Lwj and lxc navigating their relationship after wwxs death. Lxc really thinks they can go back like nothing happened, like wwx never intruded into his brothers life, but there is a one-sided construction of another wall of rules being built between them, unspoken in lwjs silence.

listed upon that wall are topics which lwj will not under any circumstances discuss with his brother. Every time he tries, another brick is placed, and the wall grows higher.

'Wei Wuxian' is carved into the foundations. The first brick that is placed is 'Lan Yuan'.

then, 'the Wen brand'. 'Jiang Wanyin'. 'The Wen remnants', 'the sect politics', 'how are you feeling?'

Hes familiar, now, with the fluid flicker of lwj's expression whenever he asks the wring question; one which won't get an answer.

Something deep and silent disturbing the calm surface of a lake. something almost akin to anger. There, and then gone. Restrained, stifled. Choked down under his iron control, but there all the same. Lwj builds the wall between them taller, and taller with every misstep, and lxc

doesn't know, anymore, how hes meant to reach his brother. He almost wishes lwj would say something. Almost wishes he'd stop biting back his anger, his frustration. Wishes he'd get MAD at lan xichen, bc then at least there might be something...something more than cold distance.

lxc gets what he wants, once. on an unassuming day, over unassuming tea, everything important to the two of them barricaded by stale silence. he laughs a little, and it's a bittersweet thing. 'it almost reminds me of growing up,' he says, bc its the only thing that hasn't been

stripped from them. he should perhaps have been more cautious of the way lwj's brow furrowed in the slightest frown, but lxc feels as though he doesn't know how to read him anymore. feels as though he doesn't know him anymore. 'father spent so long in seclusion, too.'

he should perhaps have paid more attention to the way lwj's knuckles went white around his cup, but he closes his eyes on a quiet sigh, and doesn't see it. 'i wonder what he felt, then...'

'what he felt,' lwj repeats, voice flat and cold, his inflection toneless.

it would not take a brother's familiarity to know the iced-over expression on lwj's face is fury. he is beyond frustration. he is beyond anger. he is a frostbitten tundra; he is a frozen desert. he looks, for the first time lxc has ever known, hateful.

for the first time, he speaks the name of the new rule he is carving into the iced-over wall between them.

'don't ever compare me to him.'

lxc is off-balance, stricken.

'whatever he Felt,' lwj says, sucks in a sharp, slicing breath through his set teeth. 'i don't care.'

lxc forces his composure. it's paper-thin; as, he can now see, is lwj's restraint. 'wangji,' he tries to placate, his smile hanging from a single silk thread, 'that's not fair.'

the silence between them stretches, deadly. 'fair,' lwj repeats, eyes narrowed as though he's

daring lxc to find a way to defend his words.

he closes his eyes, breathes deeply. it wavers, slightly. his heart is rabbit-fast and scared. the beat of a nervous bird's wings against his ribs. what confrontation has he ever had with his brother? he feels like hes falling.

'we don't know what happened,' he says, slowly and quietly. a veneer of calm, he struggles to keep his voice steady.

'you don't want to know,' lwj snaps, and the cup in his hand is close to breaking. it feels as though the bird that is lxc's nervous heart is in that fist of his

crushed and strangled until its bones snap.

his brother has never been cruel like that.

his brother is not being cruel.

he's being what he always has been; honest, and righteous to a fault.

He's right, too. that's the thing. thats the damned, cowardly thing. lxc doesnt know, and he doesnt want to know. he wants to love his mother, unabashed; he wants to respect his father, unashamed.

He does not want to know because he does not want to be orphaned a second time.

he's greedy like that, he knows. selfish. he'd rather close his eyes and pretend he is blind than see what was always right there all but begging to be seen.

'i will never be like him,' lwj promises, his quiet voice catching on something tense and rough in his throat.

'you wanted-' and with those two words, the rest of them cut off and dead in his throat, lxc knows hes said the exact wrong thing. tested his weight against the foundations of the wall, and now every stone upon it is crushing him, burying him. he is six feet beneath lwj's eyes.

'i wanted to,' he says, and he looks at lxc as though there is nothing left to care for. 'i could have.' there is nothing left to save. 'i never, ever did.' there is no distance left to breach.

like a cut thread gone slack, there is nothing between them.

it's that quick.