#tangzhou

Sui Zhou glances up briefly from the soup, eyes flickering over Tang Fan. Sui Zhou’s handsome features are soft in the warm yellow candlelight and the orange glow of the stove. “Better.”

Tang Fan stands there with his robes draped around his waist, chest exposed, shyly holding the undershirt in front of him, watching Sui Zhou’s strong, sure hands as they slice vegetables and meat and then, once dinner is cooking, assemble the dessert, grinding the sesame seeds and working the delicate mixture.

A swell of fondness fills Tang Fan’s chest as Sui Zhou puts the finishing touches on the little sesame cakes, decorating each with a pink circle of honeyed flower petals.

"Aren't you going to put the undershirt back on?” Tang Fan asks as Sui Zhou puts the last petal in place. Most of the shyness has worn off as Sui Zhou tells him about how he developed the recipe, his deep voice low and soothing as it fills the cozy little kitchen.

"Later." Sui Zhou glances up, eyes flickering once again over Tang Fan's bare chest before returning to his work. Perhaps it's the warm glow of the candle, but Tang Fan imagines there's a hint of color in Sui Zhou's cheeks.

Too late it occurs to him that he should have at least put his robes back up over his arms and chest. Jiejie had driven it through his head that to wear robes without an undershirt was uncouth and a sure way to get the robes dirty, but…

"Do you still have your prison clothes? That was a good look." The question escapes Tang Fan before he can censor himself. "I mean—your uniform is good too—I mean, your normal undershirt is better than that prison one.” He dangles the undershirt from his fingertips, as if this question was just an extension of him returning Sui Zhou's undershirt. “I mean...”

Sui Zhou cranes his neck away slightly, as if trying to avoid looking at Tang Fan but probably only checking to make sure Dong'er isn't nearby to see Tang Fan in this state of undress. "Be careful with that. You're going to set the kitchen on fire again."

Grinning, and more at ease now that the conversation is back in familiar teasing territory, Tang Fan sidles closer to Sui Zhou, waving his shirt near where the mutton soup is bubbling on the fire. "Oh, that was on purpose. You know, to get you to free Dong'er—"

Sui Zhou gives him that look of his, the one that appears completely expressionless but in fact contains a half dozen emotions from all corners of the spectrum. "You set fire to my house on purpose?"

"Well—"

"What about the time you fell asleep with the candle beside your bed, and the time you tripped and fell holding the lamp—"

"Fine, it wasn't on purpose. But the bad food was! I can cook, if I wanted to—”

"You can't cook."

Tang Fan inches closer. He's not quite sure why. "You could teach me."

Sui Zhou frowns slightly. "You step foot in my kitchen without me here, and you sleep outside with the sheep."

Tang Fan wrinkles his nose. "The sheep has a name ."

"Li Qing?"

Tang Fan almost drops the undershirt on the stove. "How did you—”

Sui Zhou turns away again as if to hide a grin. Li Qing is the main character of Tang Fan's magnum opus, My Sexy Lady .

"You didn't read it!" Tang Fan leans forward in consternation. He's not sure why he's so thrown. It's a brilliantly-written work, like all of his books, but somehow to have Sui Zhou privy to—to all that — "Wang Zhi told you or something—wait till I get my hands on him!"

Sui Zhou is definitely holding back a grin. "I liked the part where the ‘sexy lady’ sets fire to Shi Yang's house after she thinks he stole her necklace."

"That never happened! She never did anything half so crazy!”

Sui Zhou is no longer holding back his smile. "Maybe in the sequel, My Sexy Wife."

Tang Fan laughs out loud. People who don't know Sui Zhou think he's stiff and cold and completely humorless, but Tang Fan knows better. It's subtle, but Sui Zhou's sense of humor and appreciation of the outlandish is definitely there. If it weren't, Tang Fan doesn't think he would get along with him as well as he does.

Which, when he stops to think of it, is rather odd. His getting along with him so well, not the sense of humor. Despite having lived in the capital for years, and having many acquaintances, Tang Fan has few close friends. As he knows he’s a delight to be around, never complaining and generously standing people meals, he can only assume it’s a failing in other people.

A failing that Sui Zhou evidently doesn’t have, to appreciate Tang Fan’s virtues, both hidden and overt.

It’s not that Tang Fan annoys people. That can’t possibly be it, no matter what Jiejie says. But he can’t deny that not everyone appreciates him, and that hurts, sometimes.

A sudden thought, and Tang Fan abruptly stops laughing. Why did Sui Zhou pick that example? Surely it was just a joke after what they'd been talking about—he knows it is—but of all characters to pick—

Tang Fan had based a lot of Li Qing on himself. Like him, she's a beautiful genius often put-upon by those who fail to appreciate her properly, driven to do the right thing at whatever costs, someone who appreciates fine food and faces the world with a smile no matter how she's feeling.

No. Sui Zhou is just teasing him, as usual. That's it. He probably hadn't even finished the book...

He wants to ask Sui Zhou if he liked the book, but despite it being his best-selling work, he’s hesitant to ask. Sui Zhou is nothing if not honest, and what if he didn’t truly like it?

Tang Fan resolves to start work on a sequel that night. Perhaps Shi Yang could enter the imperial guards and, together with Li Qing, solve a series of increasingly exciting mysteries that pit them against the world. Back to back, they’ll chase justice and stand strong against the winds of—

“Here.” Sui Zhou slides the plate of sesame cakes towards him. “For coming to get me.”

Tang Fan grins. “You mean rescuing you.”

Sui Zhou turns back to the soup. "Just eat them."

Tang Fan inches even closer, more to annoy Sui Zhou than anything else, he thinks. "Go on, say it. I rescued you."

"Keep this up, and you're getting kicked out of my kitchen."

" Your kitchen? Why is it—oh, right. It's your house." Tang Fan looks down at the sesame cakes. It's almost a shame to eat them, they’re so beautifully decorated. "Am I allowed to eat them before dinner, or are you going to get all sulky?"

Sui Zhou gives Tang Fan a look as if to say, I'm not the childish one here, and reaches for a sesame cake just as Tang Fan does. Their fingers brush, and tingling current runs up Tang Fan's arm. Startled, he jerks away, dropping Sui Zhou's undershirt on the stove.

Spattered in mutton grease, it erupts in a column of flame.

"Augh!" Panicking, Tang Fan drops the shirt in the soup. “Put it out! Put it out!”

Sui Zhou snatches the shirt out of the soup and drops it in a pot of water. "What did I just tell you about setting my house on fire?"

Smiling weakly, Tang Fan begins sidling in the opposite direction as Sui Zhou comes closer. "You startled me! You grabbed at me just as I was trying to eat, I haven't eaten all day, I was hungry, you forced me to take a cake—"

He bumps up against the wall. Sui Zou leans over him, one arm framing him, his face a mix of exasperation and—and fondness, Tang Fan wants to believe, though it’s hard to when there's a charred, soup-soaked undershirt not five feet away.

"It wasn't my fault I burned your shirt!" Tang Fan continues bravely. Whining has always worked on Old Pei and Jiejie, though he still hasn’t quite learned the exact point Jiejie’s indulgence tips over into slapping-him-across-the-face territory, hence all the slapping. "Tired after weeks of traveling, traveling across half the empire to rescue you, if you recall, weeks of seasickness and danger and unpadded saddles and not being able to finish my rice noodles in the one good restaurant between here and I thought you were dead at one point, and that was almost as bad as the noo—"

Sui Zhou bends forward and kisses him.

Tang Fan goes rigid.

Did—did Sui Zhou just—

Sui Zhou kisses him again, as if to clear up any doubts.

"Well, that's one way to stop you from talking," he says.

Tang Fan's heart is beating like a war drum, but strangely enough it's not from nerves. There's a smile on Sui Zhou's lips (rather full lips, he notices. Until now he's been too distracted by his arms and shoulders and—well—all the rest of him, most likely), and there's definite fondness in his eyes.

"I once talked through an acupuncture session for a sore tooth," Tang Fan says boastingly, more to calm his nerves than anything else.

He’s never been kissed before. Or rather, being a man, perhaps it was more appropriate to say he’d never kissed anyone before.

He’d always changed the subject when Old Pei brought it up. The local girls had never interested him, and he’d never though there were other— options—

"You can ask him at dinner,” he blusters on, pulse fluttering. “I was probably able to give him some good tips and pointers, I once read a book on acupuncture that—"

Sui Zhou shuts him up again, cupping his face in his hand. It smells of honey and spice, the callused palm somehow soft against Tang Fan's cheek, his long fingers curling around the back of his neck as he kisses him.

Tang Fan is suddenly very aware that he's half-naked, but it's somehow nice being around Sui Zhou like that, not uncomfortable as he's sometimes felt in the past around others. Natural, despite his first-time nerves.

He suddenly realizes that Sui Zhou is looking down at him as if waiting for him to say or do something.

"Am I allowed to speak again?" Tang Fan asks.

Sui Zhou half-smiles. "Nothing could stop you from talking for very long."

"I want another one of your undershirts, but a black one this time. I saw one tucked away in the chest, but Dong'er said it wouldn’t match my robes, though what does she know? I want the black undershirt, and—"

"Black to hide any future char?"

"This was an accident! You startled me!"

"The one you were wearing today is mostly black now, after you set it on fi—"

Tang Fan kisses him.

"You're right," he says, grinning at Sui Zhou, who seems to have forgotten how to speak. "That does work."

*