What a great relief it is that Jin Guangyao understands what Xichen is aiming for - what he wants - truly wants - for them both. It was, in part, his original intention of the sworn brotherhood. But that had very different connotations to what their relationship to each other really was, and having to act within those restrictions was... confining to say the very least.
As liberating as simply proclaiming their love might initially have been, it would have only hurt Jin Guangyao in the long run.
And yet here they can have this. A partnership of equals where they can declare themselves without shame or dire consequence. Jin Guangyao would not be Lan-furen. He would be Jin Guangyao, husband to Lan Xichen. (Though Xichen cannot say with certainty that he would not have taken some strange delight in being A-Yao's Jin-furen. Something, perhaps, to contemplate for a later time.)
A laugh bubbles out of him, warm and bright and without his usual constraint, and his eyes are far from dry when he embraces his lover. ...His betrothed.
"A-Yao - my most beloved A-Yao -" he meets each kiss eagerly, because how can he refuse such a wonderful thing...?
"...My husband."
He says it, just to say it, because he never thought he could. Marriage meant something so very different in their world, that something as simple as this had seemed impossibly out of reach.
And yet it's such a small thing to want, really. To spend your life with a partner you love and cherish, that neither party be denigrated or placed beneath the other, that they can simply live and work together without having to sacrifice their old life.
...Why was that so impossible?
Maybe he will never know. But for now, he can cover Jin Guangyao's face with kisses, and stroke his long black hair, perhaps give the lobe of his ear an experimental nibble. Xichen is finding he really, really, likes to use his mouth.
no subject
As liberating as simply proclaiming their love might initially have been, it would have only hurt Jin Guangyao in the long run.
And yet here they can have this. A partnership of equals where they can declare themselves without shame or dire consequence. Jin Guangyao would not be Lan-furen. He would be Jin Guangyao, husband to Lan Xichen. (Though Xichen cannot say with certainty that he would not have taken some strange delight in being A-Yao's Jin-furen. Something, perhaps, to contemplate for a later time.)
A laugh bubbles out of him, warm and bright and without his usual constraint, and his eyes are far from dry when he embraces his lover. ...His betrothed.
"A-Yao - my most beloved A-Yao -" he meets each kiss eagerly, because how can he refuse such a wonderful thing...?
"...My husband."
He says it, just to say it, because he never thought he could. Marriage meant something so very different in their world, that something as simple as this had seemed impossibly out of reach.
And yet it's such a small thing to want, really. To spend your life with a partner you love and cherish, that neither party be denigrated or placed beneath the other, that they can simply live and work together without having to sacrifice their old life.
...Why was that so impossible?
Maybe he will never know. But for now, he can cover Jin Guangyao's face with kisses, and stroke his long black hair, perhaps give the lobe of his ear an experimental nibble. Xichen is finding he really, really, likes to use his mouth.