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"Well at least we know why those other fighters skills were impaired," Li Lianhua says, as he stops in the centre of the overgrown courtyard.
The day is far too warm and Di Feisheng has already let Li Lianhua poke around what appears to be a deserted manor house for the best part of an hour. He's willing to indulge him up to a point, and he is a little curious himself as to why seemingly competent fighters could lose to a mysterious group of apparently less skilled opponents. Curious, but not really interested enough to make it his business. "Why then?"
"Don't you smell anything?"
Di Feisheng looks at the long, trailing clusters red and pink blossoms that grow riotous over the trees and features of the abandoned courtyard garden. There is a vaguely sweet scent from them or possible from the plants in theequally overgrown pond behind him. "The flowers drugged them?"
Regardless of which one of the flowers it is, he doesn't feel like his energy is lower or disrupted or like he is going to fall asleep. If anything it seems to be enhancing his senses. The feeling of sweat beading along his hairline from the heat, the way his clothes brush against his skin as he moves, and the scent of the hair oil Li Lianhua used that morning before they left the Lotus Tower.
Being overly aware of everything like this could definitely be distracting if you didn't keep control of yourself. Perhaps it made injuries feel worse too.
The sun definitely feels hotter than it had, heat prickling over his skin. Normally it wouldn't bother him, but it has been getting steadily worse since they arrived here, enough so now that he's starting to feel a little dizzy from it.
Li Lianhua is still talking, but he can't focus on the words. Not when his lips are so pink and soft, had they always been so sweet looking?
Di Feisheng swallows hard. Now really wasn't the time start thinking of that. It wasn't like he didn't know how those lips tasted. He'd kissed them just this morning. He has done on many occasions since they'd found a way to stop Li Lianhua from dying. Not a cure for the damage that was done, but it was a halt to it getting worse and ending his life.
"Lao Di?" Li Lianhua taps him of the side of his head. "Are you listening to me?"
He nods, but realises that he hasn't got any idea what has been said, so shakes his head.
"I said that how much it affects people is down to their cultivation."
Perhaps it because of the dizzying heat, but Di Feisheng can only consider one meaning for this, and he snaps back at him. "You're saying I'm weak?"
Rather than responding with annoyance or snarky comment, Li Lianhua looks even more concerned. "I'm saying that the stronger they are and the more heavily their cultivation relies on Yang energy the worse it will be for them."
Which isn't good at all. Di Feisheng is certain he can push his way through this, no matter what. But Li Lianhua, could he stand it at all? "Your Yangzhouman-"
"Is a fraction of what it once was. It's annoying, but the Bicha had strong cold yin element to it, and that is tempering the effect of it."
"But the Bicha is gone." It had been so close though. They'd nearly lost him.
"It's gone, but there's some things the body doesn't forget." The fake little smile uses when he wants everyone to believe he's alright with things, appears. "Some changes that cannot be undone."
"Lianhua, you-
"I'm going to be fine." Li Lianhua looks around and then points to one of the rooms at the side of the courtyard. "You really need to get out of here and take care of it. I'll keep watch."
"Take care of what? There's no one here to fight. You think I'll let you fight them all alone? These flowers are nothing, they…" Di Feisheng stops, a fresh wave of heat rolls over him and he staggers, clutching at Li Lianhua's arm to stop himself from falling.
The uncomfortably hot feeling has progressed until he feels feverish. His body aching for something, anything, that will give it relief. The way his clothes touch his skin, where they stick sweat-damp, clinging to him, only make him feel hotter and trapped by them. It makes him want to take them off.
He looks at the pond. It wasn't so bad really, some water did flow in and out, so it wasn't completely stagnant. They could swim in it, they could-
Di Feisheng gasps as Li Lianhua touches him. Just fingers pressed against his wrist, feeling the pulse and flow of qi within him. They are so cool, comforting. If only he could have them all over his body he'd feel better. He's sure of it.
Or in him. That would be good. They've been meaning to try it that way. He's so hard… Di Feisheng's mind catches up with his body as the realisation of just what is happening to him sets in.
He swears, swaying unsteadily again. "Aphrodisiacs."
"Unpleasantly potent ones, unfortunately. So that's why they were too distracted to fight back effectively," Li Lianhua replies. "Which is why you need to take care of it now." Keeping an arm tight around him as he moves them both from the main courtyard to a side one, where the pollen doesn't reach.
Smaller, roughly paved and without decoration, it had been a work area which had the servants rooms leading off it. It is also thankfully free of the offending flowers.
The bedroom they find is unused, but otherwise not in too a bad state of repair. They've both stayed in far worse places over the years.
Leaving Di Feisheng sitting on the edge of the bed, Li Lianhua returns to stand by the door.
"Aren't you…" Di Feisheng stops, thoughts fraying at distrubing speed. What does he want to ask? 'Aren't you affected too?' or 'Aren't you going to watch?' or even 'Aren't you going to help?'
"Do you want an audience?"
"No." He feels like he's burning up as he pulls open his clothes, trying to find relief. "I don't care."
"You do." With his back to him, Li Lianhua faces the door. "Because I'm not the company I'm talking about. Those bandits who have been using these flowers will be back soon, and you don't want to be caught with your trousers down."
He looks back at Di Feisheng, "I'll keep watch while you deal with it."
"This is the cure for it? I get off and it's all fine?" Di Feisheng says dubiously, as he sits with clothes hanging open, his trousers pooled around his ankles. Somehow it doesn't seem likely that the other fighters had been so oblivious that they all hadn't realised what was happening to them.
"Unfortunately, no." Li Lianhua stays by the door, ear pressed to it, listening for any sign those who'd set the flower based trap had returned so they could dispatch their distracted victims.
"Then why bother?" Di Feisheng asks. He has to ask the question. Not that he thinks he could stop now, not when touching himself feels like the most blessed relief.
"Because because we need to buy you some time to fight them. We can take care of it properly afterwards."
Fighting sounds good, but right now getting Li Lianhua into bed, letting him do what he pleases with him sounds even better.
"Then we…what? Find a cure? Another flower? Or do I just keep…" Di Feisheng isn't easily embarrassed, but the idea of the cure being repeatedly getting himself off until the effects of the flowers are removed from him, makes a different kind of heat flush his cheeks.
"No." There's a pause like Li Lianhua is working out the best way to say it, before he sighs and says, "Dual cultivation."
It could be worse, he supposes. They've had sex before, but they're still learning what each other likes. They've not introduced this into what they've done so far, but it he thinks it was only a matter of time. It's not something he's got any experience of, nor any interest in looking into in the past. At least not once Yao Mo had told him that it wouldn't cure the Bicha.
This is different. Hopefully Li Lianhua had some idea about how it is suppose to work. "So I have to-
"The other way around," Li Lianhua interrupts him, looking even more uncomfortable about it. "I know we haven't done it that way, but it won't work otherwise. Yangzhouman was always more about balance than Beifang Beiyang. It would be more effective if I had cultivated yin elements more thoroughly. There are certain techniques…"
Li Lianhua continues talking, but the words seem to blur and jumble together. Only the thought that Li Lianhua will get to be his first in this matter remains.
He wants it.
He wants it in a way that he'd not realised he would. To be able to give him that, to receive… His own hand suddenly seems insufficient compared to the promise of what he is going to get.
He's had Li Lianhua's cock in his mouth, knows the weight of it on his tongue, the stretch of it on his lip. How will it feel to take it into him there instead? Could he take it? His mouth is dry as he tries to swallow, as he tries to focus on something other than growing need to ask Li Lianhua to just take him here and now.
"Why do you know so much about it?"
"I'd looked into a lot possibilities for removing the Bicha back then. I tried a lot of things." Falling silent, Li Lianhua closes his eyes, memories of that time, one that he rarely speaks of, getting too much.
"You don't have to. If you can't." Di Feisheng feels wrong footed by Li Lianhua's sudden change of tone, from knowledgeable to almost sad. He's not always good at guessing his hidden moods, and trying to concentrate with effects of the flowers racing through him, scattering his thoughts, is almost impossible. "We'll find another way. I can do this until-"
Crossing the room, Li Lianhua silences him with a kiss, lips heated from how the flowers are affecting him too. "Whatever you are thinking, stop. It was never unpleasant for me. Never. It was disappointing it didn't work, that's all."
"Oh." It makes sense, but it still makes Di Feisheng wish that they could have had all those years for themselves. So much time had been lost to them. They have their lives ahead of them now, as impossible as that had seemed even a few months ago.
"There's movement out there," Li Lianhua says quietly, stepping away from him, his fingers flexing on the hilt of his sword. "You'd better make it quick. Or I'll deal with them all myself."
As much as Di Feisheng likes swords and watching Li Lianhua fight right now he'd rather that his hand was on him instead. Closing his eyes, he thinks of his strong, nimble fingers wrapped around his cock instead of the sword. Imagines them there in place of his own.
It doesn't take much to take him over the edge, hips bucking up in to his hand, a bitten back cry on his lips, as he spills hot and wet over his hand.
The heat that had been climbing higher and higher, until he couldn't think drops back. Not gone, but damped down to a bearable degree. The sweat cools rapidly on his skin, and Di Feisheng shivers, the heightened sensitivity not having faded along with the heat.
No wonder no one had been able to fight effectively if they'd felt like this. He looks at Li Lianhua, who apart from a faint flush to his cheeks still looks calm and otherwise unaffected. How can he still be so in control? Was it an act? Or would he still be like that when he takes him? So focused. So…
"Done?" Li Lianhua asks as he offers him a handkerchief to clean up.
"Yes." Di Feisheng's legs still feel unsteady as he stands, pulling clothes back on and fastening them, so that he can move unhindered by them trailing loose.
"Good." Li Lianhua draws his sword. "Because they are here."
The dozen or so opportunistic bandits who have been using the deserted manor a base for luring fighters, those in search of adventure and even other bandits or thieves to their deaths are less than cautious as they enter courtyard. Talking amongst themselves they discuss whether they will have to fight or not. The talk is crude, disparaging, about whether they'll catch them fucking, whether they can stab both of them through with a single sword if they are.
Even before the fight is started Di Feisheng can tell they aren't particularly skilled, compared to the level of people he'd usually fight. So while they do out number them six to one, that wouldn't normally be a problem. Right now however, neither of them are at their best. While Li Lianhua doesn't appear to be overly affected by the flowers even now, Di Feisheng can already feel effects of them reasserting itself. It won't be long before the heat makes him dizzy again. They are going to have to end this fast.
Li Lianhua nods to him, then opens the door. Side by side at first, they break through the surprised group in front of them, splitting them into two parts, taking half each.
The sword Li Lianhua carries now isn't Shaoshi. The broken shards of it having been laid to rest in the empty tomb that bear Li Xiangyi's name. Nor is it Wenjing, the sword given him by Shan Gudao, the memories too painful for him to use it ever again. So its a simple sword, well made, but with no history to it or even a name as yet. A new sword for a new life.
For all it isn't Shaoshi, Li Lianhua's use of Yangzhouman, for those that know it, still mark him out as Li Xiangyi. Not that those he's fighting right now will recognise it. Not that they will live to tell the tale.
Ending fights fast and ruthlessly is something that Di Feisheng knows well. The only downside to this is that using Beifang Beiyang means that the effects of the flowers return with what feels like even more force that before.
The final bandit falls to Li Lianhua's sword barely a couple of minutes after the fight started, and just a second or two after the last of the ones that Di Feisheng had fought also meets their end.
It's over. Or the fight is at least.
It's not a moment too soon. The dizzying heat has returned with full force. Sweating and shivering in equal measure, Di Feisheng pushes his dao into the ground in front of him. Leaning on it, he stay up for a moment, before dropping to one knee.
He's so hard again it's painful. Sticky fabric clings, chafing against the exposed head where it strains at the confines of his clothes.
"A-Fei?"
Even the simple touch of Li Lianhua's hand on his shoulder feels unbearably erotic. He could push him down and take him right here.
He needs that. He wants that. He wants…
It feels ridiculous to ask if he can come, but Li Lianhua has already made it clear that dual cultivation is their best and likely only shot at clearing this, and he doesn't want to mess it up. He wants this to be over. He wants his body back to being something under his own control.
"Oh that, yes." Li Lianhua is flushed now too, a distracted edge having crept into his voice as the flowers effects on him continue to build. "You're probably going to need to do it a couple of times before we can get started."
It is all the invitation Di Feisheng needs. He has barely touched himself, not even managed to push down his clothes before he comes with a muffled cry, his face pressed against Li Lianhua's shoulder, where he has slumped against him.
Sweet and sharp, it treads a fine line between pleasure and pain. He feels weak with relief as the vicious heat in his veins dims again, aftershocks make him tremble.
"Any better?"
Li Lianhua's voice seems distance, although he can feel the warmth of him against own heated skin. He feels dazed. Everything is still too hot, too sensitive. Too much. There's far less relief this time than the first. His underclothes are a sticky mess, clinging uncomfortably to him.
Whether it's because of how long he'd had the Nanyin bug in him, or from Jiao Liqiao's multiple attempts at using things to try and make him compliant, his tolerance to drugs or poisons like this is low. That this one specifically targets the thing that he's worked on to make himself strong, to keep himself safe, makes it feel all the more overwhelming.
It's so stupid. How can a plant do this to him? Why would anyone want a garden full of flowers that made you so aroused that it would incapacitate you? Or even kill you?
Control.
It would be about control. Because it always was in the end. It was about someone taking away agency and self determination. It was about subjugation. He hopes whoever first planted these things here with such intentions has long since died a miserable death. If they haven't he'll find them and cut them to pieces.
His eyes sting, and for all he wants to pretend the dampness on his cheeks is sweat, Di Feisheng knows that it is not. He doesn't want to be like this. He's not usually emotional, unless anger can be counted. It's humiliating, but he can't stop. Not the tears, not the way the heat and sweat make him shiver and not how his cock half hard under his hand again. Everything is out of his control.
Li Lianhua is patting and rubbing his back, trying to comfort him.
It's good. It's too much. He can't take it. He doesn't want him to stop. He keeps his face hidden, breathing against Li Lianhua's neck, feeling the warmth of his skin, the scent of him. He's safe here. He's never been safe.
"Let's get you back inside," Li Lianhua says, helping him up and holding him close.
It's not the same as being sick or drunk, nor is it particularly like the times he'd been drugged. It's its own kind of disorientating, and he is grateful for the arm that Li Lianhua keeps around him, as he's not at all certain he'd remain on his feet otherwise.
Perhaps there are nicer rooms than the ones the servants had once lived in, but finding them is the last thing on either of their minds.
Getting Di Feisheng over to the bed once more, Li Lianhua says, "Right, you take care of things again if you need to, I'll find something we can use."
"Use?" Di Feisheng repeats mostly to himself, the meaning taking a moment to sink in. Then once he does, he reaches inside the of his robes and retrieves an unmarked jar. He'd planned on being in Li Lianhua's bed later anyway, just not like this.
Taking it from him Li Lianhua opens the jar and sniffs at the contents, confirming to himself that its suitable."Were you hoping for something like this to happen?"
"This? No." Di Feisheng tries to explain, thoughts still fraying as he tries to get undressed at the same time. "You were in a good mood, you were going to spend the day being nosy and playing the hero. You…" He stops, too lightheaded for a moment to do anything other than hold onto the bed.
Li Lianhua's hand is on him in an instant, steadying him. "You don't need to explain-"
"I do." It feels important, even if it doesn't make sense. "I'd fight. I'd see you fight. Why wouldn't I want to have you after that?"
The smile Li Lianhua gives him is impossibly fond as he pats his shoulder. He give him a moment, then starts helping him undress. "How do you want to do this?"
The question seems to make no sense to him, or maybe it's because he feels like he's in the grip of a strange, unreleneting fever. "How?"
"I mean do you want to kneel on the bed? Or do you want to be facing me?"
Logistically kneeling is a easier for them both, but it's not a position that he fond of at the best of times. Right now, with how out of control everything is for him, the idea of being on his knees feels too much. Perhaps it would be alright, perhaps he could stand it, but there is no good reason to force himself to find out.
Not that he can say it out loud. That feels too much like admitting weakness. He can't do that right now, not even with someone he trusts as much as Li Lianhua. "I want to see you."
Not pressing for an explanation behind his choice, Li Lianhua grabs a couple of extra bed covers and folds them quickly. Placing them on the bed, he helps Di Feisheng get them under his hips.
"Your back is going to thank me later," he says in answer to the unasked question of why he's doing this.
Di Feisheng nods, then closes his eyes. Everything is blurring again, the heat burning through him making everything waver. It's like the shimmering haze the sun in midsummer brings.
Running his hands over Li Lianhua's chest, he finds the nipples already hard and dark with arousal. He presses down on them with a finger tip, before squeezing them gently.
Li Lianhua gasps, swatting his hands away first. Then grabbing them, preventing them from returning. "Stop that!"
"You don't like it?"
"I like it too much. I'm feeling it too, remember," Li Lianhua snaps, fear more than even annoyance showing. "Not as bad as you, but one of us has to keep their head. If you keep doing that I'm really, really not."
"Would that be bad?"
"Yes." He holds Di Feisheng's hands, bringing them down to rest on his hips instead. "I'm only going to manage this once. I have to hold on."
Blinking, Di Feisheng opens his eyes. Everything seems to be in soft focus as he looks at Li Lianhua. At the flush to his skin, pinkness of cheeks and lips. The way the hair that has come loose from where it was pinned, how sticks and curls against his skin. His hands are hot where they hold his, "Can you?"
Li Lianhua is quiet for a moment, then says, "It's alright. I can ignore it."
"Why? Why don't you relieve yourself? Have a clear head." Maybe it's selfish, but he wants to touch him, to see him come as undone as he feels himself. Maybe not that much. No, wouldn't wish this on him. He wants to see him lost in pleasure, to give his body that has known so much pain, something better. "You told me to do it. That it would help."
Li Lianhua pinches the bridge of his nose, seeking control. "Because, as I told you before, I'm not going to be able to do this more than once, not quickly at least. Not quickly enough." There's a tight, tired little smile. "You know how it is for me."
He does, even if his mind isn't entirely clear right now. Li Lianhua is good in bed, he knows what he is doing and Di Feisheng's horizons have definitely been broadened in ways that he'd not even considered. Sometimes however tiredness will catch up with him before they are done, the aftereffects that long term Bicha poisoning leaving him too exhausted to finish.
"I'm not willing to risk your life on that." Li Lianhua leans in and kisses him. "Because that's what I'd be doing if I did. Now, I think we should get started. Don't you?"
Nodding, Di Feisheng feels a little bit of apprehension, although he's done this to Li Lianhua, watched him do it to himself as well. For himself its an unknown. He wants it to be good, to be something else they can do together, he wants… He wants anything that he can give him.
Kneeling on the bed between Di Feisheng legs, Li Lianhua presses a kiss against his knee, then does what he's said, and begins.
Li Lianhua's finger, cold and slick with the thick gel in the jar as it presses first against him, almost teasing what is to come next. Then slow and careful, he pushes it inside. Just the tip at first moving in and out, before he goes deeper.
It doesn't hurt, not that Di Feisheng had thought it would. He's seen how Lianhua is in this position, how he can lose himself in the pleasure spiralling through his body. All the same feels a little strange, his body not sure how to react to the intrusion, his muscles tensing up,
Perhaps under normal circumstances he might complain a little that the finger was cold, but now to his overheated body it feels like the most wonderfully cool relief.
At least until it warms with their body heat, then it only adds to the fire and arousal inside. He wants to touch him, to grab his hand, make him go faster than the maddeningly, slow, careful movement inside him, but Di Feisheng digs his fingers into the covers instead, doing as Li Lianhua had asked. He trusts him. Trusts that he knows what he'd doing, that he'll help him, that he won't harm him.
He would never do this otherwise. He would never have allowed himself to have such a weakness as love brings. He wasn't supposed to have weaknesses. Weaknesses get you killed. He isn't-
"A-Fei, come on, stay with me." Leaning in, Li Lianhua pats his cheek. "I'm going to be doing most of the work here, but you need to be awake."
Di Feisheng nods, leaning into his touch, but it's difficult to focus on anything other than chasing the release his body desperately needs.
"I mean it," Li Lianhua says, trying to keep his attention. "You need to be awake when I pass the refined yin energy into you, to use to it."
The texture of the sheet against his back, the way sweat is pooling in the dips and hollows of his body. More intense than any of that is feeling on Li Lianhua's fingers in him, sometimes moving in and out of him, sometimes rubbing and pressing inside him, all the time bringing him closer and close to another peak.
Two fingers, becomes three, but all Di Feisheng can thinks is he wants more, he needs more. He's so close again. Maybe if he can find release he can get a moment of clarity again, enough to remember anything that Li Lianhua is telling him right now.
He rocks back against the fingers inside him, his movements growing increasingly desperate as he chases another completion. The muscles in his stomach and thighs are tight and aching, a dull cramp having set in from the repeated tension and release of having come multiple times in the last hour. He's vaguely aware of how sore he's going to be later from all this, but right now he doesn't care. He needs the relief, as brief as it is, that coming again will bring. He's on the edge of it, but can't seem to reach it, not just from being filled.
"Touch yourself," Li Lianhua says, uncurling one of the hands Di Feisheng has gripped tight to the covers, moving to his cock. "It's alright. We're almost done with this part."
Di Feisheng needs no further invitation. There's something incredibly erotic about touching himself while Li Lianhua strokes him inside. Even without the how the flowers have effected them he doubts he'd last long like this. He wants to do it again when he can focus.
He can't match the rhythm of how the fingers move inside him, or stop the breathless, desperate sounds that fall from his lips. It doesn't matter. It's barely any time before he's coming hot and sticky across his fingers again.
There is no relief this time. The unrelenting heat racing through him, the heightened sense of every against his skin continues unabated.
"We can do it now," Li Lianhua says, sounding like he is barely hanging on himself.
"Then get on with it," Di Feisheng says, not caring how wrecked his voice sounds or how he trembles from every touch.
He can't stop how his breath catches as the fingers are removed from him. Every touch is too much and not enough all at the same time, the difference between pleasure and pain blurring until he has no idea where either end or begin.
There is little finesse or poise as they manoeuvre themselves so that both of Di Feisheng's legs are over Li Lianhua's shoulders.
He looks at him, at how escaped wisps of hair stick damply to his forehead, how his teeth are worrying his lower lip until it's red and plump, as he continues to hold himself back. Listens to the shaky breathes as slicks himself, knowing how desperate he must be feeling by now for his own relief.
Then there's pressure, the blunt head of Li Lianhua's cock pushing into him. It's different to fingers, the heat of it, the thickness and friction despite the lubrication. He feels impossibly full, yet he knows it's barely more than halfway in, not with how it's still gripped at its base.
The half expected forceful push, to get it all the way in doesn't come.
Li Lianhua starts maddeningly slow.
Hands twisted tight to the sheets once more, Di Feisheng can feel the steady build up energy between them. He tries to focus, to do what is needed of him, which at the moment is just not to come again yet.
He can hear Li Lianhua trying to keep count of the number of shallow thrusts to deep ones. Nine to one at first, then eight to two, until it reverses. Only then on the last set he will push the energy into him, at which point Di Feisheng needs to come again, for what he fervently hopes will the last time he needs to come today.
By the time the deeps begin to outnumber the shallows, Di Feisheng can feel the tension building inside him. There will be no need to touch himself this time, rather it will be an effort to last long enough for Li Lianhua to pass the yin portion of energy to him.
Eventually there is no sound but their ragged breathing, the creak of the wooden bed beneath them as their bodies move together as one. Li Lianhua's counting having gone silent as he struggles to focus and keep going.
Di Feisheng tries to hold back, but finally it is impossible. He is about to tell him that, but Li Lianhua speaks first. The heat driven dizziness is bad enough that he only catches part of what is said.
It is enough however to know that Li Lianhua is telling him he's ready, that he can give in to what his body desperately needs.
It is not a moment too soon.
There is a brief moment when he feels the rush the energy into him, mingling with his own, then his whole body is seizing tight, back arching up off the bed.
It feels different, although how much of it is due to having come from internal stimulation alone for the first time and how much is from the inner energy Di Feisheng doesn't know. Not that he feels like he can think at all. Gasping, half sobbing for breath he feels like he is shaking apart. Tremors run through him in waves, as he is released from the flowers effects.
"A-Fei." Li Lianhua sounds as wrecked as he feels. "I need…"
"Do it." Di Feisheng's voice shakes, as another aftershock runs through him. He can his feel his cock inside him, hot and so hard, it must be painful for him to still be holding back. He reaches up, touching Li Lianhua's flushed, fever-hot face, thumb brushing his red, bitten lips. "Whatever you need, do it."
Permission given, Li Lianhua doesn't hesitate. There is no control or precision to his movements now. He grips Di Feisheng's hips tight, lifting them higher and pushing the forward in the same move, as he slams into him.
Bent almost in half, until only his shoulders are resting on the bed, his legs over Li Lianhua's shoulders, Di Feisheng has no control over how he is used. Nor does he want it. There is a freedom in letting himself be taken like this that surprises him, both in how it is present and in his body's desire for it. In this moment he is something desirable, someone who is wanted for pleasure rather than his ability to kill. Someone who is loved.
Head tipped back, Li Lianhua's eyes are closed, but his mouth is open as he gasps, desperate little sobs for air, escaping him as he tries to find his own release after having held back for so long.
Although he had wanted to watch, wanted to see Li Lianhua lose himself in the moment, he finds his vision blurry with tears. Without the presence of the aphrodisiac the overstimulation from having come too many times close together sharper, the way it threatens to overwhelm him all the more pressing.
The thrusts into him get harder and less coordinated, until with a groan, Li Lianhua stills, his fingers holding tight to Di Feisheng's hips.
For a moment he wonders if, after all this, he's been unable to reach completion. Then he feels a rush of warmth inside him, not the sharing of internal energy now, but something equally intimate.
Finished now, Li Lianhua grip on him fails and he slumps forward onto him, exhausted, trembling, and utterly spent.
Di Feisheng can feel his chest rising and falling, breathing hot and ragged on his sweat damp skin, the way he's starting to shiver as the physicality of all catches up with him. Not that he's any better. Not that he'll draw any attention to it either.
"Lianhua?" He brushes hair from his face, trying to see what expression is there.
"m'fine." His words blur with tiredness. "You?"
"It worked." He doesn't trust himself to say more, because he doesn't know what he might say. The effects of the flowers might be gone, but roil of high emotions is far slower to fade. He's not even sure how much of that can be blamed upon those unpleasant blooms. He's always been better at actions rather than words, so pulls him in for a slow, languid kiss, letting that replace conversation.
With the movement, Li Lianhua's softening cock slips free, leaving an emptiness behind. It's a far worse feeling, Di Feisheng thinks that having it enter him. His inner muscles tighten around nothing, leaving him feeling sore and oddly bereft at the emptiness inside. If he didn't have him in his arms right now, if somehow he were all alone, he thinks he might just break. As it is, Li Lianhua is kissing him back. Smiling, half dazed in his relief, against his lips, as he gets sleepier and sleepier.
They're sticky and sweaty, and Di Feisheng knows that they will have to get cleaned up properly at some point, but right now he doesn't care. A wipe with one of the spare covers will do for the moment. The closeness, of being able to hold Li Lianhua in his arms and know that this is all over, is something that he finds cannot do without.
Although they both tired, Di Feisheng knows that they shouldn't both sleep. There is no way for them to be completely certain that they have killed all of those who had been using the manor to lure unwary travellers or adventurers to an unfortunate end.
He can meditate now, circulate inner energy to clear any lingering traces of the pollen. While he does that, he'll let Li Lianhua sleep for as long as he needs. He knows how exhausted he is likely to be from it all, how it might be a few days before he wants to do much more than rest.
It had been a miracle that they had found him all those months ago, that he'd still been alive at all and that they had found a way to finally suppress the poison in him. It wasn't a complete cure, but he wasn't going to die from the Bicha. There are days when he can seem like Li Xiangyi again, and others where he struggles to even get out of bed. It's an awful, powerless feeling to see him so cold, tired and in pain, and be able to nothing to prevent it.
Li Lianhua stirs in his sleep, a contented little sound escaping him as he curls tighter against his side, as Di Feisheng sits up.
There is a lingering tenderness now he's sitting. It doesn't trouble him, in his mind it is a pleasant ache, like he'd have after training hard. For all today's circumstances were far from good, Li Lianhua had made something that could have been a terrible experience into something that he wants to try again. The thought of being totally in control of himself, and still letting Li Lianhua take him to him limit, burns hot and steady, just has his need to fight him once had.
For now Di Feisheng is content to let him rest against him, feeling his soft, sleepy breathing against his bare skin. Once he's awake, they can use the water from the well in the courtyard outside to clean up. Then he will burn the other courtyard with its awful flowers to the ground, preventing anyone from doing this here again.
He has no interest in what will happen to the bodies left outside. Li Lianhua will probably want to alert Baichuan Court to come and deal with it. For himself, Di Feisheng would let them burn with the rest of the manor and call that an end to it.
Then, after they've dealt with such things, they'll go back to the Lotus Tower to rest or perhaps to the nearest inn to get a proper bath. It doesn't matter where it is, because they'll go together, and being with him is all Di Feisheng find that he needs.