Tang Fan wakes from what must have been a wonderful dream. There's a smile on his lips; salt tarting the roof of his mouth from the breeze carrying in the sea. The bed straddles warm with the staling heat from the kang still penned betwixt body and blanket. The whole of him remains so heavy with sleep that he could slipped back beneath its stilled surface at any breathed second—

Sui Zhou's exhale gusts across his throat as he shifts against the line of his back, shuddering into a stretch. The brace of his hand where it has moored atop Tang Fan's belly twitches, fingers fanning wider with a purpose Tang Fan's mind articulates in the moment one slips itself beneath the waist of his trousers.

"Ah," he murmurs, voice cracking in its rouse. "Aren't you insatiable? Your poor wife."

He feels Sui Zhou's smile unlace over his pulse, languid and nude in its amusement. "You've had the morning," he answers, unmoved. "The day won't keep for you."

The smug arousal shivering between his legs begins to sputter out, near as swift as it was stoked. Can Sui Zhou only think of their work? "Then let it go on its way," Tang Fan squabbles, stubborn. "There will be other days."

They are already late past expectation, by fault of their journey. They had ridden hard yesterday just to reach the city before darkfall, and then scraped through the streets for half of chu geng seeking an inn with enough hospitality left to take them. Tang Fan's feet are still smarting for the principle of it. The shibosi here will stand the test of a few more hours' time, and the mind of one or two distractions.

Sui Zhou sinks the rest of his hand beneath Tang Fan's trousers with a noncommittal hum.

"Oh, you beast," Tang Fan gasps, squirming fruitlessly. "You brute." His protest does not withstand the scrutiny of Sui Zhou's steady touch as the furl of his fingers firms around his filling cock. Tang Fan feels himself twitch against the bond of Sui Zhou's grip, need quickened by the tangibility of sating.

Still, "Would you have me stop?" Sui Zhou rumbles, low and close. Intolerable.

"Of course not," Tang Fan complains, breath hitching. And then, "Don't dare it," he warns, to be sure.

"All right," Sui Zhou promises, and it's all over rather quickly after that. Tang Fan can hardly feel embarrassed, though its kin simmers hot under his skin as he shivers and gasps, helplessly denied secrecy. He is a good teacher, after all, and Sui Zhou a diligent student. It would be stranger if Sui Zhou could not unbecome him in a few swift strokes and the scraping lash of his tongue to the crook of his neck after all the years they've spent together mastering such skills and seeing them to work.

Just as Tang Fan is starting to settle into his smug satisfaction, Sui Zhou wipes his hand clean on his leg and shakes out from under the blanket, stirring him back with a spurred squawk. "You'll starve," he coaxes, before Tang Fan can put his indignance to proper words.

Tang Fan's barren belly thunders at the reminder, but the scowl he musters is the exhaust of his stubbornness for now. "One mouth in your family, and you cannot even feed it," he bickers back, making a show of his fight to his feet so he can follow him up and soon out.