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Da Yan and Da Fu were courting.
This was apparent from almost everything about them – from how they were always in each other’s company; from the soft little laughs that trailed off secretively whenever anyone came across them; from how they behaved in cat form, nuzzling noses and twining tails. To Heipaoshi’s heightened senses it was also apparent from the scents they gave off: Cat Yashou weren’t shy about pheromones.
It was also, Shen Wei reflected, painfully apparent right now, as Da Yan crept toward the woods, saw them, realised they’d seen him, jumped about a foot in the air, and then continued coolly into the woods as if nothing had happened.
Beside him, Kunlun laughed – that little huffing breath whose pitch Shen Wei had come to recognise seemingly within a day of meeting him. “He’s jumpy,” the other man commented. “What’s he afraid of, that we’ll report him to Fu You for sneaking off?” He grinned. “As if we couldn’t tell the difference between spy activity and a love affair.”
Shen Wei smiled, a thing his mouth seemed to have started doing without his permission, lately. “He may fear that we would reveal his presence to Da Fu,” he said carefully. He did not want to make fun of Da Yan – no matter how hard it sometimes was to politely ignore the scents he gave off.
He felt Kunlun’s shoulder bump against his companionably. “You think Da Fu doesn’t know where he is?” Kunlun said, eyebrows leaping in what Shen Wei had learned to know was part amusement, part good-natured confusion. “I thought the two of them were joined at the hip, these days.”
So Kunlun did not know Yashou customs; or perhaps they were different across the mountains. “They’re courting,” Shen Wei explained – and then, hurrying to clarify as Kunlun’s bemused look did not change: “Yashou show their intentions by hunting for each other. Whatever Da Yan catches tonight, he’ll present to Da Fu in the morning.”
“And it has to come as a surprise?”
That was Kunlun, always quick to catch on. “Yes,” Shen Wei said, nodding vigorously, “it’s traditional. Hunting in front of other people is strutting, showing off: that’s for flirting. For a serious partner” – he felt a flush come over him for no reason he could describe – “the point is the gift, not how it was gained. It’s a way of showing your commitment to a life together.”
For a moment, Kunlun’s expression turned strangely inward, and Shen Wei felt inexplicably as if a chill wind had brushed him. Then it passed. “Ah,” Kunlun said, mock-sagely, and nodded his head: “so that’s it.” His look was solemn, but his eyes were dancing.
Shen Wei could never tell quite how serious he was, when he was in this mood. He was a confusing man, this lord from across the mountains: he would gently poke fun at Shen Wei one moment, eyes alight, and then the next moment take Shen Wei’s words as if they were holy writ. Sometimes he seemed to be doing both at once.
(It was hard to mind, even if it was confusing. It was hard to mind anything, so long as Shen Wei still had Kunlun’s easy, laughing company, making the world light and spacious and full of warmth.)
Right now, for instance, his grave look had broken into a broad grin as he said, “I thought they were just sneaking away to make out.”
“Make out…?” Shen Wei echoed the unfamiliar phrase.
“Ah –” Kunlun cocked his head to one side as he realised he had spoken in – what Shen Wei presumed was – his people’s dialect. “Fooling around? I mean kissing, Shen Wei. And other things,” he added, with a half-hearted leer, but his gaze had turned distant again.
Shen Wei felt his ears grow hot, and wished he had his hood up: it was so obvious like this! “Oh,” he said, wishing even more fervently that he could think of something wiser to say than Oh. “Yes, I… suppose our camp can’t offer much privacy. For that sort of thing.”
The distant look left Kunlun’s eyes, and he let out a laughing sort of huff. “‘That sort of thing’,” he repeated. “Heipao-daren, so scandalized! What, you never considered giving it a try?”
Shen Wei could feel himself going even redder, but there was no unkindness in Kunlun’s voice. (There never was.) “It – has not been a concern,” he said, eyes turned downwards, stringing words together as best he could to cover this yawning gap in his knowledge.
Though really, where would he have acquired such knowledge? When would he have had the time? Yet it was still shameful, somehow, to admit to ignorance.
But he saw no derision in Kunlun’s face, when he looked up; there was still laughter in the mountain lord’s eyes, but now he looked at Shen Wei as if he were solving a puzzle. His hand came down to meet Shen Wei’s shoulder in something that was – Shen Wei felt it like a spark – halfway between a shove and a caress.
When he spoke, it was in a teasing tone, but Shen Wei felt he could hear some odd reluctance underneath it. “Shen Wei ah – don’t tell me no-one ever tried to kiss you, with a face like that?”
Shen Wei stared at him, not knowing how to answer. What did it matter if they had not? There had been no-one in his heart, to want their kiss, and he – he had never been someone who could be wanted. Kunlun spoke of his pretty face so easily, as if beauty had ever been something that brought people close to him, instead of setting him apart.
He did not know how to shape words around that gap, that absence: the space his life didn’t have in it, for things like kisses. For a moment it was as if he and Kunlun stood on two sides of a yawning gulf, Kunlun far out of reach.
“People don’t see me that way,” he said at last, the words clumsy containers for that gulf.
Except you. Except Kunlun, the lord of all exceptions, but – Shen Wei’s heart clenched within him – he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t dare say anything that would show how badly he wanted Kunlun to see him like that –
And Kunlun was looking at him as if studying him; as if trying to read Shen Wei’s face, with something unreadable still in his own. All at once Shen Wei thought he saw something shift in the other man’s expression, like a shadow passing over water. Like grief.
Kunlun said, very softly, “Hold still for me, Shen Wei?”
That was easy: Shen Wei couldn’t have moved even with all four Hallows to help him. He stood very still, hardly daring to breathe, as Kunlun turned and moved closer toward him. Reached up with both hands so that one settled at the hinge of his jaw, the other just over his cheek.
So that Kunlun was holding Shen Wei where he wanted him, when he pressed their mouths together.
It was an odd sensation, not quite like anything Shen Wei had ever imagined or experienced. A touch wetter than skin on skin, but Kunlun’s lips were dry, chaste; it really was exactly what it looked like, one mouth touching another, briefly. But the naked tenderness of the gesture undid him. He felt he would ask for this strange touch a hundred times more, to feel Kunlun do it so gently.
He felt Kunlun pull away, and his eyes – when had he closed them? – flew open, blinking away moisture. Kunlun’s face was very near his, still. There was something dark and shining in the other man’s eyes.
“Xiao Wei, don’t look at me like that,” he breathed, his face still shadowed by that grief even as a smile seemed to tug at the corners of his mouth. “You can’t look at me like that” – and he was leaning in to press that bittersweet smile against Shen Wei’s mouth again, to close their lips together. Still gentle, never pushing, but moving in close as if to drink something from Shen Wei’s mouth, to draw honey from a flower, poison from a wound. As if he couldn’t help but come back for more.
Shen Wei let out a little gasp as the thought came to him; and suddenly at that something unlocked inside him and he couldn’t bear to be still any longer. It was as if something unfurled under his skin, hunger waking hunger. All of a sudden his lips were moving against Kunlun’s, not just obedient but eager, trying to draw Kunlun in closer – and his arms were reaching for Kunlun’s, hands groping for his elbows, clumsy, greedy. A moth grabbing at a flame, at the maddening warmth of this man, body and soul.
But Kunlun came into his embrace easy as blinking, arms coming to hold him at waist and back. So much touch at once – Shen Wei wasn’t prepared for it, he could hardly think. Kunlun was so warm. His mouth opened in another gasp, and now the slide of Kunlun’s mouth against his own was closer, wetter, and the touch was strange and so strangely good. Humiliatingly, his knees buckled. Kunlun laughed into his mouth, breathless and startled, his grip on Shen Wei’s waist tightening to catch him as he toppled backwards; Shen Wei tried to catch himself – missed – put his foot further back than he intended, and backed himself and Kunlun into a tree.
The impact struck sparks of pain up his spine, but he hardly registered them. Far from catching him, Kunlun had toppled into him, and even as the weight pressed Shen Wei harder against the rough bark his body rejoiced to feel it. The hand with which he had hesitantly reached for Kunlun’s elbow, shoved up against the man’s shoulder, dug its fingers in deep and clung. Their mouths had jolted apart – Shen Wei pushed forward to kiss again, and Kunlun met his kiss, grinning into it. Wet and open-mouthed. Leant against the tree like this his mouth had gravity behind it, pressing them together. It made Shen Wei want to – to fly, or sing, or laugh. Or squirm against the tree, restless.
He put that desperate movement to work in kissing back, lips moving urgently. Now that hunger had woken in him he wanted to feel it, and know that it was met with an equal fervour. Kunlun seemed happy to give him that, coming back for kiss after kiss – Shen Wei, daring, managed to snake one arm up behind him, tangling fingers in his hair. They tightened involuntarily when Kunlun’s teeth grazed his lip: Kunlun let out a sound that even Shen Wei could tell didn’t mean pain, and his grasp tightened in answer on Shen Wei’s waist. Shen Wei wanted to make him do it again. And again.
But he didn’t get the chance. Just as his heartbeat was starting to race, rabbit-fast, Kunlun’s hands loosened, and his mouth broke away from Shen Wei’s. It came back a moment later – Shen Wei was not left to face the sudden flash of loss he’d felt – but it was slower now, almost stilling. One gentle hand came up to stroke the side of Shen Wei’s face, and Kunlun’s lips lingered on his, as if to brace for a parting.
At last Kunlun broke away entirely, resting his forehead against Shen Wei’s. For a moment all he did was stand there and breathe, his breath slowly becoming smooth, less laboured; Shen Wei, leaning against the tree, did the same. They were so close together it was as if they were breathing the same air.
Kunlun smiled at him, eyes lifting at the corners. “Xiao Wei,” he said softly, and Shen Wei’s heart lifted the same way. “Ah, look at you. I could do that all day.”
“Why don’t you?” Shen Wei’s mouth said, before he could stop it. As if he even wanted to stop it. Kunlun let out a breathy laugh – the same kind he let out in training, when someone knocked him to the ground – and said nothing; his eyes flickered to the floor.
“I said all day, not all night,” he said at last, something softer than his usual grin playing about his mouth. “It’s late, hm? Let’s go to bed.”
He was right: Shen Wei pushed himself up off the tree and tried not to look at forlorn as he felt, at the thought of parting and taking the familiar path to his own empty tent. They both needed to rest. Kunlun certainly did, and Shen Wei couldn’t justify keeping him up.
But as he started to move, fingers grasped his wrist. He looked up and found Kunlun looking back at him, holding onto his arm. “Can I join you?” Kunlun said, still with that smile that wasn’t quite roguish. When Shen Wei looked back at him in shock, he added quickly, “Ah, ah, not for any untoward reason! Just to sleep.”
It was something Shen Wei would never have thought of – he hadn’t shared a bed with anyone since he and Ye Zun were boys, and even the memory sent a pang through him. It was exactly what he hadn’t known he wanted. “Of course, if you wish it,” he said. The words were so full of feeling that in his mouth they sounded slow, hesitant.
He couldn’t have that. Boldly he moved to clasp the hand that held his wrist, to draw Kunlun along with him on the path.
Kunlun’s eyes sparkled at the touch. “Ah, you’re so good to me, Xiao Wei,” he said, and flung an arm up over Shen Wei’s shoulder. “Indulge me: I just don’t want to let go of you quite yet.”
The feeling of an arm over his shoulder was different, now Shen Wei knew what that arm felt like round his waist, holding him. It sent a thrill of warmth through him in the cold night air. Above him, all the stars seemed twice as bright; the cries of frogs and crickets were a tapestry of song in his ears.
The journey back to his tent was over in what seemed like a moment. Inside, they rid themselves of armour, calm and methodical. Shen Wei set his mask down by the side of his bedroll (he liked to have it to hand when he woke up), and gestured to Kunlun to make himself at home.
Kunlun threw himself down onto the bedroll merrily, for all the world as if it were a fine bed at an inn. Briefly Shen Wei pictured him there, at a guesthouse for some tryst with a lover. Then his imaginings were broken by a sudden yank at his arm – the world spun – he fell onto the bedroll, into Kunlun’s arms. “There you are,” said the man whose lover Shen Wei was, now.
He looked so proud of himself, eyes gleaming. Shen Wei smiled helplessly. “Still don’t want to let go?” he said, breathless.
Kunlun pressed his face into Shen Wei’s hair. It was as if he was trying to smell him, like one of the Yashou, Shen Wei thought drowsily. He said, so soft Shen Wei could hardly hear him, “I’ll never be good at letting you go.”
For a moment that current of grief was present in his voice again, barely perceptible. Then Shen Wei felt him breathe out, and his arms tighten around Shen Wei as he shuffled further down into the blankets. So warm, so close, it was hard even to want to wonder what that tone in Kunlun’s voice meant.
He decided not to try. Let the morning bring its own troubles. Shen Wei lay still, rocked to sleep by his lover’s heartbeat.