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“Do you want me?” Aether asks, amongst a field of qingxin flowers.
Everything sleeps. At least, everything that is mortal sleeps. The sky is quiet, but watchful, its moon like a mother, or a tether in its unmoored sea of blackness, and its illumination is all that keeps Xiao’s heart from rotting at the question. The thought that there is a witness to the blood on his skin. That some higher being knows him as sin, and knows Aether as light.
Xiao clutches his spear. The air is cold on his face, against his lips, and he is hungry. Though not for dreams. Not for blood.
“It is not a matter of wanting you.” He answers at last. His voice seems too loud, though it is little more than a whisper. Aether does not flinch at the way it punctures the night. At the way the silence wilts at their feet.
Aether only watches him. His eyes are golden like daybreak, but hazy with fatigue. He too, should be sleeping. He has fought hard, and Xiao knows that he hurts. That each day is a slow and aching struggle briefly alleviated by small periods of happiness, and that Aether misses his sister. He also knows that though Aether comes from the stars, his soul is human in nature, and he needs restoration just as any other. Yet Xiao is ever vigilant, and tonight, Aether has chosen to stay up with him.
“It is not a matter of wanting you,” Xiao repeats. “And you should sleep.”
“I will not,” Aether retorts. “You don’t sleep.”
“I have no need for sleep.”
“Then neither do I.”
Xiao sighs. ”Aether—“
“Do you want me?” Aether asks again. “I’ve seen the way you look at me Xiao, and I may be stupid, but I’m not that stupid. If you want me the way I want you, why won’t you say so?”
Aether is beautiful. That is why Xiao looks. Why he will always look. Aether is a pool of sunlight, the first child’s laughter, a sky learning its name. Aether reminds Xiao of the dawning of the world. Before the maw of blackness and before Morax too. Before sin and salvation, when his existence was nothing more than a sentient dream. A breathing hope. A heart without a body.
“It is not a matter of wanting you, but a matter of whether I am worthy to want.” Xiao says. The wind blows softly, and the qingxin flowers bow their white heads.
Aether hums.
“Explain please.”
Xiao sighs. The moon cradles his face. Whispers against his mouth, and he knows that the night wills him to speak. He feels Aether’s fingers brush his, like small butterflies teasing at an open blossom.
“I am bound. I have almost always been. Had you met me before…” He trails off. Aether hums, moving closer. His hair spills over his shoulders, and Xiao longs to touch it.
“Before…?” Aether breathes.
Xiao shakes his head.
“It matters not,” He rescinds, shifting on the grass. “I was first bound by her…the goddess of cruelty and dreams. And then I was bound to Morax. I have fought for him, as a yaksha, and all other yaksha have fallen. Their karmic debt was too much to bear, and one day…perhaps one day soon, I shall join them.”
“Xiao.” Aether whispers, and his voice aches. Gives beneath a weight. He grasps Xiao’s wrist, and his hand is so warm, like nothing Xiao has ever felt. He cannot help but tremble faintly, so pathetically weak to something so humanly intimate. His breath shudders out of him as Aether’s thumb skates over the inside of his wrist. A feather light touch skimming the beat of his pulse. Cherishing proof of life.
“It matters not,” Xiao insists once more, though his lips burn and his heart drums at his chest. “I shall return to earth and dust. But as I live, I must bear my karmic debt and I must bear it alone. To allow it to taint any other living being…that would be a sin too great to forgive.”
“But Xiao,” Aether says, pushing onto his knees. The grass bristles beneath him as he crawls forward, his brows folded in thought. “You can’t taint me, I’m not from this world—“
“Anything can be tainted. Even that which is most precious.” Xiao says. Aether’s fingers press up, into the heel of his palm. He shakes like a storm and looks at Aether once more. His eyes, twin suns. His mouth, a soft, pink grace.
“And I…” He breathes. “I have done terrible things.”
Aether intertwines their hands. He is so warm. So gentle. His skin like a balm to Xiao’s soul, and, so tenderly, he brings Xiao’s hand to his velvet lip.
He kisses Xiao’s fingertips, his eyes half shut in prayer.
“Aether…” Xiao gasps. He burns as fire burns, and hopes not to singe the flowers. Aether’s lashes brush his cheeks. His breath is a lapping tide, and Xiao wishes to feel it against him, a wave washing his throat.
“Xiao,” He says so quietly, the wind stills to hear. “I too have done terrible things. It is the nature of all living things to be impure. That does not make you unworthy of love.”
“I am an adeptus,” He protests, though his argument feels weak when spoken so breathlessly. “I do not abide to mortal law—“
“But you are a living thing,” Aether reiterates. His tongue flicks at the tip of Xiao’s thumb. A whimper slips from his throat. “You are impure Xiao, and I am too.”
“No,” Xiao cannot help but laugh, his eyes misting with tears. “No, you are beautiful. Like salvation.”
Aether abandons his hands. Xiao almost cries out when he withdraws, his pole arm slipping from his slackening grip and thumping softly against the cool dirt. There is a flush beneath his skin, a flush that makes him feel strange. Dizzy with heat, heavy with softness. He feels delicate and raw, and he hates it and loves it, and wants Aether to keep touching him.
Aether smiles. It is like heaven peeking from behind the pearlescent clouds, like the sound of birdsong from within the mist of Jueyan Karst. He presses Xiao’s hips into the ground and straddles his thighs. His legs are firm with muscle. His hair spills and spills like cascading sunlight, and brushes Xiao’s collarbones.
“I am impure,” He murmurs, pressing close to Xiao’s lips. “I have done terrible things. Yet in your eyes, I am beautiful. If you would have me as I am, then let me have you. Belong to me of your own free will. Want me without guilt.”
Xiao, at last, lets his hands do as hands wish to do. He touches. Trembles violently at each pass of Aether’s skin under his palms, at the silk of his hair twisting between the gaps of his fingers. Aether’s hand cups the back of his neck. Pins him, and Xiao feels beautifully helpless, rendered so free by love.
“I do not know if I can give you that.” He confesses. Aether kisses his brow. Each press of his lips, a moment of forgiveness.
“That’s okay,” He says. “For now, all I ask is that you tell me the truth. The deepest, darkest truth of your heart,” A kiss, at the corner of his mouth. A breath, like water on his tongue. “Adeptus Xiao. Do you want me?”
The moon watches. A witness to the blood on Xiao’s skin. The wounds on Aether’s back, where he was once winged. She cradles the both of them in her silvery light, and she compels Xiao to speak. To open his soul again in the secrecy of the night, and let Aether see all that is broken, and all that is found.
His deep, dark truth leaves him like a revelation.
“I want you. I want you more than death.”
Aether weeps as angels weep. His tears are Xiao’s tears. Their hearts beat in rhythm.
“Let me kiss you?” He asks, and Xiao is a storm. A fire brightly burning.
“I am yours,” He swears. “Kiss me.”
Aether kisses him until morning. Then, at last, sleeps.