Work Text:
“Laoban,” Xia Fei mentions one day in Vein’s office as they’re both doing their own things — Vein answering work emails and Xia Fei with his week’s worth of physics homework. “I think I could bench press you.”
Vein presses the wrong key that makes him delete the entire email. “What.”
“I mean, like,” Xia Fei flips through his textbook, the back of his neck tinged red while he makes no eye contact with Vein, “I’ve been working out and I’ve gotten better recently. I haven’t… tried to carry anyone yet, but I think. I think I could.”
Vein gives a little hum in amusement and opens another email draft only to forget about it when he switches tabs to Xia Fei’s new magazine cover shoot. Indeed Xia Fei could possibly benchpress him, Vein muses in front of the picture plastered on his monitor. Strong arms from working out every morning, broad shoulders, six-pack abs, an incredible v-line: the features of a lean, built man. Fresh meat. But whether this fresh meat could really benchpress Vein is another question to ask. No one’s ever tried to benchpress Vein, let alone touch him. Correction: no one’s ever dared to try.
But here Xia Fei was, tips of his ears tinged red with a massive confession hanging in the office air: Laoban, I think I could benchpress you. Vein lets out a loud laugh that makes Xia Fei flush even more when he whips his head around with his brows pinched together with the beginnings of a pout.
“Laoban, don’t laugh at me! I’m serious!”
“Yes, yes,” Vein chortles, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. Emails be damned. They can wait. Xia Fei can’t. He twines his fingers together across his chest, staring down at his model, who’s more entertaining than anything else Vein’s had to experience in the past year since he’s picked him out of that swimming pool like a drowning puppy. “I know you're serious. And because you are, would you like to try?”
“What.”
Vein raises an eyebrow at Xia Fei’s flabbergasted face — jaw dropped, eyes wide, stylus falling out of his hand. “I’m offering you to try, Felix. Didn’t you hear me the first time? Do I have to offer to clean your ears out for you too?”
“No, no, I— Are you for real?”
Vein stands up from his seat and walks slowly over to Xia Fei, his shadow looming over him like the drape of a cigarette’s smoke screen. He lowers his eyes in a teasing glance that has Xia Fei’s throat bobbing. “Yes. I am ‘for real,’ as you put it.”
And that’s how Vein finds himself in Xia Fei’s hands typing the rest of his email while Xia Fei’s trembling arms struggle to lower him for another round of benchpressing. He has decent posture, Vein thinks when Xia Fei raises Vein upward again and lets out a guttural sound of regret from the back of his throat.
“Don’t get your sweat on the back of my shirt,” Vein puts nonchalantly. “I don’t want to have to wash it off.”
“Laoban,” Xia Fei grunts, fingers tensing on Vein’s back and his knees. He’s almost at his limit, Vein can tell. They’ve been at it for the past fifteen minutes, and Xia Fei’s voice started draining within the first five minutes to the point where Vein genuinely thought he was going to lose it. But that boy brought this upon himself, so who was Vein not to indulge him? “I’m going to drop you.”
“You won’t.”
“You—You don’t know that. My arms are killing me—”
“Ten more, Felix,” Vein drawls out, scrolling through the rest of his emails. “If you drop me, it’s going to be twenty more.”
“You’re too cruel, laoban, you’re way— way too cruel— I was just going to benchpress you once—” Vein hears the stagger of Xia Fei’s breath when he’s lowered again, and that’s enough to make Vein laugh again.
“Fifteen more just because you said that.”
“Oh my fucking god—”