Sui Zhou must rise eventually, of course. A day marches ever on, and it does not slow its pace nor stall its steps even for a lover's indulgences.

He indulges, anyway. Tang Fan is a warm, heady weight where the unguardedness of deep sleep has drawn him in against Sui Zhou's chest, the slow drag of his breaths soft across his throat. It would be nothing at all to lower his head and draw their faces together; to wake Tang Fan on the soft brush of his mouth, the sweet tease of his tongue against the seam of his lips, tasting at the staling sleep on his breath. He does not do that — it is no concession, nor is it even compromise, to press his lips to his forehead, to stifle his laughter at the red mottling his skin where Sui Zhou's beard has chafed at him in the night.

There are many things Sui Zhou can give Tang Fan, that he has and that he will, but peace is hard to come by, not so simply made or found. His features are slack of any tension, serene in a way that will not follow him to waking. It makes something swell in Sui Zhou's chest, a nameless, pleasant aching. He should always be left to take rest where he can, when it is then that he can have this.

Sui Zhou takes his time parting them. The play of his hands is tender over where they have turned and tangled together, touch tentative, neglecting to linger. Taking but a taste of the smooth plains of Tang Fan's soft thighs, the hills and gulleys of his hips and belly, the branches of his arms. Tang Fan's breath stutters and shallows as he is shifted, a sigh shaking loose when Sui Zhou eases him from his chest and to the bed, fingers curling into the sheets. Gladly, he stirs no more than that.

The sun has climbed high in the sky, by now, as much for Sui Zhou's delay as his care. But there are worse things to be in this world than late.

Sui Zhou touches a hand to his hair as he straightens to his feet, and his fingers find the soft wisping strands on his nape, the tresses that have untwined from his braid further in the night. He must look a state, disarrayed; there is no need to glimpse himself in the bronze of Tang Fan's mirror to confirm it. He simply brushes what he can of it back behind his ears, treading over to his dresser. He can be quiet enough to prise free the clothes he needs to make himself decent, but rummaging for a comb is another matter. Asides, he does not want to deny Tang Fan the pleasure of expressing his heatless disdain at his husband's unkemptness, or deprive him of deigning to comb Sui Zhou's hair for himself.

His sodden clothes from last night have been pulled from the floor, the puddled water mopped away, his boots taken. Dong'er's doing, doubtlessly. She must have gone ahead of him, the both of them, into the asks and needs of the day, leaving her da-ges to sleep the morning away.

Sui Zhou finds her in the kitchen. Even from the courtyard, he can see that she is thinning strips of vegetables with one of the knives pulled from the block. It is a smaller one, not so much suited to the task, but what Sui Zhou has guided her towards for now; cutting sharp, but a smaller handle to wrap her hand around, a better heft for her wrist.

Sui Zhou does not need to ask where he is wanted — he has not been quiet, and so she is already looking up through the open window to find him, pausing her chopping. "Sui da-ge!" she calls out. Not so much as a good morning, his arrival overstaying her grace at his leisure. He supposes he does deserve that. "You have to wash the rice!" she tells him. Tang da-ge will be awake soon, and he'll be hungry!"

So he will. Sooner still, even, if the carry of their voices through the siheyuan will have any say in it, and won't that mean trouble for the both of them if there is nothing plated for the table by the time he reaches it.

"All right," Sui Zhou says. He lets his smile warm his words as much as it curls his mouth, an easy-coming thing, these days, and then he sets himself to work.