Work Text:
Back when they first opened the studio, Xingchen had suggested that they keep a couple evening blocks open for the possibility of private lessons. Song Lan had agreed to it readily. They’d needed the money—frankly, they still do—and in his experience the kind of person willing to pay for private ballroom dance classes was usually the no expense spared type. It’d be a bit risky at first while they were still building up their client base, but they’re good dancers. They won the championship last year. Song Lan had been confident that they’d be able to draw in enough big spenders to make private lessons worthwhile.
And besides: he’d also had the sneaking suspicion, with how Xingchen was packing his own schedule—with the way he was throwing himself into it with every overwhelming ounce of passion in his beautiful body—that agreeing to a couple of open nights a week was the only way he’d be able to get his boyfriend to take a break.
He had been right about that. He had also been right about the kind of people who would start negotiating for private lessons, once word got out that they were available. Song Lan had been feeling cautiously optimistic about the studio’s future. Xingchen, of course, was brimming with joy.
And then they had met Xue Yang.
Song Lan does not understand why Xue Yang is taking their classes. He has dance experience—quite a lot of dance experience, actually—but none of it in ballroom. He doesn’t have a partner who has dragged him out to learn how to dance with them. He’s not interested in competition, and he doesn’t care about the kind of social culture where it matters if you know how to waltz. He’d claimed he was just expanding his range—but he’d said it with such a salacious tone, as he dragged his eyes over Xingchen’s hips, that Song Lan didn’t buy it for a moment.
Of course, Xingchen had laughed. Xingchen thinks Xue Yang is funny.
Song Lan does know why Xue Yang is paying them for private lessons, though. That part of the equation had been abundantly clear from the beginning.
“We shouldn’t take him on,” Song Lan had said, when Xingchen told him Xue Yang had approached him after class to ask about extra lessons. “He’s just going to use them to hit on you.”
“If he wants to pay that much money to hit on me, I don’t see why I shouldn’t indulge him,” Xingchen had said peaceably, filling in a column of their account books.
Song Lan had just made an exasperated noise. “Xingchen.”
“Zichen,” Xingchen had returned, raising his eyes seriously to Song Lan’s. “Are we really doing so well that we can afford not to take the opportunity?”
Song Lan had not been able to say that they were.
“Exactly,” Xingchen had said. “I’m putting him down for the Thursday slot. It’ll be fine, you’ll see. He’s really not as bad as you think.” He had paused then, tapping his pen against his mouth contemplatively. “If you’re worried about it, you should join us. It might be good to have a second instructor.”
Which is how Song Lan finds himself, for the third Thursday in a row, sitting in the otherwise empty studio as the summer sunset paints the skyline orange, eating a belated dinner of takeout pad thai and waiting for Xue Yang to arrive for his eight o’clock lesson.
Song Lan will give Xue Yang one thing: he’s never late for his classes. He’s just finishing the last of his takeout when the front door opens, right on time, and he hears the distinctive sound of Xue Yang’s street shoes on the staircase. There’s no one else it could be: none of their other students wear combat boots into the studio.
Xue Yang pauses briefly to wrestle his boots off and drop them on the mat with his bag, and then he comes into view around the stairs, dance shoes in hand. He stops as soon as he spots Song Lan, narrowing his eyes. “Where’s Xiao Xingchen?” he says.
Song Lan gets to his feet, biting down a surge of annoyance. He’s under no illusions about how gorgeous Xingchen is, or about how many of their students have developed crushes on him, but at least the rest have the good grace to keep it to themselves. “He’s running an errand,” Song Lan says. “He’ll be back soon. He wants me to warm you up.”
A smirk flashes across Xue Yang’s mouth. “Is that so,” he practically purrs. In an instant he’s across the floor and pressing into Song Lan’s space, fingertips resting lightly against his chest as though he’s going to dance follow to his lead. “Alright, big guy, I’m all yours.”
Song Lan rolls his eyes, neatly stepping back. “Don’t call me that,” he says. “Stretches, Xue Yang. I know you know how.”
“Fine, if you’re going to be like that about it,” Xue Yang says, and drops his shoes to the floor. “You’re no fun.”
Xue Yang, of course, contrives to make stretching as sexual as he can without abandoning plausible deniability altogether. He doesn’t moan outright, but there is a certain aura to the way he keeps meeting Song Lan’s eyes, that smirk still playing over his lips. Song Lan does his best to ignore it, working methodically through his own warmups while keeping half a supervisory eye on his most irritating student. Xue Yang does his core rotations and quad extensions and chest stretches without incident, and then he sinks effortlessly into a split and folds himself in half to grab his ankle, and Song Lan has to look away.
He’s got a basic rumba beat playing by the time Xingchen gets back, he and Xue Yang working through a warmup sequence side by side. Xingchen smiles to see it, stopping in the doorway to finish putting on his dance shoes. Something in Song Lan’s chest goes all soft and warm at the simple joy on his boyfriend’s face.
Xue Yang still hasn’t looked up: he’s so focused on matching Song Lan’s steps that he only realizes Xingchen has joined them by the click of his heels on the studio floor. “Xiao Xingchen!” he cries, bright and delighted, and abruptly Song Lan remembers why he didn’t want to give him private lessons.
The look in Xingchen’s eyes says he knows exactly what Song Lan is thinking. He kisses him on the cheek by way of apology, and says aloud to the both of them, “Sorry I’m late.” Then he turns his smile on Xue Yang. “You didn’t give Zichen any trouble, did you?”
Song Lan has seen people literally stumble, even outright forget how to speak, at being on the receiving end of one of Xingchen’s smiles; he himself has fallen prey to them many times over. But Xue Yang just grins, batting his eyelashes in exaggerated fashion. “Aw, come on, Xiao-laoshi,” he says. “Just what are you implying? I wouldn’t do that.”
Xingchen laughs. He laughs a lot around Xue Yang. “Yes you would,” he says. “You’re always trouble.”
“Mean,” Xue Yang says, looking not at all put out. “That’s so unfair, gege. How could you say that to me?”
“Because it’s true,” Xingchen says, unrepentant, even as Song Lan has to wrestle down a furious surge of—something—at hearing Xue Yang address him as gege. “And on that note, don’t you have a warmup to finish? I thought you were here to dance.”
“Yeah,” Xue Yang says, suddenly just a bit breathless. “Yeah, Xiao Xingchen, let’s dance.”
Xingchen smiles again, wide enough to show his dimples. “Finish warming up,” he repeats. “Zichen, is it alright if I change the music?”
“Sure,” Song Lan says. It is, after all, his lesson to lead. Song Lan is just here to help out—and, he hopes, to help keep Xue Yang in check.
Xingchen smiles at him too, then goes over to the sound system. He sets his bag down on a chair, fishing a couple of CDs out of it, and presses pause on the music Song Lan has playing on his phone. “I wanted to pick these up from home,” he says, loading the albums into the CD tray. “I thought I had them in my library, but I guess we haven’t ripped these ones yet.”
“CDs? Really?” Xue Yang says, as Xingchen presses play and the familiar opening notes of La Revancha Del Tango fill the studio. “Haven’t you heard of Spotify?”
“Yes,” Song Lan says. Neither he nor Xingchen has a subscription: Xingchen is philosophically opposed to streaming as a business model, and Song Lan just likes to actually own the things he cares about. “We prefer using CDs.”
Xue Yang pulls an incredulous face, but before he can say anything Xingchen adds, “We’ve been collecting albums for a long time, you know.” He crosses the floor to rejoin them; Song Lan can see the way his steps are fitting themselves to the music already, how the rhythm of the tango is flowing into his body. Xingchen has always been able to feel dance in his whole soul. “Some of the CDs we have don’t even exist on Spotify. I expect this one is there, though, if you wanted to listen at home.”
“Right,” Xue Yang says. His eyes are glued to Xingchen’s hips: Xingchen has started gliding his way through a basic tango sequence, a warmup of his own. Xue Yang clears his throat. “So. Tango today?”
“It seemed like a good day for it,” Xingchen says, and—just what he means by that, Song Lan has no idea. “Both of these albums are tango all the way through, so we won’t even have to touch the music.”
“Sounds good,” Xue Yang says, and then seems to shake himself loose, settling his body into a perfect tango frame. Song Lan spares a moment for a petty sort of rage—what gives Xue Yang the right to be so good, he thinks, when he has no ballroom experience beyond their classes?—but then he lets it go.
They start the lesson.
Xingchen runs them through a series of familiar figures, and then teaches Xue Yang some new ones, trading off demonstrating with Song Lan and leading Xue Yang through the steps of the dance himself. Song Lan finds, as he has in most of their previous lessons, that it’s not so bad once they get going. Xue Yang is an inveterate flirt, but he’s also an excellent and dedicated dancer, and when he settles his focus to a task it doesn’t break for anything. He even forgets to needle Song Lan while they’re working. Not for the first time Song Lan can’t help but wonder what it might be like to find himself wholly on the receiving end of Xue Yang’s unwavering attention.
Finally Xingchen seems satisfied with Xue Yang’s progress. “Good. Very good. Let’s try putting it in context,” he says. But then instead of stepping forward, as Song Lan expects, to gather Xue Yang into his frame, he takes a step back. “Zichen, would you partner with him, please?”
It takes Song Lan a long couple of seconds to parse what he’s just heard. “What?” he says. “You want me to dance with him?”
“Yes, if you wouldn’t mind,” Xingchen says briskly, as though he’s not upending two and a half lessons’ worth of tolerably uncomfortable détente. “I want to be able to see how he looks and make corrections.”
“But—” Song Lan begins, and then stops, unable to find the words to explain his unease. It’s not as though Xingchen’s request is unusual for their private lessons, after all. There’s no reason for him not to dance with Xue Yang.
Xue Yang’s expression, which had initially been just as taken aback as Song Lan’s, has hardened now to something poisonous and mean. “What’s the matter, Zichen?” he spits. “Worried you’re gonna get your hands dirty if you touch me? Or am I not pretty enough for you?”
“It has nothing to do with how pretty you are,” Song Lan says, acid, but Xue Yang’s provocation has done the trick: he comes unstuck, stepping up to him. “Am I leading?”
“Yes, please,” Xingchen says, with a note of satisfaction in his voice. “At least to start. I’ll see how things go.”
Song Lan doesn’t say anything: just holds his hand out to Xue Yang, one eyebrow arched expectantly. Xue Yang tilts his head up, defiantly meeting his gaze; his eyes are dark, and utterly indecipherable. He puts his hand in Song Lan’s, and Song Lan reels him in, spreading his right palm against the wing of Xue Yang’s shoulder blade and pulling him snugly against his chest. He can feel his nerves sparking from his fingertips all the way down to his thighs.
“Lovely,” Xingchen says, about nothing in particular. “Take him through some of the new steps.”
Dancing with Xue Yang is… not awful. He’s stiff at first, as though he’s braced for Song Lan to drop him on the floor, but after a little while—and Xingchen’s third reminder to ease the tension from his frame—he manages to loosen up. He’s responsive to Song Lan’s direction, flowing smoothly from one figure to the next; he keeps the perfect level of distance between them, leaning his weight trustingly into Song Lan’s in medio corte and otherwise maintaining a courteous open embrace. Song Lan is hyper-aware of all the points of contact between their bodies: their clasped hands, Xue Yang’s arm resting along his shoulder, the place where their thighs are pressed lightly together. It’s shocking how easy it is to guide Xue Yang through the steps of the tango. He has no idea what to make of it.
No, dancing with Xue Yang is not awful at all.
“No, sharper pivot, Xue Yang—Zichen, do the flare promenade again,” Xingchen says, and Song Lan obliges. Xue Yang’s turn snaps this time, reconnecting his hand perfectly with Song Lan’s. “Yes, like that, that’s much better. Try a fan step.”
Song Lan tries a fan step.
They work their way through the rest of the song, and then the one that follows. Sweat is prickling at Song Lan’s hairline by the time it ends, and he takes advantage of the excuse to release Xue Yang for a moment and collect himself. He blots the moisture from his face with the hem of his t-shirt, then takes a long swig from his water bottle, eyes closed and mind blissfully blank.
He can handle this. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to handle this.
That conviction carries him exactly as far as back to the middle of the studio floor, where he comes face to face with Xue Yang: flushed and dishevelled, his tumultuous hair now scraped up into a messy bun at the back of his head. The pale skin of his nape is exposed, stray wisps of hair sticking lightly to his skin. His expression is still just as impossible to read as it was when they began.
Song Lan draws a slow breath. He takes Xue Yang’s hand, gathering him back into his arms. But before he can cue him for the first step, Xingchen circles around them—adjusting Song Lan’s grip here, straightening Xue Yang’s posture there—and says finally, inexplicably, “Hm. No, I don’t think this is working.”
“What the hell do you mean, it’s not working,” Xue Yang says, flat and perilous. Song Lan has no chance to head it off, wouldn’t know what to say if he did. “Sorry, is my dancing not good enough for you?”
“No, you’re doing fine,” Xingchen says absently—unexpectedly stealing the wind from Xue Yang’s sails before he can even get going. “It’s Zichen. He’s still too stiff.”
Suddenly Song Lan finds that he remembers how to speak. “I’m too stiff?” he says.
But Xingchen just carries on as though Song Lan hadn’t said anything. “I think we need to change things up,” he says. “Would you switch lead, please?”
“I—” Song Lan begins, and then cannot think how to finish that sentence. Objectively speaking, he can of course do as Xingchen is asking. He doesn’t often dance the follow in their classes—he’s taller than most of their students, and better suited to leading for instruction—but in competition, or when they’re dancing alone, he and Xingchen change lead often: between sets, between tracks, even in the middle of a song. Dancing follow to Xue Yang’s lead shouldn’t be any different. And yet there is something unnerving and precarious about the idea, like he’s standing at the edge of a cliff.
And Xue Yang, for some reason, does not seize on his hesitation. Instead of wrapping himself up in offence at the perceived rejection—what Song Lan would have expected him to do, what would have made sense—he instead gives Song Lan a long look, like he’s peering right into his soul. Song Lan has no idea what Xue Yang is reading on his face. He has no idea what his face is conveying at all.
“We don’t have to,” Xue Yang says at last, low and soothing, like he’s trying to calm a spooked cat. “I’m good dancing follow.”
Song Lan shakes himself. There is no reason, he tells himself sternly, for him not to dance follow with Xue Yang. “No,” he says. “It’s fine. Xingchen’s right, we should switch lead.”
Xingchen, who had been standing serenely by while Song Lan tied himself in inexplicable knots, beams at him for that. “Thank you, Zichen,” he says. “I really do think it will help.”
Song Lan lets Xue Yang go, and they rearrange themselves into a new frame. Xue Yang is nearly six inches shorter than him: his hand can’t sit comfortably at Song Lan’s shoulder blade, and comes to rest instead at the dip of his ribs. Song Lan lays his arm loosely along his shoulder, his body already settling into the languid elegance the tango demands of its following partner; Xue Yang nearly startles when Song Lan’s left hand cups the back of his neck, drawing himself abruptly up to his full height. His hair is very soft.
“Oh, yes,” Xingchen says, audibly satisfied. “That’s better already. You can go ahead and start, Xue Yang.”
Xue Yang takes a deep breath—if Song Lan didn’t know better, he’d almost think he was nervous—and then cues the first step. Immediately everything else falls away. If it was strangely uncomplicated to lead Xue Yang, following him is breathlessly simple: his hands are firm on Song Lan’s body, his signals clear and easy to read, his steps sure and exactly where Song Lan expects them to be. He guides Song Lan across the studio floor, the rhythm of the tango thrumming perfectly through their veins, the light of the setting sun washing everything in glorious, unreal gold.
“Good,” Xingchen says. “Let me see your rock step.”
Song Lan doesn’t even have to think about it. Xue Yang is already moving, leading him seamlessly through the rocks, and then into a rock step turn. Song Lan bends from there into a single corte, his head tilting instinctively to the side. When he comes back into closed position, Xue Yang’s eyes are glued to his throat.
“Practice your turns,” Xingchen orders. His voice sounds very far away.
Xue Yang spins Song Lan through a sequence of turns, like he’s showing off how many of the new steps he remembers. Song Lan is dizzy by the third one, can’t seem to catch his breath—has no guidance but Xue Yang’s hands, and the reassuring stability of Xingchen’s voice directing them through the dance. But even like this, his body knows what to do: Song Lan is a championship dancer, knows the tango backwards and forwards, upside down and in his sleep, and he is dancing the follow. Lost and entirely out of his head, he can still feel the spaces that demand to be filled by sensual embellishment.
Xue Yang leads him through a flare promenade; Song Lan presses close when their bodies reconnect, dragging his hand up the side of Xue Yang’s neck. In medio corte, he dips his head elegantly away, inviting Xue Yang to bend his face to his throat. Later, spinning out of another turn, he lets his foot kick up, flirting it briefly along the line of Xue Yang’s calf. Xue Yang nearly stumbles at that, for a moment losing his rhythm; but then Xingchen makes a firm correction, and he flows back into the dance.
The thing is, Song Lan doesn’t know why he did it. He doesn’t like Xue Yang—didn’t like Xue Yang? He’s not so sure anymore—and he has no reason to make the dance romantic. It must be only that Xingchen is there, he thinks: only that it’s Xingchen’s voice leading them through the figures. Song Lan always dances romantically with Xingchen. Moreover, he is accustomed to pushing himself with Xingchen, in competition or merely for the joy of it—to adding flourishes to the steps that he would ordinarily never expect a beginner student to handle, even one so precociously gifted as Xue Yang. So—that must be why. There is no other explanation that makes sense.
It’s a thin and distant thought. He feels somehow very far outside his own body.
“Finish your turn, and hold—oh, perfect,” Xingchen says, rich with delight, as the music pulses to a close. Xue Yang and Song Lan are frozen in their final pose, breathing hard and clinging tightly to each other; all at once Song Lan becomes acutely conscious of the heat in his skin, the working of his lungs, the sheer unadulterated physicality of Xue Yang’s body pressed against his. And then Xingchen steps up to them, a sly and significant edge to his beatific smile, and just like that Song Lan knows—
“Kiss him, Zichen,” Xingchen says quietly, and what can Song Lan do but obey?
His hand is still resting at Xue Yang’s nape, and it’s easy to pull him in, so easy to bend his head to press their lips together. It’s soft at first, for the first endless, frozen moments, Xue Yang dazed and almost dreamy in his arms: and then he gasps against Song Lan’s lips, and in an instant the kiss turns frantic. He swarms into Song Lan’s grip, hands twisting in the front of his shirt, his mouth hot and wet and unbearably open. Song Lan catches him around the waist, tugging him tight to his body, burying the fingers of his other hand in the hair beneath Xue Yang’s bun. He feels delirious, scorching, like he’s tumbled down from some great height. He hadn’t known kissing could feel like this.
It ends as quickly as it began, Xue Yang ripping himself away from Song Lan’s mouth so hard it leaves him reeling. “What the fuck,” he hisses. His hands are still fisted in Song Lan’s shirt. “What the fuck was that, Song Lan, you had better not be fucking with me—”
“Does he look like he’s fucking with you?” Xingchen cuts in, and Xue Yang’s jaw shuts with an audible snap: somehow, in defiance of everything Song Lan knows about how to make sense of the world, he had forgotten Xingchen was there.
It’s impossible to ignore him now. Still smiling, still sly, he puts his hand to Xue Yang’s jaw, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the liquid shine of his lower lip. “Look at him, Xue Yang,” he says, and though his voice is gentle, the note of command in it is unmistakeable. “Does he look like he’s making fun of you? Does he look like he doesn’t mean it?”
Xue Yang drags his eyes back to Song Lan’s face. Song Lan swallows hard; he can’t look away. He has no idea what his expression is doing: his emotions feel too big for his body, vast and incomprehensible. He hasn’t let Xue Yang go, hasn’t even unwound his fingers from his hair. He thinks if he releases him he might dissipate into nothing.
Xue Yang makes a pained noise and has to tear his gaze away. “No,” he says. His voice breaks in his throat.
“No,” Xingchen agrees. And then he takes Xue Yang’s hand, and tugs him loose from Song Lan’s arms—and before Song Lan quite knows how it has happened, Xingchen has gathered Xue Yang into a frame of his own and cued him into the opening figures of a new tango.
Xue Yang staggers through the first few steps, but then his body memory reasserts itself. Xingchen takes him through spins and bends and cortes, rock steps and promenades, and Xue Yang follows him flawlessly—even as his eyes keep being pulled back to Song Lan, like a compass seeking a magnet. Song Lan cannot stop staring either. He watches them the whole length of the dance, sick with longing and envy and confusion and desire. Heat is pulsing through his body, erratic and feverish. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
Eventually the song draws to a close. Xingchen whirls Xue Yang through one last turn, then backs him right up against the solid wall of Song Lan’s chest. Xue Yang bites out a little gasp, and nearly moans when Song Lan’s hands slide, instinctive, around his waist. Xingchen gives Song Lan a tiny smile, knowing and self-satisfied; and then he surges forward into a kiss, swallowing down the last of Xue Yang’s noises.
Something comes unknotted in Song Lan’s chest then, and he breathes out a shuddery sigh, tipping his head down against Xue Yang’s shoulder. Like that was the sign he was waiting for, Xue Yang melts into his hold, making a quiet, needy sound in the back of his throat. Xingchen lets out a low hum, kissing him deeper. The curve of his mouth on Xue Yang’s is desperately smug. Song Lan is so fucking hard.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, Xingchen breaks away from Xue Yang’s lips. He exhales contentment, skimming down the line of Xue Yang’s throat, and with a broken whine Xue Yang tips his head back against Song Lan’s shoulder to allow it.
“Come to bed with us,” Xingchen murmurs, the smoke of his voice blending seamlessly with the throbbing heartbeat of the tango still playing over the speakers. Song Lan nearly groans aloud.
He should be angry, he thinks, at Xingchen inviting Xue Yang into a threesome on behalf of them both. At how obvious it is that he was playing out some scheme—one that he didn’t see fit to share with Song Lan. At the sheer presumption of his making the offer at all, and assuming he doesn’t need to ask permission. Song Lan ought to be furious.
He’s not.
“Please,” he says, when Xue Yang doesn’t answer right away, and rocks his hips forward so he will know just how much he means it.
“Fuck,” Xue Yang gasps. He squirms back against Song Lan, his body arching into Xingchen’s hands. “Fuck. And here I was thinking you didn’t even like me.”
Song Lan thought so too; now he has no idea how he feels. Like is too small a word for the enormity of emotion Xue Yang provokes in him. “I want you,” he says, because he knows that much is true, even if that word is likewise far too simple.
“Jesus fucking christ,” Xue Yang says. “Yes, fuck, I’ll come to bed with you, I wanna—Xiao Xingchen—”
“Impatient,” Xingchen chides. It’s so unfair that it makes Song Lan’s head spin, and his breath hitches in his throat. There is a dangerous tilt to Xingchen’s smile when he lifts his face to meet Song Lan’s eyes: he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“What do you think, Zichen?” he says. “Should we indulge him?”
Song Lan has to wet his lips before he can get his voice to work. “Please,” he whispers. “Xingchen, please.”
With a wicked laugh Xingchen pushes down on his shoulder, and all three of them sink to their knees on the studio floor. Xue Yang ends up on Song Lan’s lap, his back pressed to his chest, his ass grinding against the hard outline of Song Lan’s erection, and Song Lan has to bite down a broken little sound. Xingchen sighs happily and leans forward to kiss Xue Yang again, hands sliding under the hem of his tank top. “Beautiful,” he murmurs into his mouth. “I want to see you choke on Zichen’s dick.”
Song Lan nearly chokes at that himself.
“Yeah,” Xue Yang says, “yeah, yeah, fuck, just let me—Song Lan—” He writhes back in Song Lan’s lap, tilting his face to beg a desperate kiss from his lips, smearing his mouth along his jaw and driving himself down onto his cock. Song Lan’s vision goes white-hot around the edges. Suddenly he can’t take it anymore. He shoves his hands up under Xue Yang’s shirt, raking lines across his chest, and bites down on the meat of his shoulder. Xue Yang cries out, shuddering in his arms like he’s going to break apart.
“Good, you’re so good,” Xingchen says. It’s not clear who he’s talking to: it might well be them both. His hands flutter, dancing over the curve of Song Lan’s cheek, tugging lightly at Xue Yang’s arms, shoulders, waist. “Yang’er, sweetheart, come here,” he says. Without meaning to Song Lan makes an incoherent sound of protest, but Xingchen silences him with a glance, hot and dark with promise. “Zichen, get your cock out.”
If he were standing, Song Lan thinks, he would have stumbled. He lets go, fumbling with the button on his trousers as Xue Yang whines and tips forward into Xingchen’s arms. Xingchen hushes him gently, petting his hair and pressing kisses all over his face. “Just a moment, sweetheart, just be patient—you can do that for me, can’t you, I know you can—”
Xue Yang groans. “Gege, please, I wanna—”
“I know,” Xingchen says. “I know.”
Song Lan gets his pants down over his hips. With a secret little smile, Xingchen winds his fingers into the base of Xue Yang’s bun, hauling him around and forcing him to his hands and knees in front of Song Lan. Xue Yang is glassy-eyed when he looks up; then he brings Song Lan’s dick into focus and lets out a noise that is downright wounded. “Holy shit,” he breathes. “Fuck, you’re fucking huge, I want that in my throat—”
Song Lan is so lightheaded he feels like he might pass out. Xingchen’s fingers tighten in Xue Yang’s hair, and then he’s guiding him inexorably forward, nudging the head of Song Lan’s cock up against his lips. “Do you want him to fuck your face, sweetheart?”
Xue Yang lets his mouth fall open, dragging the flat of his tongue against the underside of Song Lan’s dick. “Fuck yes,” he says. The words are muffled: he hasn’t lifted his lips from Song Lan’s skin. Something about that makes heat throb through Song Lan: he nearly buckles, has to steady himself by catching hold of Xingchen’s shoulder.
Xingchen still hasn’t stopped smiling. He pulls at Xue Yang’s hair, dragging him down an inch or two on Song Lan’s cock, and presses a warm kiss to Song Lan’s cheek. “Go on, Zichen, you know what to do.”
Song Lan swallows hard. Experimentally he rocks his hips forward, pushing his cock into the wet heat of Xue Yang’s mouth; Xue Yang relaxes his jaw, letting out a tiny, helpless moan. Desire flares through Song Lan then, a heady, dizzying pulse, and before he knows what he is doing he too has tangled his hand in Xue Yang’s hair and is fucking into his face, sharp shallow thrusts that nonetheless leave him all but gasping for air.
“There you go,” Xingchen whispers, kissing Song Lan’s cheek again, his jaw, his throat, the corner of his mouth. “That’s it, just like that, give him what he needs—”
A cracked, desperate moan escapes Song Lan’s lungs. He turns his face, claiming Xingchen’s lips in a hungry kiss, and Xingchen surges into it as though he wants Song Lan to eat him alive. Song Lan is all too ready to concede. He can’t seem to catch his breath. Xue Yang’s mouth is perfect around him, tight and slick and so, so hot, and it’s getting harder and harder to keep his head. Xingchen, kissing him deeply, hasn’t loosened his hand on Xue Yang’s hair: is still holding him down on Song Lan’s cock. Song Lan can feel the way Xue Yang’s jaw is working, how determined he is to swallow him to the root, and then without any warning he opens up to him and Song Lan’s next thrust takes him all the way to the back of his throat. With a high, frantic noise, Xue Yang presses down even further, and Song Lan can’t stop himself from biting Xingchen’s lip.
“Yes,” Xingchen says fiercely, and kisses him even harder for a moment before he tears his mouth away. “Don’t stop, Zichen, don’t—I’ll be right back.”
Song Lan makes a needy sound as Xingchen drags himself away, but finds himself quickly distracted from his loss. Xue Yang is outright shivering under his hand, taking in air in tiny sips whenever he can manage them, his face flushed and his eyes wet and his fingers clutching feverishly at the floor. He looks utterly destroyed and stunningly gorgeous. He feels so fucking good. The stretch of his lips around Song Lan’s cock is obscene. It makes something break open in Song Lan’s chest, and he runs his hand gently over Xue Yang’s hair, his face, the back of his neck. Dazed and fucked out, Xue Yang blinks up at him. Every bit of his focus is bent on Song Lan. Song Lan feels like he could burn away to ash.
A moment later Xingchen is back, falling to his knees behind Xue Yang. He has a bottle of lube in his hand, and Song Lan nearly sways again with this new confirmation that Xingchen planned for this, that he knew it would happen, that he did it all with intention. Xingchen meets his stare and just gives him a knowing smile; and then he drags his hand the length of Xue Yang’s spine, pulling his joggers down over his hips.
Xue Yang whines at the first press of Xingchen’s fingers, bucking back into his touch. Unthinkingly Song Lan tightens his grip on his hair, and that nearly makes him sob, the tears promised by his watering eyes finally spilling down over his cheeks. Gently Song Lan thumbs them away. And then he rocks forward again, making Xue Yang choke on his cock outright.
“Hush, Yang’er,” Xingchen croons. “Just give me a moment, you’re almost ready for me.” He strokes at the curve of Xue Yang’s flank, working his fingers ruthlessly into his ass with a slick, almost pornographic sound. Xue Yang doesn’t quiet; his noises only pitch up.
Song Lan moans aloud when Xingchen at last puts his cock in Xue Yang, burying himself deep in a single smooth motion. “Oh—oh, yes,” Xingchen breathes, as Xue Yang visibly flexes around him. “That’s it, sweetheart, just like that, fuck, you feel so good—”
Song Lan’s head is spinning. He has seen Xingchen in pleasure a thousand times before, but somehow it has never been like this. Xue Yang is twisting desperately between them, tight around Song Lan’s cock and arching into Xingchen’s, rocking alternately forward and back as though he can’t decide which sensation he ought to chase. Song Lan’s knees are aching; the pain seems very far away. Xingchen is in cool blue shadow, ethereal and lovely even as he’s fucking into Xue Yang, but Xue Yang is highlighted in fiery orange by the dying light of the sun, aflame with desire on the studio floor. There is nothing but this. There is nothing Song Lan has ever wanted more than this. Arousal is twisting in his gut, molten and all-consuming and brighter than anything he has felt before.
“Fuck,” he finds himself saying, “Xingchen, I’m gonna—”
“Good,” Xingchen says. “Go on, Zichen, do it, I want to see—”
Orgasm slams into him like a tidal wave, knocking the air from his lungs and dragging him under all at once. He can’t breathe; he can hardly see. He clamps his fingers down on Xue Yang’s hair and hauls him off his cock, spilling across his tongue and mouth and cheeks. Xue Yang gags once, coughing at the sudden influx of air, and then he sucks in a breath and opens hooded eyes to look up at Song Lan, heaving and messy and utterly ruined. It is fiercely, furiously hot; Song Lan’s dick throbs, and for a brief, frenzied moment he wants to shove it back into Xue Yang’s throat. He feels absolutely crazed with it. He can barely recognize himself.
“Gorgeous,” Xingchen groans, bending in half to press kisses up Xue Yang’s spine. “So good, Yang’er, look at you, you made him come so hard.” Xue Yang makes an indecipherable noise at that; he still hasn’t torn his gaze from Song Lan’s. His clothes are in disarray, his tank top rucked up around his shoulders, sweat dewing his skin and his hair sticking everywhere it touches. There’s come all over his face. He’s so fucking beautiful that it has stolen all the thoughts from Song Lan’s head.
Xingchen sets his palm between Xue Yang’s shoulder blades, nudging him into a deeper bow; Xue Yang collapses willingly to the floor, face down, ass up, his spine arched to a wanton curve. Xingchen murmurs praise to him, grips his hips and grinds against his hole, fucks him rough and fast into the hardwood. Song Lan cannot stop staring at the place where Xingchen is entering Xue Yang’s body. He never knew it looked like that. He never knew that knowing would make him feel so insane.
Xue Yang doesn’t speak as Xingchen fucks him towards orgasm—just makes a constant stream of helpless, increasingly urgent moans, muffled into his arms. Xingchen keeps talking to him the whole time: right up until he comes to a sudden, stuttering stop, spilling himself in voiceless ecstasy into Xue Yang’s ass. Xue Yang writhes against it, choking and desperate, and then Xingchen reaches down to wrap a hand around his cock and he gasps, “Fuck!” and comes all over the studio floor.
Song Lan slumps to a seat, still unable to take his eyes from them. Xingchen pets at the small of Xue Yang’s back, both of them breathing hard for a long moment; eventually he pulls out, and Xue Yang whimpers, then rolls to the side and drops his weight, sprawling across the floor. His cock is going soft against his thigh. It’s pretty, still flushed, a little wet at the tip. Song Lan thinks about what kind of noises Xue Yang would make if he put it in his mouth.
“Sweetheart, you’re a mess,” Xingchen says fondly, running his fingers down Xue Yang’s thigh. He catches Song Lan’s eye, ducking his head into a smile that is both triumphant and demure, and adds, “Let me clean you up.”
He tucks himself carefully back into his trousers—though he doesn’t, Song Lan cannot help but mark, bother to do them up—and crosses to the chair where he left his bag. Song Lan looks down at Xue Yang, and finds his hand has settled unconsciously on his hair, rubbing the strands between his fingertips. Xue Yang eyes him sidelong, and Song Lan is struck all at once by how very little time it has been since this lesson began, since they were dancing together, since he kissed Xue Yang for the first time. The sun has only just sunk below the horizon. The rhythmic pulse of the tango is still playing on the stereo.
They haven’t even made it yet through the second of Xingchen’s CDs.
Xingchen comes back to them then, handing two wet wipes to Song Lan, and uses his own to lift the mess of come from Xue Yang’s face, and from his thighs, and from the wood of the studio floor. Song Lan cleans himself and does up his trousers with a feeling of surreality. The whole world has changed in the space of half an hour, and somehow he must pretend that he could simply slip back to the life he once led.
Xue Yang, it seems, is feeling the same precarity. He is unusually subdued as he allows Xingchen to wipe him clean, pushing himself upright on unsteady arms and tugging his clothes back into place. “So,” he drawls finally. It’s a shaky pretence at his usual abrasion. “That was fun. Now what?”
Song Lan swallows. His eyes are stuck on the muscle of Xue Yang’s arms, the jut of his collarbone, the faint sheen of sweat still visible at his throat. Maybe he doesn’t have to pretend. Maybe no one is asking him to. “I think—I don’t—we can’t do private lessons anymore.”
“Zichen,” Xingchen says, audibly startled.
Xue Yang stares at him, stunned at first and then shifting rapidly to anger. He opens his mouth—to snap, to argue, to spit some vicious taunt—but for once in his life Song Lan has the words to preempt him. “We can’t take your money,” he clarifies. “Not from someone we—not from you.” He has the immense satisfaction, then, of watching the fury slide off Xue Yang’s face in favour of shock. That’s good, he thinks: he wants to keep surprising Xue Yang. He wants to hold the keys to cracking him open, to making him bare his vulnerable belly. And he wants Xingchen to have his claws hooked in them both.
He gets to his feet, holding out his hand to Xue Yang. “Dance with me,” he says, and makes a desperate effort to pour all of his desires into those words, all the intensity of obsession that has reared up in his ribcage and all the ways Xue Yang’s body drives him wild. Across from him Xingchen has broken into a smile, but Song Lan refuses to look away from the fathomless depths of Xue Yang’s eyes.
Finally, Xue Yang reaches up and puts his fingers in Song Lan’s. “Alright, big guy,” he says, and allows him to pull him to his feet. And then he grins, amazed and delighted and unexpectedly sweet, making a lie of his casual tone. “You’re leading this time.”
“Sure,” Song Lan says, and lets his palm settle on the warm curve of Xue Yang’s waist.
Xingchen, he is certain, is never going to let this go.