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Mar. 19th, 2021 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quigonejinnHello! I am gently breaking out this Dreamwidth as a place to post bits and pieces of fic that don't belong elsewhere.
So for Filthy Friday,
In order to move in together, Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen negotiate a series of compromises. They love each other, but both are fully-grown adults, after all. They have established lives with distinct habits. Possessions. To that end, they keep Jin Guangyao's everyday flatware, but use Xichen's bowls and plates. Jin Guangyao's coffee machine finds a place on the counter, displacing Lan Xichen's blender, even though it was a present from his brother. He only uses it a couple times a month anyways. He can get it down from a cabinet when that happens, especially if it means he keeps his reupholstered vintage Pietro Lissoni couch.
There is also the dog.
-
They don't start out with a dog.
-
Jin Guangyao never wanted a dog. He has never liked animals. Further, where he grew up, he tells Xichen, the only dogs he saw were in front of junkyards or houses to avoid for other reasons. Weapons on four legs used to intimidate or frighten. Every couple years, he'd hear about somebody getting badly mauled by one of those dogs. Once, it was a kid in his class who didn't come back for the rest of the year. And when he was a fourteen, he and his mother lived in a place where a skinny white guy dealt drugs out of his apartment and let his pit bull shit in the hallways. The building super was too scared to kick him out, but also too lazy to keep it clean.
"We don’t have to get a dog," Xichen says, keeping his tone light.
He watches the way that Jin Guangyao's mouth flattens, then the way his jaw sets.
Xichen reaches over and touches Jin Guangyao's left hand with his right. "A-Yao, we don't have to do this at all. I didn't show you those pictures because I felt like something was missing."
He means it. Jin Guangyao can tell. That's the awful part.
-
They don't start out with a dog.
Instead, a couple months after the wedding, Jin Guangyao picks a guy from an app, somebody that he finds attractive enough to be worth the effort. Sitting on the Pietro Lissoni couch, holding a mug of green tea in his hands and watching Jin Guangyao reject candidate after candidate for the tiniest of flaws, Xichen could make a joke about being pleasantly surprised that he met Jin Guangyao's standards, but he doesn't. He understands why his husband is so particular. That kindness, that perceptiveness, furthermore, is why they're together. It's why Jin Guangyao loves him. It’s why they’re married.
The account is Xichen's, but it's on Jin Guangyao's phone, so he sees every message and responds as Xichen. Sometimes, it's with Xichen there. Sometimes, it isn't. Early on, a guy asks Jin Guangyao on Lan Xichen's account for a dick shot, right then and there, exactly where he is. A-Yao thinks about it for a moment. He has plenty of shots of his phone on his phone that he could use. Xichen told him he could.
But he texts Lan Xichen at work, asking.
The photo comes back with gratifying promptness.
-
"You’re actually as tall as your profile said," the guy says, coming through the door.
A beat later, a kiss later, a look over to the side of the room, the business hotel standard wallpaper, the business hotel standard curtains.
"Who's that?"
"Husband," Xichen says, looking over and smiling warmly at what he sees. "He wants to watch."
"That’s fine. I mean, he’s hot enough. I could fuck him, too."
“Not today,” Xichen says. He lets himself be laid out on the bed.
-
“What does it feel like?”
Lan Xichen rolls over into his stomach and turns his head to the left, so that he can see his husband. Overhead, they can both hear rain — it’s fall on the East Coast. They’re staying in a converted barn in the Hudson Valley, the same room, the same suite they book the first October weekend every year, in memory of the first overnight trip they ever took together. The trees outside the window are a little muted, not yet fully turned, because it stayed warm through September.
“What do you mean?” Xichen says. “You know what bottoming feels like.”
And it’s true. Most of the time, when it’s the two of them, Xichen bottoms, but there aren’t rigid rules either. Everything about their relationship has been carefully negotiated, carefully placed for fairness, all planned except for a shared, incomprehensible act of falling in love almost at first sight.
A-Yao considers. “I meant not knowing. Being surprised by what happens next during sex. When we meet at the hotel, for example, you don’t know who’s coming through the door. You don’t know what I’ve said you’ll do.”
“Oh. It’s exciting.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s good. I like not knowing. I like not being able to think too much -- it’s fun trusting you. Would you ever want to do more than watch?”
They look at each other, rain continuing to fall on the roof overhead, Xichen’s face gentle, A-Yao’s expression guarded. Eventually, A-Yao lays his head down on Xichen’s shoulder. He actually settles Xichen’s right arm around himself, turns his face into Xichen’s body. With his free hand, Lan Xichen gets the covers pulled up.
On the other side of the room, by the luggage, Xichen’s phone lights: a message from a student in a class of Lan Wangji’s. Lan Xichen gave a guest lecture on the family foundation’s role in brokering development of the High Line.
-
They end up with a dog.
So for Filthy Friday,
In order to move in together, Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen negotiate a series of compromises. They love each other, but both are fully-grown adults, after all. They have established lives with distinct habits. Possessions. To that end, they keep Jin Guangyao's everyday flatware, but use Xichen's bowls and plates. Jin Guangyao's coffee machine finds a place on the counter, displacing Lan Xichen's blender, even though it was a present from his brother. He only uses it a couple times a month anyways. He can get it down from a cabinet when that happens, especially if it means he keeps his reupholstered vintage Pietro Lissoni couch.
There is also the dog.
-
They don't start out with a dog.
-
Jin Guangyao never wanted a dog. He has never liked animals. Further, where he grew up, he tells Xichen, the only dogs he saw were in front of junkyards or houses to avoid for other reasons. Weapons on four legs used to intimidate or frighten. Every couple years, he'd hear about somebody getting badly mauled by one of those dogs. Once, it was a kid in his class who didn't come back for the rest of the year. And when he was a fourteen, he and his mother lived in a place where a skinny white guy dealt drugs out of his apartment and let his pit bull shit in the hallways. The building super was too scared to kick him out, but also too lazy to keep it clean.
"We don’t have to get a dog," Xichen says, keeping his tone light.
He watches the way that Jin Guangyao's mouth flattens, then the way his jaw sets.
Xichen reaches over and touches Jin Guangyao's left hand with his right. "A-Yao, we don't have to do this at all. I didn't show you those pictures because I felt like something was missing."
He means it. Jin Guangyao can tell. That's the awful part.
-
They don't start out with a dog.
Instead, a couple months after the wedding, Jin Guangyao picks a guy from an app, somebody that he finds attractive enough to be worth the effort. Sitting on the Pietro Lissoni couch, holding a mug of green tea in his hands and watching Jin Guangyao reject candidate after candidate for the tiniest of flaws, Xichen could make a joke about being pleasantly surprised that he met Jin Guangyao's standards, but he doesn't. He understands why his husband is so particular. That kindness, that perceptiveness, furthermore, is why they're together. It's why Jin Guangyao loves him. It’s why they’re married.
The account is Xichen's, but it's on Jin Guangyao's phone, so he sees every message and responds as Xichen. Sometimes, it's with Xichen there. Sometimes, it isn't. Early on, a guy asks Jin Guangyao on Lan Xichen's account for a dick shot, right then and there, exactly where he is. A-Yao thinks about it for a moment. He has plenty of shots of his phone on his phone that he could use. Xichen told him he could.
But he texts Lan Xichen at work, asking.
The photo comes back with gratifying promptness.
-
"You’re actually as tall as your profile said," the guy says, coming through the door.
A beat later, a kiss later, a look over to the side of the room, the business hotel standard wallpaper, the business hotel standard curtains.
"Who's that?"
"Husband," Xichen says, looking over and smiling warmly at what he sees. "He wants to watch."
"That’s fine. I mean, he’s hot enough. I could fuck him, too."
“Not today,” Xichen says. He lets himself be laid out on the bed.
-
“What does it feel like?”
Lan Xichen rolls over into his stomach and turns his head to the left, so that he can see his husband. Overhead, they can both hear rain — it’s fall on the East Coast. They’re staying in a converted barn in the Hudson Valley, the same room, the same suite they book the first October weekend every year, in memory of the first overnight trip they ever took together. The trees outside the window are a little muted, not yet fully turned, because it stayed warm through September.
“What do you mean?” Xichen says. “You know what bottoming feels like.”
And it’s true. Most of the time, when it’s the two of them, Xichen bottoms, but there aren’t rigid rules either. Everything about their relationship has been carefully negotiated, carefully placed for fairness, all planned except for a shared, incomprehensible act of falling in love almost at first sight.
A-Yao considers. “I meant not knowing. Being surprised by what happens next during sex. When we meet at the hotel, for example, you don’t know who’s coming through the door. You don’t know what I’ve said you’ll do.”
“Oh. It’s exciting.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s good. I like not knowing. I like not being able to think too much -- it’s fun trusting you. Would you ever want to do more than watch?”
They look at each other, rain continuing to fall on the roof overhead, Xichen’s face gentle, A-Yao’s expression guarded. Eventually, A-Yao lays his head down on Xichen’s shoulder. He actually settles Xichen’s right arm around himself, turns his face into Xichen’s body. With his free hand, Lan Xichen gets the covers pulled up.
On the other side of the room, by the luggage, Xichen’s phone lights: a message from a student in a class of Lan Wangji’s. Lan Xichen gave a guest lecture on the family foundation’s role in brokering development of the High Line.
-
They end up with a dog.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-19 02:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-19 02:53 pm (UTC)(that's such a lost art, oh my god. i'm dying. it's been YEARS. THE OLD ONES RISE.)
(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-19 05:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-20 05:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-20 08:23 pm (UTC)Googling a specific type of furniture is an experience i now associate with your fics. Of course, it does lend significance to the minute negotiations that appear in such a sublime day in your stories. The negotiations that start with whose furniture they use, whose appliances get the counter space and which bleeds out of these controlled, adult conversations into conversations where that's not what they talk about.
One of my favourite moments was still the power move of asking for that dickpic, that was so fine!
Thank you for sharing this not belonging elsewhere piece.
(I was too young, but more importantly too-not-yet-speaking-English when fandom LiveJournal was a thing but i've been on Dreamwidth for a year or so and i'm really looking forward to people migrating here and learning the old LiveJournal traditions from you.)