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Ever since he was a child, the second prince has been a light sleeper.
There was many a night when Xie Bi’an found himself with his hands full of the tiny highness, idly wondering whether he was a bodyguard or a nursemaid. Back then, it was actually more like the latter—the prince tended to have nightmares, and when he didn’t he would still wake up from the slightest noise and wander in search of someone to cling to. With Bi’an standing guard right outside the bedchamber doors, there was no need to guess who that someone would be; not that he really minded.
It was also his duty to wake the prince up in the morning, and he didn’t mind it either—his charge’s light sleep made it really easy for him back then.
These days, however, there’s nothing easy about getting Li Chengze to leave his bed. The reasons are many, and none of them has anything to do with actual sleep.
“Dianxia,” he calls for what he counts as the fourth time since he entered the bedroom. “It’s time. Please wake up.”
To that, the second prince shifts under the covers in a way that makes his shoulder peek out from beneath the patterned silk.
A delicate shoulder with teeth marks on it.
Bi’an knows for a fact it was him who left them—just as he knows those aren’t the only ones Li Chengze is wearing. Last night, there was heat, a glazed-over glance over that very shoulder, and finally an urgent, punched-out ‘Harder!’ that spurred him on, making it impossible not to obey.
He knows all that, and yet seeing his own work in the calm light of morning somehow feels... different.
He breathes in, breathes out, and when it predictably doesn’t help he does the very thing he knows he shouldn’t.
He braces his knee against the edge of the bed and leans in.
“Dianxia,” he all but whispers, earning himself a minute flutter of his prince’s eyelashes. “It is time.”
“I’m sleeping,” Li Chengze says in a raspy voice that, once again, has nothing to do with sleep. “If you want me to open my eyes, you need to try harder.”
He should have known better, he thinks as he watches the corners of Li Chengze’s mouth curl slightly upwards. He should have, but now that it has come to this, what other choice does he have, really?
So he leans further in and presses his lips to the corner of Li Chengze’s own, just like that.
“Not bad,” Li Chengze tells him when he withdraws, the look in his eyes too innocent to be a good sign.
And sure enough, the next moment there are arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him down—all the way to where his highness is warm and pliant and anything but willing to get up anytime soon.
“Next time,” he says when it becomes apparent that all the officials craving the second prince’s attention this morning will have to leave empty-handed, “this one will make sure not to approach the bed.”
“I would surely love to see you try,” Li Chengze says smugly as he pulls him even closer.
And that’s how the conversation dies, giving way to something just as tender and beautiful and golden as the dawn itself.