A/N: Just a short piece done on the spur of an idea. I have a few requests in the works right now, but I'm dealing with some writer's block in that respect—this idea just came to me, so I decided to give it a shot.
It's set within the framework of Secession, but it's not necessary to read that story to understand this one. As a little background, this story is meant to take place at Zhou Yu's family home while Sun Jian's family is staying with them. And Sun Ce and Zhou Yu are about sixteen, though that messes with Secession's timeline a little… oh well. Enjoy.
Pairing: Zhou Yu x Sun Ce
Warnings: Only kisses.
Kisses
Shucheng, August of 191
Zhou Yu had never liked dinner parties. He liked them even less now that he was old enough be forced into miserable conversation with the rest of the adults—apparently, sixteen was the proper age to have developed a refined talent for the inane discourse that kept his parents, as well as Sun Ce's, so busy at these events.
The Zhou heir couldn't remember ever attending a pleasant dinner party in his life. It was entirely possible that his dislike for them had more to do with the excess of strangers that always frequented such occasions than with the act of holding a party itself—but be that as it might, the boy had determined that there was nothing to be gained by sitting in the loud, decorated hall for hours at a time except a stiff back and a truly intrepid headache.
A headache that Sun Ce, seated at his elbow, was currently making worse. The Tiger's son had been an unending curse of inappropriate behavior all night long, beginning with his visible dislike for the food and culminating in a vicious tickle attack on little Sun Quan that almost set the boy screaming his head off.
After being viciously slapped away from that activity by his seatmate, the boy had adopted a heavy scowl and slumped over his plate, his cheeks puffed out with boredom and indignation. But the moody peace couldn't last—unfortunately—and now Sun Ce was up to his old antics again, twining pieces of seaweed around his chopsticks and slipping them stealthily into his sister's tea.
Zhou Yu sighed, brushing back his dark hair so that he could glare without obstruction at the side of his companion's head.
"Ce."
Sun Ce frowned at him, one finger pressed to his lips in warning. "Shh! Keep it down. Do you want me to get caught?"
Zhou Yu briefly considered how to answer that question, and whether a smack to the back of the head would be enough of a 'yes' for his thick-skulled roommate to comprehend. Before he could make up his mind, however, a deep voice interrupted them.
"Ce? Zhou Yu?"
Both boys straightened in their seats, and Sun Ce ditched his incriminating chopsticks so violently that they skittered halfway across the table before stopping, a slimy strand of seaweed congealing the two sticks together. Sun Jian looked at the utensils in silence for a moment from his place at the head of the table, and Zhou Yu wondered if the general had guessed at his son's mischievous activities. Either way, the Tiger of Jiang Dong apparently decided to let it go, and he only gave the two boys a significant look before continuing with his request.
"The hearth is running a bit low on firewood. Would you mind bringing a few armfuls back from the storage hut?"
Zhou Yu was strongly inclined to reply that there were servants around to do such tasks, and that if he had to bow to one more parental whim that evening he was probably going to snap. But Sun Ce had already leapt from his chair and was bouncing on the balls of his feet, yanking none too gently on Zhou Yu's reticent sleeve.
"Yes! Absolutely! Firewood—got it." Two bright amber eyes met their reluctant counterparts, a brilliant smile urging the Zhou heir to his feet. "C'mon, Yu—hurry up. Let's go already."
Zhou Yu rolled his eyes at the eternally rambunctious boy beside him, and with a grudging sigh allowed himself to be pulled out of the chair, following Sun Ce's footsteps and the tug of his impatient hand across the jolly, well-lit banquet room. He couldn't recall his companion ever being so eager to accept chores before, but the Tiger's son was probably just so glad to get away from the dull occasion that he was grasping at whatever excuse came nearest.
In a moment, they had reached the exterior door and stepped off of the high porch into the shadowed garden, gleaming stars and the clouded rays of the moon replacing lamplight in Sun Ce's eyes. As soon as they were out of sight of the door, the boy's pace slowed dramatically, and Zhou Yu found the tan fingers winding in between his own, pulling him to a lazy walk instead of his purposeful stride.
"Hey, hold up. Don't go so fast." Sun Ce shook his head as he laughed, and the chestnut hair spilling across his shoulders looked almost black in the dim light, soft like the disappearing echo of his chuckles. "You really in a hurry to get back there?"
Zhou Yu considered his companion's face through the darkness for a moment, and then he relaxed against the hand that held his, waiting for Sun Ce to draw even with him before he resumed walking.
"No," he murmured, holding back a reminder about the annoyance that would no doubt decorate his parents' faces if they took too long. Sun Ce only smiled, swinging their hands back and forth like knitted pendulums.
"Good. Me either." Zhou Yu felt his roommate's fingers vanish from between his, and then the boy stretched high above his head, earning a few tiny cracks from his stiff joints. "Man… talk about a snore. How do they stay awake for stuff like this?"
A small smile worked its way across Zhou Yu's lips, slight as the breeze that was rustling the cultivated plants around them, the gentle stars outlining each leaf in silver thread. The young strategist shook his head and threw his roommate an amused glance as they wove around the back of the house, heading in the direction of the storage building.
"I suppose you've no intention of hosting parties like that when you get older?"
Sun Ce wrinkled his nose, the motion barely visible through the long summer shadows. "No way. When I'm in charge, parties are going to be fun. And anybody who's not having a good time is gonna get thrown out." The boy turned to walk backwards so that he could face his dark companion, one finger reaching out to jab the stoic young man in the chest. "That goes for you, too, you know. So you'd better work on that smile before I conquer China."
Zhou Yu scoffed under his breath, but in spite of himself the expression in question was slipping over his face, lightening the weight of obsidian eyes made yet blacker by the quiet night. Sun Ce matched the smile with a grin of his own and pivoted back to face the path with both hands behind his head, ponytail bouncing around his determined shoulders.
"Yep. Gonna be a blast. Wait and see this country when I'm running it."
Zhou Yu rolled his eyes, but nonetheless he quickened his pace until he fell into stride with his daydreaming partner, watching the threads of imagined excitement stealing through twin amber eyes. The Tiger's son tripped a little over an invisible stone, and his friend put out a hand to steady him, earning a vibrant smile at his touch on the warm shoulder.
For an instant, the young strategist found himself wondering if his companion—who, for almost a month now, had been so much more than that—could make even a dinner party bearable. Then he shook the thought away and focused on their destination instead, careful of his step in the dim moonlight.
For a long moment they walked in silence, Sun Ce busy with his own thoughts and his silent roommate watching them flit across his open expression. Then the bulky shape of the woodpile emerged from the shadows ahead of them, and the Tiger's son came to a halt, eyeing the harmless logs with visible distaste.
"Man… here already. That was too fast…" Sun Ce rocked on his heels and directed his unhappy gaze up to meet Zhou Yu's, arms crossed against the prospect of their return journey. "D'you think they'd mind if we just didn't come back?"
Zhou Yu sighed, running a hand through his long hair as he cast his roommate a glance. "Yes," he replied, deciding that the single word was more of an answer than Sun Ce had actually needed. His companion made a face, and the young man amended his statement, reading the lines of stubborn disagreement in Sun Ce's furrowed brow. "If you're that tired, you can go back to our room. I'm certain my father would understand."
Or rather, he was sure Zhou Fan would be willing to cut his losses and allow the more problematic boy to skip the rest of the party, provided his own son remained close at hand to converse with his intolerably dull guests. The Tiger's eldest son was always troublesome in polite company anyway…
But Sun Ce only groaned at his answer, slumping in his stance and sticking out his tongue at the abandoned garden. "Bah. That's just as bad." Zhou Yu raised an eyebrow, and a smile came over Sun Ce's face, superseding his obstinate expression as the boy took a step closer to his dark companion. "It wouldn't be any fun without you," he explained, one arm reaching up to curve around his roommate's neck.
Zhou Yu felt something in his stomach tingle at the contact, but it was a feeling he'd gotten used to, and it only served to wrap his arms around Sun Ce's back, drawing the other boy close enough that the fabric of their robes became one solid expanse of fabric. Sun Ce's grin expanded as he was pulled into the familiar embrace, but it couldn't stop his voice, quieter but no calmer for their diminished proximity.
"How long is this thing gonna last, anyway?"
The words were barely more than a mutter, chased from Zhou Yu's mind by the soft contact of their noses and a second arm joining the first around his neck. The young strategist shook his head a little, feeling Sun Ce's tireless fingers tangling into his hair like so many windblown river reeds.
"Not much longer."
To his own ears, his voice had grown so quiet it was almost inaudible, and for a moment he doubted that Sun Ce had even heard him, in spite of how close they were standing. But a sigh of relief swept through his companion, and the Tiger's son relaxed into his chest, every word of response bringing his face closer to Zhou Yu's.
"Great. So that'll still leave most of the night free, right?"
The question sent a spark down Zhou Yu's spine, and the feeling coupled with the tightening circle of his arms pressed his lips to Sun Ce's, twin amber eyes falling closed as he knew they would. Even through the kiss, Zhou Yu could feel his companion's indomitable smile, and he traced the starlit lines of the other boy's face with dark eyes, watching the response to every movement flickering across Sun Ce's countenance.
Only a little while before, the deepening kisses would have tensed every muscle in the Zhou heir's body with a complicated combination of desire and uncertainty. But a few weeks and the privacy of a shared room had given them plenty of time to practice, and only the desire was left, warm like a kindling ember in Zhou Yu's stomach.
"Mm… Yu…"
Sometimes that name would drift from Sun Ce's lips in between kisses, and each time it sent a stab of some emotion very like adrenaline straight down Zhou Yu's spine, strengthening his ensuing touches and leaving him wishing that kisses and Sun Ce's breathless voice were not so mutually exclusive.
Perhaps they didn't have to be.
For the first time, the young man let his lips stray from their central obsession, tracing the path down his companion's cheek that his eyes had been studying moments before. Sun Ce's skin was warm and unnaturally pale in the soft starlight, and Zhou Yu chased the night's silent shadows across the line of his jaw, outlining the curve that his fingers had followed so many times before.
As his lips found the skin of Sun Ce's neck, a soft chuckle paused Zhou Yu's progress, drawing his attention to the breath on his ear and the arms tightening around his neck.
"My lips are up here, Yu."
Zhou Yu blinked at the unexpected observation, and he straightened to stare into Sun Ce's laughing eyes, frozen with surprise as the other boy bumped their noses together.
"Sheesh—you've got really bad aim in the dark."
For a long moment, Zhou Yu could do nothing but stare at his oblivious companion, the embers that had been inflaming his heartbeat slowly dying away. Then embarrassment and more than a little annoyance stiffened every muscle in his body, and he drew away from the Tiger's son with one swift motion, long strides aiming for the heavily shadowed woodpile. As he bent to scoop a bundle of logs into his arms, he could see that Sun Ce was standing motionless in his periphery, shock clear across his features.
"Yu? Hey, why'd you stop? Where are you—"
Zhou Yu paused in his steps long enough to send Sun Ce a pointed glare, interrupting the questions with words that had lost all of their softness.
"I wasn't aiming for your lips, you idiot," the young man snapped, watching the boy's uncomprehending jaw drop wide like a startled fish. He didn't wait for Sun Ce to reply, but set off for the house at a heightened pace instead, covering ground twice as fast as he had during the walk to the woodpile.
Another stupid mistake in the course of their eternally fumbling relationship—
"Yu, I don't… Oh!"
Zhou Yu shook his head at the verbal exclamation of Sun Ce's comprehension, but he didn't stop to look back, not even as the patter of footsteps chased after him and that familiar voice hailed his back, no doubt forgetting Sun Jian's errand entirely.
"Yu, wait up! I'm sorry, okay?" The boy tumbled to his side at an unsteady run, and then slowed to match his pace, voice winded from his sprint across the garden. "Hey, hold up! Let's stay out a little longer."
"We've been out too long already," Zhou Yu shot back, keeping his eyes on the blazing lights of the party up ahead. It was a testament to the weight of his self-directed irritation that even a dinner party from hell seemed more appealing right now than another minute in the isolated garden…
"Yu, hang on."
The words were accompanied by two hands on his shoulders, so Zhou Yu had little choice but to pause in his stride, leveling a light glare at the amber eyes in front of him. Sun Ce shot his companion a sheepish grin, shaking his head and setting his guilty ponytail swinging behind him.
"Don't go back yet. I won't mess it up this time, I promise. I just… I thought you were… lost, y'know?"
Zhou Yu rolled his eyes, but the figure in front of him was still preventing any forward movement, so he settled for a sigh and shifted the pile of firewood in his arms. "Never mind, Ce." The boy blinked a little at his response, and Zhou Yu glanced away, holding the gaze of the starlit flowers instead. "It's not your fault. I shouldn't have—"
The rest of the apology was prevented by a hand over his lips, and Zhou Yu found his eyes jumping back to catch Sun Ce's at the unexpected obstruction, studying the twin amber as his companion shook his head.
"No way." Sun Ce wrapped his arms around the darker boy's neck as best he could, leaning over the firewood until Zhou Yu could feel his breath warm and soft across his face. The Tiger's son smiled, shrugging under the folds of his celebration robe. "I like it when you kiss me, Yu. I like it a lot. Never say you shouldn't."
Something like cold starlight threaded its way down Zhou Yu's spine, and he half considered dropping the firewood to their feet so that he could put his arms around Sun Ce again. A step on the silent porch ahead of them stopped any such intentions, however, and the young man took a sharp step back instead, barely managing to put an acceptable distance between them before Sun Jian's voice rang out into the garden.
"Ce? Zhou Yu? Are you out there?"
The famed general was standing in the light streaming from the open door, and Zhou Yu could see him blinking out into the darkness, trying to discern their figures through the shadows. His son took a step forward to acknowledge the summons, and Sun Jian crossed his arms over his chest, strands of hazel falling across an expression far too cheerful for the strict tone of his voice.
"There you are, you rascal. Get up here. You did remember the wood, didn't you?"
"Yu's got it, Father – no worries." Sun Ce hopped up onto the porch, and Zhou Yu followed in his wake, steering clear of the hand Sun Jian reached out to ruffle his son's ponytail. Sun Ce elbowed him in return, and the general chuckled as he accepted the pile of logs he had asked for, the skin around his eyes crinkling into well-established laugh lines.
"Well, what took you two so long? Did you decide to hike through Luoyang on your way?"
The Zhou heir kept his expression carefully blank at the innocent question, and Sun Ce made a face at his father, pushing the general ahead of him into the banquet hall. "Mind your own business, old man," the boy replied, earning another laugh from Sun Jian and a look from his dark companion.
Zhou Yu made to move into the room as well, but Sun Ce's grip on his wrist stopped him, pulling obsidian eyes to their amber opposites through the light of the plentiful lamps. The Tiger's son had one hand on his neck, tracing the invisible kisses that had been left on his skin, and his eyes were full of curiosity, holding his roommate's gaze as tightly as his fingers gripped the silken sleeve.
"Yu…"
Despite his best efforts, Zhou Yu found his lips curving into a tiny smile, the relenting expression inspired by Sun Ce's wandering, hopeful fingertips.
"Later," the young man answered, watching his companion's face light up with the quiet promise. Then he turned and headed back into the clatter of his father's guests, certain that the remainder of the party would pass far more quickly than its beginning.