It's been a few months since the decision. The decision that Lan Jingyi still isn't okay with and can't understand. He's been miserable, doing even worse in his studies, sleeping more and quieter than was anywhere near normal for him. But one evening close to 9 he makes his way to the Hanshi and knocks.
Sometimes he thinks about how Sizhui tells him he could just leave, that they can't force him to stay but he didn't want to betray his clan that way. He didn't want to feel all the resentment he felt either and he didn't know how to resolve it.
So even if Zewu Jun is the cause of his problems he doesn't know who else could help him either if only he can not lose his temper about the decision again. The last time he'd tried to talk to Xichen it was more confrontation and yelling than anything else. As always hidden on him is Jiang Cheng's pendant that he'd asked for when he snuck in the night before Jiang Cheng left.
Xichen has been meditating after the day's work. He knows that he is still...
Unstable.
So he does his best to avoid crashing once more.
When the knock comes, it takes him a few heartbeats to come answer it, his eyes soft and a little sad at the young man who has ended up in this... unfortunate situation.
"Jingyi. Good evening. Come in."
Warm, as he steps aside from the door and settles to pour tea for them.
Jingyi doesn't quite look directly at him when he answers the door but he bows and comes inside, settling down as well. He fidgets with his sleeve, watching the other's hands as he pours tea.
"I don't know what to do."
And he hates that Xichen still thinks that what he has with Jiang Cheng isn't real and the disconnect makes it harder to find the right answers, the right questions.
Xichen sighs quietly, then settles a cup of tea before Jingyi.
"Because you need to wait for what you want becoming reality?"
It's not berating. Merely making sure they will be talking of the same thing. But he doesn't think that anything else major may have left Jingyi in a quandary.
Jingyi's hands curled into his fists briefly before he forces them to relax, still not looking at the other before there's more ache than anger tonight and somehow that's worse to be seen.
"Ah, see." Softly. "Hearts can be misled. Hearts and minds and bodies can be wooed - subtly, sometimes, unnoticeably.
"I do not think you do not know your own heart, for while over the years you have broken many rules, you have remained true to the spirit of most of them.
"The heart I question is sect leader Jiang's." Though his voice is still soft - he does not want this conversation to dissolve into anger again - there is a hint of frost in it. He is... still extremely unhappy with the situation. "He is handsome, powerful, different from what you have known, and yet dignified in his way. He is at the same time a little bit like you, too," yes, Xichen has done thinking, too, "or it seems so, at least. Someone to belong with.
"But what if that is what you have seen because he wishes to please yourself. With your body, with your adoration. What if his heart is indifferent, and only his words are what you want to hear to want him more?"
Xichen's eyes are on the tea in his cup. Which he has not touched.
"If you go, you will not know if his words will prove true until you have lost everything. If you wait, if his heart is true, you will have everything.
"Are a few years, in a life that will probably span many of those, truly that great a price for that, Jingyi?"
"Do you really think so poorly of Sect Leader Jiang?" Jingyi says, still tense and feeling his temper flare. He didn't need proof, he knew Jiang Cheng's heart. "I do not believe he is that kind of person. You're overcorrecting."
It's probably too far to say that last part but what else could Lan Xichen do that would be worse?
"I do not go not because I think there is any merit to this but because I do not want to lose my clan," he says, despite the way he's always felt out of place. "Because even if I don't always feel like I belong..." Jingyi shrugs. "I still care about your approval. But know there is no doubt in my heart for the kind of man that I know he is."
"I would not have if he had not dallied with a junior of another sect without first talking with his kith and kin. Those who have done so in the past... have not had the best overall behavior. In view of the rest of what is known of his conduct, I am willing to allow that it may be a wrong judgment."
Xichen's expression softens, though.
"I do not wish to lose you, either. Our Sect... we are used to certain ways. Some of which are - necessary, for how deep our emotions run. I do know that you have not always felt like you belong, but. All of this proves that you are, very much, one of us.
"And I do want you to be happy, though I know right now it does not seem so. So I am grateful that, despite the pain you feel for it, you do stay."
"And what would you have done if he had?" Jingyi counters, he already knows the answer and it's not as if that would have worked since the feelings aren't what came first, definitely not what came first.
"It does...?" Jingyi looks confused because he has never felt less Lan like than he does now.
Jingyi looks down by the last line and he wishes there was anything that made him feel better and he can't tell if this all had just made him feel more hopeless about the remaining time.
"If he had requested to, well, court you - rather than taking you first - I would have been a little surprised, but as it is the right way to do things, and if you had been willing, I would have agreed."
He closes his eyes for a moment, squeezing them against grief that still comes in deep waves, even though he is slightly less likely to drown in them these days.
"We all love deeply, the descendants of Lan An. Emotions strong like a gale, like the tides. We are caught in them, and often get trapped into situations we cannot escape and only bring pain. Think of what you must know of my father; think what you witnessed for more than a decade and a half of my brother - it would have been more, had other circumstances not alleviated his pain."
He looks out in the direction of the Wall of Rules. "And the rules we all grow up with show a path, but in the end, we can only walk it so far."
Jingyi looks at him doubtfully, considering he'd been even younger when they'd first gotten involved and well, it wouldn't have mattered because when they first got involved it was just about sex and a fun time and neither of them had meant for it to become more and then it had. None of it matters now anyway.
Jingyi's gaze lowers as the other continues talking.
"But it's not my emotions that is causing the pain," he mumbles and then shakes his head. There's really nothing that will make him feel better. He couldn't even keep his anger at Lan Xichen.
Xichen hums, not pointing out that missing him is also an emotion - that is beside the point, and it will not help.
Instead, he gently leans over, and smooths Jingyi's robes, without trying to fix anything - not berating him over anything, but trying to offer comfort.
"It will not be for all that long. He is alive and well. Take heart in your hope. Hope is worth that."
The very moment that Wuxian hears that news, it's almost as his soul is sucked from his body to return once more to the afterlife, stunning him into complete silence as he's trying to process everything he's told. He's a what now? He's always claimed to have died a virgin, so how did Jingyi come to be, and WHEN?! But he's also had a horrible memory, especially before he died when he was a lot worse.
Quickly whipping his head to Jingyi, his eyes filled with confusion and shock, he manages to finally sputter words out. "You've got to be kidding me, no way, me a dad? To someone who isn't the adopted Sizhui? I have an actual blood related kid?! Jingyi how old are you?! I mean it explains how you don't act like a stuffy Lan, but there's no way. No way."
Jingyi's... trying to collect his thoughts but it's not going very well. He'd never known anything about his father. His mother would never talk about it and no one seemed to know anything. He wonders if the whole feeling that he didn't belong in Cloud Recesses is because he's Wei Wuxian's son.
"....18?" Oh great, he's got to remember back eighteen years, sixteen of which he'd been dead. Two years before he died, what even was he doing? Sunshot Campaign? No, no that couldn't be right. But it was one of the few hazy pieces of his memory after he'd come back, ruthless and hellbent on revenge enough that some of the resentful energies he'd taken in had at times overpowered his memories of certain events. Could it have been at the end when he was feeling like everyone was out to get him, when he and Wangji weren't on the best of speaking terms? Did he drink too much one of those nights, just to feel something, and that happened? But why would a Lan woman have laid with him when their sect believes so strongly in a fated person?
"I... I don't remember laying with a woman all that time ago, yet here you are." Amidst the confusion on his face, Wuxian manages a typical smirk. "Heh, even if I don't remember your mom.. my apologies to that, I really do have a terrible memory, you're still here. No wonder you don't act like a stuffy Lan! You've got half of my family's blood running through you."
Jingyi can't even imagine what the other had been doing and honestly it's kind of weird to realize that he's finally meeting his father and he apparently doesn't remember having sex with Jingyi's mom. But that's fine. All of this is fine. Jingyi is totally fine. It does explain some things after all, unexpectedly. There's a lot that's not similar to Wei Wuxian but... then again there might be even more that is and he'd never really completely fit into Cloud Recesses -- at all -- as much as he loved it.
"I guess it's fine. Not your fault or anything," Jingyi says, scratching the back of his neck and it's kind of weird. With Wei Wuxian being dead 16 years he's now not even that much older than Jingyi. So. Weird. He's going to be thinking about all this for a while.
"I do feel bad that I don't remember her, it was another time and I was a different person. When I came back, my memory was damaged, some parts I can't remember at all." There's an awkward but regretful tone in his laugh. He really does feel bad!
The fact that he fathered a son when he wasn't that much older than Jingyi is now isn't what makes him twitch an eyebrow, but the fact that the body he's in now has only got to be in his mid twenties. It takes him a moment for it to sink in.
"Ah.. you don't have to call me dad or anything, Senior Wei is still just fine. Better even. Won't draw unnecessary questions to either of us." And he definitely doesn't want to have to explain that to anyone, especially not to Jin Ling.
"I don't think she'd be too upset," Jingyi says and he lifts a shoulder. He's pretty sure she wouldn't be upset at all honestly. There had been no great love affair as far as Jingyi had ever been able to tell from his mother.
"Yeah...dad would be too weird," Jingyi laughs loudly and it's got an awkwardness to it but it's not so bad.
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Lan JINGYI
lxc
Sometimes he thinks about how Sizhui tells him he could just leave, that they can't force him to stay but he didn't want to betray his clan that way. He didn't want to feel all the resentment he felt either and he didn't know how to resolve it.
So even if Zewu Jun is the cause of his problems he doesn't know who else could help him either if only he can not lose his temper about the decision again. The last time he'd tried to talk to Xichen it was more confrontation and yelling than anything else. As always hidden on him is Jiang Cheng's pendant that he'd asked for when he snuck in the night before Jiang Cheng left.
no subject
Unstable.
So he does his best to avoid crashing once more.
When the knock comes, it takes him a few heartbeats to come answer it, his eyes soft and a little sad at the young man who has ended up in this... unfortunate situation.
"Jingyi. Good evening. Come in."
Warm, as he steps aside from the door and settles to pour tea for them.
no subject
"I don't know what to do."
And he hates that Xichen still thinks that what he has with Jiang Cheng isn't real and the disconnect makes it harder to find the right answers, the right questions.
no subject
"Because you need to wait for what you want becoming reality?"
It's not berating. Merely making sure they will be talking of the same thing. But he doesn't think that anything else major may have left Jingyi in a quandary.
no subject
"It's a reality already."
no subject
"You do know that if I completely disbelieved that, there would not have been a trial period, yes?"
no subject
"You act as if I'm just foolish and don't know my own heart," he says, words chosen carefully, at least that is how he feels.
"Sizhui says that I should just go, that no one could really stop me."
no subject
"I do not think you do not know your own heart, for while over the years you have broken many rules, you have remained true to the spirit of most of them.
"The heart I question is sect leader Jiang's." Though his voice is still soft - he does not want this conversation to dissolve into anger again - there is a hint of frost in it. He is... still extremely unhappy with the situation. "He is handsome, powerful, different from what you have known, and yet dignified in his way. He is at the same time a little bit like you, too," yes, Xichen has done thinking, too, "or it seems so, at least. Someone to belong with.
"But what if that is what you have seen because he wishes to please yourself. With your body, with your adoration. What if his heart is indifferent, and only his words are what you want to hear to want him more?"
Xichen's eyes are on the tea in his cup. Which he has not touched.
"If you go, you will not know if his words will prove true until you have lost everything. If you wait, if his heart is true, you will have everything.
"Are a few years, in a life that will probably span many of those, truly that great a price for that, Jingyi?"
no subject
It's probably too far to say that last part but what else could Lan Xichen do that would be worse?
"I do not go not because I think there is any merit to this but because I do not want to lose my clan," he says, despite the way he's always felt out of place. "Because even if I don't always feel like I belong..." Jingyi shrugs. "I still care about your approval. But know there is no doubt in my heart for the kind of man that I know he is."
no subject
Xichen's expression softens, though.
"I do not wish to lose you, either. Our Sect... we are used to certain ways. Some of which are - necessary, for how deep our emotions run. I do know that you have not always felt like you belong, but. All of this proves that you are, very much, one of us.
"And I do want you to be happy, though I know right now it does not seem so. So I am grateful that, despite the pain you feel for it, you do stay."
no subject
"It does...?" Jingyi looks confused because he has never felt less Lan like than he does now.
Jingyi looks down by the last line and he wishes there was anything that made him feel better and he can't tell if this all had just made him feel more hopeless about the remaining time.
no subject
He closes his eyes for a moment, squeezing them against grief that still comes in deep waves, even though he is slightly less likely to drown in them these days.
"We all love deeply, the descendants of Lan An. Emotions strong like a gale, like the tides. We are caught in them, and often get trapped into situations we cannot escape and only bring pain. Think of what you must know of my father; think what you witnessed for more than a decade and a half of my brother - it would have been more, had other circumstances not alleviated his pain."
He looks out in the direction of the Wall of Rules. "And the rules we all grow up with show a path, but in the end, we can only walk it so far."
no subject
Jingyi's gaze lowers as the other continues talking.
"But it's not my emotions that is causing the pain," he mumbles and then shakes his head. There's really nothing that will make him feel better. He couldn't even keep his anger at Lan Xichen.
"I miss him."
no subject
Instead, he gently leans over, and smooths Jingyi's robes, without trying to fix anything - not berating him over anything, but trying to offer comfort.
"It will not be for all that long. He is alive and well. Take heart in your hope. Hope is worth that."
Time to break the boys' brains
Quickly whipping his head to Jingyi, his eyes filled with confusion and shock, he manages to finally sputter words out. "You've got to be kidding me, no way, me a dad? To someone who isn't the adopted Sizhui? I have an actual blood related kid?! Jingyi how old are you?! I mean it explains how you don't act like a stuffy Lan, but there's no way. No way."
no subject
"I'm... 18."
no subject
"I... I don't remember laying with a woman all that time ago, yet here you are." Amidst the confusion on his face, Wuxian manages a typical smirk. "Heh, even if I don't remember your mom.. my apologies to that, I really do have a terrible memory, you're still here. No wonder you don't act like a stuffy Lan! You've got half of my family's blood running through you."
no subject
"I guess it's fine. Not your fault or anything," Jingyi says, scratching the back of his neck and it's kind of weird. With Wei Wuxian being dead 16 years he's now not even that much older than Jingyi. So. Weird. He's going to be thinking about all this for a while.
"I always wondered why, you know!"
no subject
The fact that he fathered a son when he wasn't that much older than Jingyi is now isn't what makes him twitch an eyebrow, but the fact that the body he's in now has only got to be in his mid twenties. It takes him a moment for it to sink in.
"Ah.. you don't have to call me dad or anything, Senior Wei is still just fine. Better even. Won't draw unnecessary questions to either of us." And he definitely doesn't want to have to explain that to anyone, especially not to Jin Ling.
no subject
"Yeah...dad would be too weird," Jingyi laughs loudly and it's got an awkwardness to it but it's not so bad.