wuding | a home.

a home.

They fall together, like fresh snow off the mountaintop: first, in measured, patient, cultivating reunion after an extended dinner at their inn. Then, with passion. Then, syrupy and slow, with morning. In a rare, turn, after bathing, Lan Wangji denies himself the rigors and discipline of morning and coaxes them back abed, to hold his lover throughout his rest near sunrise, until halfway to midday.

He stirs them, inevitably, when the blinding bright white of the day overwhelms, and they must set for the road to make good pace to Cloud Recesses while still enjoying their stroll. They arrive, meandering, in the depths of a trickling, golden afternoon, when much of the clan is distracted with the latest lecture of a visiting hermit — they say, an aspiring immortal — and neither Uncle nor Sizhui can be politely parted from his wisdom. First, a brief stop with Liang. Secondly, for Lan Wangji, yet slowed by his fading wounds and bruises, to test the recovery of his disciples.

Lastly, facing the dregs of an afternoon together with no duties, no assignments, no occupation — curiosity wins over. With the packed necessities of a quick meal in his qiankun pouch, he steers Wei Ying to walk the winding, if peaceful path toward the peripheral territories, past the liminal, isolated quietude of the jingshi and into the periphery of Lan Wangji's inherited grounds.

A short walk, yet they may have breached the threshold of a brave new world. He had chosen the space for its proximity to river water, cunning, lively spikes of rice stabbing the field, alongside feral flowers. Already, the builders and architects have marked a path to make a road, but they have yet to set down wood or stone for steps. These, he knows, are still young days for their home, Wei Ying's house, rising on strong, sprawling bones that stretch out over a considerable territory: a number of rooms, some superfluous, including an isolated study for Wei Ying's pleasure and a music chamber. A large kitchen, for all much of the house yet misses its roof. A segment for the archery post Lan Wangji had bidden. The house, designed to host an inner garden, even boasts the allocated space for a pond men had been digging until mere hours prior, when their toil ended.

"To grow lotus," he murmurs, nodding ahead where the pond is yet to glisten and crest, where its waters are short of rising. And he does not ask, Do you like it, what it can be? But his gaze flickers between Wei Ying's face and the home in desperate, hungry study.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He thinks, at first, to unbind his husband. Then, sensing Wei Ying's all-encompassing lethargy, he decides to lean into the help of his fettered hands, allowing the cradle of Wei Ying's arms to support him, while Lan Wangji rises and drags Wei Ying's legs around his waist, supporting his lower back and seat.

After, the movements are known, familiar — if fumbling, slightly, compared to earlier in the evening. He too is worn, overcome. The dimmed lighting of their rooms had created a perfect ambiance earlier that now compromises attempts to navigate the jingshi without stumble. He releases Wei Ying to sit on the very rim of their bathtub again, facing inward, while Lan Wangji spills their remaining hot water within, before joining him.

Only then does he unbind Wei Ying's hands, slowly rubbing the wrists to restore their proper blood flow and infusing them with restorative qi. Dragged into the bathtub, Wei Ying should be more readily open for cleansing, Lan Wangji's fingers working dipping in and out tenderly to assist. Throughout, he feels how the muscle answers him, the elasticity and give of the rim, long with any aches Wei Ying seeks so badly to shield from him.

"You experience no hurts?"

He’s used to this. After they sleep together, Lan Zhan usually dutifully tends to him and he falls in line naturally. First as he’s carried, then again as he sits on the rim of the tub. He doesn’t have much in the way of padding on his backside, but he finds that he can balance easily enough so the damage really isn’t something he’s worried about.

He slides into the hot water with a pleased sigh, rotating his wrists to ward off any lingering stiffness. They ache in a minor way that isn’t entirely unpleasant. Under the water where Lan Zhan cleans him, he’s relieved that it doesn’t hurt too much there, either.

“Nothing too bad,” he answers, resting his forehead against the wall of the tub. “Maybe next time we can suspend imagination and use the salve anyway. I’m a little sore down there, but nothing I can’t ignore when I have to sit in public.” Though the thought of Lan Qiren witnessing him show discomfort sitting does sound more hilarious than embarrassing. The poor old man wouldn’t know what to do about it.

“If it hurt too much, I would have broken character to whine about it. I almost did when you chomped on me like a dog, but that didn’t last long enough for me to bother,” he admits.

"Next time." Then, Wei Ying envisions a continuity, or at least a few incidental recurrences. Yet he broke character before completion, reconfiguring their love-making in a way Lan Wangji had assumed signaled either his reticence or his exasperation. "Had assumed..."

But it does not matter, his private hesitations deserted as Wei Ying's body opens to him, and he may study the battered puffiness of the rim. No tears, at least. They were fortunate.

"Some of the soothing salve remains." Wei Ying required far more attention in the young days of their coupling, when his frailty and Lan Wangji's enthusiasm combined into wounding. He will recover the balm, when they return to bed and apply it generously, no matter the intent stupefaction of the Lan healer, when he must request more.

For now, he sits Wei Ying on the opposite side of the tub, so they might each bask and sprawl in warmth without the pricklings of overstimulation. So often, in repose, Wei Ying resembles a beautiful doll — his ghostly pallor now startled by the beastly prints of Lan Wangji's bite.

His gaze sharpens, narrows on the proof. "...the bites. I apologise. Perhaps, as with slaps."

Not something to explore again in bedplay.

He tilts his head to the side and smiles at his husband. “Next time,” he repeats, “I love all sides of Lan Zhan. Maybe you can tie me up, too. I could be a war prize for an accomplished general. Or a virgin bed warmer for the emperor. Anything Lan Zhan wants me to be.”

He thinks to argue against the necessity of using the balm, but it would make Lan Zhan feel better if he bears the embarrassment of accepting healing after their bed play. “You’re worrying too much,” he teases, taking the hand that isn’t inspecting him and bringing it to his lips to kiss. “But we can use some of that salve. It’s been a while since we needed it.”

He leans back against the tub and yawns widely. He could fall asleep just like this feeling warm and sated. Tomorrow, they’ll have to dual cultivate because of their newly agreed on schedule, but tonight is theirs to enjoy without meditation. “Nibbling is okay, just don’t try to take a chunk out me next time, okay?” He knows that Lan Zhan sometimes resorts to biting when he’s feeling overwhelmed. Sex can be overwhelming at times.

A while, but there is no harm to come of additional care, not when Wei Ying so diligently exposes himself to hardship. They have ever made love without care or consideration, content to heal, sooner than pre-empt.

Perhaps it should not be so. He dwindles, calling his hand back, binding his fingers among Wei Ying's own. Tugging, once. Again.

"It is... difficult to not treat you gently, within our limitations," he admits. Wei Ying does not care for scratching or bites. Lan Wangji could not bear to lash or scratch him. They both have no appetite for tearing Wei Ying through penetration. Their options whittle down to hard grabs, pulls of Wei Ying's hair, tempered chokeholds.

But he is nothing if not studious. "Tell me more of what would please you."

“Do you like it better when it’s gentle?” He asks, genuinely curious. He always assumed Lan Zhan likes it a little rough since the beginning. Could it be that he’s missed something important? “There’s being gentle and then there’s treating me like I’m fragile. I don’t need special treatment. I’d be happy doing it however you like it.”

He squeezes Lan Zhan’s hand lightly before relaxing. Now that his inspection’s over, he sits with his back against the tub wall. He situates his legs around where Lan Zhan’s already claimed territory for his longer limbs.

“As long as we both feel satisfied at the end, I’m happy. We’re always talking about what I want when we sleep together. What do you want? If you could do it any way with my enthusiastic consent, what would it be like?”

"Hold." This conversation, its derailment. Their gentle, unobtrusive ruminations. He reaches out in passing, first to sweep any hair off Wei Ying's face, then to neatly saddle it over a white, bruise-marked shoulder. Then, his touch drips down, to Wei Ying's arms, holding the print of his fingers. His ribs.

Does he like it better when they are gentle, loving, sweet? He thinks, at the end of the day, his tolerance for intentionally manhandling Wei Ying is slimmer, constricted by private calculations over his...

...frailty. Ah.

"Do I often treat you as if fragile?" In truth, in retrospect, he can identify certain instances. Inadvertent, but perhaps... "Do I undermine you?"

He presses his lips together to keep himself from further distancing himself from the intent behind Lan Zhan’s original questions. He feels like his whims are always catered to regardless, so it feels uneven if he always gets to choose what they do. He wants to do the sorts of things Lan Zhan likes, too. Loving Lan Zhan well is one of the things he strives for. Not because he thinks he’ll lose him otherwise, but because he loves the man.

“Sometimes,” he admits. “I know I don’t have accelerated healing when I’m low on qi, but I’m still pretty hardy. Maybe not like I used to be, but I’m not fragile. I can handle some pain and I like it sometimes, too. I want you to feel confident in the ways you touch me. If that means being gentle, then be gentle. If you like to be more rough, then trust me to be able to handle it during and after. I’m not going to break.”

He rubs his thumb over Lan Zhan’s knuckles, smiling at him encouragingly. “I love you so much, Lan Zhan. You deserve to have a say in how we sleep together, too. It would make me happy to know that I’m giving you what you need.”

He listens. Over the course of an either abrupt and short matrimony, or an extensive one, depending on how they care to take and keep count — he has learned that the best gift he may offer his husband is that of heeding him without intervening, without interrupting, without derailment. His fingers curl as Wei Ying's touch spreads warmth around and within him.

His smile tickles the corners of his mouth, and he leans in all at once to steal a kiss at the edge of Wei Ying's lips. Then, he falls back and beholds him, considers.

The second gift he may give, he has understood also, is this: not to rush himself, when gifting Wei Ying his answer. To be measured, patient, calm.

"I do not answer well to the thought of losing you." A pause, still weighing his words, finding them flimsy, flighty, lacking. "Whether to death or to another man."

The first manifests as paranoia, an all-consuming paralysis. The second as jealousy, prone to malice and hurt. "I am... not adverse to rough play. I initiate it through negligence. Seldom... with intent to harm."

An excess of enthusiasm may be no better, but it differs in the root of the purpose. In the heart of the deed. "At times, Wei Ying does not appear to request pain, but hurt."

He turns his head towards Lan Zhan’s so that the kiss covers half of his mouth instead of just the corner of it. Seeing Lan Zhan smile at him makes his own smile a little wider. How lucky he is to see that smile now and on most days, especially knowing that Lan Zhan isn’t accustomed to showing a lot of emotion on his face.

He keeps Lan Zhan’s hand in his and runs his other hand over the surface of the water for the sake of keeping himself quiet while Lan Zhan formulates his full answer.

“You mean like the choking thing?” He asks, just to make sure he’s understanding what Lan Zhan means with the difference between pain and hurt. “I can see your point. You don’t want to do anything that would put me in danger or leave scars either externally or… mentally?”

He wiggles his toes under Lan Zhan’s legs and he brings his husband’s hand up for a few more little kisses. “I think sometimes I feel like I should be punished. I know you don’t feel like I should be. I’m not really sure where it stems from, either. I just know that I’ll be safe with you and I can get it out of my system.”

There was something else Lan Zhan brought up, too. It takes him a moment to remember. “You’re stuck with me, Lan Zhan. I don’t care about anyone else,” which is an exaggeration. He cares about his family, obviously. “I just want to spend my whole extended second life with you.”

"You are safe," he reassures mechanically, nearly born of habit. So often deprived of security and certainty, only ever allowing himself the freedom to ask anything in front of Lan Wangji — Wei Ying cannot question himself, or his right to make requests.

It will be done, all of it. But perhaps more readily and willingly, if they understand each other well. If, playfully pressing down to briefly entrap Wei Ying's ticklish toes beneath his leg, before quietly releasing them, he delves into the matter.

"Do not encourage my failings," he murmurs, because what Wei Ying wishes to soothe may easily stoke into a storm, and they have met the bruising colours of his jealousy, they know it ugly and dark. Lan Wangji's possessiveness and selfish ownership is — ...at best, unfortunate.

And at worst... he carries on, forcing his body to stretch out and fill the tub, so that he might release gathering tension. "Is it the pain you desire or the surrender of control? Within punishment."

It feels strange, even for him, to talk about this sort of thing openly and without shame. It just goes to show how confident and comfortable they’ve become with each other. Back when their relationship was young, he would have bottled all this up in fear that Lan Zhan would come to his senses and regret their union. There’s no way Lan Zhan would ever leave him or hurt him in any meaningful way.

“It’s the control thing,” he says after giving it a few moments’ thought. When it comes down to it, he doesn’t particularly like physical pain, but it doesn’t bother him much either. What he does like is the idea of Lan Zhan bare of his restraints, where trust between them would be complete and unshakable.

“I like you to pull my hair and tie me up. I always assumed pain would be a part of it.” Which may have been born of certain reading materials he’d been exposed to when he was younger. “Me letting go of control is like you taking off your ribbon. Letting myself give up control is something I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing in front of anyone else.”

He moves around to accommodate Lan Zhan’s longer legs. He ends up mostly between Lan Zhan’s legs with just his feet on either side of Lan Zhan’s hips. “Hey, Lan Zhan? What did you mean by encouraging your failings?”

A trade of control for the glory of minimal, dwindled, fleeting responsibility. For the ability to wither, to only survive Lan Wangji's interest, to become passive and beloved, a thing to be adored. He thinks he understands, however distantly.

And so he nods, hands reaching on instinct to preserve and deepen their proximity, rubbing Wei Ying's ankles, the lower part of his calves. He dips in, suddenly, shifting to lean and hover over Wei Ying's prone form, careful to hold himself above and introduce no pressure. Their noses collide, shift. He nuzzles Wei Ying's throat, scattering a rain of apologetic kisses where his neck carries the marks of Lan Wangji's mouth.

"I want you." This should not surprise Wei Ying or overwhelm Lan Wangji. A simple, foregone conclusion, their interest both shared and unequivocal. And yet. "Once, Wei Ying chose all others before me. Even death."

Unknowing, driven to despair and resort. A last resort, perhaps even incidental. He did not beg the ripping, the clawing, the — ...Lan Wangji's nuzzling intensifies fleetingly.

"It was his right. Yet...a part of me denies him the chance of repetition. He cannot belong to another. I refuse." Softer, ripped from him. "At times, I punish him for entertaining the possibility."

Even in jest.

Relaxed and at peace, he simply smiles when Lan Zhan touches him. He likes to touch and be touched whether or not it ends in sleeping together. He’s always been a tactile person, but it’s different when it’s Lan Zhan. It feels like home. He steals a brief kiss when Lan Zhan hovers over him, lifting his head when he realizes his husband wants to pay attention to his neck.

“I want you too,” he says. He means it generally, though it never takes much for him to become aroused when it comes to his lover. He lifts his arms up to encircle Lan Zhan’s upper back. And then he listens, stroking his husband’s skin in what he hopes is a comforting and encouraging gesture.

“I was wrong,” he says with a shallow shake of his head. “I’m really stupid sometimes.” He’s mentioned before how he didn’t know Lan Zhan loved him, but he doesn’t bring it up now. It would only sound like an excuse if he keeps on saying the same things. He wishes he could remember more from the days leading up to his death. All he has are fleeting images here and there and what Lan Xichen had told him in the Guanyin Temple. He… hadn’t been in a good place back then. Between grief, defeat, despair, and the build up of resentment energy, most of what he remembers is the ghosts weighing heavily on his shoulders.

He lets Lan Zhan speak, rubbing small circles on his back as he listens. Only when he’s sure Lan Zhan’s done speaking does he answer. “I don’t want anyone else. I never wanted anyone before Lan Zhan and I wouldn’t want someone else. My soul was split in two and it’s only whole when I’m with you. It’s a good thing I never consider anyone else then.”

He still doesn’t realize the reasons Lan Zhan had bitten him hard earlier even though he has all the pieces at his disposal.

"It is not enough," he whispers, but leans into Wei Ying to offer him the brunt of reassurance, a physical, gentle persuasion. The bath is unequipped to handle them in such repose, creaking furiously before conceding to Lan Wangji's entreaties and bearing them on.

"Words do not suffice. I dishonour you and forget them." He gives in to doubt, to anger, to the animal territoriality that manifests now as reddened marks on Wei Ying's throat. He nuzzles them indiscreetly.

"Better we do not speak of another in bedplay. Or only do so, knowing." If Wei Ying... enjoys the bestial aspects of his husband, let him at least know what he invites.

So Lan Zhan is still jealous and insecure even though there’s no way Wei Wuxian would ever fall for someone else. He wraps both arms around him now and holds onto him, hoping that there’s some reassurance in the gesture. “I’ll promise you over and over again until my words stick,” he offers, kissing the side of Lan Zhan’s head. He’d kiss his mouth if they were in a better position for it.

Oh! Lan Zhan had been jealous during their bed play. That clarifies things for him and he starts to laugh. “I didn’t know you’d be jealous of someone who doesn’t exist,” he admits. So that’s what Lan Zhan’s doing rooting around against his throat. “I’ll try to remember, okay? Sorry for pissing you off while we were sleeping together tonight.”

He tries to shift under his husband’s weight, but it’s too cramped. “Maybe we should just be ourselves in bed,” he suggests, “Since I’d never cheat on you or look at another person that way, I wouldn’t have to rely on remembering.”

"Do not apologise. In this, you bear no fault."

In the end, they must part, no matter Lan Wangji's formidable appetite to become one with his husband. This, too, he understands, is a residual part of his readiness to belong, to absorb, to never again relinquish.

But the heat of their bath begins to waft claustrophobically, Wei Ying's skin looks on the cusp of pruning. Even Lan Wangji, lover of cleansing, begins to feel burdened by the weight of stifling waters. For now, he retreats, finally drawing to his feet with a seismic shift of rippling in the bathtub. He holds out his hand to take Wei Ying up, also.

"Wei Ying only asks to be relieved of his duties for a few moments in bedplay." Of the responsibilities, the memories that come with his identity. His need understood and known. "We cannot deny him, only for my failings. Will signal him to stop, when jealousy strikes."

“Right, right,” he says, but he still feels the need to apologize regardless. He’d made Lan Zhan upset with his game and he really should know his husband’s heart better. Still, Lan Zhan would only feel worse if he tries to take some of the blame, so he lets it go.

He’s just about to suggest that they move back to the bed to continue cuddling when Lan Zhan takes the initiative. He takes his husband’s hand and uses his support to stand up. Instead of reaching for something to dry off with, he wraps his arms around Lan Zhan’s middle and rests his cheek against his chest. “I love you so much,” he sighs and squeezes him. He somehow refrains from telling him that he thinks it’s cute when he gets jealous.

“Does Lan Zhan like it when I play as other people in bed? That way he can have all sorts of different flavors of his husband,” he looks up at him and grins. “I really don’t mind being me. I have the best husband a guy could ask for and I know you wouldn’t really take advantage of some backwater maiden.” And it’s not like his memories go anywhere when he’s pretending to be a virgin.

Ah. A leech. Who knew they attacked so far from the seas? A broken, half-muffled exhalation betrays his amusement as Wei Ying clings to him, and he delves them in the dangerous ploy of navigating an exit from the bathtub and migrating towards their bed, thieving a linen cloth along the way. Undaunted, he passes it over Wei Ying's shoulders and back, absorbing the worst of his wet, before attending to Lan Wangji's own.

"I am untroubled by Wei Ying's theatrics." In truth, at times they stimulate him, far too endeared with Wei Ying's enthusiasm for whatever latest part he has concocted for himself. "He appears to find them freeing. An accessory to bed play."

An interesting, relatively modest way of acknowledging Wei Ying seems stimulated and infinitely more earnest when he pretends to be a different person, particularly when his day has overcome him. Whilst speaking, he begins to collect their discarded silks, setting them aside for later laundering when disciples drop by to collect the buckets that carried bathing water, treys and defiled goods, come morning. Instead, he selects two layers of silk for his person, and a dark single one for Wei Ying, offering them out.

"If you wish my preferences: I enjoy to kiss you." No matter how rough or aloof their play, he cannot skip that part of his lovemaking.

It’s awkward to walk while he’s holding onto Lan Zhan like this, but he doesn’t want to let go. Lan Zhan seems to be amused by his antics, so he continues to playfully hinder their progress towards their bed. He’d slept so well the night before being both sated and back to their familiar bed. The mattress here has their combined scent clinging to it and he finds it comforting. The bedding in Jinlintai always smelled strongly floral every morning with fresh sheets. Lan laundering has minimal scent associated with it, so it just tends to smell of sandalwood from Lan Zhan’s incense by the time they rest their heads.

“As long as Lan Zhan doesn’t mind, we can keep playing around like usual,” he agrees. Sometimes he just wants to be taken advantage of and other times he just wants to forget the stresses of the day without opening himself to conversing about them. He’s relieved that Lan Zhan doesn’t seem to mind.

He only lets Lan Zhan go when they need to don their night robes. He does so but only after another squeeze. It’s getting close to Lan Zhan’s bedtime, but he wants to lie down with him and talk or cuddle for a little while until Lan Zhan is ready to fall asleep. He doesn’t have any plans for the rest of his evening before his own eventual sleeping, but that’s nothing new. Sometimes he just sits in the room with Lan Zhan to watch him sleep and other times he works on improving some of his own inventions or talismans.

“I like kissing, too,” he admits while he pulls his robe over his shoulders. “It doesn’t really make sense for a night time intruder, but we don’t have to worry about believability all the time. Since we both want to kiss, then I say we should just do it.”

Strange, if somehow fitting that Wei Ying drags himself through the steps of donning a single layer of silks as rapidly as Lan Wangji masters two. He eases in, belt fettering in conservatively, before turning around to attend to his husband like a doting servant, domesticating the starting wrinkles and folds of his robes, teasing them smooth.

Then, carefully, he relinquishes Wei Ying, coaxing him back toward their bed, carefully wiped for any lingering signs of their previous lovemaking. Fleetingly, he considers wilting within and calling Wei Ying into his arms; instead, he sits unexpectedly, back to the wall and legs a rigid line — waving his lover down, so that his head might drift into Lan Wangji's lap.

It has been some time since anyone stroked Wei Ying's hair. Their young, perpetually spoiled infant has certainly created an appetite in everyone.

"Wei Ying." This, softer, testing the lines of their mutual trust. He will not enjoy the answer, yet knows, if he does not ask, it will haunt him. "If... our play on this night pleased you. Why suspend it before you reached completion?"

He’s used to Lan Zhan helping him into and out of his robes, so he lifts his arms so Lan Zhan can tie the sash around him. It had felt weird at first to be doted on like this. Despite growing up in the head family’s household, he never had his own servants and preferred to do things like dressing on his own. With Lan Zhan, it’s different. They’re equals in their relationship. If he had the patience to work with the layers upon layers of silk needed to clothe the second son of Gusu Lan, he’d do it in a heartbeat. As it is, his attempts would just waste time.

He stops in front of the bed, slightly perplexed. Well, if Lan Zhan doesn’t want to lay down yet, he’s not going to complain. He crawls into the bed next to him and lays perpendicularly to him with his head on his husband’s thighs. He smiles to himself, shivering once when Lan Zhan first touches him and then relaxing immediately after.

“Hmm?” He touches the silk over his husband’s knees, smoothening the wrinkles that sitting caused. There. Pristine and perfect just like the man wearing the garment. “Oh that? I really wanted to kiss you,” he says with grin. “And I guess… since we had that argument earlier, it felt a little off. Was that bad?”

Kittenish and sweet, Wei Ying softens and melts across his legs, finally accepting his due: the brunt and unequivocal weight of Lan Wangji's affection. He starts with slow, tender strokes, sweeping the hair off Wei Ying's forehead, whispering it away behind his ear with tepid caresses.

Sweetheart. His soaring, boundless love.

"Also wanted to kiss Wei Ying." A different way of accepting his lover's interjection. It was not bad, could never be bad. There is between them a private, growing gentle understanding that indulgence is a thing they may permit themselves. That they live and breathe only for the next moment when they might come together again. How, then, could they begrudge kisses?

"As long as it was not —" A pause that snags, drags. "Disappointment." Over Lan Wangji's performance, his roughness, his numerous failures.

There’s something nice about giving and receiving affection from Lan Zhan with no assumptions for where it will lead. He’ll have to remember to do this for Lan Zhan, too. His eyes drift closed, relaxed but not on the verge of falling asleep. He’s feeling more alert after their second bath.

“I like kissing Lan Zhan. I’m glad we’re going to start kissing while we’re playing around with consent in bed,” he admits. It really is the one thing he misses most when they’re doing a story like that. Now that he’s thinking about kissing, he wants to kiss Lan Zhan! But he wants to enjoy this affection, too. It’s tough being so thoroughly in love.

“Not disappointment. Were you worried about that?” He takes one of Lan Zhan’s hands and pulls it down to kiss. “You’re so adorable, Lan Zhan. I love you too much for something like that to get in the way of things. I just wanted to love you and feel loved by you with nothing between us for a little while.” He kisses the hand again before loosening his hold and giving his husband the choice of what he wants to do with his hands again. “Tonight was fun. Did you think so, too?”

And was tonight fun? In truth, in retrospect, their limbs slack and appetites eased, he feels somehow as if he could go again. Take Wei Ying and take Wei Ying and take Wei Ying. As if his husband is no more than a mountain to climb, a sea to navigate, a demon's hold to conquer. As if Wei Ying can be reduced to a base, desirable trophy.

His hand stills over Wei Ying's hair, faintly remembering to revisit his husband's forehead with his mouth.

"I enjoyed it." Inevitable, primal. His body feels alive only in the wake of Wei Ying's generosity of sharing his body. "Yet I do not feel sated. Through no fault of Wei Ying's. There are times when one turn does not suffice. Or a second. A third."

It at once shames him to say and feeds his pride to know that he is so responsive to his husband's presence, so greedily desirous. That a quiet, low simmer lives in him, even after he achieved completion.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject