Chapter Text
Let’s be honest: you’re not the best in bed.
Xie Lian shifted on his knees as he sucked fervently on San Lang’s cock, and tried vainly to shove Jun Wu’s voice out of his head. Not that he didn’t like thinking about Jun Wu’s voice normally, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t polite to be thinking about your ex while you were blowing your flatmate in your living room on a Friday night. He was pretty sure that didn’t make for a good blowjob. Then again, what did he know about good blowjobs?
Xie Lian’s eyes flicked halfway up the length of San Lang’s body, sitting rather stiffly on the sofa. He looked kind of awkward, to be honest. Then again, awkwardness was probably a bit of a given when you were sex-coaching the flatmate you’d only known for two weeks.
Xie Lian gave one last big suck, and pulled off.
“Is it…is this good?” he plucked up the courage to ask San Lang. Well, more like ask San Lang’s dick. Eye contact was awkward. “Am I doing it right?”
“You’re doing perfectly,” came San Lang’s voice from above him, and Xie Lian had to take his dick in his mouth again to hide his huff. It was nice of San Lang to say, obviously, but it was all San Lang ever said, and that couldn’t possibly be true, or else Jun Wu wouldn’t have dumped him. Maybe San Lang was waiting to see more of Xie Lian’s technique before he started giving constructive criticism. This was only their second ‘coaching session’, to be fair.
“Gege.”
Xie Lian blinked. He looked up at San Lang, and “Mm-ed?” around his cock.
San Lang saw him looking, and smiled. Now, Xie Lian would never inconvenience his flatmate by doing something like finding him attractive - especially while Xie Lian was desperately trying to get back with his ex - but even he couldn’t help but appreciate how handsome San Lang managed to look despite the unflattering angle, with his chiselled jawline, his dark eyes and his mouth always faintly amused. He looked amused now. “You looked like you had something to say.”
“No…” Xie Lian hummed with his mouth full for a moment, then lifted his head. A string of saliva stretched between his lips and the latex over San Lang’s cock. “Okay, it’s just…you don’t have to be so nice to me. You can tell me what I’m doing wrong. This is coaching. I can take criticism.”
Like Jun Wu always told him: if no one ever pointed out his faults, how would he fix them?
Out of the corner of his eye, Xie Lian saw San Lang’s hand rise off the sofa, and reach towards him - but stop.
Above him, San Lang asked, “Why do you think you’re doing anything wrong?”
“Because…” Xie Lian bit his lip. Great. Here he was thinking about his ex again, right after he’d told himself not to.
He’d never talked to San Lang about Jun Wu at all, really. All San Lang knew was that Xie Lian had been dating a guy, and it was the day Xie Lian got dumped by said guy that San Lang came home from work to find a new haircut on Xie Lian, most of Xie Lian’s wardrobe gone to the donation bin, and Xie Lian himself sitting despondently in the dark. Well, sitting despondently in the dark, until he threw himself at San Lang and begged him to help him get better at sex.
Xie Lian put his mouth back on San Lang’s dick just to get that memory out of his head. How embarrassing. If San Lang had said no, he’d be living with his parents right now, looking for a new place, wallowing in shame. But San Lang was such a nice guy. San Lang had said yes. And since San Lang had been nice enough to agree to do this, Xie Lian owed it to him to apply himself. Put in the effort.
“Just like that, Gege,” he heard San Lang say.
What had he been doing? Xie Lian slurped down a mouthful of saliva.
“Like this?” He swirled his tongue hesitantly around the tip again - something he’d learned after some very shameful Googling.
“Perfect,” said San Lang, and Xie Lian twitched. Oh, no. If thinking about his ex while blowing his flatmate was awkward, getting hard while blowing his flatmate was…Xie Lian didn’t even know. San Lang was hard, sure, but San Lang was doing him a favour by coaching him. Xie Lian had no excuse.
But actually, more than his erection - it was the ‘perfect,’ that his mind kept circling back to, though he had no idea why. He only knew he wanted to hear it again.
That was probably why he tried to shove San Lang’s dick down his throat. Emphasis on the word ‘tried’.
He heard “Gege, don’t-” and then kind of missed the rest over his choking and coughing.
“Sorry,” he spluttered, eyes tearing up. “Sorry, let me try again-”
San Lang’s hand came up off the sofa again. This time, it didn’t stop, but came to stroke Xie Lian’s hair from his face. Lightly, hesitantly, as if he was expecting to get brushed away - but when Xie Lian leaned into it, grateful to be comforted, San Lang petted more boldly, and didn’t take his hand away.
“It’s alright,” San Lang said. “You don’t have to do that.”
Right. Because Xie Lian was hopeless at this. He sighed, and leaned forward to lick the tip of San Lang’s dick while he caught his breath. He hoped San Lang didn’t mind that. Xie Lian liked licking. Jun Wu had called it lazy.
“Slowly,” San Lang said, gripping Xie Lian’s hair when he tried to take him down his throat again. “No. Just like that. That’s it. You’re meant to enjoy it too, Gege.”
“But I want to make you feel good,” Xie Lian mumbled around his cock.
San Lang laughed. “I feel so good.”
Xie Lian raised his head. “Really?” he asked doubtfully. “It’s fine just like this?”
“Yes,” said San Lang emphatically. Then, with a grin, “I can do it on you after this to show you.”
Xie Lian’s eyes widened. “No, no, that’s fine,” he protested, and hastily got back to sucking San Lang’s cock. It was nice enough of San Lang to let Xie Lian practice on him. He couldn’t go making more work for San Lang now.
“Gege…” Finally, San Lang’s voice was beginning to sound strained. “Gege, I’m going to…”
Xie Lian redoubled his efforts, despite his aching cheeks. Before long, San Lang’s cock was twitching on his tongue, and San Lang’s hand moved down from Xie Lian hair to grip his shoulder tightly.
Xie Lian waited until San Lang’s grip relaxed before he leaned back, letting San Lang slip out of his mouth. He stared at the white fluid contained in the tip of the condom with a bit of a thrill. It looked like a good amount, from here, and that was a good sign, wasn’t it? That must mean Xie Lian had done something right. He’d find out soon, at any rate - he’d printed out a feedback form for San Lang to fill out. But he supposed he could let the man have a moment before he badgered him with rating scales and further comments.
After a minute, San Lang lifted his head. “That was good, Gege,” he sighed. Then he paused. “Do you really want me to fill out this form?”
“Yes, please!” Xie Lian turned to make sure the form was on the coffee table, and a pen, too. “If you don’t mind. I need to know how well I did.”
San Lang’s lips quirked to the side. He began to gingerly peel off the condom. “You did very well, Gege.”
Xie Lian felt his cheeks warm. San Lang always said things like that. It was nice, but not very helpful. Hence the form. “It’ll be useful for tracking progress, too. I’ll record your feedback for each session, and after a few more I can compile the results and see if I’m improving or not. You know, if you don’t mind doing more sessions,” he added hastily. “We don’t have to.”
“I’m happy to keep going,” said San Lang amiably, getting to his feet. “Let me go clean up first. I’ll fill out the form after.”
“Take your time,” said Xie Lian, rushing to his feet too. “Just leave it here when you’re done, I’ll get it in the morning. I’m going to go to my room and…sleep.”
“Sleep?” San Lang paused and turned, halfway to the bathroom. “It’s 8pm.”
Damn it. “I mean, read. ” Xie Lian waved for him to go on. “Go clean up! Go ahead, get comfortable.”
San Lang gave him a bit of a curious look, but he went. Xie Lian watched him go.
As soon as the bathroom door closed, he dove for his bedroom, locked his door, and knelt by his bed, shoving his hand down his pants. He’d lost some of his erection in that awkward exchange, but his frantic jacking revived it quickly; and when he replayed San Lang’s ‘perfect’ in his head, it didn’t take long at all before he was spurting into his hand, biting down on his forearm to stifle his groan.
He forgot about the form until he went out to get water the next morning. It was sitting there on the coffee table, the pen placed neatly on top of it. Curious, Xie Lian took a detour on his way to the kitchen, and went to pick it up.
And couldn’t help an exasperated laugh.
The form had ten questions to be answered on a 10-point rating scale, pertaining to skill, creativity, and overall satisfaction.
San Lang had circled 10 for all of them, and doodled a thumbs-up in the corner.
Xie Lian hadn’t needed to move out of his parents’ house, exactly. God knew it was big enough that he sometimes went days without seeing them even when he was living there. But Jun Wu had made a comment - an offhand joke - about Xie Lian being ‘spoiled silly’. Xie Lian had found this flat two weeks later. It was small, but it was close to the hospital where he worked, and came in a building with a gym, pool, sauna, and concierge. The front door opened onto an open kitchen, where there was a little square dining table for two, and beyond that, a tidy little living room looking out onto a lush hiking trail several stories below. Xie Lian loved it. The only problem was, it had two bedrooms. He’d only just started dating Jun Wu at the time; there was no question of asking him.
So he’d asked Shi Qing Xuan, a friend from medical school, who also had rich parents and a big room in their house, but wanted the freedom of spending nights with her shipping-company-executive boyfriend. It was her engagement to said boyfriend that led to her moving out just before her year-long contract was up - but, as she assured Xie Lian, it was fine: she’d found a tenant to take her place.
San Lang was very different from Shi Qing Xuan. He was younger, for one, only a few years out of university. Shi Qing Xuan mentioned something about him working at a big American law firm. What Xie Lian appreciated more was that San Lang was tidy, didn’t mind Xie Lian borrowing his books, and shared Xie Lian’s taste in bug documentaries and martial arts movies.
The introduction of the occasional blowjob did not, as Xie Lian had feared, make his and San Lang’s relationship awkward. They both worked long hours, so it wasn’t as if they saw much of each other in the first place. They ate dinner together on the occasional nights they were both home at a decent hour, and they worked out together on weekends at the gym downstairs. When Xie Lian got into one of his cleaning moods, he’d iron all of San Lang’s shirts along with his own. For his part, San Lang always made sure there was food in the fridge for Xie Lian when he came home late after his on-calls. It was cute. They got along really well.
“Try using your hand more,” San Lang breathed, cutting across Xie Lian’s train of thought. “So when your jaw gets tired-” How had he known he was tired? “-you can use your hand and lick- just like that. Perfect. Is that better?”
Probably not for San Lang, but it was for Xie Lian. Xie Lian settled doubtfully into his careful licking, and tried to ignore the squirm San Lang’s ‘perfect’ tended to inflict on him. Not very successfully, but hopefully San Lang didn’t notice. He tried to concentrate on the soft brush of San Lang’s fingers through his hair instead. San Lang seemed to like touching his hair. Ever since the first time he did it, he’d done it every session, petting Xie Lian’s hair as he praised him, running his fingers soothingly over Xie Lian’s scalp when he gagged, gripping his hair as he came. Xie Lian didn’t mind. Okay, fine, maybe he liked it. Just one more thing he had to hide from San Lang.
“No.” San Lang’s fingers tightened in Xie Lian’s hair when he felt him trying to take him down his throat again, but not tight enough to stop him - Xie Lian gagged, and backed off, spluttering.
“Why am I so bad at it?” Xie Lian bemoaned between coughs.
“Gege, you don’t have to deep-throat. You can give perfectly good head without deep-throating.”
“But Jun Wu always wanted me to…” Xie Lian started pathetically, before he stopped, realising his faux-pas. His eyes flicked upward to San Lang’s face, with the faint hope that maybe San Lang hadn’t heard.
The look on San Lang’s face surprised him. If it made any sense, Xie Lian would have thought he was angry.
“Your ex?” he asked, and his voice was calm as always, but Xie Lian felt an edge to it. “He made you do that?”
“Not made,” Xie Lian corrected him hastily. “He just…seemed kind of disappointed when I couldn’t…” Oh, this was awkward. He was an idiot. “…never mind. Forget I mentioned it.”
He took San Lang in his mouth again - only to find San Lang had softened considerably. Not good. Time to apply some emergency suction.
But San Lang was pulling away.
“Sorry, Gege.” Xie Lian looked up. San Lang hand dropped from Xie Lian’s hair to take his cock out of his mouth. “I don’t think I’m in the mood anymore.”
“But-!” Too late. San Lang was already rolling the condom off. Xie Lian looked sadly at San Lang’s softening cock, and sat back on his heels, crushed. “I’m sorry.”
San Lang’s hand came back to Xie Lian’s face then, and it was probably pathetic how it instantly made him feel better. “It’s not your fault, Gege.”
Of course it was. It was Xie Lian’s fault for being bad at blowjobs and mentioning his ex. He was just about to say so, when the hand San Lang had been stroking him with moved to haul Xie Lian up to his feet, and lead him to the bathroom, where San Lang handed Xie Lian a glass of water to gargle while he disposed of the condom.
“I’m sorry,” said Xie Lian again helplessly, watching San Lang wipe himself clean with a towel. “It’ll be better next time, I promise.”
San Lang’s face was still turned down, busy cleaning, when he said, “I don’t want you to do that again.”
Xie Lian froze. “…you mean the coaching? Because that’s fine, that’s totally-”
“No.” San Lang put the towel down, and faced Xie Lian. “I want to continue the coaching. But I don’t want you trying to deep-throat me again.”
That seemed to Xie Lian like a very odd stipulation. “Why?”
“Do you enjoy it?” San Lang asked. Xie Lian stared at him. “That’s why.”
Xie Lian still wasn’t quite following as San Lang took the glass from him, and led him back out to the sofa. It was a leather sofa. Brown. It got disinfected quite often.
“I’m going to order dinner,” said San Lang, crossing his legs and pulling his phone out.
Instead of ‘I want Thai,’ Xie Lian said, “I don’t get why that matters. People do things they don’t like for their partners all the time.”
“I don’t.” San Lang looked up from his phone. “I’ve never asked anyone I’ve been with to. And I wouldn’t want them to.”
“But…but what if you really wanted something? And the other person didn’t want to do it?”
“Either I stay with that person and accept that won’t happen, or we part ways. No one has to do anything they don’t want to.”
Xie Lian’s brain whirred to process that while San Lang got the delivery app back up, and put in their usual weekend order of Thai food.
“You’re very different from my ex,” Xie Lian said finally, after San Lang hit ‘order’.
San Lang looked up, and gave Xie Lian a smile. “Good.”
Xie Lian was probably supposed to defend Jun Wu against that. After all, he was trying to get back together with the guy.
Somehow, fighting with San Lang over the remote so that he won the right to put Our Planet on during their dinner seemed more important instead.
That incident didn’t put San Lang off their regular coaching schedule at all, as Xie Lian had feared. If anything, San Lang seemed to get more enthusiastic during their sessions, suggesting things for Xie Lian to try, asking Xie Lian what he thought of every new thing right up until he was coming.
“You don’t have to keep asking,” said Xie Lian, laughing, while he nuzzled at the base of San Lang’s cock.
San Lang’s fingers played with the hair by Xie Lian’s ear. “I don’t trust Gege to tell me when you don’t like doing something anymore, after that time.”
Xie Lian huffed. It sounded a bit weird with San Lang’s balls in his mouth. “I like this,” he mumbled. He did. San Lang’s skin tasted a lot better than the condom.
“Careful with your teeth,” San Lang said breathlessly, then laughed at Xie Lian’s offended expression. Xie Lian decided that if San Lang could laugh, that meant Xie Lian wasn’t trying hard enough. He switched gears to slurpy head-bobbing, up and then as-far-as-he- could-without-gagging down his shaft. The moan that got out of San Lang was very gratifying.
“Good,” San Lang groaned. “That’s so good, Gege. You’re perfect.”
Xie Lian’s eyes fluttered shut. Focus. He did his tongue-swirl trick around the head, went back to bobbing again, repeat, add a few long licks. Some more slurpy bobbing, this time with suction, savouring the way San Lang’s girth filled his mouth, wishing the stupid condom wasn’t in the way. He laid his hands on San Lang’s thighs. San Lang was close; his muscles were tight with tension. The hand he had in Xie Lian’s hair had gone still.
It was never until this moment, most times, that Xie Lian got over his shyness, and looked up. Made eye contact.
San Lang saw. San Lang came. Xie Lian sucked him through it eagerly, feeling the condom filling up against his tongue. They’d both agreed on condoms before this whole thing started, but sometimes, when Xie Lian was horny enough, he wished they hadn’t. Wished it wasn’t latex against his lips but skin, wished it wasn’t the condom filling up but his mouth. And it would fill up, would probably spill out the sides, San Lang always came so much…
San Lang cleared his throat.
Xie Lian blinked. He yanked himself out of his fantasy to find his actual self still on his knees in front of San Lang, grinding his erection none-too-subtly against San Lang’s leg.
“Do you want some help with that, Gege?” asked San Lang into the silence hollowed out by Xie Lian’s dawning horror.
And Xie Lian was still grinding.
“No!” He threw himself backwards so fast he went sprawling across the floor, in a way that exposed the tent in his pyjamas to bright the beam coming from their ceiling light. Xie Lian screamed silently, sprang up, and made a beeline for his room. “I’m fine! Don’t worry about me!”
“Gege, it’s okay, I don’t-”
The rest of that sentence was lost behind Xie Lian’s door. Xie Lian threw himself on his bed, cringing, and cringed himself to sleep.
But not before he snuck a frantic hand underneath himself, and came, gasping, to the memory of ‘you’re perfect,’ echoing in his ears.
He didn’t get the dildo to avoid San Lang.
He’d been avoiding San Lang just fine the past few days without the dildo. Mostly by leaving early for work in the mornings, and holing himself up in his room in the evenings, saying he had to study. Which wasn’t untrue - he had anaesthetics exams coming up. In a few months.
San Lang had tried a few times to coax Xie Lian out to eat dinner with him - once by getting their usual Thai order, another time by getting roast meats from Xie Lian’s favourite shop. Xie Lian stayed resolutely in his room. Even when he could smell char siu through his door.
The dildo was for deep-throating. It came delivered in a nondescript box as promised, which was good, because San Lang had been the one to bring the package up from their letterbox, oblivious to its contents. He waited for an evening that San Lang had texted he’d be home late, took the box out from under his bed, and sliced open the box.
It was purple. Complete with balls. A strong suction-cup on the end. It was a good size too, Xie Lian thought, as he washed it in the bathroom sink. Pretty similar to San L- Jun Wu.
Once the dildo was clean and dry, Xie Lian poked his head out into the living room to do one more paranoid sweep and confirm he was the only one in the flat. All clear. He darted across the living room, straight into his bedroom, and kicked the door closed behind him.
Xie Lian’s bedroom was pretty utilitarian: there was a double bed pushed up against the wall with the window, a desk and wardrobe along the opposite wall, and a little bookcase just to the right of the door piled high with anaesthetics textbooks, wuxia novels, and a little cactus Shi Qing Xuan had given him at graduation.
So, nowhere really to stick a dildo, except for the stretch of wall between the head of the bed and the wardrobe. Bit cramped, but it would work. Xie Lian knelt down there, held the dildo around mouth-level, pushed the suction-cup against the wall, and breathed a sigh of relief when it didn’t flop to the floor.
Then he was just staring at a purple dildo stuck to his wall.
The balls were like eyes staring back at him.
Xie Lian felt a faint need to apologise to his ancestors as he leaned forward, and took a lick of the silicone head.
It was okay. Not too different from condom. He took the head in his mouth, and moved carefully down the shaft, getting it wet with his spit. Slowly, a bit of the way down, back up, tiny more down, taking his time. San Lang liked when he started slow. San Lang also liked it when Xie Lian pulled off to kiss the base of his cock, where the shaft met the sack, and he liked it when Xie Lian took a long lick back up to the top, and wrapped his mouth around the head and pressed his tongue along the underside…
…and he was so not fantasising about his flatmate while sucking a dildo. He wasn’t! Okay. Okay, maybe a bit. But that was just a natural association to make, wasn’t it, considering how much he and San Lang had been doing it lately? Perfectly innocuous. Like Chanel perfume = mother. Disinfectant smell = hospital. Penis in mouth = San Lang. San Lang = …
Xie Lian forced his face further down the dildo, in an effort to distract himself from the throbbing between his legs. He really needed to stop thinking about San Lang. He needed to think about Jun Wu. Yes. Jun Wu, and pleasing Jun Wu.
The throbbing went away. Xie Lian closed his eyes, and tried to remember the deep-throating tips he’d read off that helpful reddit thread. Breathe through the nose. Stick his tongue out. Say ‘ahhh’. Go for it.
Just before Xie Lian went for it, he thought he heard a noise from the living room - but his ‘aaah’-ing drowned it out, and then the battle against his gag reflex took all his attention.
His gag reflex won, as it always did. Xie Lian threw himself off the dildo, coughing and spluttering, and that would have been fine, had he been out in the living room. He wasn’t. He was in his cramped bedroom instead, and so when he threw himself back, his head went crashing into the long, hard handles jutting out of his wardrobe doors.
“Ah-!”
Xie Lian’s vision went white with pain. Ow. Ow. Ow. He fell to the floor. The floor was cold and hard. That weak groaning in the air must have been coming from him, but he wasn’t sure.
“Gege? Gege!” Someone was shouting just outside his door. That wasn’t helping his head at all. “Gege, are you okay?”
‘I’m fine,’ Xie Lian tried to answer, but only managed another groan. Ow.
“Gege, I’m coming in!”
Wait. There was something wrong with that. Xie Lian should stop him. But the door was already flying open, and whoever had been shouting was rushing in, and kneeling next to Xie Lian.
“Gege.” A hand came down gently on Xie Lian’s shoulder, soothing. “Gege, are you okay? What happened?”
Xie Lian blinked his eyes open, wincing. San Lang was hovering above him, still in his suit and tie, his brow creased with worry.
San Lang.