Though Qi Ling grouses his innumerable grievances, impetuously and indignantly, as he clambers back into their bed, he is quick to settle. It seems as if it is only seconds after he puts his back to his lord that he falls asleep, shoulders slackening around the tension they’ve held since he entered the room, breath evening out.

Yin Chen is not so fortunate. Though he has acclimated to having another in such close quarters to him in the quietest hours, just as he once had to grow to tolerate the cacophony of the cities and towns, that pitched only as low as a thrum of a night, this is different. The weight of Qi Ling slanting the mattress, the muted heat of his body soaking into Yin Chen’s arm— all of it feels like an intrusion, an insult.

He has never taken a disciple before this one, that is true, but Yin Chen has long been enlightened as to what such an arrangement entails. The covenant of seal conferring is tantamount to no other, in life or in death. For how it bonds and binds, for how it gives and takes, it eclipses even hunyin, even jiebai xiongdi. It is one thing to be told by the experienced, and another, entirely, to be taught by the experience. Could anything have prepared him for such an unmaking? Could anyone have warned him of just how rending and ruining and releasing it would be, to map his power flows onto the body of a man such as Qi Ling?

Even in his dreams, Qi Ling is lively, unrepentant with his sentiments and unrestrained in his sensations. Sleep only smoothes them over, tempering the sharpness of them but not the swell. Yin Chen finds himself turning over, tentative, until he has curled onto his side, arm tucked into the curve of his frame, silvery hair spilling down the slope of his shoulder, eyes settling on the shape of Qi Ling in the dark. His gaze roams from the small of Qi Ling’s back, where the seed of his mark has taken root, and up to the fan of his unfurled shoulder blades, stark against the threadbare fabric of his middle clothes, rucked up taut against him by the clutch of his body. Yin Chen knows the intricate branching of his power flows blind, and finds himself emboldened in the absence of discovery to trace the wind of them through his disciple’s body. His fingers tremble with the urge to trek them by touch, and he grips the sheets beneath him to stave it for a breath before he yields.

Qi Ling, still, does not stir, even when Yin Chen’s palm strokes up the bow of his spine, the heel of it stutter-stalling against each bony ridge. It is a wonder how he can be so unguarded as to not startle when touched. And yet, all the same, it is not. When kept safe, as a disciple to a lord, what room is there for fear?

Yin Chen’s hand drifts from Qi Ling’s back to his throat, fingers pressing down on the gentle tremor of his pulse, and he knows he will not sleep, not tonight. Not when Qi Ling is all too close; not when this is all too new. Qi Ling feels so sweetly and so severely that it is so often all Yin Chen can do not to be swept up in the storm of him. Not to swallow more water than his lungs can take.

He draws himself up, weight pooling in the point of his elbow as he leans over Qi Ling, hand sliding between the tangle of Qi Ling’s arms to brace against his chest. It takes no strength at all to ease Qi Ling until his back flattens against the mattress, and less still to gather him until he is flush against Yin Chen, pliant with instinct, nose tucking into his lord’s sternum and fingers hooking into his shirt, crumpling it against his hip. It takes Yin Chen a moment to regather his breath, and another two to pry himself free. He has no need to cup Qi Ling’s nape, but he does, the pads of his fingers circling the dark wisps of hair nested there as he guides his disciple onto the pillow. He then slips around to straddle the hill of his hip with a blessedly graceful motion, securing the balance he needs to angle the rest of his body into following.

When Yin Chen finally finds his position no longer so precarious that he can’t leave it, he shifts to kneel on the mattress, pulling the blanket into the greedy reach of Qi Ling. Qi Ling wraps his leg around it and pins it in the cage of his limbs, unconsciously basking in the residual heat left in it by his lord whose body has warmed it for him.

It is a dangerous temptation to continue to look upon Qi Ling, to watch him, and one that Yin Chen does not — cannot — indulge. Instead, he retreats from the bed and from Qi Ling, quietly stepping into the heart of the room to centre himself. His eyes drift shut, his hands lower to furl against the small of his back. In meditation, he passes the time, be it minutes or hours, before a scream sounds out from below, wrenching him back to the surface. By the time the panicked commotion breaks Qi Ling free of his dream, Yin Chen is dressed, tightening the fastening of his bracer as he offers his disciple the swiftest explanation he can spare before bidding him to follow.