the shadows. He hadn't said anything, of course: who dares open his mouth when a gesture of love is slumbering under the beams? He hoped his uncle would never notice—because there was something fragile and sweet in that gesture, like a cloud of sugar suspended amidst the chaos of shouts and angry glances, something that deserved to remain intact even if the whole world wanted to stick its nose in and overturn everything.
Even though Lan Qiren had become Lan Wangji's shadow, the two continued to spend time together as if they were two pages of the same book that neither ever read to the end. They drank tea side by side, their hands shaking slightly if the steam touched them, and Lan Wangji followed him diligently during class, like a shadow too precise to ever be separated. They played the guqin together, their fingers dancing over the strings like crazy birds.
Lan Xichen hoped, with a small sigh held in his chest, that they didn't wash in the same tub as well. Not out of judgment, but because the idea seemed strangely… embarrassing, even in the midst of so much innocent sweetness.
He hoped, more than he cared to admit, that his uncle would give Lan Wangji some privacy at night. Because even the most rigorous and impeccable people had the right to a little space of their own, to a moment where the beams and the steam and the silence became a world in which even a thief of smiles, or a hider of wines, could breathe without shouts, without orders, without stern eyes.
Lan Xichen understood that his uncle's excessive control did not hide rigidity, but pure concern, a concern that shone in his eyes like tiny lanterns hanging between the wrinkles and creases of his forehead. Yet if someone had asked him to open up, to pour out a torrent of anxieties, or even just sit in the same room for an hour and listen to Jin Guangshan's gossip—without shouting every ten minutes, "Let's get back to the point!"—Lan Xichen knew with crystal clarity that his uncle would have preferred to let those words flow like water over smooth stones, like a river that never wets the truly thirsty.
Lan Xichen imagined his uncle as a small, serious fish in an aquarium of words darting and splashing everywhere, and he swimming alongside, unable to help but laugh at the absurdity of it all: because yes, even the deepest worry, sometimes, is like a fish banging its tail on the edge of the tank.
Lan Xichen opened his eyes and realized that the evening sky was calmer than his room. The moon sat there, calm and a little bored, watching the human chaos below. He couldn't decide which was morall this chaos would continue until dawn.e frustrating: Nie Mingjue yelling, Jin Guangyao swallowing nervously, or the thought that
“Your father wants us dead! That's why he chose us! That man doesn't want peace, he wants us dead!” There was a sharp bang—perhaps a glass banging on the table. Jin Guangyao tried, as always, to keep a calm tone. But he didn't have time to open his mouth. “Jin Guangyao!” Nie Mingjue shouted, slamming his fist on the table so hard that the cups danced as if they were pirouetting. “Don't defend him just because he's your father! I'll take you and carry you to the Nie sect, understand?”
Jin Guangyao opened his mouth, closed his mouth, and finally decided that breathing was enough to survive. Lan Xichen sighed for the fifth time, looked at the sky, and wondered if it was possible that the sun, seeing that scene, would refuse to rise until humans learned to behave decently. “I’ll take you and carry you to the Nie sect, understand?” That sentence...Again.
Lan Xichen sighed. Inside his mind, those words had transformed into a kind of infernal mantra, a cursed bell that rang out every time Nie Mingjue opened his mouth with the same grace as thunder falling on a ceramic roof. How many times had he heard it since Jin Guangyao was recognized by his father? Too many. He could write it down on a scroll and it would be long enough to violate all the rules of Gusu Lan at once.
Whenever something happened, and heaven knew something always happened with Jin Guangshan, Nie Mingjue would come up with at least one variation.
Had Jin Guangshan decided to have Jin Guangyao marry Qin Su? Fine, and then it turned out Qin Su was Jin Guangyao's half-sister? Here's Nie Mingjue, exploding like a volcano, his eyebrows dangerously close to takeoff, "Marry Nie Huaisang if you want security, you'd get along great! Your father knows no shame! Return to the Nie sect or I'll carry you there!"
Did Jin Guangshan bully Jin Guangyao with words? Another explosion. This time Nie Mingjue seemed ready to overturn the Golden Tower with his own hands. "I'll take that man, stomp him, and spit on him! How dare he do that!! I don't like this situation at all, and you're not safe here, Jin Guangyao! Don't you dare try to convince me otherwise! Go back to the Nie Sect alone, or I'll drag you down the steps of the Golden Tower and make you count them one by one!"
Lan Xichen had seen it so many times that, in his mind, the scenes became blurred and almost… funny. He couldn't help it. There was a sincere affection in Nie Mingjue's fury, a warmth that made everything seem less dangerous and more… tenderly ridiculous. Like a big protective bear roaring against the wind because he didn't want it to take his cub away.
And Jin Guangyao, poor thing, always nodded with the calmest, most diplomatic smile in the entire history of humanity, as if he weren't listening to a man who promised to drag him down the stairs with the gentleness of an avalanche. Lan Xichen, watching them, couldn't help but think a simple, stupid thought: One of these times, Nie Mingjue will really take him. And Jin Guangyao won't spill a drop of tea.
Nie Mingjue saw Jin Guangyao as a younger brother, and Lan Xichen felt him every time as if he were a light wind shaking the leaves of a fragile tree, and at the same time an earthquake ready to shake the earth beneath them. Nie Mingjue's voice was an impossible mix: concern and aggression, like a giant trying to lift a dream-thin ceramic vase without breaking it, with the delicacy of a breath and the strength of a hurricane.
Nie Mingjue's eyes were like those of an overly large puppy dog, his lip slightly protruded, and his entire body seemed like a tangle of a hundred worries fighting among themselves for attention. Lan Xichen couldn't help but imagine that concentrated force as a small sun that threatened to scorch everything around him, but which, strangely, also warmed him.
And a shameless thought crept into his mind, laughing and hopping like a lizard between the rafters of his skull: if Nie Mingjue ever showed interest in his uncle, well… then they could really be together. Because, in Lan Xichen's eyes, both were creatures of perfect contrasts: the impetuous giant with puppies in his eyes and his lip always slightly pouted, and his uncle, so calm, so precise, so able to endure anyone's screams and dramas without ever missing a beat.
Lan Xichen saw it as a small miracle: two different worlds that, by pure magic or the whim of fate, would fit together like pieces of driftwood on a rushing river, swaying without ever falling. He imagined Nie Mingjue, for the first time, testing his strength without destroying anything, and his uncle, finally, being able to laugh and shake his head at the giant's little follies.
And of course, his mind, treacherous and stubborn, led him to surreal scenarios: weddings amid laughter and spilled glasses, preparations sabotaged by someone, who was snickering under his breath at the secret charade of his crush.
In fact, it wasn't as if Lan Xichen was truly convinced that his uncle and Nie Mingjue could be together, even though in his mind they continued to fit together with the precision of two pieces of wood that the river had smoothed until they fit together. It wasn't even that he thought too much about the fact that Nie Mingjue was his childhood best friend, the person he would have fought an army for, or who would have run naked down the street if Mingjue had even shown the slightest hint of interest in him. Those thoughts came to him on their own, like leaves blown by the wind, and it was the wind's fault, not his.
He certainly wasn't trying to convince himself he didn't like it. That wasn't the point. And he wasn't remembering at all that night in the inn, when Mingjue had fallen asleep with the serenity of a sacred ox and he had ended up looking at him for too long, without noticing that the sky was changing color beyond the window. It was just a natural phenomenon, like the changing seasons or the way the dawn light slips through the rafters and falls on the sleeping person, insistent like a child wanting attention. There was nothing sentimentally compromising in watching a friend snore with the tranquility of someone who fears nothing. It was pure curiosity, like studying the repose of a mountain.
Academic observation. Lan Xichen was said while trying to convince himself. Studying the breathing of a friend who is snoring, very normal things.
At least, that's what he kept telling himself. There was a voice inside him that seemed to laugh softly every time he tried to rationalize everything, like a mischievous little spirit drumming its fingers against the walls of his mind. Lan Xichen ignored it, or tried to, reminding himself that he was a grown man and not a teenager in a foolish crush. But the more he tried to sort it out, the more his memory filled up with useless details: the way Mingjue breathed, the slow curve of his shoulders, the imposing calm he exuded even in sleep, the same calm he longed to grasp, just for a moment, the way one grasps a brazier to warm oneself on a cold night.
It wasn't love, they said. It was just his mind playing games with him, like always. And if at times it seemed to him that those fantasies arose from a tender place inside his chest, well, it wasn't his fault. It was Nie Mingjue's fault, his way of being, his weight, his presence, his voice that could shake the whole world and then, inexplicably, turn kind to just one person.
Lan Xichen sighed. Denial, in the end, was an art. And he practiced it like a monk who copies rules onto parchments that no one will ever read.
The more he tried to convince himself that he didn't like Nie Mingjue, the more reality seemed to enjoy proving him wrong. It was as if the entire world was complicit in a great hoax, and Nie Mingjue was the unwitting protagonist. Every time Lan Xichen tried to keep his distance, he would appear beside him with the ease of a boulder that decides to roll right in your direction: not out of malice, but because gravity is such, and resisting it is useless.
Nie Mingjue had that strength, that presence, that filled a room like the scent of morning musk, and no matter how much Lan Xichen tried to ignore it. The more he tried to stay away from it, the more Mingjue seemed to sense it and, inexplicably, get closer. He clung to him with disarming ease, like a mussel to the rock it has chosen for survival, stubborn and faithful without even realizing it. It wasn't even something he did on purpose; it was simply his way of being, as if the entire world were made of slippery surfaces except for Lan Xichen.
And Lan Xichen, every time, sighed to himself. A sigh that contained amazement, amusement and a hint of terror, because was it really possible that so much strength, so much life, so much fury and so much sweetness were concentrated in a single person? Watching him was like watching an avalanche that, for some mysterious reason, instead of sweeping everything away, stopped right in front of you and held out its hand, almost asking: “Is everything okay?”
Lan Xichen never knew what to say, because how do you deal with a person who looks at you as if you were the only fixed point in a world slipping beneath his feet, how do you survive the idea that such a giant could truly trust you, lean on you, rely on you with an inescapable ease, with strong arms, eyebrows always a little too drawn, and a way of snoring that fills the room more than any silence?
The more he denied his feelings, the more his heart moved on its own, like a faulty compass that keeps pointing in the wrong direction, that wrong direction that was irresistible, that smelled of safety and warmth, that trembled with life and attention, and Lan Xichen knew it was stupid, he knew it clearly, and dangerous, he knew it even more, but it was inevitable, inevitable like the light that filters through the windows at dawn and that you can't stop, no matter how much you close your eyes or how much you try to convince yourself to breathe slowly and keep your heart still, because sooner or later it finds you and burns you and forces you to look at whoever is in front of you with all the silent and gentle power of a giant who doesn't know he is also your point of reference, your world and your magnet all at once.
Lan Xichen continued to stare out the window, his hands clasped behind his back, trying to anchor himself to something solid as the night wind grazed the tower. Perhaps it was true that Lans in love were cursed: first his father with his mother, then Lan Qiren.
Lan Xichen had discovered poems hidden in the most unlikely corners of his uncle's personal library, while simply looking for a book to borrow. Poems that spoke of a man dressed in red with black flames, the soul of a devil who looked like a shining, magnetic dragon. Lan Xichen blushed almost unconsciously as he read, stumbling through the verses as if walking on ice, yet it didn't take him long to realize that his uncle was talking about Wen Ruohan, from when they were students, and that even then his uncle's temperament was a small fire ready to burn down the rules of the Lan sect, similar to Lan Wangji in its uncontrollable impulse.
The cold springs, they had really seen it all. He tried to look away, to breathe slowly, to convince himself not to think about it, but how could he? How would he have looked his uncle in the face after reading verses that revealed an impetuous heart, an indomitable yet sweet spirit, hidden behind rigor and discipline? It was all too big, too personal, and Lan Xichen felt his head spin, his hands behind his back tense like the strings of an instrument ready to vibrate.
He only knew that he had put the poems back exactly where he had found them and that, from that moment on, he would never look at the hidden corners of the cold springs the same way again. Those small, secret spaces, once harmless and silent, now seemed to hold living memories, burning thoughts, and whispers of a past breathing beneath the surface, and Lan Xichen felt a subtle vertigo, as if every step toward them could shatter invisible walls of silence and privacy.
Lan Xichen gazed out the window into the distance, the twilight sky stretching like blue and gray velvet before his eyes, and thought that tomorrow would be a truly heavy day, and the days to come would be no less. It wasn't just that he would be with Nie Mingjue, but that they had to stay together until they brought Wei Wuxian back into the arms of Lan Wangji, who was waiting for him with the patience of someone waiting for dawn or spring after a long winter. They had to bring him back on the right path, guide him carefully, even if it meant Lan Xichen himself had to kneel down and pray to that young man, beseech him with all the delicacy and firmness he could muster.
But he had some confidence this time: he wasn't alone, Nie Mingjue was by his side, and if the situation really got worse, at least there were two of them begging, better two than one. A thread of regret slipped inside him; Wei Wuxian had his reasons, perhaps, and they were just used to stiffness and sword fighting, even though Lan XIchen's second spiritual weapon was a flute, not another blade....The point was to bring him back with them, find a plausible excuse, resolve everything, and then hide out on top of a mountain until his time alone with Nie Mingjue became just a blurry memory.
“Well done, you both have managed to will solve this problem once and for all… ChiFeng-Zun, ZeWu-Jun thank you on behalf of all of us for taking charge of the situation! ”, Jin Guangshan said, looking at them with that air of smug satisfaction that made the world suddenly seem smaller. Lan Xichen, at that precise moment, just wanted to bury his head in a cup of boiling tea and stay there, letting the warmth and aroma envelop him like an invisible cloak, while his deepest desire was to disappear, dissolve into the clouds of steam, and forget for a few minutes that the world could be so terribly and comically unfair.
The night was still young and Lan Xichen felt the weight of tomorrow like a cloth too long to carry on his shoulders. Perhaps Nie Mingjue was right: Jin Guangshan wanted them dead, but not to create a pretext against Wei Wuxian, but rather because he knew that Lan Xichen, left alone with his thoughts, would begin to imagine impossible escapes, disappear from the world and never be found again.
After the second night spent together at the inn, Lan Xichen thought, the idea of sleeping in a tree stopped seeming absurd and became an almost logical plan, a small refuge suspended above the cold air and the noises of too-quiet corridors. Yet the night remained young, and tomorrow was a roll of the dice of fate: anything could happen, and the world felt incredibly light and at the same time terribly uncertain, as if one false step were enough to make it sway and change color.
“Hey Xichen! I’m staying here tonight. I’m too drunk to wake up alone or go back to my room, and Jin Guangyao certainly can’t drag me back to my room,” Nie Mingjue said from behind him, with that boundless confidence that made every word seem like a little trap of tenderness and chaos at once.
Lan Xichen closed his eyes, a light sigh that dispersed through the rafters of the room, and thought that perhaps he should start exercising. Sleeping comfortably in trees takes practice, he told himself, and it's best to start that very night. Better to get used to it now, before the night gets too long and the world becomes even more unpredictable, before Nie Mingjue decides to turn everything into an adventure.
Lan Xichen felt the weight and lightness intertwine within him, already imagining what it would be like to sleep in that tree, seeking a balance between tiredness and worry, between a sense of duty and the curious pleasure of having the drunken giant close to him, impossible to ignore and impossible to forget.
As he mentally prepared for that night that certainly would not end soon, Lan Xichen silently prayed to the sky, hoping that the moon or the gods would help him fall asleep as soon as he touched the pillow, completely unaware that there was only one bed in the room. Maybe he would sleep on the floor, he thought, and he might as well: it was certainly good for his posture and his back.
He also prayed that Wei Wuxian would make things at least a little easier, because he was doing this for his brother, to bring one brother back to another who was waiting for him on the dock, wine in hand and a rage he wore like a sect leader's robe, a purple so intense it almost burned his eyes. He had to bring Wei Wuxian back, and if that meant sleeping on the floor that night and maybe in the future, well, that was the price he had to pay, and he would pay it without complaint.
And then there was Nie Mingjue, who would be by his side all night and even afterward as they went to Wei Wuxian, and Lan Xichen thought of it with a thin smile. He certainly wouldn't say "no" to spending time with him, at least not out loud. The prospect filled him with a strange warmth, a combination of anguish, worry, and that silent happiness that makes your shoulders sag slightly as you think that maybe, after all, the night wouldn't be so terrible.