No additional warnings for this scene.
Mei Changsu is used to Lin Chen’s excesses, in much the same way Lin Chen is used to his temper. It is not as if they haven’t spent years in close proximity to the point of mutual aggravation, like an old married couple. This is not new.
What is new is Lin Chen’s obsession with his wardrobe and general appearance, which is getting progressively more aggressive the longer he stays in Jinling.
“Perhaps a change of hair style.” Lin Chen is studying him with the eye of a courtesan readying for an imperial assignation.
“I am an adult. I will wear my hair up like a gentleman. Don’t come near me.” Mei Changsu holds up one hand but keeps trying to read the book he has in his other.
“Mei Changsu, I cannot have you going about wearing this beautiful robe with your hair in a cage .” He’s holding up what is, in fact, a beautiful robe in dark indigo blue. The color itself speaks of outrageous cost, and Mei Changsu cannot imagine wearing it within a hundred miles of the capital.
“This is not a problem, as I will not be wearing that robe. It is profoundly unsuitable for my station.”
Lin Chen rolls his eyes. “You are richer than most of the nobility here, and you are the chief of the Jiangzhou Alliance. As a Pugilist the laws do not apply to you.” He shakes the robe, his smile just short of leering. “You will be fetching in this.”
Mei Changsu closes his eyes and breathes out slowly. As Lin Shu he never found much use for meditation, but the practice has served him well as he is now. Especially with Lin Chen. He takes a moment to still his mind before approaching the subject that Lin Chen is somehow ignoring.
He opens his eyes and looks up at the other man, softening his expression and lowering his eyelids, curving his lips into an inviting smile.
“Is this your way of saying you accept my offer?” He stops himself short of batting his lashes.
Lin Chen sputters at him, nearly dropping the robe. “No! Why, you—”
“Then it’s not a matter I wish to continue discussing. Put the robe away and leave my hair alone.” He focuses on his book again, not that he’s reading a word of it.
Lin Chen stalks out of the room.
Occasionally, but less often than Dr. Yan or Lin Chen claim, Mei Changsu is an angry man who is in a lot of pain and does not want to take his medicine.
“Nothing helps! Your medicine is a bitter and terrible joke! Just give me some opium and let me sleep.”
“The hell I will!” Lin Chen flaps his arms, his long white sleeves giving him the appearance of one of his birds.
“Then GO to hell!” Mei Changsu flops over to the best of his abilities — slowly and carefully — so his back is to Lin Chen and pulls his blankets up to his ears.
He feels the bed dip. “Changsu.” A gentle hand rests on his shoulder. “I know you are in pain. The medicine does help, I promise. Please sit up and take it.”
Lin Chen is rarely so solicitous and it peaks Mei Changsu’s curiosity. He rolls onto his back to peer up at him. “Are you worried?”
“About you? Never.” The words are lies, soft and said through a smile.
“I am in a lot of pain today, Lin Chen. Please just help me sleep.”
“I have added a slight sedative to the broth. It will warm you and help you sleep.” He rubs his hand up and down Mei Changsu’s arm. His touch is hot and heavy and the feel of it pushes the pain back a little, replaced with a far sweeter sensation. It makes Mei Changsu, ever the careful strategist, impulsive for once.
“Come to bed and warm me yourself,” he rumbles, trying to look alluring through a familiar haze of fever, exhaustion, and despair.
Lin Chen pulls his hand back as if burned. He glares at Mei Changsu, his eyes filled with anger and remorse and desire, then gets up and calls for Gong Li. He passes the bowl of medicine to the confused man and walks out.
Lin Chen storms in smelling of fragrant tea and sex. It would churn Mei Changsu’s stomach if it weren’t already in knots.
“What happened?” Lin Chen snaps at him, standing like a statue of a wrathful god in the middle of the room.
“Foya died, and Fei Liu found him.” His heart breaks for the dog, and the boy whose innocence, however ingrained, is slowly being lost like a mountain worn down by a stream.
“So?” Lin Chen’s eyes narrow. “He’s seen death before, plenty of it. Birds and people and dogs. Pigs. Rabbits.” He waves a hand around impatiently, but at Mei Changsu’s guilty silence, goes still again. “What happened, Changsu?”
He closes his eyes. “He finally made the connection. To me, I mean. He asked me if I was going to go to sleep like Foya one day.”
“Damnation,” Lin Chen says, although he speaks with despair and not anger. Mei Changsu hears him take a deep breath. “You said yes, and he ran.”
Mei Changsu keeps his eyes closed, remembering the look of devastation and hopelessness in Fei Liu’s eyes before the boy flew away. He can do nothing more than nod, opening his eyes to beg Lin Chen to do for Fei Liu what he cannot: chase him down, catch him, hold him through his anguish with strong arms.
“I’m glad you sent for me, then. I suspect I know where he is.” Lin Chen does not elaborate, instead twirling in a flash of cream and blue, leaving as quickly as he came.
The scent of expensive tea and even more expensive sex lingers, and Mei Changsu hates himself for caring about that when so much else is going wrong.
“Why now?” Mei Changsu cannot stop himself from asking as Lin Chen slowly slides his robe back over his shoulder and starts mouthing the tender, scarred skin there. Lin Chen knows exactly where those scars are, every single one of them, even those too faded to see anymore. The touch of his lips makes Mei Changsu as breathless and aroused as he always imagined it would.
Lin Chen sighs, then presses his cheek against Mei Changsu’s shoulder, facing away from him. “You agreed to leave with me and Fei Liu.”
Mei Changsu thinks about that as he loops his arms around Lin Chen’s waist. “Of course I did.”
At that, Lin Chen snorts in displeasure and pulls back to look at him. “No, not ‘of course’. It was never inevitable. You were more likely to die here in this wretched city on your path of revenge.”
“So you refused me out of fear of my death? Lin Chen—”
“ No. I know you are mortal. I know that better than anyone.” He says it sharp and angry before taking a deep breath. “I refused you because I am in love with you, and have been in love with you for over ten years. I was never going to settle for being one of your stepping stones.”
The words shock him to his core, even as his mind fits the pieces together. All those years of Lin Chen’s obvious desire yet determined rejection of Mei Changsu’s many, many attempts at seduction form into a picture of man waiting, earnestly hoping, for what Mei Changsu was not prepared to offer.
“I—”
“You wanted a quick release from the pain. You were lonely and wanted someone to touch you. You felt safe with me and assumed I would never ask you for more. You thought I could be careless with your shallow affections.” He snarls as his lips return to Mai Changsu’s skin, drifting over his collarbone and then this chest as he continues to pull the robes away. His hands are gentle — they are always gentle, for all that he is one of the most powerful martial arts masters of the era — and he is treating Mei Changsu like he is a precious jewel being revealed for a king’s pleasure.
“For the longest time I knew that’s all it was, Changsu. I am not naive.”
“Lin Chen—”
“Your righteousness always came first. Always. Now that your revenge has triumphed you could instead stay for your prince. Your emperor.” He hisses the words between kisses. “But you chose me.”
He bites down on Mei Changsu’s nipple, hard and fast, before sucking on it with a soothing, wet tongue. The spark that shoots through Mei Changsu’s body lights up his nerves in ways he thought were distant memories.
“You chose me,” Lin Chen repeats fiercely, and pushes him down onto the bed, hands as ravenous as his mouth. Ten years of longing and stifled desire hit Mei Changsu like a tidal wave and he lets himself be carried away.
The next day, they will take Fei Liu and leave Jinling. They will travel like newlyweds and delight in each other when they can. He regrets that he will never get a chance to properly bury Lin Shu, but he cannot imagine anything tearing Mei Changsu away from the family he found for himself, for whatever time he has left.
He puts his righteousness to rest in Lin Chen’s arms.