#(just like llh is telling on himself in this excerpt ayyy)

[beneaththebrim]

WIP Wednesday: dihua wedding chamber banter

this will probably be the last WIP snippet i post from the stabmarriage fic (dihua server collab with @/sumeriasmith), because if all goes according to plan, i should finish drafting this fic in a couple days! and then move on to drafting some shorter fics for mlc week while this one spends time fermenting

this excerpt is rated M (they just bathed and are not wearing clothes)

“Li Xiangyi, you like being taken, but do you really like being desired?”

“Hmm?” Li Lianhua worked at the ends of his hair before slowly making passes higher. “Mm, in the past, perhaps too much. I’d slice myself into whatever shape I thought would make people want me. Not just sexually. I suppose I sliced myself unrecognizable; I’ve become rather allergic to other people’s desire.”

“Not to me; not to mine.”

Li Lianhua sighed. “Yet you recognize me as the same young fool I was, as if I hadn’t changed in ten years time.”

“You’ve changed. But you’re also the same. If you remembered the same Li Xiangyi I remember, you’d see it clear as day.”

Li Lianhua lifted his head from the task of his hair to look over at Di Feisheng, a smile in his eyes. Out of the blue, he said, “Lao-Di, would that I could wear your voice as a cloak around me; I’d never suffer another cold night.”

Di Feisheng felt heat rising to his cheeks. He lowered his head with his hands clasped behind his back, hardly hiding the smile that tugged at his lips. His pupils flicked back up just in time to see the cheeky grin on Li Lianhua’s face.

“Well,” Li Lianhua continued, “If I recall correctly, you don’t like being called pretty, so I have to resort to other ways to fluster you.”

“You can call me pretty if you like.” Di Feisheng lifted his head back up. “But who’s flustered? I was just thinking about how back then I ought to have kidnapped you away from all those hypocrites and sycophants in your sect and made you my wife.”

Li Lianhua averted his eyes and scratched his nose. The influx of inner force had already brought new radiance to his skin, but after Di Feisheng said this, the terminally thick-faced Miracle Doctor Li’s cheeks flushed red as haw. All he could do was pertly swish the dry, combed half of his hair over his shoulder so Di Feisheng couldn’t see.

“Interesting.” Di Feisheng looked him up and down—down, where the thinner ends of hair couldn’t quite shield the other man’s arousal. “Don’t tell me…” He stepped forward, winding a thick hank of that hair around his fist. “…That that’s something you fantasized about back then?”

Li Lianhua kept periodically coating the comb in oil and passing it through the still-damp locks on the left side of his head.

“Of course not. Li Xiangyi was far too uptight to think of consorting with the jianghu’s number one evil fiend in such a way.”

Di Feisheng smirked. He could feel himself hardening, and gave himself a few encouraging strokes. “Mm, and what would the jianghu’s number one evil fiend do to you?” Li Xiangyi’s hair was dry enough; Di Feisheng took the comb from his grasp and threw it aside. “Seal your martial abilities and lock you up so you wouldn’t see anyone except for him, when he came down at night to force himself on you?”

He loomed in to grind against him.

“You must have been disappointed when you actually met me.”