When Sui Zhou goes to wash after dinner, he finds the bath already drawn and occupied. Tang Fan, for his part in it, is looking terribly smug with himself, satisfaction shining through his thin veneer of faux annoyance.

"Where have you been?" he interrogates from his languid slouch against the lip of the bath. "The water has gotten cold, now."

Sui Zhou pinches the cuff of his sleeve and idly tugs it over his wrist as he leans over and reaches in. He finds to the touch, of course, that Tang Fan's assertion as to the temperature is quite false. "I didn't know I was keeping you," is all he says, shrewd.

"Well," says Tang Fan, not nearly as diplomatically level, "now that you know you are keeping me, why are you not hurrying?"

"Forgive me," Sui Zhou answers, unpenitent, as he pulls his hand from the bathwater and starts to undress without pre-empt. He is all too aware that Tang Fan is watching him, even though he is making no show of it for him to see. Tang Fan's regard has always been a weighty thing, and here, between the two of them, he makes no secret of his appraisal. No inch of his bared skin is a revelation to Tang Fan, but stripping before him still feels like an unveiling, marital. A deification of the profane.

"Freshen the bath, would you?" Tang Fan tells him once he is naked. He does not meet his eyes; his gaze is too preoccupied with its straying down the dip of Sui Zhou's throat, across the span of his chest. And even though Tang Fan's skin is as red as the shell of a boiled crab, Sui Zhou acquiesces, and goes to fetch up the pail off the cindering stove. The water is still warm enough, there, too, and Tang Fan further confirms its suitability with a sigh when Sui Zhou eases its pour into the bath.

"At your pace," Tang Fan prompts after a beat, his impatience undercut, somewhat, by the reverb of his tremble as he stretches. Sui Zhou watches the play of it in the arch of his back, the shadows beneath the milky film skimming the surface. Then, he sets down the pail, hefts himself over the ledge, and toes his way into the bath. He is mindful, all the while, of the way the water ripples around the stone's drop of his intrusion, the instinctual twitch of Tang Fan's fingers against the wood as his mind intervenes on his body's urge to reach out and take Sui Zhou in hand. To catch him even before the encroachment of any stumble or fall.

Sui Zhou is no sooner settled than he finds Tang Fan sidling into his space to press against his side. He's flushed with radial heat, skin silky soft where he brushes Sui Zhou's arm, his thigh. The smell of herbs is thick on him, soaked in; he has not been light with the soaps and powders. Tang Fan likes to admit it less, that he gets sore, now, but he does. It is not unheard or unknown for Sui Zhou to find him gentling his aches like this whenever the season is on its turn, or after a case that has asked of him for more hours than there is time.

Tang Fan is neither unpresumptuous nor ungenerous with his touch. His hand anchors over Sui Zhou's shin as he pillows his cheek on his shoulder, the matted veil of his hair spilling over the slight swell of Sui Zhou's breast to spider through the water. And yet, "Can I?" he asks, so softly, as if there is yet some threat lurking, be it in this life or their next, that he could be refused it.

For all the heat sunk low in his belly, put to flame the moment he began to strip for Tang Fan's witness, it is a miracle that Sui Zhou manages to speak his Yes without any weakness. He feels the curve of Tang Fan's smile brand his skin, the soft gust of his exhale.

"Let me, then," Tang Fan murmurs, voice levelled once more with his earned confidence. His fingers trace up, drifting to the plain of Sui Zhou's inner thigh, where they linger in stepped moments to pay homage to each old scar. Between them, his other hand rises up, and his grip clasps over Sui Zhou's nape, water matting the soft hairs there, wisped free of his braid. Sui Zhou need not offer his guidance; Tang Fan knows his body and all its bounds as well as he does, now, if not better. Every intimate roam of his flesh; each bloodied wound in his temperament. Tang Fan's blunt nails catch in the wiry hair on his mound, and Sui Zhou inches the spread of his legs out wider, the ripple of his shiver jarring him into the graze of Tang Fan's mouth as he presses in to kiss him.

"Ah, ah," Tang Fan chides against his lips, giddy. "Be good," he tells him, "be gentle with me." And because Sui Zhou is good, and he is gentle with him, the most he can be — more still by Tang Fan's estimation of him than he can yet believe of his own possibility — he moors his hands to his knees, and he steadies.

"Good." Tang Fan tilts his head and presses a kiss to the corner of Sui Zhou's mouth, tender. "Good, that's good. You're so good." His praise is more effusive than seems merited, but this is often the case by Sui Zhou's perspective, so he cannot claim to be the best judge of it. Better to let Tang Fan lead on ahead, and leave him to having his way of things.

And have his way he does: Tang Fan's hand pushes lower, thin fingers spreading his folds apart as he palms his cunt. Sui Zhou's grip flinches on his knees as he fights the urge to rut his hips into the friction, his groan whistling out through the grit of his teeth.

"Good," Tang Fan tells him again, voice hushed, as if it has become a profession, now. The pads of his fingers trace over his hole, then press against it, a flat, blunt pressure. The fold of his wrist is awkward, for the angular crush of their bodies, but Tang Fan's touch is practiced, sure.

"You can move." Tang Fan's lips shape the permission against his cheek, his breath damp around it, ragged. "You can touch me," he tells him, "you're allowed it. So long as you stay gentle."

It is less of a reminder, he knows, than it is an instruction. And Sui Zhou can trust himself as far as resting a hand on Tang Fan's thigh, the water splashing around the knife of the motion. He turns his head and Tang Fan meets him there, kissing back into his mouth with a pleased sound as Sui Zhou shivers up into the steady brace of his palm. He twitches against the flutter of Tang Fan's fingers as he turns his wrist, just slightly, just so, his thumb pushing back the hood of his clit.

He feels swollen, sore; close, already, dripping slick into the catchment of Tang Fan's hand ridden up tight against him. He knows his own ease; how he will grow wet from mere glimpses at Tang Fan's throat, how the delicate line of it bobs when he swallows; the sight of his fingers pinched around the neck of his pen; at the feel of his hair beneath his hands when he runs a comb through it before bed. Sui Zhou pushes up again, rougher, helpless, and Tang Fan's hand moves with him, ensuring the pressure remains what it is, on and not in, the circle of his thumb rough, impatient.

"Are you going to come?" Tang Fan rasps, teeth scraping over the swell of his bottom lip. Sui Zhou shudders, gasping wordlessly; answer enough that he is. It has been so long since they have been able to find time to take for this, days of meals held over records in their offices, nights of meetings too choked by brevity for sentiment, sleep stolen away in separation. Sui Zhou feels pent up around it, like a starving man who knows in his mouth the tastes of a good meal. Once he would have been ashamed of it, the hunger. Now he knows that everyone has to eat, even him.

Tonight, Sui Zhou had intended— well. Perhaps his restraint was simply unneeded, and that is why Tang Fan has unheeded it. "Tang Fan," he dredges up, shaking. A promise; a warning.

"Yes," Tang Fan coaxes. "That's it, waizi. I like that you're quick." His shoulder jerks as he presses down, hard, thumb and forefinger pinching down around the pearl of his clit, and Sui Zhou comes with a wounded noise, half-strangled in his throat, hips jerking. Tang Fan does not let him chase a second satisfactory orgasm, hand drifting back to wade idly in the water between Sui Zhou's spread legs as Sui Zhou moans pitifully against his mouth, fingers scrabbling against Tang Fan's thigh.

It takes a moment for him to ride through it. The bath feels cold on his hot skin, his head foggy. Need still pulses thick in his veins, the pit in his belly clenching around it. "Let me," Sui Zhou asks the moment he's finally caught the breath to manage it. Begs, truly, if he allows honesty enough accommodation for admittal. It would be nothing to pull Tang Fan into his lap now, to seat him on his thigh and guide the rut of his hips between his hands as he grinds his cunt down into it. He wants— he wants. But he waits.

The receding ring in his ears makes Tang Fan's voice sound distant, even as his breath brushes against his cheek. His laughter resounds despite it, like a lodestone leading him home. "I will," Tang Fan tells him, "I will. Just as soon as you join me in bed." With that, he unsticks himself from Sui Zhou's side and makes to rise, Sui Zhou's hand slipping free of his thigh. "Your husband will be broth if he soaks for any longer," he says, once upright, "and what will you do then?"

Sui Zhou's wits do not gather themselves in time to make a quip, but he does, at least, have enough of them about him to hold out his hand. Tang Fan laces their fingers together, and then pauses in the moment, keeping them both within it for seconds longer than needed. Even when he begins to move again, leveraging their joined grip to lift himself out of the bath, weight pooled to Sui Zhou's palm, his pace is absent any apparent urgency.

"Be careful," says Sui Zhou, as Tang Fan's footing fumbles, slipshod, and his wobbling legs nearly see him to the floor. Tang Fan barks a laugh in answer, nonchalant to his clumsiness, all the water that has followed him out to puddle at his heels.

"I have you for that," he says. He lets go of Sui Zhou's hand, and Sui Zhou's eyes are drawn to the curve of his back as he leans forward, the tumble of his wet hair over his slim shoulders. The pink blush mottling his cheeks, the droplets dappling his lashes.

"So you do," Sui Zhou affirms. Tang Fan's laugh is softer for this, his breath hitching around it. He leans closer still, turning his cheek as he gathers his hair so that he can press his lips to Sui Zhou's temple.

"So I do," he murmurs. He squeezes the clinging water from the tresses in his grip back into the bath, nose nudging along Sui Zhou's hairline. "You won't be long, will you? My Guangchuan wouldn't keep me waiting again."

He is right; he wouldn't. And so he doesn't — not for what Tang Fan counts as long, anyway, if the delay is to be judged by his lack of aired complaints.