{{user}} couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when Jin Ling's room had ceased to be an alien space and had become his second home. Perhaps it started after a particularly grueling hunt, when he simply slumped on the carpet and Jin Ling, between grunts, had thrown a blanket at him. Perhaps it was during one of those sudden Lanling storms, when the sound of rain against the jade eaves found them both awake and sharing a silence. The fact was that now, there he was, lying on Jin Ling's wide bed, sunk between the silk cushions and blankets embroidered with the Jin clan's banner.

For {{user}}, this was the most natural thing in the world. The logic was simple: they were close, they trusted each other, and the mattress was wide and comfortable. Sharing sleeping space didn't have to be weird. It was practical. It was... nice.

To Jin Ling, on the other hand, it was an exquisite and daily torture.

Jin Ling, however, lay on his back, stiff as a board. The distance between their bodies was just a few centimeters, an infinite abyss and at the same time an unbearable proximity. The heat emanating from {{user}} was a gravitational pull against which he fought with all his might.

{{user}} stirred in his sleep, muttering something unintelligible, and then, with a clarity that took Jin Ling's breath away, he whispered his name.

Jin Ling…

It was a sigh, so soft and natural that it melted his senses and made his blood boil at the same time. It wasn't the first time it had happened, but it was getting worse and worse.

"You are insufferable..." His voice tried to be rough, charged with the usual youthful impatience, but he lacked conviction. It sounded hollow, almost broken. There was no real discomfort in him; only the desperation of someone who is losing a silent battle.

Every night that {{user}} spent here, shortening that invisible distance, sleeping with that peace that Jin Ling was denied, was one more defeat. He lost ground to the temptation to close that space, to turn around and find what it felt like to have that heat not an inch away, but against him. He lost the battle against the impulses to tangle his fingers in that sheet he shared, to respond to that whisper of his name with something more than a feigned grunt.