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“I love you.”
The words surprise you as they slip from your lips and against the side of Lan Xichen’s head, but maybe they shouldn’t. They’ve been on an near-endless loop in your head for the last twenty minutes as Lan Xichen worked his hips and moaned above you, scattered among a litany of other proclamations you’d never thought you’d be brave enough to confess to the man who’d managed to take up every bit of space in your heart--though you now doubt that bravery has anything to do with it, because saying the words doesn’t make you feel brave. They make you feel sentimental and ridiculous and vulnerable in a way you’ve fought to avoid feeling your entire damn life because you know the world is cruel and showing vulnerability is the most dangerous thing you can do.
You deeply hope that, somehow, he didn’t hear them.
He doesn’t react at first, and whether that should fill you with hope or dread you can’t decide, but maybe it isn’t unusual that his response would be slow. The mood of the afterglow is hazy and sluggish. Lan Xichen hadn’t even bothered to separate your bodies after you’d both finished, gripping each other tight and gasping desperately into each other’s mouths as release had crashed down over both of you; he’d simply shifted to bury his face against your neck and the heat of his body covering yours like a blanket left you feeling safe and euphoric and impossibly content right up until your haphazard admission.
You suspect it’s the afterglow that loosened your lips in the first place. Not even the finest wine intoxicates you the way he does. Being with Lan Xichen is the only thing potent enough to make the rest of the world dissolve for a time, enough to make you forget about the weight and bitterness of the reality that lays waiting to confront you beyond the safety of your bedroom and the security of his incredibly strong arms.
If given the choice, you think you’d prefer to stay here with him forever, but you’re never given that choice.
The silence - or what would be silence if not for the steadily more frantic drumbeat of your heart in your ears - seems to drag out into eternity and you are increasingly sure that Lan Xichen is either asleep (if you’re lucky, though you never have been), or is debating within himself the least agonizing way to extract himself from this awkward situation, from your uncalled for confession. Regret creeps up your spine over your momentary lapse of control, and you begin to wonder if there’s someway to walk back the words that have already left your mouth...
But before your thoughts spiral off too far in that direction, finally, Lan Xichen’s head lifts up from your neck, his eyes seeking out yours, the expression on his face one of surprise, and somehow, hope.
You almost can’t believe it, but you’ve prided yourself too heavily on your defensive ability to read others to deny what you see so clearly, even in the warm glow of the lantern light. You know him too well to deny what’s laid out so plainly in front of you, though making your heart accept it is another matter entirely.
“A-Yao,” he speaks breathlessly. There are few things in this life you love more than when he calls you like that, few sounds that have ever been as sweet. Your name feels safe in his mouth, and you love him all the more for it.
“Do you mean that?” he asks, a hesitant smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and twinkling in his eyes, making his already beautiful face impossibly more so. Some days you can’t believe that the most gorgeous man in the cultivation world would give you the time of day, much less look at you like this, but the evidence hangs undeniably above you, looking down at you with reverence, like your love is the most precious gift he could imagine being given.
(He doesn’t know how deeply broken the thing he asks for is. If you’re lucky, he’ll never find out.)
“I do,” you confirm, because it’s the safest truth to tell in the moment, because the chance to be honest with Lan Xichen is not a given, but an indulgence you find impossible to deny yourself when it’s presented, and because you’re not sure you could bear his heartbreak if you were to respond in any other way. You reach up to brush your fingertips against the perfect skin of his perfect cheek and repeat, “I love you.”
You’ve never spoken the words aloud before today, not to anyone. They feel strange on your tongue, but as you repeat them, a smile bursts over Lan Xichen’s face and the expression is bright enough to light the entire room, bright enough that you’re nearly blinded by it--you can feel your eyes watering from it, but it’s hard to feel any shame when you can see the moisture beading in Lan Xichen’s eyes just as clearly.
Before another word can be uttered, Lan Xichen is kissing you. Your breath is stolen from your chest as his hands frame your face and he kisses you sweetly, deeply, fervently. You have to remind yourself to inhale through your nose as Lan Xichen presses kiss after kiss to your lips, as his fingers push back through your hair and he presses as much skin together as he possibly can, as if pressing hard enough could somehow bring your bodies closer together.
“I love you, too,” he mumbles back, the words muffled in the gap between your mouths, and for as strange as the words were to say for the first time, they’re even stranger to hear. Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise considering everything Lan Xichen had done for you, considering the way he looks at you, but the part of you that always suspects you aren’t worthy of love, much less his love, reels to hear him make such a profession, reels to even consider that the beautiful, talented, revered Zewu-Jun could think you worthy of such a precious thing.
“I love you,” he tells you again, as if knowing that you need to hear it, as if knowing you’re more willing to believe you heard the words wrong than believe that he could actually have such feelings for you--and that’s just one more reason to love him, because you’ve never told him how deeply your insecurities run and yet he seems to know anyway, knows you as much as you’ve allowed anyone to know you and somehow loves you in spite of it.
You don’t know what you did to deserve it, to deserve him, but maybe it’s better not to think about it too much. As you stumble past the thoughts, you find it easier to believe that maybe the reason there’s no luck to be found in any other corner of your life is because it’s all been poured into this singular miracle of Lan Xichen somehow falling in love with you.
If that truly was the case, everything else in your miserable life would make infinitely more sense--and in the end, you’re not even sure you can be upset about it. For as sparingly as your lives allow you to see each other, no one else has made you feel as whole, as valued, as cherished as he does, and you’re not sure you want to imagine your life without him in it.
Growing up the way you did, you never expected to fall in love with anyone... but you love him. You love him more than anything, and maybe you shouldn’t because you know what you are, and what you’ve done, and what you will have to continue doing to survive - and more importantly you know who he is, and what he could never be expected to forgive - but now that the words have been spoken, they can’t be unsaid, and you’re not sure you’d want to take them back anyway as he kisses you with utter abandon. You both ignore your tear-stained cheeks in favor of your shared indulgence, and you soon lose yourself in the desperation of your arms holding each other tight and the warmth of your bodies cradled close together beneath the blankets, doing whatever you can to express a love that even a hundred poets given a hundred lifetimes would struggle to spin properly into verse.
You love him so much that you would die for him, and though you hope it never comes to it, you would kill for him just as soon. You hope he never has to see the parts of you that you can barely stand to see yourself, because if that day comes, you will not blame him when he can't forgive you, when he turns his back on you and walks away. It will crush you, but you will not blame him, because most days you can't even forgive yourself, and no matter what he may have forgiven so far, you know his love is not boundless (because surely no one's love is boundless), and should that day ever come you sincerely hope it will be your last.
But for now, none of that matters. You'd rather not think about the end when he's only just now told you he loves you, and as he kisses you breathless and his overjoyed tears fall from his cheeks to mingle with yours, there is nothing you want more than to fall into this moment and stay in it forever.
Because you know the world is cruel, you know it will not allow you to stay here forever... but maybe, so long as you're allowed to stay with him for now, it will be enough.