ItofThames

It's a new day and you're looking over some food supply reports. A pre-predicted and scheduled change in soil materials has led to a drop in produced food by a third of a percent. Over the course of a normal human lifespan of fifty to seventy years, no problem. Thousands? A potentially massive issue.

"And how are you this evening?" Jing Yuan asks.

"Oh, reviewing some reports and double-checking stats."

Jing Yuan laughs heartily.

"I'm beginning to think they hardly have you do anything else around here."

"You'd be about right," you chuckle and swipe away on your holopad.

His hand settles right above your ass again, his face is close enough that his breath sweeps against the back of your neck. And it stays there. There's no ghosting past you this time so as to not draw attention to the too-intimate contact.

Your stomach sinks and you look up from the pad, smiling nervously at him.

Your co-workers are still in the room. What if they notice? It isn't like Jing Yuan gets all close and lovey-dovey with anyone else.

"Jing Yuan, did you want to speak with me in private again?"

Its his typical go-to whenever he wants you, but this time he shakes his head, "No, I just wanted to stand near you, is all."

"Oh,"

You're not sure how to feel about that, but Jing Yuan does eventually wish you well and leave to attend other business. No one walks up to you directly and says anything and eventually, you stop thinking about it.

...but eventually, you begin to notice. It's a slow, lurching feeling that makes a home in the pit of your stomach.

Jing Yuan can only do so much. There are naturally things that give it away and you're willing to cut your co-workers a lot of slack but not this much. You would have called yourself out by now.

Your work allocations, though numerous, are just a little too easy. People clear out when you enter hallways and, while it is empowering, is a level of creepy that leaves you shaken. Above all else, a full month after your return from work, there's one noticeable factor missing.

Where is Fu Xuan?

One of her honored duties was to come and see Jing Yuan and update him on whatever she divined. Now she's absent. Without so much as a word or an update or some sort of report.

Were you mortified to ever have to face her again knowing that she knew? Sure, but that didn't mean you never wanted to see her again.

You're pretending to be consumed with work again when Jing Yuan steps down for his own daily routine and lingering by your side. Sometimes dragging you away and sometimes not. This time when he's behind you, you're frightened to even ask.

"And how are your reports so far?"

"Boring as ever," You say, not even wanting to throw a look over your shoulder. You've got a good idea as to what's going on by now, and its making you wish you'd said something earlier. Much earlier. Possibly even before he had shown up in your home that day. "Jing Yuan,"

"Yes, love?"

"Are you...telling people to make things easier for me?"

The silence that stretches between the both of you is enough of an answer. You finally turn to look at him.

His eyes are steely and vicious. You feel frozen to the spot, but he deflates and closes his eyes.

"Who told you?"

It’s a dizzying feeling.

When you imagine standing alongside Jing Yuan again, it is always with grit teeth and a mountain of shared regrets.

Instead, the moment you both return to work, a wave of stressed-out interns and burnt-out co-workers crash down on Jing Yuan with piles of paperwork. In moments you’re a sea apart with him being dragged off, a single dot in an ever-growing crowd of swarming tasks. You head back to your typical workplace, at the front of a myriad of holographic recreations of the ship. By midday, you’re back up to your chin in work; trade requests, mistranslations, drafted legislation, reports on cult and disruptive activity by the Denizens of Abundance.

It’s like nothing ever changed, save the occasional co-worker asking about your ‘vacation’. It’s a shock when the clock rings, informing you that it’s time to clock out. You leave alone, feeling hopelessly off-kilter.

Perhaps Jing Yuan’s romantic life isn’t the most important thing on the ship and you’ve been making a mountain out of a molehill.

That’s life for a week. You hardly see Jing Yuan anymore, due to recent flare-ups and overlapping issues. When you do see him, it’s in passing with him standing in the center of the room, giving the occasional order and taking in information from informants, before being rushed off again by more interns requesting meetings. How he even manages to keep up with his duties is a wonder to you.

Another day at work and Jing Yuan is standing at the head of the room, arms crossed and contemplative, as always.

“Where is that report on the damages done in Starwatcher Avenue?”

“I think they might have it,” someone says, pointing to you.

You realize that you had compiled that report. You straighten out in time to see Jing Yuan approach you.

Jing Yuan bites his lip. When he realizes how that must look, he ducks his head down and wipes the expression from his face. When he’s upright again, he clears his throat, “I hope you’re back in good health.”

You nod, sucking in your lips. The last thing you want is to ask him why you haven’t spoken in more than a week after that night, but it’s the only thing you can think about.

He holds out his hand. “The report?”

“Ah, yes. Here you are, sir,” You hand the paper off to him and his hand lingers against yours. His thumb brushes over yours.

He pulls away quickly, thanking you as he goes.

You’re left with desires bubbling up in the pit of your stomach and a spiking heartbeat.

Another day and night go by. It’s your first weekend since the vacation and you sit at home, curled up on your couch with a book you’ve read a million times already, pretending to be okay while keeping your ears peeled for a telltale knock on the door that never comes.

Had it only been a week before when he’d been fucking you to bawling pieces on this very same couch? It felt like forever ago and you still feel the ghost grip of his hands on your waist. If his face had been anything to go by, the feeling was painfully mutual.

So, why nothing?

The weekend drags by and you head back to work. Today’s focus is on sleep-inducing discrepancies in weapon inventory. Your eyes glaze over the same lines of information over and over, but they never actually penetrate.

“....yeah, I get it.”

You bolt back to reality and look over your shoulder. Jing Yuan stands there, arms folded and looking rather amused. Between the wrinkled clothing and the unshined lion pauldron, you get the idea that he’s not holding up too well.

“Are you too busy?”

“Absolutely not,” you say, pretending like you aren’t shaking from him being so damn close.

“Good, that’s—that’s good...” he says, blinking a couple of times as if he couldn’t quite believe what you’ve said. You’re half a mind to ask him what’s going on, but there are too many co-workers around for you to feel safe asking, “Please follow me,”

You walk behind him without saying another word. A familiar buzz blazes through your skin and fingertips as you disappear down corridor after corridor until you can hardly tell one from the next.

Jing Yuan picks a door, seemingly at random, and leads you inside.

It’s a room of never-ending bookcases.

You only hear the door close before Jing Yuan’s arms wrap around you from behind and his nose buries itself in the crook of your neck. You freeze until it hits you exactly what’s happening. Then you melt. It’s been long. Too long.

“Thought—thought you left me,” Jing Yuan says, parting from your neck to get a breath in before shoving you against a bookcase, crushing your body against it until you can’t move. He takes a tight hold of each of your wrists and pins them above your head, and his mouth is on yours, in that same familiar hungry, desperate way you’ve come to miss.

“No, wouldn’t—,” You sneak in between kisses.

Jing Yuan backs away enough to stare into your eyes, “never?”

Out of every decision made in the past twenty-four hours, breakfast is the least regrettable one.

You decide on toast and a pack of bacon to split between the both of you. You flutter about, gathering ingredients and heating up the stove. When was the last time you got around to cooking in your own kitchen? Too long ago for your liking.

Jing Yuan sits hands folded at the dining table, glaring at his cup of orange juice as if it insulted his mother.

You lean against the countertop with arms crossed. It hits you again how hilariously out of place he looks. The glorious, ancient golden lion of lightning, a war general beyond compare. Sitting in your dining room, quietly boiling.

What hits you second is that you don't particularly mind it.

"Hey,"

Jing Yuan looks up, his expression still forlorn. You smile at him. "You like maple syrup with your toast?"

His eyes brighten ever so slightly and he nods.

"Alright, hold tight okay?"

You turn back and start preparing breakfast for the both of you. The silence is a nice reminder that you still have to have the talk, but he's still more out of it than you are. It's not the time to barrage him with heavy concepts.

You sizzle up some bacon and serve him three thick slices of toast, which he gobbles down and asks for seconds. You mentally save the picture of Jing Yuan's crumb-covered smile for later and make him some more.

Jing Yuan inhales piece after buttery, syrup-laden piece. You stack his plate until he finally waves his hand and mutters a tiny 'no thank you'. No real surprise there. If you didn't have any time to cook any good meals for yourself, then Jing Yuan definitely didn't.

You finish up and sit down with your own plate, Jing Yuan picks at the rest of his toast and bacon and it's…nice.

Everything's not perfect, buts it's nice.

"Do you want to talk?"

Reality stands in front of you again. The only reason you're even here is due to that momentary breach, or lapse, in judgment. But, do you want to get into that? And ruin this beautiful moment? The closest you two have come, yet, as a couple?

No, not now.

You swallow down what little remains of your upset. Jing Yuan doesn't seem to care if people know. Why should you?

"Not really," you shrug and start clearing your plate.

Jing Yuan is the first to rise from the table. He puts on an apologetic smile, "I'm already late…"

"Oh, shit I gotta get dressed," you mumble and wipe your face with a napkin.

Jing Yuan's brows raise. He wears a light dusting of red on his face before he laughs and shakes his head, "I'm sorry but, do you want me to walk you in?"

Well, he's already walking out of your house after a full night in broad daylight. What's the worst that could happen that couldn't already?

"If you don't mind."

Jing Yuan presses his hands to his face, smiling ear to ear like an idiot as you pass him by and head back upstairs.

You wake up and the memories of last night hit you like a transport truck.

You turn to see Jing Yuan looking downright miserable. You reach up to cradle his cheek, but before you can his mouth is on yours. His arms wrap around you and everything is warm and bright and beautiful again.

When you part, you're both breathless. Your eyes search his and he turns away, shaking his head.

"Fuck," Jing Yuan spits with a venom that is unbecoming of him to say the least and abruptly gets up and storms over to the over side of the room . He shakes his head over and over again, mouth forming words with no sound like he's in the middle of an argument, in between bouts of picking up parts of his finery and shrugging it back on .

With no small effort, you push yourself upright and end up doubled over with your head in your hands. When the night started, you thought you'd reached the height of how complicated and questionable things could get . Now that the fun times are over...you can definitely understand why Jing Yuan would rush to get dressed. You'd rush to hide yourself too.

Gods, what had you been thinking?

You push yourself from the relative safety of the couch and tip toe past him, setting a hand on his cold metal shoulder pad in passing . It's not much, but the last thing you want is for him to think you're running away.

"Hold on, okay?"

You head upstairs to your bathroom and clean yourself up as best you can. You don't look like you spent the better part of the night getting your world rocked by the planet's greatest general, but the bags under your eyes could fool anyone into thinking you hadn't had a day off in some time . A noticeable ache in your back has you wishing you both had managed to control yourselves until you reached the bed .

Otherwise...you're spectacular. Radiant even.

You brush your teeth, wash your face and head back down still dressed in nothing but your oversized t-shirt .

Jing Yuan's standing in the middle of the room still, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

His eyes dart to you in a way that makes you feel like an intruder in your own home. Was he mad at you? You manage a smile anyways, "Good morning,"

"This was stupid," He says, "and reckless. Dangerous. I'm sorry."

He's not yelling at you. He's yelling at himself for coming here and doing this. A couple of hours ago before seeing him you would have gladly agreed, but seeing him direct those words towards himself is...something else entirely . It doesn't sit right with you.

"Hey." You call out, gently and he looks up as if noticing you for the first time. His eyes soften again and he frowns, looking none too pleased. It's debilitating seeing him like this; he's normally so calmly confident its damn near frustrating and now he looks like his world is falling apart . You smile despite yourself; "You want breakfast?"

His eyes widen again, "Yes, yes very much so," he goes from looking sad to looking like he's about to weep and his voice is so quiet and tamed that you think he might .

If you had had your way, you would have both had enough self-control to make it upstairs before you started fucking.

But, if you had that level of self-control, neither of you would be here.

"Yes," you whisper in-between kisses as your back hits the couch and he's lording over you as he does to everyone all the time, the giant, magnificent bastard.

Fuck, his cock is already rock hard between the both of you. You press your palm against the front of his pants. He moans into your mouth and roughly shoves you against the sofa, breaking the kiss. His glare is frightening until you give him a good, rough squeeze and those gorgeous golds roll back, his mouth parting in a silent, pleading moan.

"Yes," He breathes in a voice that is almost too soft and small to have come from him.

With speed you're only certain he uses in fights, he back off as if you've burned him. He stands there, breathing hard and unmoving.

You freeze on the couch, did you do something wrong or right? Jing Yuan gives you with a hungry, disarming look then practically peels out of his heavy top coat and tosses it aside. The metal shoulder pad clangs against the floor where it lands. You realize, very quickly, that virtually every time you've fucked before, its been rough and quick from behind or from the front, with him lording over you. It's the first time you're getting to see him shirtless and hard and ready—

"Bend over the couch arm," He orders. His hands are already working on his tented red pants.

"Oh, okay..."

You obey and his body on yours in an instant. He whispers, "Missed you, a lot." against your skin, his lips tickling your goosebumps to life.

He tears your sweatpants down to your knees and grips your hips. You feel something hot press against your innermost thigh and in an instant Jing Yuan sheathes himself inside to the hilt with his hips flush against yours. You almost shout, choking back the sound last minute, before gripping the couch arm. You'd forgotten how fucking thick his cock was.

He lets out a shuddering, deep breath. You get the feeling he forgot about you as well before he starts pounding into you hard enough that you can feel the entire couch inch forward. If he hadn't knocked the breath out of you with his first thrust, you'd scream loud enough that the neighbors could hear.

"I--thought--you were...with someone." He manages.

When you finally manage to breathe in between his brutal movements, you faintly register what he's saying, the most you can manage is, "Fu Xuan—"

"You t-think I care? I don't—I don't..." He exhales hard on your shoulder and it takes you a minute to register that he's laughing.

His hips bare down on you and he slams again and again into that one spot over and over again. You gasp, your stomach locking up. You can feel it like you have a million times before, but never like this, never this hard. You cum hard, clench down around him like he's the only thing keeping you tethered to the planet.

Your voice strains in a shout of his name, your insides squeezing down and trembling around him with each thrust as he pumps into you again and again and again...

"tiiight—tight-...fuuuck," he mumbles breathlessly into your back, breath searing your shoulder before his hips shift and he yanks you backward, arching your back and going from fucking into you to slamming straight down.

You reach back more on instinct than anything else and mindlessly claw red lines into the sides of his hips as another overwhelming feeling surges to life inside of you. You don't think there's any possible way he can send you any higher into bliss. Then, one of his hands snakes underneath the both of you and finds your throat. His grip is firm against the front of your neck and your vision blurs.

"Yuan--Yuan," You rasp, voice breaking as stars explode behind your vision. You bear down on his cock again, a trembling sob breaking free from your throat. His moans echo through your ears as he squeezes your throat, black spots littering your vision and the world tilting onto its side before it hits you.

"Mine, mine, miiine~," he practically sings, his cock hammering into you as you cum for the second time,

"F-filling you up, yeah?" He doesn't actually wait for an answer. He yanks you by your head back, straightening your body against his as he barrels into you. The new angle breaks you, you can't find the breath needed to speak anymore, Jing Yuan's voice echoes in your ears, "cumming—c-cumming, so-so good,"

With a broken shout, he begins to cum, pumping hard enough that your legs finally give out underneath you. Not that it matters with his strong body trapping you against the couch arm. You stay there, filled to the brim until the sweat begins to chill and the room feels cold.

As if knowing it's getting too cold, he wraps his arms around you, turns you around, and lies you both down, making it so you're lying against the inside with him on the outside, your face nestled against his chest. His heartbeat is steady, and strong against the side of your head. His thumb strokes your cheek. Sleep bites at the edges of your vision.

"Missed you," He says and puts a small kiss on the top of your head.