It is dark, and it is late, and that has made the warm night quiet around them, draped thick and shrouding opaque. The truth of it, as is almost always the way, is that they should not be awake, he and Sui Zhou. The rest of their house and most of all the city is at rest, if not reaching out to it, and between dinner and the burned down-to moment of now, they’ve both stripped to their sleep clothes under the presumption of taking to bed. But they are still flush with malingering adrenaline from their case; strung out wire-thin by the drag of the restless hours that come with any aftermath, and it has put them to a place and a pace that feels further still from the finish from whence they first started.

So here they are together, weathering with wine the unspoken things that prowl around each of their nerves and hem them in.

Tang Fan feels loose-limbed from drinking and tired from not yet sleeping, but he's still wide-eyed aware in a way that no amount more of wine will abate. He lifts his head from the cradling fold of his arms on the kitchen bench to look up at Sui Zhou, and he sees in him, too, the unblunted edge of the unsettled.

"Take me to bed," Tang Fan says. His voice croaks from the wane of use; slurs from the stumbling furl of his tongue around the words.

“All right,” Sui Zhou acquiesces, as always, as expected.

Tang Fan does not rush him past the point of that, though. Sui Zhou has filled his hands throughout the night with diligent busywork, and Tang Fan knows that things have their places for him; that they must be returned. When he is done, knife back to block and waterstone wrapped and stowed, leaving his hands empty again, Tang Fan unspools his arms from beneath himself. He reaches over, across, and threads their fingers together, putting Sui Zhou’s to new work.

“Help me,” he demands, tugging, insistent, at their joined grip, until Sui Zhou satisfies him.

There is urgency in rising together, in spending away the last of pretence. But the urgency that is always between them is an aged quiet thing, once frantic with the unsupposed, now subdued with the sure. There is no fumbling rush in how Sui Zhou douses the lantern, no hungry harry in how they step out into the courtyard at one another’s side, falling into matched strides.

The moon is high and heavy enough to light their way, but their courtyard has long been familiar enough, nonetheless, that they could chart the steps they take in the dark without. A cold has taken to the air somewhere in the in-between, and Tang Fan presses closer in to Sui Zhou and his brazier-blaze heat as much for the quaint joy of touching him as to dull the bite of the chill as it finds where sweat has stuck his shirt to his skin.

Sui Zhou’s room is as Tang Fan last left it. Sui Zhou takes the sway of his weight as they toe off their boots, their legs bumping together. Tang Fan unclasps their hands first, before Sui Zhou has to, and gathers himself towards the bed to watch him move through the room, righting the few things that Tang Fan has left wrong as he has ventured through and made himself at home. He feels crowded in and constrained by the distance that yawns out between him and Sui Zhou from the seconds that stretch on, one to next. When Sui Zhou is at last done, he circles back into Tang Fan’s reach, and Tang Fan breathes again. As tense as Sui Zhou is, as he almost always is, he barely shies from Tang Fan’s hands as they flock to his waist, fingers curling in the ties to work the knot of them free.

Sui Zhou, in turn, undresses him with a slowness that is as much from sleeplessness as it is for savouring. Tang Fan feels so full of this, of Sui Zhou and sensation, like there is not enough room left under his skin for him. He shudders as his shirt peels away; gasps sharply as Sui Zhou’s fingers slip beneath the waist of his pants and dip deep to strip them down his thighs. He knows from how Sui Zhou is drawn taut to trembling that it is the same for him, too. There is always so much checked in the cage of his body; he’s burning alight with a need to abate that pressure somewhere before it cracks him wide open.

And that— that is something Tang Fan can do. He has made a study of Sui Zhou, over the seasons, and taught himself under covers of want and secrecy how to do well by him in ways that he will take. Reshaped his restraint to make room for being held and adored instead of pouring out and out from a droughted wellspring of desire.

Not a single misstep nor mistake along the meandering path of the mending was not worth the penalty of its trying when the reward hard-won is this. Tang Fan takes Sui Zhou’s face between his hands and leads him into a kiss that is, by their dual natures meeting and evening, greedy and gorging all at once; open-mouthed rough and spit wet. Sui Zhou steadies him with a hand to his nape, but does not slow him as he pushes in, as he tastes, as he takes.

“Take care of me,” Tang Fan murmurs against his lips, the litany half lost between their shallowing breaths. He bucks into the fetter of Sui Zhou’s hand that has found his hip, thrusting his hardening cock against Sui Zhou’s, still soft, but stirring. He takes some time, his Sui Zhou, when compared to him, but he always arrives where and when he needs to meet him, in the end. “Don’t you feel how I need you?”

“Yes,” Sui Zhou confirms, a pitched low thing, a whispered confessional.

“Then move,” Tang Fan presses, “then hurry.” His head feels leaden at the edges, foggy with wine and the supine sprawl-out of the evening, but Sui Zhou is a bold bracing presence that cuts clean through it all, rehones him keen and needy.

For all his urging, Tang Fan makes it difficult for Sui Zhou to do what he’s asked of him. He knows he makes it difficult, but it’s unendurable, almost, to part, so he is resistant up until the last inch before he has to. Every shift of him and them both is graceless; Tang Fan clings so closely that Sui Zhou falls to go with him onto his back too heavily, lands hard in the catch of his own hands on either side of Tang Fan’s hips. Sui Zhou grunts from the blow of the exertion, and Tang Fan tips back up to chase it with his mouth, kissing him through his too-loud laughter.

“I’m sorry,” he says, breathless and utterly unrepentant. He kisses at the corner of Sui Zhou’s mouth, petting down the column of his throat, tracing his fingers along the kick of his pulse. “Guangchuan, you poor thing, my good boy, come here.”

Tang Fan cocks his knee around Sui Zhou’s hip, penning him in, and spreads his legs wide, wider, until the strain of holding himself so open starts to thrum through his muscles, worrying away at his nerves. Sui Zhou sinks down into the made for him space between them, nosing at the crease of Tang Fan’s hip, his damp pants lashing against Tang Fan’s skin. He waits, trembling in place, until Tang Fan threads his fingers into his hair, beneath the loosened gather of his bun. He takes his cock in hand with the other, stroking idly as he braces his feet on the bed and pushes up, thrusting himself against Sui Zhou’s cheek.

“You can take me now, can’t you?” Tang Fan asks without any intention of waiting. Sui Zhou’s face shutters with a flaring shame as he is tugged up, head already turning to meet the nudge of the tip against his mouth, lips parting around him.

Tang Fan bites into his lip with a slapped-out hiss as Sui Zhou takes him in a long slow slide, stopping only when he feels Sui Zhou start to gag with reflexive resistance. “That’s it,” he croons, almost choking around it himself, “that’s perfect.”

Sui Zhou’s brow furrows, expression crushed beneath his concentration. Tang Fan tries his best not to move, to let Sui Zhou adjust back down, cheek pillowing on Tang Fan’s thigh. Seconds drag, spill over, but finally he settles still, holding Tang Fan’s cock in his parted slack mouth, all heat and scanting suction, the soft breaths from his nose brushing the dark thatch of hair in his lap.

Tang Fan tightens his grip in Sui Zhou’s hair and thrusts shallowly, chasing the slick give of Sui Zhou’s throat with a thready gasp, once, twice, before he forces himself back flat to the bed with a whine, toes curling. “Put your hands on me,” he complains pitifully, eyes squeezing shut, and Sui Zhou does, fastening them tightly over his hips. “There, yes, like that.”

He writhes within Sui Zhou’s hold for a lapse of an age before the wilding animal pursuit goading him to fuck Sui Zhou’s willing mouth gentles enough that he can still, tension bleeding out with a dizzying ebb-flow. Time fractures into something insubstantial, his focus edging between the scratch of Sui Zhou’s stubble on his inner thigh, the twitch of his tongue along his shaft, the contraction of his throat when he swallows the saliva pooling in his mouth. When he trusts himself with it, he opens his eyes and untangles his fingers from Sui Zhou’s hair to pet over it, rhythmic, smoothing the escaped strands back down flat.

It’s a beautiful thing to watch, out from underneath the hood of his lashes, as Sui Zhou’s coiled tight body unwinds. Latch by latch of laddering tension giving way, even curled up small as he is between Tang Fan’s thighs like a secret kept, a treasured pet. He finds his other hand at his side, then finds Sui Zhou’s face with it, palming his upturned cheek. He can feel his own cock filling out Sui Zhou’s mouth, how it bulges beneath his skin; how Sui Zhou’s jaw works around a choked moan when Tang Fan presses down, just the slightest bit, to more firmly feel how he’s taking up the tight space of Sui Zhou’s mouth so wholly.

“You’re so good,” he sighs, because he’s possessed with it, and because it’s true. “You’re so good like this, Sui Zhou, Sui Zhou.”

Sui Zhou whimpers, breath stuttering, and Tang Fan sinks into the easy pressure of the ambient pleasure, his own breath hitching high in his chest.

“Made for this,” he urges, “made for here.” He draws his hand back from Sui Zhou’s cheek, touching a fingertip to his mouth where it is stretched so wide and so well around him. The skin is soft with heat, damp with spit, and starts to give, easily, to the slightest hint of a press. Slowly, gently, Tang Fan slides his finger into Sui Zhou’s mouth, gasping out as he feels him open up to take it alongside his cock until it hilts at the furthest knuckle. Sui Zhou’s breath quakes against his hand, his tongue trembling beneath the pin of Tang Fan’s cock as Tang Fan strokes over himself. His knuckles brush the inside of Sui Zhou’s cheek; catch on his teeth.

For all he plays at patience and feigns forbearance, Tang Fan can only take so much, and this— this, this is too much. Need has built in him to bough breaking point, just with Sui Zhou’s mouth wrapped gently around him, holding his finger and his cock. It’s been nothing, no time at all. He draws his finger back from Sui Zhou’s mouth and swipes his thumb at the crease of his lips as he pets his flushed skin, smearing spit across the jut of Sui Zhou’s cheekbone.

“I’m going to come,” he warns, voice a scrabbling scratch, rent roughly ragged. “I’m going to— oh, you’re so good, you’re so good for me, aren’t you?”

Sui Zhou groans, weakly desperate, his softened features crumpling under the fervorous blow of Tang Fan’s praise. He clings to Tang Fan’s hips and hollows his cheeks, sucking sloppily around what he can fit in his mouth, and Tang Fan has to feed the heel of his palm between his teeth and bite down to gag his shout as he throws his head back and comes, spilling down Sui Zhou’s throat.

Tang Fan doesn’t need to hold him down, doesn’t need to find his voice; Sui Zhou holds him in his mouth and swallows just as if he’s been told. Only when it is starting to ache does he pull off Tang Fan’s softening cock with a wet sob of sound, choked hoarse. He sways unsteadily; sinks into his side until he can brace his forehead against Tang Fan’s thigh, breath staggered where it gusts along his tender-bare skin. Tang Fan is still shaking all over, full-body wrecked-to-ruin outside his own bounds when he arches up and reaches out. He feels for Sui Zhou’s face between his legs, fingers tangling in his hair, skimming his jaw, tracing to cup his cheek.

“Come up here,” Tang Fan begs, “come up here.”

Sui Zhou scrambles to follow the tether of his grasp and the coax of his voice, and he is so— he is so huge, and heavy, and warm, and much when he braces over the top of him, clumsy and drawn close. His cock is so hard and so wet where he ruts it almost helplessly along the shallow of Tang Fan’s belly, snubbing against Tang Fan’s own, soft and achingly sensitive.

“Oh,” he whines out, voice cracked through, breaking apart. He claws down on Sui Zhou’s back, desperate to root himself in the ground of something that he trusts to hold him as pain blurs up against the fine borderline of pleasure. “Oh, please, please—”

A sound scrapes out of Sui Zhou’s mouth, a shade of a word, and Tang Fan digs his nails in with a shuddery sigh, pulling at Sui Zhou until Sui Zhou lifts his head and draws their faces together. Tang Fan noses at his jaw; tips his chin to lick at the streak of Sui Zhou’s spit and his own spend on his cheek, shivering at the scratch of the texture and the salt of the taste.

“So good,” he slurs, parted mouth pressed flush to blush-hot skin. Even through the blear of his eyes that he can’t blink past, he can still see Sui Zhou’s expression fraying around the brunt of his fevered need; the sink of his teeth into his lip to leash his moan. “Now you have to come for me,” Tang Fan tells him, “aren’t you going to come for me?”

Sui Zhou jerks his face away to hide within the crook of Tang Fan’s shoulder, and comes, ever-obedient, his mouth falling open around his torn-out whimper. He bears down on his forearms, his knees spreading wide as he slips forward, catching himself against the waiting cradle of Tang Fan’s body as he goes loose and wrung out with his release. Tang Fan fights out from underneath the heavy drape of his own moored languor to curve an arm around Sui Zhou’s neck, gathering him in, his fingers stroking along the rise of his shoulder to soothe over the last of the shocked shudders spilling over from him. He holds him like that, for a lifetime, an eternity, until the worst of it subsides.

“You’ve made such a mess of me,” he whispers, at last, to the shell of Sui Zhou’s ear, giddily pleased. He no longer feels as if he’s caged behind his own willow-bone frame so much as he’s settled back inside the heart of it, set to proper rights. But the cost of the satisfaction is that he’s filthy from use, come and spit and sweat drying tacky, and it is starting to itch its way into an ireful irritation.

Sui Zhou leans back from him, at that, and bows low, face hanging to the altar of Tang Fan laid out underneath him, hands fitting to his hips. Then, he pins Tang Fan down in the same effortless, water-easy flow of motion that he sets his lips and his tongue and the very hint of his teeth to Tang Fan’s belly, licking his own spend clean from Tang Fan’s skin.

“Sui Zhou!” he squeaks. He sucks in a breath as he squirms, knees arching up to knock against the backs of the brackets of Sui Zhou’s arms when he instinctively tries to curl in on himself, shying from the hot lave of Sui Zhou’s tongue. Sui Zhou’s hold is loose enough to escape, but still, Tang Fan stays, and burns sweetly, and waits until Sui Zhou is satiated.

“And the rest of me? And then you?” Tang Fan asks him, when he finally lifts his head again to let himself be seen, teasing the pad of his thumb over the swell of Sui Zhou’s bottom lip. “The basin should still have water, shouldn’t it?”

Sui Zhou’s nod pushes him into Tang Fan’s hand. He looks dazedly absent, as he so sometimes becomes, with this, after, but it seems to be more distraction than distance. When he kneels up from over him, Tang Fan catches him by the hands nonetheless, holding him steady for a beat, then a breath, until the tide of it recedes, shoring him back in.

“Don’t let me sleep until you’re here,” Tang Fan tells him when he’s satisfied, unlacing his fingers.

“I’ll wake you,” Sui Zhou says, getting his feet to the floor to stand.

It is a wise way to phrase the promise of it, really, for Tang Fan only lets his eyes slide shut for a moment as he turns over, meaning to follow the line of Sui Zhou’s back with his gaze. He does not manage to open them on his own again.