Wei WuXian was disappointed to not see Lan WangJi at Koi Tower during the trials. Lan QiRen was the sole representative from the GusuLan Sect, and he spent most of his time there glaring at the newly 'undead' Wei WuXian.

Since Lan WangJi was so busy in Gusu during the trial and Fall Festival, Wei WuXian didn't expect to see him for his birthday, either. He hoped, though.

Fall fell into winter and still Lan WangJi remained in Cloud Recesses. The YunMeng winter was predicted to be especially harsh with lots of snow. An early birthday present for Wei Yuan arrived: a wooden sled and a note. "Children in the mountains use these instead of platters to slide down hills," Wei WuXian read aloud to his son. "Please avoid the rocks." Lotus Pier carpenters were soon busy building more of these sleds and the winter air was filled with the shrieking laughter of children sliding down the small hills. And the sighs of relief of those in charge of dishware as the number of platters that needed to be replaced that winter were ones broken by dropping instead of sledding.

Spring arrived and so did Jin Ling's fourth birthday. Wei WuXian firmly believed that he was finally going to see his friend in Koi Tower and practiced for hours making up simple conversations they could have. Ones that avoided mentioning letters, or dead people, or kissing. Ones where he could talk and laugh and not look at Lan WangJi's mouth while doing so. Ones where he could keep his love hidden deep in his heart. Keep his yearning hidden from eyes that once looked with love at a pale beauty in the moonlight.

Lan WangJi sent his regrets; he was too busy in the Cloud Recesses to attend.

Wei WuXian's family was busy that birthday week with things other than birthday celebrations. A few minor sect leaders had started asking about the tiger amulet. Wei WuXian found a spell that would make them forget about it; the amulet had already caused enough death. Eventually, he would find a way to destroy it. Until then, he and his family roamed Koi Tower gently be-spelling everyone of even the slightest importance to forget it ever existed.

A year passed. And then another. It was right before the twins' second birthday party when Wei WuXian saw boats containing the Lan Sect arriving at the docks outside Lotus Pier. He'd been buying hair ribbons for his son.

As Wei Yuan and Jin Ling told it, over the winter, Wen Qing lost a lot of weight and the twins got a little brother. Jiang YanLi got a fat belly right after that. Jin Ling decided that he was also going to get a little brother when his mother was done being fat. Instead, the week before the twins' party, Jiang YanLi lost a lot of weight, and presented her son with a little sister. Jin Ling was enraged and, almost as soon as he got to Lotus Pier, turned his anger on his elder cousin who was gloating that he didn't get a sister. "At least I have a mother who can get fat and give me a brother some other time! You don't even have a mother!" Wei Yuan was so upset he cut up every single one of his hair ribbons into tiny pieces.

Wei WuXian understood his son's feelings and was secretly glad that it was only ribbons that were shredded.

He'd tried to let his love for Lan WangJi go given how inappropriate it was. He'd tried to look at women the way a man should look at women. He'd even thought about just finding a woman who could love A'Yuan and marry her just to give his son a mother. He couldn't do that to a woman, though. Marry her with no expectations of being the husband she deserved him to be? There were plenty of men who could do that; he wasn't one of them.

Seeing Lan WangJi standing tall and elegant and absurdly handsome almost made his heart stop beating. I love you. Feet frozen to the ground he watched hungrily as the boat approached the dock. Conversely, once the boat was tied up, and the Lan started disembarking, Wei WuXian's feet walked him quickly away from the street vendor who shook his head over his patron's lack of payment. He'd send a bill over later; Wei WuXian was as good at paying off his debts as he was at forgetting to immediately pay for his purchases.

Wei WuXian had a small pavilion and a slightly bigger workshop all to himself for his talisman and device research. They were out of the way of the main compound, hidden behind a small pond and some trees. Most of the YunMengJiang Sect would not dare to bother him in case something he was working on exploded. It had been known to happen more than a few times. No one outside the Sect had ever visited him at his workshop. Seeing his friend dressed in pale blue striding up the path towards where he sat in his pavilion, Wei WuXian realized the other was not the type to wait to be formally presented at Sword Hall.

"HanGuang-Jun", he bowed. "Long time no see."

"Too long," Lan WangJi admitted. "Are you well?"

"As you can see." He felt awkward. He wanted so many things. To touch, to confirm his friend was really here. To ask why he hadn't come before this. Why was there no invitation to go to Cloud Recesses? Why did Jiang Cheng's invitation to a discussion conference there explicitly state Wei WuXian was not invited?

He wasn't a brash teenager anymore; he was a responsible adult with a child and he could control his mouth when he wanted to.

"I've come…. I need to ask you something." Lan WangJi finally said after minutes of uncomfortable silence. Silence with Lan WangJi had never been uncomfortable before. "Do you remember that love letter?"

"Of course. There's no need to bring it up again, though. Please sit if you'd like," Wei WuXian waved at one of the few of the seating mats that was miraculously not covered in paper or devices. He himself sat down and picked up the device he'd been working on. "Can you guess what this is?"

"Wei Ying. I need to know. Do you know who the letter was for?"

"Lan Zhan. It doesn't matter anymore." It did, but it wouldn't if the other man would simply never bring the topic up again. "A'Yuan was watching the fish the other day and."

"Wei Ying. I thought I was going to die. I thought they were going to kill me for abandoning my position and protecting you that day."

"He asked why people can't breathe underwater like fish do," Wei WuXian continued as if the other hadn't said anything.

"I wrote that letter because I could never find the words to say it. I gave it to you."

"I know you gave it to me. If that unhappy accident hadn't occurred, how many fewer arguments would we have had?" He tried to keep anger and frustration from his voice; he failed.

"Wei Ying! Stop adding words to what I say. Please."

"If I don't add words to what you say, sometimes you would say nothing at all," Wei WuXian retorted.

"This time. Just…. Don't. I gave you the love letter."

"I know that."

"I gave it to you."

"You just said that."

"Wei Ying…. Do you think I'm so clumsy that I accidentally wrapped up a love letter meant for someone else with letters I was returning to you?"

"Ordinarily, I would say no. But apparently you were upset about dying. I can understand that feeling. I've been through it several times now. Near death experiences can really mess up a mind."

"It wasn't a mistake to give you the letter."

How could it not be a mistake? You loved some pale beauty you met in the moonlight. He decided to ignore that statement. "So it took me a few days, but I came up with this device. You strap it around your mouth and nose, like this," he demonstrated how it fit against the face. "I've almost got the spells right that will allow one to breathe underwater."

"Wei Ying…. I can't play this game anymore."

Wei WuXian looked up at hearing the sadness in that statement. "What game?"

"The game where I tell you I gave you that love letter and you tell me it was for someone else." Lan WangJi leaned over and placed a creased piece of paper on the table. "If you really can't accept it…. I understand. I'll never bring it up again. I would like to remain your friend. Please."

They see you as the sun. You are light and warmth to make them feel good and healthy, supported and loved. You are bright and brilliant, so perhaps that is an apt comparison.

I saw you for the first time in moonlight. So pale and beautiful. Your smile is as bright as a full moon except when it's withered away to almost nothing like a waning crescent, no less brilliant and lovely for all that it is so small. You try to hide the darkness from them. As if what you hide is weakness instead of strength.

The words were a bit hard to read given the state the paper was in. The same words he had read by accident so many years ago. He closed his eyes against those cruel words… words written for someone else. When he so desperately wanted to have them written for him. I love you, Lan Zhan. Why do you insist on torturing me like this?

"Wei Ying." That soft voice nearly turned his guts inside out. "Wei Ying." There was a shuffling sound and then the comforting scent of sandalwood. "Wei Ying." A calloused hand removed the breathing device from his hands and set it gently on the table. "Don't cry. Please don't cry. I can't bear to see you sad." There was a wrinkling noise from paper being crumpled. "I'll leave you alone. I'm sorry. I had to let you know how I felt. I'm sorry."

Wei WuXian angrily swiped a tear from his face. "I don't understand, Lan Zhan. I've never understood. Why do I have to understand how you felt about someone who died years ago?"

Lan WangJi sat back on his heels. "You still don't know who this letter was for?" Wei WuXian shook his head. "Do you remember the day we first met?"

"You wouldn't let us into Cloud Recesses because we'd left the invitation back in CaiYi."

"Later, I caught you climbing over the walls with alcohol. Do you remember?"

"You never did pay me back for that bottle you broke."

"I fell in love that night."

"Ahh. No wonder you wrote that bit about the pale beauty in moonlight. Very poetic." He sounded off, even to himself. Jealous maybe? Not maybe. He was definitely drinking a full jar of vinegar. Straight up with nothing to chase the bitter aftertaste. Even though his rival was dead and buried years ago.

Lan WangJi glared. "You still don't understand?"

Wei WuXian stood up. "I'm done playing this game, too. I really don't want to hear about how you fell in love with some girl in the moonlight when you were sixteen!" he yelled.

Lan WangJi also stood, and then shoved the letter back into Wie WuXian's hand. "You should read it through to the last line. If you can still bear to talk to me when you're done, I'll be waiting. I'll wait for as long as you need."

Wei WuXian read the last line first. Lan Zhan will love Wei Ying forever. The rest of the words were a blurry mess. No, that was his eyes that were a blurry mess. "You love me?"

Lan WangJi's back was turned to him. "I have loved you since I first danced with you on a rooftop in the moonlight. I tried at first to love you from afar. It was so difficult. So I kept you as close as I could. That was even more difficult." He turned slowly to face Wei WuXian again. "I tried telling you the truth, and you insisted on believing I was lying to you. I tried staying away, but it hurts so much. When I heard you were dead? I wanted to die, too."

"Why didn't you just say it plainly? Why the games?"

"I did say it plainly. You sat on that bridge and asked me who I loved. I told you. I answered 'Wei Ying'. You asked me over and over about that letter and I told you over and over that I gave it to you. To you and only you. There has never been another for me. You told me you thought I was beautiful. You told me you thought my eyes were beautiful. I thought maybe you liked me, too.

"Then you refused to listen to what I said. At first, I thought it was a game to you. That you were playing along to spare my feelings since you couldn't return them and you wanted to keep me as a friend. Then you were so upset seeing me talking to Luo QingYang at your sister's wedding. It gave me hope that you didn't simply see me as a friend. That maybe I could make you love me, too. Then you called me disgusting, so I thought you were finally letting me know that you couldn't accept my feelings. But after I saw you again in the Dower House, sometimes I thought I saw that you looked at me like maybe you liked me. I had hope again."

"I do love you, Lan Zhan," Wei WuXian whispered. "Not as a friend. Or not only as a friend."

"Wei Ying…. Can I kiss you?"

Yes, a thousand times yes. Instead, Wei WuXian pretended to be shocked. "Lan Zhan! What kind of man do you take me for? To kiss someone without any expectations of marriage?"

Lan WangJi smiled, both corners of his mouth turning up for the first time since the day they'd met, making Wei WuXian's head spin with love. "I'll gladly submit to every expectation you have. Come kiss me."

Wei WuXian practically flew across the pavilion to crash into Lan WangJi. He let the younger jade hold him steady while he pressed their lips together in a bruising, unsatisfying, yet thoroughly amazing, kiss. Lips pressed hard against each other, hard enough to feel the imprint of the other's teeth. It hurt. It was heaven. He pulled back to grin a drunken grin at his lover. "Maybe we should use a little less teeth next time?"

"Do you know? No, you can't know. There were so many nights when you were lying asleep in your bed right next to me, and I wanted to hold you so much. I almost kissed you a few times. So close." Lan WangJi held his right index finger up to rest between his and Wei WuXian's mouth and kissed his finger gently. "I longed to kiss you so much."

"Then do it," Wei WuXian ordered and kissed the finger caressing his lips.

"Like this?" Lan WangJi swooped in to suck on Wei WuXian's lower lip.

"Mmm," Wei WuXian could only moan his agreement. The kiss gentled as they learned to explore each other's lips without trying to insert one skull into the other's. "Wait…" he pulled back enough to gain some distance from Lan WangJi's searching mouth. "That conversation I overheard between you and your brother…. Does he know?"

"That I love you? Yes. I felt he deserved to know the truth after I abandoned my position to save you. He told me that he thought we were infatuated with each other that first night you came to Cloud Recesses. He knew I felt something more than infatuation when we were at the Unclean Realm and I insisted upon having only you as my roommate. His words gave me hope that you cared for me, too. He also told me that we could never be together. Two men can only love each other in books. Or in secret.

"Wei Ying… I don't want to love you in secret. I want to marry you in front of our relatives. If… can you…."

"I want that, too, Lan Zhan," Wei WuXian promised with a lingering kiss. "Maybe we can not marry in front of Madame Yu, though? She didn't like me when she was alive. I doubt she'd like to see me marry a man. Even as good a man as you are."

"You will marry me?" That soft smile was back.

"Yes," Wei WuXian's smile was anything but soft. It was sloppy, tilted, wider than the sun, and made his cheekbones hurt. "Yes, I'll marry you."

Their announcement of their engagement came as no surprise to their friends and family. The decision as to where they would reside was argumentative. "WangJi is my heir," Lan XiChen insisted. "He needs to live in Cloud Recesses."

"Your heir isn't likely to have children of his own," Wen Qing retorted. "Or are you willing to have a Wen child become the next Sect leader? My nephew is healthy and happy here with lots of friends and plenty of space to play. I will not have him subjected to the overly and unnecessarily harsh rules of the GusuLan Sect!"

Discussion of the future became a battle of wills between Lan XiChen and Wen Qing. Lan XiChen presented his opinions and arguments carefully with the well crafted arguments of a polished politician. Wen Qing, as far from a politician as one can get, let him orate until she was bored and then unilaterally overruled him. Every single time.

The only thing those two agreed on was that their brothers were to be chaperoned until their wedding date. Wei WuXian thought that a bunch of nonsense and escaped his room that night to creep into Lan WangJi's bed. To fall asleep wrapped in the arms of the man he loved was heavenly. To wake in his arms even more so. During the day, each of them managed to evade their chaperones until the idea was finally given up. "It's not like either of them are going to get pregnant," Lan XiChen mumbled.

Since neither Wei WuXian nor Lan WangJi wanted an elaborate wedding, an auspicious date only a few weeks away was determined. Courting gifts were rapidly exchanged. And Nie HuaiSang was appealed to for help.

"Take this one," the young man offered Wei WuXian a spring book. "This one has really good illustrations of how men can come together. The story is rather weak. I don't suggest reading it. This one," he pulled out another book from his sleeve, "This one is more of a manual for beginners. Read this one before you get into bed with him. Two men together is not like a man and a woman. If you're not careful, one of you is going to get hurt when instead you should be feeling pleasure."

Wei WuXian looked at some of the illustrations in the first book. "I don't see how that doesn't hurt," he mumbled. Such pain should be irrelevant to a cultivator; their golden cores should easily heal such a minor injury. To a non-cultivator, though? The thought of being connected so thoroughly to Lan Zhan made him feel shivery all over. To be one body. One soul. To be able to give his love such pleasure…. He wanted that.

It was a few days later that Wei WuXian limped into the dining hall one evening. "I rolled my ankle," he insisted. "I'm fine." The immense grin he wore every time he snuck a glance at his husband-to-be, and Lan WangJi's pink tipped ears, cheeks, and neck (Wei WuXian knew exactly how far down the flush went), showed that he was lying. Lying about the ankle, at least.

And a few days after that, both men, dressed in red and gold, made their three prostrates together. Pledged their lives to each other. Pledged their love to each other. It was….

Perfect.