I think probably the thing that frustrates me the most about a lot of post-At the Feet of the Sun fanfiction is how much of it is based around either reframing or following up on the conversation in the vaha to get them to a point where they are having sex.
Yes, obviously that conversation was built around a misunderstanding, in some ways--but so much of the conversation is about Cliopher not being enough, about him never being enough, about him wanting all his life a relationship of equals that was not sexual, and even when he found out that that was not how Aurelius and Elonoa'a's relationship is, he still thinks he has found that with HR.
And then he realizes that HR wants to have sex with him, that their relationship isn't what he had always dreamed of either, and yet still he reaches out, tries to initiate, says he doesn't mind, and he gets basically slapped away, because even in trying, it's not good enough. He's not enough.
He offers companionship, he offers sex, he offers the house that he bought with the dream that HR would deign to come live there too--and it's not enough.
There's this line where he says, "I was so shocked when we met Auri and El because...because it had always been so important to me that in the stories they were not lovers. That two people could love each other like that, but it didn't need to be about sex."
And then after Cliopher explains what he wishes they had, what he thought they had, HR says who cares how Aurelius and Elonoa'a used the term, we can be fanoa our own way.
And at least for me, that was one of the first times I had ever seen that, an allo person saying yeah I want sex but we love each other and that's what matters. We don't have to have a sexual relationship, we can be this other thing that's not about sex but about being equals.
The goal in so much fanfic, though, is about getting to a point where HR is comfortable with sex, because he thinks that Cliopher is just saying it as an offer and he doesn't want to force it. But all of it is based around the idea that them having a sexual relationship is the ideal end state, that the only thing holding them back is HR's misunderstanding of Cliopher's offer.
But Cliopher does only offer it because it's what HR wants. He does say that the relationship he always dreamed of was a nonsexual one.
And we know he's okay with sex, but why does that mean that their relationship should be sexual? Why must we reframe the conversation to get us to a point where they are having sex?
Why do we keep going back to, this relationship isn't enough--this person isn't enough--unless they're having sex?
