Chapter Text
Karn spends exactly one half of an afternoon shuttling boxes from the college shithole to his apartment, then insists on hiring movers.
“I have barely ten boxes left,” Chonlatee pouts when Karn declares he will never again step foot in the place, unless it is to do bodily harm to that asswipe Tonhon. The twelve boxes they’ve rescued so far are littered around the living room in various stages of unpacking.
Karn wouldn’t say he regrets inviting Chonlatee to move in—how can he, when he’s getting the best sex and the best meals of his life? But he deeply underestimated how much of the clutter in that house belonged to the sleek little seal sitting in front of him on the couch.
“And they’re all books,” he mutters, rubbing his sore back. “See?” He turns his phone around to show the confirmation email for the movers. “They’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
“Tell them not to forget my dishware in the kitchen, please.”
Karn hides a smile—the little minx always responds well to being spoiled. “Yes, my pet.”
“Thank you,” Chonlatee says, looking up through his eyelashes with a shy grin. “Boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend,” Karn confirms. It’s a juvenile word, but Karn doesn’t mind the permission it gives him to put marks all over his boyfriend’s dewy skin. “So what shall we do with the rest of our reclaimed day?” His hand is already sliding up Chonlatee’s calf, where it rests across his lap.
The impertinent kid bats him away and slides off the couch. “Unpacking! Where can I put my books?”
“In the basement,” Karn mutters. When Chonlatee toes him in the shin, he stands and then shrugs, hands in his pockets. “I have a storage unit. You certainly can’t fit them all on my shelves.”
“Or…” Chonlatee spins to consider the living room, where two large bookcases frame the TV. “We could get rid of some of these pointless knick-knacks.”
“Those are awards.” As Chonlatee very well knows. Just two measly shelves are dedicated to the plethora of etched-glass trophies and silky ribbons. All signifiers of Karn’s prestige as both a student and a medical professional. All very tasteful.
Every single hookup Karn has ever brought back to his place has commented on them—except, he’s realizing, the one in front of him.
“And they’re the only reason I can afford a place like this for you to move into.”
Chonlatee wrinkles his nose as he picks up a trophy, all feigned innocence. “I thought that was due to your rich daddy and your hospital-owning uncle.”
Karn huffs through his nose, hands clenching in his pockets. Chonlatee immediately looks contrite, setting the trophy down and trotting over to peer up with charmingly smushed black eyes. “You’re an amazing doctor, phi.”
“Twenty-seven stitches is hardly a good metric.”
“I just don’t think you need these awards to convince anyone.”
Karn narrows his eyes at the cloying tone of Chonlatee’s voice, the way he searches Karn’s face before he says the next part, gauging Karn’s reaction:
“You’ve got a much better trophy now. Right?”
So precious, how he softens the assertion. Before he can turn away, Karn grabs him by the back of the neck and kisses him senseless. “Then can I put you on the shelf? Display you for others to see but not touch?”
If only.
It’s gotten irksome of late—not just the amount of time at the shithole that Chonlatee spent packing, but every moment that he runs off to class or goes out with friends. Lately, he’s been declining a second or third round of sex under the excuse of needing to study.
As if Karn doesn’t have Pang’s number and her reassurance that Chonlatee is easily passing all his classes.
The little minx only laughs as he turns back to the boxes. “Can I at least put my photos in between?” Chonlatee fishes out a framed photo of himself and an older woman who is presumably his mother, followed by one of him and Pang. He nestles them between two awards.
"No other photos?"
The little minx ignores him in favor of plunking a stack of brightly-covered novels on the coffee table.
"None with, say, your childhood best friend?”
Chonlatee points at the photo of him and Pang. “Right there.”
Karn tsks. He's not sure why he's asking when he already knows exactly what happened to those photos—when he was the one to stitch up the result of their disposal. But irritation itches up his throat until he tries one last time. “Any photos with your childhood crush?”
"You would never let me put those up,” is the placid response, accompanied by another thump of books on glass table.
There’s that flash of spine that has always intrigued him. Damn inconvenient timing, though. Fine, Karn can admit it in the privacy of his own head—his ego needs a little stroking. After the dismissal of his many and well-deserved awards.
He snatches a book from the pile and sinks to the couch as he rifles through it. The cover is men with swords, but no longer is he fooled by their pugnacious demeanor. Flipping through the book, he sees—yes—at least fifty percent is pure smut. The words sex pollen catch his eye. Like an aphrodisiac—but Karn has no need for magic to keep his little treat panting.
Though he supposes he can see the appeal.
“What—” A hand comes down on the page. “Why are you reading that?”
Karn blinks—for a moment, he forgot all about their little war of attrition. He smirks and looks up, putting his mouth centimeters from Chonlatee’s throat. “Aren’t I setting aside my own effects to put these on the shelves? I had better make sure they’re worth the sacrifice.”
“You—” Heat floods the scant air between them. “You don’t have to—we can just store them—under the bed.”
Karn leans back—and watches with delight as Chonlatee sways forward, subconsciously maintaining their proximity. “But I might want to reference something.” He taps the page as he slides away to stand. “A scintillating educational text. Well worth the pride-of-place in the living room.”
“Please don’t,” Chonlatee whines. “Don’t read it.”
Oh, it’s much too late for begging. His little minx should know better by now. “‘Wei Wuqian’s chest heaved. What was this fire in his veins? This tightening between his legs?’”
“Phi, stop.”
Karn pivots away from Chonlatee’s outstretched grasp, holding the book out of reach. “‘He’d never been with a woman, only satisfied his shame in the dark of the dorms, or in a lonely corner of camp since he’d joined the efforts against the evil Wang clan. But now—now he couldn’t stop looking at Wang Yibiao’s mouth. Couldn’t stop the trembling moan that fell from his lips when Wang Yibiao put a hand on his shoulder.’”
Karn catches Chonlatee around the waist. Pinning the smaller figure to his side, he forces them back to the couch and looms over his prey, who quivers just like a rabbit under Karn’s predatory gaze. Chonlatee makes one last futile grab for the book. Karn snares both wrists in one hand and forces them over his head against the arm of the couch. A sliver of trembling stomach appears as Chonlatee’s t-shirt rides up.
Karn exerts all of his prodigious self-control to keep reading.
“‘Are you alright? Wei Wuqian was not alright. He felt empty. Burning with emptiness. Desperate for what he’d glimpsed in the dorm showers. He needed it inside him—Wang Yibiao’s brutally thick member.’”
Karn licks his lips. Shifts his voice to an approximation of his little minx’s most desperate moan. “Please, gege. Please fuck me, or I’ll die.’”
“Phi Karn.” Chonlatee pants under him, sounding as desperate as the erstwhile protagonist. “Stop, please.”
Karn drops the book onto his chest. “Is that what you want?” Chonlatee blushes and squirms. Karn slides his freed hand over that quivering belly, lower, to where his lover’s cute little cock is already rising to meet his touch. Karn presses until they’re both moaning. “You want me to stop?”
“Mm. Please.” Slim hips jump in the scant space between them. Still, Karn resists the sly little seal’s attempts to rut against him. Instead, he presses a knee between Chonlatee’s legs, which fall open with wanton eagerness, knees folding to make space for Karn between them on the narrow couch.
“Interesting concept, this fuck-or-die.”
“P’Karn.” Futile tugs against Karn’s hold on thin wrists only serve to amuse him.
“I know someone else who is too horny for his own good.”
Chonlatee’s eyes fly wide. His writhing halts as his button of a bunny nose flushes soft pink. “I—I should finish unpacking. I can, um, throw those out.”
Now that is not what Karn meant at all. He leans down to suck one deliciously soft earlobe into his mouth, caresses with his tongue until Chonlatee shivers, giggles, burrows backward into the couch, even as his hips jump upward seeking friction.
“But we need to properly christen your official move-in date.”
Fantasy play will have to wait—and Karn doesn’t need an aphrodisiac to burn both of them to delicious embers.
A week later, Karn is lazing about the apartment on one of his rare days off. In the first weeks of their association, Chonlatee would have cut class to spend the day in bed. Today, he went to school bright and early, without so much as a morning blowjob.
In fact, Chonlatee hasn’t insisted on Karn’s mouth since that confrontation with Tonhon—and Karn is getting annoyed. He thought they were both on the same page, that the silly minx knew he was obliged to initiate that particular pleasure. Karn must devise a way to re-educate his lover in the art of sexual power games. And what better way to gain inspiration than to peruse the very erotica that Chonlatee prefers?
And so it is that Karn is reclining on the couch, coffee in one hand, filthy fantasy smut in the other, when the first text comes.
>p’karn something is wrong
He calls immediately, but Chonlatee doesn’t answer.
>Are you going to the hospital?
> can you come pick me up?
Karn grabs his keys and texts with one hand as he storms toward the elevator.
>I’m on my way. What’s wrong?
>i don’t know. i’m so hot.
>Do you have a fever? Chills? Cough?
Karn, already in doctor mode, is flicking through a rolodex of illnesses in his mind. There’s a flu going around, and colleges are always a petri dish of disease.
>Are any of your friends sick?
Though Karn has been keeping Chonlatee busy, as a distraction from Tonhon’s idiocy, he eats lunch with Pang and probably dozens of other pathogen-infested college students.
But Chonlatee replies, definitely not, so quickly that Karn abandons that line of thinking. They’ve been dating less than two months, but when he’s sick, Karn’s deceptively sweet boyfriend demands to be pampered. Whatever is going on, he doesn’t want to explain over the phone.
So Karn sets his teeth against further inquiry and hastens to Chonlatee’s side.
When he pulls up in front of the food science building, Chonlatee leaps from the steps. Before Karn can do more than lower the window, he’s running down and throwing the car door open.
“Hia,” he says. “Thanks for picking me up.”
Karn blinks. That’s new. Never one to be caught back-footed, he simply leans over to buckle Chonlatee’s seatbelt for him, noting the wide sparkle of his black eyes and the blush climbing his neck. He certainly does look hot, in more ways than one.
“Taking the rest of the day off?”
“Didn’t feel good,” Chonlatee mumbles, looking down at his lap, where Karn’s hand lingers on his shorts-clad thigh. “Wanted to see you.”
It’s only when Chonlatee tugs at the collar of his shirt, popping buttons with aplomb and revealing his pink-flushed collabones, that the full scope of his machinations reverberate down Karn’s spine. The world sharpens, the vivid green of trees, the cloud-puffed blue of the sky re-saturating after the dulling blur of panic. He takes a breath and feels the anxiety drain from his shoulders—replaced by the slack burn of a predator’s lazy attention.
His little minx wants to play. And here Karn thought he didn’t know how.
Karn smiles as he pulls away from the campus. At the next light, he turns left instead of right and heads for the highway out of the city.
“W-where are we going? I said not the hospital.” Chonlatee’s tone is dubious. “P’Karn—”
“I’m taking you to the ocean.”
“—What?”
“If you can’t cool down, that’s an appropriate remedy.” Chonlatee’s gaze burns against the side of his face as the naïve little bunny tries to understand Karn’s intent. They’re playing the same game, he’ll find that out soon enough. But Karn refuses to take Chonlatee home for a quick fuck after some mediocre roleplay.
If they’re going to do this, Karn will apply his usual meticulous attention to every detail.
Two hours later, they pull into Karn’s favorite resort in Chon Buri. Chonlatee is flushed and sweating as Karn finally releases his grip on a chubby thigh. He kept his hand there through the ride, fingers soothing just under the hem. Sliding higher with every bump in the road, but no matter how his little minx slumped in the seat, Karn’s palm never quite got where he wanted.
Karn has spent the two hours reviewing his sly little minx’s recent recalcitrance in the bedroom, and—silently—recanting his annoyed presumption of the cause. If Chonlatee wants to play at self-denial in service of a game like this, who is he to object? And the cunning little thing did it all without telegraphing his intent! Karn nearly shivers in delight as he leans close to unbuckle his cherub’s seatbelt, and a soft, breathy whine graces his ear.
What an unanticipatedly marvellous treat he found at the hospital that evening two months ago. He makes a mental note to send that dimwit Tonhon a card expressing his—very sincere—condolences.
His well-earned prize looks up at the spectacular waterfall gracing the front entry of the resort. “Where are we?”
“This way,” Karn says with a nondescript smile and a well-placed hand on Chonlatee’s lower back.
It’s the low season, and the place is so exclusive that they don’t see another guest on their way to the seaside villa, which Karn ensured was available with a call from the car. They have no luggage, of course, but the provided robes should be sufficient for everything but swimming, and a discreet word to reception has staff procuring those necessities.
In the spacious, airy room that looks out onto their private swimming pool and the beach beyond, Chonlatee appears to forget his mission.
“Phi—this place is amazing.” He darts into the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and circles around Karn, who stands with his hands in his pockets and watches with a smile.
He intended to keep this sort of thing in his arsenal a little longer, a bribe for some unknown moment in the future. But if the past weeks have proven anything, it’s that Chonlatee needs no more lure than a good fucking to keep him panting at Karn’s side. Even now, with the temptation of a swimming pool and a beach and a whole resort to explore, he trots back to Karn and looks up at him with beseeching doe eyes.
“Phi,” he starts, catching at Karn’s hand.
Karn raises one eyebrow. “Phi?”
“Hia,” Chonlatee corrects, blushing a soft pink at being reminded of his own scheme. “I, um…” He squirms in place, scuffing a bare foot on the gleaming floor. Karn presses his lips together and enjoys the anticipation. “You said you’d help me cool off?”
“That I did.” He steps back. Pretends disregard for the way Chonlatee whines, low in his throat, and edges closer. “Let’s see, our swimwear hasn’t arrived yet—do you want to go into the ocean in your underwear?”
“But—”
“Or we can utilize our private pool—no need for modesty then.” Karn gestures at the hedged partitions rising tall around their villa’s deck. “Whatever you need.”
He cups a hand around Chonlatee’s neck, presses his thumb to the pulse point and enjoys the way it flutters. The barest moan vibrates between them as he uses his other hand to unbutton the remains of his sly bunny’s white school shirt.
“Either way, this should come off. I’m sure these clothes aren’t helping your…heated state.”
Chonlatee breathes hard through his nose, but allows Karn to divest him of the button-down and shorts. When his thumb teases at the band of black briefs, the little tease says, “Wait.”
In Karn’s moment of hesitation, he breaks free and disappears back into the villa. Karn sighs, but uses the opportunity to strip down to his undershirt and briefs. Chonlatee won’t get far—not with only the villa’s robes to wear.
Indeed, he trots back outside a moment later with two silky red ribbons fluttering gaily in the sea breeze.
“What is that?”
Chonlatee looks truly embarrassed for the first time since Karn read his wuxia porn. “Headbands,” he says, and drags his chin up to make defiant eye contact.
Karn laughs, hard and startled from his belly. “Of course. A…” He waits for Chonlatee to supply the word.
“Cultivator.”
“A cultivator would never be caught dead without his headband.”
Chonlatee blinks once, his whole face scrunching as if Karn had tapped him on the nose, then opening into an expression of wonder. “Really?”
“We must follow propriety.” Karn selects one and ties it securely around Chonlatee’s forehead, under his sweaty hair. The contrast of crimson above sparkling eyes is lovely, but Karn resolves to see the ribbon moved to that delicate throat before the end of their sojourn here.
“Now you,” Chonlatee says, gesturing for Karn to bend down.
Karn plucks the remaining ribbon from his hands and spins his lover, tying his arms wrist to elbows behind his back in a deft, loose bind.
“Hia—”
Karn pushes his head over Chonlatee’s shoulder and grinds fleetingly against that pert ass. “When you’ve earned it,” he mouths against one burning ear. “And not before.”
Then, he carries the kid, wriggling and protesting, into the pool.
“P’Karn!” Chonlatee shrieks as he is dunked under. Karn keeps him in a firm grasp, cupping the kid’s head to his shoulder as he rises.
“Is it helping?”
“N-no,” Chonlatee stutters, and Karn is certain it’s not due to the chill of the water. In fact, the sun-warmed pool is more like a cool bath—perfect for their little play without risking any real discomfort to his sensitive bunny.
“Hmm, maybe you need to go under again.” Karn cuddles close to grind their hips together. “Let me help.”
“Hia,” Chonlatee whines, the moment before Karn dips his head under again. When he’s allowed up, he gasps and squeals.
Karn ignores the kicking and shoves a hand under Chonlatee’s soaked briefs to palm him roughly. “It’s not working. Whatever shall we do?”
The shrieks have turned to giggles now, bubbling in Karn’s ear, rocking against his chest. It’s a sound of such—unfettered joy—and he’s glad Chonlatee is still blinking pool water from his eyes. Glad he can excuse the burn of his own eyes as chlorine and the bright sun.
“This isn’t what I meant at all.” Chonlatee gasps against him, still laughing. For a moment, they hold there in the pool, and Karn takes in the beauty of it—the blazing sun, the clear water on a hot day, the beautiful angel in his arms who leans into him with adoring eyes and too much trust.
Karn will wreck that trust soon, in the most delicious way. For now, he shrugs. “If you don’t tell me what you need, I can’t give it to you.”
“You brought me all the way to the ocean before you thought to ask?”
I still haven’t asked, Karn thinks with a slow smile that his little minx can clearly read like unsubtle erotica. “My pet, you don’t know what you want.”
“Can we—” Chonlatee glances at the villa and huddles close in the water. His arms are still bound—Karn loops a finger under the ribbon to ensure it hasn’t tightened unpleasantly in the water. “Can we go inside first?”
“Whyever would we do that?”
“The—what if the staff come?” His eyes flick back and forth between the hedges. “Or the neighbors hear?”
Karn tilts his head, all faux confusion. “Hear what? Don’t be embarrassed, my pet. It’s just a natural, physical reaction.” He paints a palm down Chonlatee’s chest, avoiding his nipples, skating down one hip and still drawing a deliciously loud moan from the boy.
In truth, he’s notified the staff that they’re not to be disturbed, and ensured that the villas on either side are empty. But there’s no need to let his budding exhibitionist know that.
“Why don’t you tell me what it is you need, hmm? And we can start a more…” he punctuates the words with a firm hand on Chonlatee’s ass, “effective strategy.”
The little minx turns and tries to rut into his leg. “Need you, hia.”
And Karn wants—he truly wants—to say, well, why didn’t you say so? To carry the horny kid into the villa and fuck him silly on the luxury mattress, and then again in the hot tub, and—
But that’s not why they’re here.
It cannot be that simple, he knows from his brief perusal of the novel. So he lowers his voice to a rumble and says, “We can’t, my dear.”
“What?”
Karn gives the kid three more thrusts, till his pink lips part on a moan, and then forces his hips away under the waist-deep water. “It would be wrong, didi. We’re sworn brothers, after all.”
Chonlatee’s eyes fly wide.
“Gege? But—gege—I’ll die without it.”
“Without what?”
This might be his favorite part of the whole game. Making Chonlatee say exactly what he wants. Forcing him to hear his own strung-out desperation as he mouths the filthy phrases that dangle sweetly from his tongue. Karn makes a mental note to look for a full-length mirror to fuck the boy against, before the night is over.
“You’re so warm, didi, are you sure you’re not simply feverish?” He presses two fingers between plush lips. “I should examine you properly.”
Chonlatee allows the intrusion, panting around him. Karn depresses his tongue, hooks around to scrape lightly at the roof of his mouth.
“Normal, if a little warm,” he murmurs, laughing when Chonlatee sucks on his retreating fingers. He drops his hand into the water and slides without warning between plump ass cheeks. “Let’s check here…”
“Gege! Gege, don’t.”
“Why not? I have to see to the health of my precious didi. It’s my role as your mentor and protector.”
“But—Gege, if you touch me there…”
Karn’s had enough of the trite dialogue. He plunges both fingers past the ring of tight muscle and captures Chonlatee’s mouth at the same time, biting that bottom lip that he loves to nibble on.
“Just tell me what you need, my pet,” he says when he finally lets Chonlatee breathe. “Gege will do it for you, even at the cost of my honor.” He crooks his fingers just so, earning a beautiful squeal of outrage.
Karn raises his eyebrows. “Tsk tsk, what about the neighbors?”
Chonlatee bites his lip against the next moan, eyes whipping from side to side, as if he might glimpse nosy ears pressed against the hedges.
“The faster you confess to the nature of your affliction, the faster we can fix it.” That cute little cock is desperately hard against Karn’s thigh, despite the cool water. But with his hands still tied, the little minx has no recourse besides what Karn gives him. “Or do you want me to wring it out of you, for everyone nearby to enjoy?”
Karn scissors his fingers again for emphasis, and watches with sharp delight as Chonlatee actually considers the question. Oh, he is going to make such a feast of this little rabbit he’s caught. Tonight and for many, many nights to come.
“You,” the whispered answer comes after a long minute of gasping.
“What part of me?”
“Your thick— “ Chonlatee glares at him, the effect of it ruined completely by the fucked-out sounds Karn wrings out with just two fingers. “Gege, I need your big, thick cock.”
Now this is cliche dialogue Karn can get on board with.
“Time is running out,” Chonlatee gasps. He’s clearly also tiring of the game and hoping for release.
Karn smiles to himself, thinking how delightful it will be to dash those hopes on the sunwarmed patio.
“If you don’t fuck me—” the sly little minx tilts his head back to make wide eye contact. “I’ll die.”
Karn freezes. Dramatically yanks his fingers from Chonlatee’s body. “Why didn’t you say so?” He carries the sly minx out of the pool and onto a padded lounge chair under the shade of the veranda.
“We can’t have you dying,” Karn murmurs solicitously, as he strips Chonlatee of his briefs, and undoes the sodden ribbon. He towels his sleek seal down, dragging delicately over light brown nipples, and kneading intently over his ass. Today is not about his desires, but he doesn’t hesitate to bite the chubby perfection of one inner thigh as he finishes, sucking until the sweetness of skin emerges from the chlorine.
“How many times?”
“…hmm?” Chonlatee blinks up at him, sweating and delirious in truth, now. Karn smirks—and those silly novel protagonists need hormone-producing flowers to get their prey this desperate? Pathetic.
“How many times do you have to come before the drug wears off?”
“That’s not—”
Karn lays a finger over plump lips, and smiles when his little minx instinctively opens his mouth to allow the entrance. Not what he was going for, but he’s not going to complain.
“I’m a doctor. I know how these things work.” He could dictate the number of rounds. But it’s Chonlatee’s fantasy, after all, and Karn wants to give him some control over the situation.
“Seven times.” Wide eyes flick back and forth; plush lips open to add a defiant addendum: “You have to unlock my Seven Sacred Meridians—by sunrise.”
Karn’s eyes narrow. This absolute little minx. “I knew you were holding out on me.”
“Gege, it’s the sex pollen!”
Karn waves this excuse away. The math means Karn can’t fuck him properly more than two or three times, and Chonlatee, his naïve little bunny, must think this guarantees him a few blowjobs at least.
Karn’s mouth waters.
“Seven Sacred Meridians, hmm?” They do have to make up for these past few days of restraint, after all. He smiles in a wolfish grin. It widens as Chonlatee shrinks back into the lounge chair. “Deal.”
Karn leans down to whisper in one ruddy ear. “I’ll take care of you, didi, don’t worry.” He is very, very glad that he’s left one more surprise for a special occasion. Unlike the villa, he doubts Chonlatee will appreciate the gift right away.
He’ll learn.