Work Text:
Xingqiu did not have a problem.
He wasn't pacing the floor at all– he wasn't the type of person to do those kinds of things in the first place. He wasn't opening a book, reading a few paragraphs, and then closing it again every five minutes. Xingqiu was fine. The fluttering inside his stomach meant nothing. Neither did the heat on his skin, or the fact that he glanced at the clock every passing moment, feeling like time moved far too slowly today.
Xingqiu was fine. He was merely antsy about what Calx would say about his manuscript this week.
(He didn't need the critique. He knew he was a good writer. And Calx wasn't even supposed to critique his work– he was an artist, not Xingqiu's editor.)
The moment one of his household's many, many employees knocked on his bedroom door and informed him that he had personal mail, his heart started hammering in his chest. He all but jumped to his seat and snatched the letter away– quickly apologizing to her, though she only seemed more stunned than anything else– and dismissed her as fast as he could without being rude. Then he locked the door, sat on the edge of his bed, and stared at the envelope for a few long moments, his hands shaking so badly that the edges of the paper had started to crease.
Okay, so maybe Xingqiu did have a little bit of a problem.
In his defense, all of it had started out fairly innocent. Or, as innocent as anything could be wherever Xingqiu was involved.
He'd been in his room one evening, staring at a new story he'd managed to hashed out. It was a chapter's worth of porn. He wasn't embarrassed by it, no. In fact, he'd been a little proud of himself.
The characters hadn't been named yet at that point. But Xingqiu had had the vague makings of plot and personality in his head– points he'd quickly jotted down. He wrote down quick notes on a separate sheet of paper, and then drafted a letter for Calx.
I have a new manuscript in the works, he'd written then. It's quite different from A Legend of Sword. I thought perhaps you would be interested in illustrating this one, too.
I've enclosed an excerpt with this letter. It's perfectly okay if you're uncomfortable with doing it! I just thought your art style would suit it perfectly.
It was a few days later when he received a response. Calx had sent a sketch. It was a scene from his story: a man lying on his stomach, blindfolded around his eyes; his arms, legs, and torso were bound in meters of rope. His mouth was parted in a silent moan.
Underneath it, Calx had written: I look forward to continuing our partnership.
The first few weeks were, by all means, professional in every way. Xingqiu wrote and Calx drew. They would share ideas and brainstorm through the letters, and sometimes Xingqiu would make little notes on the sketches telling Calx his preferences, and Calx would suggest new things that Xingqiu could add to his story.
The spiral was slow-moving, subtle. Xingqiu didn't even notice at first, attributing the heat in his stomach and the tent in his pants to Calx's brilliant artistry and the simply sexual nature of this particular work.
But it had spiraled nonetheless.
Some of the things hit right, Xingqiu realized, as he wrote them. Those snippets would always be a little more charged, a little more personal. He would slip and put a little too much of him in the character, and it showed occasionally in the ways the ink would blot and the handwriting would be a little messier than usual.
Calx noticed. And Calx responded in kind, in that way of his that made Xingqiu rub his legs together and grind down a little in his seat. Calx, under the thin veil of plausible deniability, wrote about pulling his legs open and making him fall apart. Calx wrote about calling him good. Calx wrote about calling him a whore.
And at some point it became apparent that the two of them were using these letters as an outlet for their own physical frustrations, and Xingqiu never meant to have it come to this, but at the same time, he finds himself too far gone.
So now, Xingqiu stared down at the newest letter. Written in the neatest, prettiest cursive he had ever seen was the name Calx. Xingqiu felt his breath catch in his chest, and he proceeded to open the letter with utmost care. He set the envelope aside. He didn't read it just yet, shifting in his seat first.
Then he pursed his lips and skimmed through the contents.
Zhenyu, it started– as it always did. Calx always wrote formally, almost clinically, especially for the first few paragraphs. But the more he read, the less formal it got, and Xingqiu caught glimpses of legs and mouth as he his eyes darted over the page. Calx had written, in one of the later paragraphs, I quite enjoy the way you write Zihao in his most desperate moments. I can imagine the way he begs– and Xingqiu had to stop.
It was blunt, straight to the point— the tone read like a simple observation rather than something intended to be sexy. But he knew how Calx wrote at this point, knew how Calx liked to treat him, so it definitely did not stop the flash of something white-hot and depraved and intoxicating that had begun to spark in Xingqiu's stomach.
The way he slipped a hand under his shirt when he started reading from the top was absentminded and subconscious, instinct from having done this so many times before. He squeezed his legs together. His shorts felt marginally tighter, and his cock was already beginning to ache.
Xingqiu turned over so that he was lying on his back, one hand holding the letter in its trembling grip and the other gradually making its way down his body as he read. He kept the touch feather-light, mostly teasing– the kind of touch that would leave him bucking up into air and whining for something more– concrete.
He figured that would be how Calx would touch– he always spoke of Zihan being teased, of Zihan being pushed to his limits, in such a nonchalant yet vaguely appreciative way that made Xingqiu wonder if he found some kind of amusement in it. Another flare of heat shot up his spine, and Xingqiu's hand went under his shorts and curled around his cock, but he didn't dare do anything more than that. His cock twitched. Xingqiu bit down on his lower lip to resist the urge of fucking into his fist or properly jacking himself off.
Half of it was because he wanted to tease it out, make himself imagine what Calx would do if he was here, how Calx would act, how Calx would touch him. The other half was that he was sure that he would simply come if he did anything more.
Perhaps, Calx wrote in the paragraph, perhaps he edges Zihan until he is crying. Perhaps he stretches him open with his fingers and doesn't give him his cock at all, not until he's drooling into the sheets and covered with tear tracks.
Xingqiu put the hand holding the letter over his mouth and keened. He threw it aside for a moment, frantically pulling his shorts off and tossing it somewhere on his floor, not even bothering with his shirt. He reached for the lube under his pillow and slathered his fingers with it. Then he was on his knees, his head down and his face pressed to the sheets, his eyes screwed shut and his ass in the air.
Fingers hovered over his rim, and– not yet, said Calx's imagined voice in his head, and Xingqiu had to wonder what his voice would sound like, up close and personal. Was it anything close to how he imagined it would be? Would it be soft? Low? Would he still be reciting filthy prose with an infuriating calm? Would his words break and his tone roughen as he fucked Xingqiu full–
Xingqiu shuddered and somehow resisted from slipping one inside– you're not begging yet, Xingqiu, he'd say, you're not crying yet.
Xingqiu choked out, "Please," into the empty air, fists clenching. And Calx would— Calx would watch him for a long while— observing, perhaps, fascinated yet impersonal, as Xingqiu squirmed. And Xingqiu would squirm and beg and cry but wouldn’t actually do anything Calx didn’t tell him to, and he’d preen when Calx would marvel at how good he was being. And Calx would start, finally—
Xingqiu put a finger in, moaning as he clenched around it. It wasn't enough, though, and he added another one moments later, and another one, until he was stretching himself knuckles deep around three fingers, mouth hanging open and breath choked out of his lungs. He reached around blindly for the letter, starting to read again as he fucked himself despite the fact that his eyes were blurry with tears. Calx wrote about Claud shoving his fingers into Zihan's mouth. Wrote about fucking his throat, hands clasped in his hair. Wrote about fucking his thighs. Wrote about bruising his skin with his fingertips while Zihan rode him. Xingqiu thinks, please, please, please–
He wanted to. He wanted to so bad. He wanted to sink into Calx's lap and bounce on his cock. He wanted Calx’s grip to leave bruises on his hips.
The Calx of his imagination laughed. Aren't you embarrassed? A respectable young master like you, begging to be fucked by someone he's never even met.
"Ngh," Xingqiu moaned, breathless. His knees felt weak. "Yes, yes– oh–"
A respectable young master like him, ruined on some faceless stranger's cock, splayed boneless across stained bed sheets with come leaking out of his hole and trailing down his thighs. So easy to whore himself out because Calx wrote prettily and called him a slut in the most matter-of-fact ways, and praised him one sentence later.
Zhenyu, the letter read, barely legible over his glassy eyes, do you think Zihan would come untouched?
I would, he thinks, maybe a little feral, as wanton moans spill out of his mouth. His hand quickens, his fingers curl, his body twists, racked with bliss– I'd come untouched, I'd beg and cry and ride your cock until I forgot about anything else–
One well-angled thrust and Xingqiu saw stars.
He buried his face in the sheets with a scream, his hips stuttering as he came undone. His back arched and his muscles convulsed and his toes curled at the explosive pleasure, and Calx would come all over his ass, he thought, would paint Xingqiu's skin with his seed and probably look at it with mild fascination, as if Xingqiu was just something to use and then observe with minimal interest.
He lay there for a few moments, pulsing a little from the aftershocks. After catching his breath, Xingqiu pulled himself up and stumbled on shaky legs to his desk.
Xingqiu pulled out a fresh piece of paper and a pen, and– cock twitching in interest– started to write a response.