The Stone King's Lover (石王的愛)

Chapter 50

A/N: content warning for graphic m/m sex, 18+, reader discretion advised LOL

Xie Yi-jun

1304 years after The Long Night

Huichâng

<Darkling Pond>

With the moon overhead and the fires from Hêi'àn City in the distance, Xie Yi-jun was just barely able to see in front of him. Jin Songcai, standing waist-deep in the nearly bone-chilling water, was facing him wearing an expression of clear distress.

It wasn't enough now that they were both alive and together. For Yi-jun and for Songcai, in the darkness, in the night... their bodies and souls craved the physical proof that the other was going nowhere from now on.

They were holding each other close, having snuck in unseen by the other less-injured soldiers who had come to the lake to soak their wounds and clean the dirt of blood from their weary bodies.

Off a little ways, the King could hear a few voices talking. Some were arguing loudly, but no one strayed too close to the silent couple, hidden amongst the shadows.

Xie Yi-jun would have preferred to be alone with Songcai, but his first concern at the moment, was what to do about all his lover's bruises-

I don't like it when I'm not the one that caused them...

The marks dappled Songcai's chest, arms and stomach, like birthmarks faded into his skin. The man was far too fast to be caught with the tip of a blade, but he had fought in the battle from start to finish, and with that came inevitable injuries.

Compared to Yi-jun's broken bones, Jin Songcai was perfectly fine, however seeing the dark green and blue splotches, feeling his lover wince when he pressed at his skin a little too hard, Yi-jun felt he would do just about anything to be a healer like Songcai in that moment.

Rubbing gentle circles on Jin-cai's back, Yi-jun gazed into his eyes, slowly moving his fingers up and down the man's spine, knowing how he liked to be touched there.

Watching as Songcai's expression changed slowly, the King's heart raced. Songcai's worried frown and darkened eyes, replaced with a look that Yi-jun was very familiar with.

He wants to touch me too-

The King only smiled a little, holding Jincai tight and leaning close to whisper in his ear;

"Go ahead. I won't bite unless you ask me to-"

Songcai laughed but it was more of an exhausted sigh. When his hands began to slowly move across Yi-jun's back, then over his shoulders, the King no longer had it in him to make sly little comments, nor could he keep his eyes open.

Jin-cai raised handfuls of water up and poured them across Yi-jun's chest, washing away the remnants of the battle and turning the King into a purring mess. It was several minutes later that Yi-jun felt he could finally breathe again, his heart softening and yet racing as Songcai's touch eased all the tension in his soul...

At last, taking in his lover's beauty in the moonlight, the King raised his own hands and began doing the same. Every brush of his fingers upon Songcai's body was another reminder to Xie Yi-jun that the man was here, he was safe, and he was his.

Skin like porcelain, but nowhere near as fragile, every part of Jin-cai became a place where Yi-jun offered worship. Gazing over every inch of him twice, with gentle, venerative hands, the King held him as if each touch was a prayer itself. Thanking him for being alive, wishing beyond all else that he would never be harmed again. It was almost more than he could bear, imagining the world without his lover.