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Meng Yao had seen the man in the gym a few times now.
He was hard not to notice. He wasn’t a show-off, exactly, but it was difficult to avoid feeling like he was asking you to stare at him, grunting and sweating through his tight-fit shirt as he performed borderline Herculean feats of strength. Honestly, people like him should have been outlawed from places like these. Shouldn’t he be off huffing his way towards the Olympic trail, not here at Meng Yao’s local gym making everyone else in the room look bad?
The first time he caught Meng Yao looking at him, bulky arms shining with sweat as he hung from the pull-up bar, he gave him a very deliberate once-over. Meng Yao spent the rest of the hour doing squats for no particular reason. He allowed himself to feel a little self-satisfied that, from the glances he caught in the mirror, they didn’t go unnoticed. He might not be a hunk, but he has his assets.
In the weeks that followed, Meng Yao found himself catching the man’s eyes more and more often. They both frequented the gym in the late evening, towards the end of the after-work crowd; it was fairly busy on arrival, but by the time Meng Yao was back in the locker rooms it was sparse, sometimes empty. He liked it this way, not having to wait around for an empty shower or navigate a sea of big shoulders and sweaty elbows.
He was above having crushes. He was certainly above having gym crushes. Admiration was okay, yes. The occasional hazy late-night fantasy from the safety of his apartment bedroom was tolerable once in a while. But the amount of times he had caught himself gawking at the man he had thoughtfully dubbed “Hot Buff Guy” would have been downright embarrassing were it not so clear the fascination was mutual. Even still, he should not allow himself to stoop so low as to salivate at the sight of a man rolling on his deodorant.
They found themselves next to each other on the treadmill, once. Well, found was the wrong word- the man had very deliberately stepped up on the machine next to Meng Yao, even though there were several open to his left. Meng Yao had kept his gaze focused on the wall ahead for a solid three minutes before he indulged himself. Side by side like this, the height difference was palpable; Meng Yao had to crane his neck just slightly to look at the man’s face. His dark hair was tied low at the nape of his neck, a few loose strands plastered to his skin with sweat. He was wearing expensive-looking bluetooth headphones (really, this was a cheap gym; he should have the decency not to show off as handsome and skilled and affluent), and his phone was face-down on the treadmill in front of him, with one of those clear wallets on the back displaying a license with a grainy picture that didn’t do him justice at all beside his neatly printed name. Nie Mingjue. He felt the man’s eyes on him and looked back up just in time to catch a small smirk sent his way. They ran in silence after that, Meng Yao hard enough to excuse the flush on his cheeks as genuine exertion.
Meng Yao’s gym shower kit was a neatly packed slick black bag that contained soap, face wash, moisturizer, a compact microfiber towel, and sandals. He was not self-conscious about his body, but he was self-aware, and liked to spend the least amount of time naked in front of strangers as possible. Nie Mingjue had no such trepidations. He wasn’t outright brazen, but his clear comfort in his masculinity was something Meng Yao could never hope to aspire to even if he was capable of wanting it. Nie Mingjue strode around the locker room like he owned the place (for all Meng Yao knew, he did). And though Meng Yao tried not to stare, it took no more than a cursory glance to see that the man was… gifted. Almost gifted enough to distract from the fact that all he ever took with him to the shower was a gym towel slung low around his waist and a bar of soap in a clear plastic travel holder.
It had been a month and a half since Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue first began noticing each other in the gym, and in that time they hadn’t spoken a word, save the singular time Nie Mingjue had held the door open and responded with a grunt to Meng Yao’s stilted “Thank you”. Still, he felt they had a rapport going, if of a silent sort. Meng Yao had worn shapely leggings and a loose shirt to do a frankly unnecessary amount of stretches in, and felt the now familiar heat of attention behind him as he carefully removed his clothes and folded them into his locker. By the time he donned towel and sandals and turned to head off to the showers, Nie Mingjue was no longer at the side of the room across from his. Meng Yao allowed himself a flicker of disappointment as he passed before pausing entirely at the sight of Nie Mingjue’s soap still on the bench in front of his locker.
Distantly Meng Yao heard the sound of a single shower squeaking on. Nie Mingjue would realize he forgot his soap and return to retrieve it, or decide to forgo it entirely. Either way, they had never spoken, were not friends, did not even formally know each other’s names, and for those and a myriad of other reasons there was no reason for Meng Yao to bring it to him. It would, in fact, be a breach of something if he did- Meng Yao wasn’t sure what, but he was certain that whatever it was, he would regret it.
The heat from the steam of Nie Mingjue’s shower fogged across Meng Yao’s face like a feverish apparition. He stood there for ten seconds, twenty, waiting either for Nie Mingjue to somehow sense him there or for Meng Yao’s mind to catch up with his dick and abort this idiotic operation altogether, before clearing his throat.
“You forgot your soap.”
Nie Mingjue pulled back the curtain. Meng Yao had caught glances of him naked out of the corner of his eye many times, but this was an abrupt full frontal reveal, and it took everything in him not to balk. He maintained eye contact and held the soap out to him with a small, dimple-filled smile.
“Thank you.” The searing look Nie Mingjue raked over him could have razed cities. He pulled the curtain open further. “Do you want to join me?”
It became a regular affair after that. Nie Mingjue wasn’t at the gym every day- he was notably absent on weekends and Tuesdays. Meng Yao, who craved precision in his routine, usually came daily, unless he was made to stay unexpectedly late at work.
When they were there together, they still exercised in silence. Nie Mingjue sometimes asked him to spot him; at the first request, Meng Yao had laughed softly- “I don’t think I could save all that from crushing you”- but Nie Mingjue had insisted that two hands of any strength were better than none at all, and so twice a week on average Meng Yao found himself staring down at the lines of Mingjue’s heaving chest and sloping neck, so that even if he had been a strong enough spotter to save him if anything went wrong he was rendered useless by distraction.
The locker room, to Meng Yao’s disappointment, was not always empty, especially as the weather got colder and more people began renewing memberships to exercise indoors. They made do with the circumstances; one autumn night, the gym semi-empty but still hosting a few stragglers, Meng Yao stepped out of the shower to find Nie Mingjue in the aisle across from him, curtain open, hand loosely fisting his cock. Meng Yao’s mouth went dry. From then on, that was their signal- only a handful of times did Meng Yao get close to being caught, and the anxiety was never enough to outdo the thrill of getting away with it.
It didn’t happen every night. Once a week was frequent, and sometimes they went even longer than that- Meng Yao went ten days without seeing him once, and wondered if he’d moved to a new gym, or changed his hours, or died in some horrible fashion until he came back the next day and ate Meng Yao’s ass out thoroughly enough to make up for whatever the reason for his absence had been.
Meng Yao’s job got more stressful as the new year approached- there were a lot of end-of-year expenses to review and checklists to go over and the brunt of it had been piled on him, as per usual. Meng Yao worked well under pressure- one could even say he flourished- but agitation did not escape him, especially when the extraordinarily inept and thankless people he worked for were so often the source of his ire. He arrived home in a huff to change into his gym clothes, and, after a moment of pause on his way out the door, circled back to his bedroom to stuff an extra bottle into his shower bag.
He pushed the treadmill up to its near limit and ran until his chest was aflame, and then ran some more. Nie Mingjue was not here. It was not the weekend or Tuesday. He was usually- he was always here by now. Meng Yao kept casting agitated glances to the door. If he didn’t arrive before Meng Yao left, Meng Yao might do something extraordinary stupid like redownload one of many self-forbidden apps or call up his most annoying acquaintance out for drinks or drive his car through the front window of- he nearly missed a step on the treadmill and caught the grip on the side, exhaling heavily, as Nie Mingjue finally walked into the room. He caught Meng Yao’s eye immediately, and Meng Yao gave him a look that was probably far too hungry to open the night with, soaked in sweat and all.
Nie Mingjue spent far, far too long in the gym. Meng Yao had left the room six minutes ago giving what he thought was a painfully obvious glance to Nie Mingjue on the leg press, and the longer that passed the more Meng Yao was considering walking back in there and depositing himself in his lap in front of god and everybody.
Upon Nie Mingjue actually entering the locker room Meng Yao felt just as hungry but far less reckless, and made a show of very deliberately placing the bottle of lube on the bench beside him as he changed. He thought they were alone- it was even later than usual- but he couldn’t bring himself to care if they weren’t. This, he decided, was a far more beneficial stress relief method than anything else he could do. He markedly ignored the voice in his head that told him barebacking a stranger in a public locker room was probably not as uninjurious as he was making it out to be.
He heard the shower curtain scrape across its rod and turned to face Nie Mingjue as he entered, pulling it closed behind him.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” He took Meng Yao in, and accepted the open bottle that Meng Yao handed to him with a small smirk. “I was hoping that was meant for me.”
Meng Yao huffed and pulled him down under water with him, tangling his hands in his loose hair as he kissed him wet and open-mouthed. “I was hoping you knew how to use it.”
Meng Yao wondered if Nie Mingjue had taken offense to his teasing, because he made clear immediately he was an expert in all things involving lubricant and hands and putting them in the right places. Meng Yao breathed heavily against the tiles of the shower as Nie Mingjue breached him with a second finger, scissoring him open. ”Fuck.”
“Not yet.” Nie Mingjue pressed a hot kiss to his tailbone and slowly slid his fingers out. Meng Yao craned his neck to watch over his shoulder as they were coated in more lube. At this rate he’d be using half the bottle, but Meng Yao didn’t even have it in him to call Nie Mingjue arrogant. He could see even now it would take at least that.
They both groaned when Nie Mingjue finally lined himself up and began to push in. Meng Yao had a brief moment of clarity in which he considered how crazy this whole idea was, but all rational sense left his mind as Nie Mingjue’s girth slid the rest of the way inside him.
The water was miraculously still warm, and it ran in rivulets down Meng Yao’s back as he pressed himself against the wall, the sound of the shower doing little to cover the slap of wet skin against wet skin and the unholy little moans spilling out of him. Nie Mingjue pressed his thumbs into the dimples at the base of Meng Yao’s spine and began to pound into him vigorously. He really was too much of a natural. Did he do this with a lot of people?
Nie Mingjue exhaled raggedly against Meng Yao’s neck, pace stuttering. “No,” he grunted, and Meng Yao realized mortifyingly that he asked that out loud, and that Nie Mingjue had liked it. He wasn’t sure what to do with that information, save squeeze his eyes shut and pant against the tile so he didn’t come.
“You’re so big,” Meng Yao babbled, his legs spread and hands scrabbling against the side of the shower so he didn't slip as Nie Mingjue ground against his prostate. “I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to get on their knees for you. And you probably let them-” Nie Mingjue pulled out and slammed back in with enough force to knock the breath out of him, and Meng Yao lost the rest of his sentence for a solid minute, focused on staying upright as waves of heat coursed through him.
Nie Mingjue’s thrusts became jerkier and more erratic, and he trailed a string of wet kisses along Meng Yao’s shoulder.
“Are you going to come?” Meng Yao breathed. “Don’t.”
”Fuck.” Nie Mingjue halted inside him, panting openly against his back. The only sounds that could be heard in the room were their echoing breaths and the water pattering against their skin and the tiled floor beneath them.
The hunger in Meng Yao hadn’t dissipated since this began. If anything, he felt insatiable. “Did I tell you to stop?”
Nie Mingjue got to work again so abruptly that he slipped out of Meng Yao’s hole as he pulled back, and he cursed under his breath, fumbling to press back in. Even after being fucked for this long, Meng Yao’s legs still trembled when Nie Mingjue bottomed out.
“Good boy,” Meng Yao purred.
Nie Mingjue made a noise against his neck that was somewhere between a growl and a whimper. Meng Yao reached behind him to grab Nie Mingjue’s ass when he had him just where he wanted, and it only took a few more thrusts after that before he was pulsing inside him. Meng Yao tugged himself off and came against the wall, closing his eyes and turning his head up towards the shower spray. Nie Mingjue leaned over to kiss him then, and Meng Yao groaned inside his mouth when he felt him pull out, seed spilling down his thighs.
When they both caught their breath, Meng Yao pulled away from him. Nie Mingjue looked oddly bashful now that the deed was done, but Meng Yao wasn’t ready to let go of him yet. “Clean me up,” he said, and Nie Mingjue immediately kneeled to oblige him.
***
Meng Yao doesn’t come to the gym the next day. He tells himself it’s because he has to stay late and work, but there’s not much to be done without the data he won’t be sent until tomorrow, and so he spends half his time wandering around the empty office, idly checking his phone as if one of his bosses will suddenly text him with invoices that need to be filled.
Tuesday Nie Mingjue isn’t there, of course, and so it’s not until Wednesday that Meng Yao sees him again. He spends all his time on the elliptical closest to the wall; all the rest are filled with a gaggle of middle-aged women who come in once a week to gossip with each other about their kids. If Nie Mingjue gives him searing looks across the room, Meng Yao doesn’t notice them, and if Nie Mingjue takes notice of that, so be it. Meng Yao comes here for more than just gym shower rendezvous, after all. Isn’t it within his right to stay focused once in a while?
Methodically, afterwards, Meng Yao unlocks his locker and begins gathering things for his shower. He hears footsteps behind him and is suddenly blocked off from the light of the overhead fluorescents. He does not look up.
“Let’s get dinner.”
Now Meng Yao looks up. Nie Mingjue is standing behind him, sweaty, handsome, half-empty water jug in hand. There’s a chunk of loose hair hanging in his face that someone should really sweep behind his ear for him. Meng Yao cocks his head. “Isn’t there something else you’d rather be doing?”
“Let’s get dinner,” Nie Mingjue repeats, “And afterwards, if you want, I’ll take you home and fuck you in my bed.”
Meng Yao nearly openly scoffs at that. The audacity! Sure, Nie Mingjue is a catch, but really, gym shower sex is of a whole other class than dinner-and-a-movie sex. It’s a big leap to get there. Their affair is within the walls of this building and never elsewhere. Meng Yao doesn’t even know what his car looks like, it’s always too dark when they exit into the parking lot. And besides, he can’t go on dates. He’s too busy with work. And dinner, if only as a precursor to sex, definitely counts as one. “You don’t even know my name.”
“Then tell me.”
Meng Yao considers. “No.”
Nie Mingjue is infuriatingly handsome when he’s shocked; Meng Yao should have been warned. He wants to lash out and say something smarmy, like “What? Are you used to getting what you want?” But he holds his tongue. Instead, he turns on his heel and heads toward the shower. After walking a few steps, he pauses to glance over his shoulder. Nie Mingjue is still standing there. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I…”
“If you take good care of me, maybe I’ll consider it.”
*