[Adult] A bit of pressure

[Mortimer Blake]

In the room of Mortimer Blake slept strange bedfellows. The night that Xiao had been supposed to stay in the apartment of the surgeon had turned into a night and then a day, spent in feverish slumber. Mort had lingered around the bed. He had watched over the body that lay wrapped in his sheets for longer than he cared to admit. Finally, he had wrangled himself into leaving the apartment, getting his guest something to eat and then leaving again, to take care of some urgent matters.

While he was away at the clinic and at the house of a client, he thought of the man in his bed. It was his intimate secret that caused him great pleasure and great anxiety. He had locked the doors when he left. Sitting at his writing desk in the clinic across the street, he glanced over to the building of his apartment. Mort had visited him around noon to see how his fever developed and found that it had gone down. The sutures at the shoulders did not look concerning. He had let him sleep and left reassured that he did not need to fear for his life. Surely, Xiao would get well. Nonetheless, Mort hoped that he would not be in a great hurry to leave.

He looked at the case notes in front of him, but memories of the last night seemed to block out his view. Despite the fear and the terror that were connected to holding him in his arms, there was also a great amount of other, more tender feelings. They pooled deep in his stomach; he felt a dull ache in his groin and he was hard under the fabric of his trousers. The man in his apartment was hidden from the prying eyes of society; he was the proof of Mort's sexual secret — there was no way to deny it anymore. And despite the fact that he had held himself back so far, he could not truthfully say that he had not thought about what he wanted to do to him. There had been many moments at his disposal last night and during the day that he had given to fantasy. Even before all of this had happened, he had fantasized about the man from the Eastern Market, often.

Mort closed his notebook. He was glad that the maid was already gone. He closed up the clinic and walked across the street, up the stairs to the apartment, and he let himself inside.
The man in his bed was awake and clear-eyed. He looked better, almost restored to his usual complexion. Mort took off his coat and then he drew closer.

"It is good to see you looking better," he said to Xiao. He extended a hand and it landed in the man's dark hair and wandered down to the back of his head and then to the nape of his neck. Mort stood over Xiao and looked down on him. He reached down and over his trousers he grabbed his own sex quite roughly; it was hard and its outline now starkly visible under the fabric — the part of himself that he used to love, and that he sometimes hated. "I was thinking about you, while I was away" Mort said. His other hand traced along Xiao's cheek and his heartbeat quickened. He let his thumb linger on his lower lip and put a bit of pressure there. At the same time he felt vaguely ashamed. Mort's resolve to act decent had endured exactly until the moment that he had seen that he no longer needed to worry for Xiao's health; not a minute longer. There was something harsh in that, jumbled and mixed up with his tender affection of last night in a way that felt strange and dizzying.

[Xiao Walker Yu]

Xiao found himself waking up several times throughout the morning, though never for long. The first was early in the morning, with hands on his shoulders and chills running down his spine. A fever, Mortimer had said, and he had said something else but really All Xiao could focus on was the strong set of his jaw and the deep blue of the surgeon’s eyes. It made him dizzy, or perhaps that was the nausea, but Xiao would be lying if he said he thought about it for much longer than a moment. So the morning was spent entangled in Mortimer’s sheets, head against the pillows as Xiao allowed himself to drift in and out of consciousness, while Mortimer worked across the street. He should probably be more stressed about his return to his quotidian life, but Alistair was an adult, could handle himself just fine, and Xiao found he had no trouble dragging his feet.

The fever had abated quite a bit, compared to the sticky flush that it had been in the early hours of the morning, enough that Xiao could sleep uninterrupted and wake with enough energy to function without wanting to fall into bed once more. He did want to stay in bed, but probably not for the reasons most doctors would prioritize. And the day passed, seemingly too slowly and too quickly all at once, eventually, Xiao had dragged himself out of bed to fumble with his coat pockets, pulling out one of his little notebooks he was fond of keeping on him, it was sparse, filled with little other than doodles and directions to a tea house he had wanted to try after speaking with some of the longshoremen a couple days ago, but Xiao found he could entertain himself by flipping through the pages, which were impressively left un-bloodied, a stark contrast to his coat and his now-ruined shirt. He wondered how long he could go keeping his injury hidden, Xiao decided he would hedge his bets, but he was nothing if not an exceptionally liar.

There was not much wandering done around the apartment, Xiao had taken to the bedroom quite well and was honestly, a little afraid of exploring the rest of Mortimer’s residence. In spite of everything that had happened, they had come back to each other, and it seemed like there were minimal chances of them parting ways in such a manner again. Xiao, possibly quite foolishly, did not want to risk what they had salvaged, at least not at the moment. Besides, did it really matter if Xiao discovered the proverbial closet full of skeletons or bone saws? He did not wish to find out.

So when the surgeon returned to his quarters, he found Xiao propped up in his bed, sheets wrapped haphazardly around his waist as he thumbed through a bare journal and pondering what he could fill the pages with. “It is good to see you safely returned,” Xiao hummed, tipping his head back ever-so-slightly into the other man’s palm. He was cold, the outside lingering on the surgeon’s skin even as he entered indoors, but Xiao found that he possessed a different sort of warmth, one preferred to the warmth of the sheets after a day’s worth of milling about in them. His tongue traced his lips, Xiao was not entirely sure what to think of this entire interaction, he knew the surgeon, or at least he thought he did, but did not know himself well enough to predict how it would go. He was more than familiar with uncertainty, but had still never managed to grow accustomed to the way it rippled under his skin, pulled at his gut and flickered over his shoulders.

“Were you, now?” Xiao drawled, dark eyes tracing up Mortimer’s face, then down the rest of his body. His cheeks felt flushed, but better than this morning. “Is that what you should be doing while you’re in the office, Mortimer?” Xiao prodded, hands bunching at the sheets by his sides. He wanted the surgeon closer to him, but was that really the best thing? He had spent the better part of an hour staring at his shoulder, at the ugly rips of his skin, it churned his stomach, but the way Mortimer looked at him, that aroused a whole different sensation.

“I feel better,” Xiao admitted, putting his hand on Mortimer’s outstretched arm. “All thanks to your care, I am certain.” And he was tugging Mortimer into a kiss, because as injured as he was, impatience was also something he had in spades. Briefly, the eyes of a very specific Duke flickered into his mind, and Xiao sought to silence any of these sorts of useless thoughts with the surgeon in his company.

[Mortimer Blake]

Instead of responding by bending down for a kiss, Mort let himself fall on the bed and said: "No, I should not be doing that; there is no question about it, Mr. Walker." Sitting on the bed, he put his hands on Xiao, he felt the skin of his cheeks and his neck and there were no clothes and no lapel by which he could pull him closer — not that he would handle him in this rough way, in his state. He put his arms around him, careful to stay well below the bandages of his shoulder, and he kissed him and it felt like he had waited for this entirely too long. And now it seemed, he had grown entirely too greedy — he wanted to pull him onto his lap, but hesitated and pulled back to look at him.

Perhaps Mort saw the flicker of uncertainty in the eyes of the other man, just as Mort had reached the point where he was ready to cross that last boundary — after watching Xiao, caring for him and holding him in his arms, he was beginning to feel truly attached to him. Perhaps he felt this more than Xiao might feel accustomed to Mort, since Xiao had spent much of this time in some state of unconsciousness, while the surgeon had been awake and with ample time to fixate on the man that fate had carried back to him just as he had thought to have turned away from what they could have had of each other.

Everything with Mort was about time — with time came certainty. The passing two days had carried him upwards to tenderness and affection and dropped him sharply into fear and anxiety and now it seemed as though he had reached the clarity that what he desired had stayed the same through all circumstances.

"It seems I have gone mad — keeping you here is madness. My thoughts and feelings should be considered by any proper person to be just as insane. I cannot begin to speak about them."

He let go of Xiao to take off his shoes and he opened the buttons of his waistcoat and then he got properly into the bed, so that he could lean against the footboard, opposite of Xiao. The sheets felt warm under the palms of his hands. He looked towards Xiao and said: "Although you look to be in much better health, I recommend you stay another night. If you care for my professional opinion," and then he smiled, finally. It was all difficult enough. Mort had always been of the opinion that if he could not stop maneuvering himself into potential calamities, he ought to brave them with good humor.

"Come to me, if you want," he said to Xiao and reached out for his hands.

[Xiao Walker Yu]

Mister Walker? Xiao thought faintly as the other man made himself comfortable beside him. Xiao let the thought go though, along with anything other than what was necessary in that moment. “And yet you do it anyway,” Xiao murmured with a cocked brow, propping him up on his elbows. He was hardly one to talk, spending his time naked in the sheets of a man he hardly knew. Xiao knew that it was reckless of him, and yet he was here with no grand urges to leave. And then Xiao was being kissed, and it was easier and obviously preferred to focus on Mortimer’s lips and his hands than anything else. The pain in his shoulder was more tolerable and the shock had definitely worn off, dulled into something manageable, but Xiao would be lying if he said the sight of the surgery hadn’t unnerved him. Xiao had lived a relatively privileged life, being out and about with the risk of being impaled was hardly something Xiao was required to expect while residing in his homeland. Cultural differences, Xiao would sum up if he wasn’t thinking about it too hard.

Xiao’s eyes drew up to look at Mortimer’s own through his lashes, deep and blue and dark with something Xiao couldn’t place. He made a noise in his throat, right hand curling into a fist and uncurling in the sheets, his left lay quite uselessly in his lap, as Xiao found that anything too intense was too unpleasant for Xiao to put himself through unnecessarily. An uncomfortable mixture of anxiety and longing churned in his gut, enough that Xiao wanted to do away with the sensation as quickly as possible. He blinked, sighing to himself under his breath. He could afford the distraction, it was laid out so plainly in front of him, it was only a pity that Mortimer happened to be the reason for the discomfort in the first place. Xiao did not like when things got complicated. “Perhaps a tad, though I can’t find it in me to fault you.” Xiao agreed, though as the surgeon stood up, Xiao could not be certain he was heard at all, for he could have been too quiet. Still, if Mortimer was to be considered mad, then so could Xiao, for allowing himself this. “Thankfully between the two of us, there seems to be no propre person in sight.” And he let a small laugh escape from under his breath, for as much as it should not be, it was true. Xiao knew he was no moral saint, and he figured that no proper surgeon let patients spend their days naked in his home.

Though what did he know? By all accounts, Alistair was quite the proper gentleman, and Xiao knew more than most about the man’s more private comportment. Though private was a subjective term. He played with the sheets between his fingers, eyeing the surgeon as he sat opposite from him, tongue swiping at his own lips. “One more night then, and I shall be gone in the morn.” He let his head tilt to the side, hair fell into his eyes, “I suspect you are trying to keep me here.” His tone was plain amusement, as if Xiao had not even considered it as a real possibility, but he had and he found he didn’t know how to feel about the prospect.

Xiao made a small noise of indignation, but there was barely any hesitancy as he got to his knees and brought himself over to the blond, fabric slipping from his body. It was slightly awkward, as were most things that typically required the use of two good arms, but he had managed to sit himself in the other man’s lap, knees on either side of his hips as Xiao’s good hand slipped itself up Mortimer’s torso to play with the collar of his shirt. “I do want,” Xiao muttered softly, examining the feeling the material of the surgeon’s trousers rubbing against the inside of his bare thighs, “but I sense you are more than aware of that, already.”

[Mortimer Blake]

From his side of the bed, Mort watched Xiao move closer to him. The sheets that wrapped around him fell away and revealed him entirely. "What if I did want to keep you?" asked Mort teasingly, and he half knew that this kind of talk made Xiao uneasy. He seemed a flighty thing, and ever since Mort had set his mind to having him, had only indulged his attentions tentatively. Although it had bothered him to be abandoned, had it not? "I cannot be the first man in whom you cause that desire." His gaze wandered across Xiao's body and he did not know yet how close his words were to the truth; that Xiao was already kept and provided a bed with someone else. He did not wait for him to answer, he was only testing him a little, after all. Xiao's weight settled on his lap. Mort looked up to him. "If you are gone by the morrow, I better make this count, hm?"

His hands came up and touched Xiao; they wandered over his thighs. Mort sat up to kiss him and tasted him, and his lips and teeth touched Xiao's ears and his neck. His naked body in front of him made him dizzy with possibility and at the same time afraid. This was not what he was used to. They had all the time in the world. No one was looking for them — this was not fooling around in strange places, figuring out who was going to submit, staggeringly drunk; the secretive fondling and stroking that was involved in those things would not suffice. And Xiao — Mort really thought him to be beautiful, like he would concede to a woman to possess pure beauty.

Mort looked into Xiao's eyes. There was great longing and also a great frustration in him. "I don't know what to do with you," he said. "I want to do everything to you."

His fingers dug into the skin where his hand rested on Xiao's hips. There was a stark difference in his own state of dress and the naked vulnerability of the lean, smooth body in front of him. He did not know what that body knew or wanted; it seemed an enigma.
Perhaps Xiao did not want to be asked that, wanted only to be acted upon. He would not be the only to harbor that kind of desire, but Mort did not want to guess. He needed to know what moved and drove him behind his still dark eyes; but he was not sure if he would be let in — or if not even the act of shutting him out would be concealed by being told what he might wish to hear.
"You've got to help me," he said to him and he moved his hands gently between Xiao's legs. His hands knew well how to handle a man, but keeping to the familiar would not satisfy him. And, as Xiao had told him, the hours until he left him were counted. If there would be another time, was ever uncertain.

[Xiao Walker Yu]

Xiao did not think of himself as the type to be kept, though he was prone to avoiding any terribly scrupulous examination in case it was to reveal just that. He caught the way Mortimer’s eyes moved and chose to settle on that instead, shifting his weight as he drew his good arm to rest on the other man’s shoulder. Carefully, he let his left one down to rest at his side on the bed. Out of the way, hopefully. “We have time,” Xiao murmured against his companion’s lips before savouring the taste of them. As the blond’s lips played across his body, Xiao’s thumb pressed into Mortimer’s collarbone, head tipping back. He recalled their first meeting, then the night at Ferrarway’s, before it was cut short, moments of fleeting touches and recklessness that had begun to pull at other aspects of Xiao’s life, against his better judgement. He recalled quite easily, the warmth of Mortimer’s smile and the way it drew him in, too easily for Xiao to ignore. The… dreams he had had after each encounter, those were remembered fairly swiftly as well, and Xiao was suddenly struck with the sensation that he probably would not mind it if Mortimer was to be entirely serious about his desire to keep him.

Of course, he was not nearly naïve enough to truly entertain such a thought, but it was a nice one nonetheless, one that would keep him company after he had worn the surgeon through. His hand slotted itself against Mortimer’s neck, tilting the man’s chin up to draw in the blue of his eyes. They had appeared in Xiao’s dreams, enough for them to attain an altered form, different from how they truly looked. Perhaps it was Xiao’s memory, or his imagination, or his own bitterness that had let their image dull in his mind, but now that they had been reunited, Xiao found he did not wish to forget them again.

“You do not need to know anything, at least for the moment,” Xiao said, finding that he was out of breath, it was not difficult to realise why. His hand slid from Mortimer’s chin to his shirt collar, fingers playing at the top button of the surgeon’s shirt. Xiao made a noise low in his throat, finding that his cheeks felt rather hot, and he really doubted it was a fever that was the culprit for the feeling, at least not entirely.

His head tipped forward and Xiao pressed his tongue to his teeth, sucking in a breath. He liked the way Mortimer looked at him, but could not entirely describe how that realisation made him feel. The hand on him was warm, a comfort, Xiao supposed, especially considering what he had gone through in the past few days. It would be a dreadful thing to explain to Alistair, eventually, and whether that was another factor in his delay was, in Xiao’s opinion, irrelevant, even if that was the case. “I’m here, I’m here.” He hummed, edging his thighs farther apart, “to help you, Mort.” Though he could not help the tease in his tone. “I would not have assumed you were one lacking in, ah experience.” Something about the ease of his words, the twinkle in his eye, though Xiao was not opposed to a bit of education. And he found it in him to grin, rather impish, if he were to catch a glimpse of himself through a reflection.

“And how do you want me to help, Mortimer?” Xiao drawled, though he found he was quite adept at slipping into any number of roles, and that he would gladly suit whatever role Mortimer wished he’d play. Because, as he was so reluctant to admit, he was attached to the man, even as they seemed to slip through each other’s fingers. “I’m of the mind that I’m very helpful, but I’m afraid I need you to be a tad more specific,” and with that, he rolled his hips, experimentally, into Mortimer’s hand. A language barrier, he might claim, but really, Xiao wanted to savour any part of the surgeon that he would grant. His hands, his eyes, his smile, his voice, because Xiao was nothing if not greedy, especially in matters of the flesh.