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“This was a terrible idea.”
“Yes,” Mo Ran drawled. “But you said it yourself, we don’t have a lot of options.” He tilted his head, looking for all the world like he’d never had a single thought traverse the space between his ears in all the seventeen years of his life. “Are you afraid, shizun? Don’t worry, I’ll make it good.”
“Afraid?” Chu Wanning snapped. “Of course I’m not afraid, I’m—” terrified. “Worried about you! For an elder to take advantage of their student in this way is truly—”
“Okay, first of all,” Mo Ran cut in. “First of all, you’re not ‘taking advantage’ of me. It was my idea, and yours was worse.” Chu Wanning opened his mouth to protest, but Mo Ran overrode him, gathering speed as he went. “Secondly, didn’t you once tell me that everyone has something to teach us? Well, what kind of teacher doesn’t heed their own words? You don’t have to consider this taking advantage, more like…imparting knowledge.”
Profound, acidic horror washed through Chu Wanning. It must have shown on his face, because Mo Ran went on:
“Look, if you don’t want to fuck me and would rather have your first time be with that skeevy old man from the Rufeng Sect, I can’t stop you.” Mo Ran had an uncomfortable habit of saying the unsayable. Chu Wanning sputtered. “It’s a shit plan, though, and… Well, you’re going to hate hearing this, but this isn’t the kind of situation that needs you to sacrifice yourself. And you’re already sacrificing yourself.”
“Do you ever shut up?” Chu Wanning snapped, incensed enough that he moved to grasp Tianwen.
Mo Ran eyed it warily. “If you bring that out, I’m going. Hard line, shizun.”
Chu Wanning hesitated. On one hand, Mo Ran was doing him a great favor, and Chu Wanning was being a beast about it. On the other hand, the correct thing to do would have been to go quietly, endure the needful, and not make a fuss. The problem was that Mo Ran had heard the Sect Elder make his demand, and cornered him afterwards. That conversation had gone very badly, until Mo Ran had said, “You’re not letting that man take your virginity,” like he had any right to order Chu Wanning around, at which point Chu Wanning had given in to his anger and said, “What better ideas do you have?”
In hindsight that had been what opened the gates to madness. Somehow, at the time Mo Ran’s idea had made an addled kind of sense. He sounded very reasonable when he said, “If you’re so committed to going yourself and not letting me go—and before you say anything, I’ll remind you I practically grew up in a whorehouse—then let me at least teach you how to have sex first. That way you won’t go there and embarrass yourself, and you’ll have a good first time. I’ll make sure of it.”
Why did he have to sound so logical when he was saying the most insane things? Chu Wanning despaired of him. Then he thought, furious, don’t lay it on him, he’s trying to help you. It’s your own fault that no one has ever wanted you like this.
He put Tianwen away grudgingly. It was the least he could do. “Don’t try anything funny,” he warned Mo Ran stiffly. “I’m aware that our options are limited and will endeavor not to make this any more—difficult than it has to be.”
“Great,” Mo Ran said. “Shizun, no offense, but could you try looking a little less like you’re walking to the gallows?”
As far as Chu Wanning was concerned, the gallows would have been infinitely preferable. He would have put the noose around his own neck to avoid this situation, but no noose conveniently presented itself, and he thought Mo Ran would react badly if Chu Wanning tried to use Tianwen as a makeshift garotte. Besides, if he died now, Mo Ran would have to rescue Shi Mei all by himself, and he’d botch it up and Chu Wanning would be too dead to help him.
No matter. He could slit his wrists later, after this mess had cleaned up. Chu Wanning had a deeply private ranking of his favored ways to go, and strangling did not make the cut—going blue in the face and gasping for breath felt altogether too gauche. He liked the idea of cutting his veins open, though, liked the fantasy in which both cuts were straight and even and his hands did not shake, and he died with his eyes closed and his clothes still white. Improbable, but appealing.
He rearranged his face into his customary severe neutrality.
“Actually, that’s not better.”
Incomprehensible. What on earth did he want Chu Wanning to do, toss petals and simper about with excitement? Chu Wanning frowned at him.
“We have a few days,” Mo Ran said. “We don’t have to do it tonight.”
“Tonight is preferable,” Chu Wanning said. “I would like to get this out of the way quickly.”
Mo Ran sighed—he seemed a little sad, or irritated, but all he said was, “Okay, okay… I’m going to go make food, and you can take a bath, alright? And we can fuck after dinner.”
Fuck. How did Mo Ran put it so simply?
“I don’t want to eat.”
“It’ll be worse on an empty stomach.”
Chu Wanning remained unconvinced, and also somewhat queasy. “I’m not hungry.”
“I want to eat,” Mo Ran said. “I’ll make something for you, and you can decide if you feel like eating after you bathe.”
That sounded alright, but Chu Wanning nevertheless suspected a pitfall. He was still frowning when Mo Ran walked out.
When he returned, Chu Wanning had taken a bath and dressed himself again.
It had not been very…pleasant. The water was hot and the soap mildly scented, but Chu Wanning couldn’t help the miserable race of ugly thoughts circling his brain. Why did Mo Ran want to do this? What could he possibly get out of it, except the chance to tell everyone that Chu Wanning, the Yuheng Elder, was secretly a pervert who preyed on young men? Or perhaps Mo Ran wouldn’t say it like that, being himself a cutsleeve (Chu Wanning could presume that much, at least), so perhaps he’d say that the Beidou Immortal was frigid and foolish in bed.
Or was the pleasure simply that of humiliating Chu Wanning? He knew Mo Ran did not like him, but did he truly hate him to that degree? And if he did, why had he offered to do this?
Chu Wanning sat on the bed, hands trembling in his lap, and tried not to choke on his own breaths. He’d always been given to spells of vicious anxiety, during which his heart beat too quickly and his head was full of hot cotton and he knew keenly that everything was very wrong, but this felt a little…different.
He knew exactly what was wrong, and it was his own self. His brittle, icy exterior concealed a yearning he had to work constantly to hide. He would not be weakened—his heart a wild beast ensnared and starving in a trap he’d thrust it knowingly into.
If he’d been a stronger man, he’d have cut that treacherous pulse out and left it there to bleed dry, abandoned the last shreds of his wretched humanity and calcify into the statue everyone saw him as.
But he couldn’t do it. Even if it hurt, it was his heart—foolish and sorry, but nevertheless his own. Unfulfilled desires were still desires, and if Chu Wanning would never be human in the eyes of others, he could preserve a shred of that recognition inside himself, an arrhythmic reminder of the truth of his pain.
It hurt, so it was his heart.
Mo Ran returned at that moment. Chu Wanning forced his hands to steady and stood slowly, first cataloging Mo Ran himself, tall and frightfully handsome in blue and silver, then the tray, plated with cold noodles and almond tofu. He set both down on the table near the window and said, “Will you try a little? I made it for you.”
Chu Wanning pursed his lips. Mo Ran’s voice softened quite inappropriately as he stressed for you, implying a familiarity that Chu Wanning was certain the two of them did not share.
Not yet, he thought bleakly. And not for long.
“A little,” he said, barely keeping his resentment from his tone.
He sat down, fussed with the fall of his robe, then picked up the chopsticks. Mo Ran threw himself opposite, propping his face on his hand and staring unabashedly at Chu Wanning. Flustered, Chu Wanning avoided looking up and instead focused forcefully on the noodles. They were cool and subtly flavored, the broth wonderfully mild. Chu Wanning, torn between his nausea and Mo Ran’s unrelenting gaze, finished about half the noodles before saying, “Do I have something on my face?”
“Nope,” Mo Ran said.
“Then what are you staring at?”
“Just looking. Do you like the noodles?”
“They’re edible,” Chu Wanning said. “It’s rude to fish for compliments.”
“It’s rude to not compliment the cook who worked so hard to make your dinner,” Mo Ran leaned forward, picking up the other pair of chopsticks on the tray. “But shizun has no experience with intimate matters, so this—I’ll let it slide. Open up.”
“You’ll let it slide?” Chu Wanning leaned away from the chopsticks coming at his face. “What—?”
He ended up with a mouthful of sweet tofu, startled beyond response by his disciple’s audacity. He couldn’t muster a response in time and could not bear the indignity of spitting it out, so he chewed, glaring bloody murder at Mo Ran, who simply grinned stupidly back at him. “How is it?”
“Never do that again,” Chu Wanning said sharply. It was very nice.
“Well, it’s simply the kind of thing people do before sleeping with each other,” Mo Ran said seriously, settling back in his place. “I thought you’d like to get the whole experience.”
Chu Wanning felt like the victim of a very bad practical joke. The kind of thing people did before sleeping with each other! As though Chu Wanning could, in any universe, partake of such intimacies. The fact that he had it now was cruel chance, nothing either earned or deserved. “I told you not to do anything funny.”
“What’s funny about this?” Mo Ran’s eyes widened, the picture of an innocent kicked puppy. “First times should be special. Even if the situation isn’t ideal, I’m just trying to make it good.”
“A futile effort,” Chu Wanning muttered. Every time Mo Ran said that, he wanted to scream.
Mo Ran’s face fell.
There was a heavy cloud over Chu Wanning’s heart. No one, in his entire life, had expressed true desire for him. The kinds of crushes the students of Sisheng Peak harbored were jokes, easily relinquished fantasies that had little to do with Chu Wanning as a person. Even the man he’d sleep with cared for little but the joy of making an esteemed cultivator his whore for a night.
This was, by and large, a preferable state of affairs. Oh, there were nights when Chu Wanning pressed his face to the pillow and clutched the fingers of the automaton he’d made, so pathetically desperate for a semblance of love that in the sickest and most starved corner of his soul he thought it would even be worth it to run blindly into a crowd simply to feel the push of bodies against his. But in the morning such weak desires were revealed to be a pointless farce, for everywhere he went people parted for him. They would rather step on their own child’s foot than let the edge of his sleeve whisper past theirs. It did not matter how thick the throng; wherever Chu Wanning stood, he stood alone.
Then, Mo Ran: lightning in the darkest night, dark thunder over an arid wasteland.
A bowl of cold noodles and a plate of tofu.
First times should be special.
The parched earth did not know what to do with the first raindrops. But Chu Wanning said, with great difficulty, “Regardless, I appreciate it.”
Mo Ran brightened instantly. “Does this mean I can feed you?”
Chu Wanning did not know what to do himself in the face of such boldness. “Alright,” he said helplessly.
Given an inch, Mo Ran happily claimed a mile, scooching over to Chu Wanning’s side of the table and lifting up another piece of tofu. If he relented slightly, Chu Wanning could acknowledge that the tofu truly was exceptional, a little too sweet by anyone else’s standards and gently spiced with clove and anise. It lent a depth and clarity to the cloying flavor and left coolness lingering in Chu Wanning’s mouth.
“Where did you learn to make this?” he asked.
Mo Ran smiled. “I spent ages perfecting it. Why, do you like it?”
Chu Wanning nodded hesitantly.
“I can make it for you at Sisheng Peak, then,” Mo Ran said, as though matters were simple and settled. “Also, shizun—do you have any questions?”
“About what?”
Mo Ran made a strange expression. “About this.”
“Why would I have questions? I know how it works.”
“Of course, of course, I didn’t mean to say…” He tossed his head like he was getting rid of a fly. “So, what do you know?”
“I’m not going to say it,” Chu Wanning said stiffly.
“If you want to have sex, you have to be able to talk about it,” Mo Ran said, again with that unimpeachable logic. “I just want us to be on the same page.”
“I know the mechanics of intercourse between men.” Chu Wanning’s ears burned.
“Great!” Mo Ran said. “Anything else?”
Chu Wanning once more had the distinct feeling that he was being made a fool of, that somewhere over their shoulders there was an audience laughing their heads off. “What else is there to know?” he asked, voice dropping smaller with each word.
“Life would be pretty boring if we all just stuck it in each other and moved on afterwards,” Mo Ran said philosophically. “Is there anything you know you like?”
Chu Wanning shook his head mutely.
“That’s okay,” Mo Ran said, his tone so gentle that Chu Wanning felt rather patronized. Somehow, it wasn’t wholly unpleasant. “We’ll figure it out.”
The chopsticks met the table’s smooth surface with a soft clatter. At the same time, Mo Ran leaned forward, his hands rising to cup Chu Wanning’s face and guide their lips together. Chu Wanning did not have time to process what was happening before the kiss itself washed over him. Mo Ran was undeniably skilled, and he put his expertise to use capturing Chu Wanning’s mouth, laying claim to it like a tyrant king. One of his hands slipped under the neck of Chu Wanning's robe, scorching against the vulnerable skin, pressing there until he, too, bent to the kiss.
Not his first, not even his first at Mo Ran's hands, but this time Chu Wanning could not hope to resist. It was as though Mo Ran knew this. He pressed his advantage, licking hot and hungry and wet into Chu Wanning's mouth.
“My shizun,” he murmured, hands wandering restless and invasive over Chu Wanning’s robes.
Chu Wanning felt like he'd been drenched in flame, sparks sizzling and skittering over his body. He couldn't breathe. My shizun echoed in his head, scalding.
“I’m not,” he protested vainly.
“Shh,” Mo Ran said, quick and quelling. “You are, you’re my shizun, and I’m going to take care of you.”
The words were nonsensical, spilling out of Mo Ran’s mouth like wheat chaff in the wind, easily scattered and hard to take back, but they pierced through Chu Wanning’s defenses like finely-aimed needles.
Mo Ran pressed Chu Wanning against the wooden wall, an arm around his narrow shoulders, easing him down. Perhaps, Chu Wanning could have held his breath through this, if not for the fact that it was Mo Ran slipping his hand under the layers of Chu Wanning’s robes, Mo Ran kissing him so hard he was starving for air but couldn’t bear pulling away, Mo Ran covering him with his body like he was sheltering scrolls from the rain.
“Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning whispered. “You can’t—” But he didn’t know what Mo Ran couldn’t do. Certainly, clearly, there was nothing he wouldn’t dare do. The way he took liberties was nearly a relief. Left to his own devices, Chu Wanning thought he would have frozen or fled or lashed out, but he wasn’t given an opportunity.
Mo Ran was so careful with him, he noted, with a wave of something that could have been disquiet or longing. Everything he gave and took settled inside Chu Wanning like clouds of silk.
What perverse and malicious grace was this? Where had it come from?
He didn’t know what to do with himself but he was tired of being so helpless, so he wrapped his arms around Mo Ran’s neck, bravely deepening the kiss, Mo Ran’s tongue licking sloppy disgusting heat out of his mouth.
It was so dirty. Chu Wanning felt hopelessly stained, as though for the rest of his life anyone would be able to look at him and know that he’d allowed his student to press him into a corner and steal filthy kisses that never ended, filthy kisses that tasted of ginger and sweet tofu and reached so deep within Chu Wanning that he forgot their origin and surrendered. He couldn’t do anything—he cleaved to Mo Ran the way flesh cleaved to the edge of a blade, even as Mo Ran pawed at his waist and its clasps, caring and hardly caring at the same time. He felt, insanely, as though Mo Ran’s arms around him and the captivating force of his mouth created a world in which Chu Wanning did not have to worry about being known as a slut—as though he’d be safe even if he was a slut.
He thought of his dreams, that other version of Mo Ran, and his heart squeezed painfully.
It felt like forever before the kisses slowed, before he could turn his head away a little and breathe against the crook of Mo Ran’s neck. He smelled like rain and spiced tea, a rich earthy tone that made Chu Wanning think of mountain roads and campfire smoke. Dark and clear and heavy.
All his life, he’d lived like a paper doll, holding himself away from fire and water and bright inks. Now, he’d been crumpled in a way he couldn’t return from. He felt crumpled, certainly, pinned between the table and the wall and Mo Ran himself, imprisoned and shielded. His hands had, at some point, fisted themselves in the front of Mo Ran’s tunic. He pried them loose and returned them to the side, scratching his fingers against the textured rug to ground himself.
Said, “Where did you even learn to do that?”
Mo Ran laughed. It was an odd sound, wet and wild. “It’s been a while for me,” he said. “But some things, you remember forever.” His hand was still on Chu Wanning’s hip, burning hot through the layers of cloth, and his voice trembled uncharacteristically as he spoke.
Chu Wanning looked up. He’d seen many expressions on his disciple’s face over the years, but this one was new. It could only be described as conflicted. Tenderness fluttered in Chu Wanning’s chest, a bird at dawn—he cupped Mo Ran’s face, aching sweetly when Mo Ran dropped his weight into that mild touch like he couldn’t get enough. As though, despite all evidence to the contrary, he’d never been touched.
“I can see you trying to think,” Chu Wanning said. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Mo Ran tried to smile, but his eyes retained that ancient pain. “Just wondering if this is actually a good idea.”
“You were very confident a while back.”
“Yeah, well. You know me, I act first and think later.”
“Often, never,” Chu Wanning said, sliding his thumb across Mo Ran’s cheekbone, then following some mad impulse to continue, over the curve of his ear and the secret space just behind, Mo Ran’s eyes drifted shut, though he seemed unable to resist keeping them open a crack to monitor Chu Wanning, eyelashes quivering. “What made you change your mind?”
“I’m not changing my mind,” Mo Ran said. “I committed to this, right? Can’t back out now.” Chu Wanning slipped his hand to the back of Mo Ran’s neck and squeezed sharply, punishingly. He dropped his head and groaned. “Shizun, what are you doing?”
“Of course you can back out,” Chu Wanning snapped. “I’m not forcing you to do this and you shouldn’t force yourself either.”
“Your concern does this one—ah, it’s nice of you to worry about me, but I’m fine.”
“Are you?” Chu Wanning stared at him. Kissing had reddened Mo Ran’s face, but this was even starker. “You’re all flushed.”
“Shizun,” Mo Ran whined. “How am I supposed to stay composed when you’re doing that?”
“I’m not doing anything,” Chu Wanning huffed. “Calm yourself.”
Mo Ran reached up and grabbed Chu Wanning’s forearm, pulling it down. Only when he missed the texture did he realize that he’d been scratching lightly under Mo Ran’s scalp. Though it was just as straight as Chu Wanning’s, it was remarkably fine when one factored in Mo Ran’s disregard for the nuances of haircare. Chu Wanning’s face burned.
“Don’t change the subject,” he muttered, avoiding Mo Ran’s amused eyes. “Why are you rethinking this course of action?”
Perhaps he’d remembered that he didn’t truly want Chu Wanning. Earlier, that would’ve sparked anxiety. Now, kissed quiet and pliant, Chu Wanning felt only a cold blunt pain. He thought of picking himself up after Mo Ran had left, and the way he’d never be able to forget this evening. Whether he folded these memories in silver foil and refused to revisit them or went over them every day, he’d be changed, and they would both know it, but he would carry the marks of that alteration all alone.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Mo Ran said suddenly.
Chu Wanning bristled. “I’m not that fragile.”
“It’s not about your fragility, it’s me.” Mo Ran laughed, hard and bleak. “I’ve broken things before. I’ve broken… I could break you.”
“People don’t break.”
“What?”
Mo Ran’s grip on his forearm was perfectly light, without a hint of force, but his fingers were shaking. “Things break,” Chu Wanning said. “Statues break, Mo Ran. People don’t. People bend and bruise, but they don’t break. They can be mended. You must believe that.”
“I didn’t know you believed that,” Mo Ran said. He looked dazed.
Chu Wanning wasn’t quite sure he did either, but he was sure he had to now—he didn’t say things he didn’t mean. For a moment, Mo Ran had seemed to believe with such conviction that he would ruin this with his touch that Chu Wanning had forgotten everything but the need to convince him otherwise.
It was true. It was true. Whether the pain ended or remained a chain around his ankles, he went on. The sun shared the sky with the moon, but did not dim for her sake.
“I do,” Chu Wanning said. “You won’t hurt me, Mo Ran. I doubt you could.”
“Have a little faith, shizun.” Mo Ran’s smile was empty and hungry. “I’m quite capable.”
Chu Wanning rolled his eyes at this blatant posturing and said, “You’re welcome to try your best, unless you really would rather stop…” He trailed off lamely.
A moment later, without warning, he was scooped up into the air. The disrespect! He yowled to register his objection, then gave up when he realized it was both inelegant and pointless to protest now. He didn’t have a moment to adjust before he was laid out on the bed, Mo Ran’s eyes glittering with predatory intent as he leaned over Chu Wanning. “I’m welcome, am I?”
“Mo Ran—” Chu Wanning started. He felt hunted. He’d invited a wolf home and now it was dinnertime.
“Yeah, shizun?” Mo Ran bent to bite at the flesh just above his collar, brazen.
He’d leave marks, and Chu Wanning couldn’t bring himself to care as much as he should have. His clothes felt too tight and yet not nearly enough to guard him from the searing heat of Mo Ran’s starving focus. “You are so uncivil,” he said desperately. “Could you stop for a moment?”
Mo Ran sank his teeth in punishingly hard for a moment, then backed away to a safer distance.
“Good boy.” Chu Wanning gulped in a deep breath, then another, thus failing to notice the complicated expression that furrowed Mo Ran’s beautiful face. He did, however, notice the coy canine look of miserable apology that replaced it, ruthlessly calculated to make the hardest hearts surrender to whatever Mo Ran desired. “Why are you making that face?”
“What face?” Mo Ran said virtuously, still looking truly pathetic.
Chu Wanning found himself reluctantly moved. Despite being an old hand at resisting such underhanded tactics, he was currently in a vulnerable state of mind. “What do you want?”
“It’s fine,” Mo Ran adopted a posture of humble self-sacrifice. “It’s not a big deal.”
Annoyance bubbled in Chu Wanning. He had a right to know certain things, didn’t he? “Just tell me,” he ordered. “Even if it’s not a big deal.”
Mo Ran looked away, a pink flush crawling up his neck. “It’s really nothing,” he said awkwardly. “I just—I really like it when you call me a good boy.”
Chu Wanning blinked. That wasn’t what he’d expected, but it made sense. Although Mo Ran loved attention, and didn’t care how he got it, he was at his most agreeable when given a clear path to pleasing someone. Chu Wanning had simply never thought that someone could be him.
But then he remembered the taste of tofu and noodles, and Mo Ran saying, don’t worry, I’ll make it good.
“Is that all?” he said briskly. “Of course I can do that more often.”
Mo Ran looked so surprised that Chu Wanning’s heart hurt, sharp and unforgiving. Was he really so cruel in Mo Ran’s eyes?
Then he rasped, “Shizun, if you treat me too well, this disciple might get ideas above his station.”
Chu Wanning flushed, embarrassment an overripe fruit bursting in his chest. Sweet and heady. “Aren’t you already getting those ideas? I don’t see how much more—” Mo Ran wrapped his hands around Chu Wanning’s waist, lifting him gracelessly and repositioning him against the pillows. “How much more you can…” A knee nudged his legs aside, thigh pressing against the shameful hardness between his legs. “...Mo Ran!”
“Sorry,” Mo Ran said. He had no shame. Chu Wanning felt almost envious. He was clearly hard, tenting his pants, but he didn’t seem to care that Chu Wanning was staring at it. Wondering how it would feel to touch him, to take him.
The thought heated his cheeks even more. He looked away, but he couldn’t escape the dark flowering of curiosity. Until now he’d stayed very still, like an animal cornered, afraid that if he twitched even a little, he’d be unable to stop himself from chasing the relief of pressure. Slowly, he dared to peel back the strict layers of self-control, biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his hips ever-so-slightly against Mo Ran’s thigh. Pleasure prickled at him, foreign and horrifying, and he flinched back at once. What in the heavens was he doing?
He didn’t want to feel good. It was grueling, embarrassing beyond belief. How could he face Mo Ran as his teacher after having been witnessed rutting against his leg like a dog in heat?
“Shizun,” Mo Ran said softly. “Are you alright?”
Chu Wanning nodded. He was going to throw up.
Careful fingers laid themselves along the side of his jaw, tilting his face to look at Mo Ran’s. There was a look in those purple eyes Chu Wanning had never seen before, a grave tenderness, like he was performing a postmortem on a lover, a serious furrow to his winged brows and an ancient sadness weighed and briefly put aside. Chu Wanning thought, suddenly, that he’d never been so good with reading expressions, but Mo Ran’s were as clear as his own calligraphy, as if he’d etched these lines himself.
“Are you?” Mo Ran repeated.
“Yes,” Chu Wanning tried to say. What emerged was, “No.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Who said I was afraid?” Chu Wanning snapped, though he was terrified.
Mo Ran said, “I know when you’re scared.” The hand slipped to rest on his throat, applying the barest hint of pressure—not a threat, only a reminder of a possibility. Chu Wanning stilled. He would not show fear. “See? It’s always like that: you stop moving.”
Chu Wanning floundered, flayed to the bone. “How dare you?” he choked out.
“I warned you,” Mo Ran said, unrepentant and firm.
But he was trembling faintly in Chu Wanning’s arms, as though they’d both barely escaped a moment that should have left nothing intact. He bent his head to the crook of Chu Wanning’s neck and inhaled deep, ragged breaths, a calamity subdued by a mysterious hand.
Chu Wanning was frozen. Despite knowing, now, that he was being seen even when he was a statue, he couldn’t bend. It was excruciating to be touched by a warm hand, to thaw, fine sharp frost scraping out his numb heart. Mo Ran was always so unthinkable, a blind spot in Chu Wanning’s reckoning of the world, disastrous and delicate, burdened by an intricate and obscure sorrow.
Not unlike himself.
He bore the abrasion inside him to carefully embrace Mo Ran, perversely comforted by his instability. At least he wasn’t the only one fraying. “That wasn’t a warning at all, Mo Ran,” he murmured.
Instead of answering, Mo Ran kissed him, lips sliding soft and wet against his. It was easier and easier each time, the contact tracing new contours in the map of intimacy Chu Wanning had held onto for so many years. It had never before led to so many places.
His breath caught when he realized that Mo Ran was still hard. His cock was trapped between their bodies, poking insistently against him. And if he thought Mo Ran was going to exercise restraint, he’d have been disappointed; Mo Ran thrust lightly, through the layers of clothing between them, unconcerned with practicality and seemingly content with rutting into Chu Wanning. His lips never faltered, but neither did the slow shifts of his hips.
A liquid, unrealized pleasure pooled in the pit of Chu Wanning’s stomach, ached in his cock. Mo Ran must have felt good, even if it wasn’t enough. He pressed them so close together that Chu Wanning could feel every twitch, the muscles in his core tightening and releasing, the way his breath snagged when he found a particularly sweet angle. Mo Ran felt good, and Chu Wanning had caused it. He would never be so arrogant as to presume himself necessary to Mo Ran’s pleasure, but he was certainly accessory to it right now, wasn’t he? It wasn’t presumptuous to enjoy it, to enjoy that his body made Mo Ran moan like that, wordless and worshipful.
Even if it could be anyone, it was Chu Wanning. In this moment, he was allowed to take his own pleasure in that, wasn’t he?
“Shizun,” Mo Ran mumbled. “Shizun, I…”
“Yes?”
Mo Ran made a frustrated little sound. “I might come.”
“Oh,” Chu Wanning exhaled. The idea was electrifying. They were close, so close that they were sharing air with each breath. Chu Wanning couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched so much that even the novelty had worn into familiarity. “Go on, then. You’re so…” He didn’t have a word for all the things Mo Ran was, the most important of which right now seemed to be generous. No one else had let Chu Wanning see them like this. “Handsome,” he finished, fumbling the words and fascinated despite himself. It was true, though it felt odd to voice this sentiment. “You’re so handsome, and so good. You can come.”
Mo Ran shuddered in his arms, growling “Wanning,” low and hungering. His orgasm echoed through the contact between their bodies, powerful, the twinned peal of a tower bell. He tightened his arms around Mo Ran, an improbable gentleness sweltering in his chest.
“Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning whined.
“You feel so good,” Mo Ran interrupted. He nuzzled at the underside of Chu Wanning’s chin, teeth grazing the soft skin. “So good, shizun.”
A moan, curling into a low sob.
“Can I touch you?” Mo Ran asked. “Let me get you off. I want to, I want to touch you.” He couldn’t stop doing it even as he said it, hands skating glimmering trails down his sides and the insides of his elbows through the sleeves. Chu Wanning felt like a beggar who’d wandered into a feast, only to be treated like a prince. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to confess to his true identity, happy to be an imposter in someone else’s house if it meant sharing this warmth. “Please.”
Chu Wanning’s earlier hesitance, his inability to move in the face of danger had dissolved in the backwash of Mo Ran’s orgasm. Now, it was like he couldn’t keep still, though he hadn’t noticed when he’d started tugging at the laces of Mo Ran’s shirt, trying to get his hands on the bare hot flesh of his torso. He wanted to see.
“Yes,” he said, mindless and greedy. “You can—you can touch.”
“Say please,” Mo Ran murmured, already having tugged Chu Wanning’s cock free. “I’ll get you off anyway, but I want to hear you say it.”
“Absolutely not.” Large hands wrapped around his cock, so large in fact that the head only barely peeked out of Mo Ran’s grip. Chu Wanning stared at it and then couldn’t stand the sight, unnerved by the delicious heat unspooling in his body—in his stomach, the backs of his thighs, his nipples. In his cock, nestled comfortingly in Mo Ran’s grip.
He wanted Mo Ran to touch him everywhere, and was terribly glad that this wasn’t possible, that they were both still clothed.
“Say it,” Mo Ran growled. “I want to hear you.”
Chu Wanning shook his head frantically. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t beg. He was so afraid that if he ever started, he’d never stop, that he’d follow Mo Ran everywhere saying please, please, please for the rest of his life, desperate for another touch, another glance.
The worst part was that he’d always remember that once, it had worked, that he’d been given what he’d asked for. There was no killing that kind of hope, no arguing with it. He’d believe for the rest of his stupid life that Mo Ran would be kind to him if he just begged hard enough.
He thought of that dream, his knees against the grey snow. His whole body pleading, unanswered.
“Don’t make me,” Chu Wanning blurted out. “Please, don’t make me.”
The word etched itself in his throat like cut crystal, fracturing his despair into relief and regret. Even the regret faded when Mo Ran nuzzled him, affectionate, soothing Chu Wanning’s shuddering heart. “It’s over,” he said, again and again. His thumb stroked the head of Chu Wanning’s cock, slicking the length, then pumped roughly. Chu Wanning jerked, blinded by the exhilarating rush of it. “You don’t have to do that again,” a concession to Chu Wanning’s hollow pride, or whatever remained of it—wisping away in the taste of heat and unbounded desire. He was gone, gone within seconds, self-control evaporating as his hips canted into Mo Ran’s hold, answered by pleasure.
He came in a soundless white wave crashing through him and leaving him new, fatally exposed. In the aftershock Mo Ran wrapped his arms protectively around Chu Wanning and murmured comfortingly, the warmth of his words speaking nonsense salving Chu Wanning’s raw nerves.
“Mo Ran,” he whispered. He had no particular reason to say it, except for the thread of contentment it brought: something inside Chu Wanning settled when Mo Ran was near and not in trouble, near and safe. Except, now, there was a hunger to that relief. He needed Mo Ran close enough to bite.
“I’ve got you.” Mo Ran’s hands skated along Chu Wanning’s sides, then started to undo the row of clasps for the robe.
Chu Wanning would have slapped him with a fan, but he didn’t have his weapons to hand, so he settled for pushing Mo Ran’s wrist aside. “What are you doing?” he scolded.
“Shizun, do you plan to have sex with your clothes on?”
Despite an intellectual understanding of the mechanics of intercourse, Chu Wanning had successfully salvaged some of his pride by refusing to think of the baser aspects. Further protected by Mo Ran’s kindness, he hadn’t had to truly face the fact of his body until now. He frowned, disturbed and defensive. “I don’t see why I should take them off,” he said stiffly.
Mo Ran pressed their foreheads together, inordinately gentle. “What if I want to see you?”
“You’ve seen enough.”
“Never enough. I could look at you for the rest of my life.”
An ache spread through Chu Wanning, the rippling inhale-exhale of desire, no breath to speak with. Mo Ran shrugged off his own clothes, fluid gestures, the rustle of cloth as he threw them aside muffled by the pound of Chu Wanning’s heart. He was handsome in the manner of a thunderstorm or a feral animal, domesticated by a thread, his dark eyes glittering with self-satisfied confidence. Chu Wanning felt old by comparison, dusty and brittle, but no amount of distaste for his own pitiable state could take away the pleasure of watching Mo Ran like this, of being allowed to watch.
He wanted Mo Ran, wanted to draw him deep into his own body and make him feel good. He reached out, hesitant, to touch the curved hard planes of Mo Ran’s muscles. His mouth was dry. “Can I…”
“All yours,” Mo Ran said, a vicious smugness in his tone. He watched unwaveringly as Chu Wanning slid his hands from Mo Ran’s shoulder to his chest, then his stomach, arousal hazing him purple on the inside, purple like the color of Mo Ran’s eyes in the lamplight. All the sword forms Chu Wanning had insisted on had molded his body into a wicked instrument. His hand trembled at the thought that this was on him, that he’d made Mo Ran. He was the worst kind of pervert, thinking only of his only pleasure and crafting his helpless disciple after that image.
That helpless disciple knit their fingers together, pushing his hand down to the bed and pinning it there. “Shizun enjoys the goods, I take it,” he purred. “My turn now.”
“Who said,” Chu Wanning protested, trying to free his wrist, but Mo Ran’s grip was very strong. Chu Wanning was so hard it hurt.
“Don’t try to deny it,” Mo Ran said, sleazy and assured. “Off with this now,” he tugged the lapel of Chu Wanning’s robe, then casually and with infuriating disrespect, simply tore it, heedless of the clasps and buttons. Chu Wanning made a sound like a stepped-on cat, a yowl cut off when Mo Ran touched his bare skin and growled, menacing and hungry.
Chu Wanning stilled, deliciously afraid, and let Mo Ran continue to strip him.
Only when he was naked did he allow himself to think that it had been easier like this, easier when he pretended that Mo Ran hadn’t given him a choice. If he’d pushed or fussed, Mo Ran would have let up, but he hadn’t—he’d wanted too badly for Mo Ran to force his hand, deprive him of the guilt of wanting by not asking before he gave.
On the heels of that thought came the guilt anyway, inescapable. Mo Ran didn’t notice, or didn’t care. He held Chu Wanning’s jaw again, rougher this time, thumb pressing against his lips. Chu Wanning’s cock ached again to be touched, but the only attention Mo Ran had spared it had been too brief to count. “What—?” he started.
“Suck,” Mo Ran ordered. “Show me how you like it.”
“I don’t—”
Mo Ran’s eyes softened unexpectedly, lightening the pressure banding around Chu Wanning. “Then let me figure that out. Open your mouth, shizun.”
Chu Wanning’s head was syrupy and slow. He complied, confused when Mo Ran slipped his thumb inside, the base resting heavily against Chu Wanning’s lower lip, keeping them parted. There was an encouraging warmth in Mo Ran’s eyes. He bent his head, tentatively hollowing his cheeks around the intrusion, then did it again and again, rewarded by the rush of liquid heat spilling everywhere in him at once. Mo Ran’s skin tasted like salt and some human quality purely his own.
Saliva pooled in the back of Chu Wanning's mouth, under his tongue—he felt guilty, tainted, but it was a pressingly kind hurt. A statue shaken to clumsy new life.
His thoughts dissolved.
He could only suffer under Mo Ran’s tender eyes, burning up and painfully hard, wanting more and having no way of getting it. Mo Ran rubbed his thumb against the flat of Chu Wanning’s tongue, not so deep that he gagged but deep enough that he felt the strain. He whined.
When Mo Ran pulled his hand away, Chu Wanning chased after it, spit stringing between his lips and Mo Ran’s finger. He wanted it back, empty and needy.
“Always knew you’d like having your mouth filled,” Mo Ran said, raw and awed.
Chu Wanning struggled to wrap his mind around this, then shook his head stubbornly. Mo Ran laughed, crawling down Chu Wanning’s body, mouth alighting like a butterfly at places that seemed random except for the shocking waves of sensation they set off on contact. He’d never felt so terribly sensitive—Mo Ran touched him like he knew him, knew that grazing his teeth against Chu Wanning’s nipple would make his toes curl, knew that spot under his ribs where a light touch would tickle and a bite would make him moan, knew to spiral kisses from his hip to the inside of his thigh to make his cock weep.
Defenseless, he would have fled, but all the touch guided him back—a guest in his own body, hosted so gently that he couldn't help surrender.
He whined again, low and tortured, when Mo Ran took his cock into his mouth, searing wet heat wrapping around him. Balanced on the banks of pleasure for so long, it flooded up all at once to meet him. His body twisted, trying to keep afloat, but he was already gone, sucked under the surface, sundered from awareness.
The last thing he knew was the wave of white-hot sweetness as he came into the tight clutch of Mo Ran’s throat, all his shame swept away.
When he returned to himself, he was lying tucked up lazily against Mo Ran’s body, his rough fingers stroking circles on the inside of Chu Wanning’s thigh. He shifted to stave off the intimacy.
Mo Ran did not stop. After a moment, Chu Wanning also gave up—it felt so good to be touched like this, hot and without demand, plainly reassuring when Chu Wanning felt unmoored from everything he knew.
He blinked hazily at Mo Ran, and was rewarded for his alertness with a kiss pressed to his forehead. “Are you alright?” Mo Ran asked. “Do you want to continue?”
“Yes,” Chu Wanning replied, drowsy but moved to indignation. “I thought you were going to fuck me.”
Mo Ran flicked his collarbone. “A while ago you could hardly even say the word fuck,” he said dryly. “Forgive me for making sure.”
Chu Wanning said, “We should clean up.”
“It doesn’t matter, we’ll just get dirty again.” He noticed Chu Wanning’s expression and pushed his shoulder down, making him lie on his back instead of his side. “Trust me, you’ll get used to it. If you want to go take a bath anyway, I won’t stop you, but don’t expect me to let you get clean.”
Chu Wanning took a moment to process this. “That was awful!”
Mo Ran laughed, bright and loud. “So easily scandalized, even now,” he said, leaning down to kiss Chu Wanning. The position he’d put Chu Wanning in abruptly made sense—it was easier for him to reach Chu Wanning’s lips like this.
“I hope you at least rinsed out your mouth,” Chu Wanning huffed, straining for a hint of his usual asperity.
“No need, I already swallowed.”
“Swallowed what?” Chu Wanning said. Then he realized. “Did you really—?”
“What did you expect? I’m not as chaste as you are,” Mo Ran was grinning, tonguing at his sharp eyeteeth. Chu Wanning stared blankly, struck by the thought of Mo Ran swallowing his come after he’d lost awareness: it wasn’t dirty to him, clearly, he wasn’t ashamed. Chu Wanning would have been, even if he’d have forced himself through it anyway. He’d have been mortified.
Mo Ran didn’t care.
“You are so…” Chu Wanning started, searching for a word. It’s like you’re not real.
“Such a slut?”
“So good,” Chu Wanning finished, ignoring Mo Ran. He didn’t have any other way of encompassing the kind of generosity Mo Ran showed him, a vivid and fearless vision of the world, fireworks tearing through Chu Wanning’s paper and silks. “You’re good, Mo Ran.”
For a moment Mo Ran was transparent, a vulnerable and clumsy child peering out from between the gnarled sadness and the feral youth. Chu Wanning sat up to kiss him, stroking his head, the soft shells of his eyelids, even his ears, trying to enfold him in the same unflinching grace he’d shown Chu Wanning until now.
“Shizun,” Mo Ran pleaded. “I can be better.”
“Hush,” Chu Wanning murmured. “This is enough.”
Mo Ran whimpered in the back of his throat, puppy-like in his yearning for affection. Chu Wanning didn’t know what to do with him, but felt entirely unable to let him go hungry, even if he had to feed him his own flesh. He would have, he thought. He would do it again and again.
“Shizun,” Mo Ran said again. He dropped his head to Chu Wanning’s shoulder, something nameless thundering under his skin. Chu Wanning could feel it, inexplicably, knew the fragility of what he held the same way he knew how much time it took for glue to dry and ink to set, a carefulness that could not err if it wanted to. “Can I…”
“Hmm?”
“Can I fuck you now?”
It sounded like he'd meant to say something else, but the way he said it—all that need and starving devotion—thrilled Chu Wanning to the core. Lit him up inside in shades of gold and rose. He felt like something more than a charity case or a compromise, felt vital to this intimacy. Even if it was an illusion, Chu Wanning wanted to submerge himself in it for a few hours.
“Yes,” he said thinly. “Yes, whatever you want.”
Mo Ran bit at his shoulder. “Don’t be so generous,” he growled. “You don’t have to sacrifice yourself to this.”
“I’m not,” Chu Wanning started, cut off by a growl and a sharp shove backwards into the nested pillows. I'm not fragile, Chu Wanning had said earlier, and meant it, but to be treated with even a sliver of roughness sent heat shimmering down his spine. “Why would you think I was?”
“Force of habit,” Mo Ran said, without clarifying whose habit. “You know, all the pain I've seen you withstand, but I've never seen you break. I wonder what it would take.” There was an unkind, cunning intention laced into his words, mesmerizing in its force. Chu Wanning could have reminded him again that people didn't break, but he thought Mo Ran didn't mean that kind of breaking anymore. This was so much plainer and more sadistic, like he was looking for the kind of satisfaction that came only from crushing his enemy under his heel.
Selfishly and without sanity, Chu Wanning wanted to be crushed. Wanted to give himself over to the fulfillment of that savage desire as though it could purify him, thinking, I would break for you.
Chu Wanning had never done anything by halves, especially not love.
Then Mo Ran folded it back, a visible effort—between one blink and another the silhouette of that bloodthirsty animal faded, replaced by something far more genteel. “Back or stomach, shizun?”
Chu Wanning thought about the way Mo Ran had said Wanning as he came, gutted by intimacy, and wanted to hear it again. At any other time, he would have ignored this desire as he ignored all his desires, but now was emboldened by an orgasm and the way Mo Ran lavished attention on him, his whole being transparently at Chu Wanning’s disposal even if he was the one being ravaged.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Also, could you…” he faltered, his bravery running out rapidly. “Nevermind.”
Mo Ran’s eyes were terribly soft. Chu Wanning recalled this expression through the eyes of a much smaller body, and wondered if Mo Ran had ever directed it at this version of him—if he’d just never noticed. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Chu Wanning said awkwardly. His ears burned.
“Not nothing,” Mo Ran smiled, wickedness creeping through. “Whatever shizun wants, shizun gets.”
“Stop calling me shizun,” Chu Wanning said desperately. He’d never live any of this down, so what was the point in holding onto his dignity so tightly? It slipped through his fingers anyway. “If you’re going to f-fuck me, then you should use my name.”
Mo Ran looked astonished for a moment, then smiled even harder. “Of course,” he purred. Chu Wanning blushed so hard he closed his eyes. “Do you want me to choose for you, Wanning?”
Chu Wanning bit his lips so hard he tasted blood, then allowed himself to nod. Giving up control was not half so harrowing as he’d expected, which made it four times as bad—what kind of person couldn’t decide the course of their own actions? And yet, he thought that the only way this could have been more bearable is if he’d pretended to be a doll right from the start, limp and unmindful of the depravities visited on his flesh. At least if he was a doll, he wouldn’t have to be here like this, wouldn’t have to be conscious at each step of all the things he was surrendering.
He had never had the freedom or faith required to entrust himself to the will of another. This was the first time.
“Yes,” he whispered.
Mo Ran leaned down to kiss Chu Wanning's cheek, lips trailing to the underside of his jaw. “On your stomach, I think,” he said. “Unless you want me to see how you look while I fuck you.”
Chu Wanning made a surprised little sound, heat pouring through his veins and unwinding in his stomach. The way Mo Ran had picked the easier way out for him was a tender gesture he had no precedent for. “I don't,” he admitted.
“I know.” A deep, steadying breath. Then, “Turn over.”
He did, pressing his cheek against the cool pillow, grateful to be freed of Mo Ran’s intense scrutiny. But he failed to prepare himself in time for the touch of lips against his shoulder, the one that had been torn up by a furious ghost-god. An ache swelled in his throat. Mo Ran lingered there, his breath fanning across the leathery scars. Chu Wanning could no longer be sure this had been the better outcome—his scars rendered him more naked than his face would have. But it was too late to change his mind. He tensed with each kiss framing his spine, unable to reconcile this indulgence with the unlovely creature of his body.
Mo Ran was unaware of his anxiety. He muttered, “Swear I put that bottle somewhere—” then located it with a triumphant noise. A moment later, cool wet fingers nudged his legs apart. Chu Wanning blushed hotly, suffering for his lack of courage, but could only give way obediently.
Of course, he’d cleaned up very thoroughly. That didn’t make this feel any less disgusting. Mo Ran probed lightly at the ring of muscle, then slipped the first knuckle inside. Chu Wanning felt mildly shocked at how easy it was, even a little faint, possessed by a mild indignation that his body hadn’t resisted more. But it was a treacherous creature, coaxed into laying down all its weapons by the silhouette of intimacy and a skin-hunger’s worth of pleasure.
No, he thought suddenly. It was more than that. This was enough of both to nourish him for a lifetime.
Mo Ran worked his way inside easily, welcomed by the subsiding tension in Chu Wanning’s limbs. Like a stick of incense that held its shape even after it was used, his body drank the intense fire of breaching, intimate hostility ashing his resistance. It was intoxicating.
So why did it feel like losing something?
“You take me so well,” Mo Ran murmured. “You’re so hot, exactly the way this—just the way I thought you’d be.”
“You thought about this?” Chu Wanning asked, longing surging inside him.
Mo Ran let out a short laugh. Two of his fingers were inside Chu Wanning, fucking him at a steady, shallow pace, sensation rising and falling with each breath. It felt strange, but not unpleasant—wrong, but also right. “I didn’t want to think about it,” he confessed. “It felt wrong. But of course, you were always so…”
“Finish that sentence,” Chu Wanning demanded.
“Like this,” Mo Ran said ruefully. “You have such high standards for everything, I thought it would be the task of a lifetime to please you.” While Chu Wanning tried to work out if this was an insult, if he should be offended, Mo Ran drizzled more cool watery oil over his fingers and pushed them back in, now with a third. Chu Wanning’s thoughts wouldn’t cooperate. “But you’re very easy.” He leaned down to kiss Chu Wanning’s shoulder blade the moment he said it, the brush of his hair raising goosebumps over sweat-slick skin.
“I’ve been nothing but difficult,” Chu Wanning grumbled. “Do you really think—”
“Not easy to bed,” Mo Ran interrupted. “Easy to please.” His mouth was against Chu Wanning’s ear, suddenly, the whole hot length of his body bearing down reassuringly. “Has anyone ever made you feel this good?”
“Don’t fish for compliments—ah!” Mo Ran’s fingers did something clever, sudden, thrusting deeper and curling at a precise angle. It felt so good that Chu Wanning’s brain briefly went blank and peaceful—how could he be irritated when his body could do that? Then he gathered himself valiantly and went on, “There’s more to life than feeling good.”
He was trying to convince himself. It was so obvious. Mo Ran laughed like a dog, flagrantly mocking. “Really,” he drawled. “Then I’ll leave the room and let you meditate your way to a higher plane, shall I?”
Despite the light tone, Chu Wanning jerked a little. “You shouldn’t leave a task unfinished,” he told Mo Ran, trying to be authoritative and coming off plaintive. His voice wavered humiliatingly with each brush of Mo Ran’s long fingers against the bright knot of pleasure inside him.
“Of course not. I’d never leave you unsatisfied.”
“That’s not what I—”
Mo Ran’s fingers crooked ruthlessly, interrupting Chu Wanning forever—the onslaught lighting up nerve endings Chu Wanning had known full well he possessed and had never imagined could feel like this. His cock leaked steadily where it was trapped between his body and the mattress. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to shift, either to relieve the pressure or chase it into something better, didn’t dare move in case he did something wrong.
He was so sensitive. Every whisper of feeling was a rush, and it still wasn’t enough.
Perversely, though, he didn’t want it to be enough—not until Mo Ran was properly inside him. He liked the frustration, the heavy, upsetting ache of denying himself until the rightful conclusion. He liked asserting the rules over his body, mastering it again and again.
It wasn’t only that. He’d spent years abhorring his needs. Now refusing himself was a habit, a familiar one, a ritual that tied him down and allowed him to breathe.
“Mo Ran,” he panted. “Would you—”
“Tell me no one’s ever made you feel this good,” Mo Ran demanded. Chu Wanning squirmed. “Or tell me if they have, so I can make you feel better.”
“How would you know?” Chu Wanning mumbled. “Maybe they have.”
“Then I’ll have to have a word with them,” Mo Ran said, dark jealousy smoldering in his tone.
Chu Wanning preened, delighted by this response. He was past the point of questioning why he wanted Mo Ran to be so possessive over him, or even trying to remind himself it wasn’t real. “There’s no one,” he said soothingly. “You’re the first,” Mo Ran growled, in satisfaction and hunger. “You’re the first…”
The admission left Chu Wanning feeling oddly shy, conscious of having admitted out loud his obvious inexperience. But it made Mo Ran happy. “Good,” he said, nuzzling aside Chu Wanning’s sweat-soaked hair to kiss his scarred shoulder. “I’m the only one who can have you.”
They were only words, but they wrote themselves indelibly into Chu Wanning’s heart. Deliriously, he thought he’d obey them forever, long after Mo Ran had left him without a backwards glance.
Mo Ran pulled his fingers out, wiping them quickly against the sheets before returning them to Chu Wanning’s skin, wrapping around his waist. Chu Wanning held his breath through the emptiness, exhaled only with the first push of Mo Ran’s cock against his hole.
Warm, rough hands settled on his waist, spanning his sides. His eyes drifted shut. Mo Ran fucked into him, gentle but no less frightening for it—more, even, to imagine his disciple capable of such cunning kindness. He’d never imagined, though, that this was how it would feel to be fucked. Had thought, somehow, that the promise of intimacy had to be a lie. That it was impossible to want without being punished, impossible for closeness to come without a price.
The reality of it burnt the rotten fear away in a vivid flash. It didn’t hurt—it wasn’t a test of his endurance—there was no retribution awaiting in the wings. The perfect devastation of it all came from the raw fact of their bodies, his and Mo Ran’s, fitting together; his hole, Mo Ran’s cock, tender and extraordinary in ways he’d never dared hope he’d find.
How alien and sweet to find, in the end, that this was what he needed. Mo Ran was so big inside him. Chu Wanning could not bring himself to do anything, but felt an appalling lack of shame about it; the perennial anxiety of doing enough and being enough had burnt clean out of him. And in any case, the languid thrusts of Mo Ran’s hips were more than enough to keep Chu Wanning unable to think of anything else, pleasure careening through joyously like a strange creature born in his blood, for the first time entirely his own.
In the space between their skin, the hurt coiled around Chu Wanning’s heart snapped like a thread of silk.
He didn’t fall apart so much as unravel.
Chu Wanning came with a low cry, his cock barely touched and his body wrecked. Through it all, Mo Ran did not stop and Chu Wanning did not want him to, the heat barely abating before sparking up again, searing and wonderfully overwhelming, mind as clear and blank as rice wine. He felt drunk and disturbed, thrown into a brand new orbit, content to spin slowly and take in each thick sheaf of sensation, heat and touch and sweet, endless desire.
He clenched a fistful of the sheets, but his grip slackened. He didn’t want to hold onto anything in this moment. Instead, he dared himself to turn and look, to drink in the sight of Mo Ran’s body arched tightly, focused and hungry.
He noticed Chu Wanning’s eyes, caught them and smiled, something broken and self-satisfied glinting in his purple eyes. Chu Wanning smiled back, transparent as water and nearly as pliant. He trusted Mo Ran, and it wasn’t only for a lack of options. It was the whole of him, his sincerity and headstrong determination in the face of all of Chu Wanning’s misgivings, his ability to anchor Chu Wanning through the tide and storm.
“Wanning,” Mo Ran said, low and hurting. “The way you look right now…”
Chu Wanning blinked, confused but accepting. “What about it?” he murmured.
“I’m sorry,” Mo Ran grated out. There were tears in his eyes, alarming and oddly beautiful, the sheen turning his purple eyes crystalline. Chu Wanning couldn’t move, held down firmly, could only watch as the wetness gathered and overflowed, tracing the side of his nose and dripping hotly onto Chu Wanning’s skin. Only then did Mo Ran seem to notice and, mortified, wipe away the evidence of his pain. But he couldn’t get rid of the hint of redness, could only bend his head and redouble his efforts.
Whatever for? Chu Wanning wondered, but it didn’t matter. “I forgive you,” he said softly.
“You don’t know what I did,” Mo Ran said savagely.
Chu Wanning shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said out loud. He didn’t have to try to make it true. “You’ve more than made it up to me.”
Mo Ran let out a wild and harsh laugh, his hands on Chu Wanning’s sides reaching all the way around him, a desperate full-body hug. “If I could believe you…” he rasped. “But you’ll hate me one day.”
It occurred to Chu Wanning that Mo Ran had asked him to lie on his stomach because he didn’t want Chu Wanning to see his face. The thought made him feel oddly tender, too tender to speak. He fumbled for Mo Ran’s hand, weaving their fingers together and squeezing tightly. “How could I hate you?” he asked. “You’ve never done anything wrong to me.” He thought of holding Mo Ran in a coffin, all that anguish nearly honey because it was to spare him the pain.
Oh, nonsense. It was nothing sweet, and still delicious for being an unforgivable sin against himself. To endure the unendurable was a kind of devotion, and devotion was always its own reward.
“I’ve never done anything for you that I didn’t choose to do,” he said. “Can you not trust that?” He brought Mo Ran’s fingers to his lips. “Trust that and fuck me?”
“You’re a menace,” Mo Ran said, voice thick. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll fuck you. Shizun…”
There was still an agonized rawness in his voice, but Chu Wanning hadn’t wanted to make him forget about it. He just wanted Mo Ran to stay in this moment, with him. The way Mo Ran used his title, like it was a source of comfort, pried apart the last cracked of Chu Wanning’s defenses.
“Go on, then,” he said, hiding his smile in the pillow.
His hole was still relaxed from Mo Ran’s earlier ministrations, but the blunt head of his cock pressing against the rim still made Chu Wanning’s breath hitch, a delightful sense of impossibility washing over him. It had just been inside him, but it couldn’t possibly fit. Mo Ran was panting, open and ragged, as though this was just as overwhelming for him. More, even, if the way he held onto Chu Wanning was any indication.
It was agonizingly slow. Chu Wanning couldn’t bring himself to mind, though, couldn’t summon up any impatience or even anxiety. He felt amicable and empty, pliant, waiting to be filled.
However he’d imagined his first time, it hadn’t been like this. He couldn’t help being glad.
He whined when the head of Mo Ran’s cock brushed against that knot of tightly-woven pleasure inside him. He was so full, now. It hurt in its own sweet way, the stretch and faint burn, the ache of being so close to someone else, the way it felt to welcome them into his body without violence. He’d always wanted to hold Mo Ran, had never let himself realize that desire until he’d been castigated for it first.
Glad for the pain, even then, glad it had burned all the extraneity from his love and reduced it to pure devotion—and the inalienable sense that this was the price he had to pay, each time, to be close to the one he loved. It would never hurt less. He’d accepted that truth as his own.
Then, this: an unearned grace.
And in the midst of the grace, the backwards discovery that he could have everything he wanted without a single trial. No fire, no poison, no carpet of thorns.
Only the most exquisite suffering.
“Mo Ran,” he moaned.
“I’m here.” Mo Ran pressed his sweat-damp forehead to Chu Wanning’s shoulder blades. He pulled out halfway and thrust back in, excruciatingly steady. Time thinned to a film of spilled milk, sticky and sweet, coating the back of Chu Wanning’s throat, painting everything with a gauzy white blur. Mo Ran fucked him beautifully, so slow it was torture, unbearably full with each push. Pleasure unscrolled inside him, inked itself into each raw nerve, spilled in the pit of his stomach until he thought he’d be delirious, or sick, or both—wanted without needing, without the greed of hunger, wanted simply and without the taste of desolation in his mouth.
Wanted, wanted and was given.
He wailed pathetically when Mo Ran stroked the velvet-hard length of his sensitive cock. Chu Wanning unwound in a slow unceasing tide—first, his own orgasm, held on edge for too long—a silent and almost gracious thing, like a flower blooming in the center of his body and spreading to the tips of each finger. Snagged on the heels of that white rush was Mo Ran’s pleasure, his cock pulsing hotly inside Chu Wanning, marking him up inside.
Through the shimmering haze of the aftermath, dimly, he felt Mo Ran crying.
For an interminable stretch of time, he drifted in Mo Ran’s arms. There wasn’t a single coherent thought in his mind, and he rather liked that, liked being without worry for a while. Mo Ran’s cock was still nestled between his thighs, slipping free, sticky and filthy and sordidly delicious. Chu Wanning had a brief, hazy vision of being fucked so many times he couldn’t move without come trickling out of him and felt a flush of pale horror on the heels of that image, but it was too late. It was inside his mind forever.
He noticed, as well, that Mo Ran’s rough, heaving sobs had quieted to a forlorn sniffling. His arms were tight around Chu Wanning, as though he’d lose himself if he let go.
“Mo Ran?”
“Shizun?” he croaked. “Are you alright?”
“I should be asking you that,” Chu Wanning said, warmth softening his voice.
“Don’t worry about me.” Mo Ran loosened his grip and stretched like a dog, limbs in every direction. “It’s not my first time.”
Chu Wanning said, mildly, “What are you not telling me?”
Mo Ran tensed violently. “Nothing.”
Well, that was manifestly a lie. Chu Wanning considered pursuing it, but he thought about Mo Ran wavering between bleak sorrow and wild hunger, thought about how he’d allowed Chu Wanning to snap and skitter without holding it against him, and allowed this falsehood to slide.
He turned in Mo Ran’s arms. “Alright, then,” he said, kind and patronizing, wiping at Mo Ran’s wet cheeks. “Nothing.”
Mo Ran made a wretched little sound, raising his own hand to grab a loose fistful of Chu Wanning’s hair and tug him forward into a hungry, open-mouthed kiss—there was no detachment in the way Mo Ran licked into his mouth, no coldness or distance. There was only a need so profound it couldn’t be sated. Chu Wanning melted into it, eager to offer himself to the raw flame.
“You never learn,” Mo Ran mumbled. “Don’t come so near me, shizun.”
Chu Wanning moaned brokenly. “Stop pulling me, then,” he said sulkily. “And don’t tease.”
“No—no teasing. I wouldn’t do that to you,” Mo Ran’s eyes glittered briefly, playfully. “You’re fragile.”
Chu Wanning hit his shoulder, but it didn’t stop him from tilting his head to the side as the kisses trailed, spark-silver and biting, down his throat and chest. He squirmed. “I’m not,” he protested, then tried to twist away, sensitive to tickles. “If you’re not teasing, then what’s this?”
“This,” Mo Ran laved over one of his nipples, lavish and unconcerned with Chu Wanning’s alarmed squeak. “This is because I missed you.”
“I’ve been right here, silly boy.”
Mo Ran crushed their bodies close, pressing his nose against the nape of Chu Wanning’s neck. “I always forget.”
Chu Wanning thought he understood that—perhaps in the way Mo Ran meant it, and then again perhaps not. Once, he’d dreamed he had Mo Ran so close he never had to fear loss. But he’d given that up for a more fickle truth. Now, he lived with fears as perennial as seasons, each turn bruising his peach-stone heart.
Loss haunted him. Even in this moment, if he searched himself—yes, there—that keen, glassy thread. It wasn’t only his virginity he’d given up, some notion of the sanctity of his body crumbled by invasion. He’d never considered himself anything more than profane, his ugliness inverted, its face hidden from the world.
He’d hurt himself so much, allowed others to hurt him. He didn’t regret that and couldn’t regret this.
No, it was a different kind of loss. All his life he’d been innocent of satiation, of honest desire received and returned, of pleasure. A lifetime of starvation, ended in a night—now, because of Mo Ran, he’d never be able to forget what it was like to be full, to be wanted.
Perhaps, even if it wasn’t quite the same for Mo Ran, he’d seen his own nameless grieving reflected in his lover. He could only hope fervently that the unwritten past that shaped that sorrow had also found some peace tonight.