Chapter Text
Xue Meng had always had his life planned out to perfection; Become the world’s foremost Zongshi under the guidance of his most beloved Shizun, lead Sisheng Peak to the pinnacle of the cultivation world, marry a woman like his mother, have a kid like himself and obviously, become a legend in the process.
Many things had thrown a wrench in his plans over the years, but the biggest… and most stubborn of wrenches wedged impossibly between the cogs, were the Mei Twins of Kunlun Taxue Palace.
He could concede, he guessed, that they had always been objectively handsome. And Miss S had… embarrassingly been the closest anyone had ever come to ensnaring him for the world of romance.
But she had been a lie. A trick.
What addled him in the months after the scroll spirit had been subdued was that the feelings she had stirred seemed to linger around those brothers long after she had become a memory. As if when he looked at them, he could still see her, like a veil painted with her visage that had long worn away and left Xue Meng seeing something between the two whenever his eyes found them.
That wasn’t necessarily the oddest part. For what confused the Sect Leader the most is the more the paint faded, the more he yearned to tear the veils away and just… see them as they were. The more he found himself just… looking at them.
And it became near impossible for him to look at them without staring. Torturous really, for when they found his eyes so intently upon them, one would snap his fingers impatiently to rouse him, while the other would blow kisses that made his chest stutter in what he could only assume to be a barely contained rage. Until one day, whilst storming away, he had come across a curiously still pond, which shone like silver and reflected back to him his own image.
Was he… blushing?!
But that was crazy talk! Xue Ziming didn’t blush for any woman, let alone two men as vexing as the Mei’s were.
From that day on, his fuse only grew shorter around them, his nerve endings like live wires, bothered and triggered by a simple sigh from either of those men.
Xue Meng threw down his writing brush with a resounding huff. “WILL YOU STOP SIGHING LIKE THAT?”
Mei Hanxue’s eyes burned bright at the hailing of a sudden challenge. “My dear Ziming, I fear I grow older and more wretched in the time it is taking you to sign these scrolls. At this rate my poor Ge will begin to wrinkle! The least you can do is entertain us, no?”
“Entertain your damn selves.”
“Ai, so bitter today.” The younger Mei wistfully lamented, head cocked, eyes glimmering. “Can’t the Sect Leader afford this lowly one even a little of his sweetness?”
Xue Meng swallowed around the lump in his throat, letting his eyes flicker to the elder Mei whose brow was arched as he scrawled loopy script upon the papers at his own low table, just meters across from Xue Meng’s.
“Stop… “ Xue Meng fumed, as the flirt leaned back on his elbows, sprawled out rather suggestively before him. “Looking at me like that.”
“I can’t think what you mean.”
“You know what the fuck I mean!” He barked, leaping to his feet, the ink cast and scattered across the paper, rolling until the Hanxue lounging before him was stained at the edges… a flower ever wilting beneath his rigid silhouette. By now they were used to Xue Meng’s irate outbursts, they had even become endeared to them over time, knowing that they were but a cover to mask the deeper feelings he withheld from the rest of this world. But this one was not like the rest. Rather than sharp, harmless puffs of smoke from the mountain tops, the ground was trembling and the lava spitting forth from the pit below, ready to lash the younger Mei and burn him. Immediately it had the elder rising to his feet.
“Xue Ziming! Calm yourself.”
“And who the fuck asked for your input? Who told you that you had the right to reprimand me?”“
“What makes you think you are allowed to speak to us in this way?” The elder warned him, his eyes and his tone darkening as he swept forward. “Sect Leader or not, if you have your grievances with me or my brother you speak to us like men, not a spoilt child in the midst of a tantrum. Are you a juvenile? ”
Xue Meng shook his head his eyes swinging back to the younger Mei sat confounded where Xue Meng left him. “Juvenile…” he scoffed. “How about flirting with people you never intend to make good on, how about whoring yourself out and breaking the hearts of those who might… might…”
The younger Mei blinked up at him, golden haired and tilted. “A-Meng, I-“
“Lying, tricking…” his eyes trembled like raindrops on the precipice of falling as he rounded the table, passed the crestfallen younger and approached the Elder. “Deceiving me… how about hiding like a child? You have the gall to call me juvenile?”
The Elder Mei did not budge, even when Xue Meng was close enough to raise his chin in order to meet his eyes, close enough that Mei Hänxue could see the speckles of honey in his eyes and Xue Meng the flecks of grey in his.
The Elder’s words were low and purposeful as he replied: “I don’t think we are the only ones here who have been hiding.”
A flicker of Xue Meng’s lashes and immediately, he regretted saying it. The younger Mei pushed himself to stand, sensing an incoming explosion. Pride however, would not let the elder take the blow and when that hand drew back, and that mask began to crumble like sandcastle beneath crashing tides of turmoil…. the elder brother caught his wrist. Xue Meng pulled it back, thus tugging the taller perilously into his space.
There was a moment that followed, a long, unbearably tenuous pause in time when no one spoke, the three of them afraid to breathe too suddenly lest a whisper resemble a gunshot that had their skittish little squirrel scurrying away.
Eyes searched the one's before him, recognition resonating across grey green. Startled by the sudden slip in his stern censure and liberated by the loosening of Mei Hänxue’s grip, Xue Meng freed himself a little too fervently, stumbling back in the younger’s hands instead. And they were steady on the Sect Leader’s waist.
His breath was warm against the shell of his ear as he spoke. “Ah, we almost took a tumble again.”
That ear burned ruddy and the Sect Leader tore himself from his arms, spinning to jab and accusatory finger his direction, the shake in his hands without mercy. “Fuck you. Fuck both of you.”
He smirked. “We’re trying.”
“Fuck. You.” The crackle in his tone, like a fire cracker that fizzled before it died, had the younger more like his brother in the expression than he had been since the day they were made orphans. “This isn’t a joke.”
“I-I know, A-Meng.”
But Xue Meng refused to give either of them grace, he turned on his heel and he thundered past them both, stirring the papers until they were fluttering into his gilded rooms like crumbled leaves. The brothers were left stunned in his wake.
“He is impossible.” The Elder grumbled, flicking his sleeves and returning to his seat.
“You know what just happened as well as I do, Ge.” Mei Hanxue sighed.
“So what?”
“You can’t convince me that it hasn’t shaken you.”
He sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “What are we to do if he won’t even admit it to himself?”
“It’s causing him pain. You know it is. And I know nothing that would do such a thing, is anything we could ever disregard.”
Silence.
“Ge, talk to him.”
“Why me? Surely you are much better at charming a pretty face.”
Smirking, the younger rolled his eyes and sunk down to a crouch before his brother’s desk. “He does not need to be charmed. He needs to be loved.”
Eyes met. Green on green.
“We both know how we feel about him. But you are an enigma to those not quite as in tune with you as I am. To have your open affection could change everything.”
“You act as though yours means nothing.”
Mei Hanxue chuckled. “I fear I foist my favour too liberally upon the world.”
“But not your love.”
“No.” The younger agreed. “I have only ever loved one person. Still, it should be you this time.”
“But…”
“He is not wrong. About what he said of me.”
“Di…”
“He isn’t. It is no mystery that he is afraid of another crack in his heart. I am not the one to comfort him right now. You must use your words. I will prove it through my actions.”
“But I am not-“
“Aiyo, I will come with you. But it’s you who must open your heart this time, so that he may open his.”
/
Xue Meng was scarily adept at hiding himself in his own land, the brothers did not find him until long after the lanterns were lit.
Their hearts collectively sunk when they did.
Xue Meng had not been understated in his choice of memorial for his parents. He had reserved for them an entire courtyard in the back mountains, complete with turquoise pools, lotus flowers, white marble monuments and golden monikers to boot. Beneath each precious name it read:
Xue is beautiful.
Xue is beautiful.
Twin peaks beneath the bend of a blossom tree where their son was now knelt upon the fallen petals of spring.
His clothes were slack, his hair windswept and a bottle of pear blossom white was loose in his hand.
He didn’t even lift his gaze as they settled on their knees either side of him, lighting the incense and bowing as one before their benefactors. They lifted their heads to blink up at them, three lost children no matter how tall they grew.
Xue Meng’s eyes were hazy, two wide, dark almonds like silver beneath the moonlight.
“It was never s’posed t’be like this…” he slurred, swaying in the breeze. “I was never supposed to be like this…I…I think I’m losing my mind, I’m losing everything, my mind… and now I’m even losing the two of y-“
“I like you.” The elder Mei’s voice cut through the incumbent spiral, Xue Meng flinching before slowly, he turned his head in his direction. Hänxue hadn’t taken his eyes off the Sect Leader’s parents, but just then they fell to the hands wrung neatly in his own lap. He corrected himself. “We like you.”
When he turned to younger Mei brother, Hanxue was looking at him. Just… looking. No smirk, no lurid glint, just a sheepish half smile that had Xue Meng whipping his eyes away, flustered.
They were quite a while, all three still knelt. Then Xue Meng’s eyes began to fill, his brow began to kink.
“Fuck. Why would you say that to me now?”
“Ah, Ge, I think you might have-“
“I told you I shouldn’t speak first!”
“I was supposed to be perfect.” Xue Meng blubbered. “But if you both like me I can even pretend the things I want to pretend anymore. I was supposed to be perfect.”
“Perfect to who?” The younger wondered as quietly, the object of their affections fell apart.
All it took was a single hand on his back for Xue Meng to scramble dizzily into Mei Hanxue’s arms and cling to him for his life. Panicked as he pawed through the blur of tears for the elder, that older brother went to him, flabbergasted and allowed the Xue Meng to take his arms… wrap them around his body.
“Tighter…” he gasped. “Hold me tighter.”
As one they flexed and tightened their hold and they felt the man in their arms liquesce in response. They stayed there until he began to shiver and then with sighs that were no longer unsafe, they took him back to his bed where it was warm.
/
His cheeks adorably rosy, Xue Meng’s shame seeped back in with the sobriety. He refused to meet their eyes, as the younger tipped tea between his lips or the elder folded his overly ornate robes into his overly ornate dresser.
Still, he was tipsy enough not bolt entirely. A win in their book.
“Hey, you never answered us.” Mei Hanxue murmured as the elder settled at the foot of his bed, the futon dipping for the third time. “Don’t think we didn’t notice.”
“I…”
“You don’t have to say it now. But it would be better to know either way.” Mei Hänxue assured him, the Sect Leader shy beneath two hopeful stares.
“I can’t… like you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have to be perfect.”
“For who?”
“Ge. Ease up.”
“Aiyah.”
“I’m not even Xue Zhenyong’s blood,” Xue Meng breathed, eyes glistening in the skip of the lantern light. “An imposter, I shouldn’t even be here. The very least I can do to atone for their sacrifices, is to become the ideal upright gentlemen. Do I not owe that to them?”
A pregnant pause followed.
“Ziming…” The elder Mei wondered. “What do you think about Chu Zongshi?”
“Shizun?” Xue Meng blinked, lighting up at the mere mention of him. “He’s the best! Of course he is.”
“The ideal upright gentlemen?”
Xue Meng seemed a little miffed by the mere suggestion of a second option. “Of course! What are you…”
“If he can have a love like that and remain perfect in your eyes, then why can’t you?”
And to that, Xue Meng could do nothing but stare.
“I don’t even know how to… do it that way. I don’t…”
“How about this...” The younger suggested, leaning in just an inch. “We try it anyway… just once, to see if it’s something you could stand. If you do not, we never speak of it again, we remain by your side and we go on as usual. You have our word. ”
“Aiyah… Mei Hanxue…”
“Our word… we swear it to you.”
Playing with the hem of the silk across his lap, Xue Meng conceded just a little. “I will think about it.”
“Good. Now lay down…” Mei Hänxue bade him, patting his feet above the covers. “Have a rest, sleep on it.”
They left him still dazed, brow furrowed and that night he tossed and turned more urgently than usual. When he finally succumbed to slumber’s pull, two faces found him behind closed eyes and one word fell from his lips into the waking world.
“Perfect…”
/
Xue Meng was greeted at the dawn of a new day with a silver tray placed upon his lap and two blonde men perched either side of him. He bashfully nibbled on an egg the elder had meticulously peeled for him as the younger stirred honey into his ginger tea to help stave the bitterness.
The elder of the two was not so tender when it came to the icky molasses coloured gloop that was Xue Meng’s medicine.
“You have to take it.”
“MPMH! Fuck off, it tastes like shit!”
“Ah, stop fussing!”
“Or Ge will kiss you.”
“You-“
And for a moment, Xue Meng’s eyes flying open as an elegant palm gripped the back of his head, he was afraid the threat might ring true. But rather than a kiss, the elder forced the little spoon between his ever pouting lips, and ordered him to swallow.
Xue Meng gulped it down, blanched and penny eyed.
“I… I had a thought.”
The younger Mei waggled a brow. “Oh?”
“Aiyah! Keep it in your pants. I meant that I might to speak to my Shizun.”
“And the weeping branch wilts.”
“Hey! Shizun is…”
“Yeah, yeah his gorgeous, pure as snow, completely boner worthy. Speak to him, why?”
The elder reached across their companion and shoved his brother at the shoulder. “Speak of Chu Wanning with respect.”
Xue Meng felt his heart ache a little.
The younger held up his hands. “Hey! I mean it. He’s a beauty almost equal to this one to be sure. Powerful, just and all pink cheeked when he’s kind. Very easy to love, very much my type, I get it.”
Xue Meng sighed. “I want to ask him his advice, his opinion.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not that I need his permission but… I would like his blessing at least, if-if I were to do this. He is the closest thing I have to my father.”
“Mm.” The elder nodded. “Then we shall send for him. But know if we should call for Chu Wanning, Mo Weiyu is sure arrive at his heels.”
Xue Meng shrugged, attempting very obviously to sheath his giddy anticipation. “Fine, let them both come.”
/
Chu Wanning and Mo Weiyu arrived on the graceful curl of a dragon’s tale at twilight. Xue Meng had been surprised at how quickly they had reached Sisheng Peak, for apparently, it was difficult to will Mo Ran to release their Shizun from their marital bed for any reason.
But here, in a burst of light against the crimson of a sky mourning the fall of the sun, came the majestic Yuheng Elder in fluttering white. Beside him, the illustrious Mo Zongshi in robes of fitted obsidian. When the two bent at the waist for him in a bow, Xue Meng was immediately spooked.
“Ah! Don’t do that! Don’t do that!”
“Sect Leader.” Mo Ran sheepishly smirked, dimples deep in his tan cheeks. “I have come to escort Shizun to your side.”
“Escort?” Chu Wanning repeated, hand flat on the wide of his lover’s chest as he shoved him gently in the direction of the main hall. “Please. Go and play with the Brothers Mei. We will meet the three of you for dinner after.”
They had met that day at the Red Lotus Pavilion, a place that had remained untouched even in the absence of its original inhabitant.
The azure pools were just a clear, the lotus and the Hiatangs still bloomed, it was as though Chu Wanning had never left. Like the ghost of the man he no longer was still wandered between shrubs.
“Does… Shizun miss this place?”
“Mn.” He nodded, phoenix eyes gentle in a forlorn sort of affection. “Many lonely nights were spent here, and many days filled with the laughter of my three disciples.”
“Yeah…”
Chu Wanning turned to him in full. “You seemed rather anxious to see me. What was it that had you rushing us back to Sisheng Peak?”
“It is a little… ah… I don’t…”
“Xue Ziming, speak properly.”
“I…when you and my cousin... oh ew, no! Why did I… I mean not ew! You’re not ew. You’re fine! Great actually! The best, I just-“
“Xue Meng,” came the simple reply. “Spit it out.”
“I…” He tried, he really did, but beneath the glaring prospect of losing his Shizun’s respect, he was a coward.
“Does this have something to do with Mei Hanxue?”
Wringing his hands, the disciple nodded.
“You like him.”
Xue Meng let his eyes drift up, Chu Wanning’s lashes fluttered.
“Oh. You like them both.”
“Ah!” His disciple panicked, shaking out his hands as though they were dirty and pacing before his master like a headless peacock through the last burst of life before the embarrassment promptly took him to the grave. “Is it too vulgar? Is it sinful?”
Brow cock Chu Wanning reminded him: “I should be the last person to cast judgment in this respect.”
The pacing stopped, but in that moment, Xue Meng looked heartbreakingly like the child always so eager to please him and so ashamed that he was to make even a single mistake.
“Shizun, I-I’m afraid that you will see me differently now.”
“I will not.”
The younger hung his head. “But… I saw you differently.”
Chu Wanning measured him a short while, the slight curl of his lips never fading. “You had never considered anything like it to be possible, I think you saw the world differently than before, not me.”
“I am a Sect Leader.”
“That is correct.”
“My people will suffer for my actions no matter what they may be. If we were to be discovered…”
Pride… pure and unveiled radiated from the Beidou Immortal like a halo. “Maybe it is time for people to change their minds. Maybe it is enough.”
“Do you… think that they will?”
“Now me and Mo Ran have cleared the way… perhaps it will be a little easier for you. Regardless, no one has the right to know the parts of you that you do not wish to reveal. That is yours to give.”
“Oh.”
“Sect Leader…” Xue Meng let his eyes find Chu Wanning’s, warm beneath his praise. “Your Shizun is very proud of you. No matter what you chose, Mo Ran and I… will remain by your side until the end.”
Somewhere down the peak, Mo Weiyu asked the Mei twins one simple question.
“Do you love my Di?”
In unison, they gave their reply. “Yes.”
“And you will stay by his side as long as he needs you?”
“Yes.”
Mo Weiyu grinned, holding out his hands for them to shake. “Then we are brothers.” He declared as the twins took his hands with a beam and a solemn nod in turn.
/
With Chu Wanning and Mo Ran tucked away in Red Lotus Pavillion, Xue Meng asked the twins to take him back to his room.
When Mei Hanxue’s eyes flew open, he quickly shook his head. “No, no! I just…”
In the starlight they sparkled, each pin and jewel catching the light.
“Speak to us simply.” Mei Hänxue bade him. “What is it you want?”
“Suh-Suh… AH!”
“Sex?”
“No! Just…” They blinked at him, none the wiser. “Stay… with me. Tonight. Sleep with me. In my… bed?”
Wordlessly, they agreed.
He blushed as they undressed that night, loosening their golden waves and crawling in either side of his ridged body. They didn’t pull him in, they didn’t come to close, but they spoke in droll, lazy tones, to each other about things of little consequence. It bequeathed Xue Meng an immeasurable peace. And when his eyes finally closed, the younger brushed the hair from his eyes. The elder secured the sheets around his shoulders, before snuffing the wicks and settling down into the pillows to, hopefully, meet him in the land of dreams.
/
The mists of Peach Blossom Springs veiled the true forms of the shadows that lurked in the recesses. Xue Meng drifted through the shallows, toward a figure, taller than he was and so… painfully nostalgic in his stance.
Xue Zhengyong turned to him, pristine as he remained in Xue Meng’s memories, the same robes, the same smile. And the same ache in his heart each time Xue Meng thought of him.
“Baba?”
“My Meng Meng…” He breathed, his eyes sparkling, reverent for his boy as though he should be the one to be revered. Not the man… not the hero that Xue Meng threw himself into the arms of. Even when he pressed his ear to his chest, he heard no beating heart beneath. He was forced as always to face the truth.
Xue Meng shook his head and cast it from his mind
“I missed you so much…” he sobbed. “I miss you.”
“I know. We miss you too. Madly, my boy!”
“I’m so sorry.”
Xue Zhengyong cupped either side of his son’s head as he pulled him back. “Ah! My silly boy, why would ever apologise to this old man? What could you be sorry for?”
“I’m… I’m not even- you are not-“
“Hush.” He chuckled patting those tear damp cheeks with his sleeve to no avail, but regardless, he kept trying “Don’t let those notions reach your mind. Don’t think about it. You are my boy. My son. You always have been. Since before you even arrived, I fear you and I were meant for each other.”
“But I…”
“A-Meng. Being your father was the privilege of my life.”
With that Xue Meng was folded back into his arms and allowed to rest there a long while, until he was able to gather his composure, steady his breath.
“There is something else that bothers you.” The elder Xue sighed.
Xue Meng lifted his head, but not his eyes, which blinked down at the water rippling at their feet. It was quite possible that these were the all tears he had cried before. “I… I don’t think I am…”
“Hm?” The elder Xue hummed wistfully.
“Perfect, I don’t think I am perfect.”
“Lies!” Xue Zhengyong boomed cheerfully. “My Meng Meng was always perfection itself.”
“Baba… I think I love Mei Hanxue…
“Oh.”
“Both of them”
“Oh again.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Why are you sorry?! What have I told you about those words!”
“Two men… it is…”
But Xue Zhengyong softened his eyes and clutched his son’s shoulders firmly, assuring that he met his eyes when he spoke. “You know who else loved two men in their lifetime? Your mother. And she remains the apple of my eye just as you are.”
Xue Meng, brows pinched, closed his eyes and his father squished his tear damp cheeks. “Dad… are you and Mama okay now?”
“We are so happy.” Xue Zhengyong whispered fervent in his sincerity. “And so proud of you.”
“You are?”
“Of course we are… look at you. Beautiful in every way a Xue should be!”
But then he let go, released his shoulders and began to sink back into the fog, Xue Meng’s fingers scrambling to catch his sleeve the way he had at his hip as a child. But he missed…
“No! Don’t go, I-“
“You are so loved A-Meng… they have loved you more than you have known. Those boys most particularly. Trust me in this.”
“Baba!”
“Shh, my dear boy. Open your eyes, they are waiting for you.”
/
“Ziming? Hey, hey…”
When Xue Meng blinked himself into the haze of dim light, but two almost identical faces were what he saw knelt above him. One who clutched at his trembling shoulder, furrow browed and the other who squeezed his tear flooded cheek, hushing him with the alarm riddling every shift of his irises.
But once he opened his eyes, those other eyes settled and Mei Hanxue smiled, grateful for his conscious presence. “Ah! There you are… you had us worried there for a second.”
Mei Hänxue’s concern however, had not dissolved as quickly as his brothers. “What happened to y-“
“I need…” he whispered.
“What do you need?” the younger whispered, neither of them having taken their anchoring hands away from him. “Water?”
“Can you kiss me?” The twins stilled as Xue Meng sobbed, sniffled and stumbled over his words. “Or just… both of you or… or none. You don’t have to, I’m just-“
He was silenced, by the (at first) gentle flutter of Mei Hanxue’s lips against his own. Then they parted, lidded, just a slither of air between them before Xue Meng nodded and Mei Hanxue stooped, allowing his lips to linger, to explore, to tease and coax.
As the kiss deepened the soft, clumsy smack of lips filling an otherwise silent room, Xue Meng felt the hand on his shoulder slip away.
Alarmed, he broke the this kiss, to catch Mei Hänxue’s wrist before he went, turning his head on the pillow, the younger Mei’s lips brushing his earlobe instead.
“Don’t…” he whispered. “Don’t go.”
Mei Hänxue let his eyes traverse his features; taking in each wrinkle and quirk before he crawled back over to the man they both loved and gathered his lips between his own.
The elder was little more hesitant than the younger, a little less practiced, but there was a surprising sweetness to the way he kissed him, a tenderness that had Xue Meng breathless each time he pulled back.
For the duration, Xue Meng held each of their hands to his heaving chest, just over his heart. And when the elder finally parted from him, the younger was settled at his side, propped up on his elbow.
“I…I just… needed…”
“Mm.” Mei Hänxue nodded brushing his bangs from his eyes. “It is okay.”
“What happened?” Mei Hanxue whispered, letting his thumb move back and forward where it was held. “Bad dream?”
“No… a good one.”
“Are you sure?” The elder mumbled, brow still crumpled.
Xue Meng did not answer, instead his let his eyes swing back and forth between the two.
“Tomorrow… um… when I’m more awake. Can we… like…”
“Yes.” Mei Hanxue chuckled. Xue Meng turned his gaze to the elder.
“Yes.” He echoed. “Go back to sleep, you are exhausted.”
“I’m fine.”
“Trust me…” Mei Hanxue smirked, patting his soon to be lover’s chest. “You’ll need as much energy as you can get.”
Xue Meng was beginning to think he should regret his decisions.
/
The entire next days’ worth of responsibilities were erroneous and almost unbearable to clamber through with the Mei Brother’s floating always close to his periphery. As the elder Mei regaled a long scroll of shared trade from his list, Xue Meng found himself fixated on those soft, full lips, earning tap of a brush handle on his nose and snort from the younger. Xue Meng huffed and grumbled at them, but did not protest this time as much as he would before.
But by the time the light faded and the stars covered and endless lick of sapphire blue, by the time Xue Meng had bathed thoroughly to Mei Hanxue’s blush inducing, whispered instructions, he found his heart pounding. His bed however, still cold.
Xue Meng didn’t know why he re-tidied his hair, adding the pin and gilded crown, it seemed a little ridiculous seeing as all he wore was a tightly knotted night robe.
He didn’t know why he started to move the messy piles of books and trinkets into chests and shelves, it wasn’t as though they had never seen his room like this.
He also didn’t know why he flinched at the knock on the door. For he knew they would be coming.
“Ziming? Are you decent?”
“Not that it will matter soon any- OW, Ge!”
“Keep your voice down.”
Xue Meng cleared his throat. “Um… come in.”
The brothers Mei were dumbfounded at what they found, stuck still as the doors breezed shut behind them. They wore unassuming robes of white, their golden hair loose down their back or across their shoulder. The younger was wearing his signature forehead gem, the elder gem free.
And they were still, too still.
“Ah! Is it all the lanterns?” Indeed they were scattered about the room in coloured glass, wood and paper making for such a beautiful arrangement, reminiscent of a kaleidoscope. But the most pressing beauty stood amongst them in tightly fastened robe and golden crown. “I can put a few out, it’s just… my cousin told me lighting was-”
“Keep them on.” Mei Hänxue insisted.
“Uh…”
“You look too adorable right now.” Mei Hanxue purred, prowling forth like a sand coloured cat, flicking his tail and licking his lips. He took Xue Meng’s arm, pressing his lips against his inner wrist to a shaken breath in response. “And we want to see you blush.”
“Aiyah…” Xue Meng grunted. “Must you be so…”
“So what?” Mei Hanxue grinned as grumpily, the shorter tugged his wrist away. “Hot? Sexy?”
“Disgusting.”
“What about my body…” Xue Meng froze. “What about my brother’s? Disgusting? You have seen them before. No?”
Xue Meng sputtered and scoffed, but no real response materialised. So the elder Mei swept into their midst.
“We do not have to do this tonight.”
Xue Meng scoffed, despite the burning of his ears. “What do you think I am? A tease? A coward?”
Surprisingly it was the younger who said the right thing this time. “You’re a human being with needs, with worries, with insecurities.”
“Sure, like you would know how it feels to be insecure about any-”
“I do… I have my insecurities too… I’m sure you will riddle them out the more we meet like this.”
Xue Meng let his eyes whip away just a touch from being entranced.
“I… want it. Tonight.”
“Good!”
“And they’re not.”
“Hm?”
“Your um… your bodies are not like… disgusting.”
“High praise.”
“Aiyah!”
“Di..” the elder sighed. “Be nice.”
“Yeah yeah, I know… you see I am… a tease. I can’t help it.”
“No shit.” Xue Meng rolled his eyes.
“But that does not mean what I feel for you is any less sincere.”
Oh. Oh wow… Xue Meng had never seen the younger Mei look so earnest.
“Don’t… don’t look at me like that, you’re scaring me. You both are.”
“What do you propose we both do?” the elder arched a brow. “Close our eyes?”
Xue Meng shifted. “Can you?”
Mei Hanxue snorted.
“I’ll rip your fucking-“
But Mei Hänxue sighed. “Fine…”
“Oh uh…” Xue Meng was tossed quickly off his path to fury, when the elder Mei let his shoulders relax and he closed his eyes, as if waiting for Xue Meng to make his move. The Sect Leader’s eyes roamed to the younger Mei; he too was closing his eyes, a grin of mirthful glee still loitering upon his lips.
“I don’t… I don’t know how to…”
“How about undressing us first?”
Xue Meng glowed so red he was almost purple. “I don’t… I….”
The elder Mei groaned. “Ziming, I don’t think it will work like this.”
“No! Don’t! Don’t open your eyes yet.”
“Aiyah…” but then the soft thud of material froze them in place and neither could help it, their eyes flew open.
Before them stood a naked Xue Ziming, smooth, flushed skin, plump, shaking thighs and a taper so pretty in his waist that even the arms trying desperately to shield his body could not hide it.
“WHAT THE FUCK! I said don’t look!”
“Ziming…” Hänxue, whispered.
“Don’t look! Fuck I… I wasn’t ready I-“
The younger reached out before he could push him away, tugging the Sect Leader by his little waist until they were flush.
Gleeful, Hanxue realised, there was a little give… a little squish to Xue Meng’s flesh.
In the months following the death of his parents, Xue Meng ate very little and drank too much. What he did eat, he almost always vomited into a nearby shrub as the twins held his hair for his face. Each time Mei Hanxue or his brother carried him to bed, they couldn’t help but notice how skinny he had become. The bumps of his spin and the ripples of his ribs growing all the more prominent.
A distinct and specific nausea rolled over Mei Hanxue when he thought of it. It was not the first time he had seen it happen. In the months after the Mei brothers became orphans, Mei Hanxue had developed a veracious appetite. If life was so fleeting, he thought, and shelter so frail, he would indulge in all he could while it was still possible. It was a notion he practiced until this day.
Mei Hänxue however, barely ate a thing. He became so wan and so slight, that his Di became frightened he too would fade away. Though Hanxue pushed his plate toward the elder, the elder would push it back forcing the shakiest of smiles onto his lip as he told him: “You eat, Di. I feel full just watching you.”
The elder fell ill a few weeks later, and scared Mei Hanxue so badly that he finally gave in and began to eat.
Still those facets of him remained. As the younger indulged in the all the pleasures life had to offer, he held down the fort. Sacrifice upon sacrifice. The one and only thing he would ever admit to wanting was Xue Ziming. Terrified his brother would hate him for liking him too.
Mei Hanxue could never hate his brother. And what’s more, Xue Ziming was handful too great for one to handle alone.
Said handful’s breath stuttered, as he stared fixedly at the chest before him and refused to look up.
“A-Meng…” Hanxue breathed
“No.”
“Look at me…”
“No…”
“Aiyo… you are so pretty like this. Don’t break my heart. Look at me”
“I can’t!” he huffed, crimson in the face. “I told you I can’t. I can’t look at you dammit!”
“Then, do you trust me?”
“Di, what are you…”
Mei Hanxue was fiddling with his waist belt, and instantly panicked. Xue Meng turned away, escaping those enticing arms and turning his back to them in the process.
Unintentionally, he handed them a perfect perspective of his two impressively perky and entirely biteable cheeks.
Hanxue’s tongue wet the seal of his lips, and Hänxue’s eyes blew so dark that they almost swallowed the whites of his eyes entirely.
A creak in the floor board.
Xue Meng’s arm flew out striking a hot, firm chest and keeping it from reaching much further. “No! Don’t-“
“A-Meng…” Mei Hanxue whispered his voice so tender Xue Meng felt it ache like the echoed cry of a pipa beneath his chest. “Trust me.”
“I…”
“Ziming…” A shiver coiled its way down the Sect Leader’s spine. “He wouldn’t do anything to humiliate you. Not now, not like this. “
“And if you still think I might, then we probably shouldn’t-“
Finger’s curled into Hanxue’s open robe. “You- you can’t leave.”
“Okay… we won’t.”
When the soft, breathable material began to veil his eyes Xue Meng flinched back, the elder catching his waist to steady him.
“It’s okay.” The younger whispered. “This way, you don’t have to look. You can just let us… make you feel good. Hm?”
Xue Meng took a deep, soothing inhale and then closed his eyes and allowed the younger to very carefully wrap the white about his eyes, handing it off to the elder to tie a knot secure enough to stay, but loose enough to tug away should their lover begin to fret.
Blinded, all Xue Meng could do was feel.
Goosebumps erupted, as lips travelled the length of his right shoulder, caressing the skin and leaving shudder inducing lips prints behind. Xue Meng’s head tilted to the side on instinct, granting the man who groaned his appreciation further access. At the same time, calloused hands wandered his skin. One coasting his abdomen and the other sliding down between his inner thighs, brushing the tip of his twitching cock but just barely.
It felt like fire, Xue Meng was panting and huffing as though he was being sizzled away at the meeting of two halves of the same sun.
Then the fingers between his thighs were retrieved, but before he could whine or tantrum, they were under his jaw, turning his face until their lips met, in a steady but sensual kiss.
“Put your arms around me.” Mei Hänxue murmured into their ministrations.
“My- my…”
“I’m taking you to bed.”
Air caught in his throat, still Xue Meng complied, letting the elder bringing his arms up around his shoulders before sweeping his legs and cradling him into his chest as they went.
Then he felt the familiar dip of the futon, smelt the familiar herbal salts mixed with the warm earthiness of the elder and the rich musk of younger. It was intoxicating to say the least, his heart hammering way up in his ears.
He could feel his chest heaving, a hand cradled protectively at the back of his skull as he was lowered to the pillow. Then he felt four hands linger across each rise and contour of his body, lips burnt into his neck as he gulped down each tremoring breath.
They were memorising him. It’s what it felt like, as though… if this were the last chance they ever had, they would take it, grab it by both hands and hold it in their hearts forever. The thought make Xue Meng ache for them in the way it did when they were all boys.
It’s okay… I won’t leave you either.
He would never say this out loud, of course… but his hands did thread through silken hair earning a hum from one and a groan from the other.
Gratefully, a tongue flicked out, against his right nipple. The resulting writhe and whimper only served the fan the flames to and unfathomable height. As another pair of lips swallowed those pretty sounds greedily, the other trailed downward, over his waist, his abdomen, his thighs, nipping noises from him that were instantly consumed by the elder’s mouth.
It had to be him… Mei Hänxue. For when he kissed it was sweeter. His little brother was all fire and passion. Xue Meng couldn’t say he preferred any over the other and like this; he was far too lost in the sensation to care to choose.
Then it didn’t matter anymore, because Mei Hanxue was grasping what lay hard and heavy between his legs and in one fell swoop, he was encased by a warm, wet, suction that had him instantly bucking up. Ripping his lips from the elder’s to cry out.
“Ah! Fuck! Shit-“
But a strong arm was pinning his hips to the bed. “Behave. Or you could hurt him.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to…oh god! Fuck.”
“Shush.” The Hänxue, whispered turning his chin back to his for a tender peck. “Be good for us.”
Though Xue Meng was not one to back down from a challenge, the sounds coming from below were so past the point of obscene; wet, moaning slurps and as he pushed his thighs wider, Xue Meng felt his tip hit the back of his throat. The sounds falling from Xue Meng’s lips weren’t much more dignified.
“Fuckfuckfuck…No, you have to…. Not yet. You have to-“
Mei Hanxue pulled up off him with a resounding pop, Xue Meng’s cock falling, thick and heavy to his stomach with a slap.
“Hmm.” The younger simpered. “The sounds you make are sinful Meng-Meng.”
“Fuck you…”
“Huh… what do you think, Ge? Should we?”
“Who should…”
“Hm.”
“It wouldn’t be wise to attempt both just yet.”
Xue Meng was starting to panic. “W-What are you-“
“Ah, you do the honours Ge.”
“But you…”
“Ah! For once in your life, take the gift. The greatest gift you will ever be given.”
“WHAT ARE YOU-“
“Shh... A-Meng… my brother wants to fuck you, that’s all.”
Xue Meng stilled.
“I-I don’t know how to-“
“I know… “ Hänxue murmured, a thumb tracing their lover’s pouted, bitten bottom lip. “I will take good care of you Ziming.”
“Are you…” Xue Meng was relieved beyond belief that he could not see how they looked at him right now “Will it hurt?”
A pause and then: “Here” The elder had taken his hand pressed it to something hard and flat… his… abs? Oh and he, had the trailed it down until…
His hand circled it, Xue Meng blanched.
“ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY. How can I even… how will that even-“
There was a snort from the younger, but the elder was subdued a while before he spoke, more hesitant than Xue Meng had ever heard him. “I don’t have to. I only… I mean, we don’t have to do that. You don’t have to do this with me. I can just-”
The Sect Leader pressed his lip together, immediately regretting the outburst. “Is your brother… smaller?
“Mm, Ge is still thick but he’s longer, I’m much thicker. Honestly you’d probably be safer with him.”
“Aiyah, since when have you been measuring our-“
“It’s right there what do you want from me?!”
“Pervert…”
“HAVE YOU TWO IDIOTS FORGOT I’M LYING HERE WITH MY DICK OUT? Pay attention to me!”
“Here.” Hanxue sighed, grabbing, his lovers second hand and pushing it unceremoniously between his legs.
“Oh.”
“See?”
“I want your Ge first.”
“Mhm! Perfect idea, my love! I’m quite too much to handle for the first time in.” With a chuckle, he bent down and kissed their lover’s lips. “But I can definitely do something else for you instead.”
“Mmph, what are you…”
A rustle, a jostle and silence… then soft hands were pushing his inner thighs until the fell apart like an opening book.
“Mei Hanxue if- ah! FUCK!”
Xue Meng was bucking. He could physically feel the laughter from between his cheeks. “Mm, even in bed you must be heard.”
“W-What are- y-you…”
“So it doesn’t hurt you. Let me help you feel good.”
“I- UHH!” Xue Meng’s hands scrambled, patting down his own sweat slick skin until he found the mass of hair he wanted, burying his fingers between each silken lock to keep himself grounded. Mei Hanxue’s tongue was warm, velvet and devilishly indulgent. He seemed to relish in each mournful moan ripped from the smaller’s lips so loud it felt like it could shake room.
A shadow passed Xue Meng’s eyes, as Mei Hänxue swept in to swallow his sounds insatiably. For a while, all that existed in their world was sinful tongues, quivering muscles, muffled whines and the most obscene concoction of wet smacks from between his legs and at the joining of their lips.
Then lips were torn away, bruised and swollen, wet with saliva when the tongue below pulled back and a slick finger circled the tight pucker in return.
“Mei Hanxue…” their lover gasped.
“Shh, I’ve got you… A-Meng, you’re so gorgeous right now. Mmm. So good for us.”
Xue Meng felt an extremely notable twitch between his legs.
Quiet preceded it…
They had seen what had happened there too.
“Do you like that?” Mei Hanxue whispered, circling this most sensitive spot languidly as if he were tracing the rim of his cup with his fingertip. “When I tell you how good you are… how pretty you are? How hard you make me?”
“ Fuck.”
“Di… don’t tease him…” Hänxue murmured, fingers sweeping the highs of his hot cheeks. “He’s blushing.”
“I’m not-“
“You are.” Hanxue drawled as the first finger breached the rim, Xue Meng trilling and crying out like a peacock in heat. “And it’s so mouth-watering. I just want to eat you up.”
“Hah! Ah!”
A nose nuzzled into those warm cheeks where the snowy blindfold met the frenzied skin as his younger brother added another finger. It had Xue Meng squirming beneath them. “Does it feel good, Ziming? Are you pleased?”
“I-I don’t… HAH, FUCK!”
“Ah…” came the jovial little declaration from between his thighs as their lover arched his back and convulsed. “Found it.”
Xue Meng did not know how Mei Hanxue was doing it. A man who thought himself so composed and so regal… and his resolve was being torn to pieces, tossed to the wind with a simple rub of fingers against flesh.
Still, somewhere in the blind fever, Xue Meng heard the gentle huffs against his temple… the friction of skin on sticky skin.
His lips parted. And somehow, his heart ached to think of the Elder was distancing himself from their pleasure, as he were an outlier her and not at the core.
“Let me…”
“Hm?”
“Let me touch you.” Xue Meng croaked. “I want to… to help. Let me-”
He was cut off with a leisurely, tender kiss and the hand not clenched in the sheets was coaxed down from where it was haphazardly tucked against Mei Hänxue’s chest, to circle that same cock he had handled minutes ago. It throbbed, hardening viscerally in Xue Meng’s grasp.
Already slick it made for easy work, Xue Meng’s hand gliding up and down in time with the rhythm set by the younger Mei inside him. Forced to admit something, Xue Meng could at least admit to knowing how to do this part.
“You’re so good, Ziming.” Hänxue whispered against plush, pouted lips, which whimpered and whined in response. “God. It looks so alluring in your hands.”
For the first time that night, Xue Ziming almost wanted to rip off the blindfold and watch it for himself, but too afraid he’d lose face, he simply bit his lip and rolled down veraciously against the younger’s fingers.
Instantly, the fingers inside him pressed down… sped up. Xue Meng cried out, but rather than let go he held onto the cock in his hand harder, so hard it almost hurt the elder, and increased his speed in time.
“FUCK! SHIT, MOTHER-FUCKER. I need it! I need it, I need it, I need it now.”
“Are you-“
“NOW.” He demanded.
With a chortle from the younger three fingers slid out of him, leaving Xue Meng empty and longing for what was lost. But before he could grieve the loss too long, calloused palms were being hooked behind his knees, as they were lifted up around that trim, firm body.
Xue Meng shivered as he was positioned, the hot sticky substance between his cheeks now cooling and catching the air.
He turned his eyes up and then to the side behind the blindfold, as if somehow he could see them… all he could do was imagine. Something gnawed at his heartstrings. A yearning.
Didn’t he… want to see them? To tear the veils away.
If, he did it was too late to bring it up… for there was blunt pressure at his entrance and a high keen on his lips as the tip of that pressure finally… blissfully breached him.
“Fuck…” The younger Mei breathed as he watched Xue Meng bow and cry out, breached by his elder brother. He stooped down to leave a kiss on his sweat beaded hair line. “It’s okay… you’re doing so good baby.”
“Oh my god.” Why did it feel so addictive… the praise… the pain. Why could he feel tears pooling so rapidly beneath the blindfold and why when the elder’s thumb, whisked them away with a worried “Love?” did he feel it gather like a lump in his throat.
“Do you need us to stop?” Hanxue whispered against his ear as he caught it between his teeth.
“No!” he croaked. “Don’t stop, don’t you f-fucking dare. I’ll kill you.”
But these weak threats fell on educated ears. They knew him far too well. Inside and out.
Once he was sheathed in that dizzying warmth, Hänxue leaned up to lay a kiss upon tear salted lips. “Good boy.”
A whine.
And then he started to move… it was sensation the likes of which Xue Meng had never felt. The feeling of being so full and… almost complete.
“Hanxue…”
“Mm?”
“Where…where…”
“I’m here.” He promised. “I’m-“
A gasp… Xue Meng has reached for his cock without a word and senselessly began to stroke him. “Oh good boy… suh-so fucking good. So divine.”
“Hah! Ah!”
Slow, measured thrusts started to build in force the tighter Xue Meng subconsciously squeezed around the elder.
“Fuck… Ge… is he…”
“So fucking tight.”
Xue Meng, ruddy from his cheeks to his chest mindlessly moaned into their mouths as the elder bent his legs further to his chest. By now, Xue Meng so loose and so pliant he folded up without issue. Without question or defiance. It drove him to an impossible depth that had their lover call out into the night, his hand rabid and clumsy on younger’s cock as Hanxue’s thumbs rolled his nipples, teeth nibbling at the underside of his jaw.
He felt it in his belly first… that fire… the tension. The bed beginning to creak beneath them, fucked so firmly it was shaking the knot of his blindfold loose.
“Fuck look at you both.” Hanxue whispered.
Xue Meng’s self-control had snapped and his shame was shattered, stippled about the room… long gone.
With his empty hand, he tore the blind fold from his eyes.
And what met his gaze might be burned into his retina forever.
It was like staring into the sun… a mirage, the dapple of light through leaves reflected across water in a rich, burnt orange. Mei Hanxue’s, brow was twisted, red skinned, his jaw slack. Mei Hänxue, his hips were snapping, sweat sheened… furrowed in the deepest and most ardent of intent to drive Xue Meng past the precipice. To see them like this… so undone, cleaving the pleasure from this body, wrung out by him and him alone.
It was enough… the coil snapped.
White light, white hot… scalding and blinding him as his ears rung out in resonance of their joint cries.
He didn’t know how long he was out… all he knew is that when he woke, his face was buried into the centre of the younger’s chest as he sniffled into his skin and Hanxue cupped the back of his head to keep him close. All the while the elder was plastered to his back, lips travelling the length of his bicep as his hand pet his shaking thighs still.
“Shh…. Shh.”
“St-Stop telling me to shush.”
The younger snickered the sound vibrating in his chest as their love hooked his chin sleepily over his shoulder.
“Ah, there he is!”
And he was, he was there, reflected back to himself through the copper mirror adjacent. Xue Meng was horror struck with what he saw.
His hair was loose and tousled, his body caked in sweat, and his skin littered from head to toe in ugly red marks.
“AH! What have you done to my body… look at how ugly my skin looks. Never again I will I ever-“
But then the younger of the two sleepily mumbled his name, as the elder pressed his forehead between his shoulder blades. “A-Meng.”
Shifting back, the elder shifting with him, Xue Meng was met with a gaze so devoted, its match was only the deep concentration of the elder, as later he wrung a cloth and delicately cleaned and soothed Xue Meng despite his chagrin.
“What are you…” Xue Meng muttered.
But Mei Hanxue’s thumb was kissing the delicate skin beneath his bottom lashes.
“Hmm. Xue really is beautiful.”
Oh. Oh fuck, Xue Meng lamented, he was about to do it all over again.