Title: You are the promise I made
Fandom: Guardian
Rating: R
Length: ~2700 words
Notes: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, set during episode 15 but with spoilers for later eps. Also for the prompts House (FFW bingo) and Temporary Telepathy (crack bingo). Oodles of thanks to trobadora for beta. No warnings apply.
Language notes: Hei Pao Shi = Black Cloaked Envoy; Hei Lao Ge = Old Brother Black (informal)
Summary: A first time set during episode 15.


Zhao Yunlan was sitting on his coffee table, his thumbnail skating along his teeth between parted lips as he considered Shen Wei’s explanation of his power of learning.

Shen Wei drank a mouthful of water. They’d spent half the evening persuading Cong Bo to help the SID, and it was getting late. He should leave soon.

Zhao Yunlan looked up and mischief lit his eyes. “I hope you realise, Hei Lao Ge, that it’s all thanks to my brains and great leadership that you’ve kept your little secret from going public. Shouldn’t you repay me?”

“Repay?” Shen Wei felt a familiar swoop of emotion. The memory of his compensation to Kunlun all those thousands of years ago was never far from his thoughts, no matter how he tried to fold it away in the past where it belonged.

Zhao Yunlan circled his hand to indicate the room around them and leant back. “See how Da Qing has messed up my place? You can’t stand it either, right?”

Shen Wei laughed and told himself he was relieved. After all, they were each walking a fine line, duty pulling them apart as much as it drew them together. It would have been easy once Zhao Yunlan found out his identity for distance to have opened up between them: the Envoy was a representative of a foreign power known for its dangerous criminals and also, not incidentally, a fearsome figure in his own right. But far from being daunted by Shen Wei’s position, Zhao Yunlan seemed happy just to be in on the secret. It was something they shared now, something they could defend together against Cong Bo and others like him.

Shen Wei took a last drink of water and went to tidy up, while Zhao Yunlan sprawled on the couch with his phone. “Watch out, Hei Pao Shi! From now on, I’m going to enjoy myself.”

He was shameless. Shen Wei couldn’t help loving him for it, though his indulgence didn’t extend to Zhao Yunlan’s housekeeping habits or lack thereof. The bed was unmade, pillows, clothes and lollipop wrappers strewn here and there. At least there were no empty wine bottles this time.

“By the way,” came Zhao Yunlan’s voice from the couch, casual as anything, “if you can learn every power you see, do you happen to have Ding Dun’s talent too?”

Shen Wei paused halfway through straightening the bedclothes. Ding Dun, the Dixingren who could know a person’s thoughts by touching an object they had touched. In fact, Shen Wei had acquired that power years ago from an old woman, probably one of Ding Dun’s relatives, but he avoided using it. In academia, it tended to result in being inundated with his students’ essay-related anxiety. “Yes. Why?”

“Oh, no reason.”

Shen Wei stared at the back of the couch for a moment, but no further explanation was forthcoming. So he cautiously activated that power—

—and immediately had to bite back a gasp. The bedclothes under his fingers all but ached with sexual desire, and it was desire for him. He dropped them hastily and picked up a pillow to place it at the head of the bed. That, too, was suffused with feelings for him—admiration, yearning, relentless curiosity. Such a potent reflection of Shen Wei’s own emotions, it seemed impossible it could be a coincidence.

Zhao Yunlan hadn’t known about Shen Wei’s powers before. There was no way he could have planned this. These must be his true thoughts and feelings, imbued unconsciously in his possessions, and the moment he’d learned of Shen Wei’s power, he’d given Shen Wei license to touch them. He wanted Shen Wei to know, had prompted him to find out.

Heat burned through Shen Wei’s body. He couldn’t seem to stop now. With shaking hands, he picked up a t-shirt—Zhao Yunlan had changed his hairstyle for him, to show how much he cared, but he didn’t know if Shen Wei had got the message; maybe Shen Wei didn’t feel the same—and put it aside to be washed, then plucked a pair of jeans off the floor, meaning to at least make a pretence of folding them. Whenever he wants me, however he wants me. The words as clear as if they’d been spoken aloud.

This time, he couldn’t control his inhalation. All his reasons for holding back, for keeping his distance—fear of endangering Zhao Yunlan, fear of disrupting the timeline—crumbled to dust motes. He was overwhelmed, drowning in their twinned desire.

“Shen Wei.”

He turned, aroused and as stricken as if he was the one who’d been exposed. Zhao Yunlan was perched on the arm of the couch, watching. How long had he been up there?

Zhao Yunlan was usually self-confident, teasing, reckless, but for once he seemed unsure. He licked his lips. “Ah, I didn’t mean—if you don’t—”

Shen Wei couldn’t let him doubt. Could not let him wonder one second more. He covered the space between them in a few strides, practically fell over the back of the couch reaching for him, cupping the nape of his neck and bringing their mouths together.

If he’d thought, with his last functioning neurons, that touching Zhao Yunlan might ground him and discharge this unstable build-up of feelings, he was proven wrong. Without breaking the kiss, Yunlan gripped his shoulders and slid down onto the couch cushions, dragging Shen Wei on top of him in a graceless, glorious splay of limbs and bodies with the jeans Shen Wei was still holding crumpled between them.

The couch was too short. Shen Wei had to bend his legs and accidentally kneed Zhao Yunlan in the shin, making him flinch.

“Sorry,” said Shen Wei, appalled at his own clumsiness.

“Don’t care. Don’t stop.” Zhao Yunlan pulled him down again, and Shen Wei went, still awkwardly poised but determined to make it work. There was no need for powers to sense Yunlan’s urgency now.

With a muffled complaint, Zhao Yunlan tugged the jeans out from between them and threw them aside, sending a water glass crashing to the floor. Zhao Yunlan didn’t seem to notice, and Shen Wei himself was only peripherally concerned. Yunlan’s lips were against his, his tongue, his teeth and the rasp of his beard all driving Shen Wei out of his mind. Yunlan wasn’t Kunlun, but he would be one day, and Shen Wei’s past and present were collapsing into this one heady point in time.

Zhao Yunlan grabbed the hem of his sweater and pulled it up past the press of their bodies, baring his belly and chest in invitation, and Shen Wei laid his palm on the cusp of Yunlan’s ribs, private skin usually hidden from the world. Yunlan quaked under his touch and inhaled sharply, and Shen Wei pulled back to look at him: his eyes heavy-lidded, dark as a portal; his lips red and swollen from kissing; his torso lean and flushed. He was perfect.

Shen Wei raised himself up on one arm and smoothed his hand down to Yunlan’s waistband, up to the edge of the rucked up sweater, absorbing every sensation—the hot, soft skin, the bones and muscles underneath, the strong thud of Yunlan’s heart. It was unbearably intimate, and it made Shen Wei desperate for more.

He knelt up fully, straddling Zhao Yunlan’s legs, yanked his sweater vest over his head and roughly unbuttoned his shirt, letting it hang open. His pendant swung forward.

Zhao Yunlan licked his lips and sat up, pulling Shen Wei into his lap, craning up to kiss him and, ohh, dragging his hands across Shen Wei’s back under his shirt, at once caressing him and urging him closer. Their stomachs brushed together.

Shen Wei rocked forward, but the angle was frustrating. He needed more pressure. He needed Yunlan wholly naked. He needed Yunlan’s erection in his hand or his mouth or inside him. He wrapped his arm around Yunlan’s shoulders and, almost without conscious intent, teleported them the short distance to the bed.

“What—? Ah.” For a moment, surprise curved Zhao Yunlan’s lips, but then he was earnest again. He looped his arms around Shen Wei’s neck and brought them together, mouth to mouth, skin to skin.

Shen Wei lowered him from sitting to lie in the rumpled nest of his bed and followed after, vaguely marvelling at the difference wrought by a change of axis. Upright, Yunlan was intoxicating but Shen Wei still had some shred of control. Horizontal, they might have been in another world, just the two of them. Time turned dreamlike, thick and sweet as honey.

Yunlan put his hands on Shen Wei’s face. “You’ve no idea how much I’ve wanted you.”

He’d felt it for himself, from these very sheets. Was still feeling it, his power out of focus but still feeding him a distant reflection of Yunlan’s thoughts and feelings, endless chiming echoes of Shen Wei’s own desire. “I do know.”

Yunlan tilted his chin up, offering his neck, and Shen Wei bent to lick and suck from the line of Yunlan’s beard to his collarbone, making Yunlan writhe. “Whatever you think you know, triple it, and triple it again. I’ve been dying.”

It was hyperbole, it had to be, except that a part of Shen Wei had been dying too. “I know what you mean.”

Yunlan caught his wrist, fingers hovering over the buckle of his watch. “Can I?”

Shen Wei nodded and watched as Yunlan unfastened the strap and laid it on the bedside table. Then Yunlan peeled away Shen Wei’s shirt. He didn’t bother with the sleeve garters first, but even so, every move was careful, deliberate, as if he were in a trance of arousal, savouring each inch of skin. His hand moved towards the pendant, but Shen Wei covered it instinctively. “Not that.”

“Okay.” Yunlan met his gaze, clear and unquestioning, cupped his jaw and kissed him instead.

Shen Wei kissed him back, and then impulsively added, as if completing the thought, “I’ll do it.”

After all, what need of a token when he had the real thing right here. He unknotted the cord and placed the pendant next to his watch. It felt like a leap of faith.

Zhao Yunlan sat up to unlace Shen Wei’s shoes and dropped them one by one to the floor, followed by his socks.

“Come back here.” Shen Wei dragged him back into his arms and kissed him hard, then peeled the denim vest and thin grey sweater over his head with much less care than Yunlan had shown. Dying, yes. The air in the apartment felt cool, Yunlan a hot coal by contrast, and now when they lay back down and embraced, they were skin to skin. Shen Wei couldn’t stop touching him.

He ran his hand down Yunlan’s leg to one of the worn patches in his jeans, hooked two fingers through the soft frayed hole and tugged, pulling Yunlan’s thigh over his and bringing their crotches hard up against each other.

Yunlan groaned into his mouth. “Admit it,” he murmured, “you love my jeans.”

Shen Wei grinned. “Right now they’re an obstruction,” he said, choosing to neither confirm nor deny. Pleased to have finally found a purpose for those holes.

Yunlan laughed, but rather than taking them off, he leaned back and trailed his fingers appreciatively over Shen Wei’s chest, up over his Adam’s apple to his jaw. “Anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are?”

Shen Wei flushed. A few people had, over the years, but only one had ever counted until now.

Yunlan’s gaze was avidly following the path of his caress. He licked his lips, leaving them wet and glossy, and Shen Wei pressed his thumb to Yunlan’s full lower lip, just as captivated, and rubbed side to side.

Yunlan’s eyes fell shut, his chest heaving with deep, unsteady breaths. He flicked the tip of his tongue against Shen Wei’s thumb, and Shen Wei felt it everywhere, that brush of tongue. Hungry for more, he slid two fingers into the wet heat of Yunlan’s mouth.

Yunlan made an inarticulate noise and immediately started sucking them, the flat of his tongue pressing up, and Shen Wei went hot from head to foot and surged forward to kiss him almost before he’d torn his fingers free. He fumbled for the fly of Yunlan’s jeans while Yunlan returned the favour, and they kicked off their trousers until they were finally fully naked together.

It was nothing like the first time. Then Kunlun had been a sudden, joyful revelation, as bright as the Haixing sun, and Shen Wei, for all his years of war, had been full of the innocence of first love. This time had ten thousand years of loss to carry, of waiting and wanting, responsibility and duty. And, too, months of observing Zhao Yunlan, getting to know him, winning his trust. This time was as intricate as a universe, and Shen Wei wanted every part of it. He wanted Yunlan under his skin.

Yunlan held himself over Shen Wei and ran a possessive hand down his side, over his hip to the top of his thigh. There was a question in his eyes.

Shen Wei knew the answer. “However you want me.”

“Hei Lao Ge.” Yunlan’s voice was rough with emotion. Time abruptly sped up again, turning everything into a bright blur of feeling: the two of them rocking together, holding each other; Shen Wei slipping his fingers between Yunlan’s cheeks, stroking over his entrance, making him cry out; and then Yunlan’s erection heavy in Shen Wei’s hand, and Yunlan’s hot hand on him, strong and familiar, stripping away the years. The inexorable drag of need so deep it was indistinguishable from pain, but so welcome it brought tears to Shen Wei’s eyes.

Yunlan tightened his hold on Shen Wei’s erection, sped his strokes, and Shen Wei mirrored him helplessly. And through his power, he felt Yunlan’s control break, the moment he surrendered to the urging of Shen Wei’s hand, and how fiercely glad Yunlan was, love and passion and physical pleasure bound together in his release.

Shen Wei joined him less than a minute later, his orgasm rolling through him like thunder, and came on Yunlan’s belly and chest, as Yunlan had come on his.

After a long moment of catching their breaths, Yunlan rolled away to grab a discarded t-shirt off the floor and came back to swipe at the mess, and then they collapsed in each other’s arms. Yunlan was so smug, it was radiating off him in waves, making Shen Wei smile, which in turn made Yunlan grin in a feedback loop of utter self-indulgence as powerful as any drug. Shen Wei reluctantly deactivated his power—if he didn’t now, he might never—but using just his regular senses made little difference.

“Hei Lao Ge.” Yunlan pressed his hand to Shen Wei’s chest where the pendant usually lay. The light in his eyes was tender as well as mischievous. “I believe this heralds the start of a new era of Haixing-Dixing relations, one that will prove most worthwhile and enjoyable.”

Shen Wei covered his hand, holding it there where it belonged. “Not the start. A happy continuation.”

Yunlan raised his eyebrows, but accepted the correction with a laugh, a kiss and then a wide yawn.

Shen Wei lay with Yunlan’s head on his shoulder, his own eyes drifting closed.

“You haven’t finished cleaning the flat,” said Yunlan sleepily, but when Shen Wei roused himself and made as if to get out of bed, he pulled him back down. “I was kidding! It was a joke! We can do it tomorrow.”

Shen Wei was more than willing to be detained, but he reached out with his power and collected the shards of broken drinking glass into a pile, safely out of the path of anywhere Yunlan might tread.

“Tomorrow,” he echoed. And as many tomorrows as fate would allow them. For now, they were together and safe. It was only right to make the best of it. He tightened his arm around Yunlan and let himself sink into sleep.


END