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Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Lan Wangji feels his breath catch and his lips part. Wei Wuxian is bursting with light and color and joy and life. And the candlelight of the tent behind him makes the gossamer red of his lace outer robe look exactly like the lights that are just starting to appear in the night sky. They are mostly red tonight. Some green and white dance on the edges.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Lan Wangji can feel something pass between the notes. Words that neither of them are willing to say out loud. But carried across the Jingshi’s floorboards by the song that binds them, he feels like they are finally on the same page.

He allows the music to ask the question he’s been too terrified to ask, since Wei Wuxian came back. Will you stay?

And there seems to come an answer from between the notes when Wei Wuxian meets his eyes. You know I can’t.

Will you let me go with you? Lan Wangji asks with his qin.

For now, Wei Wuxian answers.

They are not conversations ever spoken aloud. But Lan Wangji hears the words as clearly as birdsong on the wind. At least he knows now, Wei Wuxian won’t push him away again. And it feels like an acknowledgement. Even without their lights, they are still zhiyin.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Wei Wuxian stands on the dusty path leading away from Gusu and Lan Wangji realizes this is the best he can do.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian asks when he realizes Lan Wangji isn’t by his side. “You’re not coming with me, are you?”

There is still a thin line of blood that cuts across his neck and Lan Wangji can’t bring himself to speak. Not when everything inside him feels so brittle. Not when he’s trying so hard to hold himself together, just long enough to do the right thing.

Lan Wangji will give Wei Wuxian a choice.

A real choice.

Maybe the first one Wei Wuxian has ever had. Not between the impossible and the unthinkable. Not between death and iniquity. Not between injustice and connivance. Not between vagrancy and abuse.

So Lan Wangji stands opposite him, and lets Wei Wuxian go.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

The chord held to Wei Wuxian’s neck narrows Lan Wangji’s field of view to a thin red line. Where there is no alternative, no other action available to him, other than to obey.

It is unsurprising to everyone except Wei Wuxian that Lan Wangji is willing to risk everything for him. Jin Guangyao’s small, satisfied smile is a mocking reminder of just how predictable his love is.

Selfishly, hopelessly, he wishes Wei Wuxian could see it too. That he could read the love etched into every surface of Lan Wangji. Like the Lan sect rules carved in seal script; difficult to read but utterly immutable. So too is Lan Wangji’s devotion. Startling bare, easy to read for those who have learned his language, it is as enduring as the most monolithic stone.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Lan Wangji tries to leave it, tries to circumvent the growing resentment, the hostility, the petty confrontation. He tries to drag Wei Wuxian out of Jiang Wanyin’s single-minded vitriol, away from the memories that are too sharp, too bloody.

And when Wei Wuxian collapses into his arms, Lan Wangji feels his heart break.

He’s holding Wei Wuxian in his arms and all he can feel is a wild kind of regret. The kind that burns him up from the inside. The kind that guts him, entirely.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Wei Wuxian shoves Lan Wangji aside when the Jin move to surround them. And something inside Lan Wangji shatters at his touch. The touch that he has hungered for. The touch that he has spent most of his life craving. Wei Wuxian reaches out, closes the distance between them, and shoves Lan Wangji away. It snaps something inside him he hadn’t even realized was capable of breaking.

“Not just Jin Ling, even Hanguang-jun was fooled by you.” Jin Guangyao is saying.

“That’s right!” Wei Wuxian lies.

“False,” Lan Wangji declares in the most absolute, definitive, unequivocal way possible. ‘False’ in the same way that the sun does not rise in the west. It’s the kind of ‘false’ that leaves no room for ambiguation, no room for doubt. This is not an opinion. This kind of ‘false’ is a fact.

Water is wet. Fire burns. Lan Zhan has not been tricked by Wei Ying.

Soulmate AU retelling of CQL written for the MDZS 2020 Big Bang.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Lan Wangji is lying in bed and he looks so calm. So peaceful. So soft in the candlelight.

He looks like the moon. Hung bright and distant in the sky.

And just for a moment, when he’s drunk and asleep, Wei Wuxian dares to reach out and touch.

Just his hands closing over Lan Wangji’s while he tucks him in.

Because he can.

And… if he bends down and presses his lips to Lan Wangji’s forehead, no one will know.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

There are no lights when he touches Wei Wuxian for the first time in 16 years. His wrist is strong and solid in his grip. And he can still feel the ghost of that wrist as it slipped from his grasp. Those hands, beautiful and strong and blood-stained, as he slipped away.

It should not be possible.

But if it is, if this is truly Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji can feel nothing from him. No straining of his golden core for its missing half. There is nothing that marks him as unique.

And yet…

And yet, Lan Wangji cannot ignore the obvious. The clothes, the flute, Wen Qionglin, the song… there is no one else this could be. And when his hand closes over Lan Wangji’s, in an unnecessary attempt to stop Lan Wangji from chasing after Wen Qionglin, he feels no spark, no electric shock as his heart tells him there should be.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Sizhui has fallen asleep by the time the first flashes of light appear. So faint and distant at first, Lan Wangji thinks he might be imagining it. It starts as green, like a wisp of smoke, coiling overhead. Here one second and gone the next. Around him, he can hear people murmuring, slowly waking up.

With great care, he reaches out to touch Sizhui’s cheek. “Son,” Lan Wangji whispers, leaning down to place a soft kiss on the crown of his head. Something he has not done in many years.

“Hanguang-jun?” Sizhui blinks awake.

“A-Yuan, the seven-sisters have arrived,” Lan Wangji says tenderly, a smile caught on his lips.

And when Sizhui looks up at the sky, Lan Wangji has the perfect vantage point from which to enjoy his pure, unbridled joy unfold, like a flower blooming. His eyes go wide and round, and his mouth parts in the most adorable inhalation. As if he’s filling up his lungs with the lights that hang in the night sky.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Lan Wangji feels the dark tendrils of resentment pierce his heart in something like grief. And in the dark, Wei Wuxian is transformed into a grotesque creature. Smoke-clad and blood-stained, his teeth are sharp, and his eyes glow red. He is more monster than man.

Lan Wangji wakes gasping, shivering, clawing at his neck, trying to free the words Wei Ying from where they lodge in his throat.

It is the only time he ever dreams of Wei Wuxian like that, dark and corrupted.

That morning he leaves the Cloud Recesses for the first time in three years.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

He tries to save Wei Wuxian too. But he is already gone by the time Lan Wangji grabs his arm.

There are no lights on their skin when Wei Wuxian falls. Nothing to mark their connection beyond blood and the soft murmur of their names.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan begs. Stay. Stay with me. He wants to stay.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying answers. “Let go.”

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Lan Wangji feels the cold wash of terror sweep over him the moment he learns that Wei Wuxian has killed Jin Zixuan. He places himself between the Jiang siblings because he knows the Lanling Jin. He knows the kind of retribution that will follow the death of their heir. And he will not allow Jiang Yanli or Jiang Wanyin to bear any part of it.

But he doesn’t have time to dwell on what it means.

They will kill him for this.

Not even Jiang Yanli will be able to save her brother now.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Every time they meet, Lan Wangji feels resigned that this will be the last time he loves Wei Wuxian like this.

Stubbornly. Foolishly. Secretly. As if glancing over from the corner of his eyes, surreptitiously, trying desperately not to lean all the way into him.

It’s a senseless thing to fear. To think that his love would ever wane. But still, he braces for it. Like waiting for the crack of thunder that follows the lightning.

“It is inauspicious to travel during a lunar eclipse,” Wei Wuxian smiles. “And earlier today, I heard crows cawing. Too late to be anything but foreboding.” And Lan Wangji can feel himself leaning in again.

Too close.

“I will stay,” Lan Wangji says, but he can hear the question in his tone, the way his words pull up at the end.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

Lan Wangji wants to stay. He wants to fold all the years of mistakes and fear and pain away. Into the space between their lips as Wei Wuxian explains all the inventive things he’s working on.

Let me stay, he wants to say, holding a-Yuan in the Wens’ gardens, tilled from graveyards.

Stay. His heart says.

Stay. His soul begs.

Stay. Stay. Stay.

But he doesn’t. Foolishly, he still believes there will be a time when their bond will return, and Wei Wuxian will crave him the same way he does.

Hungrily. Desperately.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

I’m with you, he wants to say.

Stay, he wants to say.

I need you, he wants to say.

He wants to say anything. Anything that would make Wei Wuxian understand.

But he feels the hollow ache in his gut, where his core strains for its missing half. The half that Wei Wuxian has corrupted and twisted until it almost feels like it’s been removed completely. And he knows, no matter what he says, it won’t bring him back.

In the end, he does what he always does.

He says nothing.

He just stands in the rain and lets Wei Wuxian leave.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

“Who am I to you?” Lan Wangji answers back, his eyes pulling down and to the side. He can’t even bear to look at Wei Wuxian when he asks. He feels sick at the thought of his answer.

Instead of answering right away, saying something cruel or untrue, Wei Wuxian looks away too. His eyes sliding over Lan Wangji like he is remembering something else. And it takes him a long time to finally respond. And when he does, his voice is hushed and close. “I had once taken you as my zhiyin.” And something erupts inside Lan Wangji’s chest at the admission.

Yes, he wants to scream. Yes. Yes. Yes. With his lips and skin and hands and teeth. Yes. You are. We are. I am. Yes.

“I still am,” he finally chokes out.

And Wei Wuxian’s eyes go round and wide in shock.

“Not anymore.”

Soulmate AU retelling of CQL written for the MDZS 2020 Big Bang.

Brilliance in the Moonlight - 97k | Wangxian | E | Complete

When he holds Wei Wuxian on the steps of Buyetian City and feels nothing, the pain of it is just as cutting as it has been in that courier station in Yunmeng.

But this time, without the grief, the debilitating panic, he can at least appreciate the novelty of what it feels like to touch Wei Wuxian. Unlike that first time, when it was all desperation, when he carries him back to the Unclean Realm, he feels no fear. No tangle of dread or the undercurrent of caution that he’s hid behind since childhood.

And in some ways, it’s freeing. To touch him in the stark light of day. In front of others. When he lays him down, he reaches out to feed him a string of spiritual energy, he doesn’t have to worry about the lights.

But it also makes him feel hollow. Empty. He will never see their lights again. He will never hear their song, swelling and thrumming. A tandem concert that sounds like crystals dancing on the wind.