After a long day crowded with appeasements and allowances, Tang Fan has, in the verge of its night, swayed one final indulgence from Sui Zhou.

It had been an opportunistic strike, waiting until Sui Zhou was in the middle of preparing dinner with Dong'er — and thus easily suggestible to taking any course of action, or making any agreement, that promised an immediate solution to the preoccupational hazard Tang Fan was posing in their kitchen — but Tang Fan has never purported to be a gentleman who plays fair.

And so here Sui Zhou is, in Tang Fan's room, having alighted there on his request instead of retiring immediately to his own. He has toed from his boots and stripped to his innermost layers, already, and Tang Fan's arrival does not give him pause enough to wait. Tang Fan sets about disrobing with similar perfunctory haste, though he shows less care in the discard of his things than Sui Zhou does with his own. Each piece and part is piled haphazardly, one after another, atop a stack of his books not even two shuffling steps from his dresser. It is too far away and far too fiddly to deal with when he has Sui Zhou sitting at the edge of his bed, hands in his lap, waiting for him. The weight of his gaze inspires a rushing, though there is no heat to its expectation.

Tang Fan would hurry to him anyway, regardless. The time they can eke out like this is precious; all the quicker to get to what makes the most of it. Sui Zhou will leave in some hours, though he is always sure to rouse him, now, before he goes, so that Tang Fan does not later stir to an empty bed and startle wide awake with cold panic. There are times that he can stay, where they sleep together through to morning, but— it is not always something Sui Zhou can do, be it for the dreams that wrack his mind or the pains that wreck his body. At least not without it wringing him out in some way in exchange. Tang Fan does not want that; has never wanted that. He would have Sui Zhou no matter his shape or form, but he wants him well, wants him whole. He has found it better not to hold out his hope for things such as this too far, then, lest Sui Zhou overreach to try and meet them, because Sui Zhou is a man who will draw from an empty well. Those days come when they come, and they are sweeter for dawning with surprise than they are with struggle.

He can concede that, perhaps, there is such a thing that is too fast, however, when he does step on his own foot and nearly trip himself face-first into the bed frame. It is fortunate that Sui Zhou is quicker than him — he is half-up on his feet with his hands on Tang Fan's waist before Tang Fan can so much as blink, shouldering his weight.

"Be careful," Sui Zhou chides him, not ungently.

"You should be careful," Tang Fan blusters back. He catches the tug of a smile at the corner of Sui Zhou's mouth before he can smooth it over and crinkles his nose, feeling his cheeks colour with a hot slap of embarrassment. "With your, with your things. Leaving them about to trip me."

The only thing of Sui Zhou's that could have gotten underfoot are his boots, and they are paired neatly at the end of Tang Fan's bed. Still, Sui Zhou allows him it, albeit with the taking of some compensation. He leaves his hands to linger on Tang Fan's waist for a beat longer than needed, two, and then lets them drag heavily down his hips and his thighs when they finally do fall away. Released back under his own power, Tang Fan quickly completes his scurry into the bed, pulling himself up to the furthermost wall to feel about the stacks of his books secreted away behind the silk canopy.

Books, books, he has so many books, why has Sui Zhou not taken it upon himself and his room to ease him of the burden of some of this clutter— "Ah!" Tang Fan exclaims, when his fingers finally rifle through enough paper and binding to knock into the harder tell of camphor wood. "Are you ready for me?" he asks, half cast over his shoulder, as he wriggles out the stationary chest from between two manuals for— something or other, and unlatches the clasp. "Be ready for me, Sui Zhou. I am ready for you."

Sui Zhou does not respond, at least not in a way that Tang Fan thinks is meant to be grasped, heard. It's of no matter, anyway. Tang Fan does not need his words to know he is waiting, nor does he need to see his face to know that he is smiling. It is in the soft slope of his shoulders; the small huff of his breath that could become a laugh, if only emboldened. The way relaxation unguards and opens his body to the peace made possible, here, in a world of only two people.

Tang Fan may have overstated his own readiness, in immediate retrospect, but he is not so far behind that he cannot catch up. There is little in the chest to rifle through — a mere few things of the sort of import that marks them precious enough to hide, but worthless if found. Within a thistle of yellowing letters, he leafs out a sheep horn comb, and sets the chest down, nudging it away with his knee.

"All right, all right, let me look at you," says Tang Fan, as much to himself as to Sui Zhou. He pinches the handle of the comb between his lips and clambers back across the bed, crowding up to Sui Zhou's back in a settled kneel, knees walling his hips, heels tucked to the backs of his thighs.

He touches his fingertips to Sui Zhou's back, first; lets his hands follow the fold until they're flat against the fan of his shoulder blades. He feels Sui Zhou shift under him, so slightly, the ripple of the flinch feeding up into his cupped palms before the pond of him settles again, calmed. Then, Tang Fan smoothes his hands up, a meandering trail that traces the swoop of Sui Zhou's shoulders, the slope of his neck.

Tang Fan had never thought much of hair, at first. He has always liked it neat; appreciated the look of it when it was piled and fastened high, baring the nape. His mother had worn her hair like that every day, without change, the fixed constant of her in Tang Fan's memory when time and age has blurred everything else of greater sentiment, graver significance. He had never thought to ask why she liked it, or why his father did, for he must have, as well, for the way they always turned towards one another, each the flower and the sun.

It was not something he as a child was curious about, not like when he became a man. Perhaps that, in itself, was a satisfactory answer, once. He has read poetry and prose, words upon words dedicated to crystalising a depiction of beauty in the way a husband watches a wife pluck the pins from her hair, in the way a courtesan lets her hair fall down her bare shoulders, seen only in silhouette, separated by a silk screen. He has been able to picture it in his mind, appreciate its aesthetic, its eroticism, the romance in being unwrapped. He had thought that was it; he had believed that was enough.

He understands, now. It is not simply being undone before another, but to be the one that undoing is for; to be the one whose hands undo them. Tang Fan gently eases the pins from Sui Zhou's hair and unravels his braid, brushing out the fall of it until it is swept loose around his face. And he is not the first and only to see Sui Zhou like this, nor will he even be the last. But it is him who gets to run his fingers through the silken river of it, him who can follow its course down his throat, who can press his lips to the tender skin, there, if and whenever he so chooses. The wife and the courtesan let down their hair not simply for the husband and lover to see the picture it paints but to beckon them to leave their mark upon the canvas.

"Like straw," Tang Fan mutters, muffled. He untangles his fingers from Sui Zhou's hair to pull the comb from his mouth, then, "Have you been taking no care of it?" he accuses.

Sui Zhou's head tilts. "I will be more mindful," he answers, an admission in absentia. Tang Fan still does not need to see his face to know his smile, how it curves wider at the sound of Tang Fan's sigh.

"Impossible," Tang Fan complains, running his hand over it again, straightening it down his back. "My fingers will be stripped back to the bone like this. At least use your oil. And tell me if I pull," he adds, as he sets the teeth of the comb to the strands.

"I will," says Sui Zhou, and Tang Fan has no doubt as to the promise of that, at least. He runs the comb through once, from Sui Zhou's hairline to his nape, but no further. It is one of a hundred such strokes he'll do, and they must all be perfect for their purpose.

It is easy to drift within the rhythm of this, to let his thoughts roam. After a while, he has to pause them, almost losing his count to them as they begin to splinter, diverge. Tang Fan mouths the number of strokes he has done back to himself to reground it, then turns over his wrist, and it is there that he sees it— a glint weaved amongst the inked tresses of Sui Zhou's hair still half-fed into the comb's maw.

Tang Fan grabs for it, unthinking, and holds the bushel of it up to the light, thumb teasing apart the strands. "Sui Zhou!" he exclaims. "You're silvering."

Sui Zhou, for his part, reacts quickly, and with rapid succession. "Shh," he starts, to Tang Fan's volume, then, "Don't pull," he adds, to Tang Fan's haste. Tang Fan did not think himself loud, or rough, but he purses his lips and relaxes his grip nonetheless. "So I am," Sui Zhou finishes, after a beat long enough that Tang Fan thought him done. He does not sound surprised.

The revelation pricks through him until he feels sore, needled raw with consternation. "And you did not think to tell me?" Tang Fan unhinges the comb's teeth from Sui Zhou's hair and discards it between his legs, filling its left space with more of his hand. "You said you would not keep these things from me." The hurt under his skin seeps into his voice; he did not realise its bleed was so severe that it would need to be stymied.

He already thinks it and himself rather foolish, but Sui Zhou's chuff makes his face burn hot with indignation. "It is not an injury," he retorts incredulously, turning towards Tang Fan's hand. He peers to find Tang Fan's gaze past his hair, brows raising when he meets with a glare.

"Who are you to decide that, hm?" Tang Fan fires back. He turns his glare back to Sui Zhou's hair, the prod and pick of his own fingers through it. "Are you aggrieved? Have I neglected you?"

"Tang Fan." Sui Zhou's sigh breezes through his hair, blowing some of it free from Tang Fan's hand. Tang Fan watches it silt back into place, spying no yet-undiscovered grey amongst all the black.

Tang Fan may not be listening to him. "Does being with me age you?" He is, perhaps, if not yet hysterical, then approaching close to it. "Are you wasting into nothing? Will you— hey!" He loses his track and place with a yelp as Sui Zhou twists himself, snatching out to clasp his hand over Tang Fan's.

"Tang Fan," says Sui Zhou, firmly enough that it tempers the spike of Tang Fan's muddling annoyance. Then, "What is this about, truly?" he asks, softer, when the moment has settled around them.

"It is about you keeping things from me," Tang Fan snips. It is hardly convincing.

He remembers the first time he combed Sui Zhou's hair for him, of course: long before they fell into bed together, and further still from the day they admitted their feelings for one another. There had been one final night in Ji'an, after everything, and though there had been rooms at the inn they could have taken, Tang Fan insisted on sleeping in the yamen. Sui Zhou had stayed with him as though to do so was beyond question.

Tang Fan had wanted to search there, anyway, despite the uselessness of further evidence. He had not, back then, ever before confronted a man like Huang-daren; a man so convinced his wrongs were rights that he felt no need to hide his transgressions. But then, he had hidden Sui Zhou away when his presence threatened to uncover everything, hadn't he? And he would have killed him; very nearly did. And then? Where would it have ended?

Sui Zhou had been one of the last seen to, by the physician they could muster up to look over the prisoners. He was dressed when Tang Fan finally realighted to their shared room, having admitted to himself that he could no longer assuage his restlessness anywhere else but there. That sleep would better suit and serve him. He had known from the way Sui Zhou had moved that there were more injuries than those on his back, but he had not— Tang Fan had all reason to ask, but felt he had no right. So he simply suspected. He has seen, since, scars on Sui Zhou's thighs, that could be, just might— but still, he has never pried.

Sui Zhou's hair had been left a wreck. It would have only become worse if kept as that until morning forced it to be dealt with. So Tang Fan had pushed his way into helping with it. He had wrangled a basin, some rice water. He had balanced it in his lap on the bed, sat Sui Zhou on the kang table, and bidden him to lean back, be still. He had soaked his hair until his fingers were soft, pruned, and then he had combed it free of its tangles and snares until they were stiff, aching. And not once had Sui Zhou complained; he had not even so much as flinched. Tang Fan had been gentle, but there was only so gentle he could be, and it would not have been gentle enough not to hurt him.

Sui Zhou is not nearly so stoic, anymore, or stonelike. He actually ensures it is known when a pull is too rough, when a tug stings his scalp. It is an intimate thing, really, to not only let yourself embrace weakness, but to then show it to another. Tang Fan knows this now. He had not been ready for it then. But he had been able to do that for Sui Zhou, in Ji'an, without understanding its gravity for either of them. So he had.

Tang Fan prides himself on being a perceptive man. Not in all things, of course — for he is not without his fault, or two, or several — but, in attentiveness to material detail, one would be hard-pressed to find his equal. The demands and confines of magisterial work have reined his inchoate senses into staunch shape, and honed keen his ability to observe and deduce from the tangible.

The fact that it has taken some time, then, before he has actually realised that something about Sui Zhou has changed is, well. It is not his most enviable moment, clearly, in its coming to pass. He has not dawned into it with any composure redolent of grace.

It is better for him to have noticed at all than otherwise, yes, this is true, but best would have been to have noticed any sooner than this. He should notice changes in the moments that they come, is the truth of it. His complacency is what has disheartened him.

Tang Fan knows his head lofts in the clouds while Sui Zhou holds his own above treaded water, and so there are times where they do not meet eye-to-eye, jade sea to blue sky. Times where they can pass one another by. But Tang Fan spends his days with Sui Zhou, swathed in the intimacy and the immensity of his presence, even when he is himself absent. Their lives are an inextricable intertwine, now; climbing dregea that have grown towards each other like their sought sun, weathering seasons and flowering together as one.

Tang Fan knows Sui Zhou; he knows when he is hiding things, and when he is hurting. He might not always know what to then do with it, or what he should, what he can take and where he must push, but— but he sees. He notices. Or so he is supposed to.

Sui Zhou's thigh nudges against his knee as he raises his leg to rest on the bed, freeing him to turn more, that he may better face Tang Fan without straining himself. Their tethered hands untangle from his hair and fall to rest in Sui Zhou's lap. "If I had thought it important, I would have told you," he tells him softly.

Tang Fan sucks in a breath around the burl of his embarrassment, still caught fast in the back of his throat. "Well." He lifts his chin and affects a pout that shows more than it hides him. "You are a poor judge of what is important, then, aren't you?"

Sui Zhou does laugh at him, at that, which Tang Fan can suppose is fair. The sound of it eases some of the tightness in his chest, the wrongness that has wound its way in there of his own lone volition. "I can be," is his concession. It does not give Tang Fan any gain of ground that he is not already standing on, and it's plain that they both know it.

"At least you know that much," says Tang Fan. He can't help the smile that is tugging at his mouth. "Turn back around, then, so I can be done with you. Are you hiding more?"

"I am not the one who keeps mirrors in his room," says Sui Zhou in answer. He squeezes their hands together, indulging them both for a moment longer before he follows Tang Fan's direction. It is only when his back is once more turned that he speaks up again. "Do I look aggrieved to you?" he asks.

"I don't know," Tang Fan replies, treating it with all its deserved seriousness. He feels between his legs, fetching back up the comb, and sets its teeth back against Sui Zhou's hairline. "You are always so stern." He has lost his count.

"Ah." Sui Zhou falls quiet. And then, "Do I look as though I am wasting? Aged?"

"Sui Zhou!" Tang Fan whines. He can't think when he is being teased, and Sui Zhou knows this. "You cannot ask a man to answer that. You've lost me my count."

"Forty strokes," Sui Zhou tells him, lacking the decency to keep his amusement well free of his tone.

"Is it really so few?" Tang Fan mouths it to himself; it feels, to his chagrin, right. "Don't distract me again," he warns, running the comb through his hair as he talks to get his head start back on his task. "I would like us to make it to bed before morning."

Sui Zhou straightens his back, then settles still. Tang Fan listens out for a moment, holding his count to the forefront of his attention, expecting more. But the seconds pass, as they are wont to do, and he hears no more from Sui Zhou, save the soft rasp of his breath as it evens out with Tang Fan's own.

A fancy does take hold of him, when his attention does inevitably lull again. It flits through him, the fleeting thought to pull some of his own loose hair over his shoulder, to mete its impulse by knotting it with some of Sui Zhou's. But then it passes, as though its moment is not yet due. It can be entertained another night, should it return. After all: they have near-innumerable more to come that Tang Fan can and will choose from.