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Xie Lian had always liked observing people. The smallest reactions could tell him more than words ever could. Words could lie and hide, but people's bodies split them open like geodes for Xie Lian to admire. When his mom or dad had a surprise for him, Xie Lian could use their expressions to pick out what it was, and even narrow down to the rough area where they might have hidden it, much to their frustration.
At fifteen, he noticed Feng Xin quivered when he wanted something. Unlike Xie Lian, he hadn't been taught to take when he wanted, and even to ask was too much for his most loyal servant. Bodyguards had no wants of their own. They'd die standing if the one they were guarding never ordered them to sit, Xie Lian learned.
At the dining table, Feng Xin stood straight-backed by a pillar, close enough to Xie Lian in case any trouble came up, but not so close that he intruded in the family's dinner. His mom and dad talked among themselves while Xie Lian, bored, grabbed a tangerine from the center and began peeling it. He quietly stole glances at Feng Xin, whose eyes intently watched him break the skin of the tangerine, and then slip the tip of his finger between skin and flesh to separate them.
"Want some?" He held out one of the segments of the tangerine between his fingers for Feng Xin, the skin smooth and translucent, and so plump it would easily burst with the lightest squeeze between tongue and palate. Feng Xin blushed, as if he'd been caught doing something wrong and shook his head no decisively.
Xie Lian never had to ask for what he wanted. He'd be waited on hand and foot if he simply showed up. Thus, desire was not something he knew very much about throughout his youth. Sure, there were many things he wanted. He wanted to spar with someone equally matched, he wanted to earn a place in the Heavenly Capital, he wanted to help those in need.
Were any of these… desires?
When he watched Feng Xin want with his whole body, Xie Lian couldn't help but be enraptured. He wondered what his life would look like if he'd never been allowed to want. His heart was in turmoil just thinking about it.
Suddenly, desperately, a desire did bloom inside his heart. He wanted nothing more than to help Feng Xin obtain the things he wanted, and for that, he thought, he had to understand him so deeply that he could predict his wants better than he himself could.
And so he started observing Feng Xin for the cracks in his shell, the stifled reactions that would break him open. At training one night, he saw it. As Xie Lian was subdued, he heard a gasp and a small Your Highness! that was quickly swallowed when he remembered they were simply sparring.
"Feng Xin, train with me," Xie Lian ordered with an outstretched hand.
"Your Highness?"
"You're going to be fighting by my side in a real-life situation, won't you? You should be watching my back as if we were in actual danger."
"Your Highness, I don't think that's such a good idea…" their teacher began, but the prince's word was final.
"Feng Xin, can you help me remove my clothes?" he asked one day casually as they were returning to his room. Xie Lian had learned that phrasing his commands as questions made them go over easy with the people around him.
His father had already scolded him for ordering Feng Xin to take food from him. Dad was always less observant than himself, and Xie Lian couldn't explain the delicate dynamic he was weaving with his bodyguard to others.
Feng Xin's hands trembled the first time they undid the laces of his outfit. The dying day gave way to a night lit up by a single candle in the crown prince's bedroom, turning features into shadows and a simple undressing into long, drawn out caresses.
"Stop squirming, I can barely see," Feng Xin complained, pulling on the half undone robe with more force than necessary. Xie Lian was tangled in the outfit still, his sleeves halfway down his arms, restricting his movements. Something about the forceful way Feng Xin handled him made Xie Lian wonder if the darkness made it easier for Feng Xin to take the things he wanted.
After the war he stopped ordering Feng Xin around so much. Paying attention to someone else's wants was difficult when there were so many voices around him all wanting something from him, all clawing at him to give it to them. Xie Lian did his best to shut his eyes, his ears, his carefully honed sensing of people's desires that he was so proud of. He hated it so much, to know what they wanted was something Xie Lian would no longer be able to give them.
He had the mercy on Feng Xin to order him to leave. He'd known he wanted to for a while. He could see the way he yearned whenever he looked at him. He'd thought that they recognized the same desire in each other, and that it would keep them together through the worst of it, both agonizing to leave a situation that had crawled into their bones irreparably.
But in the end Xie Lian ordered him to go, and he left.
It had been 800 years, and Feng Xin had changed in some ways, and stayed the same in others. His wants still tormented him like a resentful ghost attached to his body.
Bodyguards would die standing if the one they guarded didn't order them to sit. The last order Xie Lian had given him was to stop following him. He had no more right to order him around than Feng Xin had to acquiesce.
But Xie Lian could see the want in him.
He decided to test the waters.
"Feng Xin, can you come over?"
"Feng Xin, can you walk with me?"
"Feng Xin, can you fetch me that thing?"
To his surprise, Feng Xin had changed a lot more than he'd originally thought. He was no longer naive enough to not understand what Xie Lian was doing when he told him things like can you pick me up while I grab that peach on the tall branch of this tree?
Where the old Feng Xin might have chosen to climb the tree and retrieve the peach himself, feeling it too indecent to hold the prince's waist and lift him up on his shoulder, Feng Xin now did it without thinking, filling the space of the intimacy Xie Lian had opened for him.
He brought Feng Xin to his bed with orders too, orders that he was free to refuse, but would never. Remove my clothes became kiss me became fuck me.
Feng Xin's hand held both of Xie Lian's wrists above his head, his cock pushed in and out of Xie Lian in slow, shuddering thrusts. He didn't really mind it, but he could see Feng Xin's tightly shut eyes, his quivering lip, the shaky breaths he took, stilling himself before grinding his hips into him.
"Feng Xin, can you be a little rougher?"