baiyueguang | Deer County IC Contact

Jin Guangyao wakes in his own bed on a brisk morning in late January aware that something has changed, but it takes his clever mind a moment to put all the pieces together. The principle reason for the delay is the man who still sleeps in bed beside him, dearly beloved and peerless in his heart, but who should very much not be there. Particularly given his recollection of their last, heart-wrenching conversation--and that neither of them are wearing a stitch of clothing.

And yet there he sleeps, beautiful as some priceless jade sculpture even in repose, even with his dark hair a touch disheveled and no forehead ribbon in sight. Jin Guangyao stares at him in wondering silence as a hazy recollection of the last month returns to him, soft and sepia-tinged as though they happened years ago and to someone else. Perhaps they did; this Nie Lianfang's life feels as foreign and alien to Jin Guangyao as any stranger's, for all that he can feel this other self's feelings as his own. And oh, he recognizes those feelings, even if the joy that accompanied them startle him as sharply as missing a step in a stairwell.

He draws in an unsteady breath, eyes darting away from Lan Xichen's profile nervously, then back again. Then, cautious as a bird, he reaches out to touch Lan Xichen's bare shoulder. "Er-ge," he whispers. "Wake up."

Lan Xichen's eyes open, not to the scent of gentians and sparse furniture of his seclusion, but in a bed alongside a man he knows to be dead.

Jin Guangyao is staring down at him, and Lan Xichen knows this is not real. The strange dream that was Trench, the glimpse into a life that was both his and yet not, still linger on the edges of his mind as he reaches up to touch Jin Guangyao's cheek.

He'll wake soon, he knows this, to the long empty stretch of meditation. The grief has hollowed him out and he knows he will be alone; no one else mourns Jin Guangyao. No one else understands why he does. He doesn't expect them to - Jin Guangyao had wronged many - but it doesn't make the solitude any less stifling. It does not make him miss his dearest friend and confident any less.

But here, on the edge of sleep, some place his mind has labeled 'Trench', Jin Guangyao is alive and he wants nothing more than to commit his face to memory. He strokes along his cheekbone, thumbing the slight slant of his brow, his eyes burning. He hasn't noticed their nakedness yet, or that even dreams don't feel like this. He knows where he really is, what has truly transpired. This is not real. But he wants it to be, and he will let it be until his waking mind forces him back to reality.

"A little longer," he pleads. "Don't fade away yet."

Edited 2023-01-16 01:42 (UTC)

He stays very still beneath the fingers that gently trace the lines of his face, his brows and cheekbones; his lips part on an unsteady breath that catches in his throat, because Jin Guangyao recognizes that pain in Lan Xichen's eyes. He'd seen it in the moments after the end of their shared memory in December, had heard it in the heaviness of his weeping. It does not take a savant to figure out what nightmare he is waking from now.

(Still, Jin Guangyao knows that he should pull away. Nothing material has changed, he made a vow before heaven and earth, and yet--)

"I won't." Jin Guangyao lifts his hand to cover Lan Xichen's against his cheek and interlocks their fingers together, then guides it down to press over his heart, still beating in his chest. "Er-ge," he whispers softly and leans down to press a soft kiss against his forehead. He closes his eyes. "Er-ge, I'm here. I'm here with you."

Just like his dreams to rub salt in the wound, really. Jin Guangyao's heartbeat, his warmth, everything - an echo of a man he loved so fiercely he was ready to join him in death. It feels so real, and yet he knows once the soft haze of sleep fades, he'll wake to white sheets and gentians and isolation.

This isn't Jin Guangyao. Just a shadow conjured up from the corners of memory. Jin Guangyao is in a tomb, sealed for a hundred years with their da-ge, likely tearing each other to pieces in some endless nightmare.

Just an echo. But he cannot bear to part with even that.

"I'm sorry," he breathes. "I miss you."

What a time for Jin Guangyao's silver tongue to fail him, though maybe that's for the best. Lan Xichen's grief is real and immense, and no words can make the loss he experienced any easier to bear, and so Jin Guangyao does not try. Instead he whispers soft, soothing nonsense into Lan Xichen's dark hair and breathes in the scent of his skin, an arm encircling his shoulders to hold him in a close embrace with little regard paid to their state of undress. For once in his miserable life, Jin Guangyao does not dwell overly much on propriety. They're past that.

Eventually, he tries again to break through the haze of his sworn brother's dream fog. "Er-ge," he murmurs, lips brushing against his forehead, "please, wake up. Look at me."

The warm weight of Jin Guangyao in his arms sooths some dark ache and Xichen holds him for what could easily be close to an hour, committing every detail to memory, because he knows that in the long years to come, this too will fade. This vision of Jin Guangyao, still fresh in the annals of his recollection will become blurred at the edges, and he will no longer even have this to ease the grief.

He closes his eyes against burning tears, arms tight around Jin Guangyao who he's sure is actually a pillow or a tangle of blankets.

Er-ge, please, wake up. Look at me.

There is a moment of hesitation. He knows when he opens his eyes now, Jin Guangyao won't be there. Just a dream, and he clings to it ever tighter, just a moment more, because hope is such a treacherous thing, he doesn't dare let it gain a foothold in his heart. He'd hoped before when he dreamed of Trench, when he dreamed too of that other life where they could eke out some measure of happiness.

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to keep himself here just a little longer, he doesn't want to forget A-Yao's voice, or his scent, or the warmth of him.

He takes a shuddering breath, and opens his eyes.

At first he thinks the curtain of dark hair over his face is his own from tossing and turning, but it slowly dawns on him that his fingers are not buried in crumpled linens, but rather soft, bare skin, still warm. He can feel the beating pulse underneath and also Jin Guangyao's breath against his temple.

He bolts upright, cupping the other man's face between his hands, staring in disbelief. He'd been in seclusion for months since his dream of Trench and yet, here they were, in Jin Guangyao's room in the siheyuan. He pointedly avoids looking at the splintered chunk that had been taken out of the bedframe. One revelation at a time, please!

"You're alive," he says incredulously. Something between a laugh and a sob escapes him. "...Or I've gone mad."

He is going to have to do something about the state of the bed frame sooner rather than later, it's a health hazard at the moment, but yes, one matter at a time--

--though when Lan Xichen sits up so abruptly and frames his face between his hands, Jin Guangyao catches the bedsheets with one hand before they can fall away entirely, holding them in place near his chest in at least a token effort at preserving his modesty. (As though his fading memories of their counterparts' time in Trench isn't presenting him with sense recollections of exactly why he and Lan Xichen are in this bed together without their clothes on--but he tries diligently not to dwell on that, not now..!) Instead, he smiles weakly back at Lan Xichen and nods, pursing his lips, and reaches his free hand out to touch his sworn brother's cheek in turn, tenderly brushing aside the tears from his lash line with his thumb.

"I'm alive," he repeats softly without looking away from his eyes; god, he is so tired of finding reasons not to let himself love this man, it would be easier for him to simply stop breathing. "You aren't going mad, Er-ge, this is Trench. Do you remember?" Absently, he threads a dark lock of hair behind Lan Xichen's ear.

"I remember," he says, voice cracked along the edges. "After the first month past, I had just assumed I had imagined it."

He'd hoped. That dreadful, awful thing that still clung to his heart. Hope. He still held it for Jin Guangyao back home. In a hundred years time, perhaps he could put the spirits of his beloved A-Yao and da-ge to rest. Perhaps in a another few decades after, he would see the familiar dip of dimples in someone's smile. Perhaps he may even remember...

He is such a fool. He knows this, and yet the hope still lingers, even if he knows it would be kinder to himself to banish it from himself.

"A-Yao -- " he pulls him into an embrace, heedless of their undressed state. It doesn't matter - the furthest thing from his mind right now is how their counterparts made love without fear or restraint. He's too exhausted from having nothing but his own grief for company for four months straight. Right now, Jin Guangyao is alive and well and safe, and Lan Xichen will never find this to be anything but a miracle. He had not taken it for granted before, when he was still fresh in mourning, but now that he has had time to sit with his regret, he's not sure if he can let Jin Guangyao go. Not yet, at least. A little longer, fingers on his pulse, just to assure him he's not delusional.

"--I'm sorry," he breathes, "for everything. There is so much I should have done differently--"

It will always gall him, hearing the peerless First Jade begging him for forgiveness. Jin Guangyao could hardly bear it back in their world, and it is no easier for him to endure it now. Still, the more impossible thing would be to tell Lan Xichen to stop, or to push him away entirely. So instead he allows himself to be pulled into that embrace, bends willingly into the arms that hold him like he is something to be treasured, rather than something that poisons anyone that touches him for too long.

He closes his eyes, lets out a shaky breath, and curls his arms securely around Lan Xichen's shoulders and waist, breathes in the scent of his skin and the sandalwood fragrance of his hair. So be it then. If he is to be poison, then for Lan Xichen, let him be an inoculant against anyone else wounding him so savagely in the future. He will ruin anyone foolish enough to threaten his tender heart ever again.

"No," he whispers softly at last, fingers curled into his hair. He turns to rest his forehead against Lan Xichen's temple, eyes closed, and speaks into the close space between them. "Please, Er-ge, Lan Xichen, what choice did you have? What choice did any of us have?" Even Da-ge had been trapped into his doomed course by the war; what could Mingjue have done but dedicate himself to his cultivation when the alternative was the destruction of his sect? Jin Guangyao shakes his head and goes on, "I am begging you to stop punishing yourself over what can't be changed." He draws back just enough to frame Lan Xichen's face between his hands and look into his eyes. "What can I say to make you stop treating yourself so cruelly? What can I do?"

What can I do, he doesn't say, to help you understand that you could never do anything to me that I would not forgive? That I have not already forgiven?

He stares into his eyes, searching and helpless, and strokes his cheek. "Tell me," he whispers. "I'll do anything."

Edited 2023-01-16 15:30 (UTC)

He wonders about that too. Choices.

What choices did any of them have? Live within a system that worked only to perpetuate itself to the benefit of but a small few? That hadn't worked out for any of them. Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue were dead and Xichen was left a shell of a man. Working outside of it certainly didn't do much either. What happened to those who had? Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen had died awful, ignoble deaths, Wei Wuxian had his name dragged through the mud before being killed, and his own brother had been whipped within a hair's breadth of death. And that's all of those who simply didn't wind up in abject poverty.

What was the point when all the choices were 'bad' or 'worse'? What good was all this power and prestige that he had if it all amounted to those he loved the most suffering horribly...?

Was there any way this could have ended differently?

...Perhaps if they were different people, in different positions of responsibility, if their alternate versions were aught to go by. So, so much out of their own hands had to be different.

He stares at Jin Guangyao for a breathless moment, before he finally lets him go, memories of their last conversation finally trickling back as his hands fall into his lap.

Another victory for propriety. They cannot afford to be as free with their feelings as their counterparts.

"A-Yao is alive," he says, "and safe. That's enough. That has always been enough."

It wasn't, of course. Not after he had glimpsed the kind of happiness they could have. But he's crossed enough lines for one day.

"A-Yao is alive, and safe. That's enough. That has always been enough."

Before those hands can retreat from him entirely, Jin Guangyao reaches out and catches hold of them, his slim fingers curled gently but unyieldingly around Lan Xichen's elegant wrists. Unsteadily, he whispers, "Is it?"

It isn't. Not anymore. Jin Guangyao cannot look away from his sworn brother's eyes, his own wide and bright with awareness of the line he is now crossing, because it was a line of his own creation, the reinforcing of a boundary that had been so crucial to his survival in their world. That line had allowed them years of both ritualized intimacy and plausible deniability. It had been the thing that kept them forever at arm's length from each other, yet the shared work of maintaining it, of inventing and reinventing clever ways to demonstrate their mutual affection without exposing it, had been a joy and a pleasure in and of itself, as much as it had been a constant reminder of what they could not have. Bittersweet, but the sweetness had made all the difference.

What did that bitterness do here in Trench except feed the corruption that in turn fed upon them? What did holding to a vow sworn in the cultivation world serve in this place, other than to nurture that bitterness with misery? If Qin Su were here with him now, what would she wish for, for him? For herself? Jin Guangyao closes his eyes briefly, and is greeted with a fading image of his alternate self in a mirror, with a younger, smiling Lan Xichen behind him, helping him with his braids. No, he thinks wistfully, that unrestrained joy may be out of reach--but why shouldn't they take the leap towards it now?

He opens his eyes again and guides Lan Xichen's hands back to his face. To his hair. When he parts his lips to speak, his jaw works unsteadily for a moment, and his vision blurs from a sudden sheen of unshed tears. The longing that has lived within him for years is abruptly unbearable. "Er-ge, I'm so tired. I'm so tired of guilt and shame. I know I won't be rid of it that easily but," he shakes his head once and reaches out to touch Lan Xichen's cheek, and there's a sudden uncertainty in his eyes before his fingertips touch his skin. "...if Zewu-jun still cares for this A-Yao, I would start there." He brushes his knuckles across his cheek. "Here. With you."

With his Coldblood, Lan Xichen feels the warmth of Jin Guangyao's hands all the more keenly. He can feel the callouses from Hensheng and the guqin and the lines etched into the delicate skin of his palms.

He's about to protest that it must be enough, that he must make it be so; these feelings of his were not Jin Guangyao's responsibility, he should not be shackled by Lan Xichen's emotions.

He raises his head, meeting the other man's gaze and what he sees kills the words in his throat. That dreadful, horrible hope flares in his chest, that thing that whispers in his ears, urging him to rip the shackles from his body, because here, here, they are less than the most fragile paper. Their obligations that had been decided by their births are far away, in another world. Here, in this twisting world of nightmares, they are free to carve their own paths.

His hands tighten around Jin Guangyao's, and he tries to swallow down that hope, but it will not be denied, it will not allow anything to pass from his lips except...

"Yes."

He breathes the word like it's the first warm day of spring, fresh and full of promise. Winter will come again, of course, but there is something gentle here for them, a place to make themselves ready and face whatever they must together.

"A-Yao, I've always loved you."

He leans into Jin Guangyao's touch, the tightness that had seized his throat now gradually loosening.

"...And I always will."

It is a simple statement of fact. Whatever had happened, that part of him had never wavered.

"Here... if you like, I can show you, every day."

His ears flush blue when he remembers what he overheard his brother and Wei Wuxian say once, and he immediately regrets his choice of words. He'd like to think he has a little bit more restraint than that!

Thankfully, Jin Guangyao is spared any unfortunate and intrusive thoughts of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian during this tender moment; the context for those words is from a future he would never have lived to experience anyway. (And if he understood the context, he might dryly suggest that he got the better end of the bargain being stuck in that crypt with their Da-ge's fierce corpse. Lan Xichen probably would not find it that humorous.)

Instead, all he notes is the flush of colour to Lan Xichen's ears and, yes, it is very easy for his thoughts to follow the logical course suggested by those words towards their natural destination. In response, two spots of colour appear high on his cheekbones, but rather than bashfully looking aside and demurring until the moment has passed--as he might have in the past, to allow them both a moment to save face and resume their game--Jin Guangyao lets his hand travel down from Lan Xichen's cheek to rest warmly against the place where is neck and shoulder meet. He brushes his thumb across the dip of his throat and follows the motion with his eyes, lips parting.

Then he looks up to meet Lan Xichen's eyes again; his own are very dark, avid with an intensity that isn't new, exactly, but freed from the tight, restrictive hold he'd kept over it for years. "Er-ge, you know," he murmurs, "you know how long I have loved you." (Why else would lowly Meng Yao have allowed Wen Xu's men to beat him, rather than betray Lan Xichen's whereabouts to them? What did a homeless boy with no mother, no father, and no sect have to lose, except for Lan Xichen himself?)

On instinct Jin Guangyao finds himself bending towards Lan Xichen, drawn towards him as he always has been, as he always will be, and braces one hand against the mattress beside Lan Xichen's hip. His fingers on Lan Xichen's neck slide into his hair and curl there. "I would show you now," he says, his voice low and almost pleading when he rests his forehead against Lan Xichen's and closes his eyes. "Please, Er-ge, let me show you."

He did know. He always knew to the very bones of him that this love was never one-sided, merely untenable in their circumstances. He and Jin Guangyao had always sought the other's company whenever they had a choice - always them reaching for one another.

Lan Xichen had killed this man he loved and was ready to join him in death, that he would not be abandoned as their da-ge dragged him to his doom.

Jin Guangyao's eyes have gone very dark, and his fingers feel scorching on Xichen's rapidly cooling skin, and Xichen is becoming acutely aware that they are not only naked (the nakedness alone is of little matter - they have bathed together many times in the cold springs), but that they are naked in the same bed, likely because their counterparts had...

...had...

Frost begins to gather on the sheets as Xichen's face burn cold, as he is hit with the memory of what the other versions of them got up to before their return. His eyes dart briefly to where the bedframe had snapped, and back to Jin Guangyao, a smile that is both nervous and somehow mischievous crossing his face.

"...Is A-Yao sure his bed will survive it...?" he asks, reaching up to thumb his cheek. "For the other me, it was only a few years. This Xichen has loved A-Yao for nearly twenty."

The abrupt drop in temperature frosts the ends of Jin Guangyao's eyelashes where they brush against Lan Xichen's cheek, startling him enough to open his eyes. He follows Lan Xichen's gaze to the splintered frame and lets out a short laugh, unable to stop himself. Of course, of course his Er-ge's prodigious arm strength would be a constant across worlds, and would follow him into the bedroom.

He smiles when looks back at Lan Xichen again--pointedly, through the veil created by his absurdly long eyelashes. "A-Yao will buy another bed, if he must."

And that's about all the warning Lan Xichen gets before Jin Guangyao moves, quick and nimble and graceful as a dancer, from where he's been sitting at Lan Xichen's side to slide right into his lap, a thigh on either side of his hips and both hands in his hair. He twines the silky black locks about his fingers and gently pulls, just enough to coax Lan Xichen to tilt his head backward, exposing the elegant line of his throat. Jin Guangyao devours slope of it with his eyes, wetting his lips; like a man who has spent a lifetime parched and hungry suddenly confronted by a feast, unsure of what to taste first.

Xichen gives a sharp, surprised gasp, his thoughts whiting out at the warm weight of Jin Guangyao now occupying his lap, pressed up against him, the heat of him cutting through the numb chill of his Coldblood. Reality slow fades back into his perception and the feeling of Jin Guangyao's mouth on his throat has his cock sitting up and taking a deep interest in what's going on.

"A-Yao," he breathes in a puff of condensed air, his arms encircling his beloved, fingers buried in the dark curtain of his hair. Soft. His hair is so soft, he cannot help but nuzzle affectionately into it as Jin Guangyao makes a mess of his throat that his robes won't be able to hide.

Good, he thinks a touch ruefully, some fluttering rebellious part of him that sounds like the shrill chirps of a wren rising up and thrashing against the constraints of his mind, Let the world know where my heart lies.

He holds Jin Guangyao close, letting him ravage his neck and collarbone to his heart's content, breathless gasps escaping him as he acclimates to the feeling of holding Jin Guangyao, of being held, that this is real.

Eventually he pulls back, perhaps to ask if Jin Guangyao is sure, that if he's not, they should get dressed and talk, but the look in the other man's eye, a mirror of his own naked want, kills any doubt, and he pulls him in for a crushing, clumsy kiss, all awkward lips and tongue of a man whose inherent grace does not extend entirely to his staggering inexperience in these matters.

Lucky for Xichen, Jin Guangyao brings some limited experience in such matters to their bed--but he has no desire to tame or gentle his passion, the artlessness of it enough to drag a moan out of his chest, muffled though it is into their kiss. Jin Guangyao yields to that kiss, all deceptive softness and warmth in his parted lips and the careful application of tongue, and if he moves one hand from his lover's hair to cradle his jaw, to gently guide and show his Er-ge how he likes to be kissed, he does it with a soft, deft touch.

And if Xichen is an especially attentive pupil--and of course he is, what else could anyone expect from the Gusu Lan's peerless First Jade?--his reward for his diligent work is the slow, rhythmic, rocking grind of Jin Guangyao's hips into his.

He has to break the kiss to rest their foreheads together at the exquisite hot-cold friction created by his cock sliding against Lan Xichen's, breathing out a rough-sounding, "Er-ge, Lan Huan," against his lips. Jin Guangyao is a veritable furnace burning up from the inside from desire in comparison to Lan Xichen's coldblooded frame, and that shock of cold pressing up against the heat of him between his thighs threatens to drag another near-obscene sound of want out of him.

(It is helping him to answer one very important question, however, and that is what he wishes to experience first: being inside Lan Xichen, or having Lan Xichen inside of him.)

It's a relief to be guided, and the positive reinforcement yields swift results. Perhaps Lan Xichen is a quick learner, or perhaps he is simply primed for Jin Guangyao's affection in a way he wouldn't be for anyone else. He only knows that he wants to keep kissing Jin Guangyao for the rest of his life, those soft lips more important to him than the very air he breathes.

The languid roll of Jin Guangyao's hips has his own moving in tandem, drops of sweat from his beloved freezing on his own chilly skin as he finds his own rhythm to meet his lover's.

His hand slides between where their bodies are joined at the hips and wraps his fingers around their grinding erections, giving a few experimental strokes. His eyes are open again, dark as night as he watches Jin Guangyao, gauging each reaction, so that he can minimize his own inexperienced fumblings and touch his beloved how he deserves.

"A-Yao," he murmurs just to say it, his lips wandering over his chin, his jaw, his pulse, where sucks a dark bruise. (No more shame, no more hiding, no more holding back. This is theirs, this is what should have always been from the moment Meng Yao reached for a bruised, broken, grieving Lan Xichen's hand in a dark alley surround by the bodies of Wen soldiers.)

For once, there's no complex formula or set of rituals that must be endured to unlock the secret to what Jin Guangyao wants. In Lan Xichen's arms, at least, he is remarkably straight-forward and demonstrative about what he enjoys, and none of those things are particularly complicated. Lan Xichen's grip around both of them, stroking them together in tandem with each instinctive, shuddering forward motion of his hips, is enough to make Jin Guangyao cry out, a fox-bark sound of pleasure; a tighter grip, just skirting the edges of pain yet not quite crossing that line, quickens his breathing and makes the limber muscles of his inner thighs tremble, makes his fingers in Lan Xichen's hair tighten reflexively before he loosens them again. Jin Guangyao keeps his neck arched in clear invitation for Lan Xichen to leave as many bruising love bites as he desires along his skin, each little burning kiss making his breath catch, thrilling at the idea of having such things seen, of having evidence of their lovemaking visible, because such a thing would have been beyond unthinkable in their world. (Once the haze of his arousal and the afterglow fade, he will, more than likely, make use of his golden core to quicken the healing process a bit. After all, one cries out for many things that maybe one should reconsider, when caught up in their passion.)

All this to say that Lan Xichen should not be concerned about his inexperience being an impediment to his ability to satisfy. He's doing very well--perhaps too well.

"Enough," Jin Guangyao manages to gasp and drops a hand down to grasp hold of Lan Xichen's hand, stilling it before his diligent attentions bring all of this to an end too quickly. Breathing out unsteadily, he presses several soft kisses across his lover's brow, following perfectly the place where the Gusu Lan forehead ribbon would rest, if he were wearing it. "Er-ge," he says against his skin in between kisses, "is a very quick study," another lingering kiss to the bridge of his nose, "to what this A-Yao enjoys." He leans back just enough to look into his eyes, and to gift Lan Xichen with a genuine smile, all warmth and, at long last, a touch coy. Because he's allowed to be like this now.

Another kiss to the tip of Lan Xichen's nose this time, before he lifts his hand to press two fingers under his chin, to tilt his face up so that he can press a deceptively chaste kiss against his lips, eyes sliding closed. Then, drawing back so that their lips still brush when he speaks, he murmurs, "What does Er-ge want?" and lets his eyes open partway, regarding him in the dim light. His touch ventures down to rest near his erection without touching it again; just to make it clear he isn't speaking about their emotions here, Jin Guangyao is quite clear that they're on the same page there.

He feels more naked with out his ribbon than his clothes, to be honest, and the sensation of Jin Guangyao's lips where it would be sends a shudder through him. He searches for it amidst the hastily folded pile of robes draped on the chaise and -- are those two sets of his outer robes...? Right... the other Meng Yao was a fair bit broader than Jin Guangyao, and his heart jumps at the thought of his beloved putting on some weight and muscle. He knows he's always found Jin Guangyao attractive - beautiful, even, if he's being sentimental (and really, when is not?), but the thought of him with dimples dipping fuller cheeks, warmth and colour in his face, the better part of fear and stress chased away and him able to focus on his passions and cultivation...

...Could they have that too...?

His hand stills under Jin Guangyao's touch, with only a lingering stroke of his thumb over the leaking slit because the mischief has gotten into him and it won't leave. He's very pleased that he's managed to get his lover this close already - though he suspects it's likely the same reason he's so close as well, and it has little to do with skill and everything to do with the fact he is with the man he's loved for twenty years.

He presses kisses to the corners of Jin Guangyao's smile, to the dimples it forms, and beams back at him, warmth radiating from his expression despite the chill of his body.

"A shorter list would be what this one doesn't want. A-Yao, I want to be yours, forever. I want to kiss every inch of you. I want to show you every day that I love you, and always will."

He lightly bumps their foreheads together, the tips of their noses touching.

"I would like A-Yao to be my husband."

The more Lan Xichen speaks, the more Jin Guangyao's lips curl into a small, tenderly exasperated sort of smile, because of course he knows these things, Er-ge--most of them, at least. Not the bit about Xichen wishing to kiss every inch of his body--he had suspected that, naturally, but it is nice to hear it spoken aloud--but the rest is just a gentle, wistful reminder of all the words that had gone unsaid between them over the years of their friendship. It kindles such a sweet ache in his heart to hear them now; they had been as devoted to each other, in their way, as their world allowed.

And Jin Guangyao is on the cusp of telling this to Lan Xichen, to kindly silencing him to remind him that this A-Yao had always been his, when he hears that, and his words abandon him.

Still in Lan Xichen's lap, he sits back enough to brace his hands on both of his shoulders, to stare into his eyes in a rather shrewd way because, no, he doesn't think his Er-ge would joke about something like this, and he would not even ask if they were back in their own world, even if Jin Guangyao had not made his bows before Qin Su and had opted to remain unwed, because they both knew that a life as Lan-furen would never have made him happy. But, he realizes (and even thinking such things softens his eyes and makes him swallow around the sudden surge of emotion in his chest) this isn't their world, and Jin Guangyao has seen enough of marriage in Trench to know that what Lan Xichen is offering him is not the unequal shackle of furen that all who marry sect leader husbands must accept. It is not an alliance of clans and families for power and politics.

This is more than Lan Xichen promising Jin Guangyao, here in the privacy of their home, their bed, that will love him forever. This is Zewu-jun asking for permission to proclaim his love for the lowly Meng Yao, Jin Guangshan's whoreson bastard, to the rest of the world.

"Er-ge--" Jin Guangyao is determined not to cry, but his voice catches even as he smiles, and he furiously blinks away a sheen of wetness from his eyes before dragging in a shaky breath. He lifts both hands to cradle Lan Xichen's cheeks and presses a quick, hard kiss to his mouth, then draws back to nod, laughing weakly, and, "yes, I will, I will marry you," before he kisses him again, and again, and again, arms winding around his shoulders.

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.

"My husband," Lan Xichen says, and hearing that does something to Jin Guangyao viscerally. He can't quiet the hungry sound that catches in his throat, and lets it out in a moan into Lan Xichen's hair, because yes, he decides, yes, he wants this more than air, they deserve this--

"Husband," he says and somehow manages to sound both reverent and extremely hot for the man whose lap he's still straddling, naked and hard. He turns his face to the side to kiss Lan Xichen's temple, his cheekbone, then licks the shell of his ear, in time with a precise forward grind of his hips that slides his erection across the taut muscles of Lan Xichen's stomach; the friction causes him to shudder bodily, thighs tightening.

Another kiss to his ear, and then, with both tenderness and heat, he says, "Er-ge, I want to have you inside me."

Oh, he thinks quite frantically. Oh that feels very good.

Which is a bit of an understatement, really, but Lan Xichen isn't exactly operating on all cylinders at the moment. It feels intense, and he's close to coming or dying or both but in any circumstance this will be over all too quickly and really, that's just unacceptable. Not when he wants forever with Jin Guangyao.

(Speaking of whomst, the way he ruts against his belly is utterly hypnotizing. He doesn't know if he wants his beloved to spend all over his stomach, or to throw him down on the mattress, crawl between his legs and take him into his mouth and --)

Er-ge, I want to have you inside me.

Lan Xichen's brain comes to a screeching halt.

I can do that too, he thinks at last.

"Yes," comes a choked sound, and his mind darts back to the memories of his alternate self, and where they had put the ...it wasn't oil. Some manner of gel they'd purchased...? Either way, he needed that, and so he slips an arm under Jin Guangyao for support, and hoists him up as he stands without even a grunt of effort, so he can go procure that miraculous tube of jelly from the bedside table.

It's half empty. Honestly, those two weren't even here for two weeks!

He shivers when that arm encircles him low around his waist and smiles against his skin, then blinks in confusion when he feels Lan Xichen move. Jin Guangyao has time only yelp, "Er-ge--!" in surprise as he's hoisted up. Startled and wide-eyed, he is quick to clutch at Lan Xichen's shoulders for balance and stability, but caught off-guard as he is, he's quick to laugh a few moments later. "You could have left me in bed." ~~like, he's not going to run away, this was his idea too~~

He drops a hand from its grip on Lan Xichen's shoulder to open nightstand's shallow drawer, then neatly withdraws it a moment later with the tube of lubricant in hand. Then he turns to find Lan Xichen's neck with his lips and tongue and press a line of warm, open-mouthed kisses against his throat, gliding his teeth gingerly across places where he has already left marks that will bruise. Shameless, he knows, and decides that for now, he will stop caring about it.

He presses the tube into Lan Xichen's hand and nudges him back towards the bed without pausing in his attentions to his betrothed's neck. "Zewu-jun should prepare his husband," he suggests in between kisses, and does not elaborate upon what he means by that, preferring instead to let Lan Xichen's vivid imagination fill in the blanks. He's an artist, after all. His is a visual medium.

I N B O X

action | post-shedding ceremony shenanigans (latter half of january)

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cw for sex things (obviously)

(obviously.)

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