Tang Fan returns early, only to arrive late.

By the time he has given his report, the last of the ruddy gold has long bled from the horizon, leaving deep night to gauze the gaping wound with moonless blue. His day's hard ride sees its reward in sleeplessness amidst a sleeping city; a sting in his thighs from the chap of the saddle; a soreness in his knees from the cramp of supplication. But love for home had dulled those aches and soothed those strains, and it is the same that will carry him for the remainder of his way.

The siheyuan stands quiet, starless; the same as he left it. Tang Fan expected that as much, and yet his breath still sinks in his chest when he cracks the gate and no light comes spilling out the widening gap, nor do heralding voices beckon him in over the doorstep. Though he knows his path blind, down to every groove and rut in the cobblestone, Tang Fan is careful on his feet in this dark, pace heavy but unhurried. He passes the kitchen, pausing for a moment to yearn for what could have awaited there if only he was expected, inspired hunger yawning through his belly. Then he presses on — the day has been long, as have the preceding weeks, and he is long past desperate for a familiar place to rest his head at last and again.

The screens to the master wing are but a stumble further from his own, and he thinks— he does not think at all, stride thrown wide and hand outstretched. He'll take but a moment to see Sui Zhou for himself, know for certain that he sleeps soundly in his bed. He can go after that. He braces his weight, steps on the heels of his boots to tug his socked feet free of them, then eases the door open enough for him to slip through, gathering his robe close so the hem will not catch on the close.

He does not have to shuffle far to see Sui Zhou at all, the shade and shape of him, settled still beneath the blankets drawn to his shoulders. And that should be enough, but— greedily, Tang Fan shuffles closer, trying to snatch out a glimpse of his face, only for his weight to stagger too heavily across the floor. It creaks beneath his feet, and Sui Zhou stirs to its beat, sluggish, his breath heaving out.

"Tang Fan?" he rasps out, voice clotting thick. "You're here." Tang Fan, though loathe to disturb him, cannot help but find joy and take pleasure in how soft Sui Zhou's waking is, here, how unburdened, be it by pain or nightmare.

"Yes," Tang Fan admits, whispered despite being duly caught. Needn't rouse their neighbours, after all. He toes in closer, less thoughtless than tranced. "Go back to bed," he urges, but then, "who else? Have you taken another while I was gone?"

Sui Zhou's breath huffs from him again, laugh-like. "My one wife is trouble enough," he answers, rising onto his elbows. "I have no need for another." Tang Fan cannot quite see his face, but he can feel Sui Zhou's gaze; his narrow, keened attention. "You were not due back yet," he murmurs.

"I rushed," Tang Fan tells him. He is too tired to thread a real note of teasing through it; too happy. "Have I disappointed you?" he asks anyway, to follow its motion, to feel its curl on his tongue.

"Come here," Sui Zhou answers, deigning it worthy only of nonanswer. Tang Fan does, hand flitting to his belt, shoulders flinching as it falls through his fingers in his hurry and clatters to the floor.

"It's late," he protests, heatless and unconvincing. "I'll keep you awake. I stink of horse and road." His knees nudge against the lip of the bed, towering him over Sui Zhou, still half-raised to greet him. This close, now, he can see him, the tired blear of his eyes and gentled curve of his mouth, the roughed rumple of his sleepshirt's collar unfurling from his neck.

"You have been gone," is all Sui Zhou says, holding his blankets out to make room for Tang Fan, too, beneath them. As though that all argues it.

"I have," Tang Fan agrees, soft, and so joins him — accepting and realising in their turns that it does; it must. Sui Zhou's hands are as sure as they are searching where they come to rest, one to his nape, threaded beneath his loose hair, the other to his waist, thumb curling in towards the ties there. Tang Fan can only meet their and this weight with a clumsy, crushing kiss, helpless to his own smile as Sui Zhou's grunted breath sprawls between their lips, his grip tightening. He wants Sui Zhou to tell him everything, to show him how he's been missed. But they have time; he can wait for it.