Lan Wangji hasn't gone to Lan Xichen's bed since he was a small child, but he goes that night, after the celebrations, after the ceremonies, after meeting hundreds of children who had been raised since birth to know that the most important thing they will ever do is fall in love with Lan Xichen and are now reorienting so that the most important thing they will ever do is fall in love with Lan Wangji instead. 

He goes to Lan Xichen's bed, and he shakes in Lan Xichen's arms, and he says nothing, and he falls apart. 

Lan Xichen makes comforting noises that aren't words, and strokes Lan Wangji's hair, and cradles him close, and listens to him sob. 

"If I had taken more risks when I was a child, maybe we would have noticed--"

"No."

(At birth, the Emperor is protected from only one of the thirteen deaths. When a council member accepts the Ray, the Emperor becomes immune to another death. When the full council of twelve is appointed, the emperor can die of nothing save old age and murder by a fellow council member. But an Emperor can still be hurt, still be crippled; nobles are stronger and faster and tougher than peasants, but Emperors are not more invulnerable than any other noble. And if Lan Xichen had been mistaken about what he is immune to--)

(There are tests to see if someone is truly an Emperor. The tests are costly and demanding, and they never bothered with them. The current Emperor had had only two children. It was obvious that calm Lan Xichen, who never forgot a face or a food preference and was always ready with a smile, was the one worthy to be Emperor. It was obvious that cold, silent, aloof Lan Wangji, however technically flawless in swordsmanship and history and music, was not.)

"No," Lan Xichen agreed. He rubbed circles on Lan Wangji's back and kissed his forehead, like he was a child again. 

(It should have been obvious when Meng Yao couldn't take the Ray-- no. Self-blame would help nothing. Wangji would need him.)

If Lan Wangji were a different person, he would say I miss her, he would say I can't do this without her, I couldn't do this with her either but I couldn't do it without her to smile at me and understand me and tell me everything will be all right.

Instead he cries, great heaving sobs, and allows his brother to understand what he can't say.

He doesn't say it will be all right. It won't be all right. Nothing will be all right ever again. 

He wants to be closer. He wants, very badly, to be closer. He wants to touch, he wants to feel, he wants his brother around him, he wants--

He looks up at Lan Xichen with desperation in his eyes, hoping that Lan Xichen can put words to this inchoate desire, the way that he puts words to everything else Lan Wangji has ever felt. 

"Wangji--" Lan Xichen says softly.

And Lan Wangji moves a bit and presses a clumsy kiss to his brother's lips. 

Lan Xichen forms his lips to say we can't, Wangji. The Emperor is the moral center of the Empire, of the world. The Emperor can't-- Lan Xichen's mind skitters away from putting a words to it-- he can't.

The words die on his lips. 

Wangji needs him. 

Lan Xichen would sacrifice anything for his brother, if his brother needed him. 

He kisses back. 

There are no words in this, just mouths and hands and the warmth of Lan Xichen's body, the shedding of robes and the feeling of skin against expanses of skin. 

Sex had always seemed unpleasant to Lan Wangji, and he had been grateful that he was not the Raybearer and would not have to produce an heir. It just seemed like there were entirely too many sensations involved, the intensity of being touched there, disgusting bodily fluids and the invasion of private areas and the uncovering of body parts that ought to stay covered, and an entire other person who could move in unpredictable ways.

It was not unpleasant with Lan Xichen. It was a beautiful, sweet, innocent thing. It was closeness, it was kisses beneath his ear and the feel of Lan Xichen's hair and thrusting up helplessly against him and feeling Lan Xichen fall apart above him, it was Lan Xichen holding him but in a sweeter and more intimate way, it was taking the empty spaces in Lan Wangji and filling them up with love. 

He came thrusting between his brother's legs, and his brother stroked himself off and came on his belly, and they curled up around each other like puppies in a pile.

The Raybearer is not a virgin, not at nineteen, but Lan Xichen can't say that he's liked sex much before. It is something he does for his partners, because he's eager to please them, like a massage; or it is something where they're being of service to him, and though he loves Meng Yao's sweet smile he does not like to use him in the way that Meng Yao wishes to be used. (But it breaks Meng Yao not to be used, and so the second thing becomes a thing he does for his partners, turned around the other way.)

This is for Wangji, of course. But it thrums in his blood, Wangji needs me Wangji needs me, and it is more honest than the others. Lan Xichen himself needs closeness. He has also lost his mother, and he has lost his purpose, even as Wangji has gained an unwanted one, and as Wangji kisses his shoulders with more enthusiasm than knowledge he realizes it is also for himself. 

(Lan Xichen will never have any council members. There will, always, only be one person that Lan Xichen can rely on.)

And then, warm and drowsy and loved, not really aware of what he's doing, Lan Wangji reaches out with a part of his mind that he's never reached out with before, and pulls Lan Xichen close. 

And then he hears, in his head, warm drowsy affectionate thoughts, thoughts that sound like his with the amount of love you and good and maybe things will be okay, but thoughts that are unmistakably not his. 

He reaches out again. ...Xichen...?

Xichen is startled, but there is, after all, only one thing it can be, and it is something he has expected to experience for nearly nineteen years. 

Brother, you chose me as your council member. 

Never being alone in his head again has beat out the dozen other horrifying things about being the Emperor to the position of The Worst Thing About Being The Emperor. 

But if it is Xichen who is in his head, he thinks, maybe it will be all right. He doesn't want Xichen to leave him alone. 

It is unusual for a Raybearer to choose his own brother as his council member but, the courtiers decide, not precisely unexpected, especially not for such a strange Raybearer as Lan Wangji. It is not like there is anyone else that Lan Wangji has ever been close to, other than his mother, who would be disqualified for reasons of being his father's council member even if she were not disqualified for reasons of being dead. 

Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen want to share rooms and a bed, but that is hardly unexpected either. They have to touch each other to ward off council sickness, after all, and cold, aloof Lan Wangji never holds Lan Xichen's hand or puts his head on his shoulder during the day. Of course they make up for it at night. 

The council is forbidden to have sex with anyone other than their Raybearer. It's such a shame that Lan Xichen will have to be celibate, the courtiers tut. He is such a handsome man.  

Lan Xichen's sparring injuries are only from sparring about five percent of the time. He is becoming very familiar with the exact limits of the durability of nobles. 

I don't want another council member. I'm just going to have you as my council member. 

You need twelve council members so that you can be immune to the thirteen deaths. 

I'll be careful. 

There are twelve seats for the council members, and the government can't function without them. 

There is a procedure for replacing council members as the heads of governmental departments when a council member dies. 

You are impossible, Lan Xichen sends fondly. 

Lan Wangji likes the warmth and presence of his brother, always in the back of his mind. It is comforting. It is safe.

(He knows his brother is alive. He knows that he will not have to experiment to see if the strange aversion will allow him to walk into a fire.)

Lan Wangji does not want to share their private intimacy with a stranger, and to Lan Wangji everyone who isn't his brother is a stranger.