Chapter Text
Everything is easy with Hua Cheng.
It's easy for Xie Lian to spend every waking minute thinking about him, about his loose, graceful movements as they walk together, his fond voice calling him gege. It’s easy to get distracted thinking about him, to lose handfuls of minutes at work replaying their conversations until his manager snaps at him, and it's even easier to not care.
It's so easy to talk to Hua Cheng. Xie Lian isn't used to having someone who wants to hear about his shitty temp job and asks him random questions as they lounge on the couch (what was your favorite toy growing up? Where do you most want to visit? Do you believe in ghosts?). Hua Cheng likes the answers too, especially when they're silly. (A wooden sword. New Zealand. Why, would Hua Cheng haunt him?) Laughter comes easily too.
It’s so, so easy to kiss Hua Cheng. Especially because he makes himself so available for kissing, keeping close to Xie Lian when he can, curving his neck down a bit to be within kissing distance, smiling so affectionately that not kissing him is unconscionable.
It's not so easy, Xie Lian is realizing as he falls down on the bed, to push Hua Cheng away.
He tells himself it's a knee-jerk reaction. He's not often on his back, bracketed in, and kissed soundly, so it makes sense that a part of him would be uncomfortable.
“Gege.” Hua Cheng’s voice is as gentle as his hands smoothing up and down his torso, dragging the fabric of his shirt with them. Xie Lian feels lightheaded as Hua Cheng hums against his lips, slots a leg between his knees.
This is not Xie Lian’s first time on this bed, in this apartment. But it is the first time in a while because Xie Lian’s last temp position has been running him ragged for the last month. He’s starting a different job next week, and they’re celebrating with dinner at Hua Cheng’s place. Dinner turned into kissing as they dried the dishes. Kissing led them to stumble down the hallway into the bedroom. Now Xie Lian is here, under the steady, comforting weight of his boyfriend. He wants to keep going. He also wants to stop. He doesn’t know what he wants.
It’s happening. It could happen so easily, like how easy everything else is, if Xie Lian just relaxed and let it happen. The knots in his stomach would uncurl and Hua Cheng would make it so good—it's already so good, as Hua Cheng licks under his jaw. He gasps and shudders and brings his hands up to Hua Cheng’s chest and concentrates at least half of himself on not pushing Hua Cheng away.
But he doesn't have to concentrate for long because there's a still period of breathing and then Hua Cheng is pulling back.
“Gege? Are you okay?” He looks down at Xie Lian sprawled under him. His visible eye is dark with want.
Xie Lian smiles and shivers again. “I'm fine, San Lang.” It is fine. It can be fine.
“Hmm. You sure?”
“Mn.” Xie Lian wants this. He knows he wants this. He's thought about it a lot, and he thought he was ready, and maybe if it just happens now, it would be easier later—
But—oh, no, Hua Cheng is shifting back, sitting on his heels, smiling fondly. Xie Lian already misses the warmth of his body so close over his own.
“Sorry,” he says, before realizing it's almost an admission. “I want to, I really do—”
“Don't be sorry,” Hua Cheng is already saying, reaching out for his hand. Xie Lian takes it and grips its familiar shape.
“We talked about it,” Xie Lian says, hearing the frustration in his voice. “I want to go to the next step.”
“It's okay if you don't—”
“I do! God, I want it so much. I don't want you thinking that I don't. I—I think about it all the time, San Lang.”
Hua Cheng looks pleased, the tops of his cheekbones flushing to match his red shirt, and his thumb strokes the back of Xie Lian's hand.
“What do you think about, gege?” His voice is pitched low, soft, but it's not quite a seduction. He's working to put Xie Lian at ease, using the voice he uses when he hugs Xie Lian to his chest after a bad day.
“I—” Xie Lian thinks. His mind is full of the ghosts of feelings rather than images. He's had difficulty trying to connent the hot, blooming feelings he has when Hua Cheng kisses him with the image he constructs of him and Hua Cheng fucking. He knows it will be good, hopes it will be even better, but he flounders for something concrete to offer his boyfriend.
“We talked about it,” he repeats, voice small.
Because love comes easy for him. It’s sex that’s hard.
Large warm hands cup his face gently, tilting him up slightly as if asking for Xie Lian’s gaze.
“You don't want this right now,” Hua Cheng says, and it sounds so—acceptable coming from Hua Cheng’s mouth.
Xie Lian says, “I don’t.” Then: “I'm sor—” before he remembers that Hua Cheng always flicks his nose when he apologizes when no apology is necessary. “Ah! San Lang.”
Hua Cheng grins, then presses a soft kiss where he just flicked. “We don’t have to do this tonight or next week or next month. I’m not going anywhere, gege. But I never want to do anything you don't want,” he says seriously.
Xie Lian trips a bit over the double negative and then he smiles. “I know.”
Hua Cheng scoots closer. “Now gege has to tell me what he does want.”
“I want—” Xie Lian thinks about what's safe enough but not too safe. “Kiss me more?”
Hua Cheng is already leaning over to take his mouth, and after a moment it turns from gentle to hot and tangled. This—this Xie Lian can handle. He feels on fire but not burning out of control. He clambers into Hua Cheng’s lap, moaning into the kiss.
“San Lang—ah—”
Hua Cheng’s arms come around him, hands curling into the bottom of his shirt. He holds Xie Lian like that, fingers splayed on hips, as they kiss and kiss and kiss and—
Xie Lian is humming. He loves this so much. Anything else they do might be better or worse than this, but he has this, Hua Cheng’s quick mouth and his hot breath and his panting, the hectic rise and fall of his chest and—
Xie Lian pulls back, realizing that he's been pressing closer to Hua Cheng as they've kissed, even hitching his hips a little. Hua Cheng is breathing like a winded racehorse, eye shut.
Oh.
“It's okay,” Hua Cheng breathes, brows pinching together. “I just. Um. Need a minute.”
Now that he's more focused, Xie Lian can feel Hua Cheng’s cock pressing insistently against his ass. Though he's not exactly soft himself—except that's not the point.
“I’m sorry!” he says, crawling off his boyfriend's lap. “I shouldn’t have—” said no you can't fuck me and then humped you while we made out? Yeah.
Hua Cheng’s eye has opened, and he blinks several times. “It’s not your fault, I should have said something—”
“But really I should have—”
Hua Cheng laughs. Xie Lian feels lighter just hearing it. “Let’s agree to not apologize for things that aren’t our fault.”
“Okay.” Xie Lian huffs a laugh, but he still feels bad. At moments like this, he feels like a bad boyfriend, like he's withholding something vital from Hua Cheng, even though Hua Cheng has made it clear that they will go at Xie Lian’s pace. But when has Hua Cheng denied him anything?
“Except…” Xie Lian takes a breath and leans forward to cup Hua Cheng’s erection in his black jeans. Hua Cheng makes a noise like he's been scalded. “Except this is my fault, isn't it?”
Hua Cheng’s eye has rolled closed again, his breathing picking up. “Gege,” he says, and it comes out a whine.
“Is it bad?” Xie Lian asks, his heart pounding like he's run a mile in the last thirty seconds. His entire awareness is focused on that hand, on the heat he can feel through the rough fabric, the harness more firm than Xie Lian had thought it'd be. He feels the urge to squeeze, maybe rub a little, but he doesn't want to push himself too far, doesn't want to find himself in another place where he has to say no, and he can't be cruel to Hua Cheng—especially when he's like this: panting and needy and lurching a little under his hand.
“It's—ah—I really want—”
Xie Lian knows what Hua Cheng wants, and just because Xie Lian isn't ready, it doesn't mean Hua Cheng can't feel good, like he deserves.
He takes away his hand, and Hua Cheng heaves a huge breath.
“Do you want—um—” Xie Lian glances at the bulge in Hua Cheng’s jeans. “To take care of it?” His face feels like he's stuck it in a furnace.
Hua Cheng is staring at him, mouth slightly open, and he squirms a bit. “Yeah. I'd like that.”
Xie Lian reminds himself to breathe as he asks, “Can I watch?”
That dark eye is drifting closed again, mouth agape, and Hua Cheng whispers, “Fuck. Fuck. Yeah.”
They end up scooting to the head of the bed so Hua Cheng can lean back against the headboard, Xie Lian next to him with his legs tucked under him. Hua Cheng keeps sending him small, questioning glances as he unbuttons his shirt, revealing the jade white of his chest and stomach, but he doesn't ask the question, just reaches for the button of his jeans with shaking fingers. He draws himself out with a suppressed groan, and Xie Lian feels a tingling flush cover him all over.
Hua Cheng’s cock is beautifully red and full, and big—not a surprise—and leaking—which is a surprise. Xie Lian finds himself shifting closer as Hua Cheng wraps a pale hand around his cock and lets out a full-bodied groan this time.
Xie Lian has been hard before, but never like Hua Cheng is now. This doesn't look like it will go away with some concentrated meditation and a cold shower. Hua Cheng’s fingers are curled around his cock loosely, and still he's biting his lip until it's red, air rushing out of him in slow gusts.
“Does it hurt?” As soon as he asks it, the question feels childish. But he's watching, hypnotized by Hua Cheng’s movements as he strokes up, pauses to thumb the head, and drags back down. He's so engrossed that he doesn't realize that he's shuffled even closer until his shoulder is pressed against Hua Cheng’s.
“It’s—not exactly comfortable,” Hua Cheng breathes, letting out half a laugh that cuts off when he starts stroking a little faster.
Then why do it? Xie Lian almost asks, but he knows why. He can tell, watching the subtle gripping and loosening of Hua Cheng’s fingers, the slow-fast-slow of his stroking, that Hua Cheng knows himself, knows what he likes and how to make it good. Xie Lian tries to imagine himself doing this and understanding this much about himself, but he can't picture it, and he's convinced it wouldn't be as simple as this: Hua Cheng touches, and touches, and touches again, clearly drawing closer to some critical point like it's inevitable.
Xie Lian is staring, he realizes, but he can't look away. He’s transfixed by the sleek purpling tip of Hua Cheng’s cock and the white liquid beading there. The strokes have taken up a wet sound that he thinks should disgust him, but it's not disgusting at all, combined with the music of Hua Cheng’s quiet little moans.
He looks up, and sees that Hua Cheng is watching him, his eye wide and intent. Watching Xie Lian watch him.
“Gege, I—” he gasps, and Xie Lian is reaching out, wrapping his arms around Hua Cheng’s shoulders. Xie Lian thought he would just be a spectator, a voyeur watching something he shouldn't see—but it's clear as Hua Cheng’s gaze goes heavy and his mouth drops open, still staring at Xie Lian, that he's very much a part of this. This is because of him, and the realization opens something in him.
He's leaning forward almost like it's out of his control, like they're magnets attracting, to press a kiss to Hua Cheng’s cheekbone, above his eyebrow, the edge of his jaw. He kisses and kisses until he's at Hua Cheng’s ear, which he gives an experimental nibble.
“Gege,” Hua Cheng moans.
“Are you close?” He reaches out to hold Hua Cheng’s face, his breaths ratcheting up until they are breathing in tandem.
“Yeah—I—” Hua Cheng surges forward, and they're kissing like they were before, teeth and tongues and hot breath and groans, all over the quickening of Hua Cheng’s hand. “Mm—fuck.”
Hua Cheng jumps like he's been electrocuted and comes, letting out a broken sound into Xie Lian’s mouth. Xie Lian shudders at the vibration of it, pulling back to watch Hua Cheng clamp his eye shut. He trusts the weight of his head to Xie Lian’s hands, and it would be tipped back of Xie Lian didn't keep it upright, their foreheads pressed together.
Hua Cheng looks good like this, Xie Lian decides—a faint pink tinging his cheeks, face slack as he comes down, eye blinking open blearily. And when he can focus his vision again, he breaks out into a smile.
He's—oh. Xie Lian is so in love.
“Hmm.” Hua Cheng hums as Xie Lian caresses his cheeks with a thumb. He blinks hard and his post-orgasm smile turns a little sheepish. “Was that okay?”
Xie Lian chuckles. “Shouldn't I be asking you that?”
“Oh, I had a great time, gege, don’t worry.”
Xie Lian can't help but steal another kiss. “Me too.”
“Really?”
“Mn.” Xie Lian takes the rest of Hua Cheng in—the sheen of sweat around the edges of his hair, his slumped chest, his cock softening on his stomach and the cum there in streaks. What does it feel like, he wonders? Before he can think better of it, he’s dipping a finger down to trace through the cum. It's cooling and more viscous than he thought—but the sound Hua Cheng chokes out suddenly reminds him that he's hard in his pants and has been for a while now.
He kind of wants to ignore it, so he does, and blessedly so does Hua Cheng, silently understanding that this is as far as Xie Lian can go tonight, even though it's farther than he thought he would ever go.
“You're going to be the death of me, gege.”
Xie Lian smiles and presses his face to Hua Cheng’s neck. “You're always saying that.”
-
Every night Xie Lian comes over, Hua Cheng clings to him before he goes.
“I don't want you to go,” he says, and every time it sounds like a confession.
“I don't want to go either,” Xie Lian tells him, truthfully. But what’s the other option, to bum out on Hua Cheng’s couch? That wouldn't be fair to Hua Cheng.
He kisses Xie Lian, and they linger as long as they can.
“Let me know when you get there safe,” Hua Cheng always says.