It is enough that he tries. Zhongli's gentle gaze gives that away, sweet and tender as he observes Xiao while he tries to speak and cannot. He strokes his head with his large hand, somewhat through that motion fixing his hair now that his jewels are gone. He tries to soothe him, humming in reply every time Xiao utters that single word, patient. His long fingers start smoothing out his locks as best as he can, just to remove the larger tangles with delicate motions, but for anything else he will need to brush them, he muses.
He cups his small, beautiful face in both his hands, making it look even smaller like that, when he leans in to kiss his purple jewel with reverence, and then presses an innocent peck on each cheekbone to try and dissolve the flush on them, before pulling back. He doesn't try anything else, doesn't go further, simply offering him tenderness in the hope Xiao won't feel ashamed or embarrassed or unworthy. He has no idea what thoughts swirl in his mind, but it is enough to see him always looking away, always punishing himself through those nails pressed into his palms. That he feels insecure is obvious. Zhongli despises the way the priests raised him, clearly for their own purposes, never allowing him to even understand the concept of happiness, but solely the one of sacrifice.
Zhongli wants to give him everything. So he will start with himself. Rather than continuing with undressing Xiao, hoping that he's more comfortable since they've removed two thirds of his layers already, Zhongli starts taking his own clothes off. They're way less than his husband's and he quickly gets to the last one.
It's then that he takes Xiao's hands, coaxing them to loosen up and stop hurting his palms, and he leads them to his frame, guiding them into undoing and removing the sash that kept his last layer in place. Then, he drives them to push the two halves apart to reveal his torso, skin pale but of a healthy, rosy hue compared to Xiao's, muscles tight and defined. He's littered with scars from the battlefields and badly stitched wounds, but he pays them no mind.
He leads those elegant, lithe fingers across the pronounced thickness of his pectorals and then down his lean stomach and the rows of his abs --his breathing trembles, but he tries to pretend he hasn't noticed. He keeps his golden eyes trained on him, to watch any possible change in his expression. He can't fully admit it to himself, but he would like for Xiao to desire him. "This is yours now, my dear husband. All of this, all of me, belong to you. You are allowed to want and take, without asking or prompting or permission. You will learn that you have wishes and I long to fulfill each and every one of them.".
The soothing nature of Zhongli's fingers in his hair is excruciating with gentleness. Xiao leans into that touch, lets his eyes flutter shut replete with trust and something else incredibly lonely. His breaths are shuddering, curious things balanced between anxiety and affection, both of which only blur and halo as Zhongli removes his own layers.
In some ways it is almost too much. Xiao's gold eyes follow rapt the way Zhongli guides his fingertips, and here and there Xiao's perfect nails catch against a scar a little less old than the others, still raised and healing down into a pale sliver. It takes Zhongli's words along with his physical guidance to somehow both ground and focus Xiao despite his inexperience in these wants and hopes knotted and tangled inside him like a secret heartbeat. If he had wings he would enfold Zhongli in them, a bold sweep of motion both in gratitude and adoration. He wonders as he raises his chin to let his gaze find Zhongli's again, what bad dreams his husband has that he might consume for him. To Xiao, this is the only way to properly thank him, or at least, the only one that occurs at first.
He is reminded of how Zhongli would find him in his own scant moments of sleep, would reach out for him even in that nameless darkness and frame his whole being not unlike he framed his face just moments before. He is reminded of his touch just three days prior on the dais where Xiao felt more human than ever in his entire life, which does not always seem real to him to begin with. He is reminded of how after feeling on death's door from someone's corruption or nightmare, he would reach out blindly to a light that looked golden and smelled of sun-kissed earth.
Much of the gold is gone, pupils dilated with that very word of 'want' even if it would be impossible for Xiao to articulate it in words, drawing the feather touch of his fingers up back the path Zhongli had led, to then branch off, skimming along the jut of his collarbone. His hand seems very small against Zhongli, even as he smooths it up to touch fingertips to his throat and then his jaw as if learning his image by touch as much as sight. "Yours" Zhongli says and Xiao can barely fathom it.
"This seems to be a dream," he says and it's quiet and thoughtful at the same time that the weight of it closes in all the air in the space, the gasp after holding one's breath too long. Not disbelief of Zhongli himself but the unavoidable question against his own daringness to feel...what is it? He doesn't know. Wanted? As himself, not as the oracle. Happy? Maybe it is all of these things, waiting to be recognized by Xiao, waiting for him to open his heart like palms faced up in acceptance of prayer and love. When he cranes his neck to lean up it is not quite a kiss despite being told he can take what he wants. Time. They need time. But the utterance of "I" and the barest touch of his lips to the corner of Zhongli's mouth, for Xiao, is perhaps more than he thought himself capable of even so. Whether it is enough he does not know.
Xiao's touch has his heart shiver, a sensation aptly similar to feathers brushing against it and Zhongli bites onto his tongue until it bleeds not to give way to any unbecoming noise or thought. The way in which he wants him is absolute, it echoes in each heartbeat and sings in his flowing blood. He was made for Xiao, and so it cannot be any other way.
Even as fingertips travel to his neck and his face, he stays perfectly still, barely swallows to get over the tightness in his throat. But his eyelids flutter close and he sighs deeply at the little kiss, breath trembling, while he buries his hand in the other's hair to keep him close. It is the hardest battle he's ever fought, against himself. He has to hold back, because if he doesn't, he risks to take too much, too soon --he knows Xiao is too sweet, too pliant with him, he wouldn't fight any of his decisions.
Patience is a virtue he never thought he lacked until now. He finally realizes how wrong he was: the difficult part wasn't making his path to Xiao; it is now, controlling himself in the face of the one he adores, give him his time and space. He was Xiao's even before the other was born, he belonged to the idea of him that the universe had carved in his soul. As a familiar, he was born first, to be ready to take care of him and lead him and protect him, but Xiao was taken away too young, too soon, tricked into an unbreakable contract that bleeds him dry, one drop at a time. Was it more haunting for Zhongli to live while knowing of their bond, or for Xiao, who wasn't aware he could hope for something different?
"A good dream, I hope." He whispers, not trusting how his voice would sound any other way. He takes Xiao's hand to kiss his palm, before he scoops him up in his arms and easily rests him on his lap, letting the other's side lean against his chest. He hugs his waist, keeps him close so he can warm him up and protect him and he nuzzles into his hair, presses pecks onto it. "Can you tell we're meant to be close, like this?" He wonders, deep voice poured directly in his ear, unsure how deep the bond runs on the other half of it.
Despite his good purposes, with the way Xiao's robes resemble more a bride's than a groom's, Zhongli slowly slides a hand under the layers until he finds his leg and he rubs long, large fingers into his thigh, marveling at how much smaller than him Xiao is. If he were to wrap his whole hand around his thigh, not much would be left out. It is enough to make him shiver with desire. "Do you know what human couples do, on the night of their wedding?" It's a soft question, his smile suffused into it --it is a bit of a tease as much as it is curiousity: he wonders how much about the world he was told and he learnt, raised as he was.
Were Xiao a bird, his feathers would ruffle gently.
"They...lie together," he says carefully, wondering if he betrays himself in admitting he does not know what those words entail exactly. To over explain what he knows feels somewhat embarrassing however, and anyway Xiao finds himself quite distracted by the way Zhongli's fingers smooth across the pale of his thigh. He shivers, eyes fluttering even as he adds, thoughtful, "And ... I think I can. It...feels better. To be close."
The tips of his ears go pink. Makeup obscures much of this flush in his face, but when more layers are removed the blush will make itself known all over.
This time when he lifts his gaze, his mouth purses on a soft O shape, curious,
"Do you want...?" ...me.
If someone were watching they might ask Xiao how he can even make such a question, but they would have to follow him back to the days of near birth, when he was first taken and locked away on a golden palanquin as the small god he is now known as today. He learned rather quickly that "want" was not a word to form on his lips except in the shape of someone else, and, for most of his life, he has not been embittered by this fact. It was taught well to him how much of his life if not all of it was a sort of karmic retribution. He would do what he could for the people that needed him, and in a twisted quiet way perhaps it was also nice to be needed, of worth. But the times when he would feel Zhongli's presence, before he even knew that it was his light and earth and soul, it would be as if a spindle of fresh air had somehow haloed into his lungs, drawn him up out of clear cold water for the first time.
So it is now, nearly a first time again: Xiao breathes.
He wonders.
And it must be because it is Zhongli: he does not feel guilty for it.
His body moves before his mind can catch him off, struggling a little in his garments to turn so that he sits in Zhongli's lap facing him rather than sideways, the sharps of his knees on either side of Zhongli's waist, most of him still layered and petaled in his remaining robes. A strange gust of air thrushes through the room and one of the two candles extinguishes, casting them into a majority darkness. But Xiao sees Zhongli with almost visceral clarity, leaning up once again enough as he dares, their noses not quite touching. Everything about his motions feels closer to animal than human, the curiosity of a caged bird offered a hand to land upon that does not seek to trap it any longer.
Zhongli smiles, a full-fledged adoring smile, when Xiao explains so easily what a married couple does. With how easily he says it, it seems obvious he has no idea what that entails. If anything, it makes his heart surge. He's endeared and just about to speak again, when Xiao adds more and Zhongli's throat suddenly tightens. This silly little bird, offering himself when he doesn't even know what for: does he really trust Zhongli so much? That, even while knowing he may lack information, he doesn't mind entrusting himself to him?
Zhongli inhales deeply, his stomach twisting as unfamiliar heat pools at the bottom. He has to close his eyes, afraid he'll show the beast within, when Xiao admits he likes being close. Eyelids fluttering up, he finds he wants to devour that little red mouth, perfectly rounded now. "I want you more than I've ever wanted anything." He confesses, a low murmur and his golden eyes like a solar eclipse, his pupils growing and shading the sun.
"We can be close for as long as you want, whenever you want." He grants him easily, insisting on that 'want'. He'd give Xiao anything he wishes, he would give him all of himself, if Xiao wanted it. "There are ways to be even closer." He whispers and yet he doesn't act on it, because he is unsure: maybe Xiao would play along simply to please Zhongli himself, and not because it is something he desires himself.
Xiao doesn't have the furthest idea of what he does to him, how the weight shifting in Zhongli's lap threatens to make him crazy if he focuses properly on the position the other is moving in, how they're parted only by mere layers of silk and brocade and nothing more. The closest they've ever been. "Xiao..." He calls quietly, his deep voice turned into almost a purr, round and pleased. It's the first time he says his name out loud and he tastes it thoroughly.
He should explain to him what lie entails in a marriage, for himself and so if someone asks, they don't get the wrong idea of him. He should tell him it's dangerous, to have shifted on his lap like that, to sit astride him and lean up that way. But he can't find in himself the strength to pull back; his large hands cup his small, pretty face and Zhongli fills the distance, letting their lips touch, with no veil in-between.
He lands small, sweet little kisses, to have him get used to the feel of the display of affection, the noise short and wet and maybe even endearing in the almost completely dark room. Slowly, the kisses turn warmer, more lingering, tasting the other's lips with no rush and his head tilting from one side to the other. He pulls back only once their breathing has turned heavier.
"Part your lips." He instructs, voice sounding like a growl, more of the general than he's ever been today, fully expecting Xiao to obey. If he does, upon licking into his mouth Zhongli will almost groan. An arm wraps around his narrow waist and his opposite hand curls around his thigh again, tugging him even closer if possible, slotting their bodies together as he savours him deeply, long fingers squeezing into his taut muscles.
Although it technically counts as obedience, to Xiao, when he replies to Zhongli's instruction, it is as much a gift as a compliance. Everything feels many times the impression an ordinary person might experience; the intersection of a creature who has been touch starved all his life but also never thought he wanted that to change until this specific person crossed that threshold. Because Zhongli holds his face, and Zhongli draws him close by the waist, and Zhongli tells him to open his mouth but all of it feels like Zhongli responding to Xiao's almost painstaking trust. It overwhelms him, elicits the thin needy gasps from the caged bird as much as the kisses do, the acknowledgment of existing not as a thing but as a living being...wanted for himself and not only nor merely what he is supposed to do or embody.
Zhongli's touch carries weight with it but also heat, a molten core to the earth or the sun basked mountainside. Xiao shivers almost violently, the beading trill of a keen in his throat with the longer deeper kiss, soft little sounds that escape him in a flurry so unlike his usual stoic decorum, like he's being unraveled in a way only his general can achieve. Small hands grasp with near desperation with fists full of beautiful silk, clinging to him as if somehow afraid he will disappear or change his mind, Xiao's legs pinned in even tighter in a way that makes it impossible not to notice both his own body and Zhongli's. He doesn't really understand, only that it incites something in him to want to chase that feeling that's both uncomfortable and dizzily pleasant, acting on instinct, craning his thin neck back to better kiss him while grinding his hips down in a way that sends heat flooding from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head.
In the past, any touches he received were those of demand and expectation as the kingdom's oracle. A golden king but only in name. The priests held the real power and because Xiao was raised to recognize this system as the truth, despite his prowess that protected this country at his own cost, despite everything, he never questioned it...or at least, not enough to change it. Those times he has found any enough courage to wonder a little more, wound themselves up with the visitations of his general, most of which he did not fully understand either for the longest time, the shred of comfort golden lit and yet the very firmament of the land on which they all dwelled: ageless and undaunted. Not swayable as the wind, which had Xiao not been taken so very young, perhaps not capturable either, but the pieces on the board fell where they had.
Still, Xiao doesn't know if he can regret any of it if it has brought him to this place and time now, Zhongli's touch a scalding brand he wishes would scar to help him never question if it is real or not. The glow of his own mark is effervescent even in the dark, and indeed the light of Xiao itself almost seems incandescent with a barely-there sound, a song no one else can hear but the general who holds him. When the kiss stops for breath alone, Xiao is dizzy, only the dark saving him from showing the full pink flush across his skin, though the swollen nature of his mouth is obvious still, and eyes dilated so widely that the gold of them is like the crown of a solar eclipse. One hand stays curled in Zhongli's garment, the other tentatively, shakily reaching up to touch his face, fingertips dancing across his cheekbone: this is real, you are real, you are here.
This is what the bird seems to say without saying, trembling with want he did not know he was capable of.
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no subject
He cups his small, beautiful face in both his hands, making it look even smaller like that, when he leans in to kiss his purple jewel with reverence, and then presses an innocent peck on each cheekbone to try and dissolve the flush on them, before pulling back. He doesn't try anything else, doesn't go further, simply offering him tenderness in the hope Xiao won't feel ashamed or embarrassed or unworthy. He has no idea what thoughts swirl in his mind, but it is enough to see him always looking away, always punishing himself through those nails pressed into his palms. That he feels insecure is obvious. Zhongli despises the way the priests raised him, clearly for their own purposes, never allowing him to even understand the concept of happiness, but solely the one of sacrifice.
Zhongli wants to give him everything. So he will start with himself. Rather than continuing with undressing Xiao, hoping that he's more comfortable since they've removed two thirds of his layers already, Zhongli starts taking his own clothes off. They're way less than his husband's and he quickly gets to the last one.
It's then that he takes Xiao's hands, coaxing them to loosen up and stop hurting his palms, and he leads them to his frame, guiding them into undoing and removing the sash that kept his last layer in place. Then, he drives them to push the two halves apart to reveal his torso, skin pale but of a healthy, rosy hue compared to Xiao's, muscles tight and defined. He's littered with scars from the battlefields and badly stitched wounds, but he pays them no mind.
He leads those elegant, lithe fingers across the pronounced thickness of his pectorals and then down his lean stomach and the rows of his abs --his breathing trembles, but he tries to pretend he hasn't noticed. He keeps his golden eyes trained on him, to watch any possible change in his expression. He can't fully admit it to himself, but he would like for Xiao to desire him. "This is yours now, my dear husband. All of this, all of me, belong to you. You are allowed to want and take, without asking or prompting or permission. You will learn that you have wishes and I long to fulfill each and every one of them.".
no subject
In some ways it is almost too much. Xiao's gold eyes follow rapt the way Zhongli guides his fingertips, and here and there Xiao's perfect nails catch against a scar a little less old than the others, still raised and healing down into a pale sliver. It takes Zhongli's words along with his physical guidance to somehow both ground and focus Xiao despite his inexperience in these wants and hopes knotted and tangled inside him like a secret heartbeat. If he had wings he would enfold Zhongli in them, a bold sweep of motion both in gratitude and adoration. He wonders as he raises his chin to let his gaze find Zhongli's again, what bad dreams his husband has that he might consume for him. To Xiao, this is the only way to properly thank him, or at least, the only one that occurs at first.
He is reminded of how Zhongli would find him in his own scant moments of sleep, would reach out for him even in that nameless darkness and frame his whole being not unlike he framed his face just moments before. He is reminded of his touch just three days prior on the dais where Xiao felt more human than ever in his entire life, which does not always seem real to him to begin with. He is reminded of how after feeling on death's door from someone's corruption or nightmare, he would reach out blindly to a light that looked golden and smelled of sun-kissed earth.
Much of the gold is gone, pupils dilated with that very word of 'want' even if it would be impossible for Xiao to articulate it in words, drawing the feather touch of his fingers up back the path Zhongli had led, to then branch off, skimming along the jut of his collarbone. His hand seems very small against Zhongli, even as he smooths it up to touch fingertips to his throat and then his jaw as if learning his image by touch as much as sight. "Yours" Zhongli says and Xiao can barely fathom it.
"This seems to be a dream," he says and it's quiet and thoughtful at the same time that the weight of it closes in all the air in the space, the gasp after holding one's breath too long. Not disbelief of Zhongli himself but the unavoidable question against his own daringness to feel...what is it? He doesn't know. Wanted? As himself, not as the oracle. Happy? Maybe it is all of these things, waiting to be recognized by Xiao, waiting for him to open his heart like palms faced up in acceptance of prayer and love. When he cranes his neck to lean up it is not quite a kiss despite being told he can take what he wants. Time. They need time. But the utterance of "I" and the barest touch of his lips to the corner of Zhongli's mouth, for Xiao, is perhaps more than he thought himself capable of even so. Whether it is enough he does not know.
no subject
Even as fingertips travel to his neck and his face, he stays perfectly still, barely swallows to get over the tightness in his throat. But his eyelids flutter close and he sighs deeply at the little kiss, breath trembling, while he buries his hand in the other's hair to keep him close. It is the hardest battle he's ever fought, against himself. He has to hold back, because if he doesn't, he risks to take too much, too soon --he knows Xiao is too sweet, too pliant with him, he wouldn't fight any of his decisions.
Patience is a virtue he never thought he lacked until now. He finally realizes how wrong he was: the difficult part wasn't making his path to Xiao; it is now, controlling himself in the face of the one he adores, give him his time and space. He was Xiao's even before the other was born, he belonged to the idea of him that the universe had carved in his soul. As a familiar, he was born first, to be ready to take care of him and lead him and protect him, but Xiao was taken away too young, too soon, tricked into an unbreakable contract that bleeds him dry, one drop at a time. Was it more haunting for Zhongli to live while knowing of their bond, or for Xiao, who wasn't aware he could hope for something different?
"A good dream, I hope." He whispers, not trusting how his voice would sound any other way. He takes Xiao's hand to kiss his palm, before he scoops him up in his arms and easily rests him on his lap, letting the other's side lean against his chest. He hugs his waist, keeps him close so he can warm him up and protect him and he nuzzles into his hair, presses pecks onto it. "Can you tell we're meant to be close, like this?" He wonders, deep voice poured directly in his ear, unsure how deep the bond runs on the other half of it.
Despite his good purposes, with the way Xiao's robes resemble more a bride's than a groom's, Zhongli slowly slides a hand under the layers until he finds his leg and he rubs long, large fingers into his thigh, marveling at how much smaller than him Xiao is. If he were to wrap his whole hand around his thigh, not much would be left out. It is enough to make him shiver with desire. "Do you know what human couples do, on the night of their wedding?" It's a soft question, his smile suffused into it --it is a bit of a tease as much as it is curiousity: he wonders how much about the world he was told and he learnt, raised as he was.
no subject
"They...lie together," he says carefully, wondering if he betrays himself in admitting he does not know what those words entail exactly. To over explain what he knows feels somewhat embarrassing however, and anyway Xiao finds himself quite distracted by the way Zhongli's fingers smooth across the pale of his thigh. He shivers, eyes fluttering even as he adds, thoughtful, "And ... I think I can. It...feels better. To be close."
The tips of his ears go pink. Makeup obscures much of this flush in his face, but when more layers are removed the blush will make itself known all over.
This time when he lifts his gaze, his mouth purses on a soft O shape, curious,
"Do you want...?" ...me.
If someone were watching they might ask Xiao how he can even make such a question, but they would have to follow him back to the days of near birth, when he was first taken and locked away on a golden palanquin as the small god he is now known as today. He learned rather quickly that "want" was not a word to form on his lips except in the shape of someone else, and, for most of his life, he has not been embittered by this fact. It was taught well to him how much of his life if not all of it was a sort of karmic retribution. He would do what he could for the people that needed him, and in a twisted quiet way perhaps it was also nice to be needed, of worth. But the times when he would feel Zhongli's presence, before he even knew that it was his light and earth and soul, it would be as if a spindle of fresh air had somehow haloed into his lungs, drawn him up out of clear cold water for the first time.
So it is now, nearly a first time again: Xiao breathes.
He wonders.
And it must be because it is Zhongli: he does not feel guilty for it.
His body moves before his mind can catch him off, struggling a little in his garments to turn so that he sits in Zhongli's lap facing him rather than sideways, the sharps of his knees on either side of Zhongli's waist, most of him still layered and petaled in his remaining robes. A strange gust of air thrushes through the room and one of the two candles extinguishes, casting them into a majority darkness. But Xiao sees Zhongli with almost visceral clarity, leaning up once again enough as he dares, their noses not quite touching. Everything about his motions feels closer to animal than human, the curiosity of a caged bird offered a hand to land upon that does not seek to trap it any longer.
no subject
Zhongli inhales deeply, his stomach twisting as unfamiliar heat pools at the bottom. He has to close his eyes, afraid he'll show the beast within, when Xiao admits he likes being close. Eyelids fluttering up, he finds he wants to devour that little red mouth, perfectly rounded now. "I want you more than I've ever wanted anything." He confesses, a low murmur and his golden eyes like a solar eclipse, his pupils growing and shading the sun.
"We can be close for as long as you want, whenever you want." He grants him easily, insisting on that 'want'. He'd give Xiao anything he wishes, he would give him all of himself, if Xiao wanted it. "There are ways to be even closer." He whispers and yet he doesn't act on it, because he is unsure: maybe Xiao would play along simply to please Zhongli himself, and not because it is something he desires himself.
Xiao doesn't have the furthest idea of what he does to him, how the weight shifting in Zhongli's lap threatens to make him crazy if he focuses properly on the position the other is moving in, how they're parted only by mere layers of silk and brocade and nothing more. The closest they've ever been. "Xiao..." He calls quietly, his deep voice turned into almost a purr, round and pleased. It's the first time he says his name out loud and he tastes it thoroughly.
He should explain to him what lie entails in a marriage, for himself and so if someone asks, they don't get the wrong idea of him. He should tell him it's dangerous, to have shifted on his lap like that, to sit astride him and lean up that way. But he can't find in himself the strength to pull back; his large hands cup his small, pretty face and Zhongli fills the distance, letting their lips touch, with no veil in-between.
He lands small, sweet little kisses, to have him get used to the feel of the display of affection, the noise short and wet and maybe even endearing in the almost completely dark room. Slowly, the kisses turn warmer, more lingering, tasting the other's lips with no rush and his head tilting from one side to the other. He pulls back only once their breathing has turned heavier.
"Part your lips." He instructs, voice sounding like a growl, more of the general than he's ever been today, fully expecting Xiao to obey. If he does, upon licking into his mouth Zhongli will almost groan. An arm wraps around his narrow waist and his opposite hand curls around his thigh again, tugging him even closer if possible, slotting their bodies together as he savours him deeply, long fingers squeezing into his taut muscles.
no subject
Zhongli's touch carries weight with it but also heat, a molten core to the earth or the sun basked mountainside. Xiao shivers almost violently, the beading trill of a keen in his throat with the longer deeper kiss, soft little sounds that escape him in a flurry so unlike his usual stoic decorum, like he's being unraveled in a way only his general can achieve. Small hands grasp with near desperation with fists full of beautiful silk, clinging to him as if somehow afraid he will disappear or change his mind, Xiao's legs pinned in even tighter in a way that makes it impossible not to notice both his own body and Zhongli's. He doesn't really understand, only that it incites something in him to want to chase that feeling that's both uncomfortable and dizzily pleasant, acting on instinct, craning his thin neck back to better kiss him while grinding his hips down in a way that sends heat flooding from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head.
In the past, any touches he received were those of demand and expectation as the kingdom's oracle. A golden king but only in name. The priests held the real power and because Xiao was raised to recognize this system as the truth, despite his prowess that protected this country at his own cost, despite everything, he never questioned it...or at least, not enough to change it. Those times he has found any enough courage to wonder a little more, wound themselves up with the visitations of his general, most of which he did not fully understand either for the longest time, the shred of comfort golden lit and yet the very firmament of the land on which they all dwelled: ageless and undaunted. Not swayable as the wind, which had Xiao not been taken so very young, perhaps not capturable either, but the pieces on the board fell where they had.
Still, Xiao doesn't know if he can regret any of it if it has brought him to this place and time now, Zhongli's touch a scalding brand he wishes would scar to help him never question if it is real or not. The glow of his own mark is effervescent even in the dark, and indeed the light of Xiao itself almost seems incandescent with a barely-there sound, a song no one else can hear but the general who holds him. When the kiss stops for breath alone, Xiao is dizzy, only the dark saving him from showing the full pink flush across his skin, though the swollen nature of his mouth is obvious still, and eyes dilated so widely that the gold of them is like the crown of a solar eclipse. One hand stays curled in Zhongli's garment, the other tentatively, shakily reaching up to touch his face, fingertips dancing across his cheekbone: this is real, you are real, you are here.
This is what the bird seems to say without saying, trembling with want he did not know he was capable of.