[ NSFW Open Post - 2020 ]

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[eternalgrief]

Huaisang kind of thought he was always going to be alone even after he finished his revenge. He's sure there are plenty who think he's no better than Jin Guangyao in some ways. Maybe they're right, but now he can focus more on being a Sect Leader, that's enough, right? He'd been telling himself it was enough for so long.

He wanted to share himself with someone... with Xichen. And for the first time in years, he didn't feel lonely.

"I want this," Huaisang says and leans to kiss him again, his hand burying once more in his hair to hold him close.

[equivocations]

"Then you have it," he says before he kisses him back, like it's that easy. Like years of living in the shadows, learning everyone better than they knew themselves and letting the world think him incompetent, weighed down by grief and fueled by anger and betrayal - as though all of that will disappear simply because Xichen is promising to be by his side as he should have always been, as though it is something that can be let go of simply because they share a bed.

He knows better. He knows because years of manipulation, of everything he thought he was collapsing under him, his entire being cracked and fractured when he came to understand that the foundation he had built it on - that he is a good man, that he can trust without hesitation - was fundamentally incorrect, none of that disappears simply because Huaisang loves him, and has agreed to let him be there for him.

But it is better. Patches on his cracks, a balm to scars on his heart, it is better, with Huaisang here. He feels hope.

"Whatever the future holds, however we are supposed to move forward now, we will do it together."

He smiles at him, soft and fond, for just a moment before it turns playful. He reaches up to pull Huaisang's hand from his hair, instead pressing the other's wrists together. There's a slight raise of an eyebrow as he drapes the other end of the ribbon loosely over the one it isn't wrapped around.

"Let me?"

[eternalgrief]

It wouldn't disappear but he wouldn't be alone as he had been either with Xichen by his side. It would be different. He hadn't had anyone to lean on before, no one that saw through everything and now Xichen knew the truth and he didn't turn away from him. He is grateful to have him with him now.

"Together," Huaisang agrees and he smiles, believing in that fully and he is glad that he won't have to face the future alone. His eyes flicker down to his hands when the other pulls the second one down, the ribbon being draped over it and his heart beats a little faster.

"Yes," he murmurs.