[ NSFW Open Post - 2021 ]

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[equivocations]

Xichen's expression falls, and he carefully draws his hand away. It will take time, he reminds himself, it will take time - it's his own fault that it's taken this long, that he's so late in claiming him.

It will be all right.

"All right, Huaisang, if that's what you want. When we get home, we'll get you cleaned up, and then we'll continue. Mingjue - would you like to join right away, or do you need to rest from your journey?"

Mingjue, who'd been watching Xichen's face fall, looks down at Huaisang. "Are you going to behave yourself this time?"

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang let’s out a sigh of relief as the others hand moved away. He still couldn’t get free of his brother but that wasn’t as horrible. He still can’t fathom the betrayal, though. He exhaled tiredly and with Mingjue around he couldn’t even contemplate how he could escape... what is there even to escape to?

It’s all pointless...

Huaisang just closes his eyes again and refuses to answer. He wants to pretend mingjue isn’t asking that.

[equivocations]

Mingjue looks back up at him, and Lan Xichen gives him a small, sad smile.

"I'll run him a bath, get him cleaned up, while you rest and get some food in you. The cook you graciously allowed to come teach ours a thing or two is expecting you."

Mingjue gives a grunt of agreement. "Send a servant to let me know when you're ready, and I'll join you. Or if you need help wrangling him again."

Lan Xichen locks his hands behind his back. "It isn't Huaisang's fault. I lost my temper, and I shouldn't have let my hurt feelings put him in danger."

They're at Cloud Recesses, by then, so Mingjue moves to hand Huaisang over to Lan Xichen - who deactivates the ribbon around his neck for only a moment, pinning it to his own shoulder instead of Mingjue's.

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang hand remains silent and he still refuses to speak as he’s handed over to Xichen. He wants to struggle but he doesn’t yet. He will. He will keep fighting but as he’s pinned to the others shoulder it’s like his energy drains all the more. The idea of a bath sounds good he must admit. He could still feel the dirty hands on him and as been pressed all into the dirt as well. It’s not something he is accustomed to after all.

[equivocations]

Mingjue departs for the kitchens, and Lan Xichen takes Huaisang up to their rooms. When they reach their admittedly ridiculously large bathing quarters, Lan Xichen seals the door behind them, then deactivates the collar and lets Huaisang down.

He takes a step back, watching him.

"I don't want to restrain your movement, but I will leave it up to you. Will you let me take care of you, or have you decided you trust me enough to believe that I would never let you drown, even if you can't move?"

It's honestly not a manipulation attempt, as far as he is concerned. Whatever Huaisang thinks about him, whatever his distaste - it has been over a month, and Lan Xichen genuinely wants to know.

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang immediately stumbles away from Xichen the moment he can. He still feels so disorientated and betrayed and it is almost as if nothing actually matters at all.

“I don’t trust you at all but you wouldn’t be able to use me if I was dead.”

[equivocations]

That's something, he supposes, even though he can feel his heart clenching a little. What has he done wrong, what did he - no, he knows. He knows he should have listened to his brother and his uncle, he shouldn't have been so soft, but he can't help it.

He is soft.

Well, at least he can soft with Huaisang for a little while before they continue.

The servants had already filled the bath in preparation, though of course it'd gone cold when Lan Xichen allowed Huaisang to leave. He uses a talisman to heat it back up.

"Shall I restrain you, then, or will you get in with me?"

[eternalgrief]

“I’ll get in,” Huaisang says, exhaling and a part of him wants to ask for Xichen to take the plug out but he refuses to give the satisfaction as he goes to pull off the straps of the excuse for an outfit he has been dressed in.

He doesn’t feel like he can ever get clean.

[equivocations]

Lan Xichen exhales slowly at that response, and goes to get a small basket containing items for bathing. He begins to undress himself, but waits until Huaisang has climbed into the bathtub before getting in himself.

Then he takes a soft cloth and some soap from the basket he'd set by him.

"Come here, let me wash you?"

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang silently gets into the bath and tries not to think about anything at all when the other soon follows. He’s tense, though, as the water shifts and shows the signs that he’s been joined. He braces himself for the other’s touch, eyes closing as he listens for Xichen to move closer.

[equivocations]

He soaps up the cloth, taking Huaisang's hand first to start somewhere a little less intimate - though the gentle dedication he gives to each of his fingers makes it difficult to be anything less than intimate.

"What would it take," he asks as he moves up Huaisang's arm, cloth moving in soft, sweeping motions. "To make you happy?"

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang looks away from Xichen as the other starts to clean him. His jaw is tense as the other works and he wants to pull away.

"I want to be free."

[equivocations]

Lan Xichen had expected that answer, and he considers that as he starts on Huaisang's other arm, sweeping the cloth down it.

"None of us are free, Huaisang." Oh, he's sure Huaisang doesn't see it that way, that he thinks of Lan Xichen as cruel and heartless, who's doing this all for his own amusement - but it isn't true.

He's quiet for a very long moment before he admits, "I would let you go if I could."

[eternalgrief]

"I don't believe you," Huaisang says and he doesn't. He's already been manipulated for what feels like an eternity by Xichen. He doesn't see any sincerity there. He wishes he could have bathed alone that cleaning himself would have maybe been relaxing he could have recovered a little from all that had just happened but instead...

Instead, he's here with him.

[equivocations]

"And there is no way for me to prove it."

He sighs, turning Huaisang's hand over and dropping the soap and the cloth in it, then moves away to lean back against the side of the tub, watching him.

"What would you have me do, Huaisang? Do you think I would not love to give you as much freedom as either of us could have, that I do not want to be able to trust you? I have a duty to the council of elders, to my uncle and my brother and my people, to your brother and the Nie clan, to you. I already went against our customs for you, to try to make this easier on you, and look where we are now. Tell me, then - how am I supposed to reconcile the expectations of so many?"

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang takes the soap and the cloth and he shifts to get further away as he starts to clean himself. At least there is that. After having so many unwanted hands on him, dirty hands doing awful things it calms him that he has control of this part even if only because Xichen is allowing it. He stays quiet but he listens as he washes himself, there are still some spots that are sore, that are far too sensitive and he's moves gingerly around them.

"You shouldn't have forced someone to marry you in the first place," Huaisang says and he knows he's not the first that the Lans have forced to marry and he is sure he won't be the last but if they went about things differently then the situation wouldn't be like this at all.

[equivocations]

His brows furrow briefly. Yes, yes, he is aware that Huaisang had been forced into this, that he continues to insist that he is little more than a spoil of war - and there is truth in it, of course. Of course Huaisang was a spoil of war, of course this marriage came about because the Lan won and the Nie lost, and it continues to strengthen the alliance between them.

But that it shouldn't have been done in the first place - he's at a loss.

"It is the way things are done. Surely you must have known, you would always have been destined for an arranged marriage? Is this so different, because we were at war? Have we not made a good alliance out of it?"

It feels strange to even ask such questions, and he shakes his head.

"Regardless, it is done, and this is where we are. What would you have me do?"

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang wouldn't say that things are better for Qinghe because of the alliance. He doubts that they are. They might allow Mingjue to lead there still but he is still under the Lan's thumb and many lives were lost and even Huaisang recognizes that. He works quietly on getting himself clean, still wanting to ask to remove the plug but too proud to do so and he just does his best to ignore it and the reminder of how it had felt when those men were trying to rip out of him.

"It is different," Huaisang says, his jaw tightening and the other had to know it was different. Mingjue would have never forced a marriage Huaisang was against on him... these circumstances were not the same.

He finally sets the soap and washcloth aside and sinks down into the water some, closing his eyes.

"You will do what you want to do so does it matter what I say? You already told me what you are going to do to me tonight."

[equivocations]

His eyes flash at that. "What do you know of what I want? What I wanted was to bring you pleasure, to make you happy, to forge a true partnership. I wanted to be soft with you, and here we are because of it. I should have known better. I should have known that I was never going to be allowed to be soft."

It is not different, not matter how much Huaisang insists. It is a marriage of convenience, and perhaps he was foolish to think he could make it more by going against the Lan customs. If he wanted what Wangji and Wei Wuxian have, he should have followed their traditions.

And yet he is still here, still asking Huaisang how he can make him happy, what Huaisang expects him to do.

"Do you think there are not rumblings around how much I have allowed you to get away with? That our people do not question why I haven't claimed you as I should? We have two heirs to produce now, since I promised Mingjue, and you still do not carry one. What I must do is not what I want."

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang's jaw tightens and he hates this. He hates Xichen and that the other has been manipulating him for so long now that he almost believes the other is being truthful even though he knows better. it's just another layer of manipulation isn't it?

"So you won't enjoy breeding me in front of my brother tonight?"

Huaisang retorts and he gets up to get out of the bath to get away from Xichen, although, the other would surely just follow him.

"Stop acting like this is hard for you."

[equivocations]

He stays in the tub, at least for the moment, resting one arm along the edge. "Of course I will enjoy it, Huaisang, we both will. If this were only about physical enjoyment, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

And Mingjue will enjoy it as well, when he joins - he wonders how Huaisang reconciles that. That Lan Xichen corrupted him, probably.

"This is not an act! I have never, not once, put on a pretense with you - how long can you insist that our every interaction is a lie when I have been nothing but honest with my intentions?"

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang doesn’t look at him. He knows with no small amount of shame that the other will force more pleasure on him, it made things harder. And he knew that Xichen wanted to break him.

“Maybe you are fooling yourself better than anyone else.”

[equivocations]

He shakes his head, pushing his hand through his hair as he wrings it out.

"And perhaps you are refusing any offer of happiness because you want to continue to believe this life could bring you nothing but misery."

He stands, stepping out of the bath and reaching for a pair of towels. He offers one to Huaisang, though he doesn't stand any closer than necessary.

"Is this it, then? Are we at a standstill for the moment?"

[eternalgrief]

Huaisang doesn’t say anything to that. It’s a tired argument. He couldn’t stop feeling trapped and caged because he was trapped and caged and he didn’t know how he could really be happy if he wasn’t free. Today has seemed to only prove more that he’s just property.

He does take the towel and carefully dries himself off, avoiding the nipple piercings and the other jeweled areas almost completely.

“Yes.”

[equivocations]

There they are, then. He's quiet as he dries himself off, contemplative - but in the end, he cannot let it deter him. The council is expecting a fully claimed consort before the night is through, and Mingjue will be ready to join them before long.

All he can do is continue, and hope he can make up the ground he lost with his softness.

"Then do you want to be restrained, before I continue?"