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They finally land, stumbling and giggling, on the balcony of A'Fei's room at the inn they're staying at in Jiankang.
A'Fei lunges forward, using the proximity to smack Xie Yun on the arm one last time before he can dodge away from her.
Usually, this would elicit a whine out of him. Usually, he'd not waste this opportunity to carry on and on with his exaggerated ridiculous nonsense, to wheedle at her till she gets annoyed enough to thwack him again. That's the cadence to their routine, this tumultuous back and forth underlined by fondness that keeps things interesting.
But tonight, he breaks this rhythm, softens their usual riotous jig into a gentle slow dance.
Tonight, he just laughs, rubbing the spot where she hit him with eyes crinkled in amusement, face split in a wide grin, one that makes her own smile grow.
He is flushed from the exertion of their chase, a bright rosy hue suffusing his cheeks, tip of his nose pink, his laughing mouth such a pretty pretty red.
In the soft light of the heavy full moon, he is radiant.
If she told someone that this bright boy before her, so full of life and vitality, will not live to see two more winters, they wouldn't believe her.
Looking at him now, it's hard for her to reconcile that to herself too, though she knows it to be true, has felt the chill that besets his bones for herself when she tried to rub futile warmth into frost-bitten fingers even as they sat in an unbearably warm cave. Has sat with sweat beading her brow due to the smoldering pit that surrounded his bed, even as his hands clasped in her own remained as though he'd just played with fresh snow.
Tonight, though, the cold is far away, for once. He is glowing, with warmth, with life, with joy.
And so she laughs with him.
She laughs with him, is helpless not to, but still...
But still, there is a phantom trail of tears from earlier tonight staining her cheeks.
Zhou Fei will not give up.
It is not in her nature to give up when it is something she believes in, something she considers important to protect. It is what made her run back to free captives in the Huo Manor prison, even with the knowledge of an explosion imminent with every step. It is what keeps her fighting to keep Hai Tian Yi Se from Disha hands, even when giving it up might make lives easier for them.
Some things in the world are worth fighting for.
And Xie Yun - he is worth fighting for with everything she has.
Dodging her sword with his impeccable Lightness Skill while smirking. Hiding behind her with his body comically-too large to be shielded by her petite frame, but the firm press of his hands on her shoulders saying he believes in her to be his sword and his shield. Hopping around with a bound arm and leg being a brat, though she could see beneath his desire to run away the real reason for his behavior, a wish to not trouble her.
And earlier, with melancholy turning his love bittersweet, telling her to move on and let him go, to accept that he will be lost to her and find happiness for herself despite it.
As if he is someone so easy to forget for her, like he has not already worked under her skin, beneath her bones, and etched himself indelibly into the tender muscle of her heart.
As if she could simply bear to sit back and watch his brightness fade from her world, without being plunged into a lifetime of insipid late dusk darkness herself.
Does he not know?
Does he not know how he suffuses her thoughts every day, and fills her dreams in the whisper of the night? How she cherishes every second by his side and misses him every minute they're apart?
Does he not know she conjures his image to her when cold and in peril, speaks to air in the shape of him when lonely at a flickering fireside, and how the very thought of him soothes her restless soul?
This Xie Meimei, she thinks, fond and annoyed and angry and elated. For all that he has such a smart mouth and whip-sharp mind, he is such a fool.
Trying so hard to not burden her with his troubles...
What is all of her strength for, if not to help carry his burdens?
She will not give up as long as there is the faintest of breaths in his lungs, the smallest bit of light in his eyes. He keeps speaking of his own death as though it is inevitable and she refuses to accept it, listens to him say it but refuses to listen.
There has to be a way, and she will never stop searching for it.
And yet.
Yet -
There are storm clouds seeping on the edges of her cloudless summer nights, an uncertainty that she tries hard to push away, to live in the moment, but it is right there, looming, impending, and...
"But perhaps if I could have a kiss from the pretty maiden beside me, then I could die with no regrets," Xie Yun said earlier, half-joking, and she gave it to him, instantly, gladly.
And after she kissed him, he looked so softly bewildered -
She has chased him down across Jianghu even when it was clear he was running away from her, put her pride aside to compel him to stay even when he did his utmost to wisp through her fingers like smoke. She has faced near certain death over and over for just one slim chance of saving him, has announced that she considers them married in all the ways that matter.
- that he looked surprised when she gave him just one small kiss as soon as he asked is what is truly bewildering.
Because if he asks...
If he asks, she'd give him so much more. The slightest hint of asking, and she'd readily share with him all of her, without a thought, within a heartbeat.
The clouds gather in the distance and there is so much uncertainty, but if he wants, there's nothing she would deny him. If he's willing, there's nothing she'd deny herself of him. Not when the future is this nebulous and every moment is a stolen blessing and everything she craves is right here before her, looking at her with starlit eyes and a soft quirk of the mouth.
It'd be nice to kiss him again, she thinks, heart a bruised drumbeat within her ribs, pulse quickening. There is electricity flooding her veins, sparking at her fingertips and looking for a way to discharge.
She'd like to kiss that mouth again, and taste the smile adorning it.
And so she does.
She moves forward and corners him against the railing of the balcony, fingers in the silky hair at his nape, bends him forward till his mouth reaches hers.
He bends for her, so pliant, so obliging (always so ready to oblige to her, and isn't that a heady feeling, how wanting and willing he is with her), and his startled huff is muffled by the press of her lips on his.
She is bolder this time than in their first kiss earlier, hungrier now, that little taste doing nothing to slake her appetite but everything to whet it.
She moves forward till every inch of her is pressed against him, her hands tangled in his hair, the movements of her mouth firmer, more decisive. She is seeking, searching, for what even she doesn't know, but then he lets out a little gasp, his lips parting, the flicker of his tongue wetting her lips, and she follows it, animal instinct telling her to chase the warmth of it, and oh - oh.
Her teeth catch against his plump lower lip and she bites it ever so gently, and the punched out moan he lets out at that is delicious.
"A'Fei," Xie Yun pulls back, breathing heavy like he's just been running. A'Fei looks up, drinks in the sight of him like this, panting and flushed and kiss-bitten. "Beautiful Heroine, are you trying to kill me?"
"Quite the opposite," she quips, and then steals the rest of his nonsense from his tongue.
His hands are still hovering uncertainly at her back even as he lets her take whatever she wants from him. This Xie Meimei, really. She pulls back with an annoyed sigh, taking his hands in her own and decisively placing them at her waist, shooting him a challengingly-raised eyebrow.
He still looks half-clobbered over the head (and ah, that is a good look on him too, she will have to make him look kiss-drunk and stupid with it all the time now), and she feels gorgeous and powerful and free in the cage of his arms.
"Xie Yun," she says, head tilted and offering up her mouth. "Kiss me again."
He obeys, instantly and without thought, and she will never tire of the thrill that gives her.
She lets herself get lost in the sensation of it, learning the shape of his mouth on hers, all her senses flooded by the scent, sound, taste, touch of him, blissful with it.
Is it the cold air against her back or the searing touch of his fingertips against her cheek that makes her whole body break out with gooseflesh? A'Fei doesn't quite know, and for a while doesn't quite care, happy to just exist in this heady moment.
When they eventually break apart, seconds or eons later, she stands leaned against the solid breadth of him, panting, foreheads pressed together, breaths mingling.
"I should," Xie Yun says, voice low and husky, and the tone of it, the need in it, has her spine tingling. "I should go to my own rooms and not keep you. Should let you sleep, should -"
"The only thing you should do," she says, pulling back to meet his eyes. "Is come with me to bed."
"A'Fei -" his eyes widen, staring at her in shock.
"What?" she gripes, untangling from him finally, taking him by the wrist.
She pulls him through the open doors of the balcony, leaving the cold breeze of the night for her pleasantly-warm room. In the candle-lit brightness inside, she shoves him towards the bed at the far end, moving to firmly shut and lock the doors behind them.
When she turns back to face him, he's just standing in the middle of the room, staring at her.
"A'Fei, you cannot possibly mean -"
"Why couldn't I?" she asks, defiant, despite the blush she can feel rising to her face.
"Because!" Xie Yun says, gesturing wildly. His eyes are wide, he looks gobsmacked. "Because we - cannot -"
She raises an eyebrow, judgmental. "We cannot isn't a reason."
"A'Fei," Xie Yun groans, and she'd like to wring that sound out of him again, in far more pleasurable ways. (And these thoughts, such shameless forward thoughts, when did she start having them? Certainly it's all Xie Yun's fault, but in this moment, it is hard to mind it.)
"We are not married!" Xie Yun bursts out, spluttering a little.
This boy.
He teases and pokes and prods at her, endlessly toeing the boundaries of propriety, but the minute she gives back as good as she gets, he cracks. It makes her want to break him apart, to watch him shatter to pieces beneath her hands and lips and tongue, and then put him back together again.
"So?" she says, crossing her arms, setting her jaw. "I said it already, earlier in the lantern shop. I consider us as good as married. We already know we are each other's. What does it matter that we haven't found the time to make our bows yet?"
"Y-you!" Xie Yun is blushing and she is blushing. But both of them know the truth of her words.
They are each other's, there is no one else in this world for them. And there never will be anyone else, not for him with his numbered days, and most likely never for her too though Xie Yun would be unhappy to hear her say that.
With such a truth at hand and a horizon full of brewing storms, shouldn't they try to soak up the sun while they can?
"A'Fei, I wouldn't want to disrespect you -"
"How is it disrespecting me to do what I ask of you?"
"I just don't know if it's proper -"
"Who gets to decide what is or isn't proper in such things!"
"And your parents. I haven't even asked for your hand, haven't even courted you, how would I face them if we -"
"Who cares?" she snaps, entirely tired of this handwringing.
Emboldened by the moment, she thickens her face, squares her shoulders, and asks, point-blank, words a thrown gauntlet.
"Xie Yun, do you want me or not?"
Xie Yun gapes at her, eyes flickering up and down her body like he can't help himself.
The heated trail of his gaze makes her stomach flip, makes that nameless urge in her gut coalesce into a burning needy ember that settles at her core, the sensation almost painful in its pleasure. Her palms itch with the need to touch him and she clenches them.
"O-of course I do!" Xie Yun says finally, face red, looking determinedly at the wall a little above her head. "Of course I want you. Who wouldn't desire you, when you are so, when you -"
His eyes when they return to her are hesitant yet greedy.
"I would think I have made my wanting of you abundantly clear by now," he says, soft, like a challenge and a promise.
She doesn't shy back from it.
"You want me," she parrots, rolling the words in her mouth, savoring it.
They taste like a mouthful of rich full-bodied rice wine shared under a starry sky, spread warmth through her just as much.
"You want me, and I want -" she clears her throat. Looks him right in the eye, answering his challenge with her own. "And I want - you. I want you always. And I want you, tonight."
The words fill the room, tangible and undeniable.
"So now that we've cleared that up, stop talking so we can find a better use for your mouth." She bites her lips shut when those words tumble out, shocked quiet by her own boldness.
A beat of silence as they stare at each other, the air between them charged and thrumming with potential.
"Waterweed Elf," Xie Yun says at last, sounding almost admiring. "You have ruined me beyond saving."
She pushes forward, inexorable, closes the distance between them till they're barely a hand's width apart.
She can feel the warmth radiating from him, the soft exhales of air from his breaths cool against her heated skin. His head is tilted forward to continue looking at her, eyes stunned and stunning, burning her with his burning.
In this soft candlelit hour amidst the quiet stillness of the world, the two of them are incandescent.
"Good," is all A'Fei says, and she reaches up to kiss him.