Hi! I wonder if I can request a scenario for Lan Xichen, where he finds love after he comes out from his seclusion please he deserves a happy end too
Oh my god, someone hug LXC please, the poor boy.
Lan Xichen finds a beginning after the end.
The months following A-Yao’s betrayal sting against the edges of his ribs, sinking in to pierce his heart sharper than any blade. He does not hardly eat, he cannot sleep for the nightmares that come to haunt him.
A gentle voice, a pleasant smile, dripping honey as he drives the pain home over and over again each night, leaving Lan Xichen to wake in cold sweats with the whisper of “I would never hurt you, er-ge” in his mind. A perfect illusion shattering to embed itself in his mind and burrow into his soul, leaving trails of blood and heartache in their wake. “I would never hurt you.”
But oh, how he had hurt him.
Time for the memories to fade, for the meditations to actually work in helping calm his troubled spirit. Time for him to be able to see the flash of gold against the world and not feel like his heart has been ripped out, shredded to dust by the man he once called brother.
It takes time, but he does it.
The first day he leaves his seclusion, he feels like he’s not ready. He’s been gone too long, he isn’t sure what awaits him, he worries others will see the weakness behind his brittle, faded smile. He is not ready. But he steps, one foot in front of the other until he finds himself before his council, taking his place as the sect leader once more.
And he worries, when the days begin to come easier. Is it wrong to move on? To say goodbye and find peace, even as his sworn brothers fight in undeath? But he breathes, and it is gone.
They are dead- but he is not. They would not want him to act as if he were.
And he worries, when there is a stirring in his heart when they come near, new and bright and wonderful. He worries when they say something and it prompts him to smile. Not a polite, political smile, but a true, genuine, bright smile, that comes with aching, breathless ribs and laughter like the sun.
A smile that shattered under the stones of the Guanyin Temple.
And he breathes, basking in the sun as it sinks beneath the horizon, watching as they smile with him, almost too good to be true. And the worry that gnaws on his bones eases some.
It takes time. It will always take time, after the pain A-Yao caused him. After the seeds of haunting doubts he managed to sew in the hours before his death. Days. Weeks. Months.
He stutters and hides away, confused and unsure. How can he know? If he could not see the deception in his sworn brother’s heart, how will he find it in another’s? How can he know that caring, true caring, will not lead him back to the depths of pain?
It takes time, to let another into his heart again.
“You delight me,” he whispers in the breath after their lips have parted, the moon high above them, his ribbon tied around their wrists. “Surely you must be my perfect match.”
“I am far from perfect,” they say softly back, fitting against his side like a matched puzzle piece. “But for you, I would try.”
For a moment, his mind flashes back to a man who he thought was perfect once, only to bring the pain later when all his flaws were brought to light. There is a comfort in the way they have never tried to hide their flaws- their shortcomings.
“I do not want perfection,” he confesses, the truth laid bare between them. “I merely want you. Perfectly imperfect you, if you can accept a perfectly imperfect me.”
“Ah, now that, A-Huan, I can do.”
It takes time. Healing always does, and his wounds are still not quite scarred over. But with them, it is that much easier.
With them, he can start looking forward to the future again.
