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Wei Wuxian had always thought allosexual people were weird.
Not bad. Not wrong. Just... weird. He did not understand them. He did not understand why his peers in Lotus Pier spent so much time chasing after romantic partners. He did not understand why they wrote poetry about people they had barely spoken to. He did not understand why they seemed so desperate to find the one, the perfect match, the person who would complete them.
He had tried to care. He had tried to participate. He had smiled and nodded when Jiang Cheng complained about his latest crush. He had made jokes about the pretty girls at the market. He had pretended to understand what everyone was so worked up about.
But he never really got it.
He liked people. He loved people. He loved Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli and his parents and his friends. He loved deeply and fiercely and without reservation. But romantic love? Sexual attraction? Those things felt like a foreign language. He could see the words. He could hear the sounds. But he could not make them mean anything.
He assumed he was broken. Or strange. Or just too young and too busy to care about that kind of thing. He figured it would come eventually. That he would wake up one day and suddenly understand what everyone else understood.
It never happened.
Then he got older. He went to Cloud Recesses. He met Lan Wangji. And everything got even more confusing.
Cloud Recesses was a strange place.
Wei Wuxian had expected stuffy rules and boring lectures. He had expected judgmental elders and silent disciples. He had not expected to find a place where he almost, almost fit.
The Lans were different. They did not talk about romance the way everyone else did. They did not whisper about crushes or giggle about handsome cultivators. They did not seem to care about finding a partner at all.
Wei Wuxian noticed it right away. The other disciples at Cloud Recesses, the ones from other sects, would gossip about who was pretty and who was available and who was definitely flirting with who. But the Lan disciples just... existed. They studied. They meditated. They played their instruments. They did not seem interested in the romantic drama that consumed everyone else.
At first, Wei Wuxian thought they were repressed. That the rules had beaten the normal human feelings out of them. But the longer he watched, the more he wondered.
Maybe they just did not feel attraction the same way.
He brought it up to Lan Wangji once. They were in the library, studying. Or rather, Wei Wuxian was pretending to study while actually drawing little doodles of Lan Wangji on his notes.
"Lan Zhan," he said. "Do the Lans ever fall in love?"
Lan Wangji looked up from his book. His expression was calm. Unreadable. "Sometimes."
Wei Wuxian leaned forward. "But not often?"
Lan Wangji was quiet for a moment. "Attraction is not common among my clan. When it happens, it is usually after years of knowing someone. A deep bond. A true understanding."
Wei Wuxian blinked. "So you do not just... look at someone and want them?"
Lan Wangji's ears turned pink. "No."
"But everyone else does! All the time! They see a pretty face and they just... they want." Wei Wuxian gestured vaguely. "They want to hold hands and kiss and do all that romantic stuff. They want it so badly. It is all they think about."
Lan Wangji looked at him. His gaze was steady. "You sound like you do not understand."
Wei Wuxian laughed. It was a little hollow. "I do not. I have never understood. I thought I was just too busy. Or too young. Or too weird. But I am not that young anymore, and I am still weird, and I still do not understand."
He looked down at his doodles. At the little Lan Wangji he had drawn. He felt something. Something warm. Something soft. Something that made him want to be near this impossible man.
But it was not what other people described. It was not a burning desire. It was not a consuming passion. It was just... quiet. Steady. Like a river that had always been there.
He looked back up at Lan Wangji. "Do you ever feel attraction? Like, the kind everyone else talks about?"
Lan Wangji's ears were very pink now. "I feel it. But rarely. And only with... only with someone I have known for a long time. Someone I trust completely."
Wei Wuxian's heart did something strange. "Oh," he said. "So you are demi, then. Or gray. Or something."
Lan Wangji tilted his head. "Demi?"
Wei Wuxian waved his hands. "It is a word I learned from a traveling merchant. It means you only feel attraction after a strong bond forms. And gray means you feel it sometimes, but not often. There are lots of words for it. I did not know the Lans had a whole clan of people like that."
Lan Wangji was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "I did not know there were words for it either."
Wei Wuxian grinned. "Well, now you do. And now I know that I am not broken. I am just... on a spectrum. The same spectrum as you. The same spectrum as your whole clan."
Lan Wangji looked at him. His eyes were soft. "You are not broken, Wei Ying. You have never been broken."
Wei Wuxian felt something loosen in his chest. Something he had been carrying for a very long time. "Yeah," he said. "I am starting to believe that."
The years passed. Wei Wuxian died. He came back. He found Lan Wangji again. They fell into each other like they had never been apart.
And through it all, Wei Wuxian still did not understand allosexual behavior.
He saw it everywhere. In the way people talked about Lan Wangji. In the way they whispered about his beauty and his strength and his cold demeanor. In the way they seemed desperate to crack his shell.
Wei Wuxian did not understand it. He had never looked at Lan Wangji and thought, I want to possess him. I want to claim him. I want to have him.
He had looked at Lan Wangji and thought, I want to be near him. I want to know him. I want to understand him. I want to make him smile.
Was that attraction? He did not know. He did not care. It was what he felt. And it was real.
One night, they were lying in bed together. Wei Wuxian was tucked against Lan Wangji's side. Lan Wangji's arm was around him. The room was quiet. Peaceful.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Wuxian said. "Do you think we are weird?"
Lan Wangji's chest rumbled with a quiet hum. "Weird?"
"You know. Because we do not feel attraction the way other people do. Because we do not want the same things. Because we are both on the aroace spectrum and also probably neurodivergent and also just generally strange."
Lan Wangji was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I think everyone is strange in their own way. The Lans are strange. You are strange. I am strange. Strange is not bad."
Wei Wuxian laughed. "You are so wise, Lan Zhan. When did you get so wise?"
Lan Wangji pressed a kiss to his hair. "I have always been wise. You just refused to listen."
Wei Wuxian laughed harder. "Rude. So rude. I am going to tell everyone that the great Hanguang-Jun is actually a menace."
Lan Wangji's lips twitched. "You would not."
"I would! I absolutely would!" Wei Wuxian propped himself up on his elbow. He looked down at Lan Wangji. At those golden eyes. At that soft expression. At the man he loved in his own quiet, steady, unusual way.
"Lan Zhan," he said. "I love you. I do not know if it is the kind of love other people feel. I do not know if it is romantic or platonic or something in between. I just know that I want to be with you. Always. Every day. For the rest of my life."
Lan Wangji reached up. His hand cupped Wei Wuxian's cheek. His thumb brushed his cheekbone.
"That is love," he said. "That is real love. It does not need to look like anyone else's."
Wei Wuxian leaned into the touch. He closed his eyes. He felt the warmth and the steadiness and the safety.
"I'm glad I found you," he said. "I'm glad you are like me. I'm glad we are both weird."
Lan Wangji pulled him down. He kissed his forehead. "I am glad too."
Wei Wuxian met other people like them over the years.
He met a wandering cultivator who told him she was aromantic. She did not feel romantic attraction at all. She loved her friends. She loved her family. She loved her sword. But she had never wanted a partner, and she was perfectly happy that way.
He met a merchant who was demisexual. He only felt attraction after years of friendship. His current partner had been his best friend for a decade before they realized they felt something more.
He met a scholar who was graysexual. She felt attraction sometimes, but it was rare and fleeting and never very strong. She had accepted it as part of who she was.
Wei Wuxian collected their stories like treasures. He shared them with Lan Wangji. They talked about their own experiences. They compared notes. They laughed at the allos who could not understand why they were not desperate to find someone.
"Allos are weird," Wei Wuxian said one day, shaking his head. "They are so obsessed with dating. With finding the perfect person. With all that drama."
Lan Wangji nodded. "They are very dramatic."
Wei Wuxian grinned. "You are not supposed to agree with me. You are supposed to defend them. You are the proper one."
Lan Wangji's expression was perfectly serious. "I am defending you. Not them."
Wei Wuxian laughed so hard he fell off his chair.
Sizhui came to them one day with questions.
He was young. Just starting to figure out who he was. He had heard his parents talk about attraction and love and all the ways people experienced it. And he was confused.
"Hanguang-jun," he said to Lan Wangji. "Wei-qianbei. How did you know you loved each other?"
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji exchanged a glance.
"That is a good question," Wei Wuxian said. "And the answer is complicated. Because we do not love each other the way other people love each other."
Sizhui tilted his head. "What do you mean?"
Wei Wuxian thought about it. He thought about all the words he had learned. Aromantic. Demisexual. Graysexual. Queerplatonic. All the labels that had helped him understand himself.
"We love each other," he said slowly. "But it is not the kind of love you see in plays or novels. It is not burning passion or desperate longing. It is quieter than that. Steadier. It is like a river that has always been there. It does not rush or rage. It just flows."
Sizhui listened carefully. "So you do not feel romantic love?"
Wei Wuxian looked at Lan Wangji. He thought about all the years they had spent together. All the quiet moments. All the steady love.
"I do not know what to call it," he admitted. "Maybe it is romantic. Maybe it is something else. All I know is that he is my person. My partner. My home. And that is enough for me."
Lan Wangji reached over. He took Wei Wuxian's hand. He squeezed it.
"Labels are not important," he said. "What is important is that you love each other. However that love looks."
Sizhui smiled. It was a bright, relieved smile. "I think I understand. I think I might be like you both."
Wei Wuxian grinned. "Then you're in good company. The Lans are onto something. And I am very glad to be part of it."