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Baoxiang was looking at himself in the mirror, one last look before leaving his quarters. He was smoothing over the creases in his robes, making sure his topknot was immaculate, even if he knew his hair would get disheveled soon.
Baoxiang was surprised to see in his reflection that the skin on his face looked smoother, somehow warmer, almost radiant. It was a stark contrast to the coldness he constantly felt, to how wretched he usually looked due to lack of sleep. Touching his own cheek, it felt smoother, too. The milky water at the hot springs had really done its job, just as the whole trip had filled its cruel purpose.
The Empress’ trip to the hot springs had been a farcical display of power, everyone fussing over her and her announced pregnancy, while Lady Ki sat stewing in her own bitterness and scheming. The Third Prince had seemed as worried as his mother, undoubtedly – and rightfully – worried about his place in the palace.
Baoxiang had felt a strange anxiety over his part in those schemes, simultaneously knowing that this was an opportunity he had to seize, and wanting to stay as far away from it as possible.
Even with all their restlessness boiling underneath, Baoxiang couldn’t have helped but notice the way the Third Prince had tried – and failed – to refrain from looking at his naked body as they were enjoying the springs. The Third Prince was still wary of being seen alone with Baoxiang, but it wasn’t the kind of hostile avoidance it had been before.
Not too long ago, it would have sent a thrill down Baoxiang’s spine, knowing the kind of power he wielded over the Third Prince. But now, he felt a different type of thrill, something like a connection between them with each stolen look.
Even if his time at the springs was spent in a cloud of emotions shifting from creeping terror to pitch black pride at his plans advancing, Baoxiang had enjoyed the bathing at least. It was becoming more and more difficult these days, but he wasn’t above enjoying life’s luxuries.
Being enclosed by the hot water had melted away the ever-present tension in his body, even if the relief was only temporary. It had not been able to erase the black thoughts circling inside him, but it had taken some of the edge off.
Briefly, soaking in the hot water had even reminded Baoxiang of the time he had been recovering from his public beating, nursing his wounds in a medicinal bath and so delirious from the pain medicine that for a while he hadn’t been afraid or hurt by anything. He had been so far gone that when the Third Prince had climbed into the bathtub with him, he had been completely okay, even somewhat pleased with everything that had happened that night.
As Baoxiang started making his way from his own quarters to the Third Prince’s residence, he wondered how much he would be okay with today.
They had just returned from the trip earlier that day, and Baoxiang had already arranged to meet Madam Zhang – his new wife – in the evening. But the Third Prince had asked him to come to his rooms when they got back, and as weird as it felt to admit it, Baoxiang hadn’t wanted to turn him down.
There had not been the kind of privacy they would have needed for anything to actually happen at the hot springs, so there was a sense of anticipation in their reunion. Baoxiang wasn’t sure when exactly he had started to look forward to their meetings, but he knew that things between them had irrecoverably shifted.
Ever since Baoxiang had provoked the Third Prince to really own up to his desires and violently fuck him, ever since they had shared that kiss full of understanding and grief on a cold moonlit night, it felt like they had both stepped over some invisible threshold, and there was no coming back.
Maybe that’s why it felt like they had both finally been able to cast aside their pretences and pride, as Baoxiang met the Third Prince at the Palace of Abundant Blessings that day.
”Did the Third Prince enjoy the hot springs?” Baoxiang asked, his tone overtly formal as he entered the Third Prince’s bedroom.
”Hardly,” the Third Prince scoffed, his tone making obvious what they both knew, that he had been just as anxious as his mother Lady Ki was about the situation. ”I could not even…”
”Could not fully enjoy yourself, when all we could do together was relish the scenery and soak in the springs?” Baoxiang said, teasing.
The Third Prince frowned. ”You know we couldn’t have…”
”I know. But I saw how you looked at me...” Baoxiang said in a teasing tone.
Upon hearing that, an alarmed look flashed on the prince’s face.
”You were discreet enough, I don’t think anyone else would have noticed,” Baoxiang reassured him, knowing that he still had to walk a fine line in order to not scare the Third Prince away.
Baoxiang paused.
”And I’m here now, aren’t I?”
Visibly relaxing, the Third Prince nodded and gestured to Baoxiang to come closer.
Baoxiang looked around the messy room that he had come to know so well. The Third Prince’s cluttered bedroom was like a manifestation of its owner’s inner world. He would not let anyone go through his stuff for cleanup, in case they found something incriminating. He protected his inner quarters like he protected his inner self, with grudge and hostility, leaving a mess inside. At least here, in his own space, he was able to hold onto the things that were his alone.
Baoxiang wondered briefly, if the Third Prince now saw him as one of those things.
Even with all the familiar book piles and heaps of disarrayed clothing scattered everywhere, standing in the Third Prince’s bedroom today felt different from before. All those earlier times, he had come to the Third Prince’s chambers seeking to be humiliated, to tie the Third Prince to him in an ever-tightening loop, to hold that thing the prince was most trying to hide against him.
But after having come this far, they had finally stopped hiding behind a facade of hostility and hurtful words. They had already shown each other vulnerability, done all the things that the whole world was suspecting and accusing them of, so what was there to fear anymore?
Baoxiang opened his robes – a beautiful purple with an embroidered moon and clouds pattern – and revealed the lack of any undergarments beneath. He stood just a little too far from the Third Prince, so he would have to reach out if he wanted to touch.
For once, there was no contempt or disgust laced with the desire in the Third Prince’s eyes. Instead, there was acceptance – accepting his want for Baoxiang, and maybe, just maybe, even accepting Baoxiang for the way he was. Feminine, devious, everything the world had hated him for. Everything the Third Prince had despised about Baoxiang – and himself.
People who looked like the epitome of Mongol mahood – Esen, their father, their whole court, now the Third Prince, had always gazed upon Baoxiang with distaste, and Baoxiang had learned to reject and despise them right back. Now, he was shocked to realize that having someone as masculine as the Third Prince look at him with acceptance in his eyes felt – good.
Yet underneath all that, Baoxiang could also see how much the Third Prince was hurting, forever trying to attain the ideal but always failing at being the type of man he was expected to be.
Baoxiang felt a pang of sadness at that thought, but tried to focus on the task at hand. Remembering what he had come here to do, Baoxiang discarded his clothes altogether. The Third Prince swallowed almost audibly at that.
”How do you want it today?” Baoxiang asked, still reveling in making the Third Prince own up to his wants, taking his own pleasure from these moments of admittance and daring. They’d done it over and over again, but Baoxiang would never get tired of it.
I’ll give you what you want, he thought, but you have to admit wanting it first.
Baoxiang could see a flush of pink creeping up on the Third Prince’s face, before he managed to utter,
”I want– to be– inside you.”
Baoxiang was strangely proud of the Third Prince for such an open admission, of having opened that door that he’d used to hide behind, pretending to be something that he wasn’t.
The Third Prince was looking at him with eyes that were hungry and vulnerable at the same time, the red color on his face even more pronounced than before. The prince had bared himself open for Baoxiang to see, to do as he pleased.
I did this to you, Baoxiang thought, and it felt like looking upon something beautiful he had created with his own hands. There was a bittersweet edge to it, too. He had worked hard to earn this trust, but he knew he didn’t deserve it. His feelings of pride mixed with regret and the full weight of what he had done, and still would do, looming somewhere beneath.
As Baoxiang led the Third Prince to sit on the bed and helped him undress, underneath all his muddled emotions he realized he wanted it too. Even if he couldn’t fully understand why, he wanted to give him something no one else could.
He couldn’t give the Third Prince any real comfort, he couldn’t keep him safe no matter what Lady Ki had asked of him, but he could give him this.
Sitting on the Third Prince’s lap straddling him on the bed, Baoxiang lowered himself until they were impossibly close, until he could guide the Third Prince’s member inside him. This time Baoxiang had prepared himself beforehand and used more than just spit to slick himself up, so taking the Third Prince in was easier. There was still a dull pain at first, but it soon smoothed into an unfamiliar, throbbing feeling.
It was so different from the first time they had joined together like this. The humiliation and the hurt of being made to submit and bend over had given Baoxiang its own twisted kind of pleasure of getting exactly what he had sought. He was almost ashamed to admit how often he had summoned the image of that moment in the sleepless hours of the night, with a strange thrill mixed with burning shame and guilt. It was not arousal he felt in those moments, but it was – something.
This right here though, was a different kind of pleasure altogether.
Even if Baoxiang wasn’t exactly turned on, it was, after the initial discomfort, a startlingly sweet sensation to hold the full length of the Third Prince inside of him.
Being with women, he had always been aware of making them feel good, and derived a sense of satisfaction from making sure his partners were enjoying themselves. This was no different: seeing the Third Prince’s expression soften in pleasure gave Baoxiang a sense of accomplishment.
He held onto the Third Prince’s shoulders, which brought their faces closer. Their noses brushed against each other before they finally kissed. They never used to do that during sex, not when their meetings had been nothing more than a transaction, but it felt so natural today. Baoxiang could feel the Third Prince’s beard against his own, smoothly-shaven skin, and it felt all at once foreign yet familiar. It was a loud reminder that he was kissing a man – not that there had been any possibility of forgetting.
For reasons he couldn’t really articulate even to himself, he broke the kiss, just to look at the man underneath him.
For a while, they stayed still like that, the Third Prince’s hands gripping Baoxiang’s waist and smaller back for support. Looking in his eyes, Baoxiang saw the raw, naked emotion the prince usually spent so much time hiding.
The Third Prince was looking at him with something like kinship and recognition in his eyes – here they were, two men with similar desires, hopes and fears. With a soaring feeling, Baoxiang knew that admitting to any kind of similarity with Baoxiang had taken the Third Prince a grave effort, even if it was a silent admission like this one.
While Baoxiang knew their sameness was much more complicated than what the Third Prince could see from the surface, he saw it too. Their shared interest in other men might have been a mere illusion, but the way they had been treated for being different and cast aside by their fathers was painfully real.
Even if this – relationship, whatever it was, was built on lies and Baoxiang’s machinations, the connection he felt in that moment was nonetheless true. Maybe the Third Prince could see that reflected back in his gaze, as he looked into those dark eyes.
After a moment, it felt almost too intense to bear, and Baoxiang started moving his hips to give them both something to focus on instead.
Suddenly Baoxiang felt the Third Prince turning them around on the bed, and found himself on his back, the Third Prince’s body hovering over him, still inside him. This time, Baoxiang did not have to try and rouse a violent reaction out of the Third Prince to make him properly fuck him.
Even with all the preparations Baoxiang had done – fleetingly remembering how weird and humiliating it had felt to stretch himself open in his rooms – it was still painful at first. The Third Prince’s movements were frantic as always, but this time, instead of his usual roughness, it felt more like he was in an impossible hurry, like he was afraid the moment would break and their connection end at any moment.
Baoxiang groaned, but when he opened his mouth, his voice was surprisingly tender even to his own ears.
”You can go slower, I’m not going anywhere,” he breathed out.
The Third Prince seemed to calm down at that, and stopped moving for a while. He reached out to Baoxiang.
The hands that had refused to even touch Baoxiang lest he be contaminated with Baoxiang’s effeminacy and deviousness, the same hands that had later deliberately sought to hurt and dominate him, were now touching him in a way that made Baoxiang realize the Third Prince was trying to caress him, to hold him like a lover. The way he touched Baoxiang’s cheek, his neck, his hair, felt more private and intimate than anything they had done before.
Baoxiang had never longed to be touched by another man, not like this, but now he found himself leaning into, even waiting for that touch.
As the Third Prince started to move inside him again, slower, it didn’t hurt like it had that first time. After a while, to his surprise, Baoxiang felt something like pleasure sparking up the odd time the prince managed to hit a certain spot inside him.
Is this what made it worth it, to be bent over and fucked, for those men who sought out the company of other men? Baoxiang wondered with mild interest. The Third Prince was not a skilled lover – how could he be when he had never done this with anyone else – and Baoxiang knew his haphazard thrusts wouldn’t amount to much anything. Still, as the Third Prince managed to reach that spot again, Baoxiang involuntarily let out a gasp.
Throughout all their interactions, the Third Prince had never really seemed interested in Baoxiang’s pleasure, probably taking it for granted that he was so deviant that simply performing these acts with another man was satisfying enough on its own. But now, hearing the first genuine reaction of pleasure from Baoxiang’s lips, his whole face seemed to light up as he tried to replicate what he had just done to rouse that reaction out of Baoxiang again.
So you do care, Baoxiang thought, suddenly feeling a strange fondness, a need to be even closer to the clumsy young man above him.
He remembered how some of the girls he had bedded had coaxed him closer while they had been in the middle of doing it. He took a deep breath to cast aside whatever remains of shame he might have had left, and wrapped his legs around his partner. Now it was the Third Prince who let out a moan, and soon finished, panting, inside Baoxiang.
Baoxiang himself was still as soft as ever, but he felt oddly satisfied nonetheless as the Third Prince collapsed on top of him and Baoxiang caught him in his arms. He could faintly hear the Third Prince utter something that sounded a lot like his mother’s language, but he did not seem to expect a reply or even a reaction.
On the bed, in the warmth of another’s closeness, Baoxiang could feel a sense of calm and content he had not felt for a long time. A fleeting annoyance about having to clean himself up afterwards crossed his mind, but compared to everything else he had endured so far, it felt mildly unpleasant at best.
They stayed like that, bodies pressed together, and for some reason Baoxiang did not feel his usual need to get away as soon as possible. The Third Prince had asked him to stay on previous occasions, but Baoxiang had always excused himself. That’s what he had meant to do today as well, but his body did not seem to want to get up.
Uncharacteristically, he reached out to gently stroke the Third Prince’s hair, and just as uncharacteristically the prince let himself be touched in such a manner. His braids were a little disheveled, and it felt striking to see that symbol of masculinity in such an intimate, vulnerable setting.
The Third Prince closed his eyes and rolled aside, his head hitting the pillow. Something wet was glistening on his cheek, and Baoxiang could not tell if the tears were from the intensity of his orgasm or the release of all the anxiety and uncertainty the Third Prince had been feeling lately. The fear of being cast aside if a new heir was born, the overwhelming grief of having to come to terms with how little he was wanted or needed.
When Baoxiang looked at the Third Prince, he could see himself in the young man who would have given anything to be seen by his parents and recognized by his peers. Suddenly, he was almost overwhelmed with emotion.
He had only ever expected to use the Third Prince for his own needs. What he had not expected was the aching in his heart whenever he noticed how much the prince was hurting beneath the surface, craving for love and acceptance.
An impossible thought crossed his mind. Maybe they could have been that to each other – maybe they could still be. Maybe it would not be worth it, to destroy yet another boy like him, just to get what Baoxiang wanted.
But those thoughts were fleeting. It was impossible to change the course, after having come this far.
He knew he was supposed to get up and leave, to make the next step of his plan a reality, but his body felt so heavy and his head in the clouds, the body heat of the Third Prince so comforting that Baoxiang soon found himself drifting away, sleep claiming him.
He wakes up in the middle of the night.
In the dark, Baoxiang finds himself lying in bed next to his consort Lady Shin, who is sound asleep.
What had he been dreaming about?
For some reason, Baoxiang is suddenly, painfully, reminded of his time with the Third Prince. Of how he had carelessly fallen asleep next to the young man whose presence had once, impossibly, become as comforting to him as Lady Shin’s now has.
It feels like a lifetime ago.
He has a disorienting feeling of not being able to recognize who he had been back then, any more than he can recognize himself now.
He vividly remembers the moment when he had let his calligraphy paper be swept by the wind, and be caught by the Third Prince. The emotion he had felt the moment he realized the prince was going to act to save him, to claim at least something he wanted as his own. How it had been a moment of intense resentment, but also freedom. And how that moment had been mirrored on the day the Great Khan had ordered the Third Prince to drink his death, and instead of doing or saying anything, Baoxiang had walked away.
Baoxiang had expected that he could sneak his way into the Third Prince’s heart, but he had never expected that his own heart would be moved in the process too. Now that heart feels nothing but a charred, black pit in his chest.
For the first time in a long time, he is able to let the sadness wash over him, instead of the all-encompassing self hatred and dead numbness that has not left him ever since he ascended on that wretched throne.
In the darkness of the night, he lets himself weep for the lives he’s destroyed.
For everything he’s lost, for everything that could have been.