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Ren doesn’t like kissing during sex. Ren doesn’t like kissing period, actually.
This was a truth Jing Yuan quickly had to accept if he wanted Ren to keep visiting him every few months, a rhythm they had both slipped into after the initial crisis with Phantylia. Particularly so, if he wanted those visits to be punctuated with sex.
Sex wasn’t the only aspect he was interested in. He’d be a horrible liar if he denied pleasure had no part of his interest in this arrangement, but truthfully, he would have Ren here in whatever context or engagement he could get him. If Ren wanted to have sex, he was happy to have sex. If Ren would rather sit and meditate (which they had done on occasion), Jing Yuan was fine with that too. The only thing he isn’t fine with is how Ren seems to be willing to put his mouth on every inch of his body - except against Jing Yuan’s own mouth. The few times Jing Yuan had tried, he’d jerked his head back like he’d been struck. Jing Yuan’s questioning had been brushed off with a vehement ‘no’ and emphasized with a look akin to a spooked animal.
And at first, ‘no kissing’ had been a price Jing Yuan was very willing to pay. A small concession to having Ren in his life, albeit only in brief rendezvous broken across weeks or months. Why did it matter, when he could see his face again - changed, but still oh so the same in other ways; when he could hear his voice again - lower, quieter, more exhausted, but still undeniably his ; and most of all, when he could feel him, something neither memory nor dream nor delusion could ever fully replicate? Ren wouldn’t kiss him, but he would suck marks onto his neck that would fade by morning, would drag blunt nails down his sides in a way that made his breath catch in his throat, would push his knees up to his head until his hips ached and then pound into him like he could remold him with the force of it. Sometimes, Jing Yuan thinks he honestly could.
But still. No kissing. That was fine. It was fine. He’d spent the last seven hundred years practicing forbearance and diplomacy, turning it into a dance he could perform in his sleep. Though now, with Ren back in his life, he is forced to acknowledge that sometimes it is easier to resign oneself when what you want is in some distant unknown galaxy, unreachable to you no matter what you wish. Having the love of his youth in front of him again, so close in some ways and yet still so unattainable in others, was applying pressure to fault lines in his facade that he had heretofore been unaware of.
Annoying, but nothing he couldn’t grit and bear, as usual. At least, that had been the case, until this night, a few weeks after the close of the military feat and political shitshow that was the Wardance Festival.
Ren had blown in late looking something fierce, no heads up, no warning. They’d talked about this, Jing Yuan had tried to chastise him as the storm trapped in a man’s body forced him against the nearest horizontal surface. Before his mind gave over to animalistic want and pleasure, Jing Yuan had been glad to remember that Yanqing at least was not home tonight, having opted to participate in a lieutenants’ training excursion this weekend. Good, he doesn’t have to fight Ren off with a pillow to make his excuses on why Yanqing shouldn't come to his side of the General’s compound tonight.
The rest is a blur of hands and mouths (but not mouths touching ) that leads to Jing Yuan shoved face down on his own bed, legs pressed together as Ren straddles him from the back, pistoning in and out of him with a vengeance. The Stellaron Hunter’s hands grip the small of his back, forcing it into an arch that is punctuated by every thrust. Jing Yuan notes bloody bandages on him that seem new, though it looks like the wounds have already healed. Fresh off of a mission, perhaps, and working off steam. The General has also had a day, full of tedium and paperwork and bureaucracy that make his head ache and his skin itch.
In short, he’s in a mood himself, and even if Ren wouldn’t let him kiss those lips, Jing Yuan decides he’ll satisfy himself with staring at the perfect shape of them as Ren pants above him. Their eyes meet, and Jing Yuan, ever himself, grins and licks his own dry lips, angling his head up to look at him fully. He opens his mouth to say something obscene and flirtatious, but, with a flash of irritation and… something else, Ren roughly shoves his head back down, holding it fast to the mattress.
So that’s how it’s going to be.
Jing Yuan has the advantage of being just as big as Ren is and having his hands and knees under him. He shoves himself up, wincing at the sudden removal of Ren’s heavy cock from his ass, and wheels around.
“I’d caution you against doing that again,” he says roughly, rubbing his own neck as he pushes Ren off of him. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s been riding a state of irritation all day behind a placid smile, or maybe it’s that his neck hurts now, or maybe even just that Ren has the gall to look angry at him after he almost dislocated said neck, but Jing Yuan is no longer feeling very charitable toward his old friend.
“I told you I’m not kissing you,” is Ren’s rehearsed response.
“I didn’t try to,” he says, and when Ren opens his mouth again, he cuts him off with, “Am I not allowed to watch your face while we fuck now too?
Ren isn’t oblivious or dense; he knows this is in fact about the kissing too, even if JIng Yuan does have other (very valid) reasons for being pissed off suddenly. .
“You won’t be satisfied until I let you, but I’m not, Jing Yuan.”
“I won’t be satisfied until you give me a reason,” Jing Yuan huffs. “The same as I have said since the first time we did this. Just tell me why Ren. It’s obvious there’s a deeper reason for it. Why can’t you tell me?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“I don’t have to let you fuck me!”
“You’re too desperate for it,” Ren says, leaning forward into his space. “You want this even more than I do.”
“Bold words for the man who sneaks into an Arbiter-General’s bedroom on a regular enough basis, despite being a galaxy-crossing wanted criminal - an arrangement
you
began, I’ll remind you,” He says. He looks again at Ren’s mouth, pursed into a scowl.
“Careful, Ren. You might accidentally kiss me being this close, and then what? What would happen?”
Ren jerks away, and it stings like a slap. Jing Yuan sinks back against his headboard, spent.
“...put your pants on, I’m not doing this with you tonight.”
“Would it really placate you to know why?” Ren asks him, fists balled by his sides as he stares down Jing Yuan, still naked and somehow aroused. Damnable Abundance biology. Jing Yuan was annoyed to find himself still ‘interested’ as well. For that, he could only blame himself.
“Placate me?” He huffs, crossing his arms over his tender, well-bitten chest. It made it sound like he was a petulant child throwing a fit. “Fine. Yes. Yes, it would placate me, Ren. It would placate me to know why, of all things, kissing is where you draw the line. I’ve let you have me, in any and every possible way, but I don’t even get to know why you won’t kiss me.”
“It would…” Ren struggles, scowling at him like this entire situation is his fault. “It would ruin it.”
“Ruin it?” Jing Yuan echoes, incredulous. When he was younger, his anger was more volatile, more fiery. Not so much as Yingxing’s, but well within the range of a normal young man. Years as the Luofu’s General have turned his anger into something cold and firm, and his voice recedes naturally into this shell from his more heated outburst moments prior. “Ruin what ?”
“The memory,” Ren says with emphasis, like that should explain it all. Both of them stare at each other in an impasse. Jing Yuan holds this stalemate for a few moments before he waves his hand, motioning for Ren to continue. Ren glares.
“You’re not putting it back in until you explain.”
“I could make you feel good enough that kissing won’t matter.”
“As Arbiter-General, I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
Ren gives him a very flat look. He mutters something that sounds like “bullshit” before he sighs and sits.
“I have one memory of you.” The man says after a long moment of silence. “One memory that’s just the two of us - you… and who I used to be. Most of what I remember is him .”
Jing Yuan doesn’t flinch at the vitriol with which he refers to Dan Feng. Ren and Dan Heng have come to some kind of understanding, one he has very sternly been told not to pry into by Ren himself, and more kindly cautioned against interfering by Dan Heng. At the very least, Ren isn’t hunting him anymore - which had been happening, apparently. That had been a fun conversation, and the source of fresh brand new guilt to add to the repository of his ancient missteps.
Still, it does twist in his heart to hear, but thankfully Ren doesn’t linger on that part of his explanation long.
“I don’t remember us fucking,” he says bluntly, his golden-red eyes glinting. “I don’t remember the private times we shared. I don’t remember what words we might have said, or wished to say. I do remember you were very important to him. I remember he loved you. I remember… that single kiss. It was raining, and your hair was all over your face. He moved it away, and then he kissed you.”
Jing Yuan watches Ren’s mouth chew over words before he finds what he wants to say.
“You smiled. It was like sunlight.”
“...but why does that mean you can’t have that now?” Jing Yuan asks. The look he receives in return is full of loathing, but for some reason, he also feels certain it’s not directed at him, but rather inward.
“He was the one you looked at with such love. I am the wraith that puppets his corpse.”
“So, you have already decided for me, is that it?” Jing Yuan asks. Ren’s scowl deepens, but he continues. “Or are you just blind?”
“Say what you mean.”
“Ren, I never stopped looking at you like that. I look at you like that now.” He says. “Well. Maybe not right this moment, because you’ve made me mad, but generally speaking, I do.”
Ren seems doubtful.
“Have you been too wrapped up in yourself to see it? Or did you just choose not to?” Jing Yuan sighs. Any acid in his voice has mellowed away into tiredness. “Look at me, Ren. Look at me, and actually see me. I’m not the same Jing Yuan as that memory either… And I know exactly who I’m in bed with, and I still want you. I want you, Ren. I don’t care that you aren’t the same as you were. I want you in whatever way you’ll let me have you.”
“How can you say that?” Ren asks, quiet. The conflict is clear on his face - his beautiful, forever youthful and seemingly forever troubled face. Jing Yuan reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, as dark and rich as freshly ground ink. “I know you loved him. I know you want him. I know you miss him.”
“And that means I can’t want you? I can’t mourn what once was, while also being so grateful for what I have in the present?”
“I can’t give you what he could have. What you deserve. Someone… someone well. Someone you could come home to. Someone you wouldn’t have to hide.”
“I don’t care.”
“There will never be consistency. I’ll never know when I can visit. You’ll never be able to plan around me.”
“ I don’t care. ”
“When my final script ends, I intend to die, Jing Yuan. Not even this… will keep me from my finality.”
“Then I will have to love you all the harder, while I have you.”
Ren shakes his head. He sighs, and there is something sad in the way he smiles at Jing Yuan. Jing Yuan can count the number of times he’s seen Ren smile on one hand, and most of them have been under the influence of mara.
“I think that’s a poor decision for the ‘wise and brave’ Divine Foresight.”
“It’s mine to make.” He insists. His hand still cups Ren’s cheek. His skin can be so hot sometimes, like a heater. “I’ve spent seven hundred years being the Arbiter General that makes good decisions for the betterment of all. Let me be Jing Yuan tonight, the man who wants to love you as you are, not for who you used to be.”
Ren chuckles. It’s low, and it’s still a little sad, but it’s also rich and real and beautiful.
“If you truly want to bear witness to this funeral march, then fine. What little is left of me… you can have it.”
“Then I'll ask one last time. Can I kiss you, Ren?”
“...yes.”
That yes feels like a thousand things. It feels like a lavender-eyed youth pulling him to his feet in a crowd. It feels like wooden swords knocking into each other, burning lungs and laughter. It feels like crushes turning cheeks pink and words awkward. It feels like first dates, like heartfelt confessions, like heat under his skin. It feels like agony, like trying to catch fog in his hands, like being stuck in quicksand up to his neck. It feels like partings and reunions, like nights too short and words too complicated to be spoken.
It feels like the weight of Ren's hand stroking his cheek when he thinks Jing Yuan is still asleep, when he lingers in the first light of dawn just to have a few more moments with him before he has to leave for another two, three, more months even. And that’s okay.
Why? Because finally, after seven centuries’ worth of waiting, Jing Yuan's lips find home.