Sometimes, when the constellations of all the days and the capital and the inside of his head coalign to quiet, Tang Fan lets himself be stopped still. Just for a moment; two. Long enough for him to think about what he has, now, and to wonder just how he lived, before, when he was without.

He survived, of course — he's always been quite competent at that — but living is another matter. Living is something else entirely, something past whole and beyond the ether. It's impossible, in any retrospective, for Tang Fan to make a measure of his earlier years and surmise that they were spent complete. That he was not waiting for something he didn't know he was missing, and then he did, but did not realise he could have in each and every way he wanted to have it.

Now, Tang Fan has this, and he has that, and he has all of everything. A family of his friends; good food that fills his belly; a home to rest his head. Sui Zhou, at every heart and centre. Now, Tang Fan has something good and right and precious to hold in his hands, and he knows the priceless value of it, and he will never let it go again.

Though Sui Zhou has taken up much of the space that Tang Fan's boredom once dominated in rare moments of repose, it has not made Tang Fan any less restless to— to not be preoccupied by so many things, all at once, all of the time. Knowing that Sui Zhou will not leave him wanting has not made him any more patient. But his greed can be placated. He can be slowed to pace more gradually through his gorging.

That is how he has Sui Zhou, tonight, and how Sui Zhou has him. They've taken to bed together at the earliest polite permittance, Tang Fan shimmying from his sleep clothes without prompt nor preamble and clambering in to straddle Sui Zhou's thigh before his back has even met with the bedspread. The short gust of Sui Zhou's answering laugh is swiftly swept up in the dry slide of Tang Fan's mouth, pressed in over his.

"Let me draw the drapes," Sui Zhou says against his lips. Tang Fan slings his arms around Sui Zhou's neck, gathers him in for another kiss, and lets him do no such thing. How Sui Zhou shifts and moves and lifts him effortlessly is past any point of his caring, so long as he is delicate enough that Tang Fan is not strayed from his mouth or spilled off his lap.

The soft crook of Sui Zhou's smile tips Tang Fan's kisses over into clumsy, but any complaint Tang Fan thinks to have for him unspools in his head as Sui Zhou's thigh flexes, all that twilled muscle tautening, riding up rough into his cunt.

"Oh," Tang Fan gasps out. He clutches at Sui Zhou tighter, fingers clawing in until he feels the blunt crescents of his nails dig into Sui Zhou's skin through his shirt. He fastens his grasp, leverages his weight, then pitches himself into the circle of his hips as he ruts back into Sui Zhou, braced flush between the crux of his legs. The drag is so slow and so dry that it makes the ache building up deep from the floor of him take, the heat sparking beneath his skin catch aflame.

"Oh, Sui Zhou," he hears himself whine, a frail, reedy little thing. Already, already, already— but he is always like this, burning up quick and brief and bright. Who could find fault with him and affix any blame, though, when the thought has been eating away at him since before dinner? Had it not been for their full table of present company, he would have simply pulled Sui Zhou's foot into his lap then and there mid-meal, held him fast at the ankle, and ground his clit against Sui Zhou's heel until he'd come his tiding fill.

But no. But no, he'd had to be a good, genteel host, conversing and entertaining. And now that everyone else who has a home to go to has left theirs, and Dong'er has made herself scarce in her room so that she can sneak out with Xiao Niqiu later — which is a secret they are still pretending she has successfully kept from them, at least until they can agree on what else they're supposed to do with it — and, well.

And he's had more than enough of waiting for what is rightly his to have, is the sum and total of it. Sui Zhou had started him down the path of it in the first place, those hours ago, back in the kitchen, what with his strong arms and his deft hands and his thick fingers and— and he should finish it.

Sui Zhou's hand sweeps up the slope of his back, palm pressing flat between the swoop of his shoulder blades, and Tang Fan's head spins as he moves and is moved everywhere at once, cast out in opposing directions. His mouth traces the blade of Sui Zhou's cheekbone before his face drops to bow into the crook of his neck, nose dipping beneath his collar to press to bare skin. Tang Fan takes a breath that is full of him — stale sweat, old smoke and tart spice, waterstone and whet steel — and sighs it back free, shuddering as he feels himself leak. He slows the slide of his hips, easing the claw of his fingers.

The light sharding through his eyelashes shutters dim, and then Sui Zhou is sprawling back supine, foot bracing to the bed as he spills Tang Fan into his chest, huge hands mooring Tang Fan at his hips. "What do you need?" His voice rumbles in his throat, dredged up from down deep. Tang Fan mouths at his collar, turning the point of his teeth against the sliver of skin where it meets cotton as Sui Zhou's thumbs knead in.

"Just you," says Tang Fan, all barbed jagged with mounting— frustration. "Just… just this." He grinds down harder, harsher, grunting out through the grit of his teeth as he feels the cotton of Sui Zhou's pants stick between his legs. "Be still and let me work in peace."

He always feels furthest from his release when he is at his closest; the road unwinds to a yawn, the climb stalls shy of the zenith. If he can only— if he can only, he thinks, every time, as it all sieves through his fingers like water. He ruts into Sui Zhou's thigh, all rough-slide scraping friction bare of relief, and Sui Zhou takes it, again, again, hands set on Tang Fan's hips, thigh cocked up tight against his cunt.

"If you would only," Tang Fan pants out, after a moment that spans an age, eyes blurring over, stung wet, hemmed with welled tears. "If you would just—" He feels so sore, swollen hot and rubbed raw, close, close, nearly, not quite there. Sui Zhou does not speak a word; he barely even makes a sound; he is simply there, just as asked for.

It's good, he's good, and it helps, until it doesn't, and Tang Fan reels back up, lashing out to leash his hand around one of Sui Zhou's, still holding him steady. "Here," he begs, tugging at Sui Zhou's fingers, "here, come here." Sui Zhou goes with his flow, letting himself be led as Tang Fan fits his hand to his chest, closing his palm over the slight swell of his breast. Sui Zhou squeezes down, the arch of his thumb finding the peak of his nipple to tease at it roughly, and Tang Fan whimpers, craning into it, the bough of his back bent to breaking. He's so— Sui Zhou is so big up against him. He is so big when they are like this, broad and towering even when laid down and out underneath, overwhelming and inescapable. He could take the whole of Tang Fan's chest in one of his hands if he wanted to. It would be nothing to him at all. Even the thought makes him—

"Please," Tang Fan begs, inconsolable. He snatches Sui Zhou's other hand at the wrist and yanks it desperately from his hip. He thinks Sui Zhou says something to him; his mouth moves to suggest as much, but Tang Fan does not hear it. He drags Sui Zhou's willing hand down between his legs, upturned, and cants his hips to give it the space to feed in over his thigh and palm over his cunt.

"I have you," Sui Zhou murmurs, voice hushed, scratch-rough. He sounds so fond, so soft. It makes the breath in Tang Fan's chest burn. "I'm here."

Sui Zhou's thick fingers part his folds, spreading them wide, and Tang Fan shudders at the wet sound of them thrusting along his slit to stroke over his hole. He holds them there, nothing more than a promissory threat of blunt, filling pressure, the calloused pad of his thumb tracing artless circles against Tang Fan's clit.

"Yes, yes, you're here," Tang Fan babbles, voice vex-viced, breathy. He squirms down on Sui Zhou's hand, bucking into his laddering fingers, the swipe of his thumb. "You have me, now— now do something with me."

"All right," Sui Zhou says, and then he's pushing in, in, in, wrist pivoting, two fingers filling Tang Fan out, out, out, until he's opened up around every ridging knuckle and seated flush to Sui Zhou's hand, the heel grinding into his clit.

"Oh—!" Tang Fan grabs for shelter, for succour, one hand fluttering over Sui Zhou's shoulder, his neck, the other tangling in his hair, fingers tugging at the loose bun he wears it in for bed. Sui Zhou's mouth falls open as he surges up only to be stopped short. Tang Fan feels the reverb of his grip pull through Sui Zhou's scalp, hears the scratch of his nails through the strands, and it's pity, it is only taking pity that sees him fall forward to meet Sui Zhou where he has stalled. He crushes their mouths together, clenches tight around Sui Zhou's fingers, and comes with a pithy little moan, the noise thrown out somewhere between them, scattered wide.

"More?" he hears Sui Zhou ask, in every direction, in the brush of their lips and the nip of his teeth, in the crook of his fingers sunk deep, in the pet of his palm over his chest.

"Don't you dare stop," Tang Fan growls, clotted up vicious, choked wet with need and spit, "I'll never forgive you, ever again— ah—!" Anything else he might have had left to say falls away from his mouth, wiped clean slate from his head, as Sui Zhou grips his tit hard enough to bruise and tugs Tang Fan down. Down, down, into where his hand is pinned between his thigh and Tang Fan, into the brutal shove of his fingers as they fuck up into his cunt.

It's such a shock and it's so perfect that it sends him spilling over the edge again in a single shouted instant. Tang Fan comes so hard he squirts into the cup of Sui Zhou's palm, up the underside of his wrist, shivering out loose as his head ripples pure white. For the longest seconds, there is only that, rolling fog in his head and distant thunder in his ears, and then the storm begins to pass as quickly as it blew in. Distantly, through the detritus of the aftermath, he feels Sui Zhou easing his fingers free from his twitching hole, the slick wet sound of it filthy, debauched. Then follows the grate of his gruff voice as he pushes some monosyllabic comfort into Tang Fan's slim neck. Tang Fan shivers as he's cradled close, his weight taken onto Sui Zhou's chest, the fucked out splay of his frame draping down on him from overhead.

Tang Fan heaves in a breath, then another, another, until the rhythmic stroke of Sui Zhou's hands down his back has helped field him far enough back into the bounds of his body. Then, he lets Sui Zhou steady him just that indulgent distance more, until he can move again with the surety that he will go wherever he intends to. He lifts his head from Sui Zhou's neck to find his mouth, licking into it with a greedy sigh as his hands paw at Sui Zhou's shirt.

Sui Zhou yields into him so easily; his breath warm, his lips chapped and damp; his trimmed beard brushing against his chin. He is always such a pleasure to kiss. As good as the written word would tell it, turned poetic to a point of exaggeration.

"Can I put my mouth on you?" Tang Fan whispers at last, when the hot seethe of his blood has settled back to a simmer and he's kissed the last of the staling taste of wine from Sui Zhou's tongue. Sui Zhou's breath stutters in, shallowing, and Tang Fan feels the beat of his heart kick up beneath the cup of his palm. His eyes slide shut, slow, and something tight encroaches on his expression, tugging the edges of it threadbare.

Tang Fan can push. He is so very, very good at pushing, and he knows just how to push Sui Zhou especially, the myriad ways he can make him give in to pressure. It would be more confessive than begging if he told Sui Zhou just how much he wants this, how desperately, and he knows what words are weighted, how to tip their inflection to pointed. Sui Zhou is so— he is so… Tang Fan loves him so much. Tang Fan loves him so much, and that love makes him so full, and he does not know how else to show it than the ways he's always been made for and meant to so that it doesn't burst him open. He wants to pour it all into Sui Zhou and leave him so full, too, that he has no room left in him to doubt that he is so good, so wanted.

But— but. The tactility and tangibility of Tang Fan's affections are not always… good, for Sui Zhou. Sui Zhou finds his pleasure in touching Tang Fan well enough, and takes to it with a single-minded determination that had met with what Tang Fan had let himself expect, before, in his private imaginings. But there is a hunger, there, too, one that still strips Tang Fan down to something vulnerable, even now that he's used to feeding it.

Sui Zhou does not always like to himself be touched, though, and when he is amenable to it, he can become alive with such a nerved tension that what is good can quickly flinch from that knife's tip into something else, something not. And when a plunge comes, it is rarely with a warning: there will be a moment where Tang Fan's feet are still on the ground, and they are both rooted in giddy, exploratory joy; then a straying brush of fingers will herald the next, and Tang Fan will blink and find himself in bed with a body, cooling frozen, stilled as the dead.

To call bearing witness to the disorientation from whole to weapon alarming is to greatly understate it.

The truth is that it can be difficult, for Sui Zhou, to tell where his lines are drawn until they are broken through. His body is territory once-left, now returned-to, and Tang Fan is not ignorant to the fact that Sui Zhou has come back to make it home for his sake far more than his own. Sui Zhou is not as good at asking for what he wants as he is at being told what to do, and this can become dangerous whenever it makes crossroads with his ever-competing need to... to serve. To find his worth in what he gives over. And yes, yes, it makes Tang Fan feel powerful, to have such a strong man as Sui Zhou in his sway, of course it does, he is human. But control doesn't come without cost or consequence. He is indentured to Sui Zhou's trust in him, and responsible for all he does with it.

"Yes," Sui Zhou finally says, hoarse but decided, and Tang Fan releases the breath he's held during, quiet as kept. No wait is too long, here, for an answer, but one can always be too short. Tang Fan has learned to find comfort in the pauses that are ample enough to assure him that Sui Zhou's considerations have been adequate.

Sui Zhou's eyes are so dark when he opens them again, glossed wet by the limn of the low candlelight through the canopy curtains. Some of the tension that has come to roost in his features thankfully bleeds free when his gaze finds Tang Fan's stare. Tang Fan sets to kissing away the rest of it, pressing his lips to the furrow of Sui Zhou's brow, the corners of his eyes, his cheeks, his stubbled jaw. His fingers pet at the swell of Sui Zhou's pectoral where they are still fed into his sleeping shirt, his other hand sweeping up Sui Zhou's shoulder to stroke his neck.

"So good to me," Tang Fan murmurs, reverent. "You are so good to me," he tells him. He will tell him as much again. He will tell him until he tires of hearing it, until his own voice breaks, until the swell of it all deafens, and then he will tell him once more, purely for the joy that he can at all. "I'm going to be so good to you," he promises.

"Tang Fan," Sui Zhou rasps.

"Shh," Tang Fan hushes him. He chases it with a kiss to his lips, the pad of his thumb kneading under his chin. The work of Sui Zhou's throat around his swallow presses the tender line of it up into the heel of his hand, and Sui Zhou makes a small sound, flung far down the back of it, scraped over, almost choked. "Let me," he says. "Just let me, now."

Tang Fan lets his hands slip away, both falling from Sui Zhou's throat and out from between the petaled flay of his shirt to follow the rise of his body as he kneels up. Sui Zhou moves underneath him the moment the room is made between their bodies, making to rise, too. To turn over onto his hands and knees, practised eager, how Tang Fan usually has him. Tang Fan presses his palm low to Sui Zhou's belly, and feels it suck in around the shudder of his breath as he digs the heel in. It is barely anything; a prompt of pressure, a borderline needling. Sui Zhou stops still beneath it, acquiescent.

"Where are you going?" Tang Fan asks, voice lilting sweetly, brow cocked and mouth pouting. All faux-innocence gauzed over very real concernment. "There is nowhere new for you to be," he says. "You're where I want you already."

Sui Zhou concedes easily, though he does cock a brow at him, timid curiosity colouring his features. Tang Fan lets his hand fall back away in fair trade, and sets to peeling the rest of himself out of Sui Zhou's lap.

There is something he is of a mind to try. Tang Fan does not know how good it will be, or even if it will be good at all past the good that everything is, with Sui Zhou, per the natural order of things. There are many things like that; things that are only so good as far as they are imagined, or written. Things that are good for him, and not for Sui Zhou. Opportunity knocks so rarely, though, that every occurrence borders the miraculous. He is not going to make a waste of its visit with cowardice.

Tang Fan shuffles down to the foot of the bed, hands feeling along behind him, legs tangling under his thighs in his hurry. "Make room for me, won't you?" he asks, and Sui Zhou does, folding his knees to his chest, arm hooking beneath their crooks to tether his legs in place.

There is not much space for him, even after Sui Zhou has made room — they are both tall men, and tonight would not be the first time where this has posed its challenges — but Tang Fan can make do. He sweeps his loose hair over his shoulders and lowers himself onto his belly, twisting at the hip to tuck his legs up. It leaves him listing, weight pooling heavy into his side, breast pinned between the bed and his ribs; awkwardness straddling discomfort. Manageable, if unideal and ultimately untenable.

Tang Fan sets his hands to the backs of Sui Zhou's legs, a thumb idly tracing at the crease where his thigh meets his ass. "Don't let go," Tang Fan warns, severe. "Don't forget I'm here, Sui Zhou. You'll crush me."

"I'll mind you," Sui Zhou promises, wry, breath pleating tight from the compact clutch of his body in on itself, the creeping physicality of his arousal.

"It's all I ask," Tang Fan says, and then he spits on Sui Zhou's clothed cunt. Sui Zhou gasps out sharply, jerking in place. Tang Fan curls his thumb to catch it as it drips down the seam, then strokes up, pressing in enough to feel Sui Zhou's folds part around him, for the cotton to push in. Sui Zhou gets so wet, and so readily — it is not as if he needs anything else but that to ease the way. It's a wonder how he ever managed to hide it from Tang Fan, before. It's such a difficult thing about him to miss.

Tang Fan spreads him through his pants, bows his head, and noses in between his folds; savouring, more than a little smugly, the whimpering hitch in Sui Zhou's inhale. He can understand the romance of it, now, in all the stories he's read with women who use their mouths on their men from dawn to dusk and there again. The thought of having Sui Zhou like this for hours — his scent in his nose, his taste on his tongue, his slick smearing his lips and chin — is heady, divine. Even if the practicality of any such-paced attempt does leave much to be desired.

He presses the tip of his tongue to Sui Zhou's hole, shuddering at the slink of the cotton over it. It is a strange sensation, the barrier of it, how it strains around him as he laps at the rim, tracing it. Sui Zhou jerks again, the jackknife of his body into the brace of his arm behind his knees barely restrained. It pushes him up hard into Tang Fan's face, grinds him against his nose.

Tang Fan inches back with a peal of laughter, giddy, warmth shimmering beneath his skin, unfurling like a flower turned to the sun. His face feels— Sui Zhou has already made such a mess of him. His pants are soaked through, and very little of it could be called Tang Fan's doing. If only they weren't black, then Tang Fan would be able to see everything — the dark thatch of hair trailing down between Sui Zhou's legs, the dusky blush of the innermost skin, the illicit hint of pink of his cunt. Perhaps it is best that he can't, given that the thought alone is dizzying enough.

"Did you not say you would be gentle with me?" Tang Fan teases, and, ah. His voice is already running hoarse. He swallows thickly, the taste of Sui Zhou clinging to the roof of his mouth. "Did you not promise to behave?"

He does not wait for an answer before he bows his head again, breathing out through his nose. If Sui Zhou has an apology for him, or an argument, or anything else between, all that comes of it is a moan as Tang Fan slowly spreads him open around the unrelenting press of his tongue.

Sui Zhou is so tight, yet he takes him in so well. Tang Fan truly has to work for it, with the layer between them — he can feel the catch and click in the hinge of his jaw already, the radial ache through his neck. It's a duller cut than the blade of his desire, a lesser demand on his focus. He can feel Sui Zhou's every twitch and tremble against his nose, on his mouth, around his tongue, and he is leaking so much, dripping steadily down his lips, catching on his tongue, mingling with the spit that keeps spilling down his chin.

Tang Fan moans into it, loud enough for Sui Zhou to feel as much as hear. Sui Zhou startles, shoving up into his face, and then he is coming so suddenly with barely more than a sound, something choked-off breathless, slammed out. It takes Tang Fan by a surprise he thinks he should not have been caught by, for how close Sui Zhou seemed to it. He pulls himself up in a rush to set his mouth over Sui Zhou's cunt, nose crushed to his clit, and presses the flat of his tongue down over his hole to catch the end of it.

It is not much. "Barely a mouthful," Tang Fan whines, when he has lapped and sucked the last of Sui Zhou's spend from the cotton, Sui Zhou squirming and shying from every brush of his mouth, oversensitive. The skin of his chin and mouth feel hot, chafe-rubbed red and smeared wet. "Sui Zhou, that is nothing at all," he chastises, pouting. If there lies any fault for that anywhere, here, it is not with Sui Zhou, but, well, "You have to give me more," Tang Fan demands of him. "Give me something I can swallow."

"Tang Fan," Sui Zhou groans weakly, wrung-out. Tang Fan feels the whip stroke of his answering flinch stripe up the backs of his trembling thighs. He sounds wild, wrecked, strung on the thread of an edge— Tang Fan wishes he could see his face for himself. He can only imagine how he must look, all unspooled undone, unable to keep holding onto himself in his steadied checks and balances. But Tang Fan does not want it nearly enough to lift his head out from between Sui Zhou's legs, so any picturing he pieces together will have to do.

Tang Fan can push him further. He can catch Sui Zhou here if he falls. He tips his face up, letting the lave of his tongue clean the spit from his chin as the thread of it connecting his mouth to Sui Zhou's cunt snaps away. He's cramping at the neck; his jaw setting stiff, throbbing with a well-used ache. His head is starting to fog with the languor of his own bone-set satisfaction. Persistence yet outstrips all of it. There is still more in him to give, too.

"One more," he says. It comes through— harsher, than he intends, but as firm as he means. "One more for me. I know you have it left."

Sui Zhou's breath whistles out, juddering free of his chest. But it is not no, it is not enough, it is not the way he falls silent when he cannot bring himself to say anything but he is in dire need of either. Tang Fan tilts his face to nose up the underside of Sui Zhou's thigh, pressing a kiss there. Sui Zhou twitches, and Tang Fan nips at him, impulsive, feeling the flinch feed back up into his mouth. He bites down harder, harder, until he feels the give of the muscle under his teeth and tongue, hears Sui Zhou's voice tear around a whine. He sucks a mark he can only trust is bruising from the copper tang of his own spit when he swallows it, then another, another, until Sui Zhou is trembling so terribly it is jarring Tang Fan's jaw too much to try.

"All right." He sighs out into Sui Zhou's thigh, feeling the damp heat of his breath curl back against his mouth. "So impatient," Tang Fan says, unsure which of them it is more meant for, "yes, come here, come here then. Give me your hand."

Sui Zhou's soft moan as he reaches down his side is less noise than it is absence, as though his mouth has simply shaped around the memory of a sound. Tang Fan snatches at his hand, tangling their fingers and squeezing down to anchor himself as the wave of his urge to rise crashes down on him again. He wants to push Sui Zhou's legs apart, to pull himself back up the length of his body, to take his face in his hands and kiss him until he no longer remembers what it is to be anything but senseless— and then it passes. The sea settles back to crystal calm. He relaxes.

"Hold yourself open for me," Tang Fan says, and then he shows Sui Zhou how, fitting his hand low, fanning his fingers until some spill over the curve of his ass. Sui Zhou fumbles the grip, then claws his shaking fingers in to save it, hissing.

"That's it," Tang Fan praises. He presses an unsteadied kiss to the backs of Sui Zhou's knuckles, then mouths slowly at each of his fingers, letting Sui Zhou track him by touch as he trails his way back between his legs proper. Tang Fan licks a lazy stripe up Sui Zhou's slit, his freed hand drifting down to his lap, fingers toying idly over the coarse hair on his mound.

There is a renewed warmth to his skin, pooling low in his belly. It sizzles up his spine like hot oil with each shift of his hand, with every lave of his tongue, but it is still little more than the indolent heat of contentment. He only feels heavy, as though his blood is rich with a cup too much of wine, and sore, as though he has been well-worked and put away raw. Tang Fan nuzzles in closer, nose snubbing roughly over Sui Zhou's clit, tongue pushing into his hole. He parts his thighs to the sound of Sui Zhou's whine and palms at his cunt, toes curling as he traces a finger over his folds. His own spend is mostly dry, now, what of it he did not rub off onto Sui Zhou's thigh, stuck tacky to his skin, but if he pushes in, he is still wet enough to make the shallow slide of his fingers smooth, easy.

Sui Zhou keeps rocking back into his face, meeting each blunted thrust of his tongue with slapped-out, broken little noises, ah, ah, ahs that he is past any point of being able to bite down on. Tang Fan can feel how close he is, can taste it in his mouth, and cold frantic panic pricks at his neck at the sudden dawn of the errant thought that he might not be able to get him there. He always does this, never caring to learn a lesson from having too eager eyes and too small a belly of resilience, but he doesn't want this to be one of the nights where he cedes to the consequences of his hubris. He wants more than the consolation of watching Sui Zhou take himself in hand to finish.

"What do you need?" he husks, harried, his own voice distant in his head, warped strange with a foreign ferality. He twists his hand on Sui Zhou's thigh, gets it in beneath his chin enough that he can push his thumb into Sui Zhou's hole, in, in, in until it hilts just past the first knuckle. He curls it, feeling the cling of his rim and all the tight heat of his body through the cotton as though it was flush to his skin.

Sui Zhou does not answer him, not with words, not with anything Tang Fan can use. It must be that he can't, or does not trust that he can, but, "What do you need to come?" Tang Fan presses, louder, mouth still pressed to Sui Zhou's cunt, breath panting out hard. "Do you need my fingers?" He does not know what he is saying, anymore. He does not care what he is saying at all. Knowing is not for now, and caring will be for later. "Guangchuan, it is too much to strip you properly now. Tear the stitching for me and I'll fill you like this."

Sui Zhou's legs fall open around his shoulders with a terrible sob, clipping down his sides as Sui Zhou's back arches, sharp and sudden and stark as a bowstring plucked taut atop a manned parapet. The rut of his hips drags him up through the mess he's made on Tang Fan's face, and it's more than all Tang Fan needs to know that he is coming for him finally, blessedly, beautifully. Tang Fan pulls his thumb free with a lapse of gentleness he'll feel some guilt for, later, when he does remember, and scrabbles both of his hands to seat them over Sui Zhou's hips, fingers hooking in the hem of his pants. He fits his mouth sloppily over Sui Zhou's cunt, shoves the flat of his tongue between his folds, and sucks, hard, cheeks hollowing as Sui Zhou spills and spills and spills until he's shaken himself apart.

For a moment, a beat, it is— Tang Fan cannot even breathe, his chest lacing up tight, lungs burning sweet, the wild dirge of his pulse and Sui Zhou's whimpering washing out all other sense and sound. The sting in the corners of his eyes flares, sweat and tears clumping his lashes together. Sui Zhou's taste is still so tart on his tongue and through his mouth even after he's swallowed and swallowed again. Tang Fan thinks, he thinks— and then there are hands on his face, cupping his cheeks, fingers tracing his ears, petting through his hair.

"Runqing," he hears, all scratch, shout-hoarse, and Tang Fan breathes in deeply, gasping as though he's broken the surface of water.

"Wait," he stammers, slurring, as he feels his face being lifted. He fights his eyes open, head lolling in the cradle of Sui Zhou's stilled palms. "Wait, wait." He only needs a moment. He only needs a moment more, and it is always here that Sui Zhou needs to be told to slow, to stop. That they can both survive a stay of seconds.

Really, he would prefer that Sui Zhou never break himself in the bending to him, but if he must, it should at least be in remedy to an actual ailment, an answer to real danger. Not— not this. Tang Fan's next exhale is winded, as much a laugh as it is a wheeze.

"You worked me so hard," he whines. "Stay there. Let me rest and find my breath. You can take care of me after that."

He closes his eyes again, more because they are still too heavy for him to hold open than to punctuate any point. Sui Zhou does not voice a reply, but the soft brush of his thumb as he wipes a tear from the corner of his eye speaks words enough.

Tang Fan finds his breath, then gives himself more past it, long moments he doesn't need, lulled by the soporific stroke of Sui Zhou's fingers and the warmth bleeding from his broad palms. Then, he kneels himself up on wobbling legs, blinking the brushstroke blur back out of his eyes. Sui Zhou is already there to meet his gaze when it focuses. His eyes are still so dark, framed stark by the spill of his hair out of his bun where the toss and throw of his head has tugged it loose. The rise-fall of his chest is still so shallow, staggered; his hands fallen into an uneasy rest, low on his belly, without his hold on Tang Fan to fill them. There is blood spotting the sore red swell of his bottom lip where the worry of his teeth has split the skin. Tang Fan takes in the sight and feels his throat draw in tight around it.

"Can I kiss you, now?" Tang Fan asks. He feels rather small and foolish the moment it is said, but he is tired, and he is tender, and it is too great an ask of him to hold something inside when he has been opened up so widely. Still, it's almost too... telling, if it can even be said that there is anything left between him and Sui Zhou yet to be told.

Sui Zhou's expression changes, minute enough to be easily missed, turning softer with fondness, for care of something fragile. "Not from there," he says simply. The playfulness of it quells the nascent, fretful thing trying to make a nest behind Tang Fan's ribs, even as he reaches for enough mock indignation to pull over himself for modesty.

"You would still have me work for it?" Tang Fan does not have to lean too much into an affected patheticness; he really is quite ruinously spent.

Sui Zhou is unswerving. "You would have yourself work for it," he rejoins. "I have been told to stay as I am."

"You are a child of a man," Tang Fan chastises, scowling. It's insincerely snippish, and he's not unignorant of its irony as he makes theatre out of crawling his way back up the bed to collapse against Sui Zhou's side.

Sui Zhou hums, noncommittal, reaching between them to rest his hand over the column of Tang Fan's throat, fingers dipping into the tangle of his hair. Tang Fan pouts as he draws in a deep breath, luring Sui Zhou to kiss into the taste of himself on Tang Fan's mouth before he can so much as utter a consonant more of complaint. And kiss him Sui Zhou does, and does, and does, and does. By the time he finally does not, it has been such a long time spent on it that neither of them are at their best when they peel apart. Nor are they at all at their most dignified when they start setting to rights their disarray until they are at least fit enough to sleep whatever remains of their night away.