Work Text:
Su Mengzhen looks up at him with dark eyes. Bai Choufei swallows. So much of his da ge's power and strength has been eaten away by his illness, receding into an unfamiliar delicate kind of beauty. Some familiar small part of himself wants to put his thumbs on the circles under Su Mengzhen's eyes.
As if he knows what Bai Choufei is thinking, Su Mengzhen's icy facade cracks, just a little, to reveal real sorrow. "Choufei," he says softly. "Er di."
"Shut up," Bai Choufei spits, hand twitching towards his daggers.
"Have I wronged you," Su Mengzhen asks. The genuine sorrow in his voice only sparks Bai Choufei's rage. If it were Xiaoshi... if only it were Xiaoshi's soft voice, large eyes. Lashes to rival Wen Rou.
But Xiaoshi is dead. Why isn't Su Mengzhen?
Bai Choufei's hand wraps around da ge's throat. Su Mengzhen doesn't even try to spit or curse at him, only stares with those dark eyes. Anger a thin glimmer in them, but mostly flinty and hard. Bai Choufei does not flinch away. He fears nothing. But he releases Su Mengzhen, the former Crimson Sleeve Blade, and whirls out of the room. The chains around Su Mengzhen's neck, wrists, feet, clank quietly behind him.
When night falls, he goes to visit Lei Chun. His pretty little wife sits on her bed like a statue. He draws closer, attempts to touch her, and she turns whip fast to pin him with a scathing glare. But she makes no move to push him away. In her eyes, behind the facade, he sees resignation. He grits his teeth. He doesn't have her. He will never have her. He will never have anything at all.
He storms up to Su Mengzhen's cell.
Da ge is huddled over himself, dried blood clamping his louzhu furs together. His lashes brush against his cheek as his lids flutter. Bai Choufei can't stand him. He hauls the man up by the collar. This would have been impossible months ago, but now he comes easily.
Su Mengzhen looks through lidded eyes at him. "Choufei. You're here again." He doesn't sound surprised. Fury battles with shame in Bai Choufei. How dare he presume so arrogantly.
"Don't you speak to me like that, da ge," he spits. "I'm no longer your fu louzhu, did you forget? Has that sickness of yours destroyed your memory?"
Su Mengzhen snorts. "It seems more like you're the one who forgot, Choufei."
Bai Choufei snarls and shoves him down to the floor. The heavy chains drag Su Mengzhen down until he's a coughing mess on the gray stone. Bai Choufei lands a foot on his chest, and the coughing grows more violent. "Da ge," he says sweetly, viciously, "you pretentious, prideful bastard!"
"How does it feel to be under me right now," Bai Choufei asks gleefully, twisting his foot into Su Mengzhen's red robes. "How does it feel, louzhu?"
Su Mengzhen just glares at him from under that fierce brow. His robes have come loose while Bai Choufei was stepping all over his chest, and the red parts to reveal his muscled chest. Sickness has debilitated him, but it cannot entirely erase decades of hard training. His chest rises and falls with every labored breath, tendons of his neck standing out in rhythm. Tangled hair sticks to his cheek, his neck. Bai Choufei looks down at him, some heated beast in him rising up. He bends down to run a hand down Su Mengzhen's bare chest.
"Da ge," he says, tortured, crooning, furious. He wants to make the man bleed.
"Choufei!" For the first time, Su Mengzhen's voice reveals real fury, and something almost like apprehension. "Bai Choufei!"
"That's right," Bai Choufei says, euphoric. He laughs, raspy and loud. The sound is torn out of his throat, unbidden. "I like the way you say my name, da ge. Like you want to kill me- oh but you can't, can you! The Crimson Sleeve Blade, useless." He leans in, close enough that the heat of Su Mengzhen's skin warms his cheek. "Weak."
Su Mengzhen rattles his chains, eyes furious, hands shaking against his vermillion robes. "When have I wronged you?"
"When," Bai Choufei echoes incredulously. "You've always wronged me! You've never taken me as your true equal!"
He tears apart Su Mengzhen's robes, placing his hand flat over Su Mengzhen's stomach. "But no matter. Look at you now," he crows gleefully. "Look at yourself! You're entirely at my mercy!"
Su Mengzhen growls. "I was right to not have trusted you."
Bai Choufei stills at the words, a repeat from their battle. His hands shake against the tan expanse of Su Mengzhen's hard stomach. Anger flows through him like blood, pounding war drums. "Shut up!"
He bares the rest of Su Mengzhen's body. The sculpt of his da ge's thighs are so perfect, the pinnacle of the jianghu warrior, even as he coughs blood onto his own chest. Bai Choufei grins up at him as he lays a proprietary hand on a scarred thigh. Most of Su Mengzhen's scars are old, from before he truly became the Crimson Sleeve Blade. Some are from the recent fights against Guan Qi, Lei Sun. Him. Euphoria fills him as he presses against a barely healed wound, from their fight. "Look, da ge," he says with a grin, "I gave you that. Isn't it nice, a memento to remember your er-ge by?"
Su Mengzhen doesn't flinch as he presses into the wound, blood sluggishly trickling from it once again. His eyes fill with contempt as he looks down at Bai Choufei, and then they settle back into aloof impassivity as he looks away.
"Da ge," Bai Choufei says dangerously. "Look at me!" Even in chains, the self important bearing that Su Mengzhen carries poisons the air he breathes. He slides his hand up Su Mengzhen's thigh, and only then does his da ge turn back to him, anger brimming in those dark eyes, below the inky brow. Su Mengzhen's eyelashes flutter as he coughs again.
"Shh," Bai Choufei croons. "Don't strain yourself, da ge. Let Choufei take care of you." His fingers dance up Su Mengzhen's thigh, onto the dip of his hip. Quick as a flash, he fishes out Su Mengzhen's cock. It's still soft.
Something almost like panic flashes across Su Mengzhen's eyes, heartwrenchingly poignant.
Bai Choufei wipes the blood off his chin with his other hand, mockingly tender. "Da ge, is this one serving you well?"
"Choufei," Su Mengzhen chokes out between coughing. Euphoric power rises in him, filling him like the flush of drunkenness.
He fists da ge's cock, gripping hard. It twitches in his hand, and triumph makes Bai Choufei laugh, head thrown back. "Louzhu, does it feel good?" He thumbs at the head of Su Mengzhen's cock, and it weeps beads of liquid. Bai Choufei stares down at it, heart beating loudly in his ears.
"Choufei! Enough!"
"I'll decide when it's enough," Bai Choufei snarls, and bends down to lick at it. It's salty, thick in his nose. His mouth is suddenly slick with saliva before he can muster the disgust that should be rising in him. He had only ever imagined it with Xiaoshi, his sweet eyes blinking back pleasured tears at Bai Choufei. The thought twists his heart with pain. With anger. He descends onto da ge's cock with furious intent, mouth working around the warmth, convulsing around salty musky skin. Bitterness tingles on his tongue as da ge's cock leaks precum. Su Mengzhen makes a choked off noise above him, different from his chronic coughing. It's more breathless, the undercurrent of a whine below it.
Da ge's hips twitch minutely below him and then his abdomen tenses as the motion subsides. But still, Bai Choufei can feel his involuntary movements, needy and uncontrollable. Bai Choufei laughs around a mouthful of cock, mocking. Su Mengzhen's hand fists in his white-streaked hair as the vibrations from his humming laugh envelop his cock. He fucks his own mouth on da ge's cock, merciless with himself until he can feel soreness tingle along his jaw. He's no amateur to this, not like Xiaoshi surely would have been. Xiaoshi would have done a terrible job his first time, awkward and blushing and flustered and unable to meet his eyes. Bai Choufei lets his teeth barely brush against Su Mengzhen's cock, and da ge cries out, spilling into his mouth. Bitter, salty, cum floods his mouth. It's warm.
Bai Choufei turns his head and spits it out onto Su Mengzhen's red robes, parted around his legs. Su Mengzhen's pupils are blown wide, nearly unnoticeable with the dark brown of his iris, but Bai Choufei can tell. He grins, pale liquid smeared around his lips.
When he licks his lips, a clean swipe across upper and lower lip, Su Mengzhen nearly convulses, brow furrowed with fury. "Choufei, what are you doing! Enough! Stop before-"
"Before what," Bai Choufei says, glee a high tremor in his voice, "before we actually fuck? Before I ruin you, the master of the Sunset Drizzle Tower?" He tears his own belt loose. "Ah, but I don't want to stop."
Leaning in, he whispers, "and you can't make me stop, da ge. Not anymore."
He spits on his fingers and grins up at Su Mengzhen's wide gaze as he works the spit around his fingers. It's enough to slick up his fingers, but it's going to burn Su Mengzhen when he puts them in. Su Mengzhen bears it unflinchingly, as he knew he would. But what's surprising-
Su Mengzhen's spent cock twitches as he pants, eyes following Bai Choufei's every movement. "Oh," he murmurs, thready fervor gleaming in his eyes like stars, "da ge likes it."
He laughs low and vicious. "Da ge could have just said so." He gentles his tone, like he would speak to a lover. "Don't feel ashamed that this lowly one is touching you. Since da ge likes it, Choufei must obey." He crooks his fingers inside Su Mengzhen, wriggling to find that electric spot inside of him. "Er ge will make you feel good. Chun-er hasn't done this for you before, has she? No, of course not." Su Mengzhen's eyes positively burn red at the mention of Lei Chun, and he grits his teeth so loud Bai Choufei wonders for a moment if something cracked. It makes him grin.
"Do not speak her name," he snarls in his Crimson Sleeve Blade voice. It still makes some small weak part of Bai Choufei tremble. He squashes it like a gnat, filling himself with anger and triumph over Su Mengzhen.
Every bare sign that Su Mengzhen is feeling something goes straight to Bai Choufei's cock. The sweat that gleams on his neck, the tiny sounds that he makes, so easy to miss if they weren't totally alone in the cell, the minute shifting of his legs around Bai Choufei. He has good self control, Bai Choufei thinks viciously, as expected of the number one warrior of the jianghu.
Bai Choufei will bring him down and break him. He slides his fingers out briskly, and Su Mengzhen is entirely silent, still. But his red cock twitches against his red robes, and Bai Choufei laughs. "Patience, da ge," he mocks. Loosening his belt, he pulls out his own cock. It's half hard and he strokes it easily to hardness, his other hand cupped around Su Mengzhen's hip. The loose furl of Su Mengzhen's hole gleaming with spit, not nearly enough lubricant. "Can you take this, louzhu? It might hurt a little," he says mockingly, fingers digging into the wound on Su Mengzhen's chest. "Be patient, louzhu. This one will make it good for you."
Then, without further pause, he presses into Su Mengzhen. His da ge is so tight. He can hear Su Mengzhen's even breaths. The man gives nothing away. Frustrated and panting himself, Bai Choufei thrusts cruelly into him. "How does it feel, Crimson Sleeve Blade? How does it feel, ruler of the jianghu?"
Su Mengzhen's breathing grows a fraction more labored, but his body is honest. Bai Choufei can feel his cock, hard and trapped beneath Bai Choufei's stomach. He fucks Su Mengzhen's body into submission, grabbing his da ge by the throat and thrusting into him even as da ge's tight hole tries to refuse him entrance. Su Mengzhen is tight, hot on the inside. He grows wetter as Bai Choufei opens him up forcefully. He bites Su Mengzhen's sweat gleaming neck. When Bai Choufei thrusts particulaly hard, Su Mengzhen lets out a weak cough.
Black lashes gild Su Mengzhen's now bright eyes. A film of water covers his eyes, even though no tears escape. Bai Choufei thumbs gently at the damp corner, even as he bullies his way back into Su Mengzhen for a particularly vicious thrust. Su Mengzhen's neck arches wordlessly, and his panting acquires a wet rasp. The slap of their flesh is loud in the empty cell, and Bai Choufei presses him down into the floor, fucks him deep and hard so that he knows there will be bruises on his back later. (He would be gentle if it were Xiaoshi, he thinks. He could be gentle, kiss the tears from those large eyes, caress and kiss every inch of that powerful yet graceful form.)
But it's not. It's Su Mengzhen, number one warrior of the jianghu, and he should be able to take anything, everything. He should endure, like Bai Choufei did. The pain should start to taste like pleasure. He's everything Bai Choufei should be. Could be. He presses Su Mengzhen down, spreads his legs open, and hauls his hips up. Su Mengzhen's raven, nearly wavy hair spreads out on the stone floor, his arms pulled helplessly by the chains.
The pleasure (and oh, what pleasure it is, blinding and terribly burning) makes Bai Choufei pant into Su Mengzhen's neck like a starved dog. Like the starved dog he is, bruising Su Mengzhen's hot flesh. His chest and shoulders are all scarred, not like Xiaoshi. Xiaoshi, raised under a caring master atop kind mountaintops. But Su Mengzhen is scarred with his youth, scarred with weakness that was beaten out of him. Just like me, Bai Choufei thinks fervently, da ge is just like me. He shudders, hips stuttering as his climax builds. He sinks his teeth into da ge, tasting salty irony blood, just like the flesh they fed him from the cell, but Su Mengzhen's skin is golden and flushed and so it's okay, it's okay, da ge is here and it's okay. He comes in Su Mengzhen with a throaty growl, rasping out of his chest, tearing his throat. He pants, staring up at Su Mengzhen's fluttering lids, the drawn brows, the proud jaw and white lips.
"Su Mengzhen," he whispers, voice raw.
Su Mengzhen turns his head, refusing to look at him.
His hand flexes in the ruined red robes, a storm of emotions rising in him. He's not prepared to deal with any of it. He pulls out of Su Mengzhen with a filthy wet squelch, come trickling out of da ge's loose hole. He curls his lip at Su Mengzhen's prone form, and leaves, fastening his belt briskly on the way out.
He returns to Su Mengzhen. Sometimes to bring him food, sometimes to fuck him, but he keeps returning.
Su Mengzhen can barely keep food down. He coughs when he tries to eat, retching when he tries to swallow. He can't even drink, and when Bai Choufei grips his jaw open to pour water into it, he just splutters and coughs it out seconds later. His countenance grow paler by the day.
There is no hunger in Su Mengzhen's eyes, even when he should definitely be hungry, when he hasn't eaten for days. (He's still stronger than Bai Choufei.) He brings him raw flesh, mocking, but Su Mengzhen only spares the plates piled high with plump raw flesh a single glance before retreating back into sleep. Not even a trace of want, of need, hunger in his eyes. Just like Xiaoshi's eyes had been. Defiant, hard, uncaring. He swallows- not a sob- but a scream.
Bai Choufei tosses the raw meat out the window, between the bars of the cell. The flesh is slippery, as cool as it had been when he ate it in that cell. Fury drives his bloodied hands as he grips Su Mengzhen by the shoulders. The blood smears all over Su Mengzhen's bared clavicles, across the scarred skin. Su Mengzhen is not shaken in the slightest, eyes pinning Bai Choufei with a strange, hateful understanding. So Bai Choufei fucks it out of him, turning him around and fucking into him until Su Mengzhen closes his eyes, wetness at the corner of his eyes. Stubbornly, the body below him remains silent.
When he finishes in Su Mengzhen, his chest rings empty, and suddenly he feels cold all over save his cock still buried in that warm, tight hole. He wraps a rough hand around Su Mengzhen and brings him to completion too, Su Mengzhen pressing his white lips together to suppress the sounds in his throat. No matter how he cajoles, mocks, coos, Su Mengzhen stays silent. "Su da ge," he murmurs. Su Mengzhen looks at him this time, but it's only with that terrifying silent understanding.
"Eat well for dinner," Su Mengzhen says through that hateful raspy-thin voice. It's barely mocking, but it still enrages Bai Choufei. How dare he, how dare he. How dare he speak with such insolence when Bai Choufei's cum is still drying in him, spilling across his thigh, Bai Choufei's marks bloody red on him. When Bai Choufei has won.
Bai Choufei doesn't bother wiping the blood off Su Mengzhen's chin, spitting on the stone floor before leaving.
His eyes are closed when Bai Choufei comes in, his body limp with sleep. When Bai Choufei puts a hand to his neck, his heartbeat is weak and even. Bai Choufei parts his ripped and dirtied red robes and uses the damp rag to perfunctorily wipe him down, the dried come and fluid from yesterday still on his thighs. He stuffs it back inside his robes, to burn later. Then he pulls out his dagger, and with deadly precision, shaves the stubble off of Su Mengzhen's chin.
There. That's the Crimson Sleeve Blade he knows.
But that golden skin of his seems to take on a strange pallor, unbecoming for the most powerful warrior of the jianghu. Bai Choufei lingers a moment longer, and then snorts as he turns to leave.
In his sleep, Su Mengzhen murmurs something. Bai Choufei stops, but he has already fallen silent again.
He leaves, feeling awfully helpless, powerless. He's won. Su Mengzhen has lost.
But it means nothing. He wishes Xiaoshi were here. He hopes ghosts can't see the world of the living, shameful guilt like acid inside him, dripping slowly.
Su Mengzhen is asleep again. He's asleep more often, now, when Bai Choufei comes. He retrieves a pail of icy water and dumps it all on Su Mengzhen, revelling in how Su Mengzhen wakes coughing and choking on the water. But then he starts shivering, shivering like his bones were falling apart, coughing bright red onto his hands.
"What are you doing," Bai Choufei hisses, "even I wasn't so weak as to cough blood just because they got water on me."
Between violent coughing, Su Mengzhen chuckles. "Are you not stronger than me?"
Bai Choufei watches him cough up more blood, lips blue.
He leaves, and orders two of the Six-Half Hall members dry Su Mengzhen off and get him new furs. When they return, they bow to him. "It's done," one of them says. His fear is not disguised well. Bai Choufei slits their throats.
Next time he comes into Su Mengzhen's cell, the man is asleep again. He has to wake him by shaking him, hands braced on his broad shoulders. "Da ge, wake up," Bai Choufei croons mockingly. "Choufei is here to pay his respects again."
Su Mengzhen blinks blearily awake. His gaze seems more unfocused when he looks at Bai Choufei, but there is still that irritating thread of pity-contempt-anger.
When Bai Choufei turns him over and fucks him, he coughs more frequently. It infuriates Bai Choufei, despite the heat around his cock tight and wet as ever. The old bruises on Su Mengzhen's hips and on his thighs have still not healed, but Bai Choufei grips his hips and fucks da ge onto his own cock again and again, Su Mengzhen's hair and robes swaying violently across the stone floor with the force of his thrusts. It's good, but it's not. Bai Choufei feels filthy, and he makes sure Su Mengzhen feels even more filthy. He grips Su Mengzhen's jaw from behind, and wetness smears on his hand. Blood, dripping over Su Mengzhen's chin, neck.
When red blood practically splatters across the stone below Su Mengzhen, Bai Choufei stops. Xiaoshi would be horrified. Xiaoshi would rush to Su Mengzhen and fuss over him like a mother hen. He pushes the thought out of his mind. Xiaoshi would be horrified at everything he's done. There's no point in thinking up pointless scenarios.
His heart beats fast and panicked, even as he pastes on a cold smirk. "Looks like da ge can't take anymore tonight, hm?"
He pulls out of Su Mengzhen and lets him drop to the stone floor with a thud. New bruises, he thinks, turning Su Mengzhen onto his back. Su Mengzhen doesn't respond, and his eyes are closed. He's already unconsious.
How did he come to this, Bai Choufei demands wordlessly, gazing at the scene before him, the most powerful man of the jianghu-
He did this. He did this. Triumph and anger swirl, battle inside of him. What right does he have to ask-
Bai Choufei does not flee, but he does walk very briskly away from the cell. Lei Chun glances at him strangely, as if she knows he's hiding something. But she can't possibly know. No one knows, except him.
"Where is Su Mengzhen," she says to him one night, before he can go off to Su Mengzhen's cell.
He raises an eyebrow. "Buried in the ground," he says cavalierly. "What, does my furen want his corpse?" He grips her jaw. "If she really wants it... then this husband will retrieve it for her," he murmurs, tone husky.
She twists out of his grasp, chin reddened with the prints of his fingers. "No," she says coldly. Her eyes are sharp and somehow knowing, on him. "Where is Su Mengzhen."
Bai Choufei only grins in return, baring his teeth. "My wife should really stop thinking about other men." He turns to leave, but Lei Chun does something she's never done before-
She grips his sleeve to keep him still. To keep him from leaving. "Fujun," she says, eyes searching.
He swallows. Her eyes are wide, lashes darker than even Xiaoshi's. Her lips, plush and skin smooth. She looks almost as she did when he first saw her entire face, on that boat. He can almost see the ghost of her past face, the memory of her smile. "Where is Su Mengzhen."
The question wipes away all of his lingering sentiment and leaves only hollow rage. And it is so very hollow, like the rest of him. Driven by madness, he grips her throat and backs her up onto the bed. "Do you want to know where your Mengzhen-ge is so badly? Do you really want to know?"
She swallows. He can feel the motion of her throat beneath his hand, and he squeezes tighter (not tight enough to choke). She opens her mouth, but before she can ask that accursed question he silences her with his mouth, pressing her down with his entire body. Shut up, he thinks viciously, wildly, stop. Stop!
She does.
Her entire body goes limp beneath his, face stilling into a mask. Wetness gleams on her lashes. Her hands tremble but do not snap to push him off like she usually would. Her eyes flicker beneath her closed lids. Her entire body is shuddering, shaking like she will never be steady again.
Bai Choufei throws himself off of her, swallowing hard. He should never have touched her. He should not have talked to her.
For the second time in just a few days, he flees.
The walk up to Su Mengzhen's cell is usually silent.
But he can hear murmuring, and his heart beats fast. Bai Choufei draws his daggers, fury beating in him. He'll see which fool has dared intrude here, and then he will kill them. It is already a foregone conclusion, so he calms himself with the thought of drawing his daggers across their throat, carving out their heart.
Quiet sobbing, and a heartstoppingly familiar voice. How did he get in there, Bai Choufei thinks, heart beating wildly, furiously, how?
Through the bars on the door he can see Yang Wuxie cradling Su Mengzhen, and he rattles the door wildly. Yang Wuxie snaps up to meet his eyes through the bars, and his eyes do not widen with fear as he would have predicted from the squirrely advisor, but instead narrow with hate.
Bai Choufei snarls with rage and stabs his dagger through the wood. "Enough, Bai Choufei," Su Mengzhen says in a potent rasp. He takes a breath.
"Wuxie, now!" Su Mengzhen rocks forward onto his knees, eyes meeting Bai Choufei's in one last pity-filled gaze before closing his eyes and bowing his neck. Bai Choufei roars with rage and kicks at the door with all his strength. They've done something, blocked it with something. But he can feel it give, just slightly. He pounds at it recklessly.
"Su Mengzhen," he roars through the bars on the door, "don't you fucking dare-"
Yang Wuxie pulls out a sword, and it swooshes as it cuts through the air.
It happens slowly, in a single heartbeat. The gleam of steel comes up, and then it comes down. Blood splatters, more than Su Mengzhen has ever coughed. It spills down Yang Wuxie's front and up the stone walls, across the stone floor. But it doesn't reach the door, where Bai Choufei is trapped. He screams with feral anger and kicks the door open. Something crashes, snaps, breaks, and he is charging across the room.
"How dare you," he snarls into Yang Wuxie's face, dagger biting into his throat, "how dare you! He was mine to kill! Mine to defeat!"
He grips his dagger, ready to draw it across Yang Wuxie's throat, the man's insolent eyes only feeding the fire inside him.
A whir, and all the air is punched out of him. He falls to the side, gasping for breath. What-
As his hands come down, he feels the arrow in his side. Yang Wuxie glares at him one more time, tears streaking down his cheek, blood splattered all across him, and escapes out the door. Bai Choufei laughs madly as Yang Wuxie's footsteps disappear. A second arrow flies into the cell and pierces his thigh. He stumbles back, falls onto Su Mengzhen's corpse. "Da ge," he snarls, "you useless bastard, you-"
He rips the note off the arrow in his thigh and unrolls it. 朱小腰, it says, in blood-writing. He throws his head back and laughs through the blinding pain. He tears the note in half and tosses it aside.
Crawling on his knees, he goes to Su Mengzhen, lays his head across his own lap. The blood is still warm, still flowing. It soaks his robes through to his legs. Bai Choufei looks down at the man, his silent and proud face, and can do nothing but laugh. Wetness trickles down his jaw, down his leg, down his side. Pain throbs in him, but what else is new? He laughs. He laughs. Xiaoshi, he weeps silently, I hope you've found peace.