Chapter Text
Suo Wei let out a heavy sigh, watching a thin cloud of mist escape his pale lips. The night wind was being a real bitch tonight, biting right through him.
He pulled his faded brown, oversized corduroy jacket tighter, burying half his face in the collar. He pressed his freezing, numb palms together, rubbing them briskly to generate some heat.
His brain felt like a tangled ball of yarn.
As a final-year Fine Arts major practically just waiting on his graduation date, his days had devolved into a mind-numbing routine: bouncing back and forth to the university admin office dealing with ridiculously complicated graduation bureaucracy, doing minor revisions to his portfolio, and pretending to be thrilled whenever he ran into his batchmates. All the forced social interaction lately had drained his social battery well into the negatives.
Tonight, he just needed an escape.
In his ears, his wired earphones played a new playlist he’d spent all night mixing—a mellow blend of indie rock and lo-fi beats. The rhythm became the soundtrack to his heavy footsteps as he cut through the city.
The vibe in this part of town was standard for the city outskirts—mostly quiet, but with a few scattered pockets of life. A few pedestrians passing by occasionally did a double-take.
Suo Wei was used to being stared at.
His style couldn't exactly be called lowkey. From the baggy vintage jeans sweeping the concrete to the oversized jacket, right up to his bright ginger hair—he was an eccentric splash of color in a sea of dark-haired people. Not to mention the row of metal piercings lining his earlobes and cartilage, catching the reflection of the streetlights.
His initial plan for tonight had been super simple: walk to his usual pub about four blocks from the dorms, sit on the corner bar stool, knock back a glass or two of gin and tonic, then go home and sleep like usual.
But his footsteps automatically slowed exactly two storefronts before his destination.
There was a commercial space that seemed to have just been renovated into a tattoo studio. The building had a minimalist industrial design, dominated by massive glass windows. Unlike the noisy, neon-lit pub next door, this studio emitted a warm light that somehow looked — inviting.
Suo Wei stopped in front of the glass. He paused the music on his phone. He had zero specific reasons and absolutely no plans to get inked tonight, but a sudden impulse in his head whispered, just go in.
After all, getting another tattoo to celebrate (or escape from) his pre-graduation stress probably wasn't the worst idea.
He pushed the glass door open. A small bell above it chimed softly.
The moment he stepped inside, the distinct, sharp scent of green soap, ink, and strong black coffee washed over him. The vibe was immaculate. Heavy, jazzy music played from a vinyl record player in the corner, offering an immediate, comforting contrast to the freezing air outside.
The studio was pretty empty.
At the far end of the room, behind a thick wooden reception desk, two men were deep in conversation.
"Hello," one of them greeted.
The guy was leaning against the desk, his muscular arms—completely covered in heavy blackwork tattoos—clearly on display. His build was broad, his jawline sharp, and his black hair was perfectly messy.
Suo Wei walked closer, shoving his hands deep into his jacket pockets because he was still shivering. "Sorry, are you guys closing soon or still taking walk-ins?"
The man didn't answer right away. His eyes locked straight onto Suo Wei, scanning him from the tips of his eccentric orange hair, down to the piercings on his ears, his slightly pale face from the cold, all the way down to his shoes.
The gaze was intense. So intense that Suo Wei felt a sudden, tiny jolt at the back of his neck. He was starstruck for a split second.
"Depends," the man finally spoke, his tone deep and gravelly. "You have an appointment? Or have you been here before?"
"Not yet. Literally just walked in because I passed by out front," Suo Wei tried to reply casually, even though he felt a bit awkward being scrutinized like that.
As Suo Wei spoke, his lips parted slightly wider on a few syllables. The guy in front of him immediately narrowed his eyes, his focus dropping straight to Suo Wei's mouth. A flash of light from the studio lamps caught something metallic inside. A small silver ball.
The guy paused for a beat.
Tongue ring, he thought.
"We can fit you in. My schedule happens to be clear until closing," the man said, shifting his weight to lean closer toward Suo Wei. He held out his hand. "I'm Chi Cheng. You?"
"Suo Wei," he replied, taking the offered hand. Chi Cheng's hand was massive, rough, and radiating heat—a stark contrast to Suo Wei's freezing fingers.
Chi Cheng's friend beside him just smirked, patting Chi Cheng's shoulder lightly. "I'll head out first, Cheng. My shift's done. I'll leave the keys in the usual spot later."
"Yeah. Thanks, man," Chi Cheng replied, not taking his eyes off Suo Wei for a second.
The sound of the front door clicking shut confirmed that inside this small, warm studio, it was just the two of them. The tension immediately began to dial up.
"So, Suo Wei," Chi Cheng tested his name out slowly. "What kind of piece are you looking to get tonight? Got a reference?"
"I want it around here," Suo Wei pulled out his phone, pulling up his Pinterest board. His free hand casually gestured toward his lower waist, pulling the hem of his jacket up just enough to point to the area above his hip bone, trailing down toward his inner thighs.
Chi Cheng's eyes tracked the movement of Suo Wei's hand. His Adam's apple bobbed. "That area is pretty hurt for people who aren't used to it."
"I actually prefer something that hurts a bit tonight," Suo Wei blurted out. It was the truth; he wanted the sharp sting of physical pain to ground him and drown out his mental exhaustion.
Chi Cheng let out a low chuckle. "Okay. Interesting. Let's see the reference."
Suo Wei handed over his phone. A cyber-sigilism design. Sharp black lines, curving and aggressively intertwining like organic circuitry or thorns. It was a sizable piece, meant to stretch from the waist and creep down the thigh.
"You an art student?" Chi Cheng guessed, zooming in on the design.
"Is it that obvious?" Suo Wei rolled his eyes slightly, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Fine Arts. Just waiting to graduate, which is why I'm so fucking exhausted dealing with campus shit."
"It screams from.. well, you," Chi Cheng made a vague sweeping gesture up and down, indirectly taking in Suo Wei's entire style, before handing the phone back. His fingertips intentionally brushed against Suo Wei's.
"We can start now. Follow me to the back."
The tattoo booth was tucked deep in the corner, partitioned by thick, dark canvas curtains. Once inside, the space felt significantly tighter and far more intimate. A specialized tattoo ring light was flicked on, casting a harsh, focused glow on a black leather recliner in the center of the room.
Chi Cheng busied himself prepping his station on the trolley cart. The crinkle of protective plastic being pulled, the hiss of the green soap bottle, and the clinking of ink caps filled the quiet space. With his back turned to Suo Wei, he snapped on his black nitrile gloves with precise, practiced movements.
Suo Wei stood awkwardly near the chair. The reality of the situation had just fully dawned on him. His tattoo placement was from his waist to his thigh. Which meant the pants had to come off. Right in front of the guy who had been looking at him like a meal since he walked in.
Suo Wei swallowed hard, suddenly questioning if stepping into this studio was a brilliant choice or something he was going to deeply regret tomorrow.
Chi Cheng turned around, picking up on his client's sudden hesitation. He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a clean, light gray cloth.
"Your placement goes pretty low, Wei. The pants have to come off," Chi Cheng’s voice sounded entirely professional, but there was a subtle rasp in his intonation that made Suo Wei's ears burn.
He held out the cloth. "Just change into this, wrap it around your waist. Keep it a little loose so I can easily access your groin area. You can change right there."
Suo Wei took the fabric, muttering a quiet thanks, and retreated to the corner of the booth. He stripped off his jacket, leaving only a thin, oversized white t-shirt.
Then, with a flicker of hesitation, he shucked his jeans and underwear, swapping them for the gray cloth wrap. Suo Wei tied it haphazardly around his slim waist—a waist that was undeniably too narrow for a guy of his height.
When Suo Wei turned around and walked toward the recliner, Chi Cheng was tuning his tattoo machine. The larger man glanced up. And in that exact second, Chi Cheng's hands stopped moving completely.
Suo Wei looked breathtaking.
His white t-shirt draped loosely, partially covering the knot of the gray wrap. His long, pale legs were on full display. Chi Cheng quietly swallowed, fighting hard to keep his expression neutral.
The air in the small room suddenly felt thick.
"Just lie back," Chi Cheng instructed, his voice notably rougher. "Angle yourself a bit to the side, and just relax your legs open."
Suo Wei complied. He climbed onto the plush leather seat and settled into a semi-supine position. His t-shirt rode up just a fraction.
Chi Cheng rolled his stool closer. Way too close. He was now sitting perfectly between Suo Wei's parted legs.
"I'm going to lay the stencil down now," Chi Cheng said, grabbing the spray bottle and the transfer paper.
"Could you pull the cloth out of the way a bit? Just pull it up and expose your hip so I can work easily."
His tone was serious. Business-like.
With slightly trembling fingers, Suo Wei tugged the edge of the gray fabric up, rolling it slowly until the sharp line of his hip bone was perfectly exposed, the bare skin trailing all the way down to his upper inner thigh.
Chi Cheng leaned in. His face was now mere inches from Suo Wei's waist. His gloved hand touched Suo Wei's bare skin for the first time.
Suo Wei let out a soft gasp, his breath hitching. His skin, still chilled from the night air, collided with the intense, radiating heat of Chi Cheng's hand through the nitrile glove.
"You're fucking freezing," Chi Cheng murmured, his thumb intentionally dragging a slow, deliberate path over Suo Wei's hip bone before he applied the purple stencil.
"I can hear you breathing, man. Relax."
Chi Cheng pressed the stencil paper firmly onto Suo Wei's skin. Every time his massive hand smoothed out the paper, he applied just a little extra pressure over the highly sensitive groin area. Suo Wei's stomach did somersaults.
Once he was sure the stencil had taken, Chi Cheng peeled the paper away. The abstract, chaotic circuitry was now stamped starkly against Suo Wei's pale skin.
"Gorgeous," Chi Cheng whispered—whether he was talking about the design or the canvas was entirely up for debate. He stepped on the pedal, and the loud, sharp buzz of the tattoo machine filled the room.
"Inhale. This is going to have some bite to it."
The first needle hit the skin.
The sting was sharp and biting, making Suo Wei reflexively dig his fingers into the armrests.
But what was driving him absolutely insane wasn't the pain—it was the fact that every five seconds, after pulling a line, Chi Cheng would wipe the excess ink away with a damp paper towel. And he didn't just wipe; he pressed down and dragged it agonizingly slowly across the sensitive, raw skin.
"You doing okay?" Chi Cheng asked.
"Y-yeah, I'm good," Suo Wei answered, his voice cracking slightly.
Chi Cheng smirked. He started filling the silence, drawing Suo Wei into a casual conversation. He asked about his fine arts major, his ruthless professors, the jazz record playing out front. Suo Wei, who had been completely rigid, slowly began to thaw.
He settled in, his answers becoming more relaxed. And every so often, when Suo Wei let out a laugh or smiled, Chi Cheng’s eyes would flick up to catch the silver flash of his tongue ring.
"Do you tattoo people in this spot a lot?" Suo Wei asked, desperate to distract himself from the burning, stinging sensation spreading down his lower thigh.
"All the time," Chi Cheng replied, his eyes trained on the needle, though his lips curled into a smirk. "But it's rare I get someone who makes it this damn hard to focus."
Suo Wei swallowed hard. Fuck. This guy was laying it on thick.
An hour bled away. The sharp pain of the needle had slowly morphed into a heavy, intoxicating endorphin rush. Every single time Chi Cheng wiped his skin, it felt like a jolt of electricity. Right in the middle of wiping the inner thigh—the absolute closest point to Suo Wei's center of sensitivity—the machine abruptly shut off.
Chi Cheng stopped moving. His hand remained planted firmly on Suo Wei's inner thigh, the slippery friction of the ointment on his glove feeling overwhelmingly intense. He stared straight up at Suo Wei. The temperature in the booth had practically doubled.
"Wei," Chi Cheng called out, his voice dropping a full octave into a low growl.
Suo Wei stared back, his eyes already heavy and hazy from the pain and the mounting arousal. "Hn?"
"Are you... looking for or with someone right now?"
He asked it so simply. So casually—like he was asking what Suo Wei wanted for breakfast. But Suo Wei's entire body erupted in goosebumps from his toes to the nape of his neck.
Suo Wei knew exactly what this was. Normally, he’d deflect or throw back a sarcastic remark. But he was already in too deep, his brain completely short-circuiting. He gathered whatever courage he had left.
"If I told you... I was single right now," Suo Wei replied softly, his pierced tongue darting out to wet his lower lip, "does it matter to you, Cheng?"
Chi Cheng chuckled.
It was a low, suppressed sound that made his broad chest vibrate. He leaned his face just a fraction closer to Suo Wei's thigh. His hot breath ghosted directly over the bare skin.
"A lot," Chi Cheng whispered, before hitting the pedal again and diving right back into the linework on his groin.
Suo Wei's sanity snapped.
The biting pain of the needle, the verbal teasing, the heavy weight of that massive hand — it all compounded. Suo Wei shifted restlessly, subconsciously grinding his thighs together.
He was entirely oblivious to the fact that the thin gray cloth draped over his lap was starting to bloom with a small, telling wet patch of precum. The flimsy fabric was doing absolutely nothing to hide how hard he was getting.
Chi Cheng, whose face was mere inches away, obviously didn't miss it.
He stopped the machine again. This time, he didn't wipe the ink. He leaned back on his stool, his dark eyes locking onto the wet patch before dragging his gaze up to Suo Wei's completely flushed face.
"You horny, Wei?" Chi Cheng deadpanned.
Fuck.
All the bravado Suo Wei had mustered to flirt back evaporated into thin air. Humiliation scorched his cheeks.
Unable to hold Chi Cheng’s sharp, mocking gaze for another second, Suo Wei reflexively threw his arm over his face, hiding his eyes completely. His Adam's apple bobbed frantically as he swallowed his panic.
"Shut the fuck up."
Chi Cheng laughed again, the sound longer and richer this time.
"Don't cover your face. Come here, let me finish. Just a little bit left for today's session."
Time felt suspended. The vintage clock on the wall finally clicked to exactly 10 PM.
The machine buzzed off. Suo Wei was absolutely wrecked on the recliner. The sensory overload had fried him completely. His limbs felt like lead, his breathing was shallow, and his eyes were drooping shut. The sheer exhaustion of fighting back his arousal while enduring the needle had hit him like a freight train.
Chi Cheng stood up, and grabbed a tub of ointment and some wet wipes. He cleaned the residual ink off Suo Wei's skin with strokes that were infinitely gentler than before.
"It's 10 now," Chi Cheng’s voice was a deep, soothing rumble in the dim booth. "It's a huge piece. We'll finish the bottom half of the thigh in the next session. You look dead on your feet anyway."
Suo Wei just let out a muffled, incoherent groan from behind the arm still draped over his eyes. He was genuinely on the verge of passing out, lulled by the feeling of the cooling ointment.
Chi Cheng tossed the dirty wipes into the bin. He stepped up to the head of the recliner, leaning down until his lips were practically grazing the ginger-haired boy's ear.
"Wei," Chi Cheng whispered huskily. "The studio is closed."
Suo Wei responded with a lazy, drawn-out hum.
"But just so you know... I live upstairs. There's an empty bed," Chi Cheng paused, letting his breath fan over the sensitive skin of Suo Wei's neck. "In case you need somewhere a bit more comfortable to... take care of your little wet problem."
The words hit him like a bucket of ice water.
Suo Wei's eyes snapped wide open. His arm dropped from his face. Every ounce of exhaustion vanished, instantly replaced by a massive spike of adrenaline.
He turned his head, locking onto Chi Cheng's dark, predatory eyes.
Suo Wei was done thinking. His rational brain had clocked out the minute he walked through the door.
Moving with a sudden, explosive burst of energy, Suo Wei lunged from his seat — purely on impulse. His body acted long before his rational mind could even register the movement.
The gray cloth tied loosely around his waist slipped, pooling uselessly on the floor, leaving him completely naked from the waist down.
In that moment, he didn’t give a damn.
Ignoring the raw, biting sting of his fresh tattoo, Suo Wei leaned forward, fistfuls of Chi Cheng’s black tank top bunched in his hands. He yanked the massive tattoo artist squarely toward the recliner.
Chi Cheng was caught off guard for a split second, but his reflexes were lethal. He caught his own weight, slamming his palms down on either side of Suo Wei’s hips. Before he could even utter a word, Suo Wei swung one of his long, pale legs over, straddling Chi Cheng’s lap with desperate precision.
The bare, chilled skin of Suo Wei’s inner thighs collided with the thick, warm fabric of Chi Cheng’s gray sweatpants.
“You talk way too much, fucker,” Suo Wei hissed. His face was scorched a deep crimson, his eyes wild and blazing with a direct challenge.
His instincts had finally cannibalized his overthinking mind. Suo Wei tightened his grip on the tank top, his knuckles turning white, and deliberately ground his hips down — hard.
“Isn’t this… exactly what you wanted?” Suo Wei panted, his voice a jagged edge.
They were both losing their damn minds.
Chi Cheng squeezed his eyes shut for a heartbeat, a harsh, guttural groan tearing from his throat as the veins in his neck strained. When his eyes snapped open again, the teasing, professional mask was dead. In its place was a ravenous, predatory hunger.
Chi Cheng’s massive hands shot up, clamping down on Suo Wei’s bare waist. His thumbs pressed dangerously close to the angry, fresh lines of the tattoo. It was a vice-grip — a silent guarantee that Suo Wei wasn’t going anywhere tonight.
“You’re the one who started this, Wei,” Chi Cheng rasped, his voice vibrating against Suo Wei’s lips.
“Me? Starting it?” Suo Wei spat back, his pride dangling by a thread. “You’ve been playing with me since I walked in.”
Suo Wei initiated the rhythm, a frantic and desperate chase for the friction his body screamed for. His eyes fluttered shut, his head falling back, while Chi Cheng remained anchored, hands on the chair, watching with a dark intensity as Suo Wei chased the release he so desperately craved.
The sharp, articulate insults Suo Wei usually threw around had melted into broken gasps and erotic, wordless hitches.
Straddling Chi Cheng should have given Suo Wei the upper hand. But Chi Cheng wasn’t a man to be subdued. The grip on Suo Wei’s waist tightened, and he intentionally pressed his thumb into the sensitive, un-inked skin right beside the raw, inflamed design.
The blinding sting of the tattoo clashing with the overwhelming heat between his legs ripped a wrecked moan from Suo Wei’s throat. He bared his pale neck to the dim light, his breathing shattered.
“You bastard, Cheng,” Suo Wei cursed weakly, his body trembling.
“Got the nerve to call me a bastard when you’re the one… hn… riding me,” Chi Cheng growled.
“Fuck — “
“A — hhh — fuck it…”
But before Suo Wei could dictate the pace any further, Chi Cheng effortlessly hoisted the boy by his hips and flipped him. In one fluid, powerful motion, Suo Wei’s back was slammed against the leather seat once more.
Suo Wei felt the sudden, agonizing loss of the fullness he had almost reached. Reflexively, his inner thighs clamped shut — tight.
He lay there, panting, legs spread wide and held firmly in place by Chi Cheng’s presence. The tattoo artist rose from his stool and stepped directly between Suo Wei’s thighs. His massive frame blocked out the overhead light, caging Suo Wei in a shadow of muscle and ink.
“I told you, Wei. You started this,” Chi Cheng murmured, his voice as rough as sandpaper. He watched Suo Wei’s eyebrows knit together in frustration, those small lips still trying to mutter protests even as his gasps betrayed the truth.
Chi Cheng looked into Suo Wei’s hazy, glassy eyes. His gaze dropped, tracking the erratic, frantic rise and fall of Suo Wei’s chest beneath the thin t-shirt, before settling on the heavy, aching part of him that had been neglected for far too long.
Chi Cheng was in zero rush, and that was exactly what was driving Suo Wei over the edge.
The tattooed man slowly, agonizingly, peeled off his black nitrile gloves one by one, tossing them carelessly to the floor. His bare, warm, slightly calloused hands finally ghosted over Suo Wei’s inner thighs, stroking the skin in agonizingly slow, circular motions.
Chi Cheng’s lips curled into a smirk.
Oh, how long he’d been waiting to see Suo Wei like this — broken and begging beneath him.
Time warped.
Seconds felt like minutes; minutes felt like hours.
Every inch of skin that Chi Cheng touched felt like it was being set on fire. The mind-numbing routine of Suo Wei’s life had vanished, replaced by this singular, excruciating focus on the man between his legs.
“Cheng… fuck, come on,”
Suo Wei was too desperate to care about his pride anymore. It was gone, burnt to ash. He babbled breathlessly, arching his back off the leather, begging for something more than just a tease on his thighs.
Chi Cheng stopped. He leaned down, his face inches from Suo Wei’s.
“You want this, Wei? Truly?”
Chi Cheng’s voice was a low rumble.
“Say no and I’ll walk away right now.”
Suo Wei’s brain short-circuited. The choice was a trap — a cruel, beautiful trap. He was fuming, his jaw tight with rage and desire. How could he ask for more when he was already so exposed? The frustration was a physical weight in his chest.
“You… you wouldn’t,” Suo Wei hissed, his voice trembling.
“Try me,” Chi Cheng challenged, his eyes glinting. “Say the word, and it’s over.”
Suo Wei let out a strangled, frustrated sound — a mix of a growl and a sob. He couldn’t say no. He would die if Chi Cheng stopped now.
“Don’t you dare stop,” Suo Wei finally broke, his voice a desperate whisper.
“Just… do it, you fucker.”
Chi Cheng’s smirk widened. He ducked his head.
And the absolute second Chi Cheng’s lips finally closed over the tip of him, Suo Wei stopped breathing for two full seconds.
It felt so fucking good.
The wet, enveloping heat punched a strangled cry out of Suo Wei. His mind flatlined. The lingering smell of green soap and ink in the studio vanished, instantly overpowered by the heavy, masculine hit of Chi Cheng’s cologne.
Chi Cheng took his time.
He was a master of pace.
He mapped out every single spot that made Suo Wei twitch and whine, intentionally drawing out the tempo, keeping Suo Wei suspended on the edge over and over again. Suo Wei’s feet pushed against the air, his toes curling tight as he tried to handle the shocks rolling through his lower abdomen.
The sound of Chi Cheng’s breathing, the wet, filthy sounds echoing in the quiet room — it was devastatingly overstimulating.
Suo Wei couldn’t handle the lethal mix of embarrassment and absolute euphoria. On instinct, he threw his arm over his face again, clamping it down hard over his eyes to hide his violently blushing face. His Adam’s apple bobbed frantically. He bit down hard on his lower lip to trap the moans.
“Fuck… Cheng, stop teasing me,” Suo Wei sobbed out in pure frustration from behind his arm.
He was trembling violently.
Between his legs, Chi Cheng paused, glancing up at the arm shielding Suo Wei’s face. Instead of speeding up, Chi Cheng slowed down even more, torturing Suo Wei with maddeningly precise flicks of his tongue, circling and sucking until Suo Wei was vibrating.
Suo Wei’s frustration hit critical mass. His patience snapped.
The arm shielding his eyes dropped.
Suo Wei moved like lightning, his long fingers violently tangling into Chi Cheng’s dark, messy hair. Fueled by his last shred of ego and sheer desperation, Suo Wei gripped his hair tightly and shoved Chi Cheng’s head down harder against him.
“I said… do it properly, you fucker,” Suo Wei hissed.
His half-lidded eyes glared down, radiating a fierce, desperate dominance even though his body was completely at the other man’s mercy.
Chi Cheng let out a dark, muffled groan against him, answering Suo Wei’s rough demand by finally shifting gears into a brutal, merciless, and punishing pace.
The hours of suffocating tension finally detonated. Suo Wei’s hands clamped down, white-knuckling the leather sheets and Chi Cheng’s hair all at once.
The hours of suffocating tension, the sting of the needle, and the mental exhaustion of the day finally detonated. Suo Wei’s hands clamped down, white-knuckling the leather sheets and Chi Cheng’s hair all at once. His back arched so high off the chair it looked like his spine might snap.
“Cheng — ! Cheng!”
His entire body went rigid. His breath hitched sharply, trapped in a throat that had forgotten how to function. For one blinding, white-hot second, Suo Wei’s vision fractured into sparks of light. The climax didn’t just hit him; it wrecked him.
A long, shattered moan ripped through the quiet studio — a sound so raw it felt like it was tearing out of his very soul. As Suo Wei finally broke, he felt the heavy, rhythmic pulsing of his own release.
Chi Cheng didn’t pull away.
Not for a second.
Instead, Chi Cheng’s hands slid from Suo Wei’s thighs to his hips, anchoring him down, his fingers digging into the pale skin with a possessive strength.
He took every bit of Suo Wei’s release directly, his throat working in deep, greedy swallows that Suo Wei could feel vibrating through his entire frame.
The intimacy of it was overwhelming.
Chi Cheng finally pulled back just an inch, his lips glistening and his dark eyes blown wide with a savage, triumphant heat. He looked up at Suo Wei — who was now limp, trembling, and utterly spent — and let out a low, shaky breath.
“God, Wei,” Chi Cheng rasped, his voice thick and stained with the taste of him. He reached up, his thumb catching a stray tear at the corner of Suo Wei’s eye before dragging it down to his flushed cheek.
“You’re a fucking masterpiece.”
Suo Wei couldn’t respond. His eyes rolled back, his consciousness finally drifting away into a heavy, drug-like bliss as his grip on Chi Cheng’s hair loosened, his hands falling uselessly to the sides of the recliner.
He was done. And Chi Cheng was only just beginning to realize he was never letting this boy go.
The jazz record out front had long since finished spinning. The studio was dead silent, the only sounds left being the steady ticking of the wall clock and the soft, rhythmic hum of breathing.
Suo Wei was completely dead to the world—knocked out cold from the sheer sensory overload. Holding back the pain of the needle and the explosive tension right after had drained every drop of energy he had.
He was curled on his side on the recliner, his face buried into the backrest, sleeping as deeply as a baby. His white t-shirt was bunched up, and his hip was still half-exposed to the cool air.
In the dim lighting, Chi Cheng moved like a ghost.
He grabbed a fresh, non-alcohol wipe and a warm, damp towel. Moving with extreme caution, doing everything in his power not to wake the ginger-haired boy, Chi Cheng cleaned him up. His hands, usually so heavy and rough, were incredibly gentle and tender.
Once he made sure Suo Wei was clean and comfortable, Chi Cheng pulled a blanket from the cabinet and draped it over the slender frame, tucking it up to his chest. His gaze lingered just a little too long on the angry red skin of the fresh tattoo on Suo Wei's waist.
Chi Cheng quietly packed away the rest of his gear. He walked out to the front of the studio. Even though he’d flipped the sign on the glass door to 'CLOSED' hours ago, he double-checked the locks on the rolling shutter outside.
Absolutely no one was getting in tonight.
He killed the main studio lights. Now, the only illumination came from the dialed-down, warm glow of the ring light in the back booth.
Chi Cheng headed back. Instead of pulling the heavy canvas curtains shut, he deliberately left them wide open. He dragged an empty recliner over from the adjacent station, leveled the backrest to match Suo Wei's, and dropped his massive frame down onto it. He was laying face-to-face with Suo Wei, barely three feet of empty space between them.
In the quiet dark, Chi Cheng propped his head up on one hand. His eyes locked onto the peaceful profile of Suo Wei's sleeping face. The steady, rhythmic sound of Suo Wei breathing gave Chi Cheng a strange, settling sense of peace he hadn't felt in this space in a very long time.
If I told you... I was single right now. Suo Wei's breathless voice echoed in his head.
Chi Cheng smirked in the dark.
He pulled a thin blanket over himself, letting his own eyes slowly drift shut as the night dragged on. Tomorrow morning, when Suo Wei woke up, he was either going to have a massive panic attack or throw a spectacular fit.
Tomorrow's problems could wait for tomorrow. Tonight, Chi Cheng just wanted to make damn sure Suo Wei wasn't running off anywhere.
One thing was absolutely certain: that tattoo wasn't finished. And Chi Cheng was going to make sure it took a hell of a lot more than just one or two extra sessions to finish everything—including the business between the two of them.