It's a matter of course that Tang Fan has ended up more in Sui Zhou's lap than not.

He is well into his cups, held up to the brunt by the line of Sui Zhou to his back, but he had not been to start. Their room’s table is too small for all the bodies they’ve crowded around it, and though that’s reason enough for Tang Fan to be as close as he is, the truth of its why is not so chivalrously compromising. The truth of its why is that Tang Fan has spent the better part of a month draping himself over Sui Zhou, blatant in his favour and brazen in his inveiglement. It had done what he needed it to do: bartered Sui Zhou into the meetings Tang Fan wanted him by side and at hand, ones that Sui Zhou’s role as his biaoshi did not welcome him to or actively worked against him for.

It is difficult to strip back down out of a skin you’ve worn for any given age of time, but that is not entirely the matter, here, either, and not forbearing enough an excuse for Tang Fan, tonight, to withstand outside challenge. The best deceptions are those that have truth to them; the most convincing guises those with one’s face still shown in some shade of light.

Neither the reputation of the biaoju Sui Zhou had purported to be from nor that of Lin Guang’s associate Tang Fan had impersonated have suffered any worse wear for their behaviour. Even should the gossip not carry back on the wind that their identities were falsified, they can be confident they’ll have to justify little more than what they are typically asked to give over as part of any case.

And so, it's selfishly simple: he’s still doing it because he enjoys it. Tang Fan takes from Sui Zhou a little more than what they’ve yet approached between themselves standalone, because he likes it, and because Sui Zhou is indulgent of him in the taking. Past that, he is not thinking much of it at all. The wine is as good as it is deserved, the company pleasant, the conversation genial. Sui Zhou is solid and strong and mostly quiet, as he often is, preferring to partake only as far as listening, as watching.

It is easy to preen the tracks of his mind down to one forward-facing path when he is like this. Drink brings an almost muggy, languid quiet to his head; lets him set on the narrowest of his senses and set off in the most singular of directions. He does not always like how slow it addles him, but here, tonight, it is nice. Here, tonight, it gives him the means and the merit to indulge in the slighter comforts, and appreciate the smaller pleasures, without so much of his own inherent internal distraction.

So, Tang Fan is not thinking much of it, much of anything, not at all, until he moves his hand, suddenly, snapping it loosely some way or another, and, it— catches. His fingers snag on the slit of Sui Zhou’s robe where it rides high on his hip before feeding into his belt, and Sui Zhou gives a sharp little hiss of breath, shocked and shuddering hot.

And then— and then, Tang Fan is thinking more than much of it. He is at once captured by and capitulating to his consuming want to hear that sound from Sui Zhou’s mouth again. He wants to touch him, his— his Sui Zhou, who has done so well, and acted his part so perfectly. His Sui Zhou, who is really and always so very good for him. To him.

Tang Fan is careful. He is slow in the taking. Sui Zhou’s thigh flexes beneath his, drawing up tense with a flinch of his hips as Tang Fan works his hand wrist-deep between all those layers to skim his fingers along the line of Sui Zhou’s already swelling cock. He is always so responsively sensitive, Tang Fan has noticed, because he has made it much of his business to notice such things about Sui Zhou. It takes very little of a touch at all to bring him to twitching, and less after to desperate, then to— separating them, as though shy, and excusing himself, as though his desire is an embarrassment, or unwelcome. As it has so often gone so far between them.

Tang Fan wraps his fingers more tightly around the thick shape of him, hot even beneath the dousing drape of his pants, and squeezes down, feels Sui Zhou’s cock throb against his palm, hears just how he bites down on his gasp. And if Sui Zhou didn’t want him to do that, he would surely, simply, just— push Tang Fan’s hand away, as he's done before, and that would be the end of it and that. Sui Zhou goes far for him, Tang Fan knows that, but he is still a man comprised of lines and limits. He goes so far, farther than he does or perhaps ever will for anyone else, but there is still only so far he will go before he makes landfall at standstill.

Fear of discovery would not keep Sui Zhou so still beneath Tang Fan’s thighs and against his back, but the desire to be discovered might. Perhaps he likes it, then, that his men could be watching him, or Tang Fan, or the both of them together. Finds thrill in them knowing— knowing something. Knowing that he is Tang Fan’s in this way with proof of confirmation more weighted than mere suspicions.

The thought of it is too ephemeral for Tang Fan to grasp overlong. His tongue is too busy keeping pace with the conversation by curling around committal sounds to ask. He is doing only enough that he needs to, and when called for, to allow him to best keep to himself how he has Sui Zhou’s cock pinned beneath the flat of his hand. The rest of his attention is spoken for, set aside, for enjoying how Sui Zhou feels in his grip, what holding him like this does.

Tang Fan still, still has barely touched him at all, and yet here he is, so hard for him. Heavy and straining against the cotton, a tacky wetness smearing the underside of his wrist. A priceless obscenity hidden away underneath the sprawl of Tang Fan’s sleeve and the splay of their skirts. Tang Fan shifts his weight, his mouth running dry, tongue all too thick for his mouth, and Sui Zhou’s groan is— loud, loud enough just to carry. It cuts Xue Ling off, mid-word.

Tang Fan laughs, because it is the only thing he can muster his senses enough to do. “Am I heavy?” he asks, stammering breathlessly into the space they’ve disrupted to silence. “Am I too heavy for you, Sui da-ge?”

If Sui Zhou has found his line here, this would be the time to make it known between them. Tang Fan unfurls his fingers in wait, but does not turn his head to look. It feels like it would be an encroachment, in these long seconds, to look at Sui Zhou. It seems like it poses too great a risk that Sui Zhou might see something himself that sways him back, or beckons him toward.

"No," Sui Zhou answers, finally, low and coarse, "you’re— it’s fine."

Tang Fan curls his fingers again, gradual; tweaks his wrist. The work of Sui Zhou’s throat sounds so sharp in his ears when he swallows roughly, his exhale slapped out. Tang Fan laughs over it, fluttery, his chest cinching, head spinning light, and another one of them picks up where Xue Ling left off, like he was never stopped at all. Tang Fan isn't sure who. Between Sui Zhou and the wine, he has been put past telling. He doesn't mind it.

Sui Zhou leans forward, weight tilting into his knees, and sets his cup down on the table with a fumbling clatter that is lost to the chatter. His breathy little gasps are flush against the shell of Tang Fan’s ear. The backs of his knuckles graze against the bent crooks of Tang Fan's knees when he drops his hands back to his lap to fist at his thighs stiffly.

Tang Fan’s face feels— hot. The skin pulled taut, straining to splitting over his bones. It’s with a mute distance that he realises he is drunker than he should have ever intended getting. He is not certain the wine can be called his intoxication’s sole culprit when the bleed of heat from Sui Zhou’s chest into his side is so much more potent, provocative.

He swims out to sink into how Sui Zhou’s cock is filling his palm; fitting to the furl of his fingers. Into the way Sui Zhou trembles; twitches; tenses; the refrain of his restraint brittling jagged. And then, sometime later, an unknown when, there is— there is this sound that Tang Fan can’t even describe, which whips out when Sui Zhou pushes his hips up, just once, and seems to choke on the force of it, his wet gasp gathering at the back of his throat. No-one else seems to notice it but him. Perhaps they are all past noticing it, now. Perhaps it is Tang Fan who is past noticing them — he is certainly no longer paying the heeds he should pay if he means to keep this discrete little thing discretional.

Xue Ling is the last to leave, but it could be minutes or an hour or anything beyond to in-between before it finally happens. No-one is in any condition to escort anyone else to and from any doors, capable of and culpable for waved hands and drunk-loud shouts of parting farewells. And so Sui Zhou’s revel-blinded men take care of themselves, to each his own benefit.

Tang Fan is floating adrift, warm and content, but he surfaces, swiftly, to connect every part of it back down into a heady whole when he feels Sui Zhou’s fingers cuff around his wrist. It takes him a moment, a while, to catch at all that Sui Zhou has said his name, and longer, after, to hear how: low and rasp-roughed, strained.

Tang Fan blinks; takes in the expanse of Sui Zhou’s hand on him, bridging them. Hot; heavy; huge; like his cock, like all the rest of him. He feels the hum he makes, the heft of its prompt, the drag of its drawl. Sui Zhou shivers, just once, all over, as if a chill has glanced him only to be chased out by the brazier-burn of his skin. The line of his cock jumps against the cup of Tang Fan’s palm, and Tang Fan’s warm surprise gives way to the cold douse of fear when Sui Zhou’s fingers tighten on him as if to draw him away.

“Wait,” Tang Fan starts to babble, “wait, wait— don’t leave me.” He almost chokes on the urgency of it. On how it’s too much, too sudden, for his mouth to hold.

Sui Zhou backsteps into waiting, and then stops still, with obedient entirety, a breath later. “I’m not,” he says, quiet. Foolishly. Lying, however much he may not mean to.

Tang Fan swallows, spit wine-lush on his tongue. “Don’t leave me in need,” he presses, fragile, once steadied. He does— he wants to hold himself as patient, with Sui Zhou, but his nature is hungry, and it is hard, for him, to wait, most of all when he has grown so used to being fed his fills.

Sui Zhou does not speak. Sui Zhou does not speak, and that is the most terrible sum of it, that he just— Tang Fan wants to scream, feels it build in his throat only to break into a bleak choke of a huff. He lets go of Sui Zhou, folding his hand closed around a less damning nothing, though for all the world it seems that this is not enough, yet, for Sui Zhou to let back go of him.

"Will you not let me touch you?” he asks, or accuses, or— does it truly matter at all what it is past that he has spoken it? That his fool-loose mouth has dragged the tender splinter of it out aloud for Sui Zhou to hear? “What will it even take, for you to then touch me? Must I plead with you to?”

If he is shrill, if he can be overheard, well— so be it to Sui Zhou to deal with. He feels splashed cold, sickened. More fool him for thinking that Sui Zhou would not find a way to run from him in a crowded room, and another to keep his distance after. Pushing him away by another name and nature. He knows Sui Zhou wants, and that Sui Zhou wants him, and he cannot, through the haze-mess of his head, then, muddle out why—

“Tang Fan,” Sui Zhou says, and it is not soft, save that it is quiet.

Tang Fan, stopped, looks at him, now, from over his shoulder. Sui Zhou appears to have sobered to stone, like all other sensation has been swallowed down and pushed out by Tang Fan. There is a contorted confliction to his expression that does not reach his eyes, deep dark but piercing steady where they hold just shy of Tang Fan’s own.

"I don't know what you want," says Sui Zhou.

Tang Fan barely stoppers his laugh into a scoff. He thinks it is more than obvious what he wants, but his sluggishness makes him sit with it for a moment, and by the time that moment is gone, he realises: perhaps not. Perhaps it truly is not. Sui Zhou is not a stupid man, but he can be— at times, on occasion, he is a very— well. Tang Fan is difficult, too, in his own way. If he cannot ask, if he cannot even bring himself to, to say, I want this of you, then how can he expect Sui Zhou to answer? Sui Zhou is a man of fewer words than he is motions, but talking is an act that most often transcends tactility in its clarity.

Tang Fan, with a touch of tentativeness, lets his hand settle back on Sui Zhou's thigh. He is allowed it: Sui Zhou's grip on his wrist, after all, is repurposed to stay a retreat, not stop a return. "I," he says, not at all carefully, then, "I don't think I can stand." He drifts his hand back deep into Sui Zhou's lap, slow, and finds his cock with the flat of his palm again. It has softened, some, for the interruption, but a tight squeeze of his fingers sees it twitch and start to fill.

"Tang Fan." That is his name again, said in the low, low way that Sui Zhou's low, low voice drops to when he's been scraped over raw. Tang Fan is not sure if Sui Zhou means it to be a question, or if he needs it to be something more. He turns his head, craning his neck even as his fingers flex with a countering idleness so he can better consider him. That touch, that little knead of heightened pressure back against his cock, makes Sui Zhou's handsome face draw up tight with wanting, teases a sharding little whimper right out of his mouth. It is somehow unexpected, still somehow new.

Tang Fan puts aside all untangling thought, at that, to turn his head properly, the rest of the way, until the throb of the stretch in his neck hurts more than the waiting. He brings their lips together, clumsy-quick and roughshod-hungry, and fills the space the sound has left bare behind Sui Zhou's teeth with his own tongue. It feels more than foolish, of a sudden, to him, as Sui Zhou's mouth parts against his so very easily, more than readily, that it is the night's first kiss. It is, at least, something swiftly remedied.

Sui Zhou's lips are spit-damp, his mouth warm. Tang Fan pushes into it, liquor-loose and languid-limbed, until their teeth clack and Sui Zhou's gasp scratches out. His blood feels honey-thick where it drizzles through his veins. The hummingbird rap-thud of his heart flutters against his ribs when Sui Zhou's hand leaves his wrist to steady him at his hip, the other skimming blind up his thigh.

"Sui Zhou," he presses, exhalant, rushed to muffled by the slide of their mouths. "Sui Zhou." Sui Zhou groans out like it's good, like it's hurting him. He is so warm and so heavy and it is as if that heady hot heft has all wrapped around Tang Fan, bled him through to warm and heavy, too. It stokes a hum up his throat and a small smile to his lips. Tang Fan can barely kiss Sui Zhou properly like this, crumpled into his lap, limbs caught under himself. The smiling makes it harder. The smiling makes it better.

This is good. This can be good. Sui Zhou seems amiable, now, to letting himself have the good. It means Tang Fan can have it, too, to be shared in, as so should be done with all good things.

Tang Fan tries to turn himself, just a bit more, brokering a whine at the cost. If he wants to keep his hand on Sui Zhou's cock, he has to slip a bit from his lap, knee catching his weight against the floor. Sui Zhou's hand on his hip is stronger than it feels, and as sturdy as he expects, stopping his stumble as his leg shudders numb, almost bowing out beneath him.

"You have to help me," Tang Fan repeats, urging. "Put me how you want me."

It is difficult to see Sui Zhou's face, for how close he is to it, but he can tell that he is starting to frown, and that will just not do. Tang Fan tsks, freeing up his other hand from his side and twisting it between them to smooth out the furrow of Sui Zhou's brow with the pad of his thumb. Sui Zhou twitches under it, as though out of all the uncoordinated and unpredictable things Tang Fan has done tonight, this is the one that is startling.

"I want you to," Tang Fan tells him. "You said that you would help me."

Sui Zhou has said no such thing, at least not audibly, but it is still a promise he has made in actuality. So long as it is a promise, Sui Zhou will see it kept. This is the man he is. This is the man they most agree on, the one they each see him as. Perhaps it's not so fair, to have seen in Sui Zhou things he can then… use, in this way, but he never means it unkindly. If Sui Zhou won't help himself, then Tang Fan owes what they are and what is between them to try and take him in hand. Sui Zhou would only do the same were it him in need of it.

Sui Zhou's frown softens out, because Tang Fan is more than always right. Tang Fan lets his hand drift from Sui Zhou's face to fall at his neck, drinking in the tremor that ripples under his palm, the run of his pulse. How his hips hitch up in a blind, flinching chase for friction before he catches himself and sits back still. Tang Fan cannot resist pitching himself back forward the scant distance they have separated so that he can kiss at Sui Zhou's lips again, clumsy anew with eagerness. That Sui Zhou is already there to meet him, open-mouthed— it thrills a moan from Tang Fan that shocks him for its fervour. A sound too loud and too longing to be lost unheard beneath all else.

"Tang Fan," Sui Zhou rasps against him. He is no better with his mouth than Tang Fan is with his own. No kiss they've shared before has been like this; sloppy and bruisingly animal. Tang Fan's lips are stinging white-hot from the drag of Sui Zhou's teeth; the spit-smeared skin of his chin a scraped open raw from the scratch of his stubble; the tip of his nose rubbed sore from crushing against his own. He has never seen— he has never been allowed to push Sui Zhou, before, to such a point of senselessness, bordering uncontrol. It is— it is—

"Please," Tang Fan whines. He does not care, anymore, that he is begging; he will never care again so long as it means whenever he does that he gets this. "Just…"

He spreads his knees out wider, trying to tip himself up without giving away any of what he has. It's too greedy, grasping; he tangles in his sleeves, his skirts, his Sui Zhou, and sways back further than he intends, falls harder than he means. He manages to twist half onto his belly to catch himself on the table, and Sui Zhou catches the rest of him at the waist, shouldering his weight, hefting it back. Tang Fan kicks his legs out between Sui Zhou's thighs, fighting his ankles free, and the buck of his hips pins the thick bulge of Sui Zhou's cock into his side, stunning a gasping, breathless laugh out of him. He doesn't know what else he can do, what else he is supposed to. Sui Zhou is still touching him, holding him like a vision, some wandering dream, but he is so real. Tang Fan's head spins with it.

Sui Zhou's mouth is so red, his eyes a wide black. Tang Fan thinks he is almost about to say something, but nothing comes, only a dizzying upending as he is turned around, guided face down. He folds his arms beneath his head and buries his face in the crook of his elbow, mouthing a harsh groan into his sleeve as Sui Zhou presses in over him.

"Yes," he gasps. His own voice is so loud in his ears that he doesn't even know if Sui Zhou can hear it. "Yes, there. Like that."

Sui Zhou bears down, at that, as though it's permittance, and he is so heavy, he is so huge, that he need only be there for Tang Fan to feel overtaken and overwhelmed. Tang Fan keens, nails scoring down the table and his sleeve as he scrabbles for a hold on himself. There is little room for him to move within the straddle of Sui Zhou's thighs, but he sprawls as wide as he can, until he meets the limit of the give and their knees knock together. The angled curve of his back pushes him flush against Sui Zhou's cock, rutting the thick line of it roughly across the spill of his innermost robe, the seam of his pants.

Tang Fan knows Sui Zhou's strength, the restraint with which he minds it. The hem of his thighs around Tang Fan's own is rigid with held tension, the rock of his hips timid, teasing at the bounds of what he can manage of gentle. Tang Fan kicks his feet out at the floor for the lie of leverage and shoves himself back into Sui Zhou's next thrust, jarring free a hissed-out whimper.

"Do you like that?" Tang Fan barely feels it leave his mouth, hears it even less, all but washed out under the deluge of his ragged breath and the pound of his pulse in his head. Sui Zhou bows in as though he's taken a blow, his punched-through exhale brushing the tangled fall of Tang Fan's half-loose hair over his nape. Tang Fan takes it as Yes, as unspoken but not unsaid.

He moves as a man possessed, lifting his head just enough to break the surface of the shroud of his sleeve, mouth pressing to his bicep as his hand claws for his neck. He takes what he can grasp of his hair into his fist, tugging it until the sting is singing up his scalp and Sui Zhou's mouth is all but on bared skin. He twists his other arm down between the bent-over arch of his body and the table, working his hand beneath all his thrown-askance skirts. He can't seem to get the grip he needs for all his struggled fumbling; he can't bear the thought of asking Sui Zhou to slow, or stop, that it might steady him enough. He grits his teeth around his whining frustration instead, eyes squeezing shut until they prick hot at the edges, lashes clumping together.

The defeat of Wait is cusping his tongue when Sui Zhou bows his forehead to his nape, nose nudging down his collar, sweat dripping onto his skin. The new space he finds between his back and Sui Zhou's chest when he sucks in a breath is enough room for him to dip wrist-deep beneath his waistband and fist his cock. Tang Fan almost thinks he could cry from the relief of it, skin to skin, for all he can barely manage to stroke himself. He's not sure that he's not crying already; his face is a mess, flush-hot and filthy, smeared all-over wet.

"Do you like me like this?" His voice is ruined; unrecognisable. Tang Fan's throat feels drawn tight to choking around his own fullness. There is too much of him; something has to push its way out.

"Yes," Sui Zhou admits, torn out, as if thieved, and Tang Fan moans as his next thrust snaps into him too hard, too sudden. It pushes him into his own hand, shoves him up the table. There is a clatter overhead, glass on glass to wood, then the weep of wine into his sleeve. The next breath he sucks in tastes sticky, acrid. He clutches at his hair tighter, fingers snaring in the snags, nails eating into his damp palm.

"Good," Tang Fan says. "That's, that's— oh. Good." He opens up his wrist and eases the circle of his fingers, the pad of his thumb snubbing over his slit. The next shallow slide of his hand over his shaft is slippery, better. It can be perfect; it will be enough.

Sui Zhou whines, strung-out, muffled by the press of his mouth to the chine of Tang Fan's spine. He is so loud, and yet so quiet. Tang Fan wants to hear him more, have him break. The need is encompassing, violently unbecoming.

"I have thought about it," he confesses. He pushes back into Sui Zhou— or tries to, at least. He can't quite do it; can't find the strength in his run-numb legs. Sui Zhou's hands slip on his hips, pushing up his robes, fettering at his waist. His fingers ladder together across Tang Fan's belly, and Tang Fan keens weakly, squirming. "Oh! Oh— please."

Sui Zhou's breath heaves out of him in a rush. Tang Fan feels his fingers twitch around their grip of him, tentative, before he kneads his thumbs into his back and squeezes down, just enough for it to dig in, throb to ache; for Tang Fan to feel it linger deep after Sui Zhou releases it. Tang Fan writhes, biting off a yelp as he pulls his own hair too hard, pain blooming at his temples, blurring behind his eyes.

"Keep going," he demands, before Sui Zhou thinks to take it wrongly, dares to slow down. Sui Zhou obeys, or he doesn't; it doesn't matter when the outcome remains the same, stays as what Tang Fan wants. He's pulled down at the waist, drawn in, impossibly closer, and the next hard shove of Sui Zhou's hips pushes in so deep that it spreads him open, parts him through his clothes around the blunt line of his thick cock. He is so— he must be so close, and he has not put a hand to himself. Sui Zhou is going to come just from this, rutting clothed against his ass. Tang Fan has never felt more desperately used; helpless to indulgence.

He's leaking so much, precome dripping down his fingers, every frantic knead of his hand so loud, luridly obscene, but he can't— Tang Fan can't get himself over the last step he needs to fall. He needs— he needs—

"I wanted, before," he starts, shuddering as his voice cracks open in his droughted mouth. His head has become too heavy for his neck, and he drops his face back to his arm with a wince, fresh tears speckling his sleeve. He doesn't think he has anything left to speak with, yet he can't stop speaking. Sui Zhou must know. If Tang Fan does not relieve himself of every word then he will die from overflowing with them.

"I wished— wished that you would. That you would keep going," he says. "Each time you stopped. That you would just take. Like you couldn't be helped to, to— touch me. Have me."

The shocked noise Sui Zhou makes against him is so gutted out, starved and scared, a confirmation. Tang Fan grips himself too tightly and comes with a spluttered groan, biting down on his arm as he spills over his hand. Pleasure washes through him in a wave, holding him down underneath the aftermath until the moment has dragged out so long as to be timeless and his lungs are burning for air. Tang Fan tries to take a breath, and there is a second that comes with it where the sensation wanes, gives way to relief, before it crashes back down and bleeds out into pain. Pain is the closest resemblance to anything he can think to name the feeling as it upheaves him so severely that he retches, mouth filling with spit.

He takes a wheezing breath, then two, arms falling slack at his sides, head spinning. He manages to wrest his hand from his pants to brace it on the floor with a wince, the other falling back limp from his hair. It takes him so long to steady from within the bounds of his body before he realises that Sui Zhou has stopped moving, too; has gone so still at his back, save for a shaking he cannot seem to stop. He must have come, too, or— Tang Fan hopes he did. He would hate if he didn't. If he had managed to ruin it.

"Wait," Tang Fan forces out. "Wait. I wanted that. I— I wanted that." It is the first thing he can think to say, and however stupid it may be, it is not himself that needs to listen to and be convinced by it. Tang Fan can imagine the wretched expression Sui Zhou must be wearing just from the repent of the hands trembling at his hips. He feels utterly unwell, with a suddenness that is staggering, requital. He feels so much. It is all too much. He can't take it, or keep it, or anything between. But he knows Sui Zhou well enough to know that he must do something else, something more, lest this fragile nascent thing shatter and leave them both worse off for it.

"I need a moment," he perseveres, when he has caught enough breath to push down into his chest for it. He turns his face out from his sleeve and slowly opens his eyes, squinting against the burned-low light. Sui Zhou still needs more to be assuaged, he knows, but if he moves any quicker than he is he thinks he will truly be sick. Or worse. He can't admit to this; it is terrible enough that Sui Zhou can guess at it. "Then you can help me," Tang Fan adds, when he can. "Please. With— take me to bed."

He can hear the click of Sui Zhou's tongue in his mouth, as if he means to say something, before he swallows, instead, perhaps not trusting it. Sui Zhou's own breath shallows, gradually, and the quiet stilts to something straining. Tang Fan lets it lie silent. It is too long a time before either one of them stops shaking, together and apart. Then, Sui Zhou finally kneels up from over his back, the ease of his weight gentle, his hands drifting away to fall to their thighs. He does not distance himself from Tang Fan more than that, thankfully, though another pause does burgeon between them, as though Sui Zhou needs to steel himself for the next task of putting them to rights.

Tang Fan lets him take this, too, without protest. Of course they will need to— to talk about this. More. Properly. But Tang Fan truly has neither head nor voice left for it now, anymore, and he's using the sense he's scraped back together to be more discerning towards his chosen battles. The rest is going to need to wait, until the morning finds him clean and rested and some manner more agreeable. If not then, then sometime later, as feasibly close to soon as can be furthest from never. He can already feel tomorrow's promised headache building behind his eyes, and he is not especially eager to race headlong into the thick of it.