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When Xie Lian wakes up that morning, he is not alone.
He knows this because he usually wakes up to a blinding sliver of light that squeezes stubbornly through the chestnut tree branches, just outside the east window of the shrine. But today, his eyes have the luxury of adjusting slowly, sleepily, sweetly.
Something is blocking the light. Or, someone.
He blinks awake.
“Hello?” croaks Xie Lian, parched after his journey through his dreamscape. He pushes himself up slowly, the aches of his previous day’s labour are enough confirmation that this is real. “Can I help you?”
A youth clad in red, no older than Xie Lian is immortalized as, smiles down at him like he’s told the most amusing joke.
“Hi, Gege.”
“…” replies Xie Lian.
“The door was unlocked.”
“I don’t have a door- huh.” So he does. How had he slept through that ruckus? He smooths out his frown, it’s not the strangest thing he’s ever woken up to. “…And you let yourself in?”
“Oh no,” the youth smiles, Xie Lian zeroes in on the hint of sharp canines that peek through. It’s perhaps the only thing imperfect about his appearance, but even that is darling. “I stayed to make sure Gege would be safe.”
“Stayed,” repeats Xie Lian.
“Don’t tell me… Gege doesn’t remember last night?” Last night? When he says it like that it sounds so… So—!
Xie Lian drags his eyes off those cute canines and presses a hand to his chest. Be still his beating heart! His fingers settle over a lump under his robes. Curious, he prods at it to find a crystal ring. It’s deceptively heavy, warmed by his skin and the rising sun. It settles between his collarbones like a weight that was always meant to be there.
He smooths out his furrowed brows. Stranger things have happened.
“Who are you?” asks Xie Lian with growing confusion.
“I’ll take that as a no,” the youth chuckles. The sound does something to Xie Lian, who watches reverently as those pale hands trail up his red-clad knee, up the inner seam of his thigh, up his…
His red pants are tented.
Xie Lian’s eyes flicker up in panic. What is that? What is that?! No, he knows what he’s looking at, in theory, but cannot comprehend what it means. What does it mean? What happened last night?!
Two maple eyes, so heady they almost appear black, regard him intensely, sizing him up.
Out of the corner of his eye, Xie Lian catches that pale hand settle somewhere it absolutely shouldn’t.
He keeps his gaze trained on the youth’s face. What Xie Lian doesn’t acknowledge might just remain a strange misunderstanding. Xie Lian has always operated under the belief that to acknowledge would be to give something power; to acknowledge what he is doing with that hand would suddenly make it real — that whatever the man is doing to himself while looking Xie Lian dead in the eye is real.
He swallows thickly. “Who…?”
“Gege can call this one San Lang,” the youth says breathily, catching Xie Lian’s scorching cheeks in the cool gust of his sigh.
“S-San Lang,” attempts Xie Lian politely, as though they’re having a perfectly normal conversation on a perfectly normal morning. As though he didn’t wake up with a handsome stranger in his bed and an unfamiliar ache throbbing down his backside. As though San Lang didn’t just let out an obscene little sound that has Xie Lian shutting his eyes, grappling for some patience.
San Lang isn’t helping.
“Yes, like that. Gege says my name the best.” He bites his lip as he says it, a precious pearl of a canine on full display. He’s yet to look away from Xie Lian once as he kneads himself with the heel of his palm.
“San Lang.”
“Mm, perfect.” Xie Lian can see the rhythmic movement of his shoulder as he…
He…
He can’t take it!
“San Lang!” he shouts, and suddenly Xie Lian has an iron grip around that pale wrist, tearing the youth’s hand away from where he'd been touching himself through his pants. “Stop… doing that.”
“Sorry,” San Lang doesn’t sound apologetic in the slightest, “Gege was too cute.”
Cool, lithe fingers curl in to meet Xie Lian’s, lacing together effortlessly.
It feels dangerous.
Xie Lian jerks away as though he’s been burned, then dusts himself off as he stands. Every bit of space introduced between them makes it easier to think.
“Let me go wash up, and then we can… talk.”
“Of course,” San Lang says, but is apparently oblivious to what Xie Lian is asking of him, because just as quickly as Xie Lian steps back, he makes up the difference to trail after him like a clingy shadow.
One step, a shuffle.
Another step, another shuffle.
They make it just out the new front door when Xie Lian sighs.
“But Gege,” whines San Lang before he can say anything, “this San Lang is filthy, he needs a wash, too! It was so cold last night that Gege couldn’t even bear to let this one go clean up after. He clung on to this one and said: 'San Lang-'“
“Alright, alright!” Xie Lian massages at the spot between his brows. “You can come with. Just… enough. Please.”
The river is cold enough to be just shy of pleasant, and the sun up above has yet to shed all its groggy layers of cloud. Xie Lian is efficient in his scrubbing and San Lang…
San Lang isn't even trying to pretend like he’s washing.
Apart from stripping down and entering the shallow waters, he’s not done anything to clean himself. Instead, he leans against a large rock and openly watches Xie Lian scrub.
Xie Lian keeps his attention fixed on the task at hand. To give attention is also a choice, after all.
“San Lang,” he finally says after a while of this nonsense.
“Yes Gege?”
“Wash.”
“Oh, must I?”
“That was the reason you gave me earlier, was it not?” Xie Lian is still not looking. He won’t indulge bad behaviour.
“Well, that was before.”
“Before?” prompts Xie Lian halfheartedly, wringing out his hair and curling it up in a heavy bun atop his head. “Before what?”
Even with his back turned, he can hear how the youth pushes off of his spot by the rock.
“Before I realised how useless it would be. To clean up only to get dirty all over again — don’t you think it’s useless?”
Xie Lian can feel a heavy gaze roam down his spine. He resists the urge to shudder. To give it attention is to give it power, his mouth presses into a thin line.
The water ripples with San Lang’s every step towards him. Stalking closer slowly, so as not to scare Xie Lian off.
“I should have stopped Gege from washing,” his voice comes low, lower than before. Goosebumps blossom across his shoulders. It’s close — he’s close, nearly pressing his bare chest to Xie Lian’s back. He clicks his tongue. “Washed off all of Gege’s flavour.”
“San Lang!” he spins his head around, scandalized! “You- you can’t say things like that!”
“Why ever not?” he purrs; a jaguar batting at its frightened dinner. Xie Lian has to look away from its sharp teeth. "Gege seemed to like it last night. Quite a bit too, if his delicious sounds were anything to go by."
"That's not—! That couldn't have been..."
"Couldn't have been you?" The water sloshes around his hips, as though something has dipped past its rippling surface. "Why not?"
The water begins moving rhythmically.
So does San Lang's arm.
Xie Lian shuts his eyes and grapples for patience. "My cultivation," he whispers gravely, like a death sentence.
"Oh, that?" breathes San Lang right up against the shell of Xie Lian's ear, as though his centuries of cultivation is something to scoff at. The once-frigid water now burns his skin with every steady ebb. "Gege doesn't need to worry about that anymore."
On a particularly drawn out movement, San Lang's icy hand grazes the flesh of Xie Lian's bare cheek by accident. He gasps in surprise, no — to give it attention is to acknowledge it; is to make it-
"Gege's sensitive," San Lang drawls.
"You can't," Xie Lian whispers. "You shouldn't be doing this here. With me."
And because the heat has already crept up his glowing torso and sent the blood of his brain back down to where it should not be, Xie Lian continues, “San Lang could have his pick. I’m sure there’s no shortage of men and women who would want to… bed him.”
"Gege thinks I'm handsome?" He's smiling, Xie Lian can hear it. "Gege should look at his reflection more often. What makes you think this isn't me taking my pick?"
His rhythm picks up pace and Xie Lian feels like he’s going mad. It’s bizarre, he’s never been so up and close to this kind of… intimacy before. There’s a haze that settles over him, it weighs his eyelids heavy and slackens his jaw, whets his appetite with low-broiling, simmering want.
Want. It’s want. It’s a sensation so unusual that that is what shocks Xie Lian more than his growing erection; desire somehow more incomprehensible than the physical reaction of being in close proximity to someone as beautiful as San Lang. San Lang who wants him. San Lang, who he is somehow of value to.
“Gege,” San Lang gasps, his hand moving faster, waves crash against Xie Lian’s hips like lapping tides to a rocky shore, forcing him to feel the rhythm of his movements whether he wants to or not.
“Gege’s so- so cute.” San Lang is past clinging to him like a shadow and moves on to melt on Xie Lian’s shoulder like syrup, tendrils of inky hair cling to wet skin like calligraphy to the finest parchment.
A shudder escapes Xie Lian. Goosebumps litter his skin like it will never know anything but. But to acknowledge is to-
“Ge- Gege I’m, I’m, gonna—”
To acknowledge is to give it power; to make it real-
“—ge, ah! Yes! Hah, oh, yes Gege Gegengahhhhh.”
A full bodied shudder ripples through San Lang, it echoes through Xie Lian, who is throbbing. Aching. Whether he gives it attention or not is irrelevant; he's interested, confused, and more than a little nervous. Then something hot and thick splatters against his back and suddenly Xie Lian is on fire.
A strangled sound escapes him.
Neither of them say anything for a moment, San Lang too busy panting hot breaths against the damp crook of Xie Lian’s neck, and Xie Lian too stunned by everything. Everything. Everything he wants; everything he desires that could be his if he just reaches out and risks touching.
San Lang moves first, peeling away from Xie Lian and taking his inky locks with him. The water splashes and sways as he adjusts, and then: something hot and wet laps at the trail of wetness down his back, cleaning him up.
It’s San Lang’s tongue.
Xie Lian shuts his eyes and inhales sharply through his nose, desperately clamouring for the last shred of control he must surely have deep within himself somewhere.
He exhales an involuntary whimper.
By some grace of the heavens above, San Lang lets him keep a little face, a small sliver of it. He cups freshwater with careful hands and gently washes Xie Lian’s back. It is blessedly quiet for the first time since that morning.
When he’s done, he wordlessly presses a soft kiss to the back of Xie Lian’s exposed neck, and it takes every ounce of control in Xie Lian not to come undone.
He makes it out of the river on shaky legs, his cultivation miraculously unscathed.
San Lang is like a dog in heat, Xie Lian concludes.
Even after his stint in the river, he doesn't seem to be satiated — grinding inconspicuously against the doorframe as he watches Xie Lian chop firewood; rutting noticeably against the leg of his dining table as Xie Lian stirs supper and pretends not to notice — but the last straw is introduced back where it all began: on Xie Lian's bedroll.
"San Lang," Xie Lian says, keeping his gaze fixed on those heady maple, half-lidded eyes. He's trying to have a conversation and, technically, San Lang has yet to look away from him once, even as his shoulder jerks with a now-familiar motion, even as his cute canines sink painfully into his bottom lip. "San Lang."
He's still—!
Xie Lian stands up. Turns his back on his rude, and frankly obscene guest, and starts washing the dishes.
Given how the rest of the day has gone, he isn't naive enough to think that that would be the end of it. Each time Xie Lian has tried to disengage or ignore San Lang, it only spurred him on further, his rutting would get increasingly frantic, his hand movements more exaggerated, oh, and this:
"Oh, oh! Gege!" San Lang cries out loudly from where he's probably writhing dramatically on the bedroll. To give attention…
Even still, Xie Lian narrowly manages to avoid dropping a bowl when his fingers suddenly spasm despite himself. He sets it down carefully, then grabs onto the kitchen counter with wet, sudsy hands and exhales slowly. He's reaching deep within himself yet again for that frayed, overused thread of patience.
He's fairly certain San Lang hasn't… hasn't finished since the river that morning. What sort of pleasure he derives from bringing himself closer and closer at Xie Lian's expense is a mystery to him.
Actually, it's not.
Not when Xie Lian has to deliberately keep space between him and the kitchen counter to avoid crushing his hopeful erection. Not when Xie Lian has lost the entirety of his day to the haze of arousal clinging relentlessly to his half-lidded gaze. He can't remember what he made them for dinner, can't even remember what happened between cutting firewood and cutting vegetables, he…
"Ngh?" comes a new sound, and before Xie Lian can remember why it is a terrible, terrible idea to do so, his head whips over to see what San Lang is doing.
The countertop splinters under his fingers.
San Lang's fingers are…
Well, really, the most immediate observation is that San Lang is naked from the waist down. While Xie Lian knows what that beautiful, beautiful body feels like pressed up against him, he has yet to have seen it until now. Especially like this — illuminated in the flickering candlelight, awash in a soft orange glow. The sheen of sweat clinging to his long legs glisten, shines, as though teasing.
Then, moving rhythmically in and out of his… his…
"Gege," maple eyes, blown entirely out with arousal, lock on him from across the room.
One second Xie Lian is murdering the kitchen countertop and the next he is kneeling between San Lang's legs reverently, a worshipper to his altar. And then San Lang's bare knee is hitched over his shoulder, the taste of salt on his lips as he laps at the coy sweat unthinkingly, dragging his tongue hot and flat across every inch of thigh he can reach. It's musky, it's heady, it's San Lang, Xie Lian is drunk on him.
"Hrgh," he hears from beneath him and Xie Lian realises he's been inching his hips closer and closer to where San Lang's fingers are still working in and out of himself, and they have finally made first contact. The clumsy press of his hips force San Lang's fingers deeper inside of himself, making those long eyelashes twitch.
Slack-jawed, his head a haze, Xie Lian rolls his hips again.
"Ngh," San Lang groans deeply.
"So sensitive," Xie Lian says, making a point.
"But Gege," he whines and writhes, "my fingers are long, and when Gege does that-," his breath hitches as Xie Lian rolls his hips demonstratively, "-it, it presses on my pros-"
Xie Lian is not going to hear this!
"AH!" San Lang bucks up against him in surprise. Xie Lian tries to apologise by licking at the reddened indent of his bite, but San Lang won't stop writhing against him, something which sends sparks dancing across his vision, and renders Xie Lian useless to do anything but drool against his skin in a wordless moan.
"Do that- Do that again, please. Please Gege," San Lang begs and Xie Lian knows his cultivation is fucked. His teeth sink into the soft flesh of his thigh again with a growl. "Ah! Yes! More? Please, give this San Lang more?"
San Lang doesn't need to ask, doesn't need to beg so sweetly, not when a strange sort of acceptance washes over Xie Lian, a feeling all too familiar like the peace of knowing that some things in life are simply out of one's control — the rise and fall of the sun each day, the ebb and flow of the river's tides, Xie Lian's cultivation coming to an end. He seizes both of San Lang's ankles and wraps them around his waist deftly, as though he's done this hundreds of times before.
Then, he parts his robes.
Xie Lian is quiet as he works, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he lines himself up wordlessly. Instinct guides him where experience cannot. Experience doesn't matter, not when he's interested in learning, in trying, in understanding what all the fuss is about.
But whether he's interested or not is irrelevant when there are ants that have materialised and begun to crawl up his nerve endings. Xie Lian's hands on San Lang's hips are more than a little hesitant, more than a little nervous.
"Gege," San Lang says quietly, raising a hand to brush Xie Lian's cheek.
His eyes flutter shut. It's gentle, tender, sweet. Xie Lian instinctively turns to press a kiss to it.
San Lang's breath hitches.
All it takes is the smallest sound of pleasure from him to set Xie Lian back on track to where they had been, as though there had never been any ants, any nerves, any fear at all. His eyes are molten gold when he gazes down at, "San Lang."
He's ready.
And judging by San Lang's look of pure, unadulterated want, Xie Lian knows he is too. He presses forward.
In.
Further.
It's…
It's a lot.
It's not enough.
It's all-consuming. It's entirely detached.
It's: an enveloping heat that first guides Xie Lian gently by the hand, only to cast him away into a sweltering abyss.
Xie Lian can't feel his face, he can't feel his legs, he can only feel the rhythmic clench of San Lang around him as he frantically ruts in and out with a speed, a strength, he cannot gauge. He can barely make out San Lang's broken gasps and moans over the roaring in his ears. That's okay. It's not about San Lang anymore. It's not about him, either.
It's about them. It's so obviously about them when it's only wherever they're touching that is still real, tangible. Xie Lian can feel every fingerprint to every finger that sears into San Lang's bare flesh. He's inside of him. This beautiful man has welcomed him inside of him.
"Gege!" San Lang cry rings out above the noise. He sounds nothing short of devastated, like he's falling after him into the abyss, like he trusts Xie Lian to catch him at its base. Like San Lang believes Xie Lian is capable of catching the ruined pieces of him and trusts him to mend them back together once this is over.
Xie Lian sobs with pleasure, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of it. He has never known so much pleasure; so much goodness. His thrusts drive harder, instincts directing him to keep chasing that something, and then sparks of light pop and fizzle in his vision and he comes undone.
He comes undone.
When Xie Lian comes to, he is not alone.
He knows this because something warm wipes at the dampness on his cheeks, something squeezes him like a reassurance. Something is piecing him back together, bit by bit.
Or, someone.
His eyes adjust slowly, sleepily, sweetly.
"Hi, Gege," San Lang says softly, a cute canine peeks out from the corner of his dopey smile.
"San Lang," Xie Lian voice warbles.
"Mm. Gege says my name the best." He strokes his cheek, Xie Lian instinctively turns to press a kiss to his hand, even when it's hard to see with tears blurring his vision.
He's still inside of him. San Lang is allowing him to stay inside of him. It's not just the sweat that glues their thighs together, he can feel a new wetness between them. Inside, with him.
Xie Lian knows that to address anything in its specifics would be to give it power, so he bravely clears this throat and stutters out, "San Lang is right. It- It's too cold. Don't let go."
San Lang is sweet, sleepy. His lips slowly curl into a knowing smile and his arms open wide in welcome. Xie Lian lets himself fall forward and rub his face against a sweaty clavicle. It's as natural as breathing.
"How could I bear to part with Gege after that? How did it go last night, again? Gege couldn’t even bear to let this one go clean up, he clung onto this one and said-"
"San Lang."