Work Text:
Hua Cheng has earned the right to be confident. So many years spent trying so hard and never meeting expectations, certainly never surpassing them, and suddenly he can overturn cities— nations.
It takes weeks for the energy the kiln infuses to settle, slowly replacing his blood and painting on a new coat of confidence; this is the power His Highness deserves to control at his leisure.
But every trail runs cold until there aren’t anymore trails to chase. His newfound abilities go to waste.
Eventually Hua Cheng settles—somewhere with ghastly fengshui and enough unbridled yin energy to make a mortal’s skin crawl. He lets his grief settle and his hate simmer.
Before he crafts himself any sort of residence, he infuses the soil with spiritual energy and wild white roses burst from the earth—creating in the name of his god.
A little later he settles a debt with those higher up, and a reputation is born—retribution in the name of his god. His power swells threefold.
He develops a city, slowly grows used to being both feared and respected—a beacon in the hopes of one day drawing near his god.
With the right look, he can have any ghost in any realm on their knees. Confidence fits Hua Cheng like a well-tailored robe.
…Only in the face of his own reflection does he fall short anymore, because he isn’t seeing himself through his own eye— what would His Highness think, seeing this face, this body? He wouldn’t dare to be boastful in front of His Highness, so his confidence never quite permeates alone time. And he spends a lot of time alone.
That’s why the first time Hua Cheng does it, his shame nearly chokes him.
“Hurry up, don’t drag this out,” he clips. His voice doesn’t tremble. But his tongue twitches in his mouth.
Call it a curiosity that leads to discovering a new outlet for his seemingly endless flow of power. Consciousness, it seems, can be stretched and squashed, and it’s easy enough to tear off a corner and thread it into something empty to make it not so empty anymore. His spirit, his temperament… his face, his body.
Clones are more useful than he’d first imagined, each of them like one silk thread of a vast spiderweb—everything they see and feel is transmitted back to him, kneeling in the centre of it all. A venomous intruder to the heavens and the mortal realm alike.
It’s only a matter of time until his curiosity drifts sideways. Hua Cheng rubs his thumb back and forth across his hip, robes parted slightly only for convenience. Despite his order, the footsteps remain lazy—predictable knowing his own stubbornness.
When the bed shifts beneath him, his jaw tightens.
He’d torn a strip of silk to cover his good eye, leaving his other senses to do the heavy lifting. Vision is a punishment he isn’t brave enough to inflict on himself today; not like this.
Another pair of hands start slipping free the knots of his pants without explanation, and he wills himself to relax against the head of the bed. He won’t speak, Hua Cheng had woven that order into the shell.
“Hurry up,” he mutters for the second time, with less venom behind it.
An amused rush of breath answers him. Fingers scratch through the trail of hair beneath his navel as they ease his pants down just enough to grab his soft cock. His cock knows the touch, it knows the familiar hand with a familiar goal in mind. But his mind is whirring and wondering from where this foreign hold could be originating.
Knees nudge Hua Cheng’s legs apart, a little wider than he intends to let them go until there’s a presence very near—he hesitates to call it intimate. He turns his head away.
Naturally he already knows how to touch himself so his cock reacts quickly, swelling to half-hardness and throbbing with every pump.
The silence is more damning than when he masturbates. But it doesn’t last long.
Hua Cheng begins to breathe, then pant, because his lungs sometimes ache in their disuse. “Shit,” he murmurs, brows furrowing. His hips press into the fist, rocking lazily to get a nice full stroke.
His guilt slowly melts away, replaced by the pleasant, full-body thrum of arousal. It’s easier to forgive himself when he’s horny. For a while— years, actually— arousal itself had been something shameful for Hua Cheng.
Perhaps it’s because he had learned how to want while His Highness was in excruciating pain. Perhaps it’s just because he sees his face whenever he touches himself and can’t bring himself to orgasm unless he’s there.
But while forgiveness is still far from reaching the horizon, indulgence had to come eventually. Even if he doesn’t deserve His Highness, he can still wallow in the bliss of climax.
He’s blocked the sensory connection to his clones today in order to trick his body into experiencing pleasure at the hands of another. It’s working too well.
Hua Cheng licks his lip and grunts, brows furrowing as he spreads his legs a little wider. His cock is throbbing, sated each time that fist works down it. Xie Lian’s face flits through his mind and his throat squeezes, fighting against the strength of his moan. The hand pumping his cock pulls him closer, moving at a measured, sultry pace.
“Ah, Your Highness,” he whispers, scratching at the sheets and letting his mind wander.
There’s a noticeable reaction from his clone at that, pausing before he starts stroking faster.
Hua Cheng gasps, toes curling into the sheets in an effort to ground himself. “Ah… Oh fuck, a little tighter,” he hisses. He pushes harder into the bed to lift his hips higher. When the flat of a palm grinds against his slit he whimpers, baring his teeth and swaying nearer to the edge. “Suck me off,” he groans between gritted teeth.
Hardwired obedience in his creation gets lips around his cock and a tongue kneading beneath the head. Hua Cheng’s hand slips into his hair to hold tight and keep control, thumb brushing the cord of his eyepatch. It feels good, it feels so, so good.
He lets out a stuttered breath that trails off into a moan. “Deeper,” he grunts, pressing him down. The work is messy and lacks finesse, but his cock is wet and rolls easily against that tongue when his hips nudge forward. He comes in the brief moment he remembers that it’s his own mouth he’s sliding into.
—
Three fingers in and this one is already drooling into the sheets.
His other hand is flat against his lower back, pushing him down and reinforcing his status as a tool for pleasure. This form… shorter, slimmer, both eyes… he bends Hua Cheng’s cocky arrogance into youthful mischief. He’ll take this form sometimes, when he wants to shuck his responsibilities for a while; it’s nice to see him face-down.
Hua Cheng twists his wrist and plunges his fingers deeper, groping inside him for the spot he’s still trying to memorize the placement of.
A bitten off moan is turned into the mattress when he finds it.
“Ass up,” Hua Cheng murmurs, and the small of his back gains a steeper slope.
He leans forward a little, putting weight behind his thrusting fingers before sliding them out and wiping the oil on the clone’s thigh. He grabs a messy palm full of oil and tugs at his cock, slapping it weakly between those cheeks then nudging the head into place with his thumb.
Every first plunge is accompanied by a smooth, full breath to steady himself as he squeezes in to the base.
The clone whimpers, biting the sheets and curling his hands into fists.
Depending on his lenience, Hua Cheng’s initial pace varies from safe and sultry to reckless—today he leans towards the latter. He sets his jaw, groaning and rolling his hips while they’re already flush to his clone’s ass, forcing himself as deep as he can before pulling back. His breath leaves him all at once when the first thrust tightens his abs.
“Shit, are you tighter than the last one?” he hisses. No response, save for his back curving even harder. The squeeze around his cock is a nigh-unbelievable feeling, so much so that he never quite remembers it until he’s sunk back inside one of his many selves.
Would His Highness feel like this inside? Would I never want to pull out of him either?
He rocks heavily into the slick, waiting hole, tugging and squeezing his cheeks to play around with the effect. This is experimental if nothing else. The curve of his cock strokes inside him nicely, slicking his inner wall with a track of precome.
Hua Cheng groans, eyebrows drawing tight. “That’s it,” he pants, “keep squeezing me like that.” He lifts one knee, spreading his legs to snap himself in deeper.
Moans that sound like they’re snipped before they can flourish roll from the tongue of his clone, resulting in hot little huffs. His breath is shaky and catches in his throat and Hua Cheng, opposing the ground rule of silence he himself had laid down, finds himself wanting those sounds pressed into his ear or his neck instead.
His cock throbs. He leans over his clone’s back until the loose silk of his robes brushes naked skin.
The noises stutter then reappear with a fucked-out little wheeze beneath them. “Mm—mm—uhh,” he croaks. This younger, brattier version of himself reduced to wet, desperate sounds of pleasure, all locked behind a barrier.
In a moment of spontaneous curiosity, Hua Cheng presses his fingers to the clone’s temple and stops dead as his senses flood into him and channel out through a deep moan. The sudden feeling of being spread and filled coupled with his cock already sunk deep inside nearly tears his climax from him.
“…Oh, fuck,” he gasps, dropping his head between his clone’s shoulder blades.
The next rock is slow and deliberate, Hua Cheng whimpering when he slides into himself.
“I’m close,” he shudders.
His clone just nods, mindless and half-drowned in his pleasure.
Again he thrusts, then again, until he’s baring his teeth and spearing himself on every rough thrust. He comes too suddenly to fully register, body curling over and panting against sweaty skin as he feels it fill him up. A slurred curse wobbles from his throat. He feels hot all over, a residual effect of his clone’s status as an artificial human.
The last of his orgasm fades out and he disperses the body beneath him in a cloud of fluttering wings, falling onto his back in a state of bemused bliss.
—
It takes hours with this one before he figures out how to bag the reaction he’s reaching for.
Two fingers deep in her cunt, he runs his tongue back and forth over her clit until she’s rocking into his mouth and panting. She’s holding his head in place and pushing back on his fingers, smearing slick down his chin.
Hua Cheng has already made a name for himself in this form—sharp black nails, long legs, subtle curves. It’s easy to see her and equate the smirk with poison. With all her soft edges, Hua Cheng’s fangs look sharper in her mouth, and right now, her mouth is an open gate through which heavy moans fall.
He crooks his fingers and drags them down, laying his head on her thigh and giving his jaw a break.
His boundaries sway the longer he does this, he notices. This being imaginative masturbation. Maybe he’s grown greedy, but he wants the feedback he fucks out of them in the form of whimpers and moans. He wants to know he’s ruining them properly rather than just taking his pleasure; the louder the better.
More and more often he finds himself weaving their senses together too, to experience both ends of the spectrum of feeling.
Years pass and his vulnerability dries and shrivels, shamelessness taking its place.
He doesn’t need to think about His Highness, although he still will.
He doesn’t need to blindfold himself or close his eye or shut them up.
Arousal has taken on a form independent of his past, and it’s the kind he can indulge in with no regrets.
“I’m going to come again,” she whimpers, thighs squeezing his head and pulling him back down to suck at her clit.
Hua Cheng moans between her legs and rubs himself against the mattress, swathed in his own scent and taste.
She curses, nails digging into his head as her hips steadily boost higher and higher until she snaps and starts rutting into Hua Cheng’s mouth, fourth climax rocking the both of them.
He watches her gasp above him and grunts when her pussy clenches around his fingers.
It’s raw and tasteless, but he manages to grind hard enough to come in his pants. Hua Cheng pulls back, forehead pressed to her pelvis and whines as he climaxes the same way he had after that night on Beizi Hill.
—
Hua Cheng hesitates for a while, lips twitching and signalling his uncertainty. His mirror image looks back, expressionless as he waits for something more concrete to build on.
He likes being clothed while they’re naked, likes the authority it gives him, but today he’s just as bare. Slowly, he leans in and rests his hands on the clone’s thighs.
The kiss is simple. It’s his first.
Their lips move together gently, like they’re seeking an answer rather than stating a fact. It feels ridiculous, ten times as ridiculous as sticking his cock in one. The natural intimacy makes his toes curl in shame but he pushes through and waits until it feels right to part his lips.
His cock starts reacting, then, filling in and sending a familiar rush through his body. His clone claims the first moan of the evening, hummed into Hua Cheng’s mouth.
There’s a lingering uncertainty that they’re doing this right, but nothing in specific feels wrong, so it continues.
Deeper.
Hua Cheng slides his tongue along his upper lip then nips at it, easing out another quiet moan. Their tongues brush hesitantly, then much less hesitantly as Hua Cheng pulls his copy into his lap so their erections bump. One hand holds him by the hip while the other cups his cheek.
“Mm!” Their lips misalign for a moment and noises of pleasure slip through the cracks.
His clone takes the lead on grinding against him, hips working in little circles and thighs squeezing him. With a sharp tug at his lower lip, Hua Cheng takes them both in his hand and strokes them together. He doesn’t let the kiss fall apart—his hand drifts to the back of the clone’s head and pulls him close, noses grinding into cheeks and phantom breath transferring between one another in rough pants.
Their cocks know and respond to the same touches so it shouldn’t be a surprise when they come together across both of their chests. Two long moans shared in the space between mouths resonate through the room.
—
Some days he hates himself more than others. They don’t usually make it to the bedroom.
—
The slide of his own cock down his throat and his balls nudging his chin make his cock twitch hard. He grabs the back of his clone’s thighs and pulls him in tighter, challenging himself. His brows furrow slightly as his copy spits a curse and lands another heavy slap on his ass. Hua Cheng grunts and tries to swallow around the weight stretching his throat.
It had taken a shameful amount of time for him to realize that not needing to breathe holds benefits in this realm.
Nails dig into thighs and encourage movement—shallow thrusts in and out of his mouth. When the next smack stings his cheek, Hua Cheng doesn’t hold back his moan, choked and raw as it is. His hips wheel uselessly in the air, cock bouncing.
He wonders sometimes if his competence around others and his lack of shame in being used have risen parallel to each other. Maybe it’s submission that makes him all the better at superiority.
Subtly, he lifts his ass in a request for more impact, harder, sharper. He likes it when the palm strikes quick and leaves him to sting, always followed by a little jump of his cock. It's a blessing, then, that they all share the same mind.
The slap lands like he wants it to, eyes welling with tears and hips rocking. Maybe he tightens up, because a deep groan sounds above him. His throat stings as his clone shifts into a rougher fuck; his chin is smeared with spit and the path of his cock draws lewd little squelches out.
He’s developed a bad habit of urging his clones to come—on him, in him, wherever they please. What started out as a self-satisfying activity slowly morphed into a bastardized version of genuine sex. In the early stages, he’d done it to prove a point, to show that he’s capable of wringing orgasms from others, even if those others were himself.
But then it grew into a guilty satisfaction. Bringing his clones to climax became fuel for the fire. Watching, feeling, tasting—as soon as they come, his arousal is amplified.
Hua Cheng starts to stroke himself, lazy and weak. All the skill and effort of his lips and tongue fades away as those hands continue to rain blow after blow across his ass, wearing him into little more than a path to squeeze a cock through. He grunts with each spank, pleasure forking through him like lightning. His fist curls tighter.
His cue to climax is the come, hot at the back of his throat and weighed with a heavy groan.
—
“Harder, fuck me harder,” he croaks with an edge of fire.
A careless moan tears from his throat when the hold on his hips tightens and he’s jolted forward with the strength of the thrusts.
A second moan chains onto his from beneath as his cock pushes deeper into her cunt.
The erection in his face slaps his cheek weakly, demanding his attention.
Three clones—almost too many to keep track of while they’re all trying their best to melt him down to a writhing, gasping little puddle.
Precome smears his cheekbone and he takes him in a hand, stroking leisurely in the hopes that it’ll satisfy the cheeky attitude his younger form wears so well. It does no such thing, if the click of a tongue is anything to go by. He glances up in time for his chin to be caught and his cheeks squished, mouth falling open for his cock.
It’s smaller than that of his true form, which is currently sliding home and filling him nicely, rubbing his prostate with each sharp thrust.
And his female form… She has a leg wrapped around his waist, pulling herself up to meet every shuddering shock of his hips. It’s hungry, the way she’s arching to take him further inside her, but Hua Cheng can’t say he’s acting any different. Slick glistens on the insides of her spread thighs.
“Ah, that’s it,” she whimpers, rolling her hips until the head of his cock kisses her cervix and makes her jolt.
Hua Cheng holds himself up on one arm while the other is flexing, pumping the flushed erection that’s sliding along his tongue.
“I’m— ah,” is hissed from above, “—ahh, gonna come.”
He stills at the first taste of his own come on his tongue but continues to pump until the hold under his chin falls away.
“Mm,” he murmurs, leaning onto his elbows and nosing along the cheek of his female form.
Sharp nails dig into his shoulder and a soft stream of moans flow out as soon as she parts her lips. He spits it into her mouth and kisses her lips shut again.
They move together, opposite each other, to wring the most out of their entanglement. Hua Cheng groans and grinds into her, chasing his pleasure through the wet sounds of sex.
“Fuck,” he grits, pressing his lips to her neck. He rocks quicker—his cock is throbbing, sliding into her, aching for release. “Nn, like that,” he breathes, nipping at a pulse that doesn’t thrum, “I’m coming.”
One rough thrust from behind jolts him forward, forcing his hips into place as he spurts deep inside of her. Hua Cheng whimpers when the clone at his back bends over him, trapping him in the middle and possessively rolling his hips in sharp little circles.
He wants to pull out, he wants to see his come dribble from between her folds and turn milky with her slick. But instead he’s held in place, still pelvis-to-pelvis with her, and fucked into quick enough to draw a curse from his tongue.
Already the clone kneeling at his head is half-hard and stroking his cock in the direction of Hua Cheng’s lips. With a shuddery whine, he opens his mouth.
—
“San Lang…”
Hua Cheng turns when his husband calls.
Xie Lian’s mind looks far away, brows faintly drawn and lips pursed.
“Are you alright, gege?” He places a hand on his thigh. They’re both kneeling at his calligraphy desk. While Xie Lian’s gaze is cast down, it isn’t focused on any of Hua Cheng’s failed attempts.
“Mm… I’m fine, I was just curious about something.” He looks up at Hua Cheng, flushes slightly, then scratches his nose. “Ah… nothing serious, just… that clone you sent earlier to deal with the skirmish in the east.”
Hua Cheng cocks a brow and turns properly towards his husband. “Would gege have preferred to go himself?”
“No, no! Nothing like that.”
He feels a smirk tug at his lips, patience everlasting when his beloved grows flustered. “Then…?”
Xie Lian chews his lower lip and turns a little pinker. He only blushes this blatantly when he has sex on the mind.
Hua Cheng’s hand slides up his thigh to his waist, where he pinches. “Does gege… want to have fun with one of my clones?”
His cheeks reach the peak of their pinkness but he manages eye contact again, valiantly. “…Not me, San Lang.”
There’s a question on his lips but Xie Lian cuts him off before it can surface.
“I was just thinking that you really can make and use your clones like it’s nothing, and—and you’re really… you seem well-practiced in, in bed…”
Hua Cheng’s other brow lifts to meet the first, mildly stunned.
“I’m sorry if that was rude! San Lang, really, it’s just… been on my mind for a while.”
“A while?” He shifts, nudging Xie Lian’s knee with his own. “…Have you thought about it?” His smirk curves into a full grin. “Me fucking one of my clones?”
He hasn’t done anything with any of his clones since Mt. Yujun—it had crept too near the territory of practicing for him to be comfortable with it anymore.
“I… maybe,” Xie Lian breathes.
Hua Cheng glances between his eyes then slides that last little bit of the way into a kiss.
A palm cups Hua Cheng’s cheek, then slips to the back of his neck upon realizing that he doesn’t intend this to be a gentle kiss.
He nibbles Xie Lian’s lip and strokes his waist until he earns his first moan. Then he pulls away.
“I did,” he murmurs, and gets a soft sort of confusion in response. “…I fucked them, they fucked me.”
Xie Lian’s eyes go wide very suddenly and his thighs tense like they do when his cock jumps and startles him.
Hua Cheng pecks his lips, then again, his free hand sliding between his husband’s legs.
“San—San Lang,” he shudders between kisses. “You… really?”
“Really.” He rubs his nose against Xie Lian’s. “Does it turn you on, gege? Do you imagine watching?”
Xie Lian tilts his chin up to continue the kiss, humming, “Mm… mhm.”
Hua Cheng groans and his hold on Xie Lian’s hip tightens. “That’s so hot.” He drags his palm softly over his husband’s swelling erection, wrapping it in a loose hold. “You want to see what I did with them? How I learned to do what I do to you?”
Xie Lian sucks in a stuttered breath. “Please.”
Hua Cheng smiles against his lips, squeezing his cock then pulling away.
A butterfly brushes past Xie Lian’s cheek, stopping him from chasing after Hua Cheng’s mouth. Then a hand that belongs to neither of them sweeps Xie Lian’s hair aside and brushes down his neck.
Xie Lian isn’t quite spooked, but his attention is hooked and reeled sideways, towards the spitting image of the boy he’d met on an ox cart however long ago.
“Ah,” he murmurs, glancing from San Lang to Hua Cheng and, hesitantly, back. The floor is a comfortable spread of cushions and furs and the air is evening-crisp, holding the energy that bounces between them.
Hua Cheng’s gaze doesn’t stray from Xie Lian, but a flick of his finger has the clone—San Lang—kneeling by his side. The process of creation and imbuing consciousness has been honed to a fine art over the centuries. Easy to shape, easy to control.
The sharp intake of breath when he pulls him into a kiss lights a fire in his chest. One hand holds the front of his robe while the other wraps his ponytail up in a fist. He drags a careless tongue across his lip and murmurs, “This is how I kiss them, gege.”
San Lang responds in kind, crawling like a dejected animal into Hua Cheng’s lap for more attention and throwing his arms around his neck. They suck and pull at each other’s tongues, quickly working up until they’re spilling hollow pleasure between their mouths. The kiss is wet and sloppy but thrums with a shared passion—to give their husband a good show.
Xie Lian swallows audibly, shifting atop the cushions to sit cross-legged and clutch his knees.
Hua Cheng’s hold on the ponytail tightens, pulling his head back and pinching his lip between his teeth. A little further, just until his clone concedes and whimpers. His lips dip to roam beneath his jaw, then, sucking until a fat, purple bruise mottles his skin.
“And this,” Hua Cheng noses lower, “is how I learned to make a nice mark.”
Subconsciously, Xie Lian’s hand comes to the side of his neck, rubbing at the two or three fading hickies he wears.
It’s easy, he realizes, showing off for Xie Lian. And not only is it easy, it’s appealing. Knowing Xie Lian’s eyes are on him, he’s as invincible as the day he tore from Mt. Tong’lu as a newborn natural disaster. He bites his clone’s neck and pulls his hips down.
“Mm! Ah…” San Lang slurs, beginning to grind his cock against Hua Cheng’s abdomen.
A gasp, tight and sudden, works its way from Xie Lian’s throat into the open air. “He’s… San Lang, he already looks so… wrecked,” he whispers.
Hua Cheng hums, pleased. His palm snakes up the clone’s chest and grabs his jaw, pulling him back to look him in the eye. “Are you? Wrecked?”
He whimpers and nods, hips giving another jerky thrust. “With gege watching? Of course.”
Hua Cheng kisses his chin, then the line of his jaw. Then he sucks on his earlobe, tugging and pulling loose another raw whine. “Mm… good boy. You’re letting gege hear all the sounds you want to make?”
“Yes!” He rocks quicker, beginning to rut against Hua Cheng through their robes.
“San Lang, touch him,” Xie Lian says breathlessly, seemingly shocking himself if the stiffening of his shoulders is anything to go by.
Hua Cheng pauses before humming thoughtfully. Both hands sweep up to cup his cheeks, then smooth down his chest, taking hold of his hips. “Gege thinks you deserve my hand. Do you agree?”
“Ah,” San Lang stutters, brows drawing. “Please, yes.”
“How about my cock? Do you deserve that?”
Xie Lian is the one to moan this time. His ears are flushed and hot watching this but that doesn’t stop the arousal from hitting home.
“I do, I want it,” he whimpers. Hua Cheng wonders absently if this is how he sounds and how he looks when Xie Lian is on top of him, stretching or stroking. It must be.
His robes and pants lift off him in a mist of butterflies, leaving him naked in Hua Cheng’s lap. He pulls in close to his clone’s ear. “If you can show gege how well you do with my cock, I’ll let you come.”
San Lang’s breath comes out a little shaky.
Hua Cheng shifts them so he can see Xie Lian over San Lang’s bare shoulder, so he can catch every reaction. Their eye contact is hot and raw and a little disbelieving. Gaze tangled with his husband’s, Hua Cheng drops a few kisses along that shoulder before tucking his chin over it.
His hands knead and tug at San Lang’s cheeks, spreading them and slapping them until Xie Lian’s is forced to break contact to ogle. It’s like a trance, the way he’s pulled in, fingers curling into his robes when Hua Cheng holds him open and rubs a finger over his hole. There’s an obvious tent at the front of Xie Lian’s robes that he’s dutifully ignoring.
“Would gege mind helping?” Hua Cheng murmurs. “He’s too dry.”
Xie Lian meets his eye again so fast he looks a little dizzy. “A-ah? I… don’t have any oil.”
“That’s fine,” he smirks, “spit’s enough.”
“Oh,” Xie Lian replies, sounding sticky. He hesitates, then begins to crawl forward on his hands and knees. A look that borders on timid meets his, and he nods reassuringly.
Hua Cheng digs his nails into his clone’s ass and spreads him wide enough that Xie Lian, red in the face, can spit near his hole. It dribbles down the cleft of his ass and Xie Lian looks like he passes through the stages of utmost shame and arousal in the same split-second.
“Thank you, gege,” Hua Cheng coos, tracking every little twitch in his expression.
“…Mm,” Xie Lian wobbles. He sits back on his knees, but not as far away as he was.
Two fingers run through the spit, up and down, then press hard at his entrance until they slip inside. In the voice Xie Lian first came to know him with, San Lang moans and clings harder to Hua Cheng’s shoulders.
There’s no period to adjust; they start pumping in and out right away, kicking his moan up a notch. He sounds drunk on the stretch of two fingers, panting hot into Hua Cheng’s neck.
“Are… you usually rough with them?” Xie Lian murmurs.
Hua Cheng chuckles. “Mm, no. Sometimes they’re rough with me.”
On cue, the clone sinks his teeth into Hua Cheng’s shoulder and Hua Cheng grunts. His hips lift, caught off guard and drawn towards friction. He brushes his clone’s lolling cock and feels the sharp huff against him.
A third finger nudges in alongside the others and Xie Lian’s breath catches noticeably—his hand draws up his thigh and rests on his bulge. He’s pink as anything, limbs tight and lip caught between teeth as he grinds the heel of his hand between his legs. A delicate whine, the kind he makes by accident when he’s too caught up in everything, falls from his lips. He’s starry-eyed, taken by his husband’s fingers sinking into… his husband’s ass.
“Oh, San Lang,” he whispers.
Hua Cheng hums and grinds his fingers in deeper, flexing them to prod his prostate.
“Fuck, ah!” San Lang gasps, trying to once again rut on Hua Cheng’s stomach. He lets him, noticing the way Xie Lian’s gaze tracks the rocking of his hips. A rhythm develops on its own, an easy forward and back, and he starts panting harder.
“Turn,” Hua Cheng orders, pulling his fingers out and giving his ass a pinch. He lets his own clothing warp and flutter away as San Lang turns, and soon they’re skin to skin, chest to back.
The cushions and furs shift beneath them as Hua Cheng sends his husband a soft look. “Would you?”
Xie Lian doesn’t need the specification this time, lips pursing for a moment before he spits into his palm and reaches through to pump Hua Cheng’s cock.
“Good boy, thank you,” he hums, eye shutting as that hand he knows so well strokes him.
When he pulls away, Hua Cheng peeks down at him—at his spit-slick parted lips, and his pink nose, and his hand that slides right back between his own legs.
A fully-bridged consciousness means his clones respond even in the absence of direction, and that’s exactly how they come together now. He lifts up just as Hua Cheng moves himself into place—they thrust up and sink down in the same second.
Xie Lian moans the loudest.
San Lang falls back, head on Hua Cheng’s shoulder and hips already jerking.
“Oh my heavens,” Xie Lian breathes, awe leaking into his arousal.
“Mm, look good?” Hua Cheng smirks. He wraps an arm around his clone’s chest, holding him in place for the first steady thrust.
Xie Lian whimpers and presses harder between his thighs. “Uh-huh.”
Hua Cheng rolls his hips slowly, sinking into the squeeze. “Ah, he feels good, gege. Nice and tight.”
“San Lang.”
San Lang croaks when Hua Cheng pulls him down into his lap, then again, telling him without words to start riding.
He does, weakly.
“Faster,” Hua Cheng murmurs.
His legs tense and he pushes himself up higher to drop down again.
Hua Cheng slaps his thigh abruptly. “Legs spread so gege can see.”
He whimpers and forces his legs wide, opening to show the squeeze of Hua Cheng’s cock entering him.
Xie Lian visibly shivers, head lolling to the side as he pulls carelessly at the ties of his pants. A fluttery moan warbles out when his hand slips inside.
“I love seeing gege turned on like this,” Hua Cheng groans. He licks along the nearest thrumming vein in his clone’s neck, nuzzling into the poor mimicry of life.
“Hah…” is all the response he gets. Xie Lian’s eyes are half shut, hazy with the same arousal that’s painted him a warm pink. He rocks his hips a little, pushing into his own fist.
“I want to see,” Hua Cheng hums, because he has the privilege of asking His Highness for what he wants now.
Without hesitation, Xie Lian sits back and tugs his pants off. His cock is pinker than his cheeks and glistens with precome when it peeks from his fist. The body fucking itself in his lap almost becomes an afterthought with his husband to watch.
“…Kiss me,” he murmurs, looking between Xie Lian’s eyes.
Xie Lian makes a little sound of surprise, hand stilling. But then he surges forward and kisses Hua Cheng over the shoulder of his clone, one hand curling around his neck. Hua Cheng moans, pressing his hips up and parting his lips to suck on his husband’s lip.
“Keep moving,” he murmurs at San Lang before he leans in to kiss him harder.
Kissing Xie Lian with this body between them lights something in him. Nearly countless years spent learning himself through touching them—his guilt and shame and pleasure—and now he has Xie Lian. He has Xie Lian to dab away his guilt and shame, and more importantly, he has Xie Lian to gift pleasure to. To share the pleasure he’s come to know.
Touch doesn’t mean anything without Xie Lian involved anymore, because he doesn’t want it to, and that’s a choice he’s made. Intimacy curves and roots on its own, but it doesn’t bloom until his husband is in his arms.
“Mm!” Xie Lian’s lips part suddenly and slip a moan between Hua Cheng’s when San Lang starts sucking on his neck. It’s rough and messy thanks to his steady bounce in Hua Cheng’s lap, but it suits the mood.
Hua Cheng nips Xie Lian’s lower lip, keeping his mouth busy while he searches for his hands then guides them to San Lang’s hips. Up, down, up, down; he urges Xie Lian to bounce him harder onto Hua Cheng’s cock.
“He likes it rough, gege,” he murmurs into the corner of Xie Lian’s mouth.
It does the trick.
Xie Lian exerts some strength and San Lang yelps, burrowing into his neck and letting out a helpless, “Your Highness—!” He sounds wetter now between the legs, slick with Hua Cheng’s precome as he slams back and takes him all. Thighs hit thighs with a none too gentle slap, slap.
“Is it nice, San Lang?” Xie Lian whimpers, lifting one hand to brush aside the hair that’s sticking to the clone’s cheek. He sits back and waits for his answer.
“Nice, fuck, gege, it’s so—”
Xie Lian cuts him off with a sloppy kiss. His hand tightens around the clone’s hip and forces him down and down and down until they can’t keep their lips together any longer.
Xie Lian pants, “Mm, can I touch you?”
Hua Cheng’s cock throbs when he asks.
“Pl—ease,” San Lang gasps.
He shuffles forward a little more so that he can take both their cocks in one hand and stroke—Hua Cheng feels like he’s the one enjoying a show. Xie Lian’s moan compliments San Lang’s, recreating the sounds that bounce back at him whenever they make love.
Hua Cheng brushes a hand through his hair and breathes, “That’s so hot, gege.”
The heads of their cocks are slick in the heat of Xie Lian’s palm, sliding easily and gleaning friction from rutting against one another.
Hua Cheng pushes his clone up onto his knees all of a sudden, sitting up behind him and grabbing him by the waist. His thrusts grow sharper, snapping and sinking in deep. “Shit,” he hisses at the unexpected squeeze around his cock; he’s not sure if it’s from the change in position or the way Xie Lian is touching him.
All three of them are passing the threshold of desperate, groping and feeling openly, using each other to boost themselves towards climax. The one in the middle is the most wrecked, held up between two bodies.
“Like that, Your Highness. Ah—ah, fuck,” he whimpers, “I’m going to come.”
“Me too,” Xie Lian gasps. He grunts and moves his arm faster, mouth falling open.
Hua Cheng leans forward and kisses his jaw, letting his moans land there.
Xie Lian comes first, by a matter of seconds, then the clone. They make a mess between themselves as Hua Cheng watches, brows furrowed chasing his own climax. He grits his teeth and quickens his pace, pulling San Lang’s ass back against him again and again until he snaps and comes with Xie Lian’s deeply satisfied gaze roaming his face.
“That’s it, San Lang, so good,” he murmurs.
“Your Highness,” Hua Cheng gasps, bucking once more into the heat of his own clone then stilling and riding out the waves of his orgasm buried inside.
San Lang lets out a weak whimper, sharing Hua Cheng’s acquired taste for leading his copies to orgasm. He doesn’t realize how solid his grip is until the energy fades, and he drops his hands.
He’s shocked when Xie Lian speaks first—or giggles, rather. His robes are open and loose around his chest, drooping off one shoulder. “I knew you’d had practice,” he teases.
Hua Cheng reaches out and taps his nose. “Not practice, gege, just experience.”
“Mm, of course; how silly of me.”
San Lang, exhausted and spent, is lifted out of Hua Cheng’s lap. Come immediately dribbles down the inside of one thigh and Hua Cheng catches his husband staring for a moment longer than he probably intends.
“…Can I lie down with both of my San Langs?” Xie Lian murmurs, tugging on their biceps. “Right here?”
Mirrored kisses are pressed to his cheeks. “You can have all the San Langs you’d like,” Hua Cheng laughs, and begins collecting all the softest cushions for Xie Lian.