Work Text:
A show was always exhausting.
No matter how invigorating the act was in the moment, no matter how thrilling the climax of his performance was, a crash soon followed like clockwork. It would never bleed into his work; no, he was far too experienced of a performer to ever let that show to anyone in his audience. His preparations were clean, his acts were cleaner, and his escapes were damn near perfect. It was his duty as an artist to not show even a fraction of weakness when he created, and he liked to believe that he was satisfactory enough for his standards (a difficult feat, all things considered).
The crash that would come afterwards was almost exactly the same. His body and mind would hold back perfectly well for however long his escape would take – minutes, hours, days. The moment the piece concluded, though, exhaustion would hit him like a bat to the skull. His usually precise movements would lag just a tad, and he would have to hurry through cleaning himself up (again, never to the detriment of his performance) so he could grant himself some well-deserved rest.
Perhaps that was why he let himself get caught out like this so blatantly, so amateurishly.
Now an hour away by tram from his performance spot, Jhin checked into his Zaunite hotel room with his signature mask tucked away in his over-the-shoulder bag. Still in character, he moved smoothly through check-in and made his way upstairs, unlocking his door with a simple key. The halls were lacking in both hygiene and safety, but the gun tucked under his half-cloak was more than enough of a safety precaution. Really, an attempted mugging would only serve to be a nuisance more than anything else – he was beginning to feel exhaustion creep in from such an eventful and fulfilling day, and he hoped that the water in his hotel room would run clear so he could pour himself a bath as a treat.
He stepped into his hotel and firmly shut the door behind him, working the key to re-lock the door. He felt a tinge of annoyance as the key put up some resistance – what, was the door jammed? With a faint twitch of the eye, (How could he not be annoyed? Everything else went according to plan.) he jostled the doorknob a few times in an attempt to free whatever blockage had lodged itself into the locking mechanisms.
He inserted the key again, and felt another wave of frustration boil over as the key didn’t even insert this time.
Any person with a semblance of normalcy would have taken this as a sign to switch rooms. Zaun was far from safe in any sense of the word, and, even several floors up in a hotel – the fourth floor, in fact – the chance of an intruder was not zero.
Jhin, however, was not normal.
Far before this plan came into action, he ensured he would get this room – 404. Not for any particular safety reason, but simply because it felt right in his head (as it would make sense to anyone in their right mind, he assured himself). It was a proper end to a fitting performance, and this was a cog in the last step of his plan. He would not get a new room, he decided quickly. He could still work with this, no matter how inconvenient it was.
With a tense sigh, Jhin turned back to the humble room in question. One full bed in the center with two out-of-style end tables sporting dust-covered matching lamps. Disappointingly symmetric, but he’d be willing to bet that at least one of the lightbulbs was out. When he turned to the bathroom – the door left ajar – he deemed it serviceable enough, but he questioned the level of hygiene he was willing to sacrifice for a proper bath.
He may have had to wait.
Settling on barricading the door with the desk chair (made of flimsy wood, much to his displeasure), he finally got to work in undressing himself. The respirator over the bottom half of his face was released with a soft hiss as the air-purifier in the room kicked into action. The cloak was folded neatly into his bag over his mask, and Whisper was tucked under his pillow in the way he always did. Even if the door had been properly locked, he would never leave himself unarmed – a rookie mistake that had cost numerous victims of his their lives. Satisfied with his setup, he stepped into the dingy bathroom, giving himself a quick once-over in the mirror before undoing the sash around his waist.
If Jhin had been in a more volatile mood, the sight of his face in the mirror would have elicited some rational (read: irrational), violent thoughts. The symmetry of his face had never been ideal, and he’d had his fair share of impulse urges to dig his own knife somewhere close to his brow bone – a measured, artistic, practiced movement. His unassuming face however, no matter how unappealing to him, served as an asset to his work. With such a normal look, he’d never be picked out in a crowd. To his recollection, there wasn’t a living soul in Runeterra that knew the connection between this face and his mask.
Well, apart from…
He smiled to himself, allowing a brief chuckle before banishing the thought.
Buttoning a set of silk pajamas over his chest, he smoothed the fabric over his body as he left the bathroom. The familiar heaviness of his shoulders was setting in, and a dreadful weight over his eyes was advising him to finally rest. Nights before a show often left him restless, and, although his situation here wasn’t ideal, he was sure this would be the best sleep he’d gotten in weeks.
Silently, relying on how he’d practiced these motions hundreds of times before, he slid under the covers of one of the thousands of beds he’d slept in throughout his career. The outline of his loaded gun under the bend of his neck served as an oddly soothing, comforting feeling, and his mind quickly surrendered itself to rest. Brief flashes of his performance from the day revisited his mind: dramatic splashes of red, disturbed gasps of onlookers, the limp weight of a body heavier than his own, all serving as a rather relaxing and pleasant memory.
A ghost of a smile etched himself on his lips, satisfied with his work.
However much sleep Jhin had been granted wasn’t enough. Despite the grim nature of his chosen work, he never considered himself to be a restless sleeper, but he had to be alert out of necessity. With such a strong identity etched into his work, it would be foolish to assume he’d be safe even with his expertly hidden face, even with his face entirely separate from his work.
Still, he was terribly fatigued, and part of him wished for a full night’s rest.
Unfortunately, people like him weren’t granted the rest they rightfully deserved.
By the time his senses had picked up on movement in his hotel room, he’d shot up in bed, as alert as if he’d been wide awake. The drowsiness from his rest was already waning, but snapping up in bed was a dizzying ordeal. His hand was under his stiff pillow to feel at the handle of his gun, but he hadn’t yet drawn it, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness of his room and the foreign shape standing inside.
Well, perhaps not as foreign as he’d like to think.
A lanky silhouette stood at the end of his bed, characterized by a slight slouch of the spine and a mop of poorly brushed hair. The door was ajar with the chair now half-broken on the floor, indicating that the figure had used force to enter. If Jhin had been any more awake, he would have had the sense to draw his gun and shoot, but he had mortal reflexes. So, as his brain pieced together the puzzle – someone who looked like this, who would have the idiotic idea to barge into his hotel room at night, who would know the room he’d choose, who would know his face –
“... Hwei –”
Before any more air could dare leave his throat, before his arm could move to swing out his gun and fire, a flash of purple bombarded his senses and came upon him. Several masses of purple paint churning with elements of orange and blue swirled around beautifully, lighting the both of the men up in a subtle warmth, and worked quickly to restrain Jhin’s arms at his sides.
A smart move, Jhin had to admit. Compared to the man he once knew in Koyehn, once sloppy and erratic with his work, there was now a practiced purpose to each spell.
How peculiar that the man had survived the disaster of his home temple at all. If he had been any more tired, he would’ve mistaken him for a ghost.
“Jhin,” a melancholy, though clearly disturbed, and still wonderfully familiar voice made itself known in the room (as if Jhin had any doubts on who this could be). He stepped forward, and Jhin connected the face to the voice, recognizing that dark green hair and mess of color in his irises. In any other instance, this ghost of a face would be a sight for sore eyes. An amusing tease, an unexpected second act in the tragedy he himself had crafted, but –
Here, though, Hwei caught him slipping.
This wasn’t according to the script, and that irritated him.
Subtly, Jhin pulled at the paint appendage holding his wrist taught. Although the media used was liquid, he was familiar with the painter’s work; he had an affinity for creating the tangible out of the intangible. If his emotions so pleased his creations to hold him still, they would, and they would very well. The paint was warm to touch, bending to the fiery emotions of the man, and, if Hwei was to make it squeeze any tighter, it would certainly snap his wrist in two.
Hwei seemed to have honed his craft in his time apart. What a nuisance.
As for the painter’s weaknesses, however…
Those were plentiful.
“No need to be so overdramatic,” Jhin smiled easily at the man, seemingly perfectly calm at his circumstance. Both of them knew well that this wasn’t the case. It was dark, so he knew Hwei could only see an impression of his face from the sliver of light of the hallway and the glow of the paint, but they were no strangers to each other's mannerisms. The subtle twitch of his eyebrow, the way he’d grit his teeth under his mask and clench his jaw if things didn’t go his way. Habits died hard. If Jhin had to guess, he would’ve assumed that Hwei knew about the gun under the pillow as well.
“A warm welcome for five years of wait,” Hwei replied, not matching Jhin’s lighthearted tone. His voice was dripping with a restrained anger, threatening to break free at any moment. “The Golden Demon would take steps to ensure his actions weren’t so easy to trace. Are you trying to get me to follow you, or have you just gotten sloppy, Jhin?”
Jhin’s eyebrow twitched, just barely. Not enough for Hwei to see, he assured himself. Times like this when Hwei made claims like he truly understood what was happening in his head got under his skin more than he liked to admit; how could an amateur like him, still so behind in terms of artistic prowess, even claim to understand the inner workings of his mind? Although the younger man was damn-near perfect to mold back all those years ago, that was a behavior that stuck with him as unpleasant.
Hwei should have known by now that everything he did was intentional.
Jhin decided not to entertain that thought, that he’d been slacking in his work. “If you’re looking for honesty, my dear, I hadn’t the slightest clue you were alive,” he teased, testing the paint around his wrist again. If he could just break free, just get his wrist out from under the pillow… –
“If my disappearance really made you so upset, why didn’t you seek me out before?”
As Jhin expected, going for such a weak spot in Hwei’s mental psyche yielded immediate results. The paint around his wrists faltered into a more viscous form, and he made quick work of pulling himself free, uncovering his gun in a practiced movement and aiming it directly between Hwei’s eyes. Even in the dark, Jhin could see the way Hwei’s eyes widened with surprise and regret, swirling with red and blue (a delicious, familiar sight).
“You –”
“Your emotions still control you, don’t they, my dear?” Jhin tsked, giving the younger man a knowing smile. “With our time apart, you should have had more than enough time to work on that.”
Something uneasy churned in Hwei’s eyes, and he could feel the shift in the air; clearly, Jhin struck a nerve. He wanted to cherish it for a moment, to take it in, but he wasn’t granted any more time to talk after that.
There was a flash of light from his left hand – the paint, he recognized – and a gunshot rang out in the room in response. Truly, it was just meant to frighten the poor man – even though Jhin shot it in between his eyes, fully intending for Hwei to foresee this move – but something in Hwei seemed to be bending less to his will tonight. The bullet whizzed straight past the painter’s face as he just barely ducked, and Jhin was almost impressed by the way he didn’t flinch. Almost. Any less, and the bullet would have ripped through his skull.
Back in Koyehn, all those summers ago, the poor man would have been sobbing on the ground by the sound of a gun. His actions were so unpredictable now, as they were before, but with an unrestrained passion that had once been locked away.
What a monster he’d become; a strange pride swelled in his chest.
Although his gun was something near and dear to him, the fire rate was regrettably slow (something about how taking his time added to the performance, perfection was never rushed). Before he had the chance to sound off another shot, Hwei’s arm outstretched, and the light from his paint bloomed all throughout the room. A brilliant shade of red was shown in his eyes before Jhin was closed in on, several appendages reaching out to pull his limbs back. His wrists, then an ankle, then his throat. With his gun clattering to the floor from a squeeze of the wrist, he watched Hwei closely, searching for any indication in the man’s eyes that he was here for murder.
With Hwei, it was never clear. It was one of the many fascinating things about him.
Jhin winced as the appendages – most like tentacles in this form, amalgamations of paint and emotional energy – yanked him up out of bed without much artistic direction. He was brought up onto his knees to face the painter at the edge of the bed, staring through him with a certain obsession in his eyes. It was akin to hatred, to bloodthirst, to murderous intent, but not quite there.
It almost felt like Hwei wanted to hang his body on a wall and keep him there as a trophy, as an art installation to discuss over a drink up in Piltover.
Despite being quite literally pinned in place, Jhin’s smile remained. This was a performance, albeit improvised, and he wouldn’t let himself slip here with eyes on him. He looked into the eyes in front of him and simply waited, choosing to remain compliant for a moment.
“You…” There was a pause, then a choked sigh that almost resembled a sob. “... You didn’t expect me here?” Hwei finally spoke up, still using that pathetic tone from before. The poor thing had a tendency to always sound like he was biting back tears; it must have been a result of his overactive emotions.
“I’d like to think I have the manners not to greet guests in my sleep, my dear.”
Hwei’s shoulders tensed, clearer now in the brighter light of his paint. Impressions of purple reflected onto his body, painting a beautiful sight.
“You didn’t lead me out here intentionally?” Hwei questioned, seemingly genuinely puzzled for a moment. To Jhin, it was quite cute, even in the way the paint squeezed tighter against his skin in response. “But – your work. It was obvious, you – you left such a clear trail of your travel from Ionia. After being so secretive for so long, I figured…”
Obvious? Jhin’s mouth soured at that unintentional critique. Surely he hadn’t made things quite this clear. For spirits’ sake, he thought the poor boy was buried in the ash of the tree that imprisoned him…
Jhin was pulled out of his thoughts by a subtle expression change from Hwei, and an odd feeling festered in his chest. The two of them were locking eyes in a rather unconventional intimate way, the forced proximity from Hwei only adding to this odd tension. Those eyes, those bright eyes, an amalgamation of his conflicting emotions and thoughts, they were looking for something.
“... So this wasn’t some game orchestrated by you…”
Jhin liked to believe that he had Hwei all figured out. All things considered, this man was an open book; his volatile emotional state only aided in Jhin’s attempt to read his every move. Hell, his eyes were a damned cheat sheet. Moments like this, though, were rare, where he couldn’t quite read the colors in Hwei’s eyes. Something was churning in the man’s psyche, and he wasn’t sure what to expect – a kiss, or a stab through the chest.
Maybe both?
Jhin was coaxed out of his inner monologue as the paint gathered on his body suddenly released, leaving the murderer entirely unrestrained on the bed and sitting on his knees. He nearly collapsed from the sudden lack of support, but quickly gathered himself and kept to his knees. The painter took a few staggered steps back, losing eye contact with the man he’d once been locked onto. From what Jhin could see, he looked rather dizzy. Still sloppy, it seemed, and leaving him completely exposed for a trained assassin.
This would be an interesting turn of events.
Eyeing his gun on the ground, Jhin took a quiet step to the side of the bed, leaving the weapon unattended for the time being. The knife strapped below his waistband would be plenty, he was sure, even with someone as unpredictable as the former heir of Koyehn. He was interested in a different approach.
By the time he rounded the bed to the front of the room, Hwei was slumped to the floor next to the door, holding his head as he calmed his breathing. One, two, three. One, two, three.
He never enjoyed that pattern in Hwei’s work.
The rise and fall of his chest, as well as the curve of his jaw and the way it clenched, all felt too familiar. Briefly, the standing man reminisced on their last night together, the way in which he held Hwei by the shoulders as his eyes shone a brilliant gold as his fingers tore through the skin of his upper arms. Papers littered the floor, and the paint splattered across their bodies and the floor almost resembled blood. Then too, they both sat in silence, and he recalled the way the thinner man’s body melted into his own as some weak attempt to seek comfort. A wonderful show, a brilliant climax, all to fall short in lieu of his vision.
And now…
Still the same, yet so different, the scrawny man held himself in the exact same way. Still so pathetic, so disappointing, yet still intriguing despite his shortcomings.
The deja vu almost made Jhin smile, and he couldn’t place if the feeling was an attempt at compassion from deep in his psyche or an act of pity.
He kneeled down in front of Hwei, an act identical in motion to all those years ago. His right hand reached out, lightly calloused and rough from the use of his weapons, and reached out to cup Hwei’s jaw in the same way he had that night – gentle, nurturing, caring. As he neared his face, however, Hwei’s head shot up at him, and the air around them both grew thin. Jhin paused, then smiled.
“... You know, if you were here to kill me, you’re doing a terrible job at it,” he mocked lightly, pulling his hand back.
“I-...” Hwei felt his breath stagger, and Jhin watched as he struggled to regain some composure. “I’m not… here to…”
“What, that grand entrance was for nothing?” He laughed and watched as some purple swirled in the corners of his eyes. Fascinating. “After everything I did to you, after I ripped everything away from you, you’d have every reason to.”
“...”
“I intended to kill you.”
Hwei’s thin neck swallowed hard, and the light from the hallway highlighted his Adam's apple bobbing down nervously. Long ago, and yet not so long ago, Jhin remembered wrapping his slender fingers around that throat.
“... And… yet, here I remain,” Hwei responded slowly, carefully.
Jhin cocked an eyebrow.
“How does that make you feel?”
Jhin scoffed, hardly used to hearing that come from anyone. Only someone as bothered by emotions as Hwei would worry himself with a thought like that, how trivial –
“Frustrated,” Jhin replied honestly, finding no reason to lie.
Despite the mood of the room, Hwei subtly smiled, leaning down into his arms in some act of self-pity. The smile was guilty, and his expressive eyebrows raised tentatively. He seemed to be reminiscing on something.
“I figured you’d say that,” he replied simply, letting the two of them settle into silence.
After a moment of thought, though, Hwei’s eyes trailed back to Jhin’s face again, bare and exposed for only his eyes to see. They moved subtly, as if tracing the edges of his features, painting the contours in his mind.
“... In our time apart,” he began, “I learned a lot about you, Jhin. More than anything you ever confided in me that summer,” he admitted in a whisper.
“Oh?” Jhin’s smile grew more coy – again assuming Hwei knew all about him. “And what, pray tell, have you heard?”
Hwei’s posture grew more self-assured, and his hands hugging his legs rested at his side.
“That you are known as the Golden Demon, and that your work is recognized through most of Ionia, for better or for worse. That you’ve been doing terrible things long before you shared that time with me, and still continue to do so now. That you take pleasure in making art out of bloodshed, and that many people would love to see you dead.”
Jhin hummed to himself, looking to the side and scrutinizing Hwei’s claims. Although he wasn’t incorrect in any sense of the word, they were all surface-level. Nothing about what he said came across as particularly shocking or exciting.
“... You’ve done some research,” he commented simply, then opened his mouth to speak again. “Th–”
“And I’m the only one who knows your true face, aren’t I?”
The question was so out of nowhere that all Jhin could do was gawk at him. His eyes widened just barely, fixing Hwei with a neutral expression in response to his sudden question.
“... Everyone I spoke to, they – they talked about a man in a mask. Shrouded in mystery, covered in cloaks and an eel-skin mask. One eye, red, but never your face. I’m… I’m the only one who knows.”
The two of them stared at each other, pink meeting red, and, for once, Jhin struggled on what to say. The man who had broken into his room and woken him up after a five year absence, presumably dead, was now claiming that he was special in some way, entitled to some special knowledge. What gave him this desire, this audacity?
He could have killed him right now and erased any memory of his face.
Instead of answering his question, though, he pivoted. Simple enough, he figured.
“If you aren’t here to kill me, then why are you here?”
Hwei smiled, “I wanted to see you again. That’s all.”
What?
Jhin’s eye twitched, and, for once, he didn’t mind if Hwei saw it. The lapse in control didn’t seem to bother the painter in the slightest.
“... See me again,” Jhin repeated, as if in disbelief. Hwei’s eyes swirled a deeper pink, bordering purple.
“... Y-yeah. See you again. Paint with you, eat a meal with you, maybe…”
Hwei leaned up a little, closing the distance between them both.
“... Get some answers on why you did everything you did.”
It was surprise after surprise with Hwei. Anyone remotely sane would have shot Jhin dead by now, left him to bleed out or dragged him to a high-security prison to lock him away for his art. Although Jhin could sense some hostility in Hwei’s mannerisms, a disdain for the things he had done, there was a softness to his voice that felt almost tender. Had he still been clinging to that fling they had all those years ago, or was this something else? His lips looked soft and inviting suddenly, just barely ajar. He stared ahead at the painter, certainly troubled, but unable to read him at all.
It was the same as before, and yet so different, so unrestrained.
It was exhilarating.
Without a thought, and perhaps ignoring his better judgment or misreading the mood, Jhin leaned in to close the remaining distance, pressing Hwei’s head into the wall behind him with his own. Hwei’s lips were dry and chapped from worrying the skin with his teeth, but it was a familiar, pleasant sensation that Jhin caught himself revisiting on occasion. The yelp that came out from Hwei was quickly muffled by an intense press into his lips, practically shoving their faces together with a passion, but that surprise oh-so-quickly melted into something more sanguine. Just like before, Hwei’s bony arms wrapped around Jhin’s body, pulling him in closer with a vigor that felt like he was afraid to let go, that he’d disappear again.
It was adorable.
Placing a hand on the small of Hwei’s lower back, his eyes fluttered shut, only encouraged by the way Hwei’s lips obediently parted, pressing forward confidently with his tongue. Again, just like before. It was just like what he remembered, down to the exact way Hwei’s limbs trembled when he got excited, and it was so much better than the occasions when he’d be left with his thoughts alone at night.
His free hand on Hwei’s back pulled back over his skin, tracing over the cloak covering the thinner man’s body, and reached for his wrist to hold him down. Jhin had a tendency to take control in moments like these, to orchestrate these fits of passion to fit into the narrative in his head, and Hwei was falling into his part in the same way he used to. His free hand rested on the back of Hwei’s neck, fingers tangled in the mess of his hair, and he indulged in the hiss of pain coming from the man pressed into the wall when his fingers tightened into a grip.
It was perfect.
“... Jhin, I –”
Jhin smiled easily up from between a pair of pale, bony legs. One hand was pulling fabric down to the man’s ankles, and the other rubbed circles in his thigh with his thumb. An empty, soothing gesture.
Hwei’s face was bathed in the late-afternoon glow of late summer. Cicadas sang in the distant branches of the temple tree, and the overwhelming heat of the weather was soothed by a steady breeze trailing in from the opened window. In time with the drapes, Hwei’s locks lightly waved in the wind, granting Jhin a delicious sight from below, taking it all in.
The hand on Hwei’s pants trailed up his other leg, loosely wrapping around the base of his slender, half-hard cock.
“S-sto – mmmnn,” Hwei moaned shamelessly, arching his back awkwardly at the sudden sensation shooting up his spine. Trained on Hwei’s face, Jhin pumped him once, then twice with a loose grip, watching the way the inexperienced man melted in his palm.
“... If you’re moaning like this from my hand, dear,” Jhin teased, “you won’t be able to handle my mouth at all.”
“N-no,” Hwei stammered, hitching his breath in a pathetic attempt to hold himself together. “I… I can… handle it, I… Jhin, please…”
Hearing his name moaned like that, he couldn’t resist.
“... Jhin,..”
That whisper into his lips was enough to drive him mad. What was only a vague nostalgia, a pleasant memory he’d revisit in his indulgent moments was now a reality in front of him, begging to be taken. The man he undid, the man he created, the man he killed was tangled up in his arms again, and he wished he didn’t enjoy it quite so much. He was never one for earthly pleasures like this, finding them to be too messy, too primal, too barbaric, but there was a genuine fascination with this man (as much as he would have liked to insist otherwise). He found himself pushing back Hwei’s cloak without a thought, palming at the soft skin underneath, now lightly peppered with shallow scars.
What had he gotten up to in their time apart?
Why did he care?
Both of Jhin’s hands trailed to Hwei’s chest, intending to unclasp the center closure he remembered oh-so well, but a sudden intrusion pulled him violently out of his haze. Pulling back from Hwei’s lips, Jhin’s eyes opened, glancing down at the faint glow cuffing his wrists. It bathed his skin and pajama top in a warm pink, matching the tone to Hwei’s eyes, now clouded and half-lidded. The brush in Hwei’s hand glowed as well, held between two fingers by the floor.
“... Hwei, what is –”
Hwei sat up, facing Jhin (who was now cuffed on his knees, go figure). Placing some pressure on his shoulder, Jhin was tilted back, falling back to the floor without the proper balance to keep himself upright. Before he could try and struggle to sit up, Hwei was upon him, straddling his waist with his bony thighs.
“... You always got what you wanted,” Hwei whispered, as if he was trying to hide his voice from an audience. He seemed almost bashful, which was laughable in his current state. “I – I want to take what I want, Jhin. It’s my turn to have control.”
Jhin would have laughed at him, would have insisted that Hwei didn’t have the skills necessary to be anything much more than a submissive mess bending to his will, but this was a different Hwei. He’d known of his lust for a long time, as the two of them indulged in it often back in the gilded summer of Koyehn, but there was something different here.
“How often have you thought of me to get you this eager?” Jhin decided to ask, tensing just slightly at the thin hand trailing the contour of his chest over his skin. With the look in Hwei’s eyes, he felt like nothing more than a piece of art under a sculptor’s trained palm. It was odd to be on the receiving end of such an unreadable expression.
“Every night,” Hwei admitted shamelessly, no longer looking at his face. “Whenever I’d go home, whenever I’d set up my easel to paint, whenever I’d try and tuck into bed once I worked until exhaustion. I’ve…” Hwei was growing restless, excited. The hand on Jhin’s chest hooked up to his collar, messily unbuttoning the front closure as the paint held Jhin’s wrists over his head. “... I’ve painted you so much, Jhin. Ideated, created, destroyed. I was afraid of losing your face in my mind.”
“Mm…”
Jhin mused to himself, listening to Hwei ramble hurriedly. He knew his work was captivating, he knew he ripped out Hwei’s heart and forced him to bloom, but this was such an unexpected byproduct. Had his actions done this, or was this part of Hwei always dormant, and he’d just uncovered it?
“... The… thoughts of you, forgetting about me and continuing your work,” Hwei continued, and Jhin could feel the paint around his wrists constrict. “... It haunted me, Jhin. You’ve been my muse for so long, and – and the idea that I wouldn’t be on your mind at all…”
Jhin exhaled sharply, stretching his spine in a futile attempt to alleviate some pressure, but, within seconds, more paint wrapped its way around his body. It coiled around his arms and legs, holding him more securely in place as the paint traveled up his shoulders and hugged around his chest, then neck.
“... Hwei, you’re… –” Jhin tried to warn, but it was futile.
The paint constricted, and Jhin let out a louder, more dramatic choke as his airway was squeezed under the appendage of paint.
“Isn’t this what you wanted out of me?” Hwei asked, and his tone quickly turned volatile. Needy, desperate, aggressive. This poor boy was a ticking time bomb of emotion, the same as before, but without his masters to hold him on a tight leash.
The pressure around Jhin’s neck was quickly clouding not only his vision, but his thoughts as well. Both of them were well-aware of his affinity for pain, but he hadn’t expected to get excited from something so impromptu, so simple. His body was burning from the way his lungs staggered for air, leaving him with goosebumps. He choked for a moment, gasping shallowly for air before the pressure finally ceased, leaving him coughing and sputtering for air.
Hwei subtly moved his hips over Jhin’s lap to lean in closer, inspecting his face. It was hot to the touch despite the restricted blood flow, and Jhin knew that Hwei could feel the flush on his cheeks. In this light, in the colors of pink, gold, and red, he wondered what he looked like. It was such an unfamiliar feeling, so vulnerable and exposed under someone with the intent to expose him for everything he was.
Jhin may have been an expert actor, but he had no time to prepare for his role.
“...” Hwei’s thumb brushed gently over one of Jhin’s eyelids, and his jaw fell agape as he indulged in touch. “... In my paintings, I was never able to get your eyes right,” he admitted. “It upset me. They… aren’t quite black, but they aren’t quite red either. They always look the same, but there’s this way the corners of your eyes crease when you smile at something alone…”
Hwei leaned in, and, placing his lips gently on Jhin’s brow bone, he gave him a kiss.
“... You’re quite the poet,” Jhin breathed out, struggling to keep his composure with Hwei’s hips pressed into his own. “Are you trying to fuck me, kill me, or touch me tenderly?”
Hwei laughed sheepishly, giving Jhin a smile reminiscent of the man on the sandy beaches of Koyehn.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Lips trailed over his face, peppering the restrained man with kisses from his forehead, down to his cheek, down his jaw, then the nape of his neck, finally to his exposed chest from his opened shirt. The paint held his back in an arched position, vaguely uncomfortable, but Jhin didn’t mind in the slightest. Hands mixed with paint spread over his toned chest, defined well by his physical activity, exploring each and every indent of skin into bone. Compliments poured out of Hwei like a machine, spilling out all of his artistic obsessions with each corner of Jhin’s body.
He could have handled this easily, but Hwei was shamelessly pressing his hips flush with his own. Each movement he made to crane his head up and down his body pressed a sweet, sore friction between his legs, and he could feel a growing distraction firm under Hwei’s hips. The painter seemed to not notice at first, simply enjoying the pleasure of Jhin’s soft skin, but a soft groan elicited from Jhin’s throat gave him clean away when Hwei had to grind his hips back. Hwei paused, staring at him with those passionate, wide eyes, before he finally looked down between his legs and the lap that his cloak covered.
With a nervous, eager hand, Jhin could barely watch Hwei pull back the cloth with the appendage around his neck, gently moving back and forth by cradling his skin. It was soft, and admittedly pleasant in its embrace when Hwei wasn’t attempting to pop him like a balloon.
Jhin was granted silence for a moment, but not for much longer when a palm pressed gently down on the base of the tent in his pajama bottoms. His breath hitched and his hips buckled, prompting Hwei to laugh quietly to himself.
“... Having the roles reversed like this,” he whispered, “it’s exciting. For once, I’m not the one bending to your will.”
Hwei’s hips raised, and Jhin could feel more paint gathering at the waistband of his pants. It coiled around his hips and held him gently, tugging down the cloth just enough to expose his half-hard cock to the cold air.
“You’re bending to mine.”
Jhin opened his mouth, fishing for any sort of quip that could put Hwei in his place, but a hand around the length of his shaft reduced his thoughts into a warm puddle of color. Hwei’s hand, still inexperienced and unrhythmic, stroked him gently. When Jhin had been in control, his lack of experience had been rather endearing to him, but the complete lack of self-control left him craving more. More of his palm, more of his thighs hugging his hips, more of his hands over his sensitive body.
As Hwei continued to stroke, he leaned in by Jhin’s neck, then up to his ear. From this angle, Jhin could see the band of fabric around the painter’s neck, and he swallowed down a few conflicting feelings. Hwei’s tongue trailed up the shell of his ear, and Jhin shivered, exhaling slowly to keep some of his dignity.
“... So beautiful,” he mumbled into his ear before catching his lobe between his teeth – a move Jhin had pulled on him all those years ago. Although it came off as amateurish and unoriginal to Jhin as a performance, he couldn’t help the low, shallow moan he let out at the sharp pain blooming from the sensitive skin. His body felt like it was on fire, and each stroke from Hwei’s delicate hand was only intensifying it all. If he’d been able to move, maybe it wouldn’t have been so difficult, but even his hips were locked in place.
He was trapped under his captor, his creation, breathless and needy for more.
So unlike him.
“... You don’t talk quite so much when I touch you like this,” Hwei pointed out with a shy smile, and Jhin felt his eyebrow twitch.
“With… your paint around my neck, it isn’t a very easy task –”
There was a quick, intense squeeze again, and Jhin choked out a gasp. Hwei could tell he liked it now, and he wasn’t sure what that meant for his dignity, but his breathless expression was surely not becoming of the Golden Demon.
“... Getting harder when I do that,” Hwei mused, pulling back his hand. Jhin immediately felt frustration fester in the pit of his stomach, down between his legs, craving more of that pressure. “You never let me choke you that summer, but – you did it to me all the time.” Hwei leaned back. slowly pulling his cloak off of his body.
“I want to know what else you’re hiding, Khada Jhin.”
The weight of those words was heavier than expected, but Jhin was far too excited to think about those implications at the moment. The appendages, practically tentacles of paint, pulled him up into a more reclining position. They curled over his body, hugging him in an embrace of Hwei’s magic. Like that, he was faced with that same body he’d explored every inch of five years ago, grew acquainted with, studied the details of.
His weight was a bit healthier now, albeit not considerably. His hip-bones still jutted out the same, and Jhin could remember the way his thumbs fit so perfectly in the hollow skin beyond the bone when he’d grab him there. The same freckle on Hwei’s inner thigh was still present, and he smiled loosely in affirmation when he saw a glimpse of it in the dark, highlighted by the paint. His own pants were removed, and all Hwei did was smile knowingly at the knife strapped to his thigh.
“The same garter as always. You were – always one for routine.”
Quickly, Hwei ridded himself of his clothes, leaving the both of them half-naked in tandem. His own hard cock, no longer obscured by the loose clothes that modestly covered his body, was already leaking precum from its tip. The paint tightened, and Jhin let out a soft wheeze, shivering from an intense wave of anticipation rocking his body.
“... Even now,” Jhin whispered, swallowing uncomfortably around the tension on his neck. “You’re such a tease without my lead – so slow.”
“Why won’t you just let me savor it?” Hwei argued childishly, still panting as he reached back to wrap his hand around Jhin’s dick once more. It was slick with precum, and Jhin felt the trembling of Hwei’s excitement through his wrist. Sparing a glance down, he watched the thinner man adjust his hips on top of Jhin’s cock, lining up his rim with the head. He winced at the sensation, tempted to buck his hips upward to chase that feeling, but he was held in place. All he could do was watch as a bystander to his own body, indulge in the feeling of it all.
If only he could have had a glimpse directly into Hwei’s mind.
Hwei’s free hand moved to Jhin’s chest, cupping some of his skin as he leaned forward again. Their foreheads pressed together, and Jhin could feel Hwei’s hot breath over his lips, all over his face. If he had to wait any longer, to be the recipient of any more of Hwei’s unnecessary procrastinating, he may have pleaded insanity, but, thankfully, he was finally given relief.
Any noise that Jhin may have let out when Hwei sunk his hips down onto his length was mute under Hwei’s pent-up cry. Any doubt about him fantasizing about him over the past five years was quelled in that moment when Hwei finally let his voice ring out, practically singing into the room and through the likely thin halls of the hotel. If he hadn’t known any better, he would have assumed Hwei came in that moment. Jhin’s neck strained as he choked back a shameless moan, missing that familiar feeling of Hwei’s body constricting around him he hadn’t known he missed so much.
With half-lidded eyes, Jhin looked ahead at the visionary pressed into his forehead. His eyes shone a mixture of pink and gold, and his jaw was left open as he shamelessly moaned, looking almost longingly into his eyes. He had no idea how he looked at that moment, but the image of Hwei distracted him too much to care. His pale, bony chest heaved up and down as he bounced his hips excitedly, and his hair hung free from its clasp at the back of his head, allowing his waves to hang free over his shoulders and frame his collarbone.
If Jhin had his way, Hwei would have been covered in marks. Although some scars were new, that skin of his was still so clear, so soft. His teeth ached to tear into it, to taste blood and paint him with a new color.
Maybe next time.
Hwei’s volume picked up in pace, and Jhin knew all-too-well of his tell-tale signs. The paint pressed into his body once more, forcing a gasp out from his throat, followed by a shallow groan. Not once had he ever been so vocal with Hwei, but the painter looked absolutely smitten by even just the sight of him, bound and exposed. Hwei’s body tightened around his cock, and he gargled out a swear through the tight appendage, beginning to see stars from the lack of air.
“... J-Jhin, I’m… I’m close,” Hwei murmured, but Jhin could barely hear him. Skin against skin, all of the soft noises, the feeling of Hwei’s hands exploring his body like some limited-time item, it was all too much.
In an act of a lack of self control, without much proper warning, Jhin let out a short, eager cry as he climaxed. The pressure at the base of his cock was too much to bear, and his vision went blank as his head was thrown back, emptying himself into Hwei once more. His chest was rising and falling in record pace, far more excited than the bliss he’d feel after any show he orchestrated. His ears rang, probably due to the lack of air, and he hadn’t even noticed the retreating paint until Jhin’s body fell cleanly back onto the floor of the hotel, unbound and left in a puddle of Hwei's media.
For several moments, the two of them sat in silence, mutually exhausted and left a mess. He hadn’t seen Hwei come, hadn’t been granted that gorgeous view of his golden irises when they’d shine bright, but he could feel the man’s semen on his chest. They both gasped in an attempt to collect their breathing, bodies moving far faster than their minds, and Jhin laid pathetically on the floor, covered in the man’s orgasm and paint.
Five years ago, he would have never dreamed of himself being in such a position, much less enjoying it as much as he did.
After what felt like an eternity, Jhin’s eyes opened to the sight of Hwei leaning over him, his hand gently caressing Jhin’s waist. His eyes, still a brilliant gold, looked through Jhin’s soul. There was no hatred, no disdain, no feigned innocence.
There was something different, something Jhin wanted to tear out and study for himself.
“... I … want to learn more about you.”