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Sometimes Lan Wangji finds it funny, in a sick sort of way. He can't help but be amused at the concern in his brother's eyes, the tinge of regret he can sometimes spot in Lan Qiren's. The way everyone is suddenly tiptoeing about him like he's made of glass.
It's funny how fast the way everyone looked at him changed. Funny how the Lan doctors' junior apprentices whisper about him as they work on his back when they think he's asleep. Funny how they all seem so worried.
It's so funny in fact, that he sometimes finds himself giggling out loud - at the memory of the look of sheer panic on his brother's face when he walked in on him drunk and in the process of pressing the Wen brand to his chest, of how ever since then he has been swordless and under near constant surveillance. As if that did anything.
It's funny how that look of alarm resurfaces with the slightest provocation. Lan Wangji asks the girl who brings him food to get him a sharp blade one day just to watch her squirm, and to see the fear in his brother's eyes when he comes to visit that evening. He listens with a detached amusement as Lan Xichen stutters for lack of ways to bring it up.
His back is a giant throbbing ache, but the pain is constant enough to have faded into the background. He shifts around to make it hurt and prods at the still-healing brand on his chest, mangling the skin. It feels like an achievement when Lan Xichen notices and his distress shows on his face.
He idly wonders what their reactions would be if he were to take his life. If they would be shocked, or would shake their heads sadly and say they had all seen it coming. They're all very antsy around him - because he's fragile, in recovery from wounds - wounds that they have inflicted on him and he has aggravated. He's fragile, which means he has lost the right to locks on his doors and more than five minutes of unaccompanied privacy and seeing the child he brought home grow up and normal conversations with his brother about everyday things.
He's fragile. But not helpless.
Lan Xichen seems glad when he asks for paper and ink, probably because he also asks for a harmless book of musical cultivation with it. The materials arrive with a caution to not use any spiritual energy just yet.
He gives it two weeks before he asks for his qin, just to be careful. It had been taken away with all the other things when he refused to stop playing Inquiry till his fingers bled, so he doubts he will get it back as soon as he asks.
Surprisingly, he does. Lan Xichen looks pleased. It's hilarious.
If he could have done it his way, Lan Wangji would have drunk wine. Preferably Emperor's Smile. As it is, he makes do with bringing out the dizi and the portrait Wei Wuxian drew of him so many years ago. The poor guard is asleep because of the talisman. Lan Wangji feels a little sorry for him, but mostly he feels nothing about anything. An idle boredom, maybe. he plays Inquiry one last time, and then Wangxian.
And then he's unstringing the guqin and winding the cords around his wrists and throat and suddenly there's blood everywhere and he really wishes he could see their faces now, for a last laugh.