Liuxian did not leave.

Partly because he did not want to. Partly because Guiying had wrapped both arms around him with the grip strength of someone who had made a structural decision and was not open to renegotiating it, and extracting himself would have required a level of effort and willingness to cause distress that he did not currently possess.

So he stayed.

Guiying was pressed against his side, face tucked against his neck, and had been talking for the last several minutes in a way that suggested the filter between his brain and his mouth had completely dissolved.

"Liuxian." Guiying’s hand found his stomach and pressed, fingers pointing to a spot just above his navel. "Fill me up. Right here."

Liuxian looked at the ceiling.

"Liuxian."

"Mm."

"It is so hot." Guiying shifted against him, restless and uncomfortable. "My body is on fire. My brain and my body are telling me two completely different things." A pause. "I want a baby right now. I know I do not want a baby. But I want a baby right now."

Liuxian said nothing.

"Liuxian."

"Mm."

"Can you just." Another pause, shorter this time. "Just the tip."

Liuxian closed his eyes briefly.

"You are going to regret saying that when you are clear headed," he said.

"Mhm," Guiying agreed, in a tone that suggested he found this completely irrelevant to the current situation.

"I mean it."

"Mhm." Guiying pressed closer. "I can feel it. There is a perfectly good waiting space right here and you are just. Not using it." He tilted his head up. "Liuxian. Come on. Make me a mummy."

Liuxian stood up.

He needed to stand up. He had needed to stand up approximately four sentences ago and had not, which was a lapse in judgment he was not going to repeat. He put a careful foot of distance between himself and the couch and turned around.

Guiying looked up at him from the couch with his shirt off and his hair a mess and his brown eyes glassy with heat, and said with complete sincerity, "When are you going to sleep with me. If you are not going to do it just get me a dildo and a vibrator and I will take care of it myself."

Liuxian looked at him for a long moment.

Then he turned and walked to the door.

"Wang Chengli," he said, opening it.

Wang Chengli, who had apparently been waiting in the corridor with the patient composure of someone who had heard everything and intended to acknowledge none of it, looked up immediately.

"Young Master."

"I need suppressants. Immediately. Whatever the fastest option is."

"Already arranged, Young Master. The doctor left a prescription before he departed. The pharmacy is delivering within the hour."

Liuxian looked at him.

"Make it thirty minutes," he said.

"Yes, Young Master."

Liuxian closed the door, turned around, and found Guiying had migrated from the couch to the floor and was lying face down on the carpet with his cheek pressed against it because apparently the floor was cooler.

"Liuxian," Guiying said, to the carpet.

"Mm."

"The floor is nice."

"I am sure it is."

"You should come down here."

"I am fine where I am," Liuxian said.

Guiying gave up on words.

He crawled across the carpet toward Liuxian with the determined energy of someone who had made a decision and was seeing it through, which under normal circumstances would have been persuasive and under current circumstances was mostly just concerning.

He reached up and grabbed Liuxian’s collar.

Liuxian looked down at him with the expression of a man exercising a truly extraordinary amount of self control.

"I am clear headed enough not to regret this," Guiying said, with as much dignity as a person could project while sitting on the floor in a heat. "You are the only one I actually want. So just do it." His grip on the collar tightened. "I want to be ravaged. Filled up. To the point where I know I am going to get pregnant."

Liuxian sighed.

Then he shook his head.

"I cannot sleep with you Guiying," he said. His voice was even and quiet. "I do not want you to regret it."

Guiying stared at him.

"Am I not pretty enough?" he said. "Is my butt not big enough? I have a slim waist. Perky nipples." He pointed at his chest

"Hair you can grab when you hit it from behind." He gestured at himself generally. "So why."

Liuxian looked at the ceiling with a sigh.

What a tease.

Guiying released his collar.

He turned around and crawled away, because the floor was still cooler than everything else, and curled up against the foot of the couch with his knees drawn up and his face hidden.

He just wanted this to end.

The heat broke on the morning of the third day.

Guiying woke up and felt like himself again.

Cool skin.

Clear head.

No longer burning

from the inside out.

He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling and felt, genuinely and without reservation, grateful.

He had not wanted a child. Liuxian had held that line for him when he could not hold it himself, and he had done it without making Guiying feel small or broken or like a problem to be managed. He respected that.

He reached for his phone.

404 had been busy.

The updates were thorough and detailed and several of them were genuinely interesting in ways that made Guiying sit up straighter as he read. One in particular made him put the phone down and pick it up again, rereading it twice to make sure he had understood it correctly.

He needed another meeting.

He swung his legs off the bed and crossed to the desk, opening his laptop. He had just pulled up the messaging app when the door opened.

Liuxian walked in carrying a breakfast tray in one hand and his briefcase in the other, dressed for the office, looking entirely put together in the way that Guiying had come to understand was simply his default state.

He set the tray on the desk beside the laptop.

"You are back," he said, looking at Guiying’s face with that quiet, assessing attention. "Good. Eat. We are going to the hospital later, I want to check your pheromone charts and make sure everything is stable." He picked up his briefcase. "I will come back early to pick you up."

Guiying looked at the tray.

Old Li had apparently decided that three days of heat called for a recovery breakfast of significant proportions. The spread was generous and heavy on protein, everything steaming and fragrant and arranged with the particular care of someone who wanted it to be the best thing Guiying had eaten all week.

His stomach made its opinion known immediately.

He waited for Liuxian to leave so he could eat and get back to his laptop.

Liuxian did not leave.

Guiying looked up from the tray.

"Is there anything else?" he asked.