convergent boundaries

“No, no!” the man beneath Lan Zhan is shouting. He kicks his way toward the headboard—the man, not Lan Zhan, who is kneeling between his legs—and stretches his arms until his hands can fist around the wooden frame, knuckles going white. His sheets are mussed, half ripped to shreds, and filthy with come and lube. The stench is abominable and a pool of one or the other or a mix squelches beneath Lan Zhan’s knee as he looms over the man. He only knows him by his pseudonym and it’s not worth repeating even within the calm confines of his mind, where he’s too busy tracking the angles of each of the three cameras in the room to ensure his… endowments are displayed to best effect.

All the man has to do is lie there and take it as obnoxiously as possible. Lan Zhan can make that happen. His skin is already red and bruised—Lan Zhan draws the line at anything more intense, though he’s been asked to do more before—and his dick is flushed a deep red, leaking precome all over his abdomen as he shakes. Lan Zhan’s slapped him a few times, cheeks pink from the onslaught. Despite his cries, he’s hungry, ready, tired of Lan Zhan playing with him. He’s lucky. His niche and his appetites have dovetailed into a nice little career.

Though Lan Zhan’s tired, too, he’s not hungry, not for this anyway.

“No, please,” the man says again, voice trembling. He is a better actor than many Lan Zhan’s worked with. He sells it. Lan Zhan hates him for that, a little bit. “I’ll do anything. I’ll—”

Lan Zhan flexes his back. His muscles ripple and his spine cracks. He’s been out and exposed for an hour now, but it still feels good to move. The worst part of his condition is how much his back aches from it. The pain is a constant companion.

One of his appendages, blue and thick and wetly lubricated, curls around the man’s neck, squeezes lightly. Lan Zhan’s attention is pulled toward the man’s flank, where he’s surreptitiously flashing a thumbs up.

Fuck. Like Lan Zhan doesn’t know, like he hasn’t done this a million times, like they didn’t block and talk the scene to death, like, in the process, they hadn’t had to practice with one of the assistants watching to make sure his appendage looked sloppy enough for the camera, just to add a little insult to injury.

“Not again, I can’t… how can you—?”

The appendage shoves itself down the man’s throat. Another wraps around his dick, tugs viciously. A third squirms between his legs, but with the angles as they are, he doesn’t actually need to penetrate him again tonight.

Lan Zhan feels his sobs vibrate all the way down the appendage, right into his spine. The one upside to all this, he thinks, is that he’s never expected to speak and rarely has to dirty talk his partners in these spectacles. His job, as he’s been told, is to look ‘hot’ and ‘menacing.’ Hot has variable definitions; he’s not conceited enough to consider himself so, but it stands to reason he’s good-looking enough to keep getting these asinine offers. Menacing, he’s less sure about. He doesn’t feel like a menace. Intimidating, maybe, but perhaps others would know better. There’s probably a reason he keeps getting hired for these roles.

Whatever he’s capable of, it’s close enough that he can make demands, like payment upfront and masks that obscure his features.

He makes a mental wager with himself: if he gets this guy off in the next minute, he’ll jerk himself off hands-free later, good and slow. If he can get himself off for the camera in two minutes, he might fuck his own mouth instead.

The man’s gone in thirty seconds, spurting over his own abdomen in long, pearly streaks as he gags on the appendage.

Lan Zhan takes significantly longer than two minutes to jack off on his face. They’ll probably have to edit it to make it seem like he’s not half-wilted in his own palm right up until the last second, until he finally lets himself think about fucking himself instead.

What a pity.

As they’re cleaning up, Lan Zhan wipes each appendage down before allowing them to retract into their sheaths in his back, two on either side of his spine. When they’re tucked away, you wouldn’t even know he has them.

He’ll take a more thorough shower once he gets home. For now, this is enough even though he feels a little sticky.

“You know,” the man says, idle, as he lounges on his bed, “you could at least pretend like you’re interested in fucking people. You shoot porn for fuck’s sake. You can’t just let your tentacles do the work for you.”

“Can I not?” Though a throb works its way through him, he tamps down on the heat building from that thought. This is neither the time nor place. “I rather thought that was entirely the point.”

The man scoffs. He is most likely embarrassed that he doesn’t do it for Lan Zhan when it’s clear the reverse is very, very true. It wouldn’t be the first time. That’s not Lan Zhan’s fault and he refuses to be responsible for it. “Yeah, well—”

“The entire trope hinges on my lack of humanity,” he says, cold. “My utter disinterest in sexual satisfaction after I’ve taken yours from you is the appeal. Get rid of the bit where I jerk off on your face.”

“That’s not—”

“Read the comments when you post it.” He stands up, retrieves his clothing from the chair where he’s kept them carefully folded. “The fact that I find you unfuckable is irrelevant. It is, in fact, a feature. There’s a reason I’m good for business. You’ll see.”

Sometime much, much later:

[tentapussy6996] holy shit discard me like that hgj

[dick4man] he made fs cry and didn’t even get off on it, so brutal!!!

[yllz] have any of you considered showing some fucking respect?

[fucksleevefan] Do u show up in every comment section when someone posts a video w hgj or r we just unlucky 2nite @yllz?

[yllz] someone has to remind you assholes that there are people behind these things.

[fucksleevefan] Yea and i hope 1 of them takes me w his big fucking tentacles and doesn’t even gaf after

[yllz] you’re disgusting. that doesn’t even make sense.

[dick4man] he’s right tho??? 🤔 why are you here man?

[yllz] hgj is the hottest man on the planet, i should think that’s obvious

[fs] take it back to hgj’s stream, dude

[yllz] aww, i guess you’re okay, too, bud.

[fs] has blocked [yllz]

[fucksleevefan] That was so hot!!! How’d he manage 2 hold off 4 so long? R u going to partner w him again? @fs

[fs] NO!

Though Lan Zhan is tired by the time he gets home from shooting with fs—he still refuses to think of him by his full handle or anything else—he feels an itch growing between his shoulder blades as he showers. Sometimes, it settles on its own and sometimes, when he’s on edge and unsatisfied and maybe a little pissed off, sometimes, it only grows the longer he tries to put it off.

His schedule will be fucked if he streams tonight, but he’ll also never succeed at falling asleep if he doesn’t rid himself of this feeling.

The quickest way to get what he wants is to take it from an audience. His audience.

A psychiatrist might have a field day with him—poor tentacle boy gets off on getting watched when he can’t even go out in public with his back exposed for fear of public indecency citations, but refuses to let anyone into his life with whom he might share himself—but he’s never been interested in getting therapy, not even during those rough three months when he was sixteen and refused to wear a compression shirt to keep his appendages from springing free of their own accord because he’d been so sure he could control his hormones through sheer, pig-headed stubbornness.

This is the next best thing. Back when he was just getting out of school and establishing his career, it had been a godsend. No studios the size of a thumb or five hundred roommates for him while he eked out twelve hour days Monday through Friday.

He’s even managed to work his way up to affording a two-bedroom condo—still the size of a shoebox, but one with clearly demarcated rooms—that allows him the space to work and relax in separate locations. Not that he relaxes often, but theoretically. He’s read articles about the dangers of the hustle economy and work from home burnout anyway.

He’s wondered how that applies to someone like him or if it even applies at all.

Maybe it doesn’t. He does this for fun—sort of. Or because he needs to—sort of. And maybe a little bit because having fuck off cash is nice.

The room he uses is spotless and the blond wood floors he’s installed are practically iconic to a certain sort of person. There’s a large mat that sits butted up against a pristine white wall that he’s covered in a thick, plush white comforter, easy to wash and replace while retaining continuity and structure.

Occasionally, he’s considered changing things up, but he’s always rather liked the contrast of his body against all that white, the way shadows pop in the dips of the comforter and cast themselves across the wall. It’s been called sanitized before, sterile, by fans of rival streamers. It’s fit, they say, for someone like him. He has never known what this means because he feels no sterility in what he does to himself. Even when he works with others, sterile isn’t the word he’d use.

Their opinions, he’s found, get to him regardless. He wishes they didn’t. It might make him happier if their accusations didn’t matter.

He makes sure his camera is set appropriately, that he’s chosen acceptable music, that the toy and lube he picks is ready. A frisson of excitement ripples down his back, opening the sheathes down his spine. The appendages push themselves free, straining against the fabric of his shirt. This, the slide, the moment before they’re truly liberated, is always his favorite part. He has, on occasion, retracted and unsheathed them repeatedly until he came from that alone, grinding down against his bed while his hands fist his bedding.

Not for the stream, but.

As each piece of clothing is abandoned in the far corner of the room, he feels better and better; he doesn’t even bother folding them neatly.

Down to his underwear, he sets up his laptop near the edge of the mat, makes sure everything is correct before sending out a ping to let everyone subscribed know he’ll be going live in ten minutes. His appendages continue to writhe away in their sheathes, up and down, rhythmically hypnotic enough that he doesn’t realize he’s already hard until his hand skims over his lap as he reaches to make an adjustment to the stream window. As he retracts the appendages, he bites back a moan, regretful.

He ought to save these noises for the stream and he should definitely have saved the part where he gets hard for his viewers, too. What else are they paying them for? Not what he wants to give them.

He opens the room and watches as messages begin to fly through the chatbox.

The messages are of the usual variety: tentacle fuckers imagining what Lan Zhan would do to them bumping up against the people who are only interested in watching Lan Zhan fuck a dildo—not, he’s always annoyed to consider, his own tentacles, nobody wants those streams crossed, he’d learned that early—while being kind of snotty about it.

It is, all things considered, a good gig, his solo stuff. It gets him most of what he wants out of it and everyone comes away happy enough to keep returning to the stream. The pushy requests are annoying, but the rarity with which he gives in to them have driven his tips through the roof in the hopes he’ll somehow capitulate to their whims as long as he’s paid enough.

He never does. And he thinks that might be part of the appeal.

He sits upright and turns on the camera, gives his usual blunt spiel. He provides the link to, ah yes, fs’s page and informs them that they should keep an eye over there if they’re interested in such things.

One of his regulars crosses the chat, their name highlighted in red, an option only offered to ongoing subscribers. Only one has chosen that particular shade of red.

Lan Zhan’s not above admitting to himself that he feels a special warmth whenever they pop in, a strange camaraderie shared between them. yllz is one of his oldest subscribers, with him almost from the start, and has never been anything less than bizarrely kind in their comments. They’ve always tipped and shown respect and enthusiasm no matter what he’s done for the stream. Of all his subscribers, they’re the most loyal.

And over the last few weeks, they’ve been exceedingly generous, but unlike many of the other big tippers who form the bulk of this particular income stream, they’ve never even hinted that they want anything different than what they’ve been given.

He’s stopped expecting the other shoe to drop.

< yllz: hgj you’re so pretty today >

< yllz: i hope you enjoy yourself!!! >

This is accompanied by a tip in excess of his usual even when he’s fully ensconced in one of the filthier acts in his repertoire. He is not above admitting his ears heat from the gentle compliment and warm request.

“You’re very generous, yl,” he murmurs in a manner he hopes comes across as sultry rather than pathetic or coquettish. In the history of this stream, the words that follow have never fallen from his lips. He’s not sure why they spill from his mouth now. “Is there anything you might like to see today?”

The chat explodes with activity, strings of invective and emojis and all caps messages forming a nearly impossible to follow barrage. yllz doesn’t answer for long enough that Lan Zhan worries he’s scared them off. Some of his viewers are shy like that. He understands. Other people spam their own suggestions or beg yllz to pick things Lan Zhan would rather die than perform for an audience like this. The bot he uses to moderate the chat starts timing people out.

< yllz: you fuckers need to chill out istg you’re all disgusting >

< yllz: uh… hgj that’s very nice of you, but not necessary at all thank you tho 🙏 >

Lan Zhan considers this and decides the chat is going to be useless tonight anyway. If he’s going to show himself off, it might as well be to yllz alone. “I don’t mind.”

Again, the chat loses its collective mind. Again, Lan Zhan only has eyes for yllz’s response.

< yllz: then… could i see your appendages? >

< yllz: not like >

< yllz: not if you don’t want to, but >

< yllz: they’d have to feel good right? if they’re touching you? >

They do, but nobody thinks about such things. They definitely don’t ask for it. He should shut this down, especially with all the exhortations of ‘gross’ and ‘oh fuck off yllz you could have asked for anything’ and ‘are you fucking kidding me’ and ‘lol yllz a monsterfucker’ that won’t die down.

In his entire life, he’s never figured out why his audience will accept that his appendages exist, show no concern that his partnered work exists, and still act like using them is somehow weirder than sitting on a piece of silicone.

His heart throbs at the thought of exposing them now. Another part of him does, too. Only one of them does he ignore.

Lan Zhan receives a private PM request along with a second tip. There’s no time during the steam to deal with it and he feels a little bad about it, knowing it’s probably from yllz.

Maybe it’s something about how today’s gone or how shitty the chat is being or how stupidly, charmingly tame yllz’s request is or the mere fact that he wants to give the appendages a proper stretch, but he’s suddenly determined to give this to himself and to yllz. Offering a smirk, even rarer than many of the acts he does, he says, “I suppose you’ll find out soon, yl.”

He’s not sure what it is yllz’s after specifically—usually they always have an angle, a need they want fulfilled if only he can find it—but he’ll take yllz’s request as a genuinely open-ended one. At worst, he’ll have an unhappy customer and this stream will be a complete waste. Since it wasn’t planned anyway…

Touching himself is a broad request. What would yllz like?

He’s learned over the years that streams need to build to something, an arc. He’s intending to keep this one short though, just long enough to get what he wants from the audience and be done with it. An arc may be unnecessary. The bulk of his audience might well abandon him the minute the appendages come out and they’re not used to ravage someone else anyway.

Another PM notification flickers in the corner of the screen. He ignores it and closes out of the chat window.

When he grabs the bottle of lube, he nearly fumbles it, stomach tense as he mentally blocks out the stream and positions himself on his knees and leans back. Unlike some, he’s not very good at improvisation and he knows it, but he can make do when necessary. Seeing himself in the small window on his laptop, he squares his shoulders. His back aches from earlier, twinging when he lets the appendages loose again. They remain hidden for the time being, twining together in a wriggling, excited heap against his lower back. Even just that sensation, as muted as it is, feels good, all pulsing warmth and slowly building anticipation. If they don’t behave, this won’t last. Though he wants this to be short, it can’t be too short.

He prepares himself slowly, biting his lip to keep from sighing as his fingers work him open. This, frankly, isn’t necessary. If he really wanted to, he could take almost any of his toys without much prep, but it helps set the mood. His viewers like that it takes time to work himself up, will sometimes pretend he’s some virginal ingenue, role playing it in the chat.

There’s a pink flush climbing his neck and chest, visible for anyone and everyone to see, proving to anyone who’s paying attention that this is much different than usual. He certainly feels different, nervous and excited, like this is his first time streaming.

He hasn’t even taken off his underwear yet and there’s already a stain as he strains against the fabric.

One of the appendages curls against his spine and plucks at the waistband of the underwear. He twitches his shoulder to shake it off. Still, it works its way in, knowing Lan Zhan’s mind better than even Lan Zhan does. Though he could take full control of it, he allows it to tease, still hidden from the screen, wrapping around his fingers before drilling into him, quick and efficient. Would, he wonders, yllz enjoy knowing they’re semi-autonomous, that if he wanted to, he could let them do whatever they wanted with him as long as he doesn’t truly object to it?

Would they like knowing that when it comes to them and his own body, there is nothing he would object to?

Stretched and wet and ready, he can’t put off getting naked any longer. Here, he decides to let the appendage have what it wants and allows it to slide into frame, pressing against his side as he and it pushes his underwear down his thighs, fabric stretched taut as he works it beneath one knee and then the other.

Flinging it away, he reaches for the dildo, thinks only too late that he should have let the appendage do the honors.

Still nervous, he shifts until he’s sitting on it. The camera angle isn’t great for this—he really should have blocked this better or maybe he shouldn’t have offered, but it’s too late now, except that he could… he could maybe—well, yllz did mention wanting the appendages.

A second one slithers into frame, stretches toward the camera. It curls around the tripod and shifts the camera smoothly until Lan Zhan’s satisfied with it. While he’s at it, he adjusts the ring light until he’s happy with that, too. At least now there’s a suggestive shadow between his legs and his dick is appropriately lit. The lighting looks good on the appendage, too. It shimmers in shades of blue and silver and flickering hints of green. He wonders what it might be like if he learned to light for them specifically, whether he could draw any more beauty out of them with a better rig and whether yllz would care.

It’s not a thought he should be having now, not with a room full of viewers to satisfy nor with a dildo pressed against his prostate, but it’s an intriguing one all the same, imagining lighting himself for yllz’s edification. The chat had called them a monsterfucker, which is kind of rude and reductive, but the thought is a rather nice one.

One of his appendages agrees, circling his waist and reaching for his—

He grabs it and pulls, gasping lightly at the contact before settling it higher on his abdomen. It teases up his chest to pluck at the dark circle of his nipple, twisting playfully around the nub.

Another caresses his shoulder and the skin across his collar bone. It curls around his neck, loose, and gathers his hair into its grasp. Bright sparks of pain burst within him as it yanks, a perfect counterpoint to the heavy, slow-moving arousal he’s used to feeling when he does this.

The third appendage finds his other nipple, fondles it more roughly than the first, which continues to circle teasingly. It flicks again and again over the nub until he’s sure, if he looked down, it would be flushed and swollen.

The last draws itself up his throat, brushes at his chin and jaw. Lan Zhan’s not certain if this is pushing things too far or not, but by now, he’s gone too far to care. His dick aches and precome leaks down the length, gathering at the base. He’s always gotten wet, wetter than most—comes with the territory, some try to say, like it’s a foregone conclusion he’d be especially messy just because of what he has spilling out of his back—and he likes the shiver of warmth collecting along his inner thighs even if no one else can know. This has always been the price of forcing himself into a niche that doesn’t want him and he’s paid it because it’s always been worth it. But yllz’s request is showing him for what he really is and what he really wants.

At the end of the day, would it really be so bad if it was only yllz watching?

If he cares about his viewers, he’ll pull back, do what he normally does, what is expected of him and the brand he’s built for himself.

He decides, just this once, that his viewers can fuck themselves. Metaphorically, anyway, since he’s sure most of them fuck themselves literally to his videos on a frequent basis.

His thighs twitch, aching, as he rocks himself onto the dildo. Using his—as it’s been called on many occasions despite being almost entirely a product of his workout routines—‘alien flexibility’ to best advantage, he spreads his legs even further apart.

It hits just right within him and catches him on a hook of pleasure. Even if he squirmed, he couldn’t get away from it. His mouth falls open on a soundless gasp of breath. The last appendage, the most forward, the naughtiest, the one he maybe likes the best at this moment, takes the opportunity to slip between his lips. Slick and soft, it tastes like skin and clean, fresh sweat. Searching, it pulls at the inside of his cheek, slides across his tongue, flicks against the back of his throat, testing. He doesn’t have much practice blowing anything other than silicone, but he breathes through his nose when the appendage pulls back, relaxes his throat when it surges forward again. It finds a rhythm it—he—likes and nails it unerringly.

It’s bliss. To feel this full, experiencing so many sensations at once, is a gift. To lose himself in his own body for an audience so entirely is something he’s never had before. There are people seeing this. For the first time in a long while, he wants them to. Tears spring to his tightly closed eyes, catching in his eyelashes. With his head still pulled back by the appendage that’s wrapped in his hair, he hopes the camera can’t pick up on the one that slides down his temple to join the sweat gathering along his hairline, but if it does… if somehow it does, he hopes yllz enjoys it.

His hands fist in the bedding. He could end this in a second if he touched himself, but he’s not ready for it to stop. If he could, he’d stay here forever.

Pleasure builds and builds within him until he can feel even the brush of air across his skin as he moves. Each moment, stretched to the breaking point and further, drags on until he doesn’t know if he’s streamed for ten minutes or ten hours. All he can do is clench around the dildo, too close to keep working himself up and down its length, body oversensitive and hot. His skin is too tight to contain him and everything he is feeling, too. One wrong move and it’ll all fall to pieces.

The appendage in his mouth pushes deeper, seeking more. It’s stretched itself so far, greedy, that it pulls at its sheath and that alone, that small twinge along his back sends him cascading over the edge of this cliff he’s perched himself on. As he comes all over his own thighs and the bedding, he is caught by the laws of this small universe of his. He is nothing more nor less than frothing water tumbling into a pool, lost among the clear, deep lake of his release. He is lost to it, swept away by it.

The appendage in his mouth falls away, as do the other three. They lie limp, quiescent, against his back.

He is left to catch himself on his own palms.

They won’t be able to retract for a few minutes, still pulsing with blood. There’s no point trying to hide them as he knee walks back to the laptop.

Though lax with his release, shivery and overwhelmed, he can’t help a jolt of nerves as he checks the damage.

Fewer tips than normal. A long, long list of users who’ve not only been timed out, but banned until Lan Zhan manually okays them to come back. Another PM notification, most damning of all.

His heart throbs in his chest. He doesn’t know what to say or how to end the stream.

“Until next time,” he finally chokes out, barely refraining from wincing until after it’s ended.

He gives himself ten minutes to compose himself.

He opens the PM requests from yllz, most recent to least.

[18:01:45] yllz +2000

you were so beautiful hgj i hope it wasn’t terrible for you

[17:59:21] yllz +500

i’m gonna write a better bot script for you hgj that was ridiculous i’m so sorry!!! you deserve better than that. i should have known better i’m sorry :(

[17:38:53] yllz +500

hgj you don’t have to omg

Just between the tokens they spent on these three PMs, yllz has already covered the amount he lost by viewers leaving early. With the tips, he’s done better than all but a handful of streams. He scrubs his hand, tacky with lube, across his eyes.

Lan Zhan’s about to do one more thing for yllz that he’s never done before: respond to a PM that isn’t specifically regarding a potential business transaction. His hands shake as his fingers hover over the keyboard. He should clean up, but he fears he’ll never be able to respond if he doesn’t answer now. It feels important that he answer now.

[18:05:02] hgj

On the contrary, it was very enjoyable. I would like to thank you for your request.

You needn’t go through any trouble for me re: the bot, but I appreciate the thought as well.

He reads his response over, hates how it sounds, and knows he won’t be able to compose better. Before giving yllz a chance to respond—assuming they’re even still on the site—Lan Zhan closes his laptop and shuts down the lights and the camera. Now he really should clean up and put the bedding in the wash, but he flops back onto it instead, avoiding the generous wet spot and stares at the ceiling until he feels ready to move again.

It takes much longer than he might have liked, but eventually he’s able to move again. His mind is fuzzy and his thoughts are haphazard as he scrubs and washes and rinses the evidence of the night away. The appendages return to their sheaths. He misses them already, a silly thing to feel when they’ve been out so often today.

Something has changed, but he doesn’t know what or how or why.

Lan Zhan’s very discreetly palming an aspirin and downing half a bottle of water when his three o’clock appointment throws himself into the chair across from his desk at—he checks the clock, equally discreet—three-thirteen. From the doorway, one of the receptionists grimaces in apology before quietly closing the door behind her.

Three-thirteen. It’s not egregiously late, but it’s particularly annoying today when they’re the last thing between him and the end of his work week.

Very much pretending like he’s not surreptitiously checking his schedule to verify his client’s name, Lan Zhan says, “Good afternoon.”

Wei Ying is a whirlwind, all apologetic smiles and waving arms and long, tousled black hair that’s been pulled back into a bun. A few baby fine strands have escaped around his temple. Like his tardiness, these stray hairs contribute heavily to the aura of chaos surrounding him.

Forty-five minutes, he tells himself.

“I really am sorry!” He presses his hands together to further cement his apology. “I was a few minutes late getting to the bus. Stupid. Anyway! I know this appointment is only supposed to go until four, so I’ll be quick. I’m pretty good at that.”

To say Wei Ying is not at all what he might have expected from a new client is an understatement. He’s pretty sure most of the people he works with are unaware that public transportation is even an option and none of them would wear hoodies, not unless they cost an exorbitant amount of money. Unfortunately for Wei Ying, the small hole in the sleeve doesn’t seem deliberate and the pills under the arms betray how often it’s been worn. “You’re contributing to my salary,” he says. “You may use this time how you wish.”

“Ahaha, so I can just ramble about video games or something and you’d let me?”

“If that’s what you want to do.” He doesn’t grimace. He is very proud of himself for not grimacing. “Yes.”

“Well, you’re in luck. I hate video games.” Wei Ying flashes a charming smile. From the pocket of his hoodie, he retrieves a thumb drive, a sleek, silver thing that looks like a serious person might own it. If Lan Zhan were less charitable, he might have expected something sillier. “I also don’t really like wasting an entirely innocent party’s time, not that my brother would agree with that.” He offers an innocent salute. “You can trust me though.”

“It’s alright,” Lan Zhan assures him, pointedly not thinking about the time being wasted by this conversation. “Shall we begin?”

“Oh, sure!” He slides the thumb drive across the desk. “That’s everything you’ll need to get me where I’d like to go. I think. I did what I could.” His hands twitch as though he wants to take it back. “I’m not an expert. Obviously. That’s why I’m here.”

Lan Zhan picks it up gingerly and doesn’t allow his mouth to pull in a frown at the skin-warmed metal. He begins to plug it into his laptop and—

“Wait. You’re just going to trust it?” Wei Ying swats his hand away, drive clattering to the desk, and makes a grab for Lan Zhan’s laptop. “Aiyo, you should at least run a live OS.” This time, he fishes another thumb drive from his pocket and jams it into the USB slot.

“Didn’t you just ask me to trust you?” He takes the computer back just as a Linux environment pops up on the screen. This time, he can’t help the frown. “And why should I trust this drive over the other one?”

A faint flush dusts Wei Ying’s cheeks and his gaze immediately drops to the desk.

Against his better judgment, Lan Zhan softens. “Habit?”

Wei Ying favors him with a tremulous smile. His laugh is awkward, forced. “A little. In my line of work, a lot of people use underhanded tactics. Spyware, keyloggers. Sorry. I’m a little. Uh. Overzealous.”

Lan Zhan nods, plugging in Wei Ying’s drive next to the one Wei Yings already inserted. What opens up is the most beautifully organized series of spreadsheets he’s ever seen in his life. Meticulous and detailed, it’s even more thorough than the one Lan Zhan keeps for himself. It also conveys a baffling snapshot of a Silicon Valley tech bro who’s caught himself a pretty hefty payday. He navigates to a separate folder where digital copies of receipts are organized into monthly folders and types of expenses. Overzealous maybe doesn’t just apply to his inability to trust thumb drives.

It’s more than ninety-nine percent of his clients, the sort of people who consider themselves financially savvy, would be capable of or care to offer. This is what they tend to pay him for. He sends copies of each of the files to himself before handing that drive back. Encrypted, of course.

“Congratulations on your hard work, Mr. Wei,” he says, closing the Linux environment. “May I keep this?” he asks, gesturing toward the second thumb drive.

Wei Ying’s smile warms impossibly. “Are you planning on opening anybody else’s malicious thumb drives?”

“You never know.”

“Feel free,” Wei Ying says, magnanimous. “And, uh, Wei Ying is fine.”

“Alright.” With that done, he goes through the mental checklist of questions he usually lobbies at new clients. He discards the first three. “Where do you see yourself in five years, Wei Ying?”

Wei Ying’s fingers tug at the hem of his hoodie. “Existentially or…?”

A patient smile lifts the corners of Lan Zhan’s mouth. When he realizes it’s there, he smothers it. “Financially.”

Wei Ying scowls. “Uh, well, I guess I would make sure the people I care about are secure?”

A nice, polite response. Very expected. “And?”

“I’d like to be able to do my own thing if I want to. I don’t want to be compelled to work for anyone else anymore.”

Modest, too. “Go on.”

“Um. I suppose I’d like to see the rest of it put to good use?”

Here we go. “What do you consider good use?”

Wei Ying winces and pulls again at the sleeve of his hoodie. “Foundations, maybe? Or charity organizations? Redistributed via mutual aid funds or something? I don’t know. Whatever would do the most good for, like, other people. I could just spend my days doing nothing but supporting gofundmes, I guess?”

“This is why you came to me?”

“Obviously. Well, that and I’d like to not get audited to hell and back, but… yeah.”

“You’re telling me you want to get rid of two-hundred million dollars?”

“Yeah? I thought—” Wei Ying looks away, swallows. “Okay, this is a stupid fucking sob story, but I kind of built a company from the ground up? Cool work, cool team, if I’d trusted myself a little more, I could’ve kept it and really turned it into something, but I got, I don’t know, scared and let it be sold to Jin Media Group. Despite promising my uncle they wouldn’t, they took it apart. I knew it was going to happen, but I was hoping maybe… well, I’m now one of those assholes who made the internet a little worse for normal people just trying to get the news or talk to their friends. I don’t deserve the money. I don’t need that much of it. I want it gone. As long as the people who matter to me are comfortable… yeah. I’d like to make the world a little better with Jin Guangshan’s money.”

Lan Zhan looks at Wei Ying more closely now. Instead of a ragged hoodie and fidgeting hands, he sees a sweet, humble man who’s learned a hard lesson about the corporate world. Lan Zhan thinks he understands. He’s only on the periphery of the kind of money these people pull in, but they can be soulless, vicious. Sometimes, Lan Zhan feels soulless, too, abetting that viciousness.

There’s a particularly kissable mole under his lip and his skin is luminescent and his eyes seem kind and…

And he is nice. Lan Zhan’s not sure he knows very many nice people. There is his brother and Luo Qingyang maybe.

Wei Ying is beautiful, Lan Zhan realizes, as the world tilts on its axis.

“Very well,” Lan Zhan says, steady because he is good at appearing dependable even when the earth beneath his feet is shaking. “I can come up with a financial strategy for you.”

“You can?”

Lan Zhan nods. He’s reasonably certain his boss won’t appreciate it, but he’s here to do what the client wants, even if it is tanking their personal wealth. In fact, he’d be glad to.

“Oh. That’s… that’s good,” Wei Ying says. “I was a little worried. The last three people I met with tried to talk me out of it.”

“It’s not my job to talk you out of it.” Lan Zhan opens the spreadsheet again, begins reading through it more thoroughly. There are only a few small discrepancies that he can see, unlabeled expenses, small time when two-hundred million are at stake. “I’m here to get the job done.”

Wei Ying slumps back and sighs.

“Ah, that’s a relief.” He taps the arm rests and watches Lan Zhan and then glances at his phone. “Are we… done here?”

Lan Zhan’s attention flicks to the clock on his laptop. Only three-thirty. The ground has shifted beneath his feet in such little time. He would like to grasp more of it between his hands. That would be greedy.

And so he nods. This is everything he needs.

Wei Ying makes a small sound of what Lan Zhan refuses to believe is disappointment.

“We’ll need to have another meeting once I’ve had a chance to review, but you’ve already done most of the work for me that this appointment would have been for.”

Lan Zhan lifts his head. Wei Ying is looking quite forlorn, gaze falling somewhere on the desk, lost. Before meeting Wei Ying, he would have gladly taken this extra time to work solo. He, too, is regretting Wei Ying’s efficiency.

“We could discuss the preliminaries, if you’d like?”

He tells himself this is a perfectly efficient use of their time. In fact, they’ll get a great deal more done in future appointments if they continue working now. It makes sense.

Wei Ying pushes himself to the edge of his seat, stretching so he’s close enough to Lan Zhan’s laptop to see. Though Lan Zhan has a projector he typically uses, he doesn’t bother suggesting they do so. Sprawled halfway across Lan Zhan’s desk like this, Wei Ying seems more comfortable than he’d been the entire time. For a moment, Wei Ying’s eyes drop to his lips, a furrow forming between his eyebrows. Despite always wearing masks or making sure his face is out of frame during streams and shoots, there’s nothing to say someone might not guess. It’s part of the appeal. The threat of discovery keeps these things interesting. But Wei Ying’s expression smooths itself out before Lan Zhan’s heart can jump out of his chest. Of course he hasn’t been recognized. He’s never been recognized before.

A knock on the door draws Lan Zhan’s attention away from the graph he’s been building. Luo Qingyang pokes her head through, one eyebrow arched. “You’re running over, chief,” she says, a very slight teasing lilt in her voice. “Just thought I’d let you know.”

Wei Ying’s eyes widen as he pulls his phone from his pocket. Wei Ying is still close enough that he can see the time, too. Nearly five o’clock. They’ve spent the last twenty minutes or so not really doing anything other than rearranging pixels on a screen together. “Oh, hell. Lan Zhan! Why did you let me so shamelessly monopolize your time? That’s—”

“It’s fine,” Lan Zhan assures him, just as surprised as Wei Ying is by the news. His entire evening tips itself over like so many dominoes, one thing into the next as he realizes he’ll probably need to pick up take out for dinner with his brother.

They’ve never done takeout for dinner. Lan Huan will know something is amiss and because he is a romantic, he will make wildly speculatively guesses.

It’s too late to do anything else but deal with the inevitable concern he’ll show when Lan Zhan has to let him down.

“But—”

“Wei Ying, it’s fine. I don’t mind.”

He finds only after he’s said it that this is, in fact, the case. He doesn’t mind even slightly.

A smile stretches so broadly across Wei Ying’s mouth, rounding the high, angular jut of his cheeks into a cute, apple curve. “I’ll have to think of some way to make it up to you.”

Lan Zhan’s ears burn when his mind flashes on a very particular, very inappropriate method by which he might do so. “There’s no need.” Clearing his throat, he looks away. “You were my last appointment for the day. There is no harm done.”

He rubs his clammy palms down his trousers.

Only a little harm done, he clarifies mentally.

Because it’s not one of his stream nights—he categorically refuses to do so on nights Lan Huan comes over—and he’s already done an unplanned stream once this month anyway, he’s not willing to indulge again so soon. Despite the itch to perform that sits, a splinter’s worth of irritation, beneath his skin, he’s stronger than his wish to be seen.

The worst part, he thinks, is how much of his evening has been occupied by thoughts of Wei Ying. He might as well have been a second guest in his home. When Lan Huan had asked him about his day, he could not help but think of Wei Ying leaning close, the gentle, citrus scent of his shampoo tickling Lan Zhan’s nose, the sparkling brown of his eyes as he spoke, the warmth of his skin when their fingers accidentally brushed while they worked. When he’d asked about the delay, of course he couldn’t help but think of Wei Ying’s smile. He’d spent the whole meal wanting to tell Lan Huan all about him and perhaps ask if he knew him. After all, Lan Huan’s close with Nie Huaisang’s older brother and Nie Huaisang’s older brother knows almost as much gossip about Huaisang’s life as Huaisang knows about everyone else’s. Which means Nie Huaisang’s older brother knows everything, too. This is leaving aside also that Lan Huan is close to Meng Yao, who might know him or at least know of him for different reasons entirely. He doesn’t ask because he’s not that pathetic.

The point is this: the entire night, he’d been unable to stray far from thoughts of Wei Ying, and it’s no different as he readies for bed now, half hard as he brushes his teeth and washes his face, more than half as he drags the lightweight cotton pajama bottoms he prefers over his thighs.

His mind easily conjures an image of Wei Ying, every chaotic contradiction of traits that Lan Zhan had catalogued present as the image solidifies into something almost tangible.

His ability to fantasize an ideal partner for himself has always been one of his stronger suits. It’s probably what’s saved him all these years.

The burning heat of his arousal singes him down to his fingertips, leaving behind only his searing desire. The pajamas end up on the floor.

In all his life, he’s never fantasized about a client in either of his jobs, but it’s not hard to transpose Wei Ying into one of them. Maybe he’s wearing that stupid hoodie and nothing else, long legs exposed as he sits in the chair on the other side of the room. His legs would play in a wide, wanton spread. His dick, a mere shadow between his thighs, might catch under the fabric in a ridiculous little tease. That’s all he really needs, though: just a suggestion of desire. Knowing he is wanted is enough, that even from across the room, he is enticing. That’s enough.

He’d probably babble his way through a litany of imprecations or narrate, stream-of-consciousness style, about exactly how he feels while looking at Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan had discovered he likes that Wei Ying chatters incessantly. Here, he thinks he’d like it a good deal more.

“You look so beautiful, Lan Zhan,” he’d say, enthusiastic, as Lan Zhan touches himself. “I want to see you.”

Lan Zhan’s heels would—do—dig into his bed, legs stretching wide, spine arched. After so much practice, he knows exactly how to display himself to best effect. Along his back, the sheaths holding his appendages would ripple, but he’d refrain from letting them loose for just a little while longer. For Wei Ying, it would be okay to hold them back, just a delicious delay of satisfaction and not an attempt to conceal himself.

It wouldn’t be cowardice to hide them a little longer.

Wei Ying seems like the sort who would pout. “But Lan Zhan, I want to see all of you.”

Lan Zhan’s breath catches in his throat and his hips roll against nothing. Kicking against his bedding, he crawls up until his neck and shoulders are braced against his headboard, a little squishy and softly upholstered, allowing his appendages to free themselves easily into the wedge of space left behind.

Wei Ying leans forward, one hand dropping into his lap. A smile hooks itself into one corner of his mouth, not quite predatory, not quite hungry, bitten back by white, glinting teeth.

When he moves to wrap his hand around himself, precome already leaking down his length, one of the appendages slaps it away. Another pins his wrist to the bed. Though he tries to pull himself free, its hold is stronger than he is.

He swallows, dry. His heart skitters, animal wild, within the steel trap of his chest. The appendage replaces his hand, curling around him from root to tip, sliding around him in a slow, inexorable back-and-forth drag. He won’t last, not at all.

Another appendage tips his chin up, teases at his lower lip.

Before he can do more than look at Wei Ying, a mere specter of the real thing—but in this moment: his alone—he’s coming all over himself. Warmth spatters his throat. The appendage rubs him through the aftershocks and wrings a second orgasm from him as the mirage of Wei Ying strokes himself to completion, too, naked toes curling against the hardwood floor.

Lan Zhan gasps against the headboard in shock. He never comes that fast or that violently. Not when he’s rough with himself. Not during streams. Not even when he gives himself the one thing he wants most.

The fantasy fades. In its wake, his body pulses with adrenaline-bright awareness. Even the caress of the air over his skin feels like too much.

He swipes the come from his throat and abdomen, stares down at the viscous mess in his palm, stares down at it for a long, long time.

Oh, he thinks. Any minute he’s going to get out of this bed and clean up properly. The appendages drape themselves over his thighs and chest, patting him gently. He lets them stay because he cannot bear to put them away yet.

Oh, he thinks again, I’m fucked.

There are only a handful of PMs waiting for him when he logs on for the evening, but he categorically refuses to be disappointed by this fact when dealing with PMs has always been one of his least favorite activities. He also braces himself as he clicks onto the stats page, refusing to wince at what he sees there. He’s lost regular subscribers and hasn’t made up the difference with new ones. It might be expected, but it is disappointing.

Logically, this has nothing to do with him. How could it when this has always been and would always remain a business transaction?

Though he’d known this was the likely outcome, it still smarts. How can it not feel personal when it’s his body, his desires, his aesthetics being rejected?

Unlike his audience, Lan Zhan is bound to this particular outlet, his needs tangled up in it. To them, he’s disposal. To him, they’re a sometimes terrible, sometimes enjoyable necessity. If he didn’t need them, he wouldn’t be here. He’d have found himself another outlet. But he likes what he does, mostly. And he gets a good deal out of doing this that he can’t get anywhere else.

It doesn’t matter. yllz has been more than generous and he’s far, far better positioned financially now than he was a few years ago. He doesn’t need this or the attention it generates for him. He still has his day job and the partnered work if he wants it and both of those revenue streams pay him well. They keep him from having to go back to his uncle’s home, where he is always welcome, but always, always on edge, too. He never wanted to be a burden to his family, financial or otherwise. Unfortunately, he’d been born with these appendages, which had necessitated a childhood’s worth of doctors’ visits and an adolescence’s worth of petty rebellions when he’d realized they would never go away. As an adult, he can make his own way, freeing himself and them from that responsibility.

It had been trying at first, but he’s settled now. He is no burden.

The claustrophobic feeling fades a little. This has never been about you, he reminds himself.

His attention skims each PM. Not a single one is important enough to put off opening yllz’s even though yllz’s is the only one that makes him nervous.

[06:14:21] yllz +500

let it never be said i don’t follow through on my promises

Warning: This message includes (2) attachment(s) which may harm your computer. Please ensure you’re only downloading files from a trusted source.

The care of yllz’s gesture bores through a crack in Lan Zhan’s cool, composed exterior and catches him in the warm center of his heart, squeezing tight around it.

Lan Zhan reads through the documentation to distract himself from the sensation. Though he works with numbers and has a small amount of experience in this area from a few electives in college, it’s nothing compared to what yllz can do. They’ve written concise, easy to understand instructions, much better than he’s seen with other add-ons. Even the UI they’ve built to help Lan Zhan choose the appropriate settings isn’t the ugliest he’s ever worked with—sorry, the documentation says, like they knew when they wrote it that Lan Zhan might think about it, it’s been a while since i’ve done UI or UX design, but i think it’s probably okay.

Within fifteen minutes, he’s got it up and running, testing it in a private chat. It works beautifully. Somehow, he’s not in the least bit surprised.

If he’s thinking a little too hard about what he’d like to do for yllz to thank them, that’s his business alone.

In the handful of minutes before Wei Ying’s supposed to arrive, Lan Zhan reviews the plan he’s created for Wei Ying. It’s been a welcome challenge to research areas of finance he rarely has a chance to delve into these days. He can discuss every tax loophole in the book and offer sound advice for how to protect one’s investments, but finding the ideal portfolio of stocks from the most socially responsible companies, drawing up lists of nonprofits that would be of interest to his client, and coming up with strategies for him if he’d like to set up a foundation of his own—an idea he’d thought of rather late in the process as something Wei Ying might be interested, but still—are all outside of his usual purview.

Should Wei Ying need it, he’d gladly keep working with him. Few of his clients require his services more than once or twice every few years, but he reminds Lan Zhan that his skills and expertise can still be put to positive use.

There’s a knock on his door at three fifty-eight and a bright and bubbly Wei Ying plopping onto the chair. “See, Lan Zhan? I can be punctual.”

So Lan Zhan does see. As he passes over the file he’s prepared for Wei Ying, he wishes he couldn’t.

He’s also wearing a blazer, though beneath it is a thin, white t-shirt that is even more distracting than the hoodie had been, but for entirely different reasons: it exposes the fine jut of his collarbone and shows off the length of his throat in a way the hoodie had managed to obscure. This, Lan Zhan wishes he could unsee.

He clears his throat and allows himself merely to be pleased that he’ll get the full hour with Wei Ying to go over this; there is no other reason why he might be happy.

By the time he’s taken Wei Ying through the contents of the folder—Wei Ying is quiet, or mostly quiet, throughout, though he occasionally taps his pen rhythmically against his knee when he isn’t writing copious notes in the margins of each page—Lan Zhan’s throat is parched and he’s rather certain that he maybe shouldn’t want to keep working for Wei Ying at all.

Because Wei Ying hasn’t interrupted him once to complain about his assessment even though his clients always take issue with something he’s done or is suggesting. He’s nodded seriously along, concentration never breaking. And there’s a list of questions at the end that are both relevant and not merely a request for him to repeat content he’s already discussed. His goal here isn’t to skate as close to the line of what is legal or be as greedy as humanly possible. Wei Ying is a rare person for that.

Wei Ying seems to genuinely care and that, more than anything, is what pains Lan Zhan the most, turns what he feels for Wei Ying—entirely physical, entirely without any need for follow through—into something more delicate and gentle, something that’s so much harder to ignore.

He likes Wei Ying as a person and not just a set of fine collarbones and a deliciously biteable neck. Wanting to have sex with a person is easy. Wanting to spend time with them because you like them is very much not.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying tilts his head to the side a little and waves his hand in Lan Zhan’s line of sight.

Lan Zhan blinks, realizes Wei Ying’s speaking to him. “Hm?”

“I asked if it was alright if I do a bit of research on these companies myself before I commit?”

Feeling flushed, humiliated at his own lack of professionalism, Lan Zhan nods. “Of course.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust your judgment…”

“I would be disappointed if you did not do your own due diligence,” Lan Zhan assures him. His traitorous heart thumps a few times. If Wei Ying is going to do his own research, that will likely require another meeting, another excuse to see him.

“I, uh, might also have… already done some research,” Wei Ying admits awkwardly. “I don’t know if you’d be willing to tell me if these are any good, but…” He passes across the desk a sheet of scrawled names, smaller companies, maybe, companies Lan Zhan hasn’t heard of.

This will definitely require another meeting. Lan Zhan’s not above grabbing the possibility with both hands despite knowing better. “We can set something up after you’ve researched to your satisfaction. Then we can discuss both.”

“Okay, I’ll… yeah.” Wei Ying nods agreeably. “Yeah, that sounds good!”

“There is one thing I’d suggest,” Lan Zhan says. “Your unmarked expenses are pretty variable. You may want to think of a way to balance them from month to month so you’ll have a better idea of how much you need to keep for yourself. If that’s not possible, it’s not possible, of course, but regularity is key when you’re not looking to generate new income to offset costs.”

Wei Ying’s cheeks go red. “I’ll, uh, yeah. Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” He finds his palms suddenly very fascinating before he lifts his head. “Thanks for the tip.”

“No need to thank me.”

“No, but there—there is. Meng Yao said you’d probably be a good fit for me, but I wasn’t sure I believed him, you know?”

Lan Zhan fights to hide his alarm. “You’re friends with Meng Yao?”

“Ah, no. I mean… he’s fine, I guess? If Jin Media Group ever gets taken down, it’ll be because of him, so I can’t root against him, you know? But I wouldn’t call us friends.”

Lan Zhan’s lips thin.

“He spoke well of your brother when he told me about you,” Wei Ying says, awkward. “I think he’s probably the only person safe from Meng Yao’s, ah, particular brand of creativity for whatever that’s worth.”

“And you’re not concerned he’s led you astray?”

Wei Ying looks Lan Zhan up and down. “Nah. Besides, Nie Huaisang also vouched for you. I figure if the both of them can agree about anything, it’s probably legit.”

“You’re acquainted with Nie Huaisang, too?” Lan Zhan says. How many people do they both know? And how much sooner could they have gotten to know one another? Why didn’t they know one another already?

He really should have asked his brother.

“If you’re also wondering why we’ve never met before, I’ve determined it’s probably because I, uh… basically spent my prime years working in a basement and then I split my time between San Francisco and Beijing. Two-hundred million dollars doesn’t materialize from nothing, you know. Not unless you’re Jin Guangshan.”

If they had met through any other channel, what might it have been like?

“Anyway, uh. When Huaisang was telling me about you, he talked about how you like to go to museums and very specifically told me what your favorite restaurant is.” He scrubs at the back of his neck and winces. “Actually, it was kind of weird, but anyway. I thought I would…” He plucks an envelope from the inside of his blazer and passes it across the desk. From the way he stretches, Lan Zhan could see inside the collar of his t-shirt. Lan Zhan doesn’t look. “It’s just a few tickets to an upcoming exhibit he said you expressed interest in and a confirmation for dinner, no set limit, no expiration.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

Wei Ying’s hand flaps carelessly through the air. “I know it’s not, but I wanted to. You’ve helped me a lot. Use them or don’t. As long as I do what my conscience dictates, it won’t hurt my feelings if you follow yours.”

Reluctantly, he accepts the tokens, tucking the envelope away in his desk. That act alone lights up Wei Ying’s features in ways that are far too appealing. It’s a kind gesture for all that Lan Zhan doesn’t think he’ll make use of them. He has nobody to go with after all and he cannot ask the one person he might want to take. Still, Wei Ying’s joy is infectious. He can’t help but feel a little happier, too.

What a strange man, he thinks, rather too fond.

“Anyway,” Wei Ying says, cheerful. “Will you look at that? We finished up early and everything. I wish everyone I worked with was as efficient as you. I’d get a lot more done.”

“Mn,” he says agreeably, though he thinks the opposite. He would very much prefer, just this once, to be less than efficient, to waste the entirety of their allotted hour just so he has the excuse to let it run long.

But if Wei Ying must do what his conscience dictates, so should Lan Zhan. It wouldn’t be right to invent a reason to keep Wei Ying here. “We should set our next appointment.”

“This time and day is good for me.”

Lan Zhan searches his schedule and grimaces. Another three weeks until he can see Wei Ying again.

“If you have any questions in the meantime, you’re more than welcome to email me.” Lan Zhan almost opens his mouth to offer his phone number, but he stays that impulse at the last moment. Though other clients have tried to browbeat him into giving it to them to no avail, it would be crossing some kind of line if he did, even if only in his own heart. “I check it frequently and respond as quickly as possible.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan, that’s nice of you,” Wei Ying says as he pushes himself to his feet. “If I have any, I’m sure it can wait until we see one another again.”

“Of course,” Lan Zhan says tightly, missing agreeable and pleasant by a mile. It isn’t that he wants an email from Wei Ying, but Wei Ying has quite neatly severed one line of communication. “Let me walk you out.”

“Such a gentleman, too.”

At the suite’s entrance, Wei Ying smiles gently. “Thanks, Lan Zhan. I’m not sure what I would have done if I had to walk all this way alone.”

Wei Ying is a tease.

But though Lan Zhan wants to follow Wei Ying down this trail of superficially flirtatious bread crumbs, he knows better.

Still, if Lan Zhan had cause to accompany Wei Ying to the elevator, to bring him downstairs, to maybe invite him for drinks at the uptight bar down the street with its overpriced house-made non-alcoholic sodas, he would have.

From halfway down the hallway, Wei Ying turns and waves, expression showing surprise. And why wouldn’t it? There’s no reason for Lan Zhan to still be standing here. He waves back and pretends to check his watch and then firmly tells himself to go back to his office.

Wei Ying is gone when he looks up again. For the first time in over an hour, Lan Zhan relaxes fully and with that relaxation comes the aching sensation of his appendages squirming against their sheathes, desperate to free themselves.

Though Lan Zhan has already friended yllz, thus ending the need for them to pay to send PMs, there’s still 500 tokens attached to the next one he receives.

[18:46:57] yllz +500

i hope the new bot is working well for you. it seems like it is.

i was also wondering and please don’t feel obligated or anything it’s really not my business and i won’t be upset if you tell me to fuck off but since i started this i feel like i should take some responsibility

Lan Zhan frowns, uncertain whether he likes where this is going. If it were anyone else, he’d stop reading. He is, after all, nobody’s responsibility.

there was a video you did way back that you wound up setting to private. it was my favorite.

There is, in fact, only one video Lan Zhan has ever set to private. And it’s years old now. Until yllz’s request, it had been the one and only time he’d used his appendages on himself for a recording. It hadn’t gone well. Of course, back then he’d had a smaller audience, which had made it worse in a lot of ways, and people of similar endowment weren’t quite so active in the streaming scene. It just wasn’t very routine, what he’d decided to do. He understands now why it tanked the way it did. It still hurts a little when he lets himself think about it.

So he normally doesn’t. He tries not to begrudge yllz for dredging up ancient history.

He keeps reading the PM. It’s so long that it nearly hits the character limit.

and it wasn’t even because of your tentacles even though your chat keeps calling me a monsterfucker now. they’re beautiful of course. but it seems like you’re happier when you use them like this? maybe i’m overstepping or maybe i’m imagining it. if i am i’m sorry and please ignore this. i’ll stop PMing you about it i promise.

The longer he reads, the more uncertain he gets. yllz’s nervousness is spilling so awkwardly across the screen that it’s starting to make Lan Zhan nervous, too. Lan Zhan doesn’t want to lose them as a viewer, but he also knows how these things go and just how quickly lines can be crossed.

i know it’s unpopular among your usual viewers for reasons i find baffling, but if i were willing to pay, would you be willing to use them more often? i can offer whatever you normally make plus any extra for the inconvenience and potential loss of income.

Lan Zhan stares at the request, torn. This should be considered presumptuous at best. It is presumptuous and it doesn’t feel right to put that much financial burden on one viewer, but the freedom it would allow…

It’s thrilling to consider that he might, with very little penalty, explore what building an audience around his desires rather than theirs might be like.

It thrills him, too, that yllz likes him that much. Likes all of him that much. It’s not even about the money, but the earnest way they’d written their request to him, how they’d hung on for so long to a recording that’s several years out of date and hasn’t seen the light of day in nearly that long.

He can’t deny the appeal. Gaining the approval of one member of the audience is easier than gaining everyone’s. And performing to one person’s specifications might be easier than trying to make everyone happy. He already knows the sort of things yllz seems to favor and they align with Lan Zhan’s preferences. There’s no downside here.

Though he’s never done anything like this before, in the end, it’s not so hard to say yes.

Lan Zhan creates a list of acts he’s willing to perform for yllz, adding and discarding and adding items anew as he litigates each and every one in vivid detail within his mind. It’s a process, ongoing, and he isn’t even sure if this is the right thing to do. In truth, there is very little he thinks he would not do for yllz that would not also bring him satisfaction. He can’t bring himself to say that though. Having boundaries with one’s clients is a good thing.

All he knows is he’s never woken from so many arousal-thick dreams as he has while he’s compiling the damned thing. Already aching, he finds himself grinding mindlessly into the mattress more often than not. His appendages tuck themselves into all sorts of unusual places while he’s sleeping, wrapped around his arms all the way down to his wrists or curled around his throat or resting between his legs. Normally, he doesn’t wake with them free at all. Concentrating at work becomes so difficult that he takes a half day midway through the week and tells himself he’ll finish it with the hours he’s stolen from his real job. Instead, he goes home and jerks off twice and doesn’t make a bit of progress.

By the time it’s finalized, this list of his, this offering, his back hurts constantly, pressure pulsing beneath the surface of his skin. Only when he lets the appendages free does it ease. He tries not to let them.

Once he sends it, he half expects yllz to come back with some sort of counter offer, wheedling requests for something more degrading to be added, maybe a plea for a private performance, but the next PM he receives is a poorly resized, and highly pixelated .jpg of someone blushing through their hands, a thumbs up emoji, and an earnest plea that he couldn’t be made to choose, hgj’s vision for the stream is sacrosanct, that isn’t what this is about, and please, I’ve already made my request, I can’t be greedy holy shit, who’s that shameless.

He refuses to be disappointed and pretends doesn’t feel a squirming sense of shame, like he’s overstepped in some fundamental way. He’s never solicited advice from others in this industry and he doesn’t intend to start now, but he thinks maybe he should have.

Another PM, two minutes after the first:

[15:28:01] yllz +500

its a beautiful list hgj!!! i mightve forgotten to mention that part. wow! (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)

At the same time, yllz sends almost eight-thousand dollars’ worth of tokens. Such a large sum is required to be cleared through the site, but that won’t take long.

It’s the three months agreed plus…

[15:30:23] hgj

Did you calculate the amount I’ll have to pay in taxes?

[15:35:09] yllz +500

i did some basic arithmetic yes. should cover the site’s cut too. i hope. financial planning is important you know

[15:37:59] hgj

You don’t have to keep paying for PMs, *you know*.

[15:38:41] yllz +1

maybe i like it

[15:39:01] yllz +1

maybe i love it

[15:39:31] yllz +1

i’m sure i could be a good sugar daddy

Lan Zhan stares at the PM and tries to come up with a good response. He isn’t into sugaring, doesn’t really think it’s for him even though this isn’t all that far off. He imagines yllz sending elaborate gifts and…

He shakes his head.

That isn’t a part of the agreement. The cleanliness of money for content is the point and he’s never wanted to go through more than the minimum amount of trouble for this gig. As it is, it feels distant, unobtrusive. Anything else feels too personal, requires ritual and pomp. He’d have to figure out what to do with the gifts. They’d have to properly discuss it. He’d…

He’s getting ahead of himself.

[15:42:22] yllz +500

okay that was weird sorry

i don’t want to be anyone’s daddy, not even a sweet one

unless you want that i don’t know

He imagines it, turns over the possibility in his mind. Ultimately, he discards it. If yllz finds no particular gratification in that type of relationship, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Except.

Maybe he can make one exception that isn’t really an exception.

[15:45:45] hgj

If there’s anything you’d like me to wear specifically, you could send me a link. I can buy it with all of these tokens you keep wasting on a sure bet.

Lan Zhan’s heart thrums as he waits for a reply. Surely that’s not a step too far. yllz must have some aesthetic preferences.

[16:21:13] yllz +1

you drive a hard bargain hgj

Lan Zhan hovers over the link and reads the url, thinks briefly of Wei Ying and the way he’d slapped the thumb drive out of his hand at their first meeting and the subsequent rant about computer safety. Unable to fully smother a smile, he clicks on it.

He’s brought to a site that doesn’t set his antivirus and firewall on fire, which shows a garter belt and panty set in a dusty blue color, subdued. It’s mostly lace and scraps of elastic wrapped around the model’s torso and thighs and Lan Zhan’s dick fills at the thought of putting this on for yllz. His appendages could work themselves beautifully beneath the various straps, snapping them against his skin until it’s red, welting from the onslaught. Shivering at the thought, he presses his palm to his lap, skin hot through the fabric of his lounge pants, and wonders why he’s never thought of such a thing for himself. Then again, why would it matter? The vast majority of the appeal is in letting the appendages play with such elaborate apparel. There’s no reason he should have worn it before.

[16:25:29] hgj

I’ll drive a harder one for you soon.

Thank you for the gift, yllz.

He’s not sure where this has come from, this desire to taunt yllz, but he likes it, likes the person he is when he’s interacting with yllz, confident and assured in his attractiveness. It’s how he should feel most of the time, he thinks, and really? That’s all he wants. The page tells him that it can take from two to three months for them to arrive since they’ll be custom. That’s fine with him. He can wait. He’s always been very good at waiting.

After yllz demurs about the list, he decides it’s better this way. It’ll be easier to test the waters, changing one piece of his brand—what a terrible word, brand, like this is somehow both less and more than what he wants to do—at a time to see what happens. He can control the narrative without worrying about what yllz will find gratifying.

He adjusts the camera and the light, verifies that everything looks good on screen, and makes sure everything is correctly set on the laptop. He goes down his mental checklist and stalls out when he realizes he doesn’t have any of his usual accoutrements laid out. No dildos, no extra lubrication. It’s just him for the first time in years.

His stomach twists at the thought.

He secures the requisite mask over his eyes, settling it across the bridge of his nose. It comforts him a little to look at the preview of the stream and see someone more anonymous staring back at him.

He goes through the normal routine with his regulars and is perhaps a little more forceful and cool with them than usual, only intending to delay long enough to ensure yllz’s arrival before he begins. It’s as though they know something’s changed irrevocably and now they’re lashing out. For whatever reason, his clipped, reprimanding tone only riles them further.

“I didn’t expect to tame any brats today,” he says. The chat bursts with activity and yllz’s bot times a few people out for especially crude language. A surprising number of tips come in off of that comment. “None of you pay enough for that.” Even more spill in, daring him to try. If he cared a little more about them, perhaps he would. He isn’t opposed.

In truth, one of them does pay enough. It might be fun if it was them.

Speak of the devil.

< yllz has entered the chat >
< yllz: tsk tsk can’t any of you behave properly >
< yllz: what did i miss >

Lan Zhan bites back a smile. It wouldn’t do for that to be shown on stream. No one would take him seriously ever again.

The chat swells with fresh comments, boos and complaints about yllz being an unpleasant killjoy. A few of them send various gifs and stickers of cranky looking cartoon characters or people throwing things. yllz doesn’t react to any of it. Lan Zhan imagines them lounging, smug, in a comfortable chair that might or might not look like the one in Lan Zhan’s bedroom as they incite chaos.

He’d like to pretend he’s not nervous, but it would be entirely too easy to focus on what’s happening in the chat instead of what he’s meant to do here. Despite the fact that yllz has said they like his appendages, his self-assurance wavers. Why couldn’t they have just chosen something from the list? It would be more clear cut.

He tells himself they’ll like this, too, even if it’s very tame by many people’s standards.

He sinks into the feeling of showing himself to yllz, imagines a quick, bright smile and broad enthusiasm and naughty words spoken directly into his ear. They’d perhaps tell him how good he is, how nice he looks splayed across the bedding.

They’d jerk off to him.

The appendages come out more quickly this time, even more enthusiastic than last time. His nerves burn away quickly, too, once the worst is over and they’re out. He has a three-month buffer, enough fuck you money that he can do this without a single concern. It’s been cleared with his bank and partitioned out appropriately, safe. Even stretching it would leave him perfectly comfortable for months longer than that with the paychecks from his day job, too. There is quite literally no downside here.

He’s blocked this stream out in his mind, had even filmed a bit of it to see what it would look like. He’d watched the video several times since making it, enamored of what he’d seen. At the time, he’d considered sharing it with yllz. Given he hadn’t worn a mask when he’d shot it, that would be a bad idea. Reluctantly, he’d deleted it. The point is: he’s ready.

He arranges himself so that two of the appendages can drape themselves over his shoulders and the other two around his hips and down between his legs. From this angle, all he can see of the stream’s view is his body, splayed, the appendages dark and flushed against his skin, eagerly sweeping across his chest and thighs. Thinking about it, he knows he can play this all up for the audience, tease and provoke in breathless huffs, strain upward for a more dynamic look. That’s the whole point, making this appeal, but he thinks somehow that yllz might not want that and since yllz’s the one paying for him, he doesn’t have to try to make everyone else like him.

He bites his lip and makes an executive decision to let himself have this instead. yllz hadn’t complimented him on his ability to block a stream. They’d shown appreciation for how into it he’d looked last time.

It’s more difficult to give himself permission than he expects, but he gives it to himself anyway.

The artifice of the situation has always been part of the appeal, the excitement for him. He does things to himself that he likes, of course, but it’s always with an eye toward what other people will like, too, what will garner an aesthetic and erotic appreciation for him and his body. yllz’s preferences throw a very sexy wrench into that, but it’s still a wrench. The style of artifice is different, if artifice is even the right word for it.

The appendages stroke down his sides and flanks, not so different from what he’d done last time, curling and twisting on his chest, teasing at his nipples and throat and between his legs, rubbing against the sensitive skin there. His dick is already hard, leaking against his abdomen, foreskin shiny with precome. One of the appendages strokes lightly down the length.

Lan Zhan lets his head fall back, keenly aware of the long stretch of his own throat, and closes his eyes beneath the mask. He pretends… pretends that Wei Ying is in the room with him, pretends that it’s Wei Ying he’s performing for, who wants to see all of him the way he sees himself. It isn’t something he’s conscious of doing until it’s too late, but it lets him forget that this is a stream, so perhaps it’s fine to let himself have this.

The appendage curls around the base of his dick, squeezing and tugging up and down. Its touch is still too dry, but Lan Zhan likes it that way, likes the drag of it. Soon enough he will be slick. The glide will be easy then. Until then, he’ll enjoy the roughness of it.

“hanguangjun,” Wei Ying is saying, voice soft and intimate in his ear, a shimmering mirage of sound. “You’re so beautiful. Look at you.”

Lan Zhan can’t look, because the fantasy is too good and the minute he opens his eyes—ring light too bright, laptop spilling motion in his peripheral vision—it will shatter. He will be left with nothing except the knowledge that he cannot have Wei Ying in this way.

For a moment, the fantasy shatters anyway and Wei Ying is replaced with nothingness, a void that could be yllz, kindly, but faceless. It would be better to think of yllz. It is their satisfaction he’s chasing after all.

Slowly, though he continues to think about yllz, yllz who likes him well enough to fund him for three months with an option for more, yllz who is sweet and a little awkward. It becomes easier to think of yllz. Slowly, their features take on a shape not unlike Wei Ying’s.

He’s too caught up now to care what yllz looks like.

Their features are a little sharper perhaps to match the abrasiveness with which they treat the chat and comment sections of other people’s streams and sites, but he still recognizes Wei Ying in them. yllz is sly and attentive, much like Wei Ying. When Lan Zhan’s appendage strokes him for yllz’s pleasure, he nods in approval, speaks low, sweet words. “You’re so good, Lan Zhan,” they say, with Wei Ying’s cadence. “Look at you. You’re beautiful.”

Beautiful, again.

yllz doesn’t know his name, but this fantasy doesn’t shatter. It holds.

Lan Zhan pushes up into the circle of the appendage. It wraps around him a few more times until he can fuck into the soft flesh of it, warm and pulsing around him as it squeezes and twists. It’s so different from any other feeling, a little like fucking and being fucked at the same time. Neither the touch of his own hand nor pushing into a willing body compares.

A small sound escapes his lips before he can bite down on it. He hopes the microphone picked up on it—and hopes at the very same time that it didn’t. This should be for yllz alone, the noises he makes, but because of how this works, there can’t be more between them than this. He’s not willing to take this to a private stream. Too many lines might be crossed there.

All he can give is this: these streams, this time.

He stops trying to stifle the noises, thrusts up and up as the appendage works him. Maddeningly, it knows how to keep him close to the edge without pushing him over it. As more precome beads and drips down his length, his appendage is coated, making thick, slick sounds as it rubs up and down the shaft. He feels messy and unhinged and if the appendage doesn’t let him—

Pressing his palms into the bedding, he pushes up, but the appendage goes with him and barely offers any resistance.

He sobs in frustration, grinding up. He might as well hump air. The appendage only budges when it wants to budge. One stroke over the head brings him so close that time seems to stop. It waits and waits and waits for him to calm himself.

Sweat drips down his cheek.

“Please.” He’d have to take conscious control of it if he truly wanted it to do as he wishes and he doesn’t want that, wants only to be at the mercy of something, someone, wants all the things that tend to be barred from him for ridiculous reasons—because of other people’s preconceived notions and his own fears and…

Would yllz give him what he wants?

The yllz in his mind smirks, leans forward, offers a bright, Wei Ying-like smile. “Would you like to find out?” they ask.

Lan Zhan nods, then shakes his head, gasps and drags in breath after ragged breath. It’s too much and not enough. It’s too much and he—

He cannot stop himself from flipping over, splaying himself as he grinds against the bedding, muffling his sobs in the pillow that’s usually only there for show. It hurts, how hard he is, and how gently cruel the appendage knows how to be. It humiliates him a little to be so out of control. For an audience, he knows how to feign it well, let’s himself get into it, sure. But it’s never been like this, has never felt as real as this. If they wanted to, his appendages could stop him. None of them do.

The appendage twists in the opposite direction so suddenly that it punches the breath out of him.

He spills all over himself and the bedding and slumps forward, boneless. His face is hot and tears cling to his lashes. He can’t even manage to berate himself for coming off-screen as he slumps there. Through the haze of his orgasm, arms shaky, he reaches down and scoops up his release, still warm, and wipes it off on his stomach before turning back over. He is still himself, still aware.

The chat moves so quickly that even once he’s crawled close enough to the laptop to see what they’re saying, he can’t read it. Still breathing hard, he does a search for yllz’s handle and blushes when he reads the many praises he’s left throughout the stream.

< yllz: good boy >

He pushes his hair, sweaty, out of his face. Looking directly into the camera, mask only slightly askew, he nods, and ends the stream. It is abrupt, but.

He’s already hardening again and cannot bring himself to let it be for the stream.

Jerking himself off quickly and mercilessly, he wonders what it would be like if Wei Ying said something like that to him instead.

“Lan Zhan!”

The sound of his name startles him from the reverie he’s fallen into as he waits for his turn to order. At this time of the morning, it’s not unusual to have to line up, but nobody’s ever shouted his name before he’s even paid for his drink. Not that ever he steps far enough away from the bar for the barista to need to yell, but that’s the only probable explanation for why such a thing should happen in such a place as this.

Wei Ying’s presence, of course, upsets the usual probabilities. He would absolutely raise his voice, chirpy and delighted no matter the time of day.

“Lan Zhan, eyes open! Back here!” Wei Ying is grinning brilliantly when Lan Zhan turns around. It could outshine the sun if it wanted to, that smile, even while surrounded by the gloomy faces of the annoyed customers standing between them. “There you are!”

Rather than risk angering said customers, Lan Zhan abandons his place in line and takes up next to Wei Ying, who only smiles wider, cheeks rounding with joy. He’s dressed in joggers and a t-shirt despite the chill working its way into the shop every time the door opens. Seeing his goose-pimpled skin makes Lan Zhan want to give him his blazer. It wouldn’t be too small, he thinks, even if it only sat around his shoulders.

“I didn’t know you came here, too,” Wei Ying says, lowering his voice now that Lan Zhan’s standing next to him. His elbow collides gently with Lan Zhan’s. “I used to come way earlier or way later because of work. Have I been missing you this whole time?”

“Perhaps,” Lan Zhan says. It would be a pity if true.

“Off to work after this?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, so diligent and productive.”

“What will you be doing today?”

“Ah?” Wei Ying blinks. “Oh, I’m gonna go for a run, then I have a meeting at one of the nonprofits you suggested I look into.” His shirt rides up when he stretches. “Gotta get a boost of caffeine first, right?”

“It appears you’re equally diligent,” Lan Zhan offers, which Wei Ying only laughs at, the sound like wind chimes to Lan Zhan’s overly invested ears. His response hadn’t even been funny. Wei Ying made him want to be funny to better earn his laughter. He is, quite probably, screwed.

Lan Zhan has seen unfortunate coworkers develop feelings for their clients and he’s seen the reverse and Lan Zhan’s always considered it one of the most embarrassing things that could happen to a person. Ironic, then, that Lan Zhan’s become one of them.

But Wei Ying…? Wei Ying’s smile will likely carry him through what will be an otherwise entirely ordinary, boring day. He’ll turn their interaction here over in his mind until it’s a sleek, polished stone in his memory. Just being near him improves his mood.

When he goes home, he’ll have to fight the urge to stream early again.

“Everything okay, Lan Zhan?” Wei Ying asks, looking back at him. At some point in the last few seconds, he’s moved forward in the line.

The man behind him clears his throat pointedly.

He takes the handful of steps necessary to return to Wei Ying’s side. “Fine.”

Wei Ying studies the quaint blackboard hanging along the back wall behind the counter. “What do you like here?”

“The oolong.”

Wei Ying peers at him.

“Just the oolong.”

“Ah,” Wei Ying says. “You keep it simple. Well, that makes it easy doesn’t it?”

As they wait their turn, Wei Ying continues speaking. He hasn’t just lined up a meeting with the nonprofit he’s visiting today; he’s got at least four more lined up throughout the week. And plans to donate regardless, even if it’s only a small amount. He promises to reach out to Lan Zhan for at least one more meeting. Before Lan Zhan knows it, Wei Ying’s ordering some frothed milk monstrosity and an oolong tea for my handsome friend, please.

Once he realizes what’s happened, Lan Zhan’s not quick enough to pull out his credit card. Then, because that isn’t enough, Wei Ying drags Lan Zhan toward the far end of the counter to wait. “You’re a cheap date, Lan Zhan,” he says, teasing. “What happens when you go out for real?”

He doesn’t. Obviously. But he can’t just say that, can he? So instead, he says nothing. That’s always been a safe bet.

Wei Ying grimaces into the ensuing silence. “Sorry,” he says. “That was weird, wasn’t it? I promise I wasn’t…”

“You weren’t what?”

“Uh…” But before he’s forced to answer, the barista calls out his name and he swans forward, grabbing both of their drinks for them. “Here!”

“You didn’t have to—”

Wei Ying waves him off. “Ah, ah, ah. Consider it a thank you. A very small thank you.”

“It is my job,” Lan Zhan says. “My salary is the only thanks I require.”

But Wei Ying’s eyes twinkle. “Well, now you can also have oolong tea, too.”

“This is also putting aside the fact that you’ve already thanked me.”

“You’re imminently thankable, Lan Zhan.”

Though Lan Zhan frowns, it’s too late to do anything about it. He’s not so ungracious that he’d start a fight over three dollars. Rather than embarrass himself by doing so, he peels the lid free and removes the tea bags before they steep too long. He should have told Wei Ying he usually only orders the smallest size. This cup is ridiculous. But that would be ungracious, too.

“Maybe I’ll see you around outside of work again, huh?” Wei Ying says when they part ways on the sidewalk, Wei Ying hooking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate he’s needing to go in the opposite direction.

“Maybe,” Lan Zhan says. Though he shouldn’t hope for such a thing, he finds himself wanting it anyway.

Wei Ying’s answering grin overtakes his whole face. “Have a good day, Lan Zhan.”

“You as well,” he replies, but he’s unsure whether Wei Ying hears him. He’s already off, striding away with purpose, guzzling his drink quickly and depositing the empty cup in one of the garbage bins that line the sidewalk further down the street. Before Lan Zhan’s turned away, realizing he shouldn’t stare, Wei Ying’s already putting his headphones in and bouncing in place at the nearest intersection, waiting for his turn to cross.

There’s a park nearby and Lan Zhan lays mental odds on whether that’s where Wei Ying intends to go for his run. When he turns in that direction, Lan Zhan doesn’t take any special degree of pride in having likely guessed correctly. It doesn’t mean Lan Zhan knows Wei Ying. They’re not closer just because Lan Zhan’s made a rational inference about where he was going.

The sheaths in his back pulse in protest.

He insists, because it’s apparently necessary to remind himself, that they’re not close at all.

Time passes. They don’t run into one another again. It’s absolutely not because Lan Zhan starts avoiding the coffee shop to save his own sanity.

Lan Zhan’s now done over two months’ worth of streams according to his new objective with mixed success. His views and tips had dipped at the start, yes, but those numbers are now holding steady. Each week, a handful of new subscribers come to his stream and stay there. He doesn’t lose a significant number to counterbalance these small increases.

He cannot believe he’s so close to fulfilling the terms of his agreement with yllz.

Sitting on the hardwood floor of his streaming room, he stares at the rows of dildos and other toys he’s arrayed across the white bedding, searching for inspiration that will not come to him. If he’s not careful, he’ll wind up backsliding simply because he’s too afraid to push forward.

Because that’s what this is, he thinks, as he rolls a slim vibrating plug between his palms. He’s carefully eased his viewers into this new reality, but he’s never gone all the way. He’s jerked himself off with the appendages. He’s let the appendages fuck him with several of these toys. He’s let them take his throat.

He’s not let them have all of him, not on camera.

This is the logical next step.

Even so, it feels like it’s too soon to go there. His audience might never be ready for such a thing. But he’s looking at these toys, these things he’s loved, that have served to fill the spaces in his life he’s failed to fill with anything else, and feels nothing for them.

One way or the other, he’s tired of pretending. The thing he fears is the thing he must do. As he carefully returns each toy to the chest where he normally keeps them, his skin buzzes in anticipation. Even as dread curls through him, sick and exciting, he won’t dissuade himself. Though it breaks the gentle momentum he’s filled prior streams with, he wants to do this. Now. Tonight.

He configures the stream the way he wants it, moves his camera—even finds one of his spares and sets it up for another angle—and adjusts the lighting rig until he’s satisfied. Long ago, he’d found a widget in the streaming site’s documentation that allows him to add a timer to the window. This, he tests, along with the ability for the stream to cycle from angle to angle, allowing viewers to pick the one they want to focus on. He tests and tests it until he’s sure it’s exactly what he wants.

Because he is always careful with his time, he’s ready at the usual, expected time. Divesting himself of his underwear, he secures the mask to his face. For this, he sees no reason to tease. They’ll be here a while.

Instead of an intro, he allows them to watch him make final adjustments, his attention straying only long enough to the chat to ensure yllz is there. The changes he’s made captures their imaginations. Most of the messages concern the dual camera set up and the timer, intriguing additions that Lan Zhan’s never bothered with before. Better these comments than the usual spate begging for him to return to form or do something besides touching himself with the appendages.

< yllz: good luck hgj!!! >

< su_69_shhhhhh: @yllz will you shut up? >

< user su_69_shhhhhh timed out for: harassment >

< yllz: wow! 🤣>

Lan Zhan bites back a smile. He might have tinkered with yllz’s bot to especially scrutinize direct messages to yllz. He looks briefly into the camera and nods while the chat moves on. He hopes yllz understands.

The timer is already clicking away. He continues to let the chat speculate on it.

His appendages twitch at the thought of what he intends to do. The sheaths pulse around them, equally anticipatory, but if he lets them out too soon, this will be over too quickly.

He arranges himself carefully on the sheets, dick already filling just at the thought of what he will be doing to himself. He grabs the lubricant he prefers and coats his palm. For a time, he strokes himself lazily, sometimes letting go long enough to spread a mix of precome and lube over his hips, his chest. They leave cool, gleaming trails across his skin.

He thinks of nothing at all as he touches himself, keeping his mind forcefully empty to help stretch the gratification ahead of him. He allows himself to feel it all, the heat of his body as he hardens, the softness of the bedding beneath him, the stretch of the sheaths as he keeps himself from letting the appendages out.

His persistent awareness of the stream fades away as he abandons the act of jerking off to press deep bruises into his skin. Would Wei Ying do this to him, he wonders. Would he want to? Would he be gentle or silly or selfish in the taking and giving of pleasure? Lan Zhan’s never allowed others to leave marks on his skin—not that there have really been others. His partnered work doesn’t count and he’s never slept with anyone outside of that context. Would Wei Ying mark him?

He stops thinking of Wei Ying by sinking his thumb into his hip until it hurts. His trimmed nails skate over his ribs until they score his skin, blood pulsing, warm and pleasant, beneath each red mark.

He touches himself everywhere, dragging out the contact. Pushing his fingers into his mouth, he leaves trails of saliva down his chin and neck before again stroking himself a few times. His heels dig into the bedding as he shoves up into the loose circle of his hand. Before he loses the ability to control himself, he lets go again. His body trembles as he searches for the bottle of lube; his hands shake as he coats them, hardly concerned with how messy it all is.

His sheaths ache with the need to open. He holds them back anyway. Hiking one knee up, he lifts himself onto his elbow, catches sight of the timer and the slow crawl of the chat. It’s only been ten minutes. Ten minutes and he already wants to come. He could come.

He very nearly laughs. When did he become so pathetic? Anyone would think he’s never touched himself at all before.

His fingers, slick with lube, reach between his legs, press lightly against his entrance. Though he could make quick work of this, easily accommodate anything with little in the way of prep, the whole point is to draw this out and so he works himself open slowly, on one finger, then two. He enjoys the goalless quality of this, his body reacting to a stimulus and little else.

A few more minutes pass as he works a third and a fourth in, stretching himself until it hurts only a little, only enough to feel good. His middle finger grazes over his prostate, sending a warm pulse of need through him. He strokes over it a second time before abandoning it, almost regretful to do so, but mostly proud of his restraint.

Again, he spares a glance at the chat. From this far away, he can’t tell what’s being said, only that the conversation has picked up. Whether good or bad, he can’t let himself think about it. This is no longer about them.

He wraps his hand around himself again, pulling, slow and light, up and down the shaft. This time, he can’t help but gasp, body alight with every sensation he’s plucked from within himself and put on display. It’s already so different from what he’s done before, far more personal, and that vulnerability only heightens the experience. This is something he thinks he wouldn’t have known if not for yllz and, for that, he believes he’s grateful.

With that in mind, he finally allows his appendages to free themselves. Heavy, they squirm and stretch across every inch of him they can reach, down his arms, over his neck, across his chest and torso, between his legs. They are everywhere, touch every part of him he normally doesn’t allow them to touch, slip over the deliberate mess he’s made of himself. At first they do nothing in particular, moving over him in a teasing, directionless manner, just enough to make him squirm, just enough to make him want them.

He lets them act on him as they will, drifting as they drag themselves across his body. He forgets to withhold the sounds he wants to make.

For a time, he falls out of his own thoughts, so relaxed that he’s surprised when he comes back to himself to find one of the appendages playing at his lips and sliding past his teeth. It fondles his tongue and dives toward the back of his throat, eager, picking up urgently. He swallows around it, coaxing.

It’s never too much for him, not that he wouldn’t happily choke on it.

When he reaches for it, hoping to stroke down the long length of it, one of the other appendages wraps around his wrist, stretches his arm above his head, and pins it to the ground. The wood is cold beneath the back of his hand. He moans around the appendage in his mouth. Another appendage grabs his free arm and yanks it up, too. The first coils around it, binding him securely, freeing the second to make mischief elsewhere.

He’s lost after that, caught this way, he can’t stop them unless he forces it and he… he doesn’t want to. Surrender is easier than he expects.

He forgets about the chat, the timer, yllz, the expectations put on him by himself because of what he is and what his body can do. This is just him and these parts of him that he’s forced into boxes they don’t deserve to go into.

He has let himself start a stream to satisfy another of his tastes, grown too overwhelming out of loneliness and desire. He has let himself do work that makes him palatable to others out of that same loneliness and desire. He has never truly let himself satisfy this one.

They are, he realizes, as needed for his own fulfillment as the rest of him, these parts he’s denied.

The one wrapped around his wrists squeezes reassuringly, while the one in his mouth moves in a way that is everything Lan Zhan might want, fast and gentle at one moment, slow and rough, the next, exactly what Lan Zhan needs as he needs it.

The two not currently occupied rove over his body. One curls around his hips and the other slides over his entrance. It’s thicker than three of his fingers, but not quite as much of a stretch as four. It glides between his cheeks, coating itself in it in the lube that is spilling from within him. The tip catches on his rim, perhaps purposefully, perhaps not, and draws another muffled moan from him.

He bears down against it, feeling greedy and wild with abandon. Please, he thinks. Fuck me. He repeats these words again and again, might even say them out loud, though no one will ever know that’s what he’s saying.

The appendage presses in, just as he’s hoped it would, warm and responsive, thrusting deep, bearing down against his prostate will all its weight, different from his fingers and every dildo he’s ever tried. More flexible, it’s able to bend a bit as it slides in and out of him.

He screws his eyes shut, hands clenching and unclenching above his head. It’s overwhelming, this feeling, being held in his entirety, inside and out. This, he’s never gotten to experience with another person. It’s as likely as not that he won’t. In real life, who wants this? It’s one thing to see it through a screen or participate in it for money. It’s another thing entirely to bed and be bedded with genuine affection by such a person. Just that thought sends a jolt through him. Of pain or pleasure or both, he’s not certain. Whether with another person or not, this is what he wants to do and to have. Not the kinks most people who like appendages go in for, but this.

(He wishes, maybe, to share it with someone else, this overwhelming feeling of fullness and togetherness and everything that performing on video isn’t and can’t be. yllz comes the closest to providing what he needs.)

(Even so.)

(Is it enough? Can it be enough? This has to be enough. Right?)

Another moan claws its way out of his throat as the appendage thrusts further, confident now in what it’s doing, coordinating with the one in his mouth to ensure one or the other is pushing into him at all times. The only remaining appendage sees no reason to touch his dick, though it’s leaking as it bounces against Lan Zhan’s stomach to the same rhythm the appendages are setting. It teases lightly at his balls. When he screams out, muffled, overwhelmed already just by that small amount of extra stimulation, it stops what it’s doing to pat his hip, cradles his waist.

A tear slips down his cheek, tickling warm at his skin, another feeling he’s not ready for.

Let me come, he thinks, hard, despairing. There’s no stopping him from moaning, not now, not even with his mouth stuffed so full that he goes a little lightheaded with it, not able to draw enough air through his nose to compensate. He’s sweating and overheated, a mess of his own fluids, a body, not a person at all, just these endless sensations trapped inside his skin. He forgets about the timer. Let me come.

He kicks out accidentally as the appendage inside of him pulls out suddenly and without warning and cries harder as it rams into him at a different angle, its rhythm shot. It nearly sends him diving off the cliff’s edge of his orgasm, so close to it that if it would only thrust once more, he’d be done, free of this animal need inside of him, something he’d buried so deep that he hadn’t even known it existed.

It pulls out again as Lan Zhan sobs.

Ripping one hand free from the appendage wrapped around his wrists, he reaches for himself, takes one good stroke and starts coming all over his stomach before his hand is caught again, wrenched away. Because they can no longer trust him, each wrist is held tight by an appendage of its own.

Without enough stimulation, it’s a frustrating, pointless release, leaving him empty and wanting more. He whimpers as the appendages pick up their rhythm again, working him like he’s a toy to be fucked and not a person at all. It is monstrous, he supposes, in an entirely new way, arousing rather than upsetting.

He keens and doesn’t recognize himself in the sound of it.

They fuck him for ages, the two appendages within him. No matter how much he writhes, they don’t let him free. He reaches the precipice of a second orgasm before they ease back. Again and again they do this, until Lan Zhan shakes, until he’s so tired he stops crying out entirely, drained, unable to fight. They still don’t let him go and they don’t let him come.

They know him. Even as he whimpers pathetically, they know him. He wants this. He wants and wants and wants. He wants so much. A void has cracked open in his chest with this desire and still it cannot be filled, not with sweat or tears or come. This want is monstrous, too.

The appendage in his mouth yanks itself free and before Lan Zhan can stir—he’s practically floating now, the sudden change startling and unwelcome—it wraps around his cock, strips him twice before his body jackknifes under the onslaught. Pleasure bursts within him, tears him apart, remakes him anew as he curls onto his side to ride it out. By the time it’s done, he’s gulping air, panting. He cannot catch his breath.

He’ll wonder later at how terrifying the rasping shrieks that have been pulled from him must sound to the audience.

For now, he stays where he is, contorted, face buried in the sweat-drenched bedding. The mask falls away against the comforter. Still, the appendages aren’t satisfied. One keeps a tight hold on his neck and jaw to ensure he doesn’t expose his face to either camera, pressing his cheek into the bed with all its strength. The rest push and pull at him until his knees are tucked beneath him, one around each thigh, the third still within him, taking everything from him. It’s gentle this time, slow and sinuous, sweeping endlessly over his prostate and deeper.

He shudders until his muscles sag. Exhausted from the onslaught, he can only slump forward, most of his weight carried on his chest and arms.

He moans until his voice gives out.

He counts how close he gets to a third orgasm until he can’t keep track any longer. Once, twice, ten times. What does it matter at this point? He’ll be free when he is freed. The decision is out of his hands. He can only take it. Why count? Why struggle?

Distantly, he feels himself pulsing weakly through that third orgasm, hardly feeling it through everything else he’s experiencing. Whatever is left within him pools on the bedding beneath him.

Even if he wanted to move, he can’t.

His appendages pile themselves across his back when they’re done. They are spent, too, for the first time in his life, bleeding contentment and satiation through his muscles. One finally creeps toward the laptop, guided by Lan Zhan’s need to go unseen. This, too, is new.

He has always wanted to show everything of himself to an audience.

Now, he has done that. It’s no longer necessary to keep chasing it.

His appendages stroke his hair, his spine, his flank. When they are ready to do so, they retreat to their sheaths of their own accord. For a long time after, tears soak into the pillow as gratitude and relief spreads through him. In his entire lifetime, he has never felt so much like himself.

Later, when he is as prepared as he will ever be, he’ll look at the stream’s stats, knowing they cannot take the gift of what he’s experienced from him, and discover he’d lasted three hours. By the end of it, he’d broken every streaming record on the site. PMs and tips and subscriptions are still rolling in as he analyzes the numbers, astonished.

Through it all, there is only one thing that matters to him: yllz’s reaction. It’s more subdued than he expects, but no less heartfelt for that fact. He cannot be disappointed.

< yllz: you really are so good, hgj >

Lan Zhan does not often go to the gym, preferring to work out in private rather than make use of the facility near his home. He would rather avoid an audience while strength training and stretching his way through the series of exercises meant to keep his back from seizing up unexpectedly. It’s easy enough to run, upper body hidden in a windbreaker that might be out of place in such a public setting. Not so easy to do the same on a treadmill amidst enthusiasts.

There are times, however, when he finds himself in need of something he cannot get within his own home. And so: the gym. Unfortunately.

Today is one of the unfortunate days, it seems. No matter how much he tries to work the tension from his body, there’s not a yoga pose on the planet that eases the ache beneath his skin. A pelting spray of hot water does nothing when he takes a shower.

He might have overdone it. Three hours is a long time to do anything, let alone fuck himself.

As he bends to retrieve a clean pair of boxers from his underwear drawer, he hisses at the unexpected burst of pain below his shoulder blade and revises that assessment. He’s definitely overdone it, no matter how much he might enjoy the sting and the source of it. At this stage of his life, he should know better. Studies have shown, what studies have been done anyway, that people with his condition suffer muscle strains and hairline fractures of the spine at greater percentages than those who don’t. Bursitis, arthritis, and osteoporosis are especially common. His body is not fragile by any means, but he must take care.

At six in the morning, the gym isn’t as empty as he might like it to be, but it’s quieter than he has any right to expect. Skirting the stair, elliptical, and weight machines, the myriad rowing machines and weights, he makes for the locker room where it’s blissfully quiet in comparison to what’s happening out there.

He quickly strips down and changes into close-fitting swim trunks and drapes a large towel around his shoulders. The early risers are already busy elsewhere in the gym, so he probably doesn’t need to keep his back so hidden, but it’s what he’s used to and prefers. As unobtrusive as his sheathes are when his appendages aren’t out, they’re not entirely invisible either. It raises fewer questions and invites fewer crude comments if people can’t see them.

The sauna is blessedly free of people, too, though already pleasantly warm and humid. He relaxes in increments as he drapes the towel across the back and bottom of one of the wooden benches and stretches his legs. It would be fantastic if he could lie on his stomach without fear of discovery, but he can do this.

He closes his eyes and drifts a bit. Though his back still pulses with his heart beat, it calms eventually.

It’s going well until a huff of amusement breaks through the quiet calm of the sauna. Then, he is no longer calm for an entirely different reason.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Wei Ying says as his slides clatter across the floor, “I would say you’re following me.”

Pain flares in his back as his muscles tense up all over again. He cracks one eyelid and hopes he looks more serene than he feels. He cannot imagine what it is Wei Ying’s seeing, but he hopes—

“Wei Ying,” he says, and if he sounds a little breathless, maybe he can pretend he only just finished a workout. “I believe I’m the one who should be saying that.”

Wei Ying laughs more fully. His hair is plastered to his forehead and neck. The scent of his body wash drifts across the room, an indifferent fragrance that’s probably named after the Arctic. The faint chemical aroma of chlorine trails after him as he finds his own way through the now far, far too small room. There’s a towel wrapped around his midsection and little else. It’s generously sized at least, but when he sits, it exposes more of his inner thigh than Lan Zhan should be allowed to see.

At least he’s been polite enough to sit on a bench well away from Lan Zhan’s.

He closes his eyes again. That’s not rude in a sauna. Even so, his heart stirs at the afterimage of Wei Ying’s smooth, olive-toned, sun-drenched skin on casual, careless display. Other parts of him stir, too. Pushing himself more fully upright, he carefully pulls the towel out from beneath him and wraps it around his shoulders.

Despite the discomfort, he crosses his legs before his situation becomes obvious. His appendages make an escape attempt, too, but he wills them away. They go down with less fight than his erection, but not by much.

“How long have you been coming here?” Wei Ying asks.

“Four years,” Lan Zhan answers, “give or take.”

“Ah, this is my first time,” he says. “How shady of me to find you again.”

“Mn. Quite nefarious, in fact.”

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying’s laugh pings with delight. “Just for future reference, do you always come this early?”

Lan Zhan refuses to choke at the phrasing of the question, not even with tension bunching the muscles of his back. He is viscerally reminded of the reason he’s here. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he—

And now Wei Ying is sitting across from him.

He should be embarrassed. He is embarrassed.

“Yes,” Lan Zhan manages. Barely.

“Well,” Wei Ying says, cheerful, “congrats, you’ll never see me here again.” He yawns once and sighs, rueful. “It’s too early for the likes of me. Maybe I’ll stalk you at the coffee shop instead. That was much more civilized, don’t you think?”

Lan Zhan is neither disappointed nor relieved by this statement. The coffee shop would certainly be more neutral ground and he wouldn’t risk looking like a pervert ogling Wei Ying’s thighs and chest and everything else that’s on display. “What brought you here this early today then?”

“Ah?” He groans and speaks from behind another yawn, voice muffled behind his hand. “Excess energy, I guess.” The strangled quality of Wei Ying’s voice is suspicious enough that Lan Zhan opens his eyes. Wei Ying is staring fiercely at the ground, lips thin. “Didn’t sleep very well, but uh…” His cheeks seem to darken, but Lan Zhan writes it off as an effect of the sauna. “There are only so many ways for me to burn off excess energy and some of them cause chafing.”

“I’m sorry,” Lan Zhan chokes out. His imagination fuels roughly three hundred different scenarios that might invite chafing. None of them are innocent, but all of them flash before his eyes in vivid washes of color and sound and smell. He has never been this inappropriate about someone who is a client. One of the appendages slips free of its sheath. Lan Zhan rolls his shoulder in warning. It refuses to retract.

Lan Zhan might need to pull out one of the compression shirts he refuses to wear if he’s going to misbehave like this.

“Mmhmm,” Wei Ying agrees, unruffled. Clearly Lan Zhan’s just reading too much into Wei Ying’s words. “But hey, the sauna is nice. The swim I had was good. I’m getting to see you. It could be worse.”

Wei Ying has not looked at him once, not really. He has seen nothing.

Lan Zhan will quite probably perish in this room if he thinks about Wei Ying swimming, Wei Ying seeing. His mind whispers, tantalizing, swimming wouldn’t cause chafing, but you know what does…?

He would like to be seen by Wei Ying.

“Don’t stay in too long,” Lan Zhan says, getting to his feet, feeling cumbersome and too small for his skin, a mere mass of hormones in a way he’s not struggled with since puberty. Wei Ying startles, stares up at him, only looks him in the eyes as he adjusts the towel around his shoulders, carefully manipulating it so it covers his whole back. His eyes never stray; unlike Lan Zhan, he’s a gentleman when it counts. “You wouldn’t want to dehydrate.”

Wei Ying waggles his eyebrows and a smirk plays at the corners of his mouth, teasing things Lan Zhan can’t have and shouldn’t want. The fact that Wei Ying is flirting mildly—if it could even be called flirting at all—doesn’t mean Lan Zhan needs to blur the lines between them. It was bad enough that he thought about Wei Ying when he performed and when he just jerked off and sometimes just because. Letting himself read more into Wei Ying’s behavior, innocent as it is, would do nothing except hurt one of the better work relationships he’s ever had.

Despite this, he can’t help but imagine what it would be like to push Wei Ying down onto the wooden bench. All he has to do is go back and offer himself up. Perhaps he could perch himself on Wei Ying’s thighs and—

The shower he takes, quick and unpleasant, is definitely a cold one.

When he’s clean again and dry, he finds gouges in his palms from where he’d dug his fingernails into his skin. Rubbing them away, he decides he has to do something, work this energy out of his system somehow.

It isn’t his favorite way of doing it, what he comes up with, but it will work well enough for his purposes, he supposes.

An hour into the shoot and Lan Zhan’s beginning to wish he’d thought this through. The guy beneath him is into it, but all Lan Zhan can think about is how much his back is throbbing and how unruly his appendages are being. One even begins pulling at his hair, which feels nice, but isn’t what he’d agreed to do in this scene, which is a bare-bones monster posing as ‘The Boyfriend’ takes what he wants from the poor twink who’s just trying to jerk off in the privacy of his own bedroom while his real boyfriend is away scenario. Nobody watching this is going to want to see Lan Zhan wasting one of his appendages on yanking his own head back instead of pinning his ‘victim’ to the bed or pulling his hair.

Lan Zhan’s never understood the fascination with this particular scenario. It’s not like the people like him are shapeshifters, too. They can’t pose as anything except a normal person who doesn’t have such endowments. But people like what they like and apparently they like thinking their loved ones could secretly be vicious creatures out to ravish them. From the other side of the fantasy, it probably is rather sexy. Finding himself ravished by Wei Ying wouldn’t be entirely without its charms, he’s sure.

He’s forgone the mask today in exchange for guarantees that his face will remain out of frame the entire time. He trusts this team to edit carefully.

“What would he think,” Lan Zhan says, leaning close, keeping his head turned away so only the back of it is visible to the camera. This is, he’s convinced himself, of thematic relevance to the story, what little of it there is. As long as he is an unknown, he is a cypher. He could be anyone. There is merit in hiding who he is. “What would he think if he saw you like this? Whining away for my dick? For the rest of me?”

“No, no! I—” It’s always no, no, no. In these stories, they never say yes, never want it.

One of the appendages cuts off the protests, pushing its way into his partner’s mouth.

He pinches Lan Zhan’s flank, their agreed upon signal that he was okay to proceed.

His moans are genuine as far as Lan Zhan can tell—he’s always been one of Lan Zhan’s more exuberant partners, for good or ill. In the early days, he thought they could possibly mean something to one another outside of this context. Since then, he’s learned better. With every thrust of his dick and the appendages, two now twining in his mouth, one around his dick, one wedged inside him along with Lan Zhan, his groans grow a bit more heated and his eyes darken when he lifts them. In a way, it’s gratifying, but only in the way solving a difficult financial problem is sometimes gratifying. He’s done a good job providing a service. That’s all. It has nothing to do with him.

His partner finishes quickly, coating his own stomach. Lucky him.

Lan Zhan’s still hard, not quite close enough to completion to feel truly satisfied. He says the lines that have been written for him, the ones that earn him eight percent more of the cut because he hates dialogue that much. His appendage is doing more of the work than Lan Zhan, trying to coax a release that won’t come. Even with it twisting against him, he can’t get there, can’t quite…

One of the appendages reaches between his legs, pulls lightly against his balls, nudges hard against his perineum. The camera can’t pick up on it at this angle, but his partner watches with a strange expression on his face.

Against his conscious wish, he imagines it’s Wei Ying beneath him or maybe that Wei Ying is doing this to him, has him splayed open while holding down. He thinks about what it might be like to have Wei Ying whispering about how wanton he’s been. Maybe he’d pin him to the bed, lock his fingers around his appendages, too, keep him in place forever…

When he finally comes, it’s with the thought of Wei Ying pressing him into this bed and kissing the back of his neck, telling him he’s done well.

What he gets instead is a clap on the side, his partner silently asking him to shift away so they can get a few more shots. He receives another bizarre little look from said partner as he stands aside, cleaning himself up while his partner checks the footage.

He feels empty and a little numb, disinterested.

This isn’t working. He thinks it hasn’t worked for a long time. Maybe it stopped working even before Wei Ying came into his life.

If he focuses on the things that do work, the things that bring him joy rather than shame, perhaps it would be better.

yllz has shown him that he can be satisfied with himself, that he can feel loved and happy and satisfied. If he chases that feeling down, it can’t be any worse than what he’s been doing here, what his feelings for Wei Ying have made him want.

It isn’t Wei Ying’s fault that Lan Zhan is like this.

It’s always been his own.

The resignation letter is easy to draw up, quick and simple and painless. It’s only hitting the send button that raises a crisis in his heart. Wei Ying will see it and then Lan Zhan will have to explain.

It’ll go poorly, that explanation; he has been selfish, relishing Wei Ying’s cheerful, familiar demeanor and treating it like more than it is. He doesn’t know how to explain that. He’s already reached out to Luo Qingyang—she and he are simpatico in their work ethic and Lan Zhan knows she’ll be a great fit for him—and she’s agreed to take over his account. It’ll be the smoothest transition he’s ever participated in.

And yet.

If he does this, he’s acknowledging that he feels something more for Wei Ying than would be fair to dump on him.

He clicks send anyway, his heart rattling against his ribs the whole time. His palms, normally so dry to the touch, are clammy and disgusting.

His back throbs, an agony of his own making.

When the call comes not twenty minutes later, forwarded hesitantly to him on his office phone by one of the operators, he’s not prepared for it even though he’d known it was coming.

He answers regardless. “Lan Zhan,” he says in the hopes of keeping it professional.

“Ah, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says. Even over the phone he sounds sad, resigned, not in the least bit surprised. There will be no fight here. From those few syllables, Lan Zhan is already out of his depth. “I’m sorry I…”

Blood flows in torrential rushes through Lan Zhan’s ears, his temples. His throat dries and his tongue sits heavy in his mouth. He should speak. Offer assurances. Whatever it is Wei Ying’s thinking, that’s not why Lan Zhan’s had to do this. Wei Ying shouldn’t be sorry about anything. He’s bright and delightful and kind. He treats Lan Zhan like he might treat anyone.

“You’re right,” Wei Ying says. “It’s better this way. I’m sorry you felt you had to be the one to reach out.”

“Wei Ying?”

“I never think before I speak. I should have seen it,” Wei Ying continues, much to Lan Zhan’s confusion, “with the… I don’t know, flirting? It was wrong of me to…”

Though Lan Zhan opens his mouth, unsure what to say, Wei Ying beats him to it, steamrolling ahead without Lan Zhan. “Well, I shouldn’t have made you uncomfortable anyway. I’m sorry I didn’t see it. There’s no excuse, but… I really like you. You’re—you’re really sweet and handsome? But that doesn’t mean—”

“Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan speaks more sharply than he intends and very nearly fumbles his phone. Wei Ying inhales, as though preparing to apologize again, the word half out of his mouth. Lan Zhan won’t let himself hear it. “Wei Ying, I like you.” He winces at how useless that sounds, how little it truly conveys. “That’s why I… you didn’t do anything wrong. It was my feelings…”

He swallows. It shouldn’t be this hard, right? A lot of people express their admiration for others all the time. They get through it just fine. Even people like him.

“My feelings are the problem here,” Lan Zhan finishes. “Not anything you’ve done.”

Wei Ying lets out a gusty breath. “Your feelings?”

How can he explain this to Wei Ying? It’s impossible. “My feelings,” he confirms. “I’ve been inappropriate and unprofessional.”

Wei Ying hums, says nothing for a long while. The wait is going to kill Lan Zhan. His chair’s armrest creaks under his fingertips and he bites his lip, feels more out of control than he’s ever been before. Considering what he’s done in recent memory, that’s quite a feat.

“It’ll be sad to switch to another advisor,” Wei Ying eventually says, “but I think I’d prefer to take you out to dinner if that’s—if that’s on offer. Now that I’m not your client anymore, I can ask you out, right? Or is that uncouth?”

Lan Zhan’s chest tightens. It doesn’t seem real, Wei Ying wanting to have dinner with him, but at the same time, it feels as inevitable as Wei Ying himself. Lan Zhan wants to take what he’s offering so, so badly. He can’t. He absolutely cannot.

“Lan Zhan? Did I misunderstand?” He sounds incredulous, as he should. The signals Lan Zhan is sending are mixed at best. “I did, didn’t I? Fuck. That’s—”

“There is something I should tell you,” he chokes out. A familiar feeling of shame courses through him now. Tears prickle at the corner of his eyes. They are blinked away easily, but the tight knot of embarrassment in his chest doesn’t fade. It’s wrong. This is all wrong. His feelings for Wei Ying shouldn’t make him feel this way. Wei Ying would be upset, mortified. Maybe he will resent Lan Zhan for pinning this on him. All the more reason…

“Ah?”

All the more reason this cannot belong to them. Wei Ying does not deserve the burden of Lan Zhan’s baggage, his history, his desires.

“Lan Zhan, what is it?”

Steeling himself to do what he must, he says, “You deserve to know the truth. I cannot give it to you. I’m sorry.”

“Lan Zha—”

“I have feelings for you,” he repeats. “I will not act on them and I won’t go to dinner with you.”

“Lan Zhan!” Desolation sinks its claws into each syllable of his name, entrenched. It’s fascinating and devastating in turns to hear Wei Ying sound this way because of him. He must truly care about the Lan Zhan he thinks he knows.

Apologies are cheap. He gives Wei Ying one more before he hangs up the call, failing twice to correctly place the receiver into the cradle because his hands are shaking.

As soon as Lan Zhan picks up the box from the front desk of his apartment building, he knows exactly what it is. It’s too light and thin to be anything other than the lingerie he’d ordered for yllz, even if it’s rather more discreetly packaged than necessary, like Lan Zhan minds the thought of others knowing about this. Compared to what he feels truly obligated to conceal, this is nothing. Taking careful hold of the box, he climbs the stairs to his floor and refrains from greeting any of the people he passes on the way.

He is eager for this, he thinks. After his conversation with Wei Ying, he’s thought of little else but the way he’d left things with him. A distraction is exactly what he needs, not least of all because the urge to yet again abuse his professional relationship with Wei Ying sits heavy in his chest. He would like to reach out, apologize properly, and explain himself better; with Wei Ying, he hasn’t been the best version of himself. But the only reason he knows how to get a hold of Wei Ying at all is because of the work he’d done for Wei Ying. It wouldn’t be appropriate, not at all, to use that knowledge in this way.

Compared to that, his relationship with yllz is simple. He will put on this lingerie and perform well for yllz, pleased to know there’s at least one person in his life he can satisfy. It will be good to remember the things he can have and the things he can’t.

His fingers stroke lightly over the delicate silk and soft lace. As he ponders it, the pretty color of the fabric, the complicated array of straps and small, gleaming buckles, he’s sure of two things. One, he would like to bring items like this into his stream and two, he’d like this first time to be for yllz alone.

An appendage sneaks free of his shirt to pluck at the garter belt and wriggles its way between the layers of material, tissue paper rustling beneath it.

[18:56:21] hgj
[att:image01.png]

I have received your gift. I thought perhaps we might do something different with it.

As he waits for a response, he cooks dinner, listening to more than watching one of the variety shows he usually puts on in the background just for the noise. Once he’s finished eating and has cleaned up, he starts to read a novel he’s been meaning to check out. His mind never strays far from the box and what’s inside of it, waiting, waiting for a response from yllz.

There isn’t one, not even by the time he’s ready to go to bed.

Worry tightens within him as he showers, as he washes his face and dries his hair, as he puts on a pair of pajama pants and slips into bed. yllz always answers promptly.

He checks one last time, finds nothing, and barely sleeps at all.

[03:03:19] yllz +500

What did you have in mind?

Lan Zhan frowns at the time stamp on the message, the curtness of it, even the proper punctuation. He is, quite probably, reading too much into it. Regardless, it gets under his skin, this reply.

Perhaps yllz has tired of him.

Still, he rallies. Even if he has, it doesn’t matter. yllz has paid him for three months and three months he’ll get unless he tells Lan Zhan otherwise. Lan Zhan has given up Wei Ying. He won’t give this up, too.

Lan Zhan creates a link to a private room for yllz.

[05:02:41] hgj
[http://lonelyfans.com/stream-priv/8daf324dywouxc119]

I would like to show you what you paid for.

I’m free tonight if you are.

[20:15:34] yllz +500

I’m free.

He refuses to read anything into yllz’s lack of usual engagement. They’ve always been supportive, always sweet, but they’re human, too. They might be having a bad night. If so, Lan Zhan’s determined to improve that for them insofar as he is able to.

[20:17:09] hgj

I will be ready in twenty minutes.

I hope you enjoy it.

I’ve left the settings up to you, if you’d like to leave your camera or mic on, too.

He stands up, gathers in his arms the box that’s been waiting for this moment since last night, and retreats to the bathroom. For one moment, he considers leaving the mask off this time, but though there shouldn’t technically be a way for yllz to save or screencap the footage, they clearly have some technical ability. It would be better not to risk it.

Slowly, though not too slowly, knowing he’s set himself a time limit and won’t keep yllz or himself waiting even a moment longer, he works his way into the panties and waist cincher, rolls the sheer stockings over his ankles, his calves, his knees, his thighs, one after the other.

The lingerie fits perfectly and somehow feels more illicit than if he were to stand fully nude in front of the mirror. The grayish blue makes a striking contrast to his skin and the bluish-green shade of his appendages. The lace is even softer than he’d thought it would be, clinging to his hips and sides. He’s already hardening inside the silk panties, the outline of his dick prominent against it. The appendages are interested mainly in the garters, making it difficult for Lan Zhan to successfully clip the stockings to them.

When he’s done, he inspects himself again, twisting around to ensure everything is where it needs to be. His attention lingers on his back. It looks even more strongly muscled than usual, a perfect contrast to the graceful shape of the lingerie against his skin.

His fingers brush over his shoulders in wonder.

It’s only when he remembers that he’s supposed to be performing for yllz that he shakes himself from his stupor and puts on the mask, wishing he’d thought to get one in a matching shade. These details, he feels, matter, but it’s too late to solve the problem now.

His room is already set up, has been ready since last night, and all that remains is to open the private stream channel. He is disappointed to see yllz has chosen to keep audio and video disabled, sticking with the more familiar chat box. Lan Zhan turns on the camera. He doesn’t do any of the coy things he’s seen other streamers do, doesn’t flaunt the lingerie, though he spreads his thighs a bit wider than normal. In a serious, somber tone, he asks, “Is there anything you’d like to see in particular?” This once, it needs to be for yllz, not just himself. Ask for something, he thinks desperately. Anything.

He waits impatiently for yllz to type a response and then finds himself surprised when they turn on the audio.

The voice is tinny through the tiny speakers in Lan Zhan’s laptop. They sound nothing at all like Lan Zhan might have expected, subdued where Lan Zhan had always expected they’d be exuberant. “Whatever you’d like to do.” He is disappointed by the response, but not surprised.

They sound a little like Wei Ying, but that’s impossible, an artifact of the terrible quality of the speakers. Or perhaps it’s yllz’s microphone that’s at fault. Either way, it’s wish fulfillment at best.

yllz says, “I’m, uh, going to turn the mic off again, but I wanted to say… this time you’ve given to me has been precious. You deserve to know that.”

“Wait,” Lan Zhan says, even though yllz isn’t going anywhere. He leans forward, close enough that he already feels exposed. There’s no reason to do so, but it helps him feel closer to yllz, too, and that’s not so bad. He’s not very good at expressing sincerity, not like yllz is—not like Wei Ying is—but he can try. “Thank you.”

It’s not enough, not really, for what yllz has let him explore, but it’s all he can pull from his own throat for them.

The mic clicks back on, letting Lan Zhan hear them one more time. “Ah, it’s really been my pleasure.”

Then the mic is off again. Lan Zhan sits back on his haunches, considers for a minute what to do. yllz would be happy with anything, but what would Lan Zhan be happy with? What would feel appropriate?

What is the one thing he hasn’t done in all this?

There really is only one option when he thinks of it in those terms: the truth spoken aloud. It is something he’ll never, ever give to his viewers. They don’t even get lies spoken aloud. For the most part, he does not speak to them.

He thinks he should speak to yllz, the way he can’t speak to Wei Ying.

“I’ve thought about you,” he says, “when I touch myself.” The truth is something he can give to yllz. “Not only for the stream.” He hopes this doesn’t sound fake to them, like he’s just wanting to give yllz what he thinks they want to hear. “Or when I’m planning what I think you’d enjoy for the stream, I think about it, what it might be like if someone like you were with me here instead.”

The appendages play at his flanks, and two slip inside the silky fabric of the panties. One wraps around his length and the other slides between his legs, slowly working its way inside him as he thrusts up. His hands remain at his sides, clenched, as they take him apart.

It becomes hard to breathe as he considers which truths to pry from his heart.

He could play this truth off like a fantasy if he wants to, leave it ambiguous. Perhaps he’s just spinning a story for yllz, a dream shared between the two of them. yllz doesn’t need to know, can decide for themselves whether he’s being honest or not. “I’ve never let anyone touch me,” he recites, closing his eyes, a pathetic confession to make. The appendage within him drags over his prostate and the one around him twists lightly, but it’s not either of those things that has made him come so close to release already, precome spreading across the silk trapping his erection. It’s simply the thought of sharing this with yllz that has him so undone. “Not outside of this context.”

It would be easy to give into the usual turns of phrase he’s heard others say and has been asked to speak from time to time, erotic language that has never come naturally to him, never feels as arousing as it should. He could roleplay the poor virginal camboy who only needs yllz’s touch to feel complete.

For all that he isn’t technically a virgin, he worries it would be too close to the truth.

“I wish I could,” he admits. “I wish I could let someone touch me the way you’ve allowed me to touch myself.” His eyes find the camera even through the haze of pleasure. He is cracked open with the vulnerability of saying these things, admitting to wanting them, sharing them with someone outside of himself. They are real here, these words, these wishes. “I think I wish it was you.”

Now that he’s begun speaking, he can’t stop. The words trail from his lips as each part of him takes what it can, giving it all back double- and triple-fold.

He keeps up this monologue for ten minutes, fifteen, who really knows how long, meandering between filth and honesty and the fraught convergence of the two. Maybe it’s thirty minutes or forever or mere seconds. Time is meaningless within this sharp, ephemeral fragment of time, only measured in how much closer he is to coming and how often he has to pull back to make sure it lasts.

Whether this is what yllz wants loses its importance.

When he comes, it’s on a gasp so quiet and gentle he’s not sure the mic even picks up on it.

His appendages fumble free once he’s too sensitive to continue. He clamors, shaky, toward the laptop, fearful and eager to speak with yllz. He needs to thank yllz for everything they’ve done. They should discuss the future. Perhaps he could… perhaps he might take the chance with yllz that he can’t with Wei Ying.

There’s only one message in the chat from over twenty minutes ago, well before Lan Zhan had finished.

< yllz: i sincerely hope you get to have that someday with someone >
< yllz: but it’s not me >
< yllz: i’d only disappoint you >

They left the stream immediately after.

And Lan Zhan doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how anyone as lovely as yllz could believe themselves to be a disappointment to someone like Lan Zhan, who can’t even let himself be taken on a date by the man he likes.

When he tries to PM yllz, desperate to fix whatever it is he’s just broken, he discovers yllz’s account has been deactivated. There is nothing to fix.

He is too numb to do anything but sit here, mind left to wander of its own volition through the myriad mistakes he’s made that have led him to this.

His subscribers have come to expect him to be gentle with himself, slow. They accept that this is who hgj is, a patient man willing to torment himself for as long as he needs to.

In his next stream, he is neither gentle with himself nor slow. No matter how much the appendages fight him, he forces them to be rough with him, brutal. Maintaining absolute control over them when they have grown used to having their own way is a struggle, but it’s a struggle he wins in the end.

He doesn’t cry. When it’s this cruel, he never cries and it’s good that he doesn’t.

He wonders what yllz would think and then tells himself it doesn’t matter anymore, that it never mattered.

There is no reason Lan Zhan should use the exhibition tickets Wei Ying’s given him except that he’s tired of seeing them in his desk drawer and if he doesn’t use them now, the exhibit they are for will no longer be there for him to use them on. Though he could throw them away, he is incapable of it. There’s no reason at all to go except that he’s sick of the walls of his apartment and the walls of his office and the walls of every other place he frequents that only serve to remind him of how alone he truly is.

Going to the museum is, of course, no different. It inspires the same feelings. He should have known it would. Here, friends and families and lovers roam around. There are individuals, too, of course, but they all seem content in their solitude, not like Lan Zhan, who’s unfortunately discovered how ill it suits him. Some, perhaps, are meant for such singular peace, but Lan Zhan is not one of them.

He wanders the main halls while he waits for the block of time he’s requested to be allowed access to this special exhibition, a retrospective on Lan Yi’s landscape paintings. Though he has seen more than his fair share of her work, he never tires of the opportunity.

Today should be no different. As he waits, viewing the other galleries, he finds a spark of excitement within himself for what is to come. By the time his time slot arrives, he is truly keen.

For a time, he forgets his troubles, studying the delicate washes of ink Lan Yi is especially known for, reading the accompanying text, pondering what her life must have been like. Her work, in his mind, is so very vibrant no matter that it is black ink on white paper to the exclusion of all else. It speaks to him, this sharp contrast, and all the ambiguity she’s found in between one stroke and the next.

It is, he thinks, a perfect evening until he lifts his head toward the end and catches sight of a familiar shock of hair, pulled into a severe ponytail. He can only see the curve of a cheek and the lowered sweep of eyelashes as Wei Ying studies one of the paintings. It’s still too much of him on display for Lan Zhan’s heart to bear.

Ice trails cold down Lan Zhan’s back. Wei Ying can’t be here. If Wei Ying is here—

Lan Zhan has to leave.

His feet remain rooted to the spot. He stares openly, covetously, at Wei Ying’s perfect profile. Over one specific piece, he lingers for an incredibly long time, brow furrowing in concentration as he mouths out the words he’s reading from the panel next to the carefully protected painting.

For a moment, one perfect, easy moment, Lan Zhan thinks he’s safe, that Wei Ying won’t see him. He is wrong, of course. So very fucking wrong. It seems to happen in slow motion, the lifting of Wei Ying’s head. A few curling strands of his hair fall across his cheek. Impatiently, he pushes them behind his ears—that should be Lan Zhan’s job, Lan Zhan thinks—and then Lan Zhan moves just a centimeter, maybe a little more, and Wei Ying must catch the motion in his peripheral vision because he’s turning and there’s nowhere for Lan Zhan to go that he won’t be seen.

Wei Ying’s eyes widen. His lips parts. “Lan Zhan!” he calls, before slapping his hand over his mouth. More quietly, he says, “Lan Zhan!” He takes one halting step toward Lan Zhan and then stops, confusion clouding his expression, and then he’s rushing forward again, his long legs carrying him toward Lan Zhan.

Too soon. It’s too soon. He can’t see Wei Ying in this state.

“Lan Zhan,” he says, mournful. “I—” Up close, tears visibly gleam in his eyes. Though he blinks them away, they return. His cheeks are so very red. They’d be warm to the touch if Lan Zhan was bold enough to cup them. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

“Why did you come here?”

Wei Ying chokes out a bitter, biting laugh. “Why did you come here, Lan Zhan? Huaisang said Lan Yi is one of your favorite artists. Since you didn’t—since we couldn’t… I just wanted to know more about you. I know we can’t be close anymore, but I thought I could have this one piece of you. It couldn’t hurt, right? You’d never know. I wasn’t going to—after this, I was going to let it go, I promise. I just thought… one last thing, you know?” He scuffs his shoe against the floor. “Maybe that doesn’t make sense.” He lifts his head, pins Lan Zhan with a stare. “I’ve already found other hangouts. It’s fine. It won’t happen again.”

Lan Zhan can say nothing to that, not when Wei Ying deserves so much more than to skulk through the city avoiding any place that reminds him of Lan Zhan. It is not just lust Lan Zhan feels for Wei Ying, not just care. In this moment, he knows it to be the deepest love he’s ever been capable of experiencing for another person. Wei Ying could be family to him if only Lan Zhan allowed it.

Though it’s Lan Zhan who’s lost everything, Wei Ying is looking at him like he’s the one who’s been left with nothing.

“Right,” Wei Ying says, forcing a falsely cheerful note into his voice. “I’ll just—I’m going. I won’t. This is your thing. I’m sorry I…” He takes a step back and then another, hands raised. “I’m just sorry. That it turned out this way.”

He cringes, like he’s not used to being this apologetic. That’s fair. Lan Zhan’s not used to being apologized to in this way, for things he has no reason to receive one for. If anything, Lan Zhan should be the one apologizing, the one walking away in an attempt to make things easier for Wei Ying.

With a visceral, damning certainty, Lan Zhan understands then that if Wei Ying walks out of this exhibit, Lan Zhan will truly never see him again—

A third step, a fourth. He never stops looking at Lan Zhan, a man taking one final gulp of water before heading into the desert. There’s a turnstile nearby and a docent to keep an eye on those who are leaving. He’s so close to it. And then he twists on his heels, strides too quickly toward it.

—and it turns out that is more terrifying than any admission he might have to make to Wei Ying about himself. Self-deprivation has not secured him happiness or fulfillment. If that were possible, he’d be the most satisfied man on the planet already.

yllz has shown him that ceding control doesn’t have to end in catastrophe.

It was wrong of him to think Wei Ying’s presence, his destabilizing effect on Lan Zhan, was a bad thing. It is not. It was wrong of him to push Wei Ying away. He doesn’t have to fall into the sort of patterns that have brought him nothing but grief and loneliness.

If they are destined to be nothing to one another, let Wei Ying reject the entirety of him. It cannot hurt more than this.

“Wei Ying!” he shouts, lunging forward, grabbing Wei Ying by the wrist to pull him back around. “Wei Ying, wait.”

Caught by surprise, Wei Ying nearly tumbles, but Lan Zhan catches him, grips his elbows, pulls him up, holds him close. Wei Ying’s eyes are wide and his body trembles beneath Lan Zhan’s touch and his mouth is the perfect shade of pink to kiss. “Lan Zhan?”

“There are things you must know about me,” Lan Zhan says, throat dry. “You may decide you want to walk away then. I won’t begrudge you.”

“There’s nothing—”

“There is. Wei Ying, there is.” His hold tightens. He cannot help it. He is not ready to let Wei Ying go, but he may have to. It’ll be Wei Ying’s decision, though, not Lan Zhan’s. “When you asked me to dinner, I should have told you then instead of letting you…” What is it Wei Ying’s doing here? Searching for scraps of Lan Zhan in a few paintings? Lan Zhan’s heart aches for him if that’s truly the case. “I was afraid.”

“You don’t have to be.” Wei Ying reaches up, hesitates, his fingers skimming only very lightly over Lan Zhan’s cheek. Lan Zhan captures his hand and squeezes it.

“Regardless, I was. I hope you will understand.”

Wei Ying nods fiercely, bravely. Lan Zhan can almost believe it won’t matter in the slightest what he’s hiding beneath his shirt.

Lan Zhan takes a leap, trusting that Wei Ying’s innate goodness will catch him. “Will you come home with me?”

The car ride back to Lan Zhan’s apartment is tense, quiet, interminably long and torturous. Wei Ying’s fingers dance endlessly over his kneecaps, tapping out a muffled rhythm that grates on Lan Zhan’s nerves. He doesn’t have the heart to tell Wei Ying to stop, knowing it isn’t the tapping that has Lan Zhan all twisted up.

What will he say to Wei Ying when they reach his apartment? What can he say to Wei Ying that will properly explain the situation?

Wei Ying, you should know that I have what medical science euphemistically calls reproductive accessory organs. I’m also a sex worker and I think I’ve alienated my favorite client. I shouldn’t have a favorite client, but somehow that keeps happening to me of late because you are also my favorite client. I want you so much I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m terrified you will change your mind about me, that things I have no control over will keep us apart and that the choices I’ve made will dissuade you from caring about me. I need you to care about me.

Wei Ying tilts his head, looking over at him from the passenger’s seat. The sky has darkened and his face is cast in strange shadows, illuminated by infrequent street lamps. “Lan Zhan?”

“Yes?” They reach a red light. Lan Zhan slows to a stop and breathes in, breathes out, hands clenching around the steering wheel until his knuckles ache.

“I’ve missed you so much.” There’s a soft, wistful smile on Wei Ying’s face. “That’s silly, isn’t it? We hardly ever saw one another before, but… it felt different after.”

“It’s not silly,” Lan Zhan says plainly. “I felt the same way.”

“Then why…?”

I didn’t want to be reduced to an object of disgust by you. “It will be easier to show you, I think.”

“Okay, but you… you do like me? I got that part right?”

I’m in love with you. “I care deeply for you. Is that so strange?”

“Lan Zhan, you’re startlingly beautiful and thoughtful and I waltzed into your office wearing a scrubby looking hoodie while not having a damned clue about anything. I was late and could tell you didn’t like it. I kept running into you in public places and saying wild shit to you. Why would you feel anything at all about me except disdain?”

“I didn’t mind the hoodie,” Lan Zhan says. “It seemed comfortable.”

Wei Ying chokes on a sweet little laugh of disbelief. “And me being late?”

“You’re neither the first nor the last person I’ve worked with who’s been late to an appointment. I liked that you were familiar with me. It was enjoyable when we ran into one another. I never felt threatened by your presence.”

Wei Ying turns his attention to the street, staring out of his own window rather than look at Lan Zhan further. “Ah, Lan Zhan,” he said, voice thick with emotion, “you’re too generous.”

“No.”

“You’re too stubborn then.”

“Perhaps so.”

They lapse into a somewhat companionable silence. Wei Ying’s cheeks grow pink. Lan Zhan wonders what he’s thinking about and juggles his own thoughts, too, his wish to drag Wei Ying across the cup holders and gearshift and kiss the lips Wei Ying keeps biting at.

But no. It has to wait. Wei Ying deserves to know why Lan Zhan’s hurt him so deeply.

Back when he still had hopes of finding companionship, he used to read the experiences of others with his condition to better understand what he should do when the occasion arose to explain himself. He’d been stymied to discover there is no ideal time for the conversation, only what works for each individual. It was less than useful advice. For a time, it had come as a relief that he never needed it.

“Lan Zhan, can we talk about something, please? It doesn’t have to be—but the silence is killing me.”

“What would you like to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Anything honestly.”

“Hmm. Very well.”

After a few false starts, they eventually find their stride, conversing on topics as wide ranging as where they grew up—Wuhan, for Wei Ying, Suzhou, for himself, they both studied in the US—to trash television—Wei Ying is shockingly against it, says he has better things to do with his time, Lan Zhan finds it to be good background noise while he’s cooking—to what sort of animal they would be if they had to choose—Wei Ying wants to be a koala, cuddly but vicious, Lan Zhan thinks it might be nice to be a cat, he doesn’t even consider jokingly saying he would probably be a cephalopod.

They pass the rest of the drive in this way. Too soon, in Lan Zhan’s opinion, they arrive at Lan Zhan’s apartment complex. Lan Zhan pulls into his parking space and hurries around the front of the car to open Wei Ying’s door before guiding him toward the elevator. Wei Ying grabs Lan Zhan’s hand while they wait and laces their fingers together. “Is this okay?”

“Wei Ying, you may not want—”

“I want this now. You don’t believe me, but whatever you have to say won’t change how I feel.” There’s a stubborn slant to his mouth, challenging. Lan Zhan hopes he’s right. Lan Zhan doesn’t remove his hand from Wei Ying’s grasp though his palm is slippery with sweat. He is not sure what he’ll do if he is wrong.

By the time they reach Lan Zhan’s floor, his heart is pounding so loud in his ears that he can barely hear the ding of the elevator as it arrives. After surreptitiously dragging his free hand, pathetically clammy, down his trousers, he reaches into his pocket for his keys.

He nearly fumbles them as he pushes the key into the deadbolt, feels more than hears Wei Ying laugh as they’re pressed together against the door. It’s not as embarrassing as he might have expected to have Wei Ying this close. Instead, it feels a little bit like Wei Ying’s right there with him, like they are together in this and Wei Ying’s laughing as much at himself, too, as much as at the situation, and not laughing specifically at Lan Zhan.

An entire glacial age later, the door opens. Wei Ying kicks it shut as he backs Lan Zhan into it and takes Lan Zhan’s face in his hands.

The sticky pool of his arousal boils over, spreads, molten hot, to fill every part of him. Wei Ying’s mouth moves cleverly over his, tongue pressing at the seal of his lips. It darts between his teeth and dances lightly over Lan Zhan’s. Lan Zhan’s never wanted anything more than this: Wei Ying plastered against him, pinning him in place. He only wishes he’d thought to chew a piece of gum first.

He still has to tell Wei Ying. He doesn’t want to. It will change everything.

When he pulls back, Wei Ying’s mouth is red, his lips plush. And when Lan Zhan brushes his thumb over them, they’re warm. Wei Ying turns into the touch, catches the digit between his teeth while his eyes remain fixed on Lan Zhan’s face.

Fuck, but Lan Zhan wants this.

Very carefully and with many regrets, Lan Zhan drops his hand. “Wei Ying, there’s…” His fingers tremble as they caress the buttons of his shirt, not quite ready to expose himself in this way, but knowing he will need to. “I said I would show you,” he explains.

Though Wei Ying’s brows furrow, he nods. “Anything, Lan Zhan. You have to know—you can show me anything.”

He hasn’t been this nervous about anything in years, but as he removes his shirt, he can only hone in on the gasp of recognition when his chest and abdomen are exposed. It comes even before he turns, but when he turns…

“Fuck,” Wei Ying says, low. “Lan Zhan…”

His spine aches from how quickly his appendages expose themselves. He keeps them from reaching out the way they—and he—want to.

“You’re hanguangjun,” Wei Ying adds, awed. “Fuck, that’s… that is—”

And then Wei Ying’s shoes thud heavily as he takes a step back. When Lan Zhan twists to look over his shoulder, he catches a complicated mix of emotions crossing Wei Ying’s face. Regret, horror, arousal, but mostly…

“You know who I am?” You’re disgusted by what I am. It takes two, three tries to get his shirt on, too late to keep his desires from crumbling to dust in his heart. He gives up. It’s too difficult to right himself. The shirt hangs open. Of course.

Wei Ying chokes on an unhappy laugh. “Lan Zhan, I promise I’m not a…”

“You’re not what?” He keeps his voice clipped, cold. If he could freeze this moment in ice so he could feel no more mortification, he would. As it is, he can only avoid Wei Ying’s eye. “You’re not like that, right? You’ve seen my stream, but it’s nothing you’re into in real life. You couldn’t possibly want—”

“No! No, that’s not what I—”

“Then you think I’ll use them on you? Force you to—”

“No. Listen to me. That’s not—”

His vehement disagreement is all well and good, but Lan Zhan is already done. He doesn’t want to hear more. Of course he can’t have what he wants from another person, let alone with Wei Ying. He barely gets a piece of it from streaming. “Please leave.”

He finally manages to pull his shirt closed, ripping a seam in his haste to hide himself away. A button flies off and hits the hardwood floor with a damning little plink.

“Lan Zhan!” When he takes a step toward Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan flinches back. He has the audacity to look hurt by it. His hands stretch toward Lan Zhan, but he pulls them back at the last moment, curls them into safe little fists at his side. “Let me explain.”

“I do not want an explanation,” Lan Zhan says. He is aware he’s being unreasonable, that he should hear Wei Ying out, but he fears what will be said. At best, he’ll tell Lan Zhan he likes him despite the appendages or that maybe he can learn to like them. Or he’ll spill filth about how he wants them to take him, viciously and violently, mindless and cruel. Neither of these things are what he wants. What had he been thinking, trying to do this with another person? “I want you to go.”

Wei Ying opens his mouth one last time, but he closes it before he says something else Lan Zhan doesn’t want to hear. Lan Zhan steps out of the way, gestures helpfully at the door. Wei Ying’s shoulders slump. His fingers wrap around the door knob, but he still doesn’t go. “Lan Zhan…”

“Do you ever stop talking?” He does not forcibly remove Wei Ying from the doorway, but it is a very near thing. “Go.”

The door clicks open. Lan Zhan relaxes his vigilance minutely, thinking Wei Ying is finally going to leave. In that moment, his cold façade splinters. The heat of embarrassment and shame work through him. His eyes prickle.

Wei Ying is still here. Why won’t he go? At least Wei Ying’s back is turned. He cannot see this.

“Lan Zhan, are you going to keep shutting me out every time I get close to you?”

What else can I do? But Wei Ying is right. This will never end if he doesn’t get the worst over with. He can only hope that Wei Ying won’t shatter him irrevocably. Even if Wei Ying cannot feel anything for him now, he’s not that sort of man. This is still the most terrifying thing he’s ever done. “Say what you want to say.”

Wei Ying closes the door with himself still inside. He draws in a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t blame you for not wanting me here.” The doorknob clatters under his shaking hand. “Lan Zhan, I’m yilinglaozu. I’ve cared about you for so long… I can’t even remember how long it’s been now. I’ve always liked you. But that’s creepy, right? Falling in love with a streamer? It was wrong of me. And then I met you and I liked you, too, and I thought I could get over hanguangjun if only someone like you liked me. And now you—hopefully it’s obvious at least that you don’t disgust me. Not ever. I never want you to feel that way. I’ll—I…”

Before Lan Zhan can parse Wei Ying’s words fully, world tipped upside down by the admission, Wei Ying’s yanking the door open again. He’s leaving. He’ll be gone just like Lan Zhan wanted moments ago and—

The door slams.

Wei Ying’s the only person Lan Zhan’s ever been able to fully trust with the entirety of who he is only he never knew it, would never have been able to guess. Pure instinct drives him as he wrenches the door open; if Wei Ying is yllz, he cannot let Wei Ying leave. He should not have asked Wei Ying to go regardless. He has done Wei Ying another disservice.

He laughs bitterly though he is not amused, even as relief bubbles up within him, cool and clear and effervescent. Wei Ying’s unmarked expenses. yllz’s earnest insistence that financial planning is important. He cannot help but think, achingly, painfully fond, that Wei Ying has never really hidden who he is.

Lan Zhan gives chase, catching up to Wei Ying within a handful of steps. When he reaches for him this time, Wei Ying struggles. “Lan Zhan, let me go! You don’t wan—”

How could he have doubted Wei Ying? Of course he’s not like others. Even if he wasn’t yllz, he wouldn’t have hurt Lan Zhan. Even if he was not attracted to Lan Zhan’s appendages, he would not be cruel. He was merely surprised; Lan Zhan hadn’t prepared him properly. As always, Lan Zhan has been too fearful.

He wraps his arms around Wei Ying’s shoulders, holds him tight. If anyone was able to see them right now, they’d think them to be lovers already. As he speaks directly into Wei Ying’s ear, he likes the thought. “I want.”

“I didn’t know, Lan Zhan,” he says, broken, body rigid against Lan Zhan’s. “I—I should have. Lan Zhan, you must really think I’m some kind of creep. I would have said—I’d have stopped… you sound so different on the stream and I didn’t—I should have known at the sauna, but I couldn’t look at you then.”

Fondness wells within Lan Zhan for this ridiculous man pressed against him. How is it possible Wei Ying and yllz are one and the same? How could he be so lucky? How could he have been so afraid? “You were very focused on my eyes and the floor.”

“You’re too hot. If I looked anywhere else, I’d have done something stupid and inappropriate. Stupider and more inappropriate.”

“You never did anything stupid, nor anything I didn’t want,” Lan Zhan says, taking one step back, arms still around Wei Ying. Wei Ying goes, too. “You were kind and funny and sweet. Flirting is not a crime.”

Groaning, he lowered his head, palm scrubbing over his face. “Fuck, your lips are the same. I always knew they looked familiar. I thought I was going crazy.”

“You weren’t.”

“Why aren’t you mad? The things you told me when you didn’t know who I was…”

“Shouldn’t I have recognized your voice? Why would I be mad?”

Wei Ying slumps forward, lets Lan Zhan take his weight. As he should. As Lan Zhan will always want him to. “The only thing I could think about when you were telling me you wanted me was you. The way I’d fucked it up with you… I couldn’t stomach the thought of hurting hanguangjun, too, somehow when he—when you—were telling me everything I’ve ever wanted to hear someone else tell me. I’d come on too strong again and—”

“You didn’t.”

Wei Ying turned within Lan Zhan’s grasp. “Lan Zhan, I wanted to be safe for you. You were telling yiling he was safe for you. I couldn’t… I wanted it so much. I couldn’t stay.”

And Lan Zhan had all but told him he isn’t by rejecting him without so much as an assurance. “So I’m realizing.” Lan Zhan cups Wei Ying’s cheeks, strokes the sharp ridges of bone with his thumbs. “Let’s go back. Show me how much you want to stay.”

Once they are safely within Lan Zhan’s apartment, he kisses Wei Ying the way he should always have been kissing him, deeply, fully, without any reservations. Wei Ying responds beautifully, moaning against Lan Zhan’s mouth, dropping assurances whenever they part for breath. Lan Zhan, you’re beautiful and Lan Zhan, I can’t wait to see them. Can I see them again? and the things I want to do with you.

“Oh,” Wei Ying says, lips brushing Lan Zhan’s cheek as he inhales. His hands fist in Lan Zhan’s shirt, pulling the fabric taut, bringing him closer even as Lan Zhan pushes him against the door.

His appendages push at the fabric of his shirt, squirm out from beneath the hem. If this were for a stream—if he was intending to set a narrative for this encounter—he would have willed them down, forced them back into their sheaths for later.

He does not do that now. Instead, he takes hold of his shirt, unhappy to let go of Wei Ying even for this short amount of time, and yanks it over his head. Unbuttoning it yet again would be too slow. His appendages stretch themselves fully.

Wei Ying’s gaze traces the length of each, pink splashing each cheek. “May I… can I touch them?”

Though Lan Zhan’s stomach twists, he nods. Wei Ying holds out his hand, letting one of them come to him rather than grasping wildly for it. It settles across his palm and curls around his knuckles. There is a strange quality to it, an unexpected mix of the sexual and the innocent at play as he uses his other hand to stroke its length. It sends a ripple of pleasure up his back, this gentle touch, not quite sexual and not quite innocent either.

“What does it feel like to you?” Wei Ying asks as he continues to pet it. The others, equally curious, twine around the first, nudging their way into a stroke or two of their own. Wei Ying takes time for each of them, until they and Lan Zhan are shivering from the attention.

“Good,” Lan Zhan replies. “Like…” When he was very young, before the appendages were fully formed and he was going through painful growth spurts, his brother sometimes rubbed his back for him. The sheaths hadn’t even fully formed then and nobody expected it was anything more than the typical aches that any child goes through. He hadn’t known then how precious a hand pressed against his back would be, how fraught it would one day become to expose it to others. When he was a teenager, he greedily read stories of people like him enjoying massages, marveled that anyone would be so shameless as to expose themselves in that manner to another, even a professional, though he preferred the racier stories, the more personal ones, of touches shared between lovers. It made sense to his mind in those days that this was something lovers did. That is what Wei Ying’s careful strokes feel like in this moment, like how he’d felt back then, how he’d ached for such a gesture. “Have you had a back massage before?”

Wei Ying laughs lightly. “Of course, Lan Zhan.”

“I suppose it would be similar to that maybe, the innocence and sensuality of it.”

He understands now the accounts of those people who have found happiness and fulfillment in their lives, people like him, who have reconciled themselves to their appendages that he used to consume so voraciously. It isn’t Wei Ying’s touch that has saved him, though Wei Ying’s acceptance and enjoyment of his body as it exists and on Lan Zhan’s terms has been instrumental. He has shown Lan Zhan a glimpse of what it might be like to accept himself in this way and it’s Lan Zhan who will have to walk the final stretch toward it himself. He will not take that from himself.

But he understands now what he’s heard of people like him finding contentment with others. For that, he can absolutely credit Wei Ying.

“You never have?” Wei Ying asks.

Though Wei Ying’s gaze is keen, Lan Zhan avoids it. “Not as an adult.”

“Oh, Lan Zhan.” He pats the appendages gently and lets them go, takes Lan Zhan’s face between his hands and presses lightly before darting in for a kiss. “Let’s change that, huh?”

His hand wraps around Lan Zhan’s wrist and begins pulling.

“Wei Ying, I—” He is dragged halfway down the hallway. In truth, it isn’t a massage Lan Zhan wants.

“I don’t even know where your bedroom is yet. Which room is it?”

Lan Zhan flushes. He’s done so many things that would embarrass other people: fake cried on camera while fucking a dildo, sincerely cried on camera while fucking himself, pretended to take men against their will for their and others’ gratification, act upon act that others would never want to share with anyone except their lovers. Lan Zhan has wanted to do that, enjoys many aspects of it, has never been embarrassed of it, not exactly.

And yet he is shy at the thought of leading Wei Ying to his bedroom and allowing Wei Ying to stroke his back.

Forcing himself to put that shyness away, Lan Zhan says, “I’ll show you.”

Wei Ying is the first person I’ve let into my room, Lan Zhan thinks as he closes the door behind them, the world reduced to this room alone and somehow not in the least bit smaller for it. For a moment, Wei Ying peers around, curious, but then his attention settles entirely on Lan Zhan. It takes Lan Zhan’s breath away, how warmly Wei Ying is smiling at him, how comforting the weight of his regard makes Lan Zhan feel. “Let me, okay?” he asks, reaching for the waistband of Lan Zhan’s slacks.

His cheeks burn at Wei Ying’s sincerity, the soft way he squeezes Lan Zhan’s fingers when their hands brush.

“Lan Zhan?”

It doesn’t seem possible that Wei Ying is here with him, that he could say Lan Zhan’s name with so much intent behind it.

All he can do is allow this to happen and remember it in as much detail as possible. Maybe… but no, he can’t ask Wei Ying to let him film it. It’s too quick. Even he knows that.

But he cannot deny he would like to make a video of it, just for them, documentary proof of what they could be to one another.

“Okay.” His voice is rougher than he might like, but he can’t fix that now.

Permission obtained, Wei Ying is fast. He reaches for Lan Zhan’s fly, working it deftly between his fingers. His eyes never leave Lan Zhan’s face and they are never less than entirely kind and gentle, sweet and a little mischievous. As he pushes down the soft wool fabric, Wei Ying pats his naked flank. “I have enjoyed these thighs for a long time, Lan Zhan.” He kneels smoothly, holds first one of Lan Zhan’s sock-clad feet, then the other as he pulls the fabric free of his legs. His fingers hook in the stretchy hem of the socks until they’re gone, too.

His hands skim over Lan Zhan’s calves. He stops to press a single kiss to the inside of each knee and says, “I’ve always wanted to do that.” His fingers and lips finish their return journey up his sides to settle on his waist.

One of the appendages, the most daring, runs itself over Wei Ying’s hair and down his face. When it drags across his mouth, he presses a closed mouth kiss to it. “Bed?” Wei Ying asks.

Wei Ying rises smoothly to his feet and holds out his hand.

Nodding, Lan Zhan lets himself be pulled toward it. Wei Ying positions him on his stomach, arranging Lan Zhan’s body in the way he sees fit, muttering about what would be most comfortable. “Is this okay?”

“It’s fine.”

His hand settles between Lan Zhan’s shoulder blades, a light weight against his skin. It doesn’t move and Wei Ying doesn’t speak. He merely kneels beside Lan Zhan.

When he twists to see what Wei Ying’s doing, Wei Ying tuts, studying him as he pets Lan Zhan’s shoulder blade, urging him to lie back down. Even just this small touch sends Lan Zhan’s heart rate skyrocketing.

“Lan Zhan, you should relax. This is supposed to feel good.”

Lan Zhan folds his arms under his head, pillowing his cheek on his forearm. His appendages arrange themselves on either side of him, stretching across the entire width of the bed. “I’m comfortable.” He breathes in, out. “I’m relaxed.”

Wei Ying makes a small, amused noise, not quite a snort, shifting until his knees bracket Lan Zhan’s hips. His weight settles across the back of Lan Zhan’s thighs, something he never could have accomplished on his own, a sensation he could only experience with another person. He’s so exposed like this, but it feels… good. To be exposed. It’s a different quality of exposure than the kind he courts during his streams, but all the same: it is good. He is afraid, but he likes that he’s afraid, likes that he knows even though he’s afraid, Wei Ying won’t hurt him. It’s a thrill, rather than something to dread, like watching an immersive horror movie. The harm is contained, a pressure release.

He buries his face in his arms, eyes tightly shut.

The first touch of Wei Ying’s hand against his spine is a shock. Gasping, he pushes into Wei Ying’s palm, settles only when Wei Ying shushes him. “We’re going to be here for a while,” Wei Ying says, voice stoked-coals warm. “Are you really?”

So maybe he’s not relaxed, not yet.

It’s impossible, he can’t say, not when his face is pressed into the crook of his elbow. It’s difficult when Wei Ying’s fingers drip gentle strokes down each vertebrae until he’s shaking with every touch. There is no pain or tension within him, only Wei Ying’s hands on his body, doing things to him that no one’s ever gotten close enough to do. Without thought, his muscles do eventually relax of their own accord. It cannot be helped. It is inexorable, what Wei Ying can do with him.

“What would you like?” Wei Ying’s fingers splay against Lan Zhan’s lower back and his palms push over each hip. His weight pins Lan Zhan to the bed, safe and secure. “How can I take care of you?”

What else does Lan Zhan even need? He could remain like this forever and be happy. “Anything,” he says, because it is the truth. “Anything, please.”

Wei Ying hums, considering. “Anything, ah? Quite the leeway you’re giving me. What if I take advantage?”

Lan Zhan groans as Wei Ying presses down again. Nothing has ever felt this good. His thumb grazes over one of the sheaths, unexpected, right at the base. Whether accidental or not, pleasure bursts within Lan Zhan and Wei Ying does it again, considering. “Take advantage,” he manages, though the words come out breathy.

Wei Ying does it again, more purposefully. Another flare of pleasure blooms within him, warming him from the inside.

“They’re that sensitive here?”

“Mmhmm,” Lan Zhan agrees.

“Huh. Good to know.” His thumb and forefinger form a ring around it, twists, pulling another gasp from Lan Zhan’s willing mouth. The accompanying appendage curlsc itself back to wrap around Wei Ying’s wrist. He chuckles, touching it lightly, too. “Ah, Lan Zhan. They’re so neat.”

But before Lan Zhan can speak, can clarify that they’re not anything, they’re just him and he’s not ‘neat,’ Wei Ying’s entire body is pressing against him, not least of all the heavy, hard jut of his erection still trapped by his clothing. His mouth finds the base of Lan Zhan’s neck, kisses and nips at his nape while his hands roam up and down Lan Zhan’s sides. He is somehow everywhere all at once, more present even than the appendages that keep trying to reach him, too. “Aiyo, control yourself, Lan Zhan. You’re gonna have me naked here if you don’t stop and then where will I be?”

Exactly where I want you.

Frowning, Lan Zhan twists around again, finds Wei Ying’s got three of the appendages tugging at his clothes. One’s even worked its way into the arm and out through the collar. Though Wei Ying is smiling, mortification slides through Lan Zhan’s body at how eager he is. “My apologies,” he says, despite how affecting the image is. He does not want to be sorry. “They aren’t—they aren’t normally like that.”

He’s always had to force them to touch other people. He hadn’t even realized…

They retreat immediately; Lan Zhan tells himself he’s not disappointed. He tries not to feel small or like he’s done something wrong. Wei Ying’s smile falls away, replaced with confusion. “Lan Zhan, I don’t mind,” he says. “They can come back. I did want… I want to…”

“What do you want?”

“Lan Zhan, I want you. Whatever you want. I thought I was giving you a massage.”

Massages are nice, but there’s something Lan Zhan wants more. There’s no reason for him to be coy now, not when he’s down to his underwear and Wei Ying’s braced against him. “I would very much like to have sex with you.”

Wei Ying’s face goes pink and lovely. His mouth falls open. “Then I had an idea,” Wei Ying said. “I think you might like it.”

“As long as it’s you, I’ll like it.”

Wei Ying nuzzles at the spot just behind his ear, scrapes his teeth over the protrusion of bone there. Lan Zhan shivers from the contact and shivers again at the rumble of Wei Ying’s voice. “Lan Zhan, why don’t you play with yourself instead of saying such devastating things, huh?”

His fingers hook in the corner of Lan Zhan’s mouth, turning his head slightly. The pads press lightly against his tongue. His lips finds Lan Zhan’s jaw, then the corner of his mouth, and presses against it. “Maybe here?” he suggests.

Before Lan Zhan can respond, one of the appendages follows Wei Ying’s request, squeezing in beside Wei Ying’s fingers. As he pulls them out, he wraps his hand around the appendage and strokes it until it ripples against his soft palate. Lan Zhan cannot think of it as anything other than happy. “Good,” Wei Ying says. “That’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

Pain blooms in Lan Zhan’s chest, a precious ache that spreads throughout his body as something gives way inside of him. The way Wei Ying is speaking to him, there can be no denying this is a fundamental truth to Wei Ying. To him, Lan Zhan is beautiful.

“Do you like this?” Wei Ying asks.

Lan Zhan nods, sucking deeply, letting the appendage stroke into his mouth as it would. His cock hardens uncomfortably against the bed, straining against his underwear. Lan Zhan wouldn’t change a thing about it.

Wei Ying fondles one of the other appendages.

And then his weight is gone from Lan Zhan’s back.

Lan Zhan can only make a noise of confusion or protest. Maybe it’s both. So there’s one thing he’d change.

Wei Ying moves to the edge of the bed, half turned to watch Lan Zhan. “Is your lube in the drawer?” Lan Zhan nods as best he can. “Can I—” He gestures toward it.

One of the appendages helpfully pulls the drawer open, allowing Wei Ying to pluck the mostly-used bottle from within it. Wei Ying smiles at it fondly and then just… continues to sit near Lan Zhan, near, but not touching.

“Lan Zhan,” he says, pouting. “I want to see.” Then he tosses the lube at Lan Zhan. It lands next to his elbow. One of the appendages wraps around it before Lan Zhan can grab it.

Lan Zhan has never used his appendages in this way before, in such a mundane manner, but it’s quick, tricky, wanting to show off. Between it and one of its brethren, the bottle is open, spilling cold slick over Lan Zhan’s lower back. They slither inside his underwear, sliding the fabric down his legs. Where the garment ends up, he’s not sure and doesn’t care, because one of the appendages is rolling itself in the puddle on his back before slipping between his cheeks, cool and wet.

Wei Ying is engrossed by the display, eyes riveted, and Lan Zhan is engrossed in watching him, the things happening to him a secondary pleasure to Wei Ying’s enjoyment of them.

An erection tents Wei Ying’s jeans, a tantalizing target. It’s daring, perhaps, but he lets the last free appendage wander over. It touches Wei Ying’s leg first, startling him from his trance, and then his eyes darken with arousal. He spreads his legs in welcome.

Lan Zhan has so rarely touched anyone carefully with his appendages that it comes as a surprise just how much he can discern through them. The texture of Wei Ying’s jeans are a little rough, rough in a way that sends a wash of pleasure over him. Through so many years of his life, he’d never known they could be sensitive in this particular way. Maybe he just hadn’t allowed himself to know it. It nudges at Wei Ying’s fly, but they’re nearly painted on Wei Ying’s body. The appendage can’t sneak in.

Finally, Wei Ying unbuttons them, pushes them down his legs until he can kick them off. Down to his boxers, Lan Zhan can finally see everything, especially when he hikes his leg back up. The appendage flops across his thighs, luxuriating in the feel of Wei Ying’s skin, soft and so warm. His muscles twitch as the appendage crawls toward its goal between Wei Ying’s legs. The appendage particularly enjoys the sleek silken feel of his boxers, lingers over the hem in a way that leaves Wei Ying breathless.

“Lan Zhan, that’s really… you don’t have to—”

“I want to,” he says, gathering as many of his brain cells as he can spare, forcing human sounds onto his tongue as the appendage in his mouth retreats. “It wants to. Please.”

Wei Ying could say no. As gentle as Wei Ying is being, Lan Zhan understands it was Wei Ying’s words, his wishes, shaping this moment. Lan Zhan wants it that way. Wei Ying fell naturally into it the moment he’d touched Lan Zhan’s face and told him to play.

“Oh.” Wei Ying laughs lightly. His hands clench in his lap. Then, he gestures at his lap. “By all means.”

The appendage continues, sneaking beneath the hem of the boxers. It curls easily around the base of Wei Ying’s cock. Though Lan Zhan can’t see it, the suggestive curve alone is somehow more arousing than the full view would be.

Wei Ying’s hands hover over his thighs, shaking slightly as the appendage works him. The muscles in his legs tense in a slow, redolent rhythm that matches each of the appendage’s strokes. This, Lan Zhan enjoys, but even more than that, he likes the flush that sits high on Wei Ying’s cheeks, the shy sweep of his lowered lashes as he watches what’s happening to him, too.

Finally, when Wei Ying is close, so close, perfectly, wonderfully close, he pulls at the appendage, forcing it from within his boxers. “Naughty, Lan Zhan.” He pants raggedly; Lan Zhan isn’t the slightest bit smug. “Here I thought I had a plan.”

“What plan?”

Wei Ying’s eyes gleam mischievously. “You’d have to let us do what we want with you to find out.”

Lan Zhan needs everything Wei Ying is willing to give to him. There’s nothing he desires more or less than exactly what Wei Ying wants from him. Permission, as such, is a given. He can’t imagine a situation under which he might revoke it.

Wei Ying strokes the appendage absently as his gaze grazes over Lan Zhan’s body, contemplative. For Wei Ying, he arches his back in a way he knows to be fetching.

Wei Ying bites his lip, frowns. “Lan Zhan, you don’t have to perform for me.”

He isn’t! He’s sure he’s not. Only…

He realizes he’s focusing pretty intently on Wei Ying’s reaction and that move was meant to be provocative.

“Lan Zhan, let yourself go. Nothing you can do will turn me into the kind of guy you’re worried about. I promise. Just enjoy it, okay? You’ve performed enough for me.”

“Wei Ying…”

Wei Ying scoots closer until his hip is flush with Lan Zhan’s. His thumb strokes over one of the sheaths again, gentle, again and again and again until Lan Zhan has to bite his lip to keep from whimpering. Of all the things he’s done to himself or known he could do, he’d never taken the time to touch them this way. Even his other appendages had barely paid attention to them, though they can easily reach. It feels so good that Lan Zhan doesn’t even realize he’s rutting against the mattress for relief until Wei Ying chuckles, hand sliding over the swell of his buttocks.

The appendage that had been in his mouth returns, filling him.

“There we go,” Wei Ying says. His hand cups Lan Zhan’s cheek as one of the lubed appendages slides against the cleft and presses against his rim. Groaning, Lan Zhan rocks back against it. Wei Ying’s breath catches as it slides inside. The appendage that’s grown so fond of Wei Ying’s lap continues trying to sneak its way into his boxers; Wei Ying merely holds it, gentle, squeezing lightly. “Can you get on your elbows and knees for me?”

Lan Zhan complies, grunting as the appendages inside of him shift with each movement. Without the bed to hide his reaction, he feels exposed. His head bows until Wei Ying tsks. “Spread your legs, Lan Zhan. I still want to see.”

Dizzy with desires of his own, he complies, body feeling like it’s not entirely under his control, that at any moment he’s going to collapse forward, and the only thing keeping it from happening is Wei Ying’s will.

Wei Ying comes closer, drapes the appendage in his hand around the back of Lan Zhan’s neck. “Take care of him, okay?” he tells it. It—or Lan Zhan, deep down inside—seems to know what he means. It curls around his throat once and settles between his shoulder blades. It becomes a little difficult to swallow. Just a little more pressure and he wouldn’t be able to breathe at all. “We can do better than that, can’t we?”

Lan Zhan doesn’t know what he means at first, not until he grabs a handful of Lan Zhan’s hair and tugs lightly in demonstration. Then, the appendage quickly replaces Wei Ying’s hand. The appendage tightens a little, just enough to feel illicit. It pulls harder than Wei Ying does, forcing Lan Zhan’s head back, neck taut as it squeezes more tightly around his throat. He wonders what he looks like and wishes he had a mirror.

He turns his head, pleasure heightened by the slide of the appendage against his throat, and finds Wei Ying’s gaze already caught up in him.

“What are you looking around for?” Wei Ying asks. “Do I need to blindfold you, too, so you’ll focus on yourself?”

That—Lan Zhan doesn’t…

His body throbs, skin prickling with need.

“I didn’t think to bring anything like that…” He taps his finger playfully against his chin, brushes it once over his nose. “Hmm, how are we going to solve this problem?” His voice is rough, too, but authoritative. There is heated playfulness in his expression. He thinks again about the image he must present, speared on his appendages, saliva slipping from the corner of his mouth, lube trickling down his thighs, his dick heavy between his legs, all perfectly visible to Wei Ying.

The last of Lan Zhan’s appendages, the one that seems to like Wei Ying best, curves reluctantly across his cheek and temple. His body jolts as he realizes what it could do, what could be done to him. Before he knows it, it’s secured itself over his eyes and wraps itself in his hair, freeing the appendage around his neck to fondle his ear.

“Will they stop if you don’t want it anymore? Nod or shake your head for me?”

Lan Zhan nods.

“Do we need to arrange a signal?”

A shake. Lan Zhan won’t want to stop, but Wei Ying will know.

“You’ll tell me?”

Lan Zhan nods again.

“Okay. There’s a chair in the corner of the room,” he says. “I’m going to watch from there, all right?”

Lan Zhan does whimper now, straining to hear as much as he can, trying to imagine what Wei Ying is doing. He is greedy for sound, greedier than he ever could have known. There’s the snick of a plastic cap, the lube presumably, and the rustle of clothing, Wei Ying’s finally being fully removed. It’s not so very different from the stream, except for how it’s different in every single way. It’s almost unfair that Lan Zhan can’t see it, but the appendages take their work seriously. He can’t move like this, not with his arms quivering just with the act of holding him up through this.

Wei Ying’s hand moves slickly over his length. He makes little gasping noises.

The two appendages within him find their rhythm, taking him as they wish, lazy and frenzied in turn. Though Lan Zhan fights to keep some of his focus on what would be good for Wei Ying—no matter what Wei Ying says, he wants to be pleasing, even outside of the context of the stream—eventually he succumbs to it. Every stroke, every pull of his hair, it drives him to madness. If Wei Ying is enjoying it, it no longer matters.

But it’s not enough. This isn’t enough, not when Wei Ying’s here, right across the room. He loves being watched. There’s little he’s found that he likes more, but he can have Wei Ying, too, and be watched from up close.

Ideally with Wei Ying inside of him.

The appendage in his mouth retreats, teases at his lips, tugs at his ear, leaving trails of Lan Zhan’s spit behind. “Wei Ying, I…” His hands fist in the bedding; he is a wreck of his own making, voice roughened by the appendage’s ministrations.He tells himself he doesn’t have to choose. “Wei Ying, I want you.”

He wants to come on Wei Ying’s cock. He will beg if he has to. If that is how Wei Ying wants it to be.

Wei Ying’s eyes widen. “Ah?”

“Will you—” He bites off a shout as the appendage within him pulls itself free, too, sensing Lan Zhan’s desires now lie elsewhere. Without it, he is bereft. He needs to be filled with something else. “Wei Ying, I want you to fuck me.”

Wei Ying sighs, stands. Lan Zhan still can’t see, but he can hear Wei Ying’s approach. “Ah, Lan Zhan. You don’t have to—”

“Do you not want to?” He is ashamed, through the haze of pleasure still echoing within him, to realize perhaps Wei Ying is just as much into watching as Lan Zhan is into being watched. If that’s the case…

“Lan Zhan! I want to! But I want you to have what you want. I want to be the one to give it to you.” He says this last ferociously, like it is something that is his to protect. His hand settles against Lan Zhan’s back, a warm brand against his skin. “You should get what you want.”

“I want you.” It feels petulant to admit it again and again, but that doesn’t make it any less true. “I want this and I want you.” He is greedy for everything. “Please. I’m—”

He keeps condoms in the drawer along with the lube. Surely Wei Ying saw them. Surely he understands. Wei Ying walks over to it and pulls it open, rifles around again, retrieves one of the little packets. His heart unspools its relief within his chest. A warm cascade of it fills him. “Lan Zhan, you’re sure?”

Where’s the Wei Ying who was so kindly ordering his appendages around before? Why is he suddenly uncertain? “Wei Ying!”

“Okay, okay.” The packet tears and Wei Ying swears under his breath as something falls from his hand. “Lan Zhan, you’re going to be the death of me. I think it was safer when your mouth was full.”

Before Lan Zhan can complain, the appendage playing with his ear works its way back into Lan Zhan’s mouth, not that Lan Zhan minds. This is, he thinks, how it will be. He is content knowing the appendages will listen to Wei Ying before they listen to Lan Zhan, practically begging to be told what to do with Lan Zhan’s own body?

Lan Zhan hopes anyway. He hopes they’ll always want to follow Wei Ying’s whims. He can trust no one more than Wei Ying with them.

“Fuck,” Wei Ying says. “That’s really—Lan Zhan, you’re…” He makes another noise, something indescribable, scorching to hear. “How are you real?”

His tongue is ready with a sharp answer, but the appendage shoves itself in even deeper, keeping him from speaking. The thought is driven from his mind anyway: Wei Ying, hard and hot and a little bigger than his appendages, slides into him at the same time. Even through the condom it feels incredible. He’s slick and heavy and his fingers tighten against Lan Zhan’s hips, holding him in place. He hopes they leave wide, purple smears that hurt when Lan Zhan presses against them.

Lan Zhan would tell him if the appendage in his mouth wasn’t so determined.

But even though Wei Ying’s grip is tight, he works into Lan Zhan slowly, barely moving as his hips roll against Lan Zhan. They’re held flush by Wei Ying’s touch, as close as two people can get, and it’s not enough.

The appendage in his hair tightens its hold in frustration.

When Lan Zhan reaches for himself, needing more stimulation, Wei Ying bats his hand away. “I’ve seen you come without touching yourself. I know you can.”

Lan Zhan’s head bows forward again and is yanked by the hair back into position. The soft way Wei Ying treats him versus the harsher touch of his appendages is something he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget, well beyond anything he’s ever experienced before.

He is reduced to the sting of his scalp, the warm, dry slide around his throat, the incrementally endless drag of Wei Ying’s cock within him.

His shoulders slump, body aching from holding itself up. His muscles tremble.

Wei Ying squeezes his arm. “Rest, Lan Zhan. I’ve got you.”

The appendage in his hair lets go, though it still acts as a blindfold. This time, he is gently lowered to the bed, face turned sideways on the pillow. The appendage in his mouth slows, mostly sits there on his tongue, filling him. Wei Ying stretches forward and repositions Lan Zhan’s arms, settling them so Lan Zhan can get them under his head, easing the strain on his chest and neck. His hips are still hiked up, the back of his thighs resting on Wei Ying’s. His knees bracket Wei Ying’s knees.

He’s loosened his hold on Lan Zhan’s hips and instead pets his flank, repetitive and soothing. The appendage that’s no longer pulling his hair follows Wei Ying’s example, strokes gently across Lan Zhan’s abdomen and no lower.

Wei Ying barely moves, but each time he does, Lan Zhan feels like he’ll shatter. The fault lines in his body rub up against one another. He will break if Wei Ying takes this much care with him.

He will break if Wei Ying doesn’t.

“You’re doing so well for me,” Wei Ying says, quiet, reverent. Lan Zhan shifts minutely at hearing the praise, moans as it shifts the angle of Wei Ying’s dick slightly. “Just a little longer, hmm?”

Lan Zhan squeezes his eyes shut even more tightly beneath the appendage still caught across the bridge of his nose.

His body is nothing except exposed nerves and slow, gliding, endless pleasure, soft touches and teasing strokes. How can he stand to remain in a place such as this? Why hasn’t he fallen yet?

“Please,” he says without really registering it, the plea thick on his tongue. “Please, I’ve been good.”

Wei Ying’s body jerks against his. Again, his hands tighten, such a surprise that Lan Zhan gasps, livewire hot all of a sudden, pulled back into his body by the force of it. Wei Ying pulls out of him and before Lan Zhan realizes what’s happening, Wei Ying is turning him, pushing the appendages aside.

Wei Ying lines himself up and thrusts into him, hard and fast and sharp.

His hands cup Lan Zhan’s face, brush at his cheeks—why is he brushing at my cheeks, he thinks—and kisses him deeply, filling his mouth with his tongue as he slides his hands between their sweat-soaked bodies. Before Wei Ying reaches his destination, Lan Zhan spills hot over them both. Wei Ying swallows his cry, touches him until he’s sensitive to it, pulls a second, weaker orgasm from him that leaves him entirely wrung out. Wei Ying lasts a moment or two longer than that, panting and grinding into him. His breath is warm against Lan Zhan’s ear as he goes still.

Lan Zhan wishes he could feel the hot splash of Wei Ying’s come. This will have to do.

If he were alone, this was the point where he’d normally gather himself up, take care to clean himself, treat himself as gently as he could. He didn’t always manage to do so, but he always tried.

Instead, Wei Ying is here, pressing kisses into his temple, murmuring praise into his skin, rolling away for the shortest amount of time possible, bringing a soft cloth to him and water and pressing himself against Lan Zhan’s side when he’s done wiping him down and telling him to drink more.

“Hey,” he says. Again, his thumb finds Lan Zhan’s cheek. It comes away glinting and Lan Zhan doesn’t know if it’s sweat or tears. It makes little difference probably. “Hey, that was okay, wasn’t it?”

How can he explain that nobody ever did anything like that for him? That nobody…?

He needn’t, he realizes suddenly: Wei Ying is yllz. He already knows Lan Zhan’s woes, but Wei Ying deserves assurances, too.

“It was everything to me,” he offers, taking the last of his own energy to speak as he nestles against Wei Ying. His appendages wrap themselves around the both of them, forming a warm cocoon. Like so much of tonight, it is a comfort he’s never experienced before, never would have thought to give to himself.

When he’s rested for just a little while, he’ll rouse Wei Ying and they’ll take a proper shower together. He is kept awake by the thought of it, the joy he takes in considering doing any such thing with another person and Wei Ying in particular.

Lan Zhan wakes at five, completely rested and shocked by the fact—so much for the shower he’d intended to share with Wei Ying—to find Wei Ying splayed across as much of the bed as he’s been able to steal in the night. He has managed to conquer quite a lot of it, Lan Zhan’s eager and happy to note, like he’s already treating it as his own.

Usually, he sheathes the appendages before he goes to bed, but they’re still out, all of them gathered around his own waist in a tight, pleasant embrace. One works itself free from the tangle and stretches to brush Wei Ying’s hair out of his face. The others, apparently jealous, all take their own chance to touch Wei Ying—a cheek, a shoulder, a quick squeeze of his hip. Wei Ying’s body follows each gesture as he hums sleepily.

“Mm. ’s early, isn’t it?” He turns his face into the pillow. “Good morning, Lan Zhan,” he says to the appendage closest to him, patting it gently after a few false starts, his arm flailing because he refuses to open his eyes yet.

Lan Zhan startles.

The appendage… the limb… his limb, a part of himself, presses itself against the tip of Wei Ying’s nose, earning a delighted laugh as he takes hold of the tip and kisses it lightly. It curls around the back of Wei Ying’s head and pokes at his cheek.

“I shouldn’t have woken you,” he says, pushing down his fondness so it doesn’t choke him.

“Like I mind.” His jaw cracks on a yawn as he pushes himself upright, scrubbing at the wild tangle of hair. He blinks blearily and turns to look at his limb again. There are charming lines imprinted in his face from the pillowcase. “Hi.”

“The shower is yours if you’d like it. Then I’ll make breakfast,” Lan Zhan says, embarrassed and overwhelmed by Wei Ying’s treatment of him. That his touch would be welcome is still a shock to him; he might never grow used to it. But to share in this playfulness, too, is a gift he never would have expected to receive.

Wei Ying stretches, the muscles of his chest and stomach serving as a worthy distraction from the fragile bend of his thoughts. Lan Zhan would very much like to go back to bed, taste the broad stretch of Wei Ying’s skin. That is a safer thing to think about.

Wei Ying makes that impossible, dragging himself toward the edge of the bed, Lan Zhan’s limbs trailing after him. “Mm, I’ll help. I want to see you.” He scrunches his nose. “Shower first though. And maybe you’ll let me borrow some clothes?”

“Of course.”

How can Lan Zhan argue—he does not, in truth, want to argue against this, this intimacy, not in any form—when Wei Ying’s already springing up, clutching the new pair of close-fitting boxers in the variety Lan Zhan favors and the soft, worn t-shirt Lan Zhan retrieves for him. He trails after Lan Zhan to the bathroom, batting at his limbs with catlike joy when they wave in his direction. He talks to them, too, calling them affectionate nicknames and grousing about how shameless they are right up until the moment they enter and Wei Ying pulls Lan Zhan into his microscopic shower.

He laughs against Lan Zhan’s lips, says, quiet, “Maybe I’m the shameless one, huh?”

As they dry one another afterward, he realizes that this is the first morning he hasn’t woken with back pain in as long as he can remember.

“Lan Zhan, how easy is cooking when you have so many extra hands?” Wei Ying asks when they’ve finally made their way into the kitchen. “They coordinated pretty well last night.”

Lan Zhan flushes at the reminder.

“I… I don’t know,” he answers. He’s never tried before, but when he does it for Wei Ying now, pulling open cupboards to retrieve the various ingredients he needs as Wei Ying praises him to a ridiculous, performative, silly degree, he has to bite back a smile.

He discovers it is somewhat easier to reach the distant cabinets and drawers without having to leave the stove. He’s faster, too. Soon, he’s placing a spread on the small counter that separates the kitchen from the rest of the living area that leaves Wei Ying’s eyes wide and impressed.

He is happy, a feeling he has known in his life, though they have not been regular companions to one another, him and happiness. More than that, he is satisfied. This is enough, he can say, and it is not a lie.

Lan Zhan sends a message to his subscribers that he will be taking a short break from streaming. He doesn’t tell Wei Ying yet. He will, but he’d like to think about it first, what he wants to do going forward.

It’s more important to him to spend this time with Wei Ying, Wei Ying who stays throughout the entire day, Wei Ying who keeps wearing his clothes as he washes his own. It’s incredible. It’s a dream.

He never wants to wake up.

He needs to be careful, considerate. He has a lover now and that means something to him.

Wei Ying stays for a second night.

“Lan Zhan, I can’t just camp out here forever,” Wei Ying says as he downs a cup of coffee in Lan Zhan’s kitchen. Lan Zhan now has a coffee maker. He’d snuck out for an hour to get one while Wei Ying was napping after he’d woken up at five again, shared with Lan Zhan a morning bout of sex, showered, and been returned to the bed by Lan Zhan, all while only half awake. He’d left behind a note in case Wei Ying woke up while he was gone. It hadn’t been until Lan Zhan was brewing a pot for him that he’d roused himself again.

He’s only been here two days and Lan Zhan thinks about complaining that two days hardly counts as camping, when Wei Ying purses his lips in a thoughtful expression.

“Or maybe I can just grab my laptop and a change of clothes? Maybe a few days’ worth, Lan Zhan, how does that sound?”

Though his manner is coy and teasing, Lan Zhan can read the concern in his gaze, concern that he’s been too exuberant, that he’s pushing for too much.

Lan Zhan doesn’t have to say how it sounds, but when he blocks his schedule for the week and calls his boss’s office phone to leave a message explaining he will be taking emergency leave, all while holding Wei Ying’s gaze, it’s clear how he feels about it, even to Wei Ying, who only smiles crookedly at him when Lan Zhan then says he’s welcome indefinitely.

“So I should pack more of my stuff, huh?” is the only thing Wei Ying asks in response.

You should pack everything, he knows better than to reply. It’s too soon and a ridiculous thing to want from a man worth two-hundred million dollars, but he has learned the value of honesty: he wants Wei Ying here.

He wants Wei Ying.

He wants: and for once, he’s under no illusion that he cannot have it.

Though it’s only a week Lan Zhan can manage on such short notice, the time seems to telescope out to accommodate them, a perfect taffy-sweet stretch of nearly uninterrupted time during which they learn everything about one another. With Wei Ying, it grows easy to talk about his upbringing, how he feels about himself and these limbs of his. Curling together in Lan Zhan’s bed or sitting at the small table in Lan Zhan’s kitchen, their ankles tangling together as they drink tea and coffee, they talk. Endlessly. About everything. Lan Zhan hadn’t known there were so many things worth discussing until Wei Ying. They even talk when they’re trying to do other things. Lan Zhan doesn’t mind at all. Each word is precious.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying is saying from his sprawl on the living room floor after they’ve… well. In the moment, there had been no point in waiting until they reached the bedroom to touch one another. Lan Zhan is swiping at Wei Ying’s chest with a cloth and Wei Ying is staring up at him, his hair a dark, messy halo around his head. His hand is wrapped around Lan Zhan’s thigh. His limbs wrap themselves around Wei Ying’s waist except for the one that keeps trying to take the cloth from Lan Zhan’s hand. “Do you want to know how I discovered your stream?”

This isn’t something he’s thought about often, not really. He is merely grateful that Wei Ying found him at all. They haven’t discussed his stream at all in the days Wei Ying has been here and he hadn’t expected it to come up so soon, like they’ve both been avoiding it. But maybe not. Maybe it’s only Lan Zhan who’s avoided it. He has learned to tag his page appropriately, uses the correct buzzwords to appease the algorithmic gods. “The same way everyone else did, I suppose.”

Wei Ying barks out a laugh and shakes his head. “It was random, Lan Zhan. An accident, really. I was bored and lonely and just following time-honored traditions set down by bored, lonely people the world over. I don’t even really like visual porn. It doesn’t really work for me most of the time, but that night, nothing else was working and I was getting frustrated. Like, ready to give up on ever having sex levels of frustrated. I don’t even remember what I was truly upset about. A bad date, probably. I had a lot of those back then. I’d just moved to San Francisco and didn’t know anyone.”

“So you found my site?”

“Nope! I was fucking around on some other site and accidentally clicked the wrong link. I almost clicked away before it even loaded, ready to give up and accept my life as an unlovable bachelor.”

Lan Zhan frowns, but Wei Ying reaches up and tugs at his cheek until his lips pull in an artificial smile.

“It was stressful at work, okay? Jin Guangshan was only just starting to court me and my team. I was a little overwrought at the time. It was a whole thing. Anyway, I didn’t click fast enough and the front page had a slew of previews that were, you know, fine, I guess. Exactly what you’d expect from a cam site, I suppose.”

Wei Ying pauses, biting his lip. He’s moved on from pinching Lan Zhan’s cheek to poking at it.

“Mn. Go on.”

“But there was this one preview in the random live streams section. All the other ones were darker, dark sheets, low lights, bright pops of color. Not this one. This one was all white and stark except for a few splashes of blue.”

Lan Zhan flushes.

“I was intrigued, I’ll admit. And since I was there… I figured, why not? So I signed up and clicked on that stream. I’d never seen anything like it, what that streamer was doing. Sure, I’ve watched, you know, the usual stuff, but the way he moved? It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” Wei Ying’s gaze is clear, pure. It hides nothing. “I was transfixed by you, Lan Zhan. I was—I don’t know. I was moved. I didn’t feel like I was watching porn. I felt like I’d been invited into something special. Back then, I spent so much of my time feeling alone, but looking at you like that? So open and honest and brazen? I didn’t feel alone. I never feel alone watching you. You seemed indomitable to me.”

A lump lodges itself in Lan Zhan’s throat. Though he feels he should speak, he can’t.

“It meant a lot to me, that stream, and when you posted it as a video, I was over the moon. I told myself I’d wait to watch it again. But then I came back to your next stream and saw the cost you paid for doing that. It was upsetting to me that anyone would make you feel you needed to remove it, that you were doing something undesirable. I told myself then I’d always support you, no matter what.”

“I…”

“Lan Zhan,” he says, serious, somber, “there is nothing you do or have done that’s undesirable to me. Do you understand?”

Wei Ying’s eyes are searching; Lan Zhan is a butterfly, pinned to a board, totally exposed. Lan Zhan’s voice wavers when he speaks. He is very well aware of this fact now. It still floors him to hear it said aloud. “What brought this on?”

“Nothing in particular,” Wei Ying says, bright, cheerful, whisking away the grave cast this conversation has taken. “I just wanted you to know.”

Though Wei Ying often speaks for the sheer pleasure of it, he is not frivolous in what he says. It all is meaningful to him, even the silly things he says, and so it is meaningful to Lan Zhan, too. Through the rest of the evening and even into the next day, he turns over what Wei Ying’s told him and why he might have done so.

If he asks again, Wei Ying will likely tell him, but he gets the feeling it would be better to figure it out for himself.

But even as the end of their uninterrupted week approaches, he’s no closer to an answer.

Theoretically, they are watching a movie, Wei Ying having claimed one side of the couch while Lan Zhan takes the other. Though it’s their last night together before Lan Zhan returns to work, for Wei Ying’s sake, Lan Zhan has agreed. Contrary to Lan Zhan’s expectations—he rarely watches movies and never watches them with others, but he’s given to understand it involves looking at the television screen occasionally—Wei Ying seems to have taken it as an excuse to pet Lan Zhan’s limbs, now a pile sprawling across Wei Ying’s warm lap while Wei Ying’s toes have worked their way under Lan Zhan’s thigh.

It should be awkward, sitting this way, spine straight enough to leave room between himself and the back of the couch. He may need to consider purchasing a new couch, one built with people like him in mind, but it would be worth it all the same even if it was uncomfortable to him.

Wei Ying, the scoundrel, is not paying even a modicum of attention to the television.

Lan Zhan thinks he might have been played. Wei Ying doesn’t give a single damn about this film, not when his true purpose was probably to slowly, or not actually so slowly, entice Lan Zhan’s limbs toward him.

This is the most agonizingly slow foreplay he’s ever experienced and that is, for him, saying a great deal. He could probably post a video of this on his stream and drive at least some of his subscribers crazy with the amount of teasing Wei Ying is doing.

Though he’s already still, his hands placed carefully on his knees to keep from letting them wander, he tenses further, locks every one of his muscles.

His stream.

“Lan Zhan?”

“It’s nothing,” Lan Zhan says, despite knowing it’s not. The movie is at an especially boring part, but Lan Zhan tries to pay attention anyway as his nerves scratch around within him.

It is fine, he thinks, to miss a few weeks as he and Wei Ying explore their new relationship, but he will need to make a decision soon. For the future.

Wei Ying wraps his arms around Lan Zhan’s limbs. “Lan Zhan, really?”

“I just—” Honesty. He is good at honesty now. He does not have to hide from Wei Ying. “My stream.”

“Lan Zhan, you should keep doing them,” Wei Ying says before Lan Zhan can even voice his concerns, “if that’s what you want. I don’t know if you haven’t mentioned it because you don’t want to hurt my feelings or—I don’t know, maybe that’s presumptuous. We’re barely—my point as awkward as it is is just: I like you a lot and I like everything you do. I want you to be comfortable and happy. That’s what I was trying to get at before. I thought you understood. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear enough.”

There’s nothing you have done that’s undesirable to me.

Oh.

“I like my streams. I’m afraid they may cause you pain now that we’re together.”

“Oh, Lan Zhan.” Lan Zhan sees Wei Ying smiling out of the corner of his eye. “I like them, too.”

“I like what you helped me see my streams could be.”

Wei Ying’s smile broadens.

“I would like to keep doing them,” Lan Zhan says.

Wei Ying stretches to squeeze Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

Lan Zhan continues thinking about it. He hasn’t really needed the money in a long time, has just kept doing these things out of personal necessity, but even that has been stripped from him now that he has Wei Ying. The streams are no longer a bandage trying to stem the bleeding of an open, festering wound. “I would like to quit doing partnered work,” he continues, because why not explain fully now?

“You don’t have to—”

Lan Zhan grabs Wei Ying’s ankle, tugs Wei Ying’s leg into his lap. One of his limbs curls proprietarily around it, pushing Lan Zhan’s hand aside. Like this, it makes sitting on the couch a little more difficult with his limbs free, but as long as he sits erect, it’s not so bad. “It was never my favorite part.” His gaze cuts to Wei Ying’s face. “I would one day enjoy having sex with you without condoms and endless blood tests.”

Wei Ying gasps, scandalized, and kicks at his thigh. “Lan Zhan!”

Lan Zhan gives him a small smile. “I am serious.”

“I know,” Wei Ying says. “I mean… I watched all that stuff, too. It was hot. You were always good, but I think it makes sense, what you’re saying.”

Lan Zhan’s stomach twists. “Is that something you’d want?”

Wei Ying flushes. “Who hasn’t thought about getting ravished by a guy who could be everywhere all at once? But Lan Zhan, I like what we do and what we’ve done. If that’s not something you want, I’m not being deprived of anything I need. If you were interested in railing me into the mattress though? I wouldn’t be opposed.”

He’s not sure. That’s something he’ll have to think about in further detail, something for another time. It might be different if it was just him and Wei Ying and the privacy of Lan Zhan’s room or Wei Ying’s.

They will have to discuss it sometime. It’s too much for tonight.

“Could I…?” Wei Ying says, fiddling with his own hands, shy. Lan Zhan can’t imagine what Wei Ying might feel shy about now, but considering how at ease he’s always made Lan Zhan feel, he hopes he can assuage him. “I’d like to… would you let me watch?”

“Watch what?”

Wei Ying flushes. “The stream!”

Lan Zhan blinks. “You’ve already watched my streams. Of course you can…” It would be incredible to know Wei Ying’s watching him, that he still likes this part of Lan Zhan, too.

“I mean in the room. I’d like to… I don’t want to interfere or anything, but… I would like to watch. From there.” His expression darkens. “Maybe also moderate your chat directly. Fuck those guys who are rude to you.”

Affection for Wei Ying blooms in his chest. “There aren’t many of them these days,” Lan Zhan points out. They have accepted that this is who he is now or they have moved on and been replaced with new subscribers.

Wei Ying only pouts, belligerent. “Even one is too many.”

“Wei Ying, yes. You can watch my stream from in the room. I don’t care about the chat. The chat has a bot. That’s good enough. I don’t want to share you with them.”

“But—”

Lan Zhan hikes himself onto his knees, lets himself loom over Wei Ying, bracketing his legs. His hands brace on the back of the couch and the armrest behind Wei Ying’s head. This is a position he’s taken up many times with others, but he’s never seen the appeal of it until now.

Wei Ying’s mouth rounds in surprise. If there are any words trapped behind his teeth, they remain there.

One limb wraps around Wei Ying’s wrist. Another pushes itself under Wei Ying’s shirt. This close, he can see Wei Ying’s pupils dilating. Perhaps he won’t need to think about ravishing Wei Ying for nearly as long as he’s expecting. Perhaps one day soon, he can have this, too.

In the meantime, he thinks about how he might make this stream special.

Later, Lan Zhan discovers there’s an express option from the website from which he’d ordered the lingerie for Wei Ying. It’s worth the cost to ensure it’s completed quickly and shipped just as fast.

“Lan Zhan! You’re hiding something from me!” Wei Ying calls from the other side of the bathroom door. “I saw you take a box in with you! Is it for the stream? You’re streaming tonight, right?” He taps lightly on the door. “I can help you!”

“Patience,” he calls back, steadying his thoughts, willing his racing heart to beat more normally. This is nothing he hasn’t done before.

“You’ve been in there a while. Are you sure you’re—”

“I’m fine!”

As he stares down at himself and his already hardening dick, he’s not sure he’ll continue to fit inside the sheer, lacy white panties. This set is different from the last set he purchased. It has more straps for one thing and a waist cincher that connects to a collar he’s already wrapped around his throat, to multiple rings that snap around his thighs. His limbs are already making trouble for him, getting underneath every bit of lace it can reach. At least one seam is already stretched.

“Gege, let me help.”

Lan Zhan closes his eyes, breaths through his nose, reminds himself that this is the same man who pinned him to the wall in the hallway not even a day ago. This is the same man who told his limbs to hold his arms behind his back and wrap tight around his ankles, binding his legs together so Wei Ying could fuck his thighs.

If he thinks about that too much, this really will be over before it’s even started.

Only a handful of pieces still need to be put on: a few strands of pearls and the mask he’d asked to have made to match.

His hand trembles as he wraps each necklace around his throat, one string long enough to curve against his abdomen, the others shorter and easier to pull taut. His fingers shake as he adjusts the mask. It’s different now, shooting a stream, doing this with his beloved pestering him from the other side of the door. It will be incredible, but it’s a lot, too.

When he looks at himself in the mirror, what he sees is perfect. Exactly what he might have hoped to see.

“Lan Zhan! I’ll perish if I don’t see you soon.”

Lan Zhan grips the door handle, strangling it as he turns the knob, hears Wei Ying’s sharp inhalation even before he’s fully exposed himself, says, drawing all the confidence he needs from within himself, “We wouldn’t want that.”

He leads Wei Ying to the office where his equipment is already prepared. It will be the first time Wei Ying sees it. He is eager to share this with him.

Without fear, he opens this part of himself fully to Wei Ying, says: “Wei Ying, watch me, please.”